Navigating the Maze: When Co-Parenting Feels Like You’re Dealing with a Child

/0 Comments/in /by

Co-Parenting with a Difficult Ex: Protecting Your Peace and Your Children

Divorce or separation is rarely easy, but the challenges often extend far beyond the initial split, especially when children are involved.

In theory, co-parenting is simple: two adults putting their children’s needs first and working together to create a stable, healthy environment. In reality, it can feel like a constant battle, particularly when one parent consistently undermines communication, manipulates situations, or places adult burdens on the children.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re co-parenting with someone who behaves more like a child than a responsible adult, you’re not alone. I’ve been there. It’s an incredibly frustrating and emotionally draining experience, one that places immense stress on the entire family, but most of all on the children caught in the middle.

The Dynamics of Dysfunctional Co-Parenting

Imagine trying to plan school holidays, discuss important decisions, or arrange handovers only to be met with silence, evasiveness, or even deliberate obstruction when it might benefit you. I know this feeling well. It’s not just inconvenient; it’s a breakdown of the basic framework needed for healthy co-parenting.

Even more damaging is when children are used as messengers or, worse, as emotional pawns. I’ve seen this firsthand. My daughters were just eight and twelve when they were asked to communicate schedules and negotiate logistics between their parents. It was a completely unfair burden for any child.

This kind of dynamic gives children a false sense of power while placing them in a position they are not emotionally equipped to handle. Children need clarity, boundaries, and consistent adult guidance, not the pressure of managing their parents’ unresolved issues.

When one parent lacks empathy, avoids accountability, or prioritises control and ego over cooperation, co-parenting becomes impossible. You’re not co-parenting anymore. You’re parallel parenting by default, navigating a battlefield where peace is your only victory.

The Unseen Toll on Children

While parents are often the ones navigating communication breakdowns, the emotional toll on children in these situations can be devastating.

I saw it in my own kids, subtle shifts that spoke volumes. Children living in high-conflict co-parenting environments may experience:

  • Anxiety: Constant tension between parents leaves them fearful and hypervigilant.

  • Loyalty Conflicts: They feel torn between parents, afraid to show affection to one without upsetting the other.

  • Confusion and Stress: Inconsistent rules and unpredictable behaviour erode their sense of safety.

  • Emotional Dysregulation: When adults model hostility or instability, children internalise that chaos as normal.

Over time, these experiences shape how children view love, trust, and conflict resolution long after the custody schedules and arguments are over.

Moving Forward: Protecting Your Peace and Theirs

If this resonates with your experience, acknowledge your reality. It is hard. It is unfair. But while you can’t control the other parent’s behaviour, you can control your response and your boundaries.

1. Focus on Parallel Parenting

When cooperation isn’t possible, aim for structure instead. Use dedicated co-parenting apps, email-only communication, and clear written agreements. Limit direct contact and manage your parenting time independently. Structure creates peace where cooperation fails.

2. Protect Your Children

Never use your children as messengers or emotional buffers. If the other parent does, calmly reassure your kids that adult decisions are not their responsibility. Keep reminding them they are loved by both parents, no matter what’s happening between you.

3. Document Everything

Keep unemotional, factual records of communication, agreements, and breaches. If legal action becomes necessary, your calm documentation will speak louder than their chaos.

4. Seek Support for Yourself

High-conflict co-parenting can leave you depleted. Therapy, coaching, or honest conversations with trusted friends help you process anger and grief so you can lead with strength and stability.

5. Prioritise Your Children’s Emotional Health

If your children show signs of stress, anxiety, or withdrawal, consider therapy or counselling. A neutral professional can help them express feelings they may be afraid to share with either parent.

Reclaiming Peace and Purpose

The path of reinvention after divorce is challenging enough. Add a difficult co-parent, and it demands even greater resilience.

But here’s the truth: your peace is still possible. By understanding the dynamics at play, setting firm boundaries, and refusing to engage in emotional warfare, you create a stable foundation for yourself and your children.

Reinvention isn’t only about new relationships or rediscovering freedom. It’s about reclaiming emotional control, protecting your energy, and leading your children by example.

That’s how healing begins — quietly, consistently, and with dignity.

By Mick Johal, Rebirth Divorce Coach
#DivorceRecovery #CoParenting #Rebirth #ParallelParenting #EmotionalResilience #DatingAfterDivorce

Can Men Be Victims Of Domestic Abuse?
/in , /by

Divorce Coaching

Domestic abuse is a huge problem in relationships. If you look at the media and particularly social media, you will be excused for thinking that men are the bad guys and women are the good guys. We don’t hear much from male victims, amongst peers it is rare for men to recount stories of an abusive partner, women on the other hand are more comfortable talking about it. We men do not report it talk about it because of shame associated with looking weak.

Having spoken to many men and women in my coaching business and generally I have found that men are abused just as much albeit in different ways, more commonly, but not only, psychological and emotional abuse but also all other types of abuse. There is a whole side of the story that is not spoken about, that is of domestic abuse where the men are the victims.

There are a number of ways abuse is manifested.

Domestic abuse is a pattern of behaviour that involves the use of physical, sexual, emotional, or financial abuse to control or manipulate an intimate partner. According to Mankind (https://mankind.org.uk/), domestic abuse can include, but is not limited to, the following types of abuse:

  • Physical abuse: This includes hitting, slapping, punching, kicking, choking, or using weapons to cause harm.
  • Sexual abuse: This includes any unwanted sexual activity or behavior.
  • Psychological or emotional abuse: This includes verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, humiliation, and isolation.
  • Financial or economic abuse: This includes controlling access to money and other resources.

Abusive relationships are often mutually abusive, in that they are abusing each other. Physical abuse is widely cited as the main form of abuse that men perpetuate on women, all violence is abhorrent. We don’t talk about emotional and psychological abuse a man can suffer in relationships. What led up to the violence? When men that have no history of any violent behaviour suddenly are violent, we need to look at why, even though once you do hit out, you have already crossed the line one must not cross.

There is never an excuse for violence, but not everyone is the same, we are human we can lose our temper and hit out. I am in no way making excuses but speaking about the reality in society today.

We tend to believe women if they say they were abused. In a scenario where she may have been hitting her partner and he was defending himself, if he puts up a hand and she gets a scratch on her, it’s the man that will be in trouble and we know how these ends.

If as a man you are being hit or having things thrown at you, get out of that relationship straight away. Goes without saying but if you are a woman facing violence for whatever reason, get out.

According to the Office for National Statistics, one in three victims of domestic abuse are male, equating to 699,000 men in 2021 – 2022. However, male victims of domestic abuse are less likely to report their experiences or seek help than female victims. There’s a number of reasons for this, the main one will be shame and that society just is not set up to help with male victims of domestic abuse and there is nowhere for men to have this conversation.

According to a study conducted by Strauss and Sweet, women in romantic relationships were equally as likely to be verbally aggressive as men in relationships. Further, Majdan found that women reported perpetrating more physical and psychological aggression compared to what they reported experiencing.

Today the definition of domestic abuse has been widened and it now includes coercive control. Coercive control can be perpetrated on men and women equally.

Coercive control is a form of psychological abuse that involves a pattern of controlling and manipulative behaviours. Here are some examples of coercive control:

  • Isolating you from your friends and family
  • Monitoring your activity throughout the day
  • Denying you freedom and autonomy
  • Gaslighting you to make you doubt your reality
  • Name-calling or putting you down repeatedly
  • Controlling how much money you have and how you spend it
  • Reinforcing gender roles or stereotypes
  • Manipulating your children or pets
  • Controlling your body or appearance
  • Jealousy or accusations of infidelity
  • Sexual coercion or violence
  • Making threats to harm you or others

We all know that one friend who is not allowed out with his friends for Friday drinks, and we have all heard a man say I must ask the wife before he can give a definitive answer and then later tell you they cant come. We all have heard men say happy wife happy life. That last sentence is worrying as it seems he is putting his partners happiness before his own. If this line comes from your partner, this is an ultimatum, a warning not a humours comment.

Rebirth Divorce Coach

How many men have you known that lose contact with friends and family because he doesn’t want to rock the boat at home? Its very common. These same men are the same ones who suffer the most in divorces as they do not have a ready-made support network in family or friends. Never let your partner isolate you from friends and family, this is abuse.

Will men recognise this as abuse? NO, probably not as there is not much education specifically aimed at men. There is a whole industry and domestic abuse charities that educate and deal with women victims of abuse.

Women are being educated on domestic abuse. I have worked with clients that have come to me via domestic abuse charities and they have all the buzz words, financial control, coercive control and so on, its like they have been coached on what to say. There is almost nothing for men and that they don’t often look for help, they just are not aware what they experienced was abuse, they just blame themselves, often with disastrous results.

Coercive control is open it up to interpretation. Lots of innocent behaviours in a relationship can easily be twisted and embellished into something more sinister and in a divorce this can easily be weaponised by unscrupulous lawyers.

An example one of my clients faced was accusations of coercive control. His soon to be ex-wife had a spending habit and had racked up thousands of pounds in credit card debt. She was spending more than they earned, so something needed to be done. He took away her credit card and then gave her a payment card that limits the amount she can spend monthly. She is now accusing him of financial control, even though what he did was the best thing for the family as the debts were causing additional pressures and arguments. When this goes to court it does not look good for him. All the court hears is that he was financially controlling her.

If you look down that list of examples of coercive control above, have a little think how innocent things can fit nicely into one of these categories and weaponised in divorce court.

What is the answer to all this? I am not sure, but violence should never be accepted or tolerated it is totally unacceptable regardless whether the perpetrator is male or female. All forms of abuse are terrible and should not be tolerated.

Choose who you partner up with wisely, this is the single most important decision you can make in your life and most of your happiness and success in life relies on this.

If you need support either with a divorce or how to choose the right partner. Then get in touch by email: mick@rebirthdivorcecoach.com or via the contact form on www.rebirthdivorcecoach.com

 

If you or someone you know is a male victim of domestic abuse, there are organizations that can provide support. The ManKind Initiative is a UK-based charity that provides confidential helpline services for male victims of domestic abuse. You can also contact the Men’s Advice Line for confidential advice and support.

Links below

ManKind Initiative – Supporting Male Victims of Domestic Abuse

Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men | Men’s Advice Line UK (mensadviceline.org.uk)

Impact Of Divorce In The Workplace

/in /by
Divorce Coaching in the workplace

Divorce Coaching in the workplace

Divorce rates continue to go up, around 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Divorce is something that can overlooked when assessing its impact of an employee’s performance at work. Before I went through my own divorce I had thought little or nothing about it and much like anyone else who has not been through divorce.  Divorce is one of the things you need to go through to understand it fully.

It is estimated that divorce costs the British economy up to £46 billion every year, and the Chamber of Commerce recently in which they emphasised the relationship between employee wellbeing and business productivity. So you can see that there is a need to understand divorce and break the stigma so that companies are equipped to help and that employees feel that they can speak to someone who understands.

Going through a divorce or any type of breakup is a highly emotional time, which could involve legal battles, house moves, no contact with children and financial issues to name a few. Which can be worse if it was not your choice to separate. All this stuff will affect employee performance at work both before the divorce and in many cases years after the divorce.

This is a huge issue for employers as someone going through a breakup could lose as much as 50% of his/her productivity and the effects could last up to 10 years afterwards.

Many could turn to unhealthy habits, like alcohol, drugs, meaningless sex. These things can be happening whilst they are showing up appearing normal at work.

Many of these employees will quit their jobs or they will possibly be sacked due to not performing well as they used to. This is especially true of men who are less reluctant to open up and speak of their hardships and look to cope in other ways.

Even today there is something taboo about talking about divorce and this is true for the workplace, colleagues don’t want to bring it up as its awkward and they may not even tell their employers and if they do there is often very little they can do support them to help them move forward.

Employers have often kept out of the whole issue. The individual going through divorce can feel isolated, financially and mentally drained, this is costing the company in terms of diminished productivity, absenteeism and possible expensive mistakes that could be made in their work.

In Study conducted by Rayden Solicitors in 2021 asking whether workplaces are set up to support  employees they found the following. The Full study can be found here The 2021 Divorce in the Workplace UK study | Rayden Solicitors

The top findings were:

  • 57% did not feel they received the required support from their employers
  • 79% stated that divorce or relationship breakdown had an impact on their ability to work.
  • The majority of these – 60% – stated that it impacted their mental health in the workplace, causing anxiety, depression, or stress.
  • For just under 1 in 10, it resulted in them leaving the company within the year post-divorce. For 1 in 50, this was due to being let go by the company within the year post-divorce.
  • SME employees are 4 times more likely to leave the company within a year of going through a divorce than if working at a large company.
  • Male employees in the UK are more likely to be affected – 93% stated that it impacted their ability to work.
  • 42% state that their company could have provided more psychological and mental health support.
  • 1 in 9 UK employees who have gone through divorce or relationship breakdown stated that work pressure hindered the relationship and contributed to the divorce.

It is clear that it is in the benefit for there to be more awareness around divorce in the workplace to help employees. HR departments can be trained  so that they can support employees which could include the services of a specialist divorce coach. As a coach I can provide training to HR and other leaders within companies. I also offer individual coaching to help them move through the overwhelm of divorce.

In addition to the emotional side and to help them get more clarity of their situation I can help with the practical side of divorce. This could include finding a suitable solicitor and other things such as childcare and benefits.

So much of divorce is uncertainty, and I am giving them certainty so that they are a more dedicated and productive employee they’re a more dedicated and loyal employee, because their employer had their back when they’ve gone through one of the most traumatic life events of their lives.

A Message Of Hope To Estranged Fathers

/0 Comments/in /by
Light at the end of the tunnel

There is light at the end of the tunnel

As many of you know, I went through a divorce back in 2014. Briefly, what happened is that my ex-wife loaded up a van and took my children to live 80 miles away in Kent/London. I had moved out a few months before but not in a million years did I expect her to uproot the children to move to a not so nice part of Southeast London and enlist them in failing schools. They both had places at a top 5% school in the country.

A part of my coaching practice has always been, if you have children is to always put your children at the centre of everything you do. Separation and divorce are difficult but if you add to this a new area, new substandard schools, cut off from their friends and family, then you are not doing what’s best for the children. What happened in my situation is that my kids went from top 5% schools in Hertfordshire to bottom 5% schools in London just because her brother needed help with their father and she could live rent free, I was paying for everything anyway, her way was not the only way.

Secondly, it is natural for families to become invested and want the best for their son or daughter and this may not necessarily what’s best for your children. I would speak with them but look out for your own children like your family might be looking out for you. Families can destroy any possibility of an amicable situation with the other parent. You are going to have to make many life decisions together and attend functions and indeed share grandchildren in the future. I have seen families destroy any possibility of being able to co parent just because families give terrible advice. The takeaway here is do not take advice from those that are emotionally invested in your relationship.

In 2014 they moved from Hertfordshire whilst I was away in Canada, I had a text message, saying, that she has emptied the house and they have moved to Kent. I now know that she had not told the children anything until the day before they left.

I was heartbroken, everything I had done up until that point was for my family, including the house I bought in order to get into the best schools. I now had no say in anything to do with my children and their schooling. In addition to this, both my daughters played hockey this also went by the wayside, being from a sporting family and understanding how sports is so important for young people today, it was very upsetting as they now can only attend training every other weekend. So no more sports, in fact everything stopped when they were in Kent.

Over the years after this, I picked myself up, I took various contracts in the pharmaceutical industry across Europe. I had been given no other option but to become a every other weekend so i now had ten days between seeing my kids, I flew back every weekend to spend with my daughters and I am proud to say that I never missed a weekend with them and maintained the relationship regardless of anything else, I had to put them first as I know how damaging a divorce can be.

My eldest now 20 years old is working in local government and living with her mum, but my youngest daughter now 16 has come to back to live with me to attend college here. She has been saying she will be coming for a long time, but I was cautious as my eldest had said she was coming at 16 but backed out last minute, and I thought this could also be scuppered at the last hurdle, but it’s happened. This week she started college here in Hertfordshire, and I dropped her off on her first day and picked her up again. It was a pleasure to be a part of her new journey in Hertfordshire. She is home at last and she is studying sport. I am so incredibly proud of her as I am of my eldest daughter currently making a difference in local government.

I am so proud of her and happy that she is with me, and I can now make a more positive impact on her life. She is an amazing girl, and she will be fulfilling her potential. Also, being from a sporting family, it’s great that she is studying sports.

I titled this article as a message of hope for estranged fathers, this is because I kept hope and if you keep your relationship with your children and ignore the difficulties your ex can make and rise above them so that you can be a positive role model in their lives, they will come back, if that is what you want.

I mentioned earlier that I received a text from my ex informing me that they have moved to Kent, well on that journey home I met a man at the bar in Montreal airport, I told this stranger my story, he had been through a divorce too. He told me he had four children his ex-wife moved back to USA and the older children wanted to stay in UK, so the ex-wife took the youngest with her and now she is coming back to him in the UK.

I will never forget this man and whether he knows what impact he had on me and my own divorce journey. He told me to be present in the children’s lives and always maintain contact and relationships with the kids because eventually they will come back to you. Today this has happened, and I will be eternally grateful to this man, if you are reading this, I have kept the hope that one day this may happen, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This weekend is my birthday and both girls are going to spend it with me. Never lose hope, keep going and they will come back. We all lose our children at some point as they go off to University or indeed get married, it just happened sooner to some us and nothing can replace those lost years of being in their lives every day, but we have the rest of our lives.

Be nice to all you meet, you never know what they are going though and how you could change their lives, that stranger changed my life.

Dating After Divorce Tips

/in /by

During a divorce and years following it can be a very confusing, and lonely time depending on who instigated the breakup and whether you have children and how traumatic and adversarial the breakup may have been. Many can be drawn destructive behaviours such as too much alcohol and drugs or participating in unhealthy sexual relations amongst other things in order to feel better. This must be avoided.

Read more