When the going gets tough with your co-parent, it can seem like it would be so much easier not to have to deal with your co-parent at all: to “X” them out entirely. To be able to live without those blasted texts and emails. To be able to put a hard stop to seemingly endless bickering, manipulation, resistance and other less flattering forms of “not playing well together in the sandbox.” To not have to see your co-parent at all curbside, or at school events, or at soccer games on Saturdays. To make all of the decisions yourself, rather than expending time, energy and money to iron out all the little details of a life with children. To be able, in short, to just cut and run.
And certainly the clean cut was possible in your “BC” (ie. Before Children) era. Back in the day, remaining friends following a break up may have been possible in some limited instances. But the full stop ending – painful and difficult to work through at times, for sure – was likely the more common and preferred route for ending most relationships. Having a clean breakup to a relationship permitted each person the space and freedom to move forward in a new direction to create a different life.
When co-parents separate, the same longing to make a new future is present. This longing may, in fact, feel even stronger if either or both co-parents stayed too long in a deteriorating or dysfunctional relationship. It’s possibly somewhat natural, then, to reach for the clean cut as a solution when you find yourself struggling with your co-parent. It may seem like a mirage in a seemingly endless desert of soul-sucking, conflict ridden moments as you look at the years that stretch before you.
But no. I’m here to say that the clean cut option would not be great in this AC (ie. After Children) era. I can promise you that approaching co-parenting in this way will ultimately bring you tenfold more heart ache and grief. As your mind drifts in this direction, think twice. Cutting your co-parent out of your children’s lives – alienation – is serious business. Unless your co-parent is truly disinterested in parenting, this calculated choice on your part will have a ripple effect far beyond you and your co-parent.
Alienation disrupts the entire family system. Yes, it will change the relationship that your children have – or could have had – with your co-parent. You may see that as a total win right now. But alienation will also change the relationship that your children have with you. Because your own relationship with your children will be tinged by an undercurrent of control, manipulation and gaslighting in order to keep your co-parent on the outside .
Alienation of your co-parent will change your children’s relationship with every family member – on your co-parent’s side of the family and your side of the family. I’m talking current family members, and even future, as yet unborn, family members. Your children will be called upon to navigate a complex web of alignment, removal and distrust. Family strife will take energy away from pursuits that your children might otherwise engage in. Because there’s only 24 hours in a day, and only so much time and energy to go around, every day.
So, as tempting as it may be to implement the clean cut with your co-parent, resist. Stop and think carefully about all the ramifications. More conflict, resentment and anger will surely follow. When you are struggling with your co-parent, the answer is to keep working towards agreement. To keep talking. And to get some support if you need it, for this very difficult moment, in order to preserve a better life for your children in the future.