When a couple decides to divorce, it's an extremely emotional and challenging time. One of the most important decisions they will make is how to proceed with the separation process. 
 
Many divorcing couples opt for mediation because it is one of the most effective and least expensive divorce processes. If you want to get your spouse on board to mediate your divorce, there are a few things you can do.
 
Focus On How It Can Benefit Both Of You 
There are many benefits of mediation, especially when compared to going to court. Mediation is typically less expensive and quicker than going to court, and it also allows the parties to have more control over the outcome. In addition, mediation can help to preserve relationships and allow the parties to move on with their lives more quickly. 
 
The mediator is impartial and doesn't take sides but facilitates communication and helps the parties find common ground. Because mediation is more collaborative than adversarial, it can often resolve complex issues more quickly and much more effectively than litigating your divorce through the courts.
 
If Your STBX Doesn't Want To Talk, Find Other Ways to Communicate
Divorce can be incredibly challenging when couples are not on speaking terms. In addition to the emotional toll, there can be confusion and misunderstandings. It’s important to find a way to communicate, either through email or text. Let your STBX (soon-to-be-ex) know that 95% of divorces don’t go to trial and that mediation is one of the most effective way to avoid a trial.  An experienced mediator can provide guidance and support throughout the process and offer resources that can help couples resolve their differences.
 
If your STBX is against mediation in the beginning of your divorce, allow for some amount of time to pass before you bring up mediation again. As people learn more about the divorce process and how expensive attorneys are, they usually become more reasonable with respect to mediation.
 
Make It About Your Kids
Trained family mediators can assist you in developing communication and conflict resolution skills during their sessions. This can be extremely helpful after divorce, as both parents must be able to communicate effectively to constructively resolve conflicts for the good of the children.
 
The mediator can help you understand the root causes of the conflict, develop a plan for dealing with future disagreements, and create a parenting plan that is in your child's best interests. With the help of a mediator, you can learn to co-parent effectively and create a healthy environment for your child.
 
Never Force The Issue
It's important to remember that mediation is a process for couples who want to resolve their differences amicably. Trying to force your spouse to participate will only lead to frustration on both sides. Take a step back and let some time pass. Revisit the issue after you both have had time to educate yourselves and understand what your options are.
 
Final Words
Mediation may be the best option for you if you are considering divorce and want to do it in the most amicable way possible. Mediation allows both parties to agree without going to court and often results in a fair settlement for everyone involved. In order to be on the same page as your spouse, it may take time, patience, and education for you to both agree that mediation is the best option for your divorce.

​Children need structure, even as their parents are divorcing. Many parents feel that they can’t discipline their children because they’re dealing with so much emotionally. But by having clear, defined limitations for your children, it will help your children feel safe and secure which they need, particularly when they’re parents are divorcing.
 
While maintaining clear rules and limits is important, it’s also important for parents to choose their battles. Now is not the time to be extremely strict or add new rules. Start with one or two of your most critical rules and let your children know what they are. Make sure that they’re used to them before adding more. Give your children about 2 weeks to get used to a new rule before adding another one.
 
It’s also important to involve children in determining what the rules are. Let them make some of the rules themselves and try to come up with some together. You can even add some fun ones like, “Anyone who’s sad gets to choose what’s for dessert.” Post the rules somewhere in your home where everyone can see them. This enables everyone to be on the same page and avoids miscommunication.
 
Too many parents focus on negativity and punishment. If you recognize appropriate behavior and focus on the positive, your children will respond better. Even if there is only one thing that your child does that’s positive, point that out. Children gain so much more from positive reinforcement than negative attention.
 
Remember to work with your children’s other parent and not against them. You can have different parenting styles as long as you respect each other’s differences. Children don’t need you to be aligned on everything but they do need you to both message them that tell they must respect the other parent. Children do best when both parents are involved and they have a good working relationship with each other. You don’t have to be best friends with your children’s other parent, you just need to work effectively with each other.
 
Raising children isn’t easy and when the family is going through divorce, that creates even more complications. However, if you maintain structure for your children, choose your battles, focus on the positive and have a good working relationship with your children’s other parent, you are well on your way to having happy and healthy children.

Are you dealing with an ex who has a difficult personality? Whether or not your ex has a clinical diagnosis doesn’t really matter - you just know that everything is harder than it needs to be when it comes to interacting with him or her as you go through your divorce. If your ex can be controlling and confident in how they talk to you, you may be concerned that they’re going to get exactly what they want. This can be intimidating! 

Here’s the secret. They can say anything they want but that’s not reality. Just because he or she says something intimidating - like “I’m not paying alimony.” or “You have to move out of the house now!” - it doesn’t mean you have to listen. I’m going to share some important strategies when trying to come to an agreement with an ex who doesn’t know how to compromise. 

Take back your power by implementing boundaries. 

When your ex pressures you and tries to exert power over you, take back your power. This doesn’t happen through matching aggression. You can reclaim your power over the situation by setting a boundary.  

Say “I can’t talk about this right now. I need a break” and walk away.
Or text: “I’m not going to be available for the next hour.” 

Or, you don’t have to respond at all!  Giving yourself the time and space to calm yourself down is powerful. This helps you maintain your integrity in the divorce process, no matter what’s thrown at you. 
​
Don’t take it personally and keep it about your end goal. 

It is crucial to remove the emotion from negotiating your agreement. It truly doesn’t matter what your ex says or thinks about you. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done in the past. That has no bearing on your future apart from them. What will affect your future is the agreement. No matter how your ex behaves, keep in mind that you don’t need your ex to be nice, but you do need a legal agreement.  The legal agreement is your end goal. 

Wait it out while conserving money and energy. 

Your difficult ex may talk confidently and sound like they’re never going to budge. Once their attorney explains what’s realistic and after they see how much money can be wasted on legal fees, they usually become more reasonable. Even though it’s tempting, don’t feel the pressure to get your agreement done as fast as possible.  Be patient. While you’re waiting, you can trust this - people usually get what’s fair according to the courts. After spending money on their attorney and getting frustrated with the process, most people eventually realize that they have to compromise to get through the process. While you’re waiting for this to happen - it can take anywhere from a month to several months - you want to spend the least amount of money and energy. If you don’t rush it, even the most difficult ex will usually come around. Or, the judge will require them to!

Use a mediator

Consider using a mediator to walk you through the process when dealing with a difficult ex. Mediators are trained in interacting with all kinds of people and can be the one to break through to your ex so that they realize that compromise is necessary. 

Find strategies to keep yourself calm 

Divorce is overwhelming and can be exhausting. You need strategies to be able to remain calm. Anytime your ex or their lawyer comes at you in an aggressive manner, it’s difficult. Recognize when you’re overwhelmed and take a step back. You can take back your power when you learn to avoid reacting and think through how you want to respond.  

If you can be patient, keep yourself calm, and think about your long term goals, you’ll reach an agreement with your challenging ex. It may be a difficult journey but it’s worth it in the end!

Living with your STBX (soon-to-be-ex) is really hard! If you have children together, that makes it even more difficult because you're going to have to learn to communicate and work together. The good news is you won't be living together forever and I’m here to give you some solid help on how to live together during divorce more effectively. 

The biggest key to navigating living together during divorce is to make some ground rules! Rules can protect each of you and provide boundaries during a time when things could get heated really quickly. Here are some ground rules that work well for other couples living together during the divorce process: 

• Stick to the facts and keep it brief. Don’t discuss feelings or get sucked into arguments. Practicing this now will only serve you later on, especially if you are going to be co-parenting. Conflict doesn’t help anyone at this point. Divorce is stressful enough and living in high conflict situations is particularly damaging to children. 

 

• Move your things into a different room. This may seem obvious, but not everyone does it. Physically separating your spaces will help begin the mental/emotional process of starting different lives, even under the same roof. 

 

• Make a parenting schedule. This doesn’t have to be the permanent custody schedule. But have scheduled time where you're with the kids without the other parent. For example, each parent is responsible for the children every other weekend and the other parent will leave the house for the weekend or at least most of the day.

 

• Make an EVERYTHING schedule! Giving one another space during this time will help ease the tension. So make a plan especially for using the shared spaces in the house and keep to it. This could involve when you are using the kitchen, the backyard, or the shower.

 

• Take care of yourself while also staying busy! Try not to be home all the time as this will only elevate your stress. Have a plan to be out regularly whether it’s socializing, going for a walk every day, taking a class or participating in a community activity. This time will move faster if you aren’t always sitting at home. Make it a priority to do things that are life-giving during this time of grief and stress - it will lay the foundation for enjoying your future life.

I hope these ideas help you navigate this tough time period that you’re in the same house with your STBX. These suggestions will help make this time less painful for you, your kids and your soon-to-be-ex.

Divorce and separation are challenging no matter what, but when you have a difficult ex, the challenge increases exponentially. However, it can be managed, with the right perspective and some proactive strategies. 
 
Your ex may have made you feel bad about yourself during your marriage/relationship so your self-esteem is low. You may be exhausted from years of dealing with your ex’s difficult behavior and you can get triggered by this. How do you co-parent when it’s so hard to control your emotions? Follow these 5 guidelines to make co-parenting with a difficult ex more effective:                  
 
1.  Build your self-esteem and be patient with yourself. Treat yourself as you would treat a friend. Be patient with yourself – if you mess up, recognize that you’re learning how to deal with a very difficult situation. Change your self-talk from “I can’t believe I let her get to me.” to “I’m doing the best I can and it’s ok.” 
 
2. Don’t get triggered by your ex’s provocative remarks. This is easier said than done. If you can take a pause before you respond, you’ll give yourself the time to think through how you’d like to handle the situation. A pause enables you to respond rather than react. Take a few deep breaths, meditate, call a friend – anything that helps you calm down. 
 
3. Seek a parenting coordinator through the courts. Courts can appoint a parenting coordinator to coordinate scheduling and communication issues between the parents. It’s helpful to have a professional who is trained to deal with high conflict divorce handle these issues.
 
4. Develop your divorce strategy. What are your priorities? What kind of life do you want in 6 months or 1 year? Without a strategy, you can get derailed by your ex’s behavior. Remind yourself why you’re leaving the marriage and what kind of life you want going forward. This will give you perspective beyond the current struggle.
 
5. Don’t make your child the middleman. Don’t use your child to send messages to the other parent, don’t vent to your child about the other parent and don’t ask your child for information about the other parent. Let your children know that it’s not ok to do those things and if either parent tries to do any of those behaviors, they will know that it’s not ok. They can learn to set boundaries with their other parent.
 
The life you want is waiting for you. Ignore the noise that’s coming from your ex and celebrate that it can’t control you anymore. Focus on the present moment, breathe deeply, notice nature, appreciate freedom. Once you recognize that finding your peace has nothing to do with anyone else, you’ll have the life that you’ve been dreaming of.

We can get provoked or “triggered” by many things – a fight with a spouse, a child who won’t listen, a boss who treats you badly, an aggressive driver, etc. Being triggered simply means that some event has impacted us emotionally and we have a difficult time reacting rationally. When we’re triggered, we do things that we shouldn’t do. We yell back at our spouse or child, we say something inappropriate to our boss, or we leave in a huff. How wonderful would it be if we could somehow, in the moment that we are triggered, find a way to detach?
 
One skill that you may have tried in the past when you’ve been triggered is deep abdominal breathing. Deep abdominal breathing is where you push your stomach out as you breath in and pull your stomach in as you breath out. This enables your lungs to expand much farther than if you take the typical “chest breath”. When you do it correctly and for long enough, your brain will release a hormone that will calm you. This calm will enable you to detach. Once you’re detached, you can respond logically rather than emotionally.
 
Sometimes deep abdominal breathing doesn’t work. You try it and you’re still triggered and unable to detach. Grounding is another technique that can be helpful in these circumstances. Grounding is a type of coping strategy that is designed to “ground” you in or connect you to the present moment. You can only use grounding if you have given yourself some space from the person that you were interacting with. You can say that you have to go to the bathroom, ask them if you can talk about this a little later or find some other way to get to a separate space. Once you’ve gotten to a separate space, you can try these steps for grounding:

• Grounding can be done anytime and anyplace
• Keep your eyes open and scan the room
• Do not talk for the moment. You want to distract yourself from your feelings, not get in touch with them.
• Stay neutral – don’t judge yourself or anyone else as “good” or “bad”.
• Focus on the present, not the past or future.
• Mental Grounding:

1. Describe your environment using all of your senses. For example, “The walls are white, there are six chairs in the room around the table, there are sounds of children playing outside…” Describe objects, sounds, colors textures, smells, shapes and temperature.
2. Use an image to take you to a calm place. For example, “I’m on a raft floating in the sea.” or “I am on a mountain looking at a beautiful sunset.”
3. Count to 10 or say the alphabet very slowly.
4. Repeat a positive statement or affirmation: “I am calm and peaceful. I can handle this. This too shall pass.”

• Physical Grounding:

1. Run cool or warm water over your hands.
2. Grab an object tightly such as a ball or pillow.
3. Touch various objects around you such as keys, a book, the table and notice the way it feels, the colors, the materials, the weight.
4. Jump up and down.
5. Stretch yourself including your arms, legs, neck, etc.
6. Walk slowly. Notice each footstep and say left, right as you walk.

 
The key to being successful with these techniques is to practice them when you’re not being triggered. You can also make up your own method of grounding that enables you to distract and detach yourself from your emotions. Learning to detach is a powerful tool that can help you to be more successful in your communication skills and improve your relationships with your spouse, children, boss and anyone else important in your life. Let me know what techniques work for you!

On average, 40% of all first marriages end in divorce, and over half of those families have children under the age of 18. When you add to that the 57% of millennials choosing to have children outside of a marital union, there are lot of parents who are not living under the same roof. Under the best of circumstances, raising a child is difficult, but when you’re divorced or not living together, it brings a lot of additional challenges.

Ideally, both parents share childcare responsibilities – and the quality of their co-parenting relationship can be characterized by the extent to which they support or fail to support each other. When parents fail to cooperate, it can have consequences for all involved. For years, research has shown that the quality of interaction between separated parents is a strong predictor of the mental health and psychological well-being of children living in this type of family structure and young children especially are at higher risk for anxiety, aggressive behavior, and poor social skills. If you can’t manage to get along, it can cause lasting mental and emotional problems for your kids.

In such situations, having a support network is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your family. All parents going through divorce or separation need supportive people that they can talk to, so they don’t speak to their children about any ill feelings about the other parent.  A therapist, a friend, a family member, a clergy member, or any supportive individual can make the difference between frustration and anger and learning how to manage your emotions.

The following rules an help to build a healthy co-parenting environment:

• Never fight or argue in front of the children.  Fighting in front of children can be extremely damaging to children.  No matter how angry or emotional you are, you are the adult and your role is to protect your children.  If you refrain from fighting in front of them, you are helping your children.
• Never say anything negative about the other parent in front of the children.  Your children love both of you and when you say something negative about one parent, it can significantly impact the children. 
• Both parents must communicate clearly and regularly. Notify each other as soon as possible if a child misses school, is sick, has a schedule change, etc.  Decide together what the preferred method of communication is: text, email, phone, etc.  This will create a better environment for everyone.
• Treat each other as if you were in a business relationship.  Put aside the anger and let go of blaming each other.  Work towards a more formal, respectful relationship.  If one starts being disrespectful – yelling, name calling, bringing up the past – then say, “Let’s take a break, calm down and continue this conversation at another time.”
• Children don’t need to know all the details of the divorce.  Only tell them what you absolutely have to tell them – things that specifically involve them.  Such things may include: who is in charge during what time, future plans, where they are going to live, etc.

​
Following these rules – even if you’re not on the same page as your ex -  is a gift to your children. They will benefit tremendously from having a secure, reliable relationship with both parents. And if you find that you fall off the wagon sometimes, don’t beat yourself up - the rules aren’t always easy to follow. Admit to your child that you made a mistake, apologize and move on. The gift your child will receive is less anxiety and more stability, as you and your ex work together for their well-being.