Co-parenting with an ex-partner who was abusive is often not possible and can become the arena for further abuse.

A parallel parenting plan minimizes contact between the parents to protect a parent from the abusing parent.

Parallel parenting focuses chiefly on the care of the children and requires clear boundaries both in the custody agreement and in upholding it.

In the realm of intimate partner abuse, getting away from one’s abuser usually doesn’t mean being free of abuse when it involves co-

parenting children. All too often, the dominant partner in the relationship feels highly threatened by the other partner separating to

divorce. In the aftermath, the abusive partner is often angry, even hostile, and abuse can show up in the context of co-parenting. Although less than ideal, parallel parenting with an abusive ex-partner becomes the better solution.

Co-Parenting vs. Parallel Parenting

In divorce, studies have shown that children benefit from spending at least 35% of their time with each parent despite the difficulty parents have with one another. The impact of divorce on children’s well-being during and after their parents’ separation or divorce is potentially within parents’ control—the parents’ own well-being and capability to function will have the biggest effect.

Co-parenting works well when parents who separate and then divorce can actively share parenting, have good communication with one another and work together toward what is in the best interest of their children. However, when the abusive partner continues their hostility toward the other parent, the ongoing turmoil erodes quality parenting and contributes to children’s emotional and behavioral problems. (Pedro-Carroll, 2020). In these circumstances, co-parenting is extremely difficult to achieve.

Conditions for Parallel Parenting

When one parent has been abusive and controlling during a marriage, it’s very likely that the same harmful behaviors will continue. The following are examples of behaviors that don’t make co-parenting often possible and a parallel parenting plan is needed.

Harassment and intimidation

manipulating the other parent to get what they want by using harassing behavior such as incessant calls or texts;

sending messages through the children;

showing up uninvited

Undermining one parent’s ability to parent by withholding information.

Devaluing one parent to the children.

Withholding financial support or blocking access to money after separation.

Disregarding the children such as ignoring school or special events.

Disrupting a parent’s relationship with their children by coercing them to ally with the other parent or using children as spies.

Parallel parenting allows both parents to be involved in parenting with the purpose of the parents having minimal contact with one another.

Protections If You’re Being Abused

If you’ve been the target of abuse and you finally take the difficult steps to divorce, you may assume your experience with your ex-partner will finally improve. Unless your partner seeks treatment for their abuse, your interaction will not change. Knowledge of a partner’s past abusive behaviors creates the best plan of protection going forward to co-parent with minimal contact between the parents, lessening the potential for harm.

Knowing the legal rights and protections that you have as a parent can help to minimize your risk going forward. If physical abuse occurred toward you or your children, it’s important to make this known during the divorce and custody process. When the court knows the full history of abuse, the best decisions can be made that are truly in the interest of the children concerning primary custody and visitation rights. If you fear your abuser will retaliate and harm you for reporting, it might be necessary to obtain with the help of your lawyer a restraining order or protective order.

Parallel Parenting Plan

Strategies for minimizing opportunities for the abusive partner to get at you are making clear the guidelines for contact that become part of a separation agreement and custody. Communicating in writing is best so you have a record and the message cannot be distorted ending up in a “he said/she said.”

Deciding the use of communication via email or texts and contact can only pertain to the needs and care of the children–disallowing personal attacks to the parent. Using an online scheduling tool can be useful so both parents have access and one parent is not in a position to inform the other of events, appointments, etc. Also, an online tool such as Family Wizard allows for emails to be sent that cannot be manipulated and can be used in court if necessary.

Negotiating a separation agreement with legal and physical child contact promotes the best interest of the children. Set a clear concise visitation schedule with details that leave little room for misunderstanding and manipulation. If drop off and pick up need to be in public places for personal safety, then require this as part of the visitation arrangement. If you’re unable to negotiate a parenting plan, then a legal process involving a court order can help.

Once there is an agreement with the parenting plan, both parents are required to follow it. It’s likely that the abusive parent will attempt to make changes, or not follow through, or harass the other parent about the schedule, child support, etc. This is where setting clear boundaries and limits become critical to upholding the agreement. With an ex abusive partner, this is not easy.

Getting Help

Coming through an abusive relationship can be traumatic. Being complacent with an abuser during the relationship in order to side step their wrath and abuse, might have been one of many kinds of self-protection used. Now it’s likely these reactions will come up and it’s important to just notice when they do and know not to act on them. Refer to your parenting plan/consent order and the detailed guidelines that were created for protection. At times, it might be necessary to copy and paste a guideline that an ex is violating to remind them. Standing up for yourself may take some time.

If you and your abuser have children together, rarely do you get a clean break from them. Sometimes, you have to figure out how to co-parent with your ex-abuser.

How do people do this safely and effectively? It’s going to take careful planning and strategizing, but here are some important tips:

🫂Put your safety first.

🫂Understand your legal position and get legal support

🫂Limit your communication and establish boundaries.

🫂Document everything.

🫂Get your own counselling support

Safety First

If your abuser targeted you but not your children, there’s a strong chance the two of you can co-parent effectively. However, if you legitimately fear for your children’s safety, you need to get legal help to get through the proper channels to keep your kids safe.

You must prove your ex is unfit and have their parenting rights revoked or extremely limited. It is not ok to fabricate this information obviously. It must be honest.

Now is also the time to have open, age-appropriate discussions with your children about what abuse is, what it looks like, and what to do about it. To start the conversation, reach out to your child’s school counselor, or a family counsellor , and your legal representative. These professionals can educate you and your children about what to do when you experience abuse (from parents or peers).

🫂What to Legally Expect

Just as you wouldn’t want anyone to be able to accuse you of physical abuse and then take your children away from you without proof, so it is with your ex-spouse. Legal processes uncover and prevent false allegations, so hang in there and follow the advice of your mediator or lawyer.

The legal system typically finds it is in the children’s best interest to spend time with both parents. However, proof of domestic violence could sway their decision and limit your co-parent’s parenting arrangements. But, chances are good that your children will maintain at least some physical contact with their other parent, so you need a solid plan for handling communications with your ex.

Domestic Violence and Parenting Plan, Consent Orders and Parenting Orders

If an aggrieved and a respondent to an application for a domestic violence order have children, it may be worth considering putting formal parenting arrangements in place.

Parenting arrangements can cover things like where the children live, who they spend time with and communicate with, childcare and schooling, financial support and how those with parental responsibilities communicate with each other.

There are three different types of written parenting arrangements:

Parenting plan

This is a written agreement setting out the care arrangements for children. It is signed and dated by the children’s parents and is an informal way of agreeing on how the children will be cared for. A parenting plan is not required to be in any specific form or witnessed and can be changed at any time in writing, with the consent of both parties.These kinds of plans are not legally enforceable. If there are already consent orders or parenting orders in place any parenting plan made after the order will make the terms of the original order (if varied), legally unenforceable. Unless, the original order includes a term that says that the order can’t be changed in this particular way.If you apply for formal orders before a Court after making a parenting plan, the Court is not required to follow the terms of the parenting plan, but it is taken into consideration.

Consent ordersYou can make an agreement or parenting plan legally binding by applying to the Court for consent orders. The Court will still consider the orders and will only make them if they are considered to be in the “best interest” of the child/children.Consent orders can only be varied by a further consent order, parenting plan or parenting order.Parenting ordersIf you are unable to come to an agreement regarding your children, you can apply to the court for a parenting order. In order to make such an application, you must first attend mediation to try to reach an agreement. A certificate from a family dispute resolution practitioner must be included with your application to confirm that you have been to, or attempted to go through the mediation process. You are exempt from attending such a mediation if there is a domestic violence order in place. The overall consideration that a Court has when deciding what orders should be imposed is what is in the “best interests” of the child.

Primary considerations in making this determination are the benefit of children having a meaningful relationship with both parents along with the need to protect children from physical and psychological harm, including witnessing family violence. Other considerations include the views of the children, relationships with other family members, how much each parent has participated in the children’s lives, changes to the children’s current living arrangements, how much each parent can provide for the children’s physical, emotional and intellectual needs, any family violence, behaviour of each parent to date (including any criminal history), practical difficulties and expense of the children seeing each parent and each parent’s attitude towards the responsibilities of being a parent. There is no longer a presumption of equal shared parental responsiblity.

Exposure to DV

Parenting Courses

Alcohol and Parenting

Drugs and Parenting

Mental Health and Parenting

🫂Create Your Parenting Plan

Work with a counsellor, psychologist, lawyers, to create a proper parenting plan. Having a solid strategy for various situations will help you decrease the number of interactions you have with your ex.

We strongly recommend that you seek professional advice to create your plan. There’s a lot you can probably already guess you need to plan for, like:

Custody days

Child’s school and extracurricular schedule

Holidays and vacations

Sharing expenses

Transportation

Handover

What to do if you or your child get sick but you’re supposed to trade custody with your ex?

What if your ex and child are ill, but it’s time to switch custody?

What if your child has special needs?

How long should you wait on your ex at the agreed upon meeting place to exchange custody of the kids?

What are reasonable time limits on communications and responses?

Limit Communication and Set Boundaries

• *Unfortunately, you are likely to trigger your ex, so avoid speaking one-on-one with them.

*Speaking in person or by phone could jeopardize your own and your children’s safety.

Photos, Emails, text, etc

Providing your address?

*Obtain a restraining order if need be.

*Communication should be brief, business-like, only concerning the children, and in writing. Written communication is vital for legal documentation and evidence.

*If your co-parent to be uncooperative and push the limits. Stay cool, calm, collected, and never contact your abuser directly.

*Document everything and connect with your lawyer to settle things on your behalf.

🫂HANDOVERS

For handovers, pick a public place such as your child’s school. Do not meet at their house or have them come to yours.

Aim to always have another adult with you at exchanges–someone who isn’t antagonistic.

You can even try one of these scenarios:

Have a neutral third party make the exchange on your behalf.

Example: Your father takes your children to a neutral location for custody exchanges.

Have neutral third and fourth parties meet each other for exchanges.

Example: Your mother picks up your kids and drops them off with your ex’s mother.

🫂DOWNLOAD A PARENTING APP

Limit contact and establish boundaries with your co-parent more easily by using co-parenting apps.

Some specialize in preventing harsh communication between co-parents with tone meters that detect charged language and suggest ways of changing it.

Others allow you to share calendars, schedules, school, and medical information on their platform without talking or texting. And others, like co-parenting expense trackers, enable you to request payment for shared parenting expenses politely. You can upload pictures of receipts, send bills

, collect fees, and keep track of who owes what.

Look for an app that keeps unalterable records of everything shared within the platform so that all exchanges are documented.

All parenting plan violations can be recorded on your app.

Apps make the documentation process much more manageable.

Ex never showed up to a custody exchange? There’s an app to track that. Having trouble getting them to pay their fair share?

LIST ALL THE APPS HERE

🫂You Are Not Alone

Co-parenting with an abusive ex isn’t easy. Undoubtedly, having support and guidance to assist you helps.

Reach out to a legal advisor and a counsellor. Ask family and friends to help with handovers as well as mundane parenting tasks (babysitting, housework, cooking).

Take steps to help you co-parent effectively without having to communicate much with your ex. Avoid unnecessary confrontations and improve documentation by using a co-parenting app for everything from child support to sharing schedules and medical information.

Co-parenting with an abusive ex is complex but vital for your children. Co-parenting requires open communication, boundaries, and a willingness to put needs before disagreements. Co-parenting does not require best friends but demands mutual respect and the desire to put your kids first. Establishing realistic expectations and obtaining expert support if needed is crucial.

GREAT PERSONAL ADVICE FROM A PARENT SURVIVOR OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

Here are some of the things I've learned from co-parenting with an abusive ex:

1. His behaviour is his business.

He can do or say what he wants, but unless it directly impacts on your children, you cannot do anything about it. How he lives his life when the kids are not with him, is no longer your concern.

2. You cannot react to his drama.

You're bound to get mean and abusive emails and phone calls. You may even hear it through the grapevine, which hurts. Just like his personal life is no longer your concern, you don't have to answer to him about your personal life. You only need to engage on issues that involve co-parenting, such as education, healthcare, pick-ups and drop-offs. The rest is drama - don't indulge him.

3. Support Your Kids

He may turn into father-of-the-year when the kids visit, and that's great. Be positive and upbeat when the kids talk about the fun they have with him and don't say anything negative about him.

4. Deal With the Negative - Positively

Your ex is bound to say stupid things to the kids about you. It is important to explain to the kids that he no longer has a say in your life, and just like you don't tell the kids what he should or shouldn't do, he is not the boss of you. Be sure to let the kids know that they should not worry about what he says and that they don't need to feel that they need to please him all the time.

5. Get Third Party Input on Co-Parenting Concerns

If you are worried about anything he says or does, don't address it directly with him, as it will open the door to more abuse and defensiveness. Instead, take your concerns to neutral third parties or therapists who you trust.

6. Get Help

Dealing with a constant barrage of vitriol and drama can be emotionally draining. While your ex won't change, you can change how you respond. Therapy can help release stress and help you find coping mechanisms to help you accept your feelings.

7. You Will Mess Up

Dealing with an abusive ex is not easy, and you're bound to mess up on every item on this list at least once. Be easy on yourself while you build your strength.

Reach for support when you need it, and look forward to the good days. But in the meantime, find things that make you happy. You can't live in the past, and you can't worry about the future. You can only focus on right now, believing that better days are coming.

We examine what happens with co-parenting when there are genuine fears for yours and/or the family safety, how the courts look at what is in the child's best interests when there are safety concerns, how to remain personally safe during co-parenting, the appointment of an independent children's lawyers (ICL), use of counsellors and confidentiality, medical reports, family reports, supervised access, handover and handover centres and how to gather evidence if required.