SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome, everybody. We are going to do four episodes. The next four episodes are going to be Reddit posts, something that we used to do all the time in the past. We're going to be doing this now for four episodes, and then we're going to get into a series related to domestic violence that will start up, I believe, in December or the last week of November. But today we have a Reddit post to start off our four episode Reddit series. And in this one, it's something that we hear all the time. My ex got married and her co-parenting has gone out the window. This is really typical.

SPEAKER_01: 0:44

Very, very. Just about every new case I see, it seems like that's part of the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

Yeah, for sure. All right, in this one, I'm just going to read a bit of it. I'm not going to read the whole thing. But the person says, honestly, in the last couple of months trying to co-parent with my ex-husband, has been a total nightmare. We've been divorced for nearly eight years, and in those eight years, we've been able to communicate well, have always done joint birthday parties and things like trick-or-treating or Santa pictures. We used to be able to be friendly at sporting events and would always give our nine-year-old a good picture of two parents who may not have worked out, but who can still be adults. She keeps going on sort of in that way. Now, ever since he got married to someone who doesn't have their own biological children, He ignores communication from me regarding mostly everything unless it's something he wants. He's become cold and just ruthless and making it hard for me to talk to my son when he's at his house and we have 50-50 week on week off visitation. She regularly hears her son telling her that his new stepmom is saying things about her and is involving the son in things that he shouldn't be in like adult conversations and decisions. So this is the mother's first Halloween she'll spend without her son. Because they've, quote, made other plans, and they won't try to find a time that she can see the nine-year-old that night. So she understands that it's his week, but they've always given each other that courtesy. And so she feels heartbroken. She says she really wanted to befriend the stepmom because she had a bad stepmom growing up, and she feels like kids deserve to be able to see their parents getting along. She says it feels so selfish. They settled everything out of court, and the agreement's flimsy when it comes to wording because, you know, we've always gotten along. She said there's a lot more she's leaving out, things that are cruel and unfortunate, but honestly, I just need it to vent. She says she's trying to be the bigger person, but it gets tiring. So what do you think, Linda?

SPEAKER_01: 2:55

Oh, I think the only thing that makes this scenario different than most that I see is they've managed to have a marvelous eight years.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 3:09

Usually it's more like a year or two and maybe not even a year. Frequently, just as soon as the pandemic. dad remarries or even gets a serious girlfriend, there's a very similar story involved. And I think it will typically go back to just insecurity on what are both parts of the women involved and them feeling like if the new husband or boyfriend is talking to the ex-wife that it must not be just business communication about the child, but it could be personal. And they're not happy about that. And so typically, the new couple sets some boundaries around that communication. And then that feels very much like this woman is stating that she's being shut out, cut out, you know, pushed away, all those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

Yeah, a lot of times when I hear that it's the new spouse who's making the boundary, sometimes you'll still get like a glimpse of the old relationship. If you happen to catch the guy without the new wife, he'll be nice like he used to be. I

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

hear that a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 4:34

So this one makes me wonder because she's not giving any indication of that. So this one makes me wonder also if maybe the new wife is getting into his head about maybe making him think he's been treated poorly or. Whatever. It sounds like it's not just the setting boundaries. It sounds like she's changing his mindset about the past relationship to possibly. And he's sort of giving into that.

SPEAKER_01: 4:58

Or he doesn't have a second away from her.

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

She's really got her claws in deep.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

Could be. Yeah. Could be either way or both, especially when the writer says that. he's turned cold and distant like that, that, that does sound like getting into his head somewhat.

SPEAKER_00: 5:22

Or maybe he feels guilty about how he's treating her now. And his self-defense mechanism is to convince himself that she deserves it. He's not mature enough to understand that he's just being a jerk about it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:40

And it is, you know, to give the guy a little bit of a, A little bit of grace here. I frequently talk to these guys who feel like they are just damned if they do and don't because with both sides, you know, there is no way they get to make either one of these women happy. And they've totally given up trying to do what's right for the kid in the middle of it because they're just... If they do what they used to do, then it's going to look to the new woman in their life like they're favoring the ex-wife and just trying to make her happy. And then many, many, many times the new woman in his life feels like, If you were to put me first, then you would always ask me if it's okay before you make plans with her. Well, many times or historically in a relationship like they had for eight years, that just doesn't happen. It doesn't come up. They're used to making decisions as co-parents. And so this is something we went into great detail about when we did our– our step family section in our cup parent Academy.

SPEAKER_00: 7:04

Right. Exactly. Our successful step family scores, the, you know, and what do we tell her, you know, if she were to ask us, you know, how do I, how do I deal with this? And I think my first gut reaction, and then I'll let you give the right answer, but my first gut reaction is she, She hasn't needed to have strict boundaries in the past because they were able to work together as a team. And there was an ebb and flow in the relationship where everybody kept everyone else's needs in mind. And that's not happening now. So to the same extent that he's creating or resetting boundaries because of the influence possibly of his new wife, she needs, the mom needs to take her cue and get about setting some boundaries that she's okay with. And to the extent that she needs help in the co-parenting relationship, because she essentially has a new co-parenting relationship that they haven't experienced before, that maybe there needs to be some modification to orders. Maybe there needs to be a parenting coordinator to help reset the new boundaries in a way that's going to be as fair for everybody. And more importantly, in the child's best interest.

SPEAKER_01: 8:14

Exactly what I was thinking. And, you know, I don't know if everybody, Parenting coordinator does what the PC used to do that I was in office with, but he would quickly let the father, in this case, know, look, your new... woman in your life is a secondary. She does not get to make decisions. She is not a part of this co-parenting process. And that sounds very cold towards her and very non-welcoming, but it is something that really has to be, I mean, when you become a step-parent, you are hopefully quite aware that That relationship comes before your relationship with him. It doesn't mean that it's more or less important. It just comes before historically. And so you do understand what you're signing on for, hopefully, and that your job then is to be as good a facilitator as possible to make that child's life as easy as possible. And definitely talking negative about the child's mother is not the way to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:28

Yeah, for sure. And I think also, as a PC, my perspective on it, or as a guardian Latin would be to say to him, you know, look, man, when it comes to the end of the day, you're going to be the one who is judged on your conduct in this co-parenting relationship. And you may have added into your home some stressors that are making it more difficult for you to co-parent well, but that's something that you need to get figured out. Because At the end of the day, if this co-parenting relationship gets progressively worse and there's litigation, you're going to be judged on what you did. And it's going to be in black and white and communications and the decisions that were made. And you're not going to be able to say to the court, yeah, but judge, take a look at my and my wife. Like, look at the pressure she was giving me. That's not going to be an excuse that you can rely on.

SPEAKER_01: 10:23

No, not nearly. And. You were so right about getting a parent coordinator or a co-parent therapist or both. I mean, there have been a few cases where I've been even with the parenting coordinator and the co-parents and were able to help them from both the therapy side and the legal side in terms of what is best for their child at that developmental stage, how to keep what was working before and how to help the situations that now are not working.

SPEAKER_00: 11:07

Yeah. Yeah. And let's let's give a little grace to the stepmother. So for all we know, dad may have given her signals or said things to her early. that made her rightfully sort of afraid for her position as his new spouse. And she may be overreacting to that situation. She may have had her own bad experiences and she's in a panic mode, creating boundaries that aren't good.

SPEAKER_01: 11:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 11:38

And she's going about it in a way that's unhealthy for her, for him and for the kid. Right. So maybe they need to get themselves into some counseling so that they he can understand better why she's so afraid. Right. Because that's the only thing that I can think is leading to the behaviors, unless she's just an evil person, which I don't assume, you know, typically she is scared and that fear, which isn't being addressed properly is coming out in this negative behavior. And if they could figure that out, then maybe everybody could get back to a good new status quo.

SPEAKER_01: 12:16

And I will say too, that, As a stepmom with no children, frequently they would, if they've got the best of intentions, come onto the scene looking for some way they could be useful in this situation and helpful to the child. And that sometimes causes them to go, well, you're... mother didn't do this. Well, you know, I can do that for you and I can take this or that. And or they, you know, in some cases I've been rather amazed and sometimes amused at the lengths to which the father is still going to take care of the mother and the child. You know, for example, going out in the middle of the night to change a flat or you know rescue them from some situation or still mowing her yard I mean years later or you know the one to come fix a broken pipe or you know something along that line so he's being the handyman at the house. And so you can understand, yeah, if you find out the rest of that story, okay, well, hmm, there could be reason for some concern with the new woman in his life.

SPEAKER_00: 13:43

Right. And a child that age may be taking conversation that isn't intended to be negative about the mom and processing it in a way that makes it seem even more negative than what it was. Right. Not only does mom, hopefully she's not questioning for the details, but hopefully mom can let dad know in a nice way that this is what she's hearing and that, hey, I'm not saying that you're doing anything intentionally or even that you're saying anything really bad. I mean, I know that nine-year-olds hear things in a different way than we do, but just please be careful.

SPEAKER_01: 14:22

Or if the stepmother was asking questions about the mother, you know, Any kind of question. Sometimes the child will take that as a negative. What is she after and why does she want to know that? And that can be helped if the father has introduced the new person in his life to the mother. And it's not always like this. I had one recently where they're all still sitting on the same couch. seat on on like a basketball games or volleyball games or whatever you know they're in the bleachers on the same on the same seat and it's just kind of amazing that you know they can they can still be uh cheering the child on you know in that in that way even with the new person involved

SPEAKER_00: 15:17

so that's a nice result that's the hope

SPEAKER_01: 15:19

it is okay

SPEAKER_00: 15:22

well uh anything else about this one

SPEAKER_01: 15:26

I think it sounds good.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

So I hope that these folks are able to find a new equilibrium in the relationship where everyone feels respected. Everyone's needs are taken into consideration as much as possible, but most importantly, they're all acting together for their child's best interest and letting the petty stuff slide away.

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

Because the child really will mourn the loss of that. If, if, uh, they don't figure out a way to make a new normal for that child.

SPEAKER_00: 15:58

For sure. Okay. Well, thank you, everybody. Next week, we'll be back with another Reddit post. The Reddit post that we're going to be talking about next week has to do with co-parenting with a mom who is concerned that whenever her child is with her, all she does is talk about how much she loves and misses her daddy and how that's making it hard for the mom. So we'll get into that next week.

SPEAKER_01: 16:27

Can't wait.