I wrote about how difficult it can be to negotiate during and after divorce in my post on the High Conflict Personality. Especially so if kids are involved. Sometimes it’s both parties who can’t comprehend the spirit of negotiating but oftentimes though, it is just one party who displays high-conflict personality traits and derails the negotiating train costing you both thousands of dollars.
In nasty divorces I’ve witnessed, high-conflict people appear to lack a sense of humanness toward their exes.
They are incapable of putting themselves in your shoes. What is it like not to see your kids every day? What is like to have no contact with your kids for days, months, years? They don’t care. No compassion. No empathy. It’s all about them. If you look back, it’s always been all about them.
Negotiating turns to manipulation for high-conflict exes. It’s the go to. Every time. It becomes about levers – which ones can they pull to get what they want? Here are just a few examples – bet you’ve heard these before:
- You want more access to the kids so they dangle the opportunity for you to see them more if you agree to pay for private school neither of you can afford, or vacations, or cars, or more clothes (no)
- They want more money so they alienate the kids from you because less kid time with you means more money for them – they’ll claim you and your family are a big, scary, unhealthy influence on your own kids (unbelievable)
- They want more direct access to you in order to convince you to come back to them – so they’ll consider granting you “a coffee date” with kids they’ve alienated from you but only in exchange for marriage counseling disguised as co-parenting. Even though every therapist (all four) you’ve seen together can’t convince your ex to keep it about the kids (so, no)
- They want you to buy the kids more clothes so they intentionally dress them in rags and shoes with holes on your visitation days (I can’t even)
None of it is negotiation… it’s classic manipulation. I’d argue, even exploitation. Kids aren’t pawns and they’re not paychecks; they just need both parents and need to be left out of the parental conflict. That’s it.
It will get better. I mean, if you’ve left all that narcissism it’s already better isn’t it?
Focus on the children the very best way you can and move on in your personal life.
Sending you love and light on your journey.
More to come,
Tanya B.
Recent Comments