Avoiding Conflict With Your Former Spouse

Throughout the divorce process you likely have experienced many emotional ups and downs. As soon as the court signs off on the final divorce decree you may gladly welcome the opportunity to put it all behind you and begin living your best life. However, your ex may not view moving on in an emotionally healthy way and may have difficulty letting go of any anger, frustrations and resentment they’ve built up inside.

These unresolved feelings may lead your former spouse to incite arguments or sow emotional chaos for you and your children post-divorce. Failing to pay child support, not following the custody schedule, refusing to agree to anything in the way of your children’s extracurricular activities or simply not following the judgment are some of the ways in which an unreasonable ex-spouse can wreak emotional havoc on your life, prolonging conflict well after the divorce has been finalized.

Prioritizing your mental and emotional health by avoiding conflict can be challenging whether the continuation of conflict has been going on for weeks, months or even years. Since you are unable to control their behavior the key is to control your response to that behavior. In order to take the right approach in how to avoid conflict with your former spouse, below are five tips you can follow.

Take a Breath

1. The best response is no response.

Do not take the bait and engage in conflict with your ex. If you do, the conflict will only get worse. Giving an emotional reaction is exactly what your former partner wants. It gives them power in the dynamic and fuels the conflict further. If they make demands or threats against you in the form of ultimatums, do not immediately jump to defend yourself. Doing so can bring about an escalation of the conflict.

Though difficult as it may be to ignore text or email threats such as, “I’m taking you back to court,” “You will never see the children again,” or any other written threats intended to stress you out, don’t engage. In fact, endeavor to offer no response at all. This behavior provides the best chance of ending the conflict because your ex-spouse won’t have anyone to argue with.

2. Don’t be fearful.

The threats mentioned above tend to be personal because your former spouse knows you and your triggers intimately. Those insights give them the ability to say hurtful things and provide them with ammunition to deploy fear tactics in their attempts to get you to respond.

In reality, if you don’t want to give your ex what they want then there is little point in being afraid of what they will say. Tell yourself that they are the one truly afraid and their words are meant to make you feel the opposite way. By empowering yourself to stay strong and continue moving forward in your life you can avoid returning to past arguments or patterns of conflict that led to your divorce.

3. Ignore them. Stay unbothered.

Easier said than done, right? There may be activities or posts on social media that are very difficult to deal with. It is natural to find yourself launched into an emotional response. Weaponizing photos and words to tell anyone who will listen how awful you are as a person are common behaviors of an unreasonable ex.

You may feel compelled to respond and defend your character when under attack, especially when you believe the information being spread about you is false. However, it is crucial to be mindful about what others may think when you respond to those lies. Do you want to appear as the rational ex or the scorned ex to the world? Is responding really going to prevent your former spouse from spreading more lies or trying to inflict more harm upon you?

Doing your best to ignore their emotional manipulation and avoiding a tit-for-tat exchange will help you de-escalate any conflict and support your mental and emotional well-being. If you absolutely must respond then be sure not to respond with hate.

4. Do not look back with revisionist history.

When you experience the same conflict and emotions from your divorce after it is over it can cause you to look back and revisit why you filed in the first place. Your ex-spouse may make comments to you or others indicating that the divorce was all your idea or your fault but if you believe that filing for divorce serves your best interest don’t second guess your decision.

As hard as it may be to hear how a decision you made in the past continues to hurt your ex-partner allowing those types of comments to affect your life in the present is achieving exactly what your ex wants: for you to feel miserable and angry, just like they do. This perpetuates a conflict-filled relationship that already ended in divorce so don’t be pulled back into that and remind yourself why you decided that divorce was your best path forward.

5. Remember to stay calm when all else fails.

If you come to the realization that your former spouse intends to continue initiating conflict and making life harder for you and your children after divorcing it is important to remember that you have the ability to remain calm and not react in any way toward their actions and behaviors.

Staying calm takes a lot of patience and strength but knowing that your ex may take you back to court. This should motivate you to actively avoid engaging in conflict. If you don’t any negative reactions you may have could be recorded and used as evidence at the next court hearing.

If you have doubts about your ability to stay calm then consider using Our Family Wizard for parent communication so you can take time to think things through before sending your response by phone or computer. Additionally, consider meeting at the children’s school, or a police station, or a public place where security cameras are present if you want to avoid verbal conflict at custody exchanges.

Putting those safeguards in place and setting boundaries will help you develop a sense of calm over whatever may happen. Following this tip and other tips to avoid conflict can be effective at reducing anxiety or negative emotions allowing you to fully experience the joys of life post-divorce.

Moving Forward with Confidence

Using these best tips for avoiding conflict with an emotionally manipulative or toxic ex-spouse you can begin moving forward with better tools for handling difficult situations involving your family.

Should you need the advice of a divorce, child custody and modification attorney who specializes in navigating high conflict divorces or if you have any questions or concerns regarding these matters, know that we are here to help and ready to discuss those issues with you.