Choosing to get divorced is a big step in your life that won’t just affect you. It will impact your social circle, your finances, and especially your kids. If your divorce is packed with contention, the entire process can be far more complicated and infuriating. It may be difficult or even nearly impossible to develop an effective co-parenting plan with your spouse after a contested divorce. You need to co-parent for your children, and an Oklahoma City divorce lawyer can help you make a useful parenting plan.
Co-Parenting With a Contentious Ex
A contested divorce can make you see a side of your partner you may never have noticed before. Divorces can become vindictive, personal, expensive, and emotionally devastating. Then, if you have kids with this person, you can’t simply not interact with your former spouse. You have something that ties you to them forever, and you want to do whatever you can to make sure your kids grow up in a stable environment. Developing a co-parenting plan can be difficult if you’ve been vilified by the other parent.
Parental alienation is very real, and it happens more than you might expect. You need to make sure your ex doesn’t try to turn you into the bad guy by feeding lies to your kids, bribing them with outrageous gifts, or outright threatening them. Choosing to prioritize your kids’ well-being over your own resentment won’t be easy. It may be impossible to keep your kids away from your post-marital issues, as kids are often very perceptive. They know something’s wrong.
After enduring a contested divorce, it’s reasonable to feel betrayed, resentful, and taken advantage of. Holding onto those feelings may only hurt your relationship with your kids. Ultimately, choosing to be angry about everything isn’t going to help you. It might even make it easier for your former spouse to control the narrative and keep painting you as the bad guy in your kids’ eyes.
Handling a Combative Co-Parent
Ultimately, the only reliable thing you can choose to do is suppress the bad feelings and be the bigger person. Approach every difficult situation with respect, and refuse to respond to their hostility in kind. This can be quite hard, especially if your ex is a particularly dramatic person. Make sure you document all interactions with your ex, particularly ones that violate the parenting plan established by the court. That may help you when determining future custody arrangements.
Co-parenting is rarely easy. You must rely on another person whom you may not even trust anymore, and you have to convince yourself that they have your kids’ interests at heart just as much as you do. You need to ignore pettiness, refuse to engage with irritating situations, and focus solely on being a good and present parent for your child. Here are two additional tips for dealing with a combative co-parent:
- Do not engage in childish behavior. Never forget that you are divorced. You are no longer married to your contentious ex, and you never will be again. You are no longer responsible for their happiness, decisions, or actions. All that matters to you is your child, and all your former spouse is to you now is your kid’s other parent. Focus on the parenting plan, abide by it (even if they aren’t), and don’t let them goad you into a fight.
- Be as calm as you can. Choosing not to react to dramatic situations with emotion can be difficult to pull off. When you react emotionally, it pulls you down to their level and just creates more problems for you in the long term. If a combative co-parent doesn’t get their way or fails to provoke you into a reaction, they may threaten you, berate you, or react violently. Document these interactions, and continue being the bigger person.
FAQs
Q: Does the Mother Always Get Custody of the Child?
A: No, the mother doesn’t automatically get custody of the child in a divorce. It can be difficult to determine at the start of a divorce case who will get custody. Often, the court likes to push for joint custody to make sure both parents are legally involved in their kid’s life. However, the court must ultimately choose what’s right for the child. If the mother has a history of abuse or neglect, the father may end up with sole custody.
Q: Is the Child Allowed to Choose Which Parent They Want to Live With?
A: Yes, the child is allowed to choose which parent they want to live with after a divorce in Oklahoma. However, they can only do so if they are at least 12 years old. Even then, the court does not have to grant that request. The court must do what’s right for the child, and that might include ignoring the child’s request to live solely with their favorite parent. It depends entirely on the situation at hand.
Q: What Would Cause a Parent to Lose Custody of Their Child?
A: Unfortunately, there are many scenarios in which a parent might lose custody of their child. If a parent loses custody, that doesn’t immediately mean they are a bad parent. If a parent doesn’t receive custody of their child in a divorce, that usually means the parent has an unstable living situation or cannot meet their child’s financial needs. They are allowed to work to improve that situation, and custody might change in the future.
Q: How Does a Parenting Plan Work?
A: A parenting plan is established by the court as a court-ordered guideline that both parents must abide by when raising a child in a joint custody situation. The plan explains each parent’s responsibilities to their child, including a visitation schedule, certain contingency plans, and what to do in a dispute. If one of the parents refuses to abide by the parenting plan, it could negatively impact their custody agreement in the future.
Contact Us Today
The legal team at Stange Law Firm understands how difficult it can be to co-parent with your ex. We can help you work out a solid co-parenting plan. Contact us to speak to a member of our team about what we can do for your case.
