I’ll Call You Back — Unless I Was Once Married to You

I'll Call You Back — Unless I Was Once Married to You by Lauren BehrmanRecently, a colleague reached out to one of her clients and heard the following voicemail message:

Hi, this is Donna, sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. [pause]. Unless I was once married to you.

The  message’s message is clear: speaking to an ex-spouse is not something that Donna (or many people) want to do.

While one could try to avoid an ex-spouse, there is no such thing as an ex-parent. Speaking to an ex-spouse may appear to be a choice; however, there is no choice when it comes to communicating with the other parent of the children you both share.

It is really critical that parents maintain, or even improve, their capacity to communicate clearly and specifically about issues and decisions related to their children.

This is challenging, especially in the early stages of parent coordination. Often, parents are sitting on different sides of the room, unable to make eye contact. Given the status of communication, it is very difficult to address everything that is happening in their child’s life.

Because divorce occurs at all stages of a child’s life, parents may need to collaborate on decisions regarding Kindergarten placement, an adolescent who has begun to experiment with drinking, or the college selection process.

Divorced parents must be able to communicate with each other, and there are a number of ways to do this:

  • Use written communication with the help of a platform, e.g. Our Family Wizard, AppClose, etc.  Many of these platforms have the ability to actually edit out inappropriate tone.
  • Enlist the help of a child specialist, co-parenting counselor, or parent coordinator to learn productive communication skills.

It is important for divorced spouses to learn how to communicate as co-parents. Our new book, Loving Your Children More than You Hate Each Other, explores this topic in great detail and provides easily applicable techniques for parents.

Feel free to contact us with questions.

My Divorce Recovery

Lauren Behrman, Ph.D.
LaurenBehrmanPhD@MyDivorceRecovery.com
212-799-7921

Jeffrey Zimmerman, Ph.D., ABPP
JeffZimmermanPhD@MyDivorceRecovery.com
212-485-0033