Communication breakdowns post divorce

Expressing needs and wants is vital to being content in life, yet it is not always the easiest thing to do.  It gets harder to communicate with someone after a relationship breaks up; it can be twice as tough if once it’s over, you must share responsibilities with your ex, specifically the most important responsibility of your life: your child.  Communication breakdowns post divorce are a familiar side effect of a contentious break up involving children, but it is important to find some sort of middle ground and methods of constructive ways to speak for the sake of helping your kids deal with the split.

Communication breakdowns post divorce is not simple to avoid entirely, but there are ways to make conversing with an ex spouse easier to deal with, especially for your kids.  It’s imperative that you keep your children away from conversations where controversial topics are discussed.  Parents are the most influential figures in a child’s life, so allowing them to see you and your co-parent in a heated discussion can be scornful and insensitive to your child’s emotions.  What can be even more disrespectful towards your child is if you use them as a messenger in your debates with your ex.  When a communication breakdown post divorce is imminent, you may want to consider using non-verbal methods of speaking, like writing to each other, to ensure that your heated words will not fall upon your child’s ears. 

Non-verbal methods of conversing when dealing with regular communication breakdowns post divorce can be a smart way to find some sort of neutral, middle ground in dealing with your co-parent.  Emailing works to a point, in that you are able to express yourself in writing, yet it can become a liability when one parent claims your message was lost in cyberspace, deleted or was not sent to the right address.  Using a communication tool specifically designed for situations such as this, like the OurFamilyWizard Message Board, is a way for both parents to ensure their communication is secure and documented in full.  Parents have separate accounts which are linked together within a family on the website, so all of their communication is isolated to their family forum.  OurFamilyWizard messages are sent between accounts, so parents know their messages are going to the correct recipient.  This also separates emotionally charged conversations with your co-parent from your other, non-family related emails. 

Even when you try and engage with your co-parent in the most polite manner you can manage, sometimes emotions may slip through your words, and you’ll say something you maybe wish you did not.  Similar to how spell checking works, the OurFamilyWizard Message Board offers ToneMeter as an “emotional spell checking” device to analyze messages you compose and indicate phrases that could be received in a negative or misconstrued way by the recipient.  ToneMeter is an easy-to-use tool that will give your message a quick once over so you can better prevent any miscommunications.