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Last month I listened to some women talk about how they were co-parenting with their abusers.

It hit me hard.

Dressed in white, I held space with three other healers sending energy to the survivors’ shaking voice as they told stories of abuse and violence and what co-parenting looked like within that experience. My heart was in my chest wanting to jump out and I wanted to scream and say no you don’t. You don’t co-parent with your abuser.

The stories etched in my head were from survivors who were proud to say that they had gotten out of unhealthy (and often abusive) relationships. They’d claimed that they would never co-parent with them, or even offer the choice.

How many parents are co-parenting with abusive exes and don’t even know it—or maybe we do know, but can’t see a way out?

How are we offering them them that much power?

How are the partners parenting if they are abusive?

After hearing stories from these women, I wanted to understand more.

For survivors who have children with their abusers, co-parenting may not be a choice. They may have ended a sexual relationship with their partners, but they still feel compelled to maintain a parenting relationship, thereby leaving them victim to further abuse.

Because of their intentions to support their children, they actively create even more ways to survive that abuse. With time, each method of survival gets etched in our psyche and eventually becomes part of our “normal” identity—how we see ourselves, and how others see us.

When we co-parent with an abuser, we enter into a cycle of abuse where we think that everything we do will support the abuser in putting first the best interest of the children so we break our necks making them understand, for the sake of the kids. Only to find out that that will probably never happen and we have ultimately sacrificed ourselves.

I have put together a list in which I identify 10 behaviours that may be indicators that your co-parenting situation may be abusive (emotional abuse counts as abuse):

• We pick up the phone and call them to plead with them to “step up” and into their role as a parent.
• We call them frequently to try to hold them accountable for not “co-parenting.” We try to reason and make them understand that we need their help.
• We spend time thinking about the abuse we “should” endure for sometimes measly crumbs or nothing at all, for the sake of the children.
• We don’t want to accept that we are co-parenting, so we romanticize the idea that we are single parents when in reality the ex is still participating in parenting.
• We put ourselves in harm’s way because we want them to see our humanity again and live up to the agreement that we made when we had children.
• We rationalize that the cost of them assaulting us is not more than the payoff we would get if someday they would acknowledge us and their abuse.
• No matter the circumstances, we find ourselves negotiating with them about graduations and birthdays and special days and holidays and summer camp; they never just choose to show up—there is always a fight.
• We consistently struggle to figure out whether we want to keep co-parenting with them because it just feels bad 99 percent of the time. Or even 50 percent of the time.
• We force ourselves to pretend like nothing happened and bargain with our abusers for the sake of the kids and our livelihood.
• We continue to put ourselves in unsafe situations.

What about when they don’t show up repeatedly, disappointing the kids and us over and over again?

That is not co-parenting.

How many times do we need to bow down and accept terrible treatment “for the sake of the kids”?

That is not co-parenting.

Some women may not have choice. In a world that criminalizes women for being abused and not keeping their children safe, women often find themselves co-parenting in a state of hell, fighting custody battles and being stuck with mandated arrangements that don’t take their safety into consideration.

If you are doing just one of the things I mentioned above, you are in an unhealthy relationship with that parent.

It’s not normal and you are not the only one going through it.

You are not crazy! 

I dedicate this article to all victims who are co-parenting with their abusers, as well as:

• victims who are co parenting with their abusers
• victims who didn’t get to become mothers because they lost their pregnancies or children because of the abuse
• victims who became mothers as a result of rape or sexual abuse
• victims who are products of sexual assault

Today, I remember all of parts and identities that make us who we are and acknowledge all the stories our body holds.

I hope that it offers a sense of sanity and supports us identify whether we may be in this situation without knowing it. The first step is awareness, then naming it and getting the support we need to manage it.

 

 

Relephant Reads:

It’s Abuse When… {Poem}

Understanding the Patterns of Abuse: 8 Warning Signs.

Gaslighting: The Mind Game Everyone should Know About.

The Challenge of Co-Parenting with a Narcissist.

 

 

Author: Dayanara Marte

Editor: Renée Picard

Images: Simon Blackley/Flickr