It's Not a Bad Breakup, It's Post-Separation Abuse

Source: pixabay/cocoparisienne

Parents and caregivers who have children with their abuser are often told to "co-parent," "compromise," or "get along for the children." These comments often come from well-meaning but ill-informed observers who fail to see the bigger picture of what is taking place: a parent trying to parallel parent with someone who is undermining their efforts, in what mental health and psychological abuse experts refer to as Counter Parenting. Unless they know the full situation, it is easy for outside observers to refer to both parents as "high conflict," or view the situation as simply drama from a bad breakup.

But they have it wrong. Those who see the abuse taking place and refer to it as “drama” or “just between the two of you” are unknowingly participating in the abuse of the target by casting them in the same light as their abuser. Placing shared blame on the couple, such as referring to it as “a high-conflict divorce” or “a bad breakup,” takes the responsibility off the abuser and places it on the couple as a shared unit—almost like the target asked for this or was contributing to it somehow.

Our courts often use the term "high-conflict divorce" as synonymous with "bad breakup," but both terms imply mutual involvement and conflict from both parties. In reality, usually it is one party creating the conflict, with the other trying to move away from it.

When one person is trying to move on with their life and escape from the grasp of another who wants nothing but to embarrass and harass them, this is not “drama,” and it is certainly not a “bad breakup": It is post-separation domestic abuse. Placing blame where it is due holds abusers accountable in a world that too often fails to do just that.

Parents struggle every day to parallel-parent with an ex who takes every chance to counter-parent, embarrass, and derail their efforts at progress. "Domestic abusers act the role of a loving and caring parent who wants to have half-time or more with their children when their true goal is to maintain a continuous route for harassing their ex-partners" (Aronson Fontes, 2022).

Society struggles to understand domestic abuse outside of physical violence. As most domestic abuse laws focus on physical violence, they leave room for stalking, harassment, and other forms of psychological abuse. Because these abuses are non-physical, and therefore seen as less important, law enforcement is unable to articulate a need for restraint against a person who is only appearing to be “bothering” another. Without knowledge of the patterns and how they progress, society reinforces nonphysical domestic violence by allowing it to continue for so long that by the time the victim gets protection, if they do, they are often so embarrassed, exhausted, and traumatized by the process of seeking protection that the damage is already done.

We are well into the digital age. We have cars that drive themselves, and phones that operate via our fingerprints and facial recognition, and yet our court system operates as if technology were still in the '90s. Abusers today have more tools than ever to abuse their victims, and the court system has not caught up to them yet, so they are free to continue to abuse using the internet and other means. As long as an abuser does not walk up to someone’s door or physically harm someone, they are free to continue their actions, and they know this. They knowingly operate in a gray area of the law. We have to do better.