Dealin' with the Exes

In this episode, Randy and Beverly discuss how to handle the touchy subject of interactions with ex-partners, especially when kids are involved. You can't just block 'em and walk away. Whether it's scheduling custody handoffs or providing details about an important event, you're going to have to communicate with your ex and then you're going to want to communicate about that communication with your current partner. How everyone reacts in these situations will impact your current relationship. From anger to jealousy, there can be a lot of emotions involved when our mate's former mate is prowling around.  

Heart Versus Head is a podcast about relationship styles and how those relationship styles influence communication in the most important relationships. The hosts - Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock - are a married couple who are sought-after relationship coaches, award-winning authors and regular people who (like everyone in relationships) are just trying to stay connected through all the noise of life in the modern world. You can learn more about the couple and their work at HeartAndHeadCoaching.com, where you'll learn to fight better and connect again.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to Heart vs. Head, a podcast that helps couples communicate and fight better. Here are your hosts, Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock.

SPEAKER_02: 0:21

Hey everybody, it's Randy and Beverly. Welcome to the Heart vs. Head podcast today. A couple of things going on. Two angry cats running around here. So if you hear them, I'm just going to apologize for them instead of trying to make them stay quiet. Also, there's a rooster outside our window today. And roosters, if you've ever been to Hawaii, the feral chickens are epic. And this particular rooster does not know how to tell time. So if you hear that in the Hi, Beverly. Hey. How are you? Good. So nice to sit here and hang out with you. We got an email this week from a listener, and so we wanted to take a question from one of our listeners. And as always, if you've got an idea, a question, a thought, send it to info at heartandheadcoaching.com, and we'll try and take a look at it and do so in such a manner as to not out you on the internet with your relationship. trouble, therefore confidential. But let's read an email from a listener in the great state of Colorado. I find myself dating a really great guy. We both have kids and are divorced about three to four years out. The one topic that we've set up boundaries around is vomiting our frustration about our ex-partners onto each other. I say, let's not drag that onto us. Gross. We both agree, but sometimes it's part of our lives. We need a safe and supportive place to vent. We're trying a timer if the ex- comes up in conversation, we set a 10-minute timer. When that goes off, we move on, period. We want to be conscious about not letting the exes bleed onto our relationship, but they are a real part of our lives. We both have kids, school age, and the ex isn't completely moving on for a while because of that. We'd love more ideas on how to navigate this in healthy ways. Also, I shared your podcast with my So thank you, Colorado, for the email and the topic for today's podcast. How the heck do you deal with the exes? Well, and this couple has

SPEAKER_01: 2:49

both sides.

SPEAKER_02: 2:50

Right. And that's even a bigger challenge when you've got bunches of kids and you're trying to blend all that together and deal with the past and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 2:59

So let's start with what they're doing right now. Right. What we, I think, would agree with, and that would be setting the limits, the time limits is a good idea, setting a timer. That way the partner is respected and not just spending unlimited amounts of time rehashing or going back over perhaps something in the day. It's also healthy for the person who is getting emotional. As the email says, sometimes the emotion comes up with the talk. And that would be a bad idea because that can do a lot of flooding to your new partner. And it can not only be heavy, but it's also kind of confusing.

SPEAKER_02: 3:44

Because of the way our mind works as humans, and this is true, when you go through a breakup, if there's trauma in that breakup, you're going to have a bit of fight or flight reaction to that as a protective response. And when you have a fight or flight response, recognize that fight is anger and this is the route people often take when they get out of a relationship in order to protect themselves from hurt we just kind of naturally make the ex a bad person now i'm not saying everybody's ex is great but they're probably not as bad as we have to make them in our mind to manage getting out of that relationship i think some of what we do is is have a natural protective response toward our own ex. And then we have a partner. And so when we're talking to our partner, our teammate, the person that's on our page, that tendency is to try to get them maybe on our side. And we want that person that will agree with us when we go, oh, he or she, my ex is being totally irrational about the kids going on that camping trip this summer. And you You know, we're getting that argument with our ex and then we want our partner to kind of jump in and side with us. Yeah, absolutely. They're probably going

SPEAKER_01: 5:42

to let you down, too. Or even the question about, will this person talk about me behind my back? Because gossip and talking about others isn't a great trait either.

SPEAKER_02: 6:19

Sure. And it's about how do we keep our sanity with our ex-partner while keeping our integrity as a person? Because you're right, Beverly, if all I do is complain about that person, that person, that person, and they were my partner, and look how they let me down, look how they let me down, look how they let me down, it's only natural that the new partner is going to analyze their role in the current relationship going, oh my goodness, wait till I let this person down. This is going to be terrible and they're going to deal with it with anger. And we start putting that X, that X's baggage right back on our train and it doesn't need to be there. We're going to compare our partner's X to ourself. It's a Yeah. What's problematic in that is it can make us defensive for our partner's ex. We can actually begin to identify with the ex, and that's not helpful either. They become the underdog. Yeah, and you don't want to be cheering for that underdog. Let me tell you, it does not help your relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 7:55

It makes you also wonder, are they really over them? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:59

That's what we know about our partner's ex is at some point our partner connected with them. And so there is going to be this natural thing on our own part to go, oh, well, they had something. Maybe they still do. Maybe it could come back. And I think in a lot of ways, that's an insecurity or a fear. Maybe it's driven by our own past and our own previous relationships and all of those things. But when it's That's an insecurity and a fear. That's really important to talk about. So like you, Beverly, I like the timer concept. It's important, I think, for this couple, the listeners, to dive a little deeper into it. Why do you avoid talking about it? Do you avoid talking about it because somebody, one of you gets angry or frustrated? Is that anger or frustration coming from an insecurity? Is it coming from a comparison? Is it coming because your partner plays devil's advocate and takes your ex's side? Is it coming from your own fear and your own experiences? It's kind of important to be able to talk about these things. Yeah, there needs to be boundaries and limits, but you've got to be able to talk to your partner about kind of why this tension is coming up. Why is it so difficult?

SPEAKER_01: 9:32

I think the most proactive thing is to set a goal as a couple to talk about those exes, since they each have one, to talk about them in a more neutral way. Because if we can set that goal, it's not only good for the kids, because let's face it, if we're that angry or upset still, and the venting has to come out periodically, it's possible that we're going to make a mistake and say something in front of the kids It's just easier if we set a boundary around being more neutral and whenever we talk about the ex. And it just makes it easier once we make that choice, whether it's the kids, our ex, family, friends, anyone, that we're just being more neutral.

SPEAKER_02: 10:30

We had a podcast episode a few back called They're All Space Aliens. And it really kind of is useful in this regard to recognize that your relationship with your ex didn't work out. That's okay. You probably, if you're like the rest of us, learned a bunch. You learned what you don't want in your relationship, how you don't want to be treated in your relationships. You learned some things from that relationship and that experience that will actually make you better in your current relationship. If you can talk about your ex and your past relationship in a way that shows that you're learning to be a better partner, a better person yourself, then by all means, keep talking about it. If you're just talking about your ex to rip them for being the way they are, then that's probably where the timer's a darn fine idea because it's just unnecessary chatter and noise in your own relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 11:27

Another way to be more positive would be to differentiate between just venting and or problem solving. It's one thing to say, oh, my ex just changed the schedule again. Now we're not going to see each other this weekend. I'm really bummed about that. That person is so frustrating, how inconsistent they are. Once that venting occurs, then you can help that person to say, well, let's work on how to handle this. If that's a given, schedule's changed, can't do anything about it, let's brainstorm together, okay, what else can we do? If we can't see each other on the weekend, maybe do a couple nights during the week instead, or one of us maybe take a day off so we can actually see each other on a different day. So there's a lot of ways that we can problem solve which is a more positive way to spend time than to just sit there and do the venting, which again, I think is very draining and eventually gets old. I always ask to before venting, because sometimes if we're both having a bad day, and I just start unloading without checking in and saying, hey, do you have the energy to let me vent for a few minutes? I really had a bad encounter. I'd like to burn some We've

SPEAKER_02: 12:49

talked about this before too, and heads so, so important. I think that is our natural tendency is to want to jump in when our partner comes to us and goes, oh, my ex is a dip and they did this and they did that and they made me angry. Our tendency is to want to jump in there and fix that. And man, there is enough trouble in our lives to not need to be jumping in trying to fix old relationships, the years and years together, children together, and probably some counseling at least towards the end together. couldn't fix, and why do we think we're going to jump in and fix it now that everybody's angry and money's going back and forth in monthly payments and stuff? Don't spend the time trying to fix your partner's ex, especially trying to work through your partner. Ask. If they just need to vent, let them vent, and you'll be probably much happier in your relationship if there is something that needs to be fixed I'd like to

SPEAKER_01: 14:35

mention that not all exes have this negative situation. This couple that comes to mind, the problem was that there was only really one partner that was dealing with a divorce, working out custody, and was having to talk to the ex. The new partner said that the frustration was that they were such good friends still, that perhaps they're sharing dinner at night and the Text is going off of their partner's phone. Who is that? And it ends up, oh, it's just my ex. She's just sending me a meme that's funny. And it's almost like they're two good friends. I understand if you need to talk to your ex about calendar or payments or those logistical type details, but to have this kind of friendly banter or texting going on, communication beyond that, I think So if

SPEAKER_02: 15:45

you don't go into fight-or-flight mode, if there's not trauma at the end of your last relationship, you just decided in an adult kind of way that this other adult person and you weren't meant to be partners and, okay, fine, we can't live together, we drive each other crazy, we're splitting up, and you do that, and then those two people are able to get along and all those things, great. However, it puts that pressure on. If you're too close, too familiar with each other, You're definitely going to run up against the issues of that new partner looking and going, well, why in the heck are you with me? You seem to like them still. Naturally, some jealousy from the new partner would not be surprising.

SPEAKER_01: 16:29

Another boundary violation where we've got to rein that in and find that space that is comfortable for both partners. Now, I believe that one of the reasons he was keeping his ex close with texting and communicating still was that he just felt it was going to make the child... Are you saying that that

SPEAKER_02: 17:00

head partner would use manipulation as a way to manage the stressful things in their life, like custody and all those things? Wow, really? Unheard of. That's exactly why that partner was keeping their ex close. I'm trying to remember. I think it was 10 years ago. Teddy Roosevelt, who when he was setting up his cabinet, he put a bunch of people on his cabinet that were like his political enemies. And people said, oh my gosh, why would you pick that person? That person doesn't even like you. And Teddy Roosevelt said, well, I'd rather have them in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. And I think that's probably the approach that this person was taking to dealing and managing the ex. But it does cross a boundary line potentially if you're not communicating with your current partner about it. I don't know that we've helped Colorado out all that much. And thank you for the email. That's super cool. And what I would say is what you're doing, if it's working for you, cool. Keep doing that. Just keep talking to your partner. And if you've got a way to manage it and it's a timer and it's 10 minutes here and it just kind of runs under that rule and everybody's OK. Hey, Good. Do that. You're doing great. Every relationship is different. Every partner is different. We're all going to find out different ways as we go along. And you're going to have to pick the balance. Where does your partner need you to be? Somewhere between playing devil's advocate and taking their ex's side all the way up to the possibility that you're out hiring a contract killer to solve their problem for them. There's a whole range of things that you can do. I did not just suggest that, by the way, that was more sarcasm. Just don't get too emotionally involved in your partner's dealings with their ex, because when your emotions become involved in it, then you've got too much at stake in their relationship. And their relationship, for God's sakes, is complicated enough without us being in it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:19

I think the coaching advice that I said earlier around trying to be more neutral. It really does help everyone involved because someday those children, even if they're small, they're going to grow up, they're going to get married, they're going to have babies, there's going to be grandchildren. And that means there's weddings and birthdays and graduations and all these events and things where you and your partner are going to be there and all the exes or those exes will be there. And I think the more neutral we can keep things, then we can very civil and all get along in those environments. Whereas if it's always you and your partner against the ex and you're always on team partner and just always very negative toward that ex and feeling that negative energy, then the next time there's an event, it's going to be really hard to not bring that negative energy to the event. And so I think the more that you can talk with your partner around being more new neutralizing the situation. I think it's really just best for everyone.

SPEAKER_02: 20:31

That is the podcast for today. Thanks everybody. If like Colorado, you want to kick us an email, ask a question, please feel free to do so. Info at heartandheadcoaching.com. Beverly, as soon as I like turn this machine off over here and then we'll go sit on the couch and stare into each other's eyes. It'll be awesome. Thanks everybody.

SPEAKER_00: 20:55

Thanks for listening to Heart vs. Head. You can learn more at heartandheadcoaching.com and check out new podcast episodes every Wednesday. If you have a question for Randy and Beverly, send an email to info at heartandheadcoaching.com.