The High-Conflict Ex

You tried. You kept your texts short. You showed up early. You said nice things about her to the kids. And every exchange is still a fight, every message is still a trap, and you’re starting to wonder whether this will ever end.

For some families, it doesn’t end on its own. A minority of separated parents remain locked in serious conflict for years, long after most families have settled into a workable routine, and their children carry it. Co-parenting advice written for reasonable people doesn’t work when one parent — or both — can’t stop fighting.

There’s another way. It’s called parallel parenting, and it’s built for exactly this: two households, two sets of routines, minimal contact, maximum structure, and children who stop being the battlefield.

I’m a licensed therapist with more than twenty years of practice in high-conflict co-parenting, family reunification, and family court. I’m also a divorced father. This book is what I’ve learned about how fathers survive a high-conflict ex, protect their kids from the crossfire, and stay the kind of dad their children can count on — without becoming the thing they’re fighting.

You’ll learn how to tell what kind of conflict you’re actually in, why the label “narcissist” helps less than you think, how to write messages that can’t be fought with, how to build a parenting plan that leaves nothing to argue about, what to do when your kids get pulled into the middle, how to respond to accusations, and when it’s worth going back to court.

You can’t control her. You can control almost everything else.