Stop Talking To Your Ex

host Carl Knickerbocker. This episode we're talking about, do not get on the phone with your ex, stop the phone calls with your ex, there's no reason no reason to be having phone calls, or in person conversations. There's no need to be doing any of that with an ex, especially if your ex is high conflict, if they are showing signs of being

manipulative. If there are clear detachments from reality, when you're dealing with them, as in you say one thing, and then what gets reported back to you with some twisted version, if they have a history of lying, or continue showing a pattern of lying and distorting truth, if they have been gaslighting, if they have any kind of cluster B, personality disorder, if they have been acting with you in a very borderline or narcissistic way, a whole litany line of things, or even if you just want

to have space, because you need to have some space away from this person, it is okay to decide that conversations, phone calls in person talks, those sorts of things are inappropriate. And then you can set boundaries in order to enforce that preference. In order to enforce that rule, the thing that people don't often want to talk about after they've been divorced is the realization that they are divorced, you divorced this person for typically very, very good

reasons. The notion of having to then talk to them all the time is just insanity. When we continue talking to an ex, just because we have kids, it doesn't lead anywhere good. It is perfectly fine, perfectly okay to have a rule in place that says I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to define what type of communication we will have. And I define that as written communication only. And

then work to enforce it. Just say Nope, if there's anything that needs to be said, if there's any question, anything that actually involves the kids that I must, must must make a decision on, then that communication can come to me in the form of writing. And then you can say, it's either going to be email, or there are plenty of app options where all communications have to go through a special app. Those are typically worth their weight in gold because they are relatively

tamper proof. There's no way to go back and edit things in order to make it look like someone said something else and then print off a copy. That's misleading. People love to do that with emails or text messages. It's just a really good way. I prefer either using one of those apps such as our family wizard or some other

options. Email then is the second best choice not a big fan of exes being able to text because if you're moving on with life and trying to form new relationships and want to focus on your friendships and your circle of support, the last thing you need is your ex popping up in the middle of that all the time. You can, you know, send them over to the app, and they can choose to do the app and then you block them on

everything else. Look, there is no reason to be talking to your ex typically that is just the inability to let go of old patterns. People keep going back to the same behaviors because they're familiar. It's a high stress time you're going through a divorce, or even post divorce can be stressful as well as you're getting acclimated to the new routines and the new schedules what co parenting looks like building your new

life. And when people are under stress, they tend to go back to the things that are familiar. Unfortunately, one of the big things that is going to be familiar is having toxic conversations with a person who brings you down that hasn't been supportive, or that twist things around, uses them against you just just don't do it. Do not Do not Do not Do it on other practical levels. If you are moving on with life and you're wanting to form new relationships, you want to move on with new romantic

relationships. One of the biggest turn offs is going to be having your ex in your text messages or having your ex calling on the phone or Oh, excuse me, my new love, I need to go have this very dramatic chit chat with my narcissistic ex isn't that just so attractive? Just don't just don't don't don't do it. A lot of times, we will continue subjecting ourselves to phone calls, because we're afraid of what the court would think what

somebody else would think. But as long as you have a workable line of communication still left open, such as one of the apps or email, then that should suffice. There is no reason you have to get into back and forth arguing conversations or anything else with an axe, there is no reason why you need to expose yourself to an opportunity for them to say, Oh, well, she said this. And she said that and she said this other thing and let them make stuff up based on a conversation that they claim

they had with you. And then they can just make anything up that they want. Do not give them the opportunity to fabricate statements or fabricate conversations by shutting down all verbal communication completely. And only put things through one of the apps that are often very, very good for proving what was actually said in court, put it over to one of those there again worth it worth it worth it, whatever the

subscription prices are. So after a divorce, there is no reason to be talking to your ex, even during the divorce process, there is usually little to no reason to actually be talking to your ex. Usually that just leads to you getting verbally abused, or you spouting off and saying things that you shouldn't be saying the best rule of thumb is to just shut it down completely.

And then once you put stuff over into one of the apps or emails, then you can just narrow everything down with new rules that say, all right, I will only communicate whatever message I have in, you know, two sentences, four sentences, and that's it. Do not write the Epistle of grievances over to your ex do not respond to every single thing that they write. You can set boundaries even around the written

communications. So long story short, do not have conversations with your ex move on, there is a divorce, it's done time to adopt new behaviors time to adopt better ways. One of the best ways of moving forward is to drop all verbal communication, close all those doors for manipulation and for your words to get twisted around against you and move everything over to a secure written form. Again, no text messages, don't do that. Not a good idea. Because again, you don't want that blowing up

in your phone all the time. You want peace you want space you want room to heal, put it over into one of the apps, put it over into an email, if you put it over into email, then have it clearly marked where maybe invent a rule where those emails get dumped into a particular folder and then you only check them when you want. So set a time when you check that folder. If there's something that actually needs to be responded to you do if it doesn't need to

be responded to you don't. You get to choose when and you get to choose how it's a wonderful way of approaching communications from a high conflict or problematic acts. So as you move forward once again, do not have the conversations. You can have so much space, so much freedom, so much room to heal and move on. You can protect yourself, you can give yourself so much peace of mind by just not talking to your ex