Co-Parenting Under Pressure: How Emotion Regulation Can Make or Break It (from a co-parenting therapist in Riverside CA)

Co-Parenting Counseling in Riverside, CA: Why Emotion Regulation Matters

Emotional regulation plays an extremely important role in co-parenting and emotion regulation skills can be crucial for every phase of the co-parenting process. Emotion regulation is a significant predictor of how successfully anyone manages everyday life and tends to show up as most problematic in relationships. If you are imagining yourself in the midst of a separation/divorce, It’s not a crazy guess that you’re also imagining all the negative feelings associated with the idea. The loss of the partner, the grief of a partnership that's ending, the heartache of rejection, the guilt of the decision, the fear of the impact on the kids and the anxiety about affording life on one income? Saddled with so many negative emotions, it's so easy to fall into despair and mismanage our responsibilities to our kids.

So many clients resist the idea of separation/divorce due to what we think it will do to our kids and much of the time, we assume we are saving them from turmoil by avoiding the prospect of it. Avoiding the emotional experience is not the same thing as emotional regulation, it doesn’t just go away. This is also true in co-parenting, we need to attend to those emotions intentionally and choose our behaviors carefully. Emotion regulation precedes behavioral control, and that has impacts on our choice of words, our attempts at communication with both ex-partners and kids, as well as how we talk to ourselves. Individuals and couples that struggle with emotion regulation before separation/divorce, will undoubtedly struggle with it post separation/divorce, as the conditions are even more ripe with negative emotions.

Online Couples Counseling in California: Emotional Challenges Don’t End with Separation

Another way emotion regulation impacts the effectiveness in co-parenting is negative emotions contribution to clouding or ability to recognize the difference between spouse issues and child issues. If we cannot properly regulate our emotions, we may make some of the parenting mistakes we fear most by accidentally including our issues with the ex-partner in areas where the children become witness or responsible to them. The role of emotion regulation is to limit the emotional influence of our decision making and help us discern the difference more clearly between our focus is most effective, adult to adult, or adult to child communication. Having well honed emotional regulation skills helps us make fewer mistakes in this arena, and may be one of the biggest levers we can pull to protect our children from damaging or child inappropriate issues as well as provide them with the space to continue doing what they do best, being kids.

Couples Therapy in Riverside and Murrieta, CA: Support Beyond Separation

There are a ton of moving parts, concepts to consider, hurdles to prepare for and emotions to process and amongst the chaos of the changing family structure associated with co-parenting we often find ourselves isolated and alone in the struggle. One thing that is not talked about enough is the support that therapists can provide to individuals, couples and co-parents. It is not atypical to see couples in therapy decide they have enough information to pursue separation/divorce and the support does not need to end when this decision gets made, if anything, it can be more important after this decision has been reached to continue leveraging support from couples therapists, especially if you or your partner struggle with emotion regulation. Remember that co-parenting is still a type of relationship and it needs similar skills to navigate effectively and for as long as your children are depending on you for co-support, their wellbeing can be a very strong “why” to seek support and give them our best.

Quality marriage counseling in Riverside CA, Temecula CA, online couples counseling in California, and couples retreats in California

At Inland Empire Couples Counseling we offer the best marriage counseling we can! Our couples therapists are trained in helping couples heal from infidelity, substance use in relationships, childhood trauma, communication skills, as well as providing the LGBTQIA+ community with pride counseling. We have online couples counseling in California. We have couples therapy in Riverside, CA. We also have marriage counseling in Murrieta CA or the Temecula Valley. For a deeper experience focused on rejuvenation and reconnection, consider booking one of our couples retreats in California. Please reach out for help by clicking the button below to schedule a free 15 minute consultation with our Intake Coordinator.

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