Divorce, Separation & Co-Parenting
Your Relationship Is Changing. Your Family Is Changing With It.
Ending a relationship is hard enough. When you have children together, there’s another layer to almost every decision: How do we help them through this, too?
You’re grieving, angry, hurt, relieved, or uncertain while making decisions about schedules, homes, holidays, school, finances, and what to tell your children. At the same time, you’re trying to create a new kind of relationship with someone you are still emotionally separating from.
And through all of it, you both remain parents to children you love.
Co-Parenting Means Building a Different Relationship
You don’t have to become friends or agree about everything to co-parent well.
We’ll work toward communication that’s clearer and less emotionally charged, boundaries that fit your new relationship, and ways to recognize when pain from the past is entering a parenting conversation in the present.
We’ll also think together about what your children may need as they adjust. That can include helping them feel secure in both homes, giving them room for complicated feelings, and supporting their relationship with each parent without asking them to manage the relationship between you.
The goal is finding a way of parenting together that feels more manageable, predictable, and centered on the children you both love.
You Don’t Stop Being a Family When You Stop Being a Couple
The romantic relationship is ending, but your parenting relationship continues.
That transition can be incredibly difficult. A conversation about schedules can touch an old hurt. You see your children’s needs differently, or disagree about rules, routines, holidays, or what comes next.
Your children are adjusting, too. They feel sad, angry, confused, anxious, relieved, or many things at once. They have questions they don’t know how to ask, and they worry about how each parent is doing.
Everyone in the family is finding their way through something new.
Your Family Can Find a New Way Forward
Over time, the relationship between you can begin to feel different. A conversation about the children can simply be about the children. You can disagree without every disagreement becoming connected to the relationship that ended.
And your children can begin to learn something important, too: their family has changed, but they haven’t lost their family.
You don’t have to know exactly how to do this yet, and you certainly don’t have to do it perfectly. Your relationship as a couple is ending. Together, we can work toward a new way of being a family.
Book a free consultation to talk about support through separation, divorce, and co-parenting.
Let’s meet for a free consultation, and we’ll start from where you are.
- Call(707) 953-0790
- Emailesmith@woodsongtherapy.net
- Office659 Cherry Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95404