Why High-Conflict Co-Parenting Feels Like You’re Still Married

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]So, I'm sitting at the soccer field this evening, and I'm watching my daughter play her game with the other three kids with me, and I come and I put up my tent cuz it's like, you know, 85° and sunny outside, and we're in Minnesota, so I'm like melting like I've died. And so, my ex-husband comes and he puts [crying] up his tent right next to my tent, right? And as we're sitting here and we're watching the game and like, he's got the kids going back and forth between the two tents, and I'm sitting in front of one in the shade, I literally thought to myself, like there's the same amount of positive affection and goodwill between us right now in a insanely high-conflict co-parenting situation as there was when we were married.

[00:00:42]So, like as fake as I felt in that moment smiling, "Hey, Lilly's friends' parents."

[00:00:49]It's about what it was like being married to him. So, in that sense, in the last 6 years of my life, like literally nothing has changed.