After a divorce, ex-partners seem to become like different people, we have never known them like this. Some ex-partners make it their goal to make their ex's life miserable!

Before we go into condemning this behavior though, it is more constructive to think about what we can do about it. The army uses the saying "you have to know your enemy in order to win", and here it's very much the same. Ex-partners can have many motives to become spiteful, we talk about this in our newsletter.

If your ex persists in being very angry, be aware that she or he might try to alienate your children from you. Danger signals include children who are afraid for you, who don't want contact, who reject everything that has to do with you, and who are afraid to show affection to you when the other parent is around.

Most ex partners go through an angry stage. Luckily nothing lasts forever, and you will start to see improvement over time (unless you feel that your ex is hanging onto his or her anger).

Start to communicate with your ex in the moments that he or she is in a good mood. Put effort in discovering mutual interests. Make yourself a clear picture of what it means to put the children first, and talk it over with your ex.

Make a clear picture of how you see the interaction between your ex and you. You will always be parents of the same children, so you will have interaction for the rest of your lives, if you like it or not.

We all have days... Try to be patient and step into your ex's shoes from time to time. Life is not always easy, and just as you two probably blamed each other during your marriage, you will probably blame each other now as well, even for things the other is not responsible for. Claim your own baggage, so that you are not doing the same.

Allow your ex some room to be angry from time to time, just realize that it probably does not have anything to do with you. More than anything else, the habit of getting angry with the people closest to us cabe difficult to break. Getting aware of what is happening is the first step!

Don't forget that there is nothing such as "The Truth". We all have our own view on reality, acknowledge that fact and give each other space to see the things in your own way.

You are lucky, and so are your children. Most probably, you are not a difficult person as well, because our world is a mirror to ourselves.

If you and your ex commit to putting the kids first, and you both agree to the ways to put that committment into practice, you will be safe for most pitfalls.

You are in a difficult position.

If you are a woman: Most probably your "stepwife" feels insecure about the role you play in the lifes of her children and their father. When she talks negatively about you,  she will feel better and stronger, and she might even try to draw the kids into her battle against the enemy.

Sadly enough, fighting a common enemy gives a sense of closeness. Sometimes your stepwife's new partner will  join in the fight too, because he wants to show his loyalty to his new wife. needless to say that it are the children who pay the bill.

The solution is setting your own rules, and sticking to them. Take time to visualize a realistic goal for the communication between all adults involved. Make sure that you and your partner agree. And then just start playing YOUR game. Every time the other party does not stick to your rules, ignore them. Every time they show respect for your boundaries, reward that behavior. (For a practical guide see the free online course).

Stick to your own rules!

If you are a woman: It is often very threatening for a mother to see her ex with a new woman. She will be afraid that her children prefer the other "mother".

Try to understand her fears and reasons to be angry; these might include poor boundaries, revenge, guilt, insecurity and unwillingness to accept the divorce, amongst others. the moment you understand her anger, you will have a clue as how to improve the situation, especially with the kids in mind.

Make sure that you don't fall into the pitfall for stepmothers. Give everyone time and space to get used to the new situation, and show a high sense of empathy with your stepwife. make sure that you don't try to "do it better" or take her place as a mother to her children. Your's is a different position alltogether: be a good stepmom instead of a bad would-be-mom!

If you are a man: Men generally feel less threatened by the arrival of a new partner. They can be jealous though, and if you share your partner's battle against her ex, his anger will also turn onto you. Try to support your partner without fighting her battle. In a sound relationship, you don't have to join the battle in order to ingratiate yourself to your partner. Loyalty does not mean lack of boundaries and autonomy in thinking. 

Everyone has a right to have days when you prefer to stay in the bed with the duvet over your head. Allow yourself and others those days, just forget it. Make an effort to communicate on moments that everyone is in a good mood. Pay attention to the good moments: you are lucky that most of the time you are having a good relationship with each other.

Keep building the fundament for good communication. pay attention to your common goals, especially regarding the children.

If you yourself have a bad day: Tell your family. Don't pretend that everything is OK if it isn't, just tell them that you're having a bad day, and that tomorrow will be better. Communicating your feelings gives you trustworthiness!

Lucky you!

Make sure that you keep the relationship open and respectful. Keep working on good communication.

Talk about the goals you have in mind for the children you take care of, together with all the other adults involved.

Make a plan!

New partners have a difficult position. Depending on how they started this new relationship, they might have feelings of guilt or insecurity, or they might think that they will do everything better.

If a new partner joins the battle of his/her new spouse, this  increases their feeling of closeness. The more problems they encounter in their new relationship, the more they will be tempted to fight against "others", in this case you. Fighting a common enemy distracts them from their own problems!

Don't condemn this behavior. Try understand the reasons, for this will help you to improve the situation. Make sure that you keep your own boundaries clear. Set your own rules to play the game, including respect and putting the kids first, and stick to them. We teach others how to treat us, so rule by example!

If you are a woman, be aware: the "normal" stepwife-conflict is probably be the case. That means that neither you nor she is right. You two have a totally different outlook on the situation, and you will only be able to resolve your problems, if you are willing to step into each other's shoes. look on http://stepfamilyheaven.com for an explanation of the stepwife conflict.

It is very normal to have some adversities between and your partner's new spouse.

If you are a man, you are probably getting entangled in the struggle your wife is having with her ex: he might be giving trouble with paying for his children, or he is giving you both a hard time otherwise. I can give you only one advice. stay out of the war zone. Support your partner, but don't get involved in the fight. The fight is never about money, or other tangible things such as the amount of time the children spend with their father. The fight is raging because these two people are still emotionally entangled. If you want to give your relationship a chance, you will first have to give your spouse and her ex a chance to finish their relationship.

If your spouse holds on to her anger, you might ask yourself what makes her doing so. Somewhere she feels guilty, abandoned, insecure, revengeful, or some other feeling which make her want to hold on to her anger. Help her to untangle her emotions and get finally free to get into a fully grown emotional relationship with you.

Fighting her fight will make you feel temporally better, because it distracts you from your own problems. Don't fall into that trap.

If you are a woman, you will play a role in the screenplay "The Stepwife Saga". If you want or not, women always have strong feelings regarding children, their own or their partner's. Get more information about the Stepwife conflict at http://stepfamilyheaven.com.

Good for you! If your extended stepfamily-members are not giving you a hard time, it means that you are most probably quite balanced too.

Under changing circumstances (new partners arriving, children growing up) things might change, so use this phase to establish a clear communication between all adults involved.  Establish routines for information exchange, so you can rely on them when times get rough.

Work together on a plan for the children: what values do you want the children to grow up with. Make sure that the biological parents are the ones deciding, and the stepparents are the ones supporting this.

Lucky you!

Make sure that you respect each other's boundaries, draw up a communal plan for the upbringing of the children.

Make sure you both understand exactly what role you play in the children's lifes, and support each other's efforts in being a good role-model for the children.

The children will be grateful for the rest of their lifes.

What do you expect...

The children have gone through a time of dramatic changes, they feel their basis in life has crumbled, they have trouble being loyal to both parents, they experience probably on of the worst things you can experience in your life: that the two people you love most are fighting each other.

Step into their shoes, use all the empathic power you can dig up, and try to understand.

None of their anger and difficult behavior has to do with you. You are just the one who happens to be nearest. If the children are your biological children, be proud: it means that they dare to be difficult with you around. Children will only play up if they feel secure! If one of the parents shows conditional love, the children will opt to be horrid towards the other, unconditionally loving parent.

If you are their stepparent: It is nothing personal. Even though it might be difficult to accept from time to time; You are the one who is in the place where their other parent should have been. Don't mix up the role-play with the people. Take courage: Sooner or later they will start to see you as a person, and everything you do now to create a basis of understanding and accepting friendship, will pay off 10 times. Be sure to have a clearly defined role-model for yourself, be a good stepparent. Don't try to become a better mother than their own mother, or a better father than their own father! Acknowledge their relationship and love with their biological parent, and support their ways to nurture that relationship.

Focus on the moments which are fine. Make sure that you ignore the difficult phases as much as you can, and reward any positive behavior. It does not matter what age the children are, even with adults this is the way to get the behavior you would like.

Set your rules, and stick to them yourself too.

Children are the ones who suffer most: they often have to live in two different family-homes, they see the two people they love most fight with each other...

Use your empathic power as much as you can, and enjoy those moments in which everything works.

When the children are creating trouble, don't forget that they are in the roleplay too. They will not like the stepparent from the beginning, because a stepparent means that dad and mom are not getting back together. They will try to please the most difficult parent, the one with the least unconditional love. If someone only lives you conditionally, you have to fight for the love, and children will fight for the love of a parent, no matter what.

If that means that they are being difficult towards you, be proud: You are apparently the parent with the biggest heart and the most unconditional love to give.

Separate the roleplay from the people, and be patient. Sooner or later the children will start to see people behind the roles too.

Luckily! If children are never difficult, it is time for red alert. Normal, healthy children will test boundaries and try new things.

Relax, ignore the bad spells, and enjoy the good moments.

Your family is a good place to be as a child!

Be sure to maintain the emotional relationship you have with your children. Be authentic, open, act with integrity. Children have sensitive antennae for dishonesty, even if it is for the sake of peace in the family.

Children will copy your behavior, so make sure that you yourself show the behavior now, that you want your children to have when they are grown-up!

This could be Red Alert. Children ought to be obnoxious and difficult from time to time. Are the children feeling safe and protected? Talk to them, ask them, talk to their teachers and friend's parents.

Make sure that your family is a safe place to fall, where children can experiment, test out boundaries and make mistakes. You don't want them to do that outside your home, do you?

Be authentic and open, act with integrity. Depending on the age of the children, talk to them or use didactic materials to find out their feelings. (For didactic materials: see http://stepfamilyheaven.com)

Somewhere along the line something went very wrong...

If a biological parent feels that he or she has to choose between his/her partner and his/her kids, somebody has not been open and honest to start with. It might be you, or your new partner.

If your new partner got into a relationship with you, being a  divorced parent, (s)he should have known that the kids (and the ex-partner!) are in the package deal. Dreams about an own little family, with just own children and the partner, living happily ever after... Just forget about it.

It is up to you to make that clear. Of course you will be afraid to loose your new love, but I can assure you: If you feel now that you have to choose, this will only get worse if you don't take action. Your family will be a coming and going of children, your partner's ex will play a role in your life, your ex will play a role too. Hard as it may sound, I urge you to talk it over openly and honestly.

No one can ever ask you, as a biological parent, to choose between your children and them. Even if they would "win", then still everybody would loose in the end.

Make sure that you transmit the message clearly: your put your children first, and you expect the same of your partner.

If you realize this after your relationship became a committed one, you don't have much choice. You either accept it as it is, or you go.

That's a bad place  to be in.

Make sure that you start talking about what is important to you. Make sure that you and your partner understand what it means "to put the children first". Instead of focusing on what is lacking, start to focus on what is there in abundance. Make sure that you and your partner develop a common goal in life regarding the upbringing of your children.

Set some time apart to be together too. A parent does not have to be around his/her children a hundred percent of the time. Make sure that you spend time together, that you draw plans up together. Start dreaming about your future, but do it together. 

As long as there are only 24 hours in a day we will have to make choices. Make sure that your choices are balanced. Spend quality time with everyone, one by one. Don't treat your children as one group, don't assume that your partner feels the same towards spending time with the children. Talk about what everyone feels as being quality time, and commit yourself to keeping your promises.

Be open and honest, and you will find a way. You're almost there!

Congratulations: You did find a way to unite your children's needs with the needs of your new partner. You were very lucky finding a new partner who did understand that you came in a package deal, together with your children and your ex.

Stay open, make sure that you are aware of signals from your family members that they want to spend more quality time with you. Be proud, but don't fall asleep :-)

Don't talk about problems with your ex.

It's simple as that: Talk as little as possible about the problems you encounter with any of your ex-partners. Preferably you don't even read the e-mails, you don't listen in to the telephone calls, you just don't get involved in any fight going on.

Support your partner from a healthy distance, you will be so much more effective. It will do your relationship only good. You also avoid falling in the trap of blaming and fighting the common enemy. This will give you a good feeling to start off with, but over time it wil distract you from your own challenges in your relationship. So just don't do it.

Sure you talk about your problems at work. It is way better than talking about you ex. Don't overdo it though.

Whatever you focus on, you will get more of.

You don't want more problems, so strat talking about solutions instead. talk about your dreams, your opportunities, ways to spend more time with your family. Just shift to the positive side and start inventing new roads towards new goals.

Sure, running a household can be quite a task. Make sure you bring balance in your communication though. Talk as little as possible about problems. Start talking about opportunities, solutions, challenges, dreams, the future.

Whatever you focus on, you will get more of.

So guard your thoughts and your tongue.

80% of your time talking together should be spend on your dreams and goals. Spend some time on practicalities too. Don't talk at all about fights with your ex, just ignore that as much as you can.

You're on the right track!

Make sure you draw plans together, find out what you want in life, ind out what basis you want to give your children. Discover what you both want from your relationship. be open and honest, it will pay off.

Sure, you talk on everything.

Use a sheet of paper, and jot down how much time you spend on talking about different subjects during one week. Make a new plan:

Spend 80% on talking about your plans and dreams

Spend 20% on talking about practicalities and work

Spend 0% on trouble with your ex

And you'll find yourself happier, more peaceful, and in a better relationship straight away.

Start now!

Good for you, you need at least half an hour together per day. It takes some 10 minutes to get in sync, just sit and breathe in the same rythm.

After that you can use a simple technique for your communication: First one partner vents his/her thoughts during 5 minutes, the other one does not interrupt. then the other one takes the turn. After 10 minutes you are both quiet for 3 minutes, and then you can give feedback on what has been said.

Just try it, you will see how much easier you exchange thoughts and feelings this way. It will become a habit very fast.

Good for you that you spend time together already. You do need at least half an hour together per day to make things work though.

It takes some 10 minutes to get in sync, just sit and breathe in the same rythm.

After that you can use a simple technique for your communication: First one partner vents his/her thoughts during 5 minutes, the other one does not interrupt. then the other one takes the turn. After 10 minutes you are both quiet for 3 minutes, and then you can give feedback on what has been said.

Just try it, you will see how much easier you exchange thoughts and feelings this way. It will become a habit very fast.

Good for you that you spend time together already. You do need at least half an hour together per day to make things work though.

It takes some 10 minutes to get in sync, just sit and breathe in the same rythm.

After that you can use a simple technique for your communication: First one partner vents his/her thoughts during 5 minutes, the other one does not interrupt. then the other one takes the turn. After 10 minutes you are both quiet for 3 minutes, and then you can give feedback on what has been said.

Just try it, you will see how much easier you exchange thoughts and feelings this way. It will become a habit very fast.

Good for you that you spend time together already. You do need at least half an hour together per day to make things work though.

It takes some 10 minutes to get in sync, just sit and breathe in the same rythm.

After that you can use a simple technique for your communication: First one partner vents his/her thoughts during 5 minutes, the other one does not interrupt. then the other one takes the turn. After 10 minutes you are both quiet for 3 minutes, and then you can give feedback on what has been said.

Just try it, you will see how much easier you exchange thoughts and feelings this way. It will become a habit very fast.