Talking about your ex in front of your children

Since leaving my husband over eight years ago, I’ve made a point of never talking in a negative way about him in front of my daughter.

The reason I have done this is because she had nothing to do with what happened between us, so therefore why should I involve her in the issues we had?

I feel really strongly about parents who try to hurt their ex through their children – it really is a form of child abuse in my opinion.

Of course there are some cases where a child is not safe to be around your ex partner, and I’m not referring to people in this situation, although I do believe the problems associated with this situation really should be dealt with professionally.

In most other cases however, your children probably feel a sense of love and loyalty towards your ex. In my situation, my ex was still my daughter’s father, and nothing I could do or say could change that.

By saying terrible things about him to her, I would have done little more than create confusion for her and I really don’t think that is fair to her at all.

Yes, he treated me badly, but what right do I have to make her sad and confused because of what he did to me?

The other day she asked me why I left him all those years ago. I didn’t want to lie to her of course, but I did have to say something, so I told her I left him because he didn’t treat me the way I deserved to be treated and that I hoped he had learned to treat his current partner well.

She told me he had learned his lesson and they were no longer fighting all of the time (yep, it took him a while to wake up to himself!).

Trying to put things in a positive way to her has therefore meant I have a beautiful, well-adjusted daughter who knows she is loved by a lot of people in various families!