How can you trust your former partner when you have been betrayed to badly?

Is it possible for them to be a good parent at the same time as an unfaithful partner?

More to the point, is it possible to trust them to be a good parent when they have been such a terrible partner or spouse.

The answer is of course YES, but this can be hard to admit when you have been hurt so badly, especially in the early days.

Why should you make life easy for them when you want them to know how much they have hurt you?

These feelings are all very understandable, but how you act on them is a very different matter.

How you act on your feelings is a choice, not an easy choice, I grant you, but a choice nonetheless, with consequences.

So, what can you do?

1. Seek professional therapeutic support to manage the intense feelings you are experiencing.
2. Ask a mediator to help you both communicate in a constructive, future focused way while managing the negative emotions you may be feeling about each other.
3. Decide not to react
4. When it come to your turn be honest and open, say what you want, mean and feel.
5. Actively and carefully listen to each other for concerns and things that are really important to you both

Concerns are gremlins which unless exposed and dealt with will reveal themselves at the most in opportune time and threaten to derail the mediation process.

Concern Gremlins- expose, disarm, disempower in mediation by discussing honestly and openly or risk self doubt, anxiety, worries ambushing mediated agreement

1. Ask questions to fully understand these things- Questions, questions
2. Make sure that the other parent knows that you have heard and understood them but offering genuine acknowledgement

(It is worth bearing in mind that without listening, you cannot hope to understand and without understanding you cannot begin the process of accepting what has happened and even, perhaps the part you may have played in this).

1. Explore ways of reassuring each other in respect of any concerns either of you may have.
2. Be willing to give each other the benefit of any doubt. Surprise the other parent
3. Be willing to consider options you may not have thought about and which may not have come from you- possibility thinking frees up the mind.
4. When considering what you want also consider how this affects the other parent.
5. Be willing to give up some things that you know are important to each other
6. Try out some arrangements without feeling bound by them.
7. Reflect on what has worked well as well as what has not worked well and why it has or hasn’t worked well, so that you can then agree changes to improve things.
8. Keep the children at the forefront of your minds remembering that they need you both to be communicating and co-operating in a positive and constructive way.

THIS WAY YOU WILL give yourselves a chance of building a positive and constructive parental relationship out of the partnership you once had.

Let’s face it, your children need you to do this for them.