When You’re Constantly Triggered by Your Coparent

If you’re constantly being triggered by your coparent, it can feel exhausting. One message, one comment, one decision they make or one unexpected situation can completely change your mood and have you questioning yourself all over again. You might find yourself angry, frustrated, defensive or desperate to get answers. And when this keeps happening, it can feel like you’re never moving forward, and your stuck in this toxic cycle for life.

But here’s the thing: you’re going to keep getting triggered until you understand what is actually being triggered.

Each time your coparent does something that makes you react in a not so positive way, that's a mirror to your wounds, the hurt and beliefs that you haven’t fully worked through yet. It might bring up feelings of rejection, not being good enough, not being heard, needing to prove yourself, needing their validation or feeling like you have no control. And when those old wounds get activated, it’s very easy to fall straight back into the patterns you developed during the relationship.

You start chasing answers. You expect your coparent to communicate or behave a certain way. You over-explain yourself. You try to prove your point. You people-please. You become defensive. You lose confidence in yourself. You start questioning whether you’re doing the right thing.

But being triggered is also an opportunity to stop and actually look at what is happening.

Instead of immediately reacting, ask yourself: What is this bringing up for me? Why has this affected me so much? Am I falling back into the same patterns I used to have?

Because this is where you get to choose how you handle it.

You can handle these situations in one of two ways, you can fall back into the old patterns. You can fall into your old patterns where you're needing answers, needing validation, needing to defend yourself, needing to prove a point, needing to keep the peace or needing your coparent to behave differently or give an explanation or an apology before you can feel okay.

Or you can recognise what’s happening and choose to handle it differently.

You can remind yourself that you cannot control how your coparent behaves, but you can control how you respond and what you choose to engage in.

And honestly, that’s where you start to see how much you’ve healed and moved on.

You will always have difficult situations. You’re still going to get angry, hurt or caught off guard. Your coparent is still going to do things that frustrate you.

But when you’ve done the work, those situations don’t send you straight back into the same old patterns.

You're able to pause and think, “Okay, I know what’s happening here. I know this feeling. I know how I used to respond. But I’m not going to handle it that way anymore.”

And every time you do that, you’re breaking the cycle.

And I know how frustrating this can be, because sometimes it feels like you’ve done so much work, you’ve come so far, and then all of a sudden, your co-parent does something that can completely knock you sideways again. You're left thinking, “Why am I still letting this affect me? Why am I back here again?”

And this is part of the rollercoaster of emotions that can come with being a single parent. One minute you’re feeling good, you’re moving forward, you’re getting on with your life, and then something happens with your ex and suddenly you’re angry, frustrated and feeling like you’ve been thrown straight back to square one.

But that trigger is actually showing you something. It’s putting a mirror up to you and showing you where the hurt still is, where those old wounds are and where there may still be some work for you to do. And rather than seeing that as a failure, see it as an opportunity to stop, step back and self-reflect.

Because you can keep fighting. You can keep demanding answers. You can keep trying to prove your point, send the longer message, scream louder or get your ex to finally understand your side. But if you keep responding the same way, you’re going to keep getting caught in the same cycle.

This is why the work is about you, not your ex. It’s about working through those triggers and getting yourself to a place where you’re not constantly getting sucked into the drama, where you can recognise what’s happening and choose to respond differently.

Not for your ex. For you.

Because the more you engage, the more you stay caught up in it. The more you work on yourself, understand your triggers and work through the hurt underneath them, the more you can step out of that cycle and start responding from a much healthier place.

There is usually a reason that situation is hitting you so hard, and once you understand what’s underneath that reaction, you can start handling it differently. You don’t have to keep living in that cycle of being triggered, reacting, regretting it and then feeling like you’ve gone backwards.

Knowing how to handle these situations makes all the difference. Because if you don’t understand your triggers and you keep responding in the exact same way, the only thing that’s going to happen is that you’ll keep getting the same outcome over and over again.

If you’re wanting to work through your triggers, get out of the cycle of constantly reacting to your ex and stop getting caught up in that toxic communication pattern, you need the right tools to know how to handle it differently.

If you haven’t been given those tools, you’ve come to the right place. This is exactly what we can work through together, understanding your triggers, working through the hurt underneath them and learning how to respond differently, so you’re no longer getting emotionally caught up in everything your ex says or does.

You don’t have to keep living in this cycle.

Click the link below and let’s start working through this together. Let’s get you out of this cycle for good.

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