After a separation, most of the conflict between parents stops happening at the front door and starts happening on a screen. Texts, emails, the co-parenting app. And here is the part people forget when they are typing at eleven at night: every one of those messages is doing two jobs at once. It is reaching your co-parent, and it is shaping the home your children live in.
I tell clients all the time that you and your co-parent are joined at the hip now, even after the divorce. You will be in the same room at graduations, weddings, and one day a grandchild's birthday party. The decree does not end that relationship — it just restructures it. So the way you communicate is not a small thing. It is one of the few parts of this you actually control.
The good news is that calmer communication is a skill, not a personality trait. It comes in two parts: what to let go of, and what to do instead. If you prefer to watch, the video above walks through all of it. If you would rather read, here it is.
First, four things to let go of
These four come from Bill Eddy, an attorney and therapist whose work on high-conflict people I recommend to clients constantly. Before you write a single word back, try to set these down.
Let go of giving them insight. You are probably not going to make a difficult co-parent see that they are the problem. I know how badly you want to. But when you go inward — here is what is wrong with you — you raise their defenses, and the temperature goes up. Go outward instead. Talk about options. Talk about what the two of you can actually do now.
Let go of the past. You rarely win an argument about the past with a high-conflict person, because they will keep relitigating it. Pull only the facts you genuinely need to understand the problem in front of you, and then point everything at what happens next. Future focus, not past focus.
Let go of the emotions. Do not match their heat, and try not to pour out your own. You can acknowledge a feeling — I can see you are frustrated — and then steer back to the practical. The shift is small but it changes everything: instead of "how do you feel about this," ask "what do you think — could this work?"
Let go of the labels. This is the one I am most insistent about, because I see the instinct in my office every week. Do not call your co-parent a narcissist, or high-conflict, or difficult — even in writing meant only for them, and even when you are sure it is true. You might be wrong, it never once motivated anyone to change, and it gives the other side something to wave in front of a judge. Describe the behavior. Skip the diagnosis. Deal with the message in front of you.
If you notice, all four of these point the same direction: stop trying to fix the person, and start managing the exchange. That is also the whole reason we say don't poison the well — the goal is not to win the email, it is to keep the conflict from spreading to your kids.
Then, write it BIFF
Once you have set those four things down, you are ready to actually write. BIFF is Bill Eddy's shorthand, and it is the protocol I hand clients more than any other. Four letters: brief, informative, friendly, firm.
- Brief. A few sentences. The longer the message runs, the more hooks you hand the other side to grab onto.
- Informative. Stick to the facts that matter — the date, the time, the logistics. No opinions, no history, no jabs.
- Friendly. Use a neutral, courteous tone. A plain "thanks for letting me know" goes a long way. This is not warmth you have to feel. It is a tone that does not invite a fight.
- Firm. Be clear and final without being harsh. State the plan, offer a real choice if there is one, and then close the door, so the message does not turn into endless back-and-forth.
The same request, two ways
Here is what this looks like in practice. Say your daughter's birthday is coming up.
This is the kind of message a lot of us fire off when we are hurt and rushed:
"You lost your job and cut my support, so I booked Susie's party at Charlie's myself. Show up if you want — but don't bring your girlfriend. She's not welcome."
It is short, but look at how much is packed into two sentences: the job, the money, the new girlfriend. Every one of those is an open door to a fight, and none of them has anything to do with booking a birthday party.
Now here is the same request, rebuilt one line at a time:
Hi Rick, — (friendly) a civil opening; not warmth you have to feel, just a door that stays open.
Susie would like her party at Charlie's, so I booked Oct 10 at noon. — (informative) the facts, and only the facts: what, where, when.
Let me know by Friday and I'll send the invitations. — (firm) one clear request, with a deadline, so it does not drag on.
You're welcome to join us. — Marie — (friendly) close it the way you opened it.
Four short sentences. Same birthday, same ask, nothing left to fight about. One version starts a war; the other gets a party booked.
Why this is worth the effort
I will be honest with you: BIFF will not fix your co-parent. Nothing in a message will. What it does is keep you out of the fight, and that turns out to matter more than people expect.
Here is the reason. Even when your children never read the words, they read your face when you do. They feel the sigh, the tension in the room, the slammed laptop. A calm message is easier to receive calmly, and a calm message you send is one less thing for your kids to absorb. In more than twenty-five years of family law, I have never seen a parenting relationship get better at the courthouse. The ones that work it out do it in exactly these small, unglamorous exchanges.
If you and your co-parent are stuck in a pattern that feels bigger than any single email, that is worth a conversation. Sometimes the right move is a parenting plan with clearer guardrails, a co-parenting app, or a neutral third party. If you would like to talk it through, reach out to our team — we help Austin families restructure for what comes next, not just end what came before.