When an solid, genuine, tireless parent get’s blindsided by an furious ex it can definitly shake you to the center. Of course, all you ever promised to do was be as good a parent and partner you could be. When the relationship was over you had no idea that you were going to be forced to explore the boundaries of the off-the-wall, and writhe too.

Once you’ve spent eons with someone, shared happiness, sorrow, triumphs, and losses together, you take for granted that even if you can’t live together at least you can operate together for the best interest of your child. Maybe you didn’t spend lots of time married but still had a child together, the same level of trust gets expected. Even if you only knew each other for a short time you never gave them a reason to pass judment on you as a horrible person.

No matter which scenario fits you, it all comes down to having your child’s other parent falsely accuse you of something that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Why would they do that? Because they are embittered, things aren’t going well for them or perhaps worse, things are going well for you. If you give it some thought, I’m sure you will be able to discover their motivation.

But why did they falsely blame you not only of a thing you didn’t do, but something that they know you would never do? Simple, because it disturbs you and throws you off of your “doing well" streak. You see the best defense is a good offense. when you are engaged defending yourself, there is no way for you to continue to display what a great parent you are.

So what’s an honorable parent to do? Easy, go back on offense. Your offense morphs from taking about what a great parent you are, to facing the charge. You see, courts, mediators, evaluators, and Child Protective Services have all seen this movie before you and your ex came along. You simply remind them of it.

The first matter at hand is simply deny the charge. Nothing fancy, just a matter of fact “no, not me". Then you remind them with, “you know we are in a high conflict custody battle? Apparently, things aren’t going their way". Then place the question "why this never came up before". Talk about all the minor things that the other parent told you previously. How could they focus on all those minor details if this was true? Recognize that you are now in a grave fight and document everything. Time is your ally.

If you are high conflict there will be a reluctance from the courts to allow joint custody. Because of this you will need to learn about parallel parenting. This is different from co-parenting. Educate yourself about it and embrace it.

Now, that you have the knowledge that you were: doing well, you can document this was never an issue, and the knowledge of parallel parenting, you can take that false accusations and turn it to your advantage. That is the power an honest parent has against mean tactics.