How High-Conflict Divorcing Couples Can Influence Children

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High-conflict couples are extremely difficult to work with. Some are belligerent. Others can be violent. These partners are so focused on doing battle that a therapist may not get a word in. But when the high-conflict couple brings their style of conflict into the divorce process, they are even more challenging. Studies vary, but according to Steele (2024), 20 percent of all separations are high-conflict.

Deck et al. (2024) said "high-conflict" is a vague, umbrella-like term indicative of divorcing couples who fight in a manner different from the norm. Johnston (1994) found that high-conflict couples can be defined along three dimensions:

1. Domain dimension: Couples who fight about such issues as property and child custody
2. Tactics dimension: The way in which a couple tries to resolve their issues, whether through verbal aggression, physical coercion, or via the legal system
3. Attitudinal dimension: The degree of negative emotions and hostility coming from a couple, which may be covertly or overtly expressed.

Stolnicu et al. (2022) found that many high-conflict divorcing couples carry their conflict into the post-divorce, co-parenting phase of their relationship. This can lead to disrupting visitation, encouraging children to choose sides, and generally causing greater stress for all family members. Some high-conflict couples triangulate their children or enlist them to serve as mediators in their adult squabbles; others are parentified. All of these factors may contribute to the children having future relationship problems of their own. According to the Pew Research Center, children who grew up with high-conflict parents were more likely to have high-conflict marriages (Cohn, 2011).

No matter how aware parents are of the impact high conflict may have on their children, it is hard for them to curb their behavior towards one another, especially in the divorce process. Many divorcing parents have told me they want to do everything they can to spare their children excess pain, but they seem unable to control their behavior. Even couples who have sworn to have a peaceful parting of ways, at some point in the divorce process, lose perspective, and the battle is on. Below are some of the reasons that make it extremely difficult to reduce the degree of animosity in the divorce process with high-conflict relationships:

1. Family of Origin. As mentioned, children who were raised by high-conflict parents, especially those who witnessed their parents’ volatile divorce process, are at risk of replicating this turmoil in their marriages. These children were raised in a war zone and battle is what they know.
2. Mate Choice. Individuals raised by high-conflict parents may unconsciously choose a partner like their mother or father. Either way, they get a skilled fighter to help them replicate their parent’s relationship style so that neither partner will need to subject themselves to unfamiliar change. If both partners are from divorced parents, there is a greater chance their relationship will end in a high-conflict separation.
3. Content. Couples often fight about the same issues or content their parents fought about. For example, if a partner’s parents fought about money, their adult children may also have a history of money issues. If the context is sex, when adults, it is likely the couple will replicate a struggle with sex. Even getting a divorce may be a form of replication.
4. Process. By focusing on content, a high-conflict couple will likely neglect to pay enough attention to their relationship process or interactional dynamic. But fighting about content often leads to circular arguments, which are rarely solvable—just as they were rarely solvable in each partner’s family of origin. Adjusting the process is more likely to stop high conflict. Unfortunately, couples routinely bring their process into the legal system when divorcing.

High-conflict couples, especially those in the throes of divorce, are challenging; the need to fight is a way to continue a process that they are familiar with—dare I say, even attracted to. The first thing a couple must do is to recognize their interactional high-conflict process and its origins. Both also must admit that their circular dynamic leads to nowhere, and this must be the first thing that requires adjustment. When the couple begins to get bogged down in content, they should return to process. This is where they can find some semblance of peace. It could also save them enough in legal fees to leave a healthy inheritance to their children.

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