Should You Communicate with Your Ex After Divorce in NY?  

Deciding whether or not to go “no-contact” with your ex after your divorce on Long Island, NY is finalized can be a complicated one. While you may wish to never have to communicate with your ex after your divorce, that may not always be possible, or practical. Depending on your circumstances, the answer may not definitively be “yes” or “no”. Here are a few things to think about and how to get the legal support you need when making critical decisions about your family legal case.

Reasons Exes Stay in Contact After a Divorce

Contrary to popular belief, many divorcees stay in contact after ending their marriages, particularly if they were married for a long time. Not only is transitioning out of a marriage both practically and emotionally challenging, there may be some benefits to remaining in touch after a divorce in certain situations.

A few reasons that exes may stay in contact after getting divorced are listed below.

You Have an Amicable Relationship

Not everyone gets a divorce because they no longer get along. In some situations, and for many different reason, it’s sometimes just the best path forward for both spouses. Each may want to move on in life but bear no hard feelings or ill will toward the other. They may reach out via email or text from time to time and, although it’s much more uncommon, they may even be close friends.

You Have Children Together

Exes who share children have to co-parent them together and generally must communicate with one another at least about things like pick up and drop off times, the child’s medical and educational needs, etc.

Sometimes this can be done through traditional means of staying in contact, like messaging or email. Co-parenting apps can be extremely helpful in cases where exes do not get along but must still figure out a way to co-parent their children with one another. A co-parenting app allows you to enable settings to restrict the conversation and all messages are recorded and sent to the court for handling your case for review if that’s ever necessary.

When You Should Consider Going No-Contact

In many cases of divorce, the two parties headed for a split don’t want to, and don’t have to, remain in contact at all. If you are newly married or haven’t yet started a family, it may be very easy to discontinue contact. Even if you have created a deeply intertwined life, it may still be more beneficial for you to block your ex or cut them out of your life entirely.

You may want to seriously consider going no-contact with your ex if they:

• are abusive or controlling
• start to surveil or stalk you
• become difficult or impossible to communicate with without aggression
• start dating someone else with the intent of showing off the relationship or make you jealous

Sometimes it’s not possible to completely cut your ex out of your life, but you cannot effectively communicate with them either. In this case, you might want to utilize what has been called the “grey rock method”.

What is the ‘Grey Rock Method’?

The “grey rock method” is a colloquial term for an effective means of communication with a toxic person. The name refers to the attitude that the person using the tactic has – that of a grey rock. “Grey rocking” is extremely effective when you can’t go completely no-contact with a toxic person, like if you have children with a narcissistic ex.

You can grey rock by:

• Not letting your ex see emotion no matter what they say or do
• Not letting your ex provoke anger or arguing
• Refusing to argue back even if your ex is arguing with you
• Walking away from aggressive situations
• Not giving them any extra attention that is not necessary for communication
• Keeping personal information, even seemingly unimportant details, to yourself
• Communicating only via text or email when possible
• Making your interactions with your ex as short as possible
• Use detached, closed-off body language and no eye contact
• Act as boring and uninteresting as possible

How an Experienced Long Island Divorce Attorney Can Help You

When you need family legal help, it’s important that you act quickly to secure the representation you need. This is particularly true in cases where you are thinking about going no-contact with your ex or if you share children with them.

At Hornberger Verbitsky, P.C., we understand the many challenges presented by the decision to go no-contact and we know it’s one that people do not take lightly. Contact us today to learn more or to book a free consultation appointment to discuss your family legal case with one of our experienced attorneys by calling 631-923-1910 or fill in the short form on this page.