Successful Coparenting with a Toxic Ex: A Book Review

Today I’m excited to review the new workbook, Successful Coparenting with a Toxic Ex: A guided Journal to Support and Encourage you and your Children, written by my friend and colleague, Susan Buniva, LCSW. She’s a licensed therapist, divorce coach, and co-parenting counselor with over 30 years of experience. As the title of the book suggests, this book is for those navigating a conflictual separation, divorce, and its aftermath. In addition to her extensive clinical experience with these challenges, Buniva has first-person experience with these challenges, as she navigated a high-conflict divorce and co-parenting dynamics in her own life.

With that in mind, today’s review will discuss the book’s format, topics covered, a sampling of exercises, and a selection of quotes.

The book’s format

This isn’t a typical book that breaks down a topic solely by providing information; instead, it’s more of a hybrid of the following:

• Insights on divorce, high-conflict marriage, and co-parenting.
• A therapeutic tool to process emotions and brainstorm decision-making.
• A journal to vent about various challenges.
• A safe place.
• A source of encouragement, as relevant quotes and empathetic acknowledgments are sprinkled throughout.

Topics addressed

• What research says about how divorce impacts children (Spoiler: it’s not all doom and gloom).
• Processing and responding to anger.
• Modeling communication and conflict resolution to our children through how we co-parent.
• Mindfulness, self-care, and boundaries.
• Radical acceptance.
• How to identify lessons learned from the marriage to guide decisions and behaviors post-divorce.
• Identifying strengths and growth areas within ourselves and our co-parents.
• Supporting our children’s relationships with both parents (and not making it a competition).

Workbook exercise examples

Quotes

Conclusion

I highly recommend Successful Coparenting with a Toxic Ex: A guided Journal to Support and Encourage you and your Children by Susan Buniva, LCSW to anyone in or recovering from a high-conflict divorce with children caught in the middle. The book is available on Amazon (paid link).

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**I received a free copy of this workbook in exchange for an honest review.