Be honest, sweetheart: How do you talk and write about your relationship with your toxic ex after the breakup? Are you talking about the “war with your ex” or, to put it bluntly, the “war of the roses”, do you shoot off a “cannon” every now and then, does a “bomb” go off or “sharpen your knives”? Are you responding to your ex’s email “bombing” and fighting “to the death” for your children?

Just reading the above – how do you feel about it? Feel inside yourself. Do you feel short of breath, maybe even your heart pounding and your stomach cramping at these pictures?

Language is so powerful!

Your brain thinks in pictures. Whatever you mentally pack into metaphors with your words, your head imagines quite vividly. And sends the corresponding emotions.

War has meant fear, loss and pain, including death, for thousands of years. In war we always fight to survive, even when we don’t have to fight on the front lines.

In war there is above all great shortage – lack of food, warmth and security. Lack of joy and fun, of ease and light.

So if you use war rhetoric yourself – and I know you don’t do it intentionally and consciously, it’s just common usage – don’t be surprised if you don’t feel well and your mood remains noticeably dark.

And that’s regardless of whether you win one or the other hearing at the family court or not. But more on that below.

First, let me delve deeper into the metaphor.

War is mainly male

Now, with our toxic ex-partners, depending on the type (speaking of which, have you already taken the test to see which type your ex belongs to?), we definitely have very aggressive specimens as opponents, who appear brawny and who constantly take the mother of their children to court over something.

Behind this is often an insatiable hunger for revenge or narcissistic rage, which is expressed coldly or furiously, depending on temperament.

And before we know it, we find ourselves in a war we don’t want.

Now there are certainly mothers who roll up their sleeves here and say, “You want war? Here you go – I’m not afraid of you! I won’t let you treat me the way you treated me in the relationship – that’s over once and for all! I will show it to you! After all, I am a mature woman who stands with both feet and very successfully in professional life. You won’t get me down!”

Or also – more timidly: “This is so unfair! I have to fight for justice now and do my part so that men like that don’t get a green light anymore.”

Not joining the war is then equated with “cowardice before the enemy.”

But alas! A war with a toxic Ex partner cannot be won – at least not emotionally.

We are so far from our primal feminine energy in war, so outside our inner compass, that even when we have won the essential “battle” in court, we are anything but euphoric.

What is left behind, on the other hand, is very often emptiness, deep sadness, and the feeling that we would now prefer to crawl under the covers for several days.

I have heard of mothers who, in this very moment of triumph, have given the Ex everything he wanted. Contact, shared custody, alternating residency model – everything they had fought for years to prevent him from getting.

Then all the outsiders stand around the woman and shake their heads. For God’s sake! What’s wrong with her all of a sudden?

The deep, intimate desire for peace and harmony (the feminine principle) and the strong longing to move back into harmony with one’s own soul – that’s what’s going on.

What does victory taste like in a war you never asked for?

What does victory taste like for us mothers when we see what war has done to our children’s childhood?

We may have formally won the battle – but around us there is only loss, hunger, and rubble to be cleaned up.

“Oh dear, Heidi, I don’t want that!” you may be thinking to yourself now. “But should I let it all happen to me and the kids now?”

No, of course not.

When your child is in danger – both emotionally and physically – they need a protector, which is you. Who else would do it? Certainly not the guardian ad litem!

That, too, is a primal feminine power: defending the child from attackers in order to ensure its survival.

But it all depends on your perspective.

If you see yourself as a warrior and opponent of a highly narcissistic man, with your back against the wall and also as a victim of the system, then you are so far away from your feminine core that I can well understand it when your innermost being runs amok, sends you contradictory signals again and again and gives you no peace.

If, on the other hand, you see yourself as a defender and protector of your child, you can mobilize completely different forces inside.

You hold your mental shield high over you and your child so that the hail of reproaches and evaluations cannot hit you.

You remain calm because your primal feminine power is calmness and clarity – especially in critical situations.

If you ever draw a weapon yourself, it will only be for self-defense, never for active destruction. Your goal is clear – to restore peace and harmony.

If you have a toxic Ex partner, then you have an adversary on the other side of your parenting relationship who has no interest in consensus, peace and harmony. Therefore, there will be no end to his spirits in court.

Accept the framework from a position of strength

It is definitely a sign of your strength if you accept the circumstances as such and stay connected to your feminine energy in the negotiations and don’t try to go into the more “non-essential” masculine energy because you think you have to act the same way as the ex now.

Your power is there, sweetheart. Deep inside you it wants to shine. You can trust it!

Your orientation in everything that you have to actively decide yourself (“Do I file this application with the court now or better not?”) is your child. The smaller the child, the more it needs your protection, and it is up to you to assess what this protection must look like so that your child is in good health.

Whether that includes fighting to stop your toxic Ex from having any contact at all because you’ve heard about how manipulative these fathers are, or fighting to avert or respond to the alternating residency model for your toddler when he wants to prevent you from moving out with the child in the first place – you make all of these decisions in line with your feminine protective instincts when you look at your child and ask yourself honestly:

“Is this about me or about my child?”

Then, when you come out of a court hearing having won, you may also rejoice – for the fact that apparent strangers (the judge or judges) supported you in your motion and see it the same way you do.

Listen carefully to yourself, though, if you feel anything but celebratory! Better write down your thoughts in your journal before you run with waving flags to the toxic Ex and make him a great peace offer, which you will possibly regret again a year later.

Remember: the positive feelings it may cause at first may not last with a true narcissist. Before you know it, you’ll be back at the starting point, having to defend your boundaries again and, if necessary, fight again.

Please do yourself a big favor

As long as you are still at the very beginning, please leave the war rhetoric to the men. Rather use words of feminine power and strength, this will help your inner self to support you better mentally.

Your soul will thank you.

What do you think about this article? What do you think is the feminine response to aggressive paternal warmongering? I look forward to your comment below.