Look, I need to start by asking you something that might sting a little: whose pain are we actually dealing with here? Because when you say “the kids hate” your co-parent’s new partner, there’s often a whole lot more going on underneath that word “hate.”
After sixteen years of sitting with families in transition, I can tell you that kids almost never actually hate the new person. They hate what that person represents. The fear that their family as they knew it is really, truly gone. The terror that this stranger might take even more of what they used to have.
That little person inside your child who’s screaming “I hate them” is actually saying “I’m scared and I don’t know how to make sense of all this change and I need someone to see how hard this is for me.”
So first things first: your kids need to be witnessed, not fixed. Not rushed along with “oh, you’ll like them eventually” or “just give it time.” The fastest way to make this worse is to treat their feelings like a problem to be managed instead of a reality to be honored.
Now, about your co-parent. If they’re pushing this relationship on the kids before those kids are ready, that’s a conversation worth having. Not as an attack, not from a place of “see, I told you so,” but as two parents protecting your children together.
Because here’s what I’ve seen happen over and over: when adults rush the blending process, kids dig their heels in harder. They become more loyal to their resistance, not less. It’s like trying to force a cat into a carrier. The harder you push, the more they fight.
Your co-parent’s new partner isn’t the enemy here, even if it feels that way. The enemy is rushing. The enemy is not making space for your kids’ very normal, very human reaction to huge change.
So what can you actually do? Start by validating your kids’ feelings without feeding the fire. “I can see this is really hard for you” instead of “yeah, I don’t like them either.” Help your kids name what they’re actually feeling underneath that anger.
And if you need to have a conversation with your co-parent, keep it simple: “The kids are struggling with this transition. What can we do together to help them feel safer while they adjust?”
The goal isn’t to make everyone happy right now. The goal is to create enough safety that your kids can eventually, in their own time, decide for themselves who this new person might be in their world.
Change is hard enough without adults making it harder by pretending everyone should just get along.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Co-Parenting After Divorce: What to Expect from Counseling
