Be more resourceful than reliant on available resources designed to help protect your children... To this end, the following "view more" link offers conventional options, and uses them in unconventional ways (exploring their "outside the box" use and revealing the 'options within the options') to expose how even with limited resources, there are more creative ways (than what  has been traditionally offered) to help you protect your child.      

Do not exploit your children to support your legal claim: To that end, 

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(i) do not ​bring your children to court if their presence isn't legally compelled (i.e., subpoenaed), or otherwise necessary to further a legal --and prudently considered-- claim;     

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(ii) do not coach your children to misrepresent things; and

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iii) do not mistake your child's best interest with "besting" the other parent: ​the "best interest" legal test was crafted to be responsive to children's needs, not to supply insecurity, retaliation or pride. 

"Children don't get to choose their parents" and "parents don't get to choose their children." Okay (acknowledging these sayings, without conceding that they apply), that doesn't mean "they" (parents or their children) weren't chosen for each other... In the following "view more" link, several mature views are offered to assist in making parental interactions and exchange(s) less divisive (i.e., helping move the premise of the ongoing conversation from the unresolved emotional issues (which should also be addressed) to "the children").  

When a couple with a child breaks up, they typically invite at least two new people to their child(ren)'s life: whomever each parent meets (in the intimate relationship context...).  This introduces a host of issues and plenty of potential challenges, not the least of which is jealousy from all parties...  But that's not what this is about: in the following "view more" link, we're focusing on what to do if you/your child are in a situation where your child is exposed to harm or its threat at the hands of the other parent's newer partner, and you cannot meaningfully count on the other parent to help protect your child.  

Divorce is not easy, but how you act during its course, can have an effect on your proceedings, and on you...  Click on the "view more" link for a sobering discussion that analyzes some of the behaviors that perpetuate, rather than relieve the pain associated with breaking up, as we explore the difference between relationship drawn regret and healing...  

Your former partner went through a troubling childhood, trying past, etc.  Of course he/she did. Everyone did. And it helps inform what we've overcome. But it doesn't have to define whom we've become...  The following link focuses on the sobering difference between excusing, informing and accounting for one's mistakes...    

Your growth is not subject to your former partner/other parent's approval; and you shouldn't assume or expect anyone, including your former partner/the other parent to be impartial to, or accept your growth:  Indeed, not everyone is rooting for you... And some struggle to accept that you've changed (whether it's disbelief (people are tempted to view the past in a nearsighted and selective way, seeing themselves as different than what they were, while assuming that no one else but them changed; grouping you with others that perhaps didn't change; misinterpreting your growth as a threat to their decision to leave you (before you changed), or along similar lines... 

(1) Don't try to project yourself in an artificially susceptible  light, whether it's to cast your former partner in some vitiating role or to affirm their "guilt" by contrasting it with how innocent you appear, etc.  Remember:  pretending to look "vulnerable" doesn't make you "innocent"; and 

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(2)  you don't need to  assimilate or adjust your reaction (including the degree to which you were affected) to some widely accepted view of how  you "should" be affected: react freely... truthfully:

Everyone is different, and you don't need to mold your reaction to what you assume others expect in order to validate what you've been through...