I’m a trauma therapist who helps people who are being bullied by their partner’s ex. Here’s how I recommend couples move forward.

Fiordaliso/Getty Images Monica Vermani, a trauma therapist, said many of her clients have been bullied by a partner’s ex. She works with the couple to agree on a plan, which usually involves ignoring the ex completely. Vermani said partners must be aware of their own mental health to keep their relationship strong in the face of an unrelenting an ex.

Clinical psychologist Monica Vermani said bullying at the hands of an ex is a real and serious problem, and one she’s seen many times over her 30 years as a therapist. She works with couples both together and individually to help them deal with the pent-up anxiety, frustration, and anger that can build due to an ex’s harassment. Vermani, who wrote the book “A Deeper Wellness: Conquering Stress, Mood, Anxiety and Traumas,” says she teaches bullying victims coping skills and helps them recognize the bully’s underlying motives so they don’t react to them.

Strategies like ignoring the bully and practicing healthy ways to soothe your anxiety can help, she told Insider. Ignore the bully. Otherwise, you’re giving them what they want, and they’ll continue.

Vermani said she typically learns of these situations during individual therapy with one partner, and then invites the other to a couple’s therapy session. There, they’ll discuss their anxieties about the bully and figure out how to move forward, which could include self-care and legal measures, like filing a police report or a restraining order. She said keeping track of any harassing calls, texts, and messages you receive is also helpful if the situation escalates.

 In every bullying situation, Vermani suggests both partners ignore the bully’s harassment attempts, whether they happen online, through phone calls, or in person. She said these behaviors are common ways an ex-turned-bully will try to get attention, in addition to getting their friends to pile on the harassment with threatening calls or social media messages. A bullying victim should ignore those messages and stop reading them altogether to protect their own wellbeing, Vermani said.

In her experience, ignoring the behavior often leads to the bully giving up. Remember the bully’s actions are about them, not youWhen someone experiences bullying of any kind, their first instinct is often to fight back. Vermani said it’s important for bullying victims to remind themselves that the bully is coming from a place of hurt, even if they don’t recognize it themselves.

“Many times, it’s about the person going through their own feelings of anger, shame, rejection, and abandonment. They have anger towards themselves,” Vermani said. She said the bully may also harbor anger if they feel their ex-partner didn’t give them a chance to make things work.

Their underlying emotional turmoil doesn’t make their actions OK, Vermani said, but knowing this can help a victim disengage rather than fight back.  Practice soothing your own anxiety to keep your relationship strong and healthyWhile a couple experiences a stressful situation like targeted harassment, the victim may unintentionally “emotionally vomit” to their partner, which can fracture the relationship over time, Vermani said. She said it’s normal to talk about the bullying’s emotional impact from time to time, and to make sure partners are on the same page about how to handle the conflict.

But ruminating on it will lead to relationship resentment, since the partner is also navigating their difficult emotions, according to Vermani. The victim and their partner should take steps to tend to themselves individually, she said. Vermani suggested self-care practices like meditation, exercise, and nourishing your body with good-for-you foods as ways to cope with the extreme stress a bully may induce.

Talking to your own therapist is also essential in these situations, said Vermani, because “you get a space where you have an hour to unload, talk about it, sort it out, and empower yourself to come up with healthy strategies, versus emotionally vomiting on people around you when you’re upset and emotional. “Read the original article on Insider.