168. Strategies For Post Separation Abuse & High Conflict Co-Parenting

 Hello. Hello, my amazing, beautiful listeners. Welcome. Thanks for joining me today. I am excited to bring to you another conversation that I had with a personal coach.

She helps women who are navigating divorce, communicate, and in her words, outsmart a toxic ex in court. Her experience in her own personal experience going through court. And fighting for her children without a lawyer based on her own past experiences being a paralegal. , Not so much a family and court law paralegal, but she has a lot of experience just navigating court to court documents and she uses that expertise to help clients as well.

I wanted her to join me on this podcast to talk about. Some of the things that are just a little bit harder to discuss because they are activating, they are emotionally charged, , topics in conversation and I wanted her experience, both personally and professionally to assist to join me in the conversation today.

I think it will be very insightful. Even though it is hard topic to listen to, I really feel like when you apply the principles that we talk about today, it will absolutely help you have an Empower divorce. Remember, this is why I named the podcast and Empower Divorce because all of the things that I talk about that I share, that when you apply it will help you move through the hardest time that many of you have ever had in your entire life.

To not get stuck in victim, which can be really easy to do , when you go through some of these extremely challenging, abusive, high toxic experiences. We've gotta find our way through, and so I'm excited to have Bridget join me in this conversation today. , I want to remind everybody to join me for the first Thursday of every month for a free coaching session.

If you have not registered for that, already do so because you'll get that reminder. ' the day before, and then an hour before we join.

really great free resource to take advantage of their, 📍 

 All right, everyone. Here is my conversation with Bridget.

  I was telling you before we hit record, one of the things that I. That stood out to me that resonated, that I feel like we don't have enough voices in this field to speak towards is that high conflict, but toxic cycles that were part of the relationship prior to separation and divorce continue and often escalate posts, separation and divorce, it can make co-parenting parallel parenting quite difficult.

I'm gonna turn it over to you. I'd love for you to add to your bio. I know you have a little bit more of extensive background, especially in the legal area, which is what really resonated. I was like, well, okay. I want that. I think my listeners will appreciate your background, not only personally, but professionally to hear some hard things that, that I know are so hard to hear when it comes to how to navigate these really muddy waters.

So. Please feel free to further introduce yourself and share a little bit about you. Of course. Thank you. I am, first of all, I'm honored to be on your podcast. Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it. Of course. I've been, I have an interesting background., I've been married twice to two abusers.

I've been divorced twice. I have four kids and I've been professionally, I've been a paralegal for over 20 years. I have never worked in the field of family law. In fact, I practiced in civil litigation and injury law, I found myself, when I was going through my second divorce, I didn't have any money.

I was supporting four kids by myself. I needed to file for divorce. I needed to file for custody. I did all of that on my own. I filed later on for, modification and contempt, but I started out with 50 50 custody through the mediation process. And, I've come to learn that even though that was not really the best thing that was suited for me or for my kids at the time.

It was allowing the high conflict parent giving them rope. Giving them a lot of rope and opportunities to co-parent and to parent these children and watching them as they sadly were hanging themselves all on their own without me really having to do a whole lot. And, I had to come to a place of a lot of radical acceptance, of understanding, who he was, what was really happening in that dynamic.

It took me some time to fully understand. But you know, the. Abuse that we endure during those relationships is terrible. But the post-separation abuse period that we see, I feel is much more insidious. The abuse does worsen when you leave your toxic relationship. That's not anyone's imagination.

Mm-hmm. Nope. No, it really doesn't. It's quite audacious how many times that gets minimized. Ignored. Or blamed placed on the the victim, the person leaving. I'm gonna go ahead and genderize 'cause most of my listeners are women. But when the woman does leave and it does escalate, why can't you just move on?

Why can't you get over it? By now, you're holding on All of those unfortunate statements get made, and yet a lot of times it's so covert in how it's presenting. I'll speak for myself. I felt crazy because it was crazy making type of abuse, right? This cohesion and covert abuse and everyone else can't see it.

You do you see it even more post. And yet it's hard to still describe and explain. So I appreciate you validating that. , It's very challenging to navigate. Yes, it is. And , it is crazy making, I remember having sessions with my therapist who has been phenomenal and I believe everyone should really have a great Ben, a benefit from having a therapist, but especially through this process and building your support team.

But Shane did tell me, she said, Bridgette, it's crazy making. It is crazy making. You're not making this up. And I remember. Colleagues at the firm that I was at at the time, I would talk about things that were going on and it was like, oh, Bridget and the drama oh God, here we go again.

Like, why do you always talk about your ex? Why is this right? And over time what I've learned is that the abusers, they actually play onto that narrative. And they play it out in family court of, she's obsessed with me, right? Which is pure projection as we know. But she's obsessed. She's still in love with me.

Oh, this, oh the other, she doesn't like that. I have a new partner and she's jealous of her. Right? And that happened in my case. And I had so many cards stacked against me initially because I had given my ex the benefit of the doubt many times. And then I came to realize that there's something else that's going on that's not right.

Right. Yeah. And I think that was for me, a major turning point. And I had been documenting things. I had been understanding narcissistic abuse to really figure out what was happening. And it wasn't until I had. When I filed for child support, that's when things just went downhill very fast, right?

High conflict people, abusers, they love money and material things more than anything else. They like, they like this whole image and they must protect their image at all cost. So when I, filed to get child support, 'cause he wasn't doing what he had said that he would do voluntarily he hit me with a restraining order a bogus restraining order that I ended up defeating miraculously, I still to this day, don't know how I won and beat him and his attorney.

I had an anxiety attack on the stand and I started crying. And, but I had done everything else up until that point, just fine. But then the anxiety just hit me, right? And I won, and it was thrown out and it was dismissed. And that was the first right of two restraining orders. But it's, it's very interesting to see.

Their behavior and how it switches when you're asking for financial support for yourself or for the kids or whatever. So I don't know if, your listeners and people that you work with have seen that, they try to have this financial hold over them. Mm-hmm. I think it's important that as women we understand that we are stronger than we really think.

Right. And we are fierce and we are warriors and to take power away from the abuser, I have felt and come to learn that it is stepping into my own and finding my own feet and my own grounding from a financial aspect where, you give no shits if they pay or if they don't pay. Right, right, right.

You figure it out. Mm-hmm. You do, you do figure it out. It's the. My listeners heard me say this analogy so many times, but it's the ropes that are, we're still picking up that are attached to them in many ways, and we're picking them up the rope up and some like child support, like this is valid. It's a valid thing.

It's a legal thing. Mm-hmm. And wanna pick it up and, and yet if that rope that you're picking up, believing it's valid is often strangling you, then we need to figure out how to let it go. And child support was actually one of those , for me. Wasn't paying, wasn't paying in. He was arrested in jail several times over.

It still wouldn't do it. And I think we're over $200,000 in arrears and I'll never see it. But at some point I had to What you're saying, . Where am I losing my power and my sanity and my energy and my time with picking up this role over and over and over and over trying to get something that I did deserve my children deserved?

But I love what you said there., It's why I call this the Empowered Divorce Podcast because Yeah, when you find. Where you can step back in your power and take power back. Oftentimes it does require you of letting go of something that you have a right to you deserve. It's a good thing, child support to help.

Mm-hmm. And if it's sucking the life and even strangling you it isn't ultimately what you need. Right. And that did free me up. It did allow me to then build my business. It was housekeeping at the time, and it did, it blew up. I was somehow able to make it work and, and figure that out. So I love right outta the gate, you're validating what, I believe and say so much that you are so much more powerful and stronger than they gave you credit for.

Yeah. And it, this is another way that you take your power back, believe something different. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're all capable of doing these hard things. And part of the overcoming what has happened in that relationship is understanding that, this narrative that they fed us about ourselves is not true.

Right? And they wanted us, they did a number on us, and they wanted us to feel that we could not survive in this life without them. But here we are. Right? You and I are great examples of we are living and thriving. We're not just surviving, we're thriving and we're doing well. And I think the faster that us as women can see that the better off we will be.

Even though it's not Right. Right. There's, you can't expect justice from child support enforcement or even the family court system. Right. We can't expect justice. No. But it's learning to accept these things and letting go of what no longer serves us, which is so, so hard to accept. I had another question in mind, but I kind of wanna stay with what you just said there.

, Can you talk more about. That acceptance it's a huge pillar of healing , to be able to accept that piece. But would you mind just talking about what you generally see in your work, where those hiccups are? , What makes it so hard to accept and how you see that actually perpetuate the disempowerment in victim cycle?

Yes. So, for most of my clients , it's challenging for them to accept that this person is not ever going to change. They're not going to improve their behavior's, not gonna get better. And, sometimes we have all been guilty of this. We get like this glimmer of hope and that they're suddenly being nice.

Right. But if you watch that behavior and you're tracking that behavior over a period of time, we see this pattern right? When they're nice and then it's bad, and the same things happen in the relationship. It's very much this rollercoaster esque type of behavior. Mm-hmm. And. Understanding they're not gonna change.

It is up to me to set these boundaries and to hold my boundaries, and that became for me how I loved myself. That was the biggest expression of self-love, was for me to learn how to set boundaries as I call myself a people pleaser. A codependent and rehab. Okay. Learning that is really. Challenging. And at first, setting those boundaries feels like you're doing something wrong.

You feel guilty by doing it, and you don't wanna hurt the other person and you don't want them to feel bad. But the more that you do it, the easier it becomes. Right? So I think the first thing is understanding that their behavior is not going to change. Okay. And the next I see is where? You want your kids to have the fathers that they deserve, right?

You want them to have this good daddy, and that's normal. That is normal behavior. It's a normal thought that we all have experienced, and I think validating that first is important, right? Understanding this is normal, but knowing that this person that is their father is not going to be what we had hoped and expected them to be, and radically accepting that.

There's nothing that you've done wrong. And also I think teaching our children that they are loved, that we love them, that they are wonderful just the way they are because they, at some point or another, they're navigating that relationship with our high conflict X and have feelings of guilt, shame, not feeling good enough.

And so for us to validate them and to, when they come back home, undo all of the bad things that have happened at the other parent's house. Right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that is a challenge in of itself. You're talking about kids here and that's where I see a lot of us get stuck right there in going back to what, talking about okay sure I can drop the rope.

But if I drop it to free myself, then now our children are picking it up, or the ex is chucking it at the child and forcing them to pick it up. Either way, the impact on the child is, and I'm air quoing too. Great. Yes, that it makes it hard to let go of the ropes, so it's, feels easy for us to say.

, On one hand, y'all need to free yourself. You need to empower yourself. Let that go. Move on. It's not worth it. All the things. But can we talk a little bit about this really huge piece because it will for a time, most likely amp up. Children because if once they realize they can't control you, 'cause you put those boundaries up, you stop.

They're gonna go to the next thing that hurts you the most, which is the children. Yes. And so it's almost yes, that's gonna happen. I won't say a hundred percent, I never a hundred percent anything, but let's just prepare for the worst and hope for the best. If and when that happens, , what do you usually say to that?

How would you. N how do you navigate that? Yeah. That's, that is the hardest part of, coaching my clients and teaching them that, when the kids come home. Again, , it's our job to validate and recognize, what they're feeling. I noticed that when children transition back from the abuser's house, the high conflict person's house, back home, I call it like this pressure cooker effect, and they are.

Oh, a jet lag. Yes. Right. They're really emotionally dysregulated. They're throwing a fit. There's temper tantrums, whatever, and they're mean. Mm-hmm. So I, I have learned that in those scenarios, and I did this with my kids, was to really not have anything scheduled right after the transition time, but to just allow them some space, be like, Hey, I know you know what, let's go and sit down.

Maybe let's color something together, or if you wanna hang out in your room for a bit that I'm perfectly fine. Right. And just have something more mellow for them to come home to. But providing the kids space, and it is our job. It is our duty as protective parents to teach our children how to regulate their emotions.

'cause they have big, big feelings. Mm-hmm. Typically, our generation, we were not taught how to regulate our emotions. Right. And so it is our job to teach our children and also. Be a safe space for them. Right. They are not able to escape this relationship you did, but to be a safe space and there's, you never have to badmouth the other parent.

I've never badmouthed my exes. I've let my children figure things out on their own in a way that was very much their own process. All of my four kids have felt different things, have gone through different things, and have decided when enough was enough for each of them on their own time. Right. Yep. And it does happen if you give them that space because you're giving them the safety and the emotional support to, to see the difference, feel the difference, embody the difference in your space.

So what you said there, you, we did escape, but we did also provide a separation from that high conflict parent that they. Are with 50 whatever percent of the time to start noticing the difference in their, in their system. So it does make a difference. It just takes time. Mm-hmm. And that's what's really hard, right?

Is to wait it, the waiting. The waiting is the challenge, right? It is. Oh, it's a challenge. And, we get the bad behaviors, we get all of these behaviors and I, I had that with my kids and I'll, I'll never forget, I made the mistake of contacting my ex at one point and saying, Hey, I'm having an issue with the child.

They're acting up. They're, just doing these things and I'm not sure what to do. Maybe we could have a conversation together, right. With the child. You can say something and I can say something else and I'll never forget. He said to me, that sounds like a. A you problem. He doesn't act that way with me.

That sounds like a you problem. So again, there's, I had efforts to want to co-parent, but there is no co-parenting and the eyes of family court, we have to co-parent. But in actuality we're parallel parenting. So I got to this place of, okay, dad's gonna do things at his house at a certain time.

He knows what the bedtime is. He's asked me about the bedtime. If he's having them on devices all hours of the night and they're not sleeping, my kids are gonna suffer, right? But at my house, I can control the rules. I can control the environment. I cannot control what my ex does, thinks, feels, or how he is parenting.

Right, and that is really, really hard because we want to make sure that our children have stability at both homes, but this is not a normal, nor is it a healthy co-parenting dynamic. And I, I use that word, co-parenting even though that's not what we're doing to try to get people in the habit of using it when it comes to family court professionals.

Going to court with guardian ad litems, parenting coordinators, so on and so forth, even therapists, because this parallel parenting is looked down upon in family court and they don't use that term, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm glad you're validating that this is definitely a hot topic. Because it does feel very invalidating to those of us who see the reality and see the truth, and.

And see what is actually happening to our children. And when it's not being seen or validated, especially from those that you feel or think should protect and see it like the judge or your lawyer or the , even the guardian litems, they don't often see it. Yeah. So you are, you're correct. We need to acknowledge that this is how others are seeing it, but, i'm always a proponent of , validate yourself and if you have a couple close safe people in your corner to help validate this isn't real co-parenting, you are alone in a lot of this. You are, dealing with so much repair when your kids come back. I, my rule of thumb was like, give 'em 24 hours Yeah.

Before we get back on, the rules of this house because of , that jet lag and it, it's a thing. It's very real. Those are the adjustments and the accommodations that we make to continue to support our children in a, in a healthy way. But the language that we need to use in court mediation with the other parent is of a co-parent framework.

Can you talk about. What that looks like with a high conflict parent, and this is where a lot of your content really stood out to me. I'm gonna backtrack. Would you first talk about maybe some of those signs that an ex is baiting you into conflict? Oh yeah, absolutely. It typically happens in writing, right?

Because I, again, I'm a big proponent of we have to communicate with him in writing all things. In writing. You don't wanna get into phone conversations or in person interactions. Yes, yes. But you know, the baiting comes from, there will be like these little micro attacks, there'll be attacks on our parenting.

There will be complaints or allegations that you're neglecting the kids, that they're not bathed, that their fingernails cut. I don't know what it is with all these high conflict people, but something my ex even did this was like, you haven't cut their fingernails. And it was the most outlandish accusation.

But you know, it's these little things over and over again. Or if you feel that they are like a one upper high conflict, people are one uppers of, well, I did this or I did the other. They're wanting you to be in a position because you've done this in the relationship where you're defending yourself, where you are proving yourself.

You are proving I'm a good mom. Right? Mm-hmm. I am, I'm good. I can do these things. And so recognizing that from the get go will save you thousands of dollars, first of all, in family court with an, with an attorney, but also it's gonna save your sanity. It's going to save your sanity. And I, I, I don't defend, we don't justify, we also don't attack the other parent right when they're saying something back.

So, that is the first way that I tell, also, I see most high conflict people. They pick these fights with you or these little arguments of the kids must send their belongings back to my house. So clothing, backpacks, lunch boxes, containers, water bottles. The most minute things that these are belongings of the children, the high conflict parent takes possession of, because I bought it, it's mine, it needs to come back to me, or I need these things back.

And I tell all of my clients, we don't engage. Right. If they have the items on and they're sending it back to Dan's house, great. And when you get those kinds of messages, we just send something simply back of Got it. Received. Thank you. That's it. Got it. But something like that, that is so minimal, will help to deescalate versus sending pictures.

Okay, here's her little pink sweater. You know that Samantha's gonna wear back. And we're, we don't get involved in those things. I think the logistics part of that is, is knowing how to minimize. The conflict on your own. And I know we were talking before, we started recording about gray rocking or yellow rocking, and I, I did a lot of yellow rocking before in my journey.

I then transitioned I was trained from the High Conflict Institute by Bill ing. He created Biff, the Biff Method, which is brief, informative, friendly, and firm. And I have found that that helps over time to deescalate the conflict. And in fact, in the eyes of family Court, it helps us look like we are a good co-parent, right?

And that is key, right? It is key to put ourselves in a position where it looks like we are co-parenting with someone where this feels like it's an impossible job to do. Yeah. Can you talk about , the friendly part of this? I, this has come up and again, with, with my audience who have experienced abuse continue to experience abuse, I just wanna validate how triggering that can feel.

Yes. To be told, you need to be friendly. Would you break that down on what you really mean by how that actually translate in communication? Yes. Let me, lemme preface, sorry to interrupt because here's, here's what I hear back and what I experienced is that any friendliness oftentimes is like the green light for the other high conflict parrot to engage even more.

I would say to my mom, oh my gosh, you give an in, she takes a mile. Like, all I did was because I didn't wanna say anything to him. Smile and. That was an invitation for him to give me more information than I ever wanna hear or think that we're on good terms and buddy, buddy and know we're effing not.

So I just wanna validate a lot of my clients' brains are probably going when there, when you, when you said that. So would you clarify how that actually translate when we're dealing with high conflict? Yeah. So first of all, it is triggering right, and it feels really gross to start doing. The friendly aspect of it is can be something very simple to start out, and it's starting our communication with a salutation.

Hi. Hi John, right, ending our messages with thanks, Bridget. Those things right there. It keeps the tonality of the message friendly. But if I were to send a, a message to someone, for example, I would say, hi John. Let's say I needed to provide an update to the other parent. Okay. Hi John. I hope all is well.

Do I really hope that all is well? No, but what did I do in my brain? I have now retrained my brain to know that when I say that, it's like. Kiss my ass asshole. Okay. That's literally what I'm doing. Okay. So I hope all is well. I wanted to share with you that the kids, are, are, are playing soccer, they're doing really well.

They have a game this weekend. Whatever the, quick update is, and when it's brief we wanna keep it to, a few sentences. We don't wanna have lengthy messages or lengthy paragraphs ever. And a lot of people get stuck in that cycle. Yes, yes. We wanna keep it very brief. In informative, we're give, yes unemotional.

We're keeping just based on information. What is the information that we are sharing and. And that's it, right? I could say, Hey, I'll send another update in a few weeks, or I'll make sure I send I'll share with you additional information when I receive it. Let's say from a, maybe it's a doctor or a teacher, whatever, right?

That's the tone that's in the message, right? The minute that you drop the friendly, and over time we see a deescalation of conflict. It does work. It happens over time. In fact, in 95% of all cases where I am coaching my clients on communication, we start using the Biff method and we see that the high conflict person starts to mirror that behavior.

Their messages start to look just like ours. Hi Brit. Thanks, John. Right, the same setup, even from the way that I space out the messages, it, they are mirroring your behavior and they, understanding why that happens is understanding the personality disorder. They're, they're disordered, they can't help themselves and they mirror behavior that they actually admire.

So that means in their brain they think that you're doing something that's good. They like it. They're copying it because they don't feel good enough. Right? This is not for us to feel sorry for them, but rather understanding why the hell are they copying what I'm doing? Mm-hmm. Why do they do this with me?

That's the why, right? So that is the friendly aspect. It is not to give a green light to the abuser to continue to abuse. I, let's say you're at a parent teacher conference or an open house at the school, and the abuser's also there, right? The ex is there. It doesn't mean you have to talk to them.

You can keep it very neutral and you can just be like, okay, hey, if you're with the kid, oh I'm fine if you wanna go say hi to dad. Sometimes kids, and I've lived through this as a child you feel between a rock and a hard place. 'cause you have this loyalty that you are expected to maintain with the high conflict person and then you have your safe person.

And you know that the safe person's not gonna be upset with you, at least to the degree that the high conflict person was. Right. So you tend to favor over time and please the high conflict person, so that as a child, you're staying out of trouble.

 Yeah. It's way more dangerous  to stand up, to be honest, to be real with the high conflict.

, And that's confusing too for a lot of my clients because it's like, why am I. Being treated this way or neglected or ignored or unfavor, it's really not about you. It is about the dynamic of the abuse that's now transferring and even greater to the child. So, yeah, thank you for clarifying that.

, And I would say friendly. In the eyes of the court, again, if you are in the middle of still mitigating, navigating. This dynamic. And even after it's sealed, stamped, there is potential for you going back, right? Taking yeah. Going back to court. So you wanna maintain this and , I would just say this is difficult for you emotionally, then just throw that in the friendly, in the eyes of the court after, if that helps separate mm-hmm.

This emotionally. , But thank you for for clarifying that it really does. Help take the emotion out of it. It does. Then will you also, so again, now I'm thinking, okay. You mentioned earlier the long ass text messages that come, Uhhuh, Uhhuh from the other side that have, maybe one.

One, sentence of what you actually legally need to respond to. And the other is just bs. So can you talk about how to navigate that? Because those will send you into that internal spiral. Yeah. And you wanna just rant and rave? I'll speak again for myself for a while before I learned these skills, it was, this break free of abuse, needing to finally have a voice, wanna have a voice, defend myself, never play into that again. So that on one hand I wanted to say something because I was done with him believing these false things about me and getting away with it. So it was like, oh, I will spend all day text, text, text, text, oh yes, and clarifying how you are wrong and all that.

I would, oh, the amount of hours that I would spend, you would both and could spending it to friends and my parents. And what does this sound, and how about this? And, oh, well, you should say this. So it's exhausting. It is taxing. It's taking you away from work and all the things. Right. Can you talk about that?

I can, so you know, I am right there with you. I was guilty of this initially, right? I had done all the things, and first and foremost, if we understand that the abuser is now controlling us through our time, that is why they send the back to back to back messages, right? I hope and I encourage anyone that is divorcing someone that has high conflict, to get onto a co-parent communication app, OFW, our Family Wizard, please.

Please, please, please. Yes. Talking parents. There's so many out there now. Yes, those are my two favorite. I prefer talking parents over OFW. Yeah. I don't really like the tone meter in OFW, but you know sometimes the court orders that get onto a parenting app, right? Yep. If you're not on that, and if you have them on your text or it's email, whatever, I want you to turn off your notifications.

Okay. Nothing from a high conflict person is an emergency. It's not urgent. They have trained you during the relationship to believe that it is, and they need your instant attention. Mm-hmm. Your instant response, don't fucking do it. Right? Mm-hmm. Sorry. Oh, I cursed. It's, it's okay. I do too. No worries. Okay.

I should have asked first, but you're good. Anyways, so I, first of all, turning off the notifications. Yes. Pick a time of day that works best for you to read these messages, to engage in these messages because you know that it's going to trigger you. Mm-hmm. And you're instantly going to feel bad and full of anxiety or guilt, right?

So even then, at that time of day, when you're checking your message, open it up. Recognize, how does this message make me feel? Put the device down and walk away right later if you need to come back to it. I like doing like a purge, right? And I just coached a group of clients on this the other day.

Open up a Google Doc. Right. Open up the note section in your phone, write out what you really wanna say. Mm-hmm. And then put it down. Walk away. Walk away. Come back to it later. And you're going to delete what you put in there. You're gonna delete the whole message and you're gonna start over. And so for that long, lengthy message, right, why is it length?

They're accusing you of something which automatically triggers us to want to defend ourselves and to respond and show that this is a false narrative. Well, I have to document it in the communication so that they know that this is not true. No, you don't. No, you don't. You are adding to the conflict document things privately.

Not through your communication. Right. And that, does it serve as evidence in court? Of course it does. Right? But that's not the purpose of us communicating back. So you're going to take their message and think of in your brain, I've got a little red pen, I'm gonna mark through everything. That is not important.

None of this is relevant. I'm gonna respond to this little chunk here. Right? It's talking about the exchange. We've gotta change the time of the exchange because it's not gonna work for them. Okay? How can I respond to this? That is, that is learning how to break this up, right? I don't believe in getting into tip for tats, right?

They're probably going to immediately ping your phone back because that's what they do. They're gonna immediately read those messages. Do not engage. That is not your time to have a conversation with them because they know what you're doing at that precise time, you are responding to their messages.

Walk away. Your rule is, I'm gonna check this once every 24 hours and I'll come back to it. Mm-hmm. You send your message and you're on your way. Now, if it's something logistical for transition purposes, let's say they're running 30 minutes late to the exchange. Okay. If you need to check it again at the time that you're at the location or the time that they said they would be there, and they're not there.

That is perfectly fine, but don't get into this back and forth tit for tat type of communication with them. It's so unhealthy and it is only exhausting you emotionally. It really is. As you're talking, just all of these memories are flooding back of how exhausting that was and how real it felt, the threat and the fear to not respond.

So I just wanna validate that like I felt like. I would get in trouble because he Yes. You think I would get in trouble? Well, I have to respond and I have to say, because going back to what we were talking about, like we want the courts to see that we're trying to co-parent and, and be amicable and figure it out.

And so if I don't respond, then he sends me 50 emails saying, you are not being responsive. You are alienating the children because you are not responsive, because I'm not responding every five minutes. Right. And, and so those fear tactics and manipulation, that is just fire, fire, fire, fire away.

I absolutely believed it. It was paralyzing. And when you don't wanna lose your children, and there's already emotion tagged to that, I just want to validate how hard this is. I think for some of you who are really fresh in this and you're. Maybe going Okay, but I'm responding just like they're saying not to.

Right, right. You're, you're probably afraid because those fear tactics are really coming your way. Oh yeah. So I just wanna reiterate what you said there. 24 hours is reasonable in response if you're consistent, and when you respond, it's reasonable in the eyes of eyes of court. If you're an email, you probably tell your clients this too.

Same thing. Put it in a special folder. All their emails go to a folder and then you choose when you go into that folder, it's, we're trying to mitigate that nervous system trauma response, and when you get the thing I would freeze every time or when I open to check my email for work. There his name was, and I would have a trauma response.

So these are, and your whole day is ruined, right? Because they've suddenly reached out and I was gonna have a great day. Yeah. I was so prepared for the day. I look super cute today and then boom, oh God, go again. And even though I know I'm not gonna respond to the night, I am thinking about what he might be saying and asking and demanding and how I might be responding until five.

Right. The anxiety is real, right? Oh yeah. The build up, my gosh, the build up is real of oh my God, but I've gotta check this message. And it's like the way that I like to look at, it's just as if you feel addicted, right? It's almost like an addiction. No, it, you need to know what they're saying or I'm gonna have to defend myself, and I recognizing that addicting type of feeling and learning how to cut it off, right?

Because we are trauma bonded to this person. It takes a long time. To break the trauma bond, but it's actively recognizing what is happening, which can be very challenging, and we all face the threats of, I'm gonna call the police, I'm gonna call the cops. I'm gonna take you back to court. I'm gonna talk to my attorney, let them, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Let them, let them, let them. Right. Who cares? You're not doing anything wrong. Right. Let them threaten you. Let them claim that you are alienating the children. Let them send you 50 messages. And look like an ass that is controlling and harassing, that's actually more favorable for you. Right. It really is.

And I will say this, and it's hard to a lot of my clients to wrap their head around that because yes, your nervous system is still attached in this hypervigilant threat protective way. I get that, but I'm gonna reiterate what you said because it's so true. Yes. And practice recognizing that.

Shifting And these were the boundaries come in boundary, boundary boundaries. Can you talk a little bit more? , It always comes back to the kids. We'll talk like this, then my clients will bring it right back to the kids. So what can women do to protect their kids emotionally? When. When the ex is thriving on that drama, and, here's the example that came to my mind when I drew the boundary, then he would text my children and they're in class in school and he's, your mom needs to contact me right now.

It's an emergency. It was not an emergency. It never was. Right. To your point. Right. And now they're bringing the kids in. I am, I'm curious your thoughts around how to mitigate that. I think talking to our children and teaching our children, and I like to do it through storytelling, right?

Let's say I would be talking with a girlfriend and I'd be telling them a story of, wow, so and so was reaching out to me at work and I had already given them an update and I said I was gonna do this right. I would use a real life type of example that my kids were listening to.

Or I would even tell my kids these things. But you know what? I decided that I was gonna get back to them when I was available again. Right. When I had additional information. And I usually used work, maybe another girlfriend something like that of how I controlled my own energy, as if a piggy bank, right?

We're, we are a piggy bank every single day we start out with our emotional piggy bank full. Mm-hmm. And we get to choose how we are making. Withdrawals and how we are depositing back into our piggy bank, right? Because if we're withdrawing, withdrawing, withdrawing, we're gonna be in the red. We don't wanna be in the red.

And so I taught my kids this and I think it's helpful for us to explain these things to them and be like, hey, I understand that sometimes if they're saying, dad's texting me when I'm in class. Wow. That, how, how does that make you feel? That seems like a. But that gets you in trouble at school.

Like how does that make you feel? Asking them questions, asking our kids how situations make them feel. What do you think about this? Or Dad said this, well, what do you think? Mm-hmm. What are your thoughts? Why do we do that? Because we're teaching our kids critical skills that they're not learning with someone that's narcissistic and that is critical thinking.

Right? Right. Having autonomy. And so I like to do that with the kids. Now, when you are seeing this behavior going on, you're not gonna message your ex, you're not gonna say, stop texting the kids when they're in school. You don't do it because he's baiting you. Instead, you're going to document privately that your ex is involving the children in adult conflict.

Family court hates this. They hate it. They do? Mm-hmm. They hate that. It's called triangulation, and if you are, it's if, if they're doing that, let them. Document, like you said. And then I love what you're saying there, teaching your children correct principles. Yes. And what healthy communication is, what boundaries are, what Protecting your time and energy, knowing what you have a right to, and in, in any relationship.

And you can do that without throwing them on your ex third a under the bus, right? Yeah. Of your example there of storytelling or just. Just having a conversation about that and asking them the questions and getting into, their minds coming up with a plan together. Really empowering.

You're empowering. It's. It is. And then, when you do these things, you'll see that they start to implement it in more areas of their life. And at first I didn't know if this was ever gonna work, and my kids also had a great therapist that helped them. So, the other thing I would say is get your kids in therapy.

Right? Don't think that, they don't have trauma. They haven't been, they need therapy. Right. And a way of sometimes pushing that with someone that's high conflict is, their. Children have divorced, their parents have divorced and separated, and that's hard for any child, regardless of the circumstances, right?

Yeah. Getting them into therapy, even if they're younger, under the age of five. Play therapy is amazing for kids. Okay. But you know, my kids, I, again, as I said, I had four, they're ages 22, 18, 14, and 12, right? I didn't know if any of this was gonna work. And I see my older daughters who have set boundaries, who have let go of friends who, decided on their own time, but they were no longer wanting.

A communication or a relationship with their dad because of the way he was talking to them, they made that call. Right. My, my boys who are younger, understanding that, I, I don't really like how mom, this girl was like blowing up my phone and like chatting me or something, right? Mm-hmm. Like whatever the kids use this day with Snapchat and mm-hmm.

I was like, mom, it just, it was so annoying and she was like sending me these things and wanted me to feel bad or like guilty. I was like, wow, bud. Wow. And what, what did you do? What did you wanna do? I don't know. I, I really think that I should just block her. I'm not sure. Do you want me to help you?

Do you want me to contact the school? Do you want me to reach out to the other parent? No, mom. No mom. I think I'm just gonna block her because it's not worth it. And he's 14 now, right? This happened a few years ago. I was like, wow. Wow. All that, just the open communication without saying anything about their father or what was happening.

Of course, they were exposed to it from his side and it's hard to not really know what's going on, but they figured it out. And I have some really emotionally intelligent kids. Yep. I could literally share the same exact story, and I didn't know this, but I have two girls and two boys. Oh, really?

Wow. And it's 28, 25, 21, and, and 18. So just a little, little bit older., And they have all, they all experienced the same blowing up and, learn them learning to set their own boundaries. Same thing, recognizing those behaviors and dating experiences where they're like, whoa, because oh yeah, they recognize it now and they've had a safe place to process, to talk, to learn it.

It does pay off. It took time. It took so much time. It took time for my kids. To go in and out with, their father in and out, and maybe I'll try again and you give them grace because my God, that's what I did. I was in mm-hmm. And I was in, yeah, yeah. Their nervous system's gonna do the same thing.

And giving them that time again to do that. Not making it personal, not taking it personal, giving them the space. It really does pay off. So I love that you're adding, 'cause I say this all the time, I'm glad that you're. Adding to that testimony really, that it does work. Yeah, it does work. Yeah, it does.

It does work. Awkward so hard. It's, and stay consistent. And like my daughters, I think we all have this fear of my, I hope my kids don't repeat the same behaviors. Right? Yeah. But my kids use the word gaslighting even amongst each other. Stop gaslighting me. You're not gonna gaslight me.

Right. But like for them to, which a word I've never said to them, but they learn these things and, this guy, my, my 18-year-old is a freshman in college now, and he was talking about, well, this boy did this and this person did that. And I'm just like, you are a little shady. And I don't like the way you're making me feel.

I'm not gonna entertain you any further. Right? Yeah. But seeing that from my own kids, it's damn, you feel so damn proud? All of the things that we have gone through. They mean so much. They are meant for something. And you know your listeners, they may not feel that yet. They may not see that yet, but I promise you everything that is happening is for a reason.

Is the abuse something that we're deserving of? No, but it's happening for a reason. We are going to be smarter than ever. Knowledge is power. We're gonna push through. We are going to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is there. Keep moving forward towards the light. Always don't lose sight of it.

And, holding on to hope. That is the most important thing. I, I bought a coffee mug that said Hope and I still have it , in my cabinet and I bought it when I first left and I first lived in an apartment, I had to go back and then I left for good. And. It was the one thing that kept me going every single day.

The days I didn't have money to buy groceries. All of the things that we needed, right. Of do I have enough money to pay all the bills this month? Right. I held on to so much hope and it kept me going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I'm gonna just wrap up there. It was so beautifully put and everything you just said there at the end, so.

Insightful, empowering. And I know you don't know this, but the end of every episode I say you really are the chooser in your life and you get to create the life that you want because of this, everything you just said, because yes, you really can. So thank you so much for your time. 📍  Wisdom and additional experience that I know a lot of women can relate to.

So thank you.