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The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads is a weekly podcast designed specifically for fathers navigating divorce. It addresses the unique challenges men face and offers practical guidance, emotional support, and real-life insights to help dads survive — and ultimately thrive — during and after divorce.
Each episode combines honest conversation, personal stories, and action-oriented advice to help listeners rebuild confidence, create healthy co-parenting strategies, manage finances, navigate court complexities, and heal emotionally. Since launching in 2020, the show has become a trusted resource and supportive community for divorced and divorcing dads.
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The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
266 - Breaking the Cycle of Alienation: A Father's Guide to Reconnection
The silent epidemic of parental alienation devastates countless families each year, yet remains poorly understood even by many family court professionals. In this powerful episode, we're joined by Charlie McCready, a coach who helps parents navigate the painful journey of having their children turned against them—a journey he knows intimately from losing and eventually rebuilding relationships with his own children.
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Hello and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. We have an incredibly important topic that we're going to be talking about today and an expert that is going to shed some important lights around that. But before we jump in, I just wanted to welcome our new members to the Divorce Davica community. As usual, man, it's been a really big couple of weeks with new members. We've got guys pouring in and getting involved in the community Adam, Paul, Tim, Phil, Brett, Peter. Welcome to the community.
Speaker 1:If you're not part of the Divorced Advocate community yet, check it out at thedivorcedadvocatecom. Kinds of resources. Wherever you're at in this divorce process and whatever you might need. We've got a resource for you. So get the support that you need and deserve there. Also, a reminder about the Foundation for Fathers. You're going to hear a mid-roll today and ongoing on the podcast in the Foundation for Fathers, our new nonprofit 501c3 that supports dads in need. If you know a business that takes credit cards, get them in touch with us. They can help fund this nonprofit ongoing. So just a reminder on that and you can check it out under the tab supportdadsatthedivorcedadvocatecom. Okay, my guest today, Charlie McCready, is a seasoned coach who helps parents and children navigate the painful reality of parental alienation. He speaks from personal experience, having endured the alienation of his own children through long stretches of limited or no contact, before ultimately rebuilding those relationships. With over 20 years of firsthand and professional experience, Charlie offers practical, real-world guidance drawn from working with a diverse range of parents facing similar challenges.
Speaker 2:Charlie welcome Thank you very much, jude. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and I'm delighted to be of assistance for you and your fantastic group.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we were chatting a little bit offline and I know the guys that are the dads that are tuning into this now are probably very, very interested in hearing what you have to say. If it is not the top issue that I have dads come to me or that we have conversation around in our group meetings or individual coaching, it is one of the top two or three issues that we deal with and so, like I was mentioning, this is something also dear to my heart in that I experienced this as a child growing up as well, and I can empathize with and relate to the challenges of dealing with this from from both sides of the coin. So I'm really curious to to start our conversation. But I why don't you just start with sharing how and why this is such a heavy topic and difficult topic to deal with? Why and how did you get involved in this? Not by choice?
Speaker 2:yeah so. So I guess I was like so many of the people who will be listening to this podcast, which was I went through a period of what I call pre-alienation, which is a kind of foundation building phase that my ex was going through. That was going on for about a decade and I was unaware of it. I was unaware of Prentlady Nation, full stop. It was only really at the point in time that I separated from my ex that I saw this rapid change in the behaviors from my children. They really didn't want to see me. Getting time at all with them was incredibly difficult, you know. Their respect and behavioral patterns were changing enormously and I suddenly found myself in this world where I was kind of locked out from from a relationship with them. Getting any information about what was going on their lives was really hard and I had a period of five years of what I can best describe as severely alienated. So two kids involved. One of them was more affected than the other. So I had like two different experiences With the older child.
Speaker 2:She was 16 when this began. She went off to uni at the age of 18. That gave me the opportunity to start rebuilding the relationship because I did all the right things, as it turned out, pretty much for the two years before she went off to uni. We'll cover some of what those things you should do are during this conversation, I'm sure, however, my younger child that was much harder, because she was then left alone in the house with a mother who was still furious at me, venting off. I was the vilified scapegoat and for her it was.
Speaker 2:It was harder to rebuild our relationship. In fact I con, I consciously, involuntarily, went two years no contact with her because it was the only way of maintaining the relationship. Yeah, now that's a real tough gig for any dad. Yeah, I didn't know it was going to be two years. All I knew is that the every single time I met her our relationship was deteriorating.
Speaker 2:So I thought let's just draw a line in the sand, take a break from each other and then, when she's ready, let's try and rebuild from. You know that low point we got to without it getting any worse. So I'm glad to say that I've rebuilt relationships with both of my kids. It's taken quite some time. I mean I'd say five years of severe alienation, two years no contact. It's probably taken another couple of years to rebuild the relationship with my younger child took a couple years to build it. My older one as well, but I'm now 15 years in and I'd have to say, you know, for any parent who's out there thinking this is a short-term thing, it ain't you know you have to get ready for that.
Speaker 2:My, my ex, still hates me with a passion. It's not me and it's not. It's not you and it's not anybody else is listening to this, it's it's the people who are alienated. They've got the problems right, but she, yeah. So she, she still hates me with a passion and there are still some residual scars with the kids. So generally, you know, we're 80 to 90% fixed, but the 10 to 20% just bubbles up once in a while. So it's something we have to continue supporting and nurturing our children with over, you know, a very long period of time.
Speaker 1:Right. And so, having experienced it myself, I can say that even in my adult life and now, there are things that come up that are residual, things that I may have thought I've dealt with or that I didn't know that I needed to deal with, oftentimes within the context of relationships, right, maybe relationships with my kids now, but also in romantic relationships too, because it really really does a number on a child who is impressionable, that's. You know, neural pathways are building and forming at that time of life. It's impressionable. It's a difficult, challenging time, particularly like it sounds like your, your daughters were or teens going through like going through this and at that time 14 and 16 yeah, and and and, so that's, it's terrible and it's and it's difficult.
Speaker 1:So a couple of things.
Speaker 2:So we get blindsided as well. So I would expect all the dads out there and you know there are also moms who get alienated as well but everybody who gets alienated to just be in a bit of an emotional mess, and so this stuff permeates every aspect of your life.
Speaker 2:You know you find it difficult to work to socialize, to relax, because you're just in this, kept this straight, this the state of very high stress, yeah, and that's part of what I think we should we should talk about as well is how do you help parents to kind of get back into a more normalized state, because you can't help your kids when you're in this kind of side-blinded state yourself right.
Speaker 1:that's a great, great point, because we were mentioning and I'm and, and you, you experience it, I experience it the the dads that come to me that are that are the end, at the end of their rope, ready to end things.
Speaker 1:It's it's usually around having an issue with alienation or not seeing their kids and not being able to be a parent and have involvement with them. That is really the last straw that can break the camel's back. So for me, this is a health crisis. Dads are already nine times more prone to suicide, and so, with these issues that bring it to this which this is one of them we really need to start shedding a light and providing some support, which is what we're going to try to do today. So you mentioned pre-alienation, which I thought was interesting because I'd never heard that, but it's something that we do talk about often, and so when you mentioned I was being pre-alienated, were you talking about things that were happening during your marriage and the relationship that you had with your ex, and then just the family dynamic, and, if so, kind of walk us through what some of those examples and things to look out for or look back if you're in the middle of a divorce, of what pre-aliation might be absolutely because it's.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things that so I I kind of coined the term just for for the parents that I help and coach, because it's kind of gives them a framework to work with. It's basically your ex beginning to set down these foundations that somehow you're a bad person. So it might be saying that you know you're a bad dad, you don't care about them, you're mean with money, you're mean with your time, you know you shouldn't be listened to, you're a bit of an idiot. They'll find various ways of starting to put you down such that the that the building of the children are building up a negative narrative about you. And this stuff can be very, very subtle. You know it can be. It doesn't have to be very obvious, but it can be a little denigrating comment about you. You know in front of the kids oh no, you don't listen to your dad, just do what your mom says. You know you'll be all right or undermining.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say undermining, yeah, and a lot of this will, you know, goes on potentially behind your back, so, and we'll see little signs of it. But you know, most of us just put it down to well, you know, my, my ex, is a bit difficult or she's just like that. You know, nothing will come of it. But actually what's going on is this kind of foundational rewriting of of who is the important parent, who's the parent to be trusted, who's the person that you should feel potentially a little bit unsafe with. And you know, even some some false allegations start coming up and very often it's the alienator who's doing the bad stuff, then claims that it's us doing the bad stuff.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, and that's when it becomes well.
Speaker 1:It becomes well, at least, blatant to those of us that were blind to the fact that this was happening prior, but that then becomes.
Speaker 1:What I've found is that it's incremental, right, like it might start during the marriage, like you described, with some of these subtle things that you're talking about, and we kind of, for the sake at least this is my experience and the experience with lots of guys I talk to for the sake of keeping things going smoothly, it doesn't get addressed. There's probably other issues that are going on in the relationship that are making things difficult and challenging. Those might be the ones that are getting the focus and the attention, and these other small slights, like you said, they could be just slights, right. Something as simple as a backhanded comment in the space of the kids, right? Maybe not even directly with the kids there, but within earshot, where they can hear, or within earshot where they can hear, or disregarding, or ignoring and stuff, like when the kids are around, so that they kind of see this dynamic that starts to happen and it's not a conscious thing for them, right, which I think we're going to get into here in a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:I don't think at that point that they're planning to alienate the kids, but right. But a lot of the people that we're dealing with you know it is a mental health crisis and the people that are prone to alienation do have mental disorders. And you know the word narcissism is bandied around a lot, but that is a mental disorder, right. But I also think it's really important for for for everybody to understand that there are, there are catalysts that often have a massive impact on the acceleration of alienation. So sometimes you might, you might get to the to the point of separating and everything is okay for a while, but then some dynamic changes after a period of time. So the the big five that I would look for and warn people about. The first one is when you do separate, because generally at that point in time the narcissists have kind of decided, or the alienators have decided, that we're no longer important in their lives. They don't need to butter us up to keep us happy about anything. The gloves do that off and now's the time to go for the kids.
Speaker 2:What what's? I'm just going to take a backward step for a second. I'm going to use this word safety quite a lot, because a person becomes narcissistic because they no longer feel safe in the world around them and they so they, they adopt coping mechanisms to deal with things that are classically traumatic events that have happened to them in the past. So they become very controlling, very manipulative, very coercive, yeah. So when things happen that that make them feel unsafe, they're going to react. I'll just add something that will that the, the alienated parents will will relate to as well. Most of us are empaths, so we're fixers, we're kind-hearted people. I'm going to go so far as to say we're people pleasers.
Speaker 2:We're too, we're too nice yeah, sometimes codependent yeah, and our coping mechanisms to keep ourselves safe is keeping everybody else happy, right? So when you start looking at narcissists and I don't want to put all the blame on them because it's like we need to be understand them, but we also need to understand ourselves we're both trying to keep ourselves safe and the kids behaviors which we'll come to, those are coping mechanisms as well. That's the kids keeping themselves safe. So if you want, if you want to really understand what's going on, just think is this person feeling safe or not? So that comes, that comes back to the five triggers.
Speaker 2:So at separation, the alienator is thinking okay, I'm feeling really unsafe because I now need to go off and kind of create this whole new life for myself. There's a lot of uncertainty. So their go-to response in a lot of instances is to take out their frustrations and their fears on the kids by elevating or increasing the alienation. The second one court, court, anything to do with courts, even the threat of court, because this is something that they, they, they can't control in the way that they.
Speaker 1:They they seek to other aspects of their life again.
Speaker 2:It makes them feel unsafe, and so they increase the alienation as a mechanism of hurting you, for putting them through pain. The third one money. So, generally speaking, we as empaths, we get a lot of our kind of the important things in our in life for us tend to revolve around relationships. For them it tends to be around, you know, the home, the finance. You know, can I have physical things that I don't have to interact with? You know they're not like relationships that I have control of them and I spend things to do money.
Speaker 2:Fourth one your relationship with your kids. So when they're trying to stop you from having the relationship and you somehow succeed, either by through the court or by using some of the techniques that you can use, start having a better relationship with your child, this will go against what the alienator is trying to do. So again they'll increase the alienation. So it's like for us we experience one step forward, one step back, one step forward, one step back. And then the fifth one, which you touched.
Speaker 2:The beginning is new partnerships. So in the case of the the men here, the mothers that there's a couple of issues. They have one they don't want you to be happy. Two they don't want to be with you, but they don't want anybody else to be with you, because then you might be happy. But the third one, which is the big one, is they don't want another mother figure coming in and being an influence over the kids, right? So when, when you experience so, most people will go through separation, divorce, which often entails court and money, and so early on in in that kind of period there's a lot of upheaval and unrest.
Speaker 2:And it's normally the worst time for the alienators, so that's, by extension, the worst time for the kids. But just being able to, you know, I would encourage everybody to think about is it worthwhile taking my ex to court Because you're going to create all sorts of problems by doing so? Should I be, you know, letting my children know about new partners? Although we're trying to recreate new lives, I would say to most people kind of try and keep those things separate, depending on your circumstances. Obviously I'm being a bit generic here, but generally try to keep those things separate and just be aware that when you do start having a better relationship with your kids, your ex is going to try and upset that and create road bumps for you.
Speaker 1:Right. So that's very interesting because of the fact that most I would be inclined to say that most of the divorce cases that end up going to trial involve one or the other person having some sort of mental, emotional issue or personality disorder, because the majority of healthy, functioning adults that are in a relationship that just isn't working anymore can come to agreement and terms and figure things out on how to separate and keep the the kids best interests at the the of that process. But when you've got, it only takes one person to have these issues, to have to be forced to go to trial and to deal with this stuff. So it's almost like a catch-22 in what you're describing, because if you have to do that and we talk about making sure that you're taking care of yourself and structuring things that are in the best interest of being able to be the best dad that you can be going forward so that you can support your kids and have a life and hopefully maybe have another romantic relationship and successful relationship that will be a positive for for your kids but if you're doing that, then you're actually triggering and setting off this whole firestorm of issues with somebody that's got that's got some mental, emotional challenges going on.
Speaker 1:So it almost becomes like where you've got to make a choice of do you stay in this relational dynamic that you've had this whole time dealing with this person, with the mental, emotional issues and if you do, then you kind of perpetuate that post-divorce which is probably it's not really healthy, or do you start to do the work on yourself, make the changes that you need, and sometimes that's starting to say no, setting boundaries.
Speaker 1:And then if it, if it requires going to court and having to do that, so like, how do you, how do you sort through that and make that decision, if you navigate that and know what's best and what's not? Because I've seen it both ways and I've actually heard the argument you brought up, the fact that you went no contact for a couple of years, had the conversations with others who say, well, this is probably the best thing that you should do, because it reduces the conflict and that therefore helps your kids to not have to be in the middle of a firestorm of fighting. But my argument to that is well, this is abuse and what they're doing is abusive, and in any other abusive situation we would never be just handing over our children to an abuser physically or any other way.
Speaker 2:This is one of the challenges, because a lot of alienation is counterintuitive and it's really hard for us to get our heads around this. So, generally speaking, I would advocate that people, that the parents try to maintain contact with their kids, even when it's being even when their kids being really difficult, keep sticking, stick in there, because when you do go no contact, it can be very difficult to re-establish that relationship and very often you can be highly reliant upon the kid to be the person that reaches out to you, whereas at least, at least when you know.
Speaker 2:So what I did was extreme because I didn't have much of an option. But but for the parents who are just, who are in a position and this is where I should say we're talking generically Everybody needs to consider that they're in a unique situation. We, as a dad, is unique, each of our children is unique. The mother or the other alienating parent is unique. The other people, all the dynamics, are unique. So do go. You know, I would encourage most people to consider getting help and support, because going through all the books and the resources and everything else will give you lots of generic stuff, but it also it won't pull all the pieces together for you, right, and it won't tailor it for you. So you know, the advice on should I go, contact or no contact will depend on your particular situation, right, okay, but there are some sort of general things that people could, can can take into consideration. Can I, can I give you something that might help in terms of how do you navigate this stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, well, actually, can we, before we talk about navigating it, can we talk then about the next step, Because we talked about the pre-alienation right? We talk then about the next step, because we talked about the pre-alienation right, but let's talk about this, the signs, because this is this is what I get a lot of times with, with, with guys that come in and then then they do it. Well, you know, my, my son or daughter just doesn't want, you know, they don't want to come over, so I just let them stay at their moms for whatever amount of time, and then you know there's what are some of these signs then that you need to be paying attention to that. Then this is really starting to escalate to that, to that next point, and then let's tie in like what you can do to to mitigate those in those different, at those different levels.
Speaker 2:So classically, I would expect kids to start doing things like being rude to to the parent, so being a little bit belligerent you know backhanded comments, basically feeling a sense of empowerment. So they might start saying, oh, I don't need to follow your boundaries, or mom says I can do this. I'm going to try and stick away from saying mom too much because I say it's kind of gender neutral. But you know they they kind of say the alienating parent is saying, oh, I can do this or I can do that. You know the alienating parent will also give the kids choice, the power of choice, but it's a false choice. So they'll they'll say to the kid well, you can decide if you see your dad this weekend or not.
Speaker 1:Right. That's the number one that I hear right Is that, oh well, they're old enough to make their own decision, which you know. Not even at 20 are they old enough to make that decision because they don't even understand the benefits of being with their father and what that's. You know what those things bring, right.
Speaker 2:And you'll hear from the alienating parent I can't force them, yes. And you'll hear from the alienating parent I can't force them, yes. But also, what you might notice is there is this thing called adultification or parentification, where the alienating parent is showing the kid lots of court documentation, sharing private information about you, sharing financial information. So, again, if you hear your kids talking about any of those things, that's normally a sign they're being alienated. But as part of that process, children then start seeing themselves as being more of a peer to you rather than as you know. This is where the parent-child relationship starts breaking down. This is where they start having issues with your boundaries. You might also notice that they stop sharing private information with you, so they'd stop telling you about what's going on in their lives. They won't talk about what's going on in the alienated parents home. Yeah, that they'll.
Speaker 2:They'll stop when they might start calling you by your first name as opposed to you're calling your dad or mom, they can stop giving you physical attention like hugs, they might stop saying I love you. But you can generally see there's this change and this shift in your child where they're essentially beginning to reject you. Right, it can be quite difficult detecting alienation when you've got teenage kids I was just going to say that.
Speaker 1:How is that? Yeah, can we differentiate that? Because sometimes this is a natural process, with teens pulling away, exerting their freedom, etc. But that's where it gets really convoluted so.
Speaker 2:So in those sorts of instances I would look for what they call signs of enmeshment. So so this is, you know. Are they strongly favoring the other parent? Are they parroting what the other parent says? Are they holding the other parents views of you? Are they pushing your boundaries too far, you know? Are they? Are they reluctant to see you? Because those are all signs, you know, teenagers, they think all parents are idiots. Right, when they get to that you. Because those are all signs, you know, teenagers, they think all parents are idiots, right. When they get to that point, they'll generally see both idiots, right, they're happy to have a relationship with both of them in normal circumstances that's a really good point.
Speaker 1:I think, right there and I want to stop and point that out is teenagers in a in like, even in the most like healthy, functional two parent households. They're going to think that both parents are stupid. Right, they're going to be pushing back against the system, if you will, or the family or whatever. It's not going to be one parent or the other is stupid unless there's alienation going on within. But I'm talking about like a healthy, you know a healthy family dynamic. So I think that's a really really good point. So look out and for those dads that are listening and that they can differentiate, if it is really specific, if they're not doing the same thing with mom that they're doing with you, then that's probably a sign.
Speaker 2:And also an alienated child, doesn't want to talk to you about the problem of alienation. So when you try and confront them and say, well, why won't you come and see me? You'll get things that they won't be able to answer. So they'll say stuff like I'm busy, it's complicated, you know, or they'll just try and avoid the subject because basically they're being put in a loyalty conflict between the alienating parent and us and they don't want to be in that position. So when we try to have the conversation with them, you're holding them in this impossible position where they can't say anything negative about the alienating parent right so it sounds weird.
Speaker 2:Again, this is counterintuitive, but having conversations with your kid about alienation generally pushes them away from you. Okay, interesting. This is this catch-22 situation again. If you go to court to try and get your kid, it can turn against you. If you try and have conversations with your kid about alienation, it can turn against you. So you have to handle things very subtly alienation, it can turn against you.
Speaker 1:So you have to handle things very subtly Well, and so maybe the conversation and so I'm going to share kind of the experience that I had and what I did, and I feel like I unwittingly was able to mitigate a lot of this, and how I did it is when you were describing all the things that I experienced. Like they talk about your finances and what you did, what was wrong in this, and I would get my daughters coming to you know, my daughters were much younger and I'm sure, and I think we maybe we need to differentiate the conversations can be different or should be different at different age levels, but they were, they were younger, but they were yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, definitely, that's, yeah, that's a.
Speaker 1:That's a huge thing, which let me just comment on that too, which is something I say all the time. When you hire a coach to go to a physical fitness coach, maybe to go help you get in a healthier lifestyle or get in better shape, the plan that they make for every person is different, right, because every person has different goals, different bodies, different abilities, like all that. That's the same If you come to a parental alienation coach, a divorce coach, et cetera, and that's why it's incredibly important that you do get that help Because, like you said, if you just you're reading books or you're getting your information on the internet or whatever, it's all general right. Like you're going to hear a billion things about narcissism, right, and a billion you know false things about what that really is and what that entails. So get a coach so that they can help you be specific and tailor. You know tailor what you need to do to your specific situation. That's the same with attorneys and and and everything else.
Speaker 1:But so so I think that was a terrific point, but but back to to those conversations, and so what I always did is like if they come and say mom said you stole, you know, stole all of her money. Mom said you, you know you took her car, that you stole all of her money. Mom said you took her car, that you stole the house, like all these different things that they come up with. I would sit down and I'd say man, I'm really sorry that your mom's having these conversations with you. They're adult conversations that we probably shouldn't be having. But that's not in fact true. And if you want to know any more information about it I'm happy to share with you. And usually for the most part they'd be like no, because they were too young to understand how you decide who gets the house in court and what the statutes are within whatever jurisdiction, and I'm not going to have that conversation with them anyway. But usually that was enough to make them say you know, I was setting a boundary, saying no, that's not true.
Speaker 1:Well, number one, I'm saying they shouldn't have that conversation, right, and I was pointing out the behavior in my ex and not denigrating her, not talking bad about her, just talking about the specific behavior of her having an adult conversation with the child and that that was wrong, right. So I think it's important. I felt that it was important to identify the behavior of what was happening and let them know that I did not feel that that was an appropriate behavior to be happening. And then it just opened up the conversation, the opportunity for them to be able to communicate. I appreciated that they brought that stuff to me. Sometimes it was just at a question, sometimes it was, like you described, like a prod or a poke or something that was rude and that's not their nature, right, like because that's I knew them well enough, and then that would open up the conversation. So was that the right way to go about it, at least at that age in?
Speaker 2:some cases okay all right, well, tell me yeah again.
Speaker 2:So this is a really good example of just how dynamic this is.
Speaker 2:So if you can imagine a spectrum of in fact there are three spectrums there's one for the alienator, one for us as parents and one for the kids. For the kids it's mildly alienated through to severely, so mild, moderately, severely mild is where they're kind of a little bit impacted, they're feeling under a bit of pressure, but but it's fairly manageable. So those are the sorts of situations where having a conversation along the lines that you're talking about with your kid will work quite well because they're kind of relatively open-minded. Where you have a child who's in in the severely alienated space, they're completely enmeshed with with that parent and they they go through kind of trauma within themselves, if anything, if they're challenged on on that parent's perspective, or if you challenge them to have a conversation to say, look, that's simply not true that they will back away from you and they will, they will, they will not engage in that Okay. So you have to kind of know where you are on the, where they are on the spectrum, as to what sorts of conversations you can have with them.
Speaker 1:So then what do you do then with that severe, with that child that's being severely alienated? Because I can relate to that because that was my childhood, right Like I was completely enmeshed with my mom. So you're exactly right, any conversation outside of what her opinion was was like very difficult for me to engage in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So maybe if we can use you as an example because I think that's always really good and we'll kind of use you as the guinea pig. The way that I encourage parents to rebuild relationships with severely alienated kids is to first of all put yourself entirely into that child's position. So recognize that they're in a traumatized space, that the things that they're doing are coping mechanisms. It's not about you as the alienated parent, it's the child has come to see this way and they believe it. It is their experience. And one of the hardest things that we need to do and I've had to do this personally is you, as an alienated child, need to be able to tell your alienated parent what you have been through. You might not even wish to discuss your experience of alienation, but you need to kind of start developing a sense of trust with the parent who is alienated. Because trust is broken down, you no longer feel safe with that person Very often the kids because it's been drummed into their head so much that you know being with that person is going to result in trouble with the alienating parent.
Speaker 2:It's like this subconscious program that starts to run in the background. So even when you know things have calmed down and you feel a little bit more independent. Just reaching out and being with the alienated parent again can make you feel uncomfortable, which you wouldn't understand why. But it's this safety thing again. It's because, like, oh, if I go and see dad, mom's going to get angry, so I have to tread really carefully here. And then you're thinking but where's dad at? Is dad in a healed place? That he's, you know, he's not going to give me a hard time, he's not going to be angry with me. I don't know. Talking about all this stuff from the past, you know it's kind of he. He needs to meet me where I am at the moment and that can be. That can be hard for an alienated parent because a lot of the time we've got this whole injustice thing going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want to correct the record. And I say to people all the time you've got a choice. Typically, either you try to correct the record or you choose to have a relationship with your kid. I would opt. I would opt for a relationship with a kid. So with with the, the alienated parent needs to give that child an opportunity to get comfortable with them again and the only way you can really do that is through love, support, compassion, and you have to endure the child telling you about their experience when you know it's not true. They're going to tell you stuff about how they perceive you. You know it's not true, but until they get the opportunity to tell you, they can't trust you Because if they say but, dad, you were really mean when you were young.
Speaker 2:You were really mean to me. If you defend yourself, first of all, that's the same as criticizing the alienator, but also if you defend yourself, you're basically saying I'm not feeling safe as a parent because I can't rise above what I'm hearing and just accept this is my, this is my son or my daughter's experience, because that's all that's going on.
Speaker 1:they're just sharing their experience right well, and it's not, and and we almost have to look at it like they're brainwashed right? And it's not actually their experience. It's what they're told their experience was, and probably they don't even remember what it is that they're recalling, because it's just what they were told and they're just repeating what they've been told, so it's not even any kind of true reality, right?
Speaker 2:they've what they've been told. So it's not even any kind of true reality, right, it's not. It's not that we, that the kid needs to have an option. I mean, a lot of the time the kids won't talk about the vast majority of what went on with alienation, but they feel some a need to talk about some degree, just to clear the air and kind of move past you know, move into new territory with you.
Speaker 2:So those things that they do decide to share, which is them seeking to rebuild this trust of you, you just have to go along with their story, at least in the initial stages. You know you can slowly correct them over a period of time, but they need to feel comfortable with us in the first instance. Once they do, then you can slowly start trying, and it's not so much a case of correcting the story, it's more a case of trying to help readjust their values and their standards and the way that they conduct themselves, because that's more important right these kids.
Speaker 1:Are these very strange that they have distorted perspectives right well, and I want to make a comment on that, because, having been alienated, it's not even that you will correct the story.
Speaker 1:It was and at least this was for me and lots of other alienated kids that I've talked to and well, adults now that were alienated kids that I've talked to is that over a period of time in your growth and in your own healing, you look back and are able to correct the story yourself, knowing what you've learned and having gone through the healing process that you've gone through.
Speaker 1:And then you know, and then it's, then it's righted if you will, or at least. But that's hard as a parent, like having going or going through that and waiting for that that process. So what I'm hearing you say is if you can just handle your emotions, keep your emotions whatever, whatever if that's fear or sadness or or outrage and anger at this whole process or outrage and anger at this whole process, if you just keep that in check and allow them during this process to get out whatever they've got to get out and understand that they're literally maybe like, look at them as like a puppet, right, like they're not even. It's not even them, they're just like they're just parroting something that's been brainwashed in them. Let that go no-transcript eventually that the healing will happen in the nobody could fix.
Speaker 2:You know your dad couldn't fix you know as much as he would love to, he couldn't fix you. But when you restored a relationship with him, that then enabled you to fix yourself, because you're the only person who can fix you. But it puts you in a position that you felt safe enough to then kind of explore your healing.
Speaker 2:Yep exactly, and until you feel safe to explore your healing, you're not going to heal Right? Can I just go into the parent stuff? Because that is at the very heart of this, because a lot of, a lot of parents out there are going to be feeling really, really powerless about everything that's going on. Right, you're? You're a lot more powerful than you think you are and one area where you have an enormous amount of control is over yourself and you have to heal yourself. Now. This is counterintuitive again, because we all think no, no, no, I need to focus on going to court, I need to focus on fixing the kids. I need to focus on, you know, making sure the kids are okay. If you're not in a good space yourself, you can't help the kids. If you're not in a good space, you will go to court more often than necessary. You, you will. You will make mistakes, so I'm just going to, I'll play through, and it's harder for men to hear this than women, because women are much better talking about their emotions.
Speaker 2:But but men go through the same thing. So there are nine big emotions. Okay, this one's grief, where you don't have contact with your kids. Second one is guilt, because you feel have I done enough? Should I've done enough? Am I doing enough? And we're empaths. So we're really self-critical anyway and we're beating ourselves up.
Speaker 2:The third one is shame, because the people around us are criticizing us for not having our children in our life or for having such bad relationships. But that's because they don't understand alienation. They've got no, so they're using a reference point of a normal family, which leads to the fourth one, which is isolation, because your family don't get it, your friends don't get it, nobody gets this stuff. You feel all by yourself. It's like how? How is this happening? What is this stuff? The fifth one is powerlessness, because whatever we seem to do is turned against us. If we buy the kid a present, it's it's like your dad's, you know, trying to bribe you. If you don't buy the kid a present, your dad's abandoned you, you know, whatever the instance is, it'll be turned against you.
Speaker 2:Injustice so the fact that the lawyers don't get it, the psychologists don't get it, the courts don't get it, cps doesn't get it, dcf all these get it. The courts don't get it, cps doesn't get it, dcf all these players nobody gets it. So it's like how can this be going on? But injustice is also about you as a parent, thinking I'm being rejected and my kids doesn't understand who I am. We get very precious about ourselves. Then there's anger, self-explanatory, and there's anxiety. Then there's anger, self-explanatory, and there's anxiety, which is a massive one, because we create all these scenarios in our head of what if this is happening? What if that's happening? What if the other is happening? What men in particular don't realize is, when you create any one of these what if? Scenarios in your head, you go through the emotional experience as if it was real. You go through the emotional experience as if it was real. Right, every time you come up with something, you're you're just traumatizing yourself.
Speaker 2:The last one is fear, which is it's kind of a fuel for the other eight, and if you can imagine a marathon race. So basically our x runs the first hundred yards and they say here's a baton, there you go, this is yours, and we go, thank you very much, and we grab it. What we're grabbing is a conversation in our head which is looping, and the conversation is grief, guilt, fear, isolation. You know anxiety, injustice. Once this conversation starts in your head, basically you're going to give anything that's, that's that's in your mind, into your subconscious, your subconscious system. It's a problem processor, it's got no filters and it'll say you know, whatever it is, you want me to work on it? I'll work on it. So it'll say, jude, you want me to work on grief, guilt, isolation, fear. Give me a couple of hours, I'll get back to you right, and it does so now it's permeating your dreams it'll wake you up at.
Speaker 2:At night. You're trying to do your job. All you think about is grief, guilt, fear, anxiety. You can't go out and spend time socially. Literally every moment of your life is spent with these thoughts going around in your head. So you have to very consciously stop this conversation from happening. But it's deeper than that, because all these things the grief, the guilt, the injustice they're words we understand, but they're they're common words, but it's unique experiences again. So it's your version of grief, it's your version of injustice, it's your version of you know, isolation, and most of these things have their root causes in our past insecurities and vulnerabilities, Right? So basically, these are our insecurities and vulnerabilities, with a big looping conversation going on. So we have to identify what these things are so we can shut the conversation down.
Speaker 2:And then you want to switch the conversation to where do I actually want to go? And the way I want to go is who is the version of me? I want to be for me, because I'm in a mess, so I need to sort myself out. What's my life going to start looking like, going forwards? Because I need to sort that out as well. Who's the version of me I need to be for each of my kids, because each of your children are having different experiences. You can't be the same dad to two or three different kids. You have to be a different version of you for each of them, according to what they need from you. So there's a lot of stuff over here to focus your mind on.
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, that's a lot right.
Speaker 2:That is a lot taking your attention off this. So I'm just going to give an example of how do you, how do you, identify what these things are so triggers? If anything is triggering you, it's an insecurity. So a trigger might be my kids being rude to me, or a kid. A trigger might be I'm not seeing my kids, or I might see other kids. I might see other people with their children out in the public. That triggers me. Basically, every single one of those things is telling you something inside of you needs to be healed. Yeah, so I'm just going to put some of this back into the context because I think it's really useful, using examples.
Speaker 2:We're empaths most of us. We're empaths because somebody, typically our parents, didn't give us the love and support and care that we deserved as kids. So we learned this coping mechanism from them, which is I have to make sure you're happy, in order. You then look after me, and then we adopt that as our modus operandi. We go out into the big wide world and we become people pleasers, which is too nice. We don't have good boundaries when it comes to relationships. Career will be a completely different person. We'll be a lot more confident, but relationships we tend to be kind of way too nice. Then you go into your marriage, so you're now with a narcissist and you use your coping mechanisms with them, which is all about being nice. Of course. That doesn't work, so we're kind of defenseless against these people.
Speaker 2:Then you go forwards again to the point of time your kids are being alienated and now you're going to re-experience what happened to you as a kid, because your child is now rejecting you and that makes us feel very insecure because we're empaths, because that's what happened to us us as children, and all the things that we would normally do being really nice to the kid doesn't necessarily work.
Speaker 2:So we feel that we don't have the skills and the tools to kind of correct this situation. So we have to start learning how to be different within ourselves, you know, because, also, the kids don't need a parent who's feeling insecure and vulnerable about themselves. The kids need a parent who is strong, confident, is showing the child that there is a way through this, there's a way out of this, somebody they can go to, who's going to give them the love and the support they need. Right, yeah, right, yeah. So there's lots going on in the kind of this, the subconscious aspects of of this which everybody out there can fix you right, you can get, you can identify all these things and shut them all down yeah, like so.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the way I I describe divorce is you.
Speaker 1:You get broken open right like in in the parental alienation.
Speaker 1:Part of that is just another one that exploits a part of that.
Speaker 1:When you're broken open, that you're having to deal with and learn about, and I think what we can come to a conclusion about is all of this is meant for you to step back in, because it is so chaotic and so difficult that it's so complex is to to step back and really take a look at yourself and and control the only thing that you can during this time, which is yourself, your emotions, how you react, the work that you do to to heal yourself, how to and how to show up better, how to create the environment that you need.
Speaker 1:You touched on taking care of yourself, getting yourself in a position whether it's a position to go forward and parent and co-parent together, or to deal with alienation, or to deal with a stressful financial situation, whatever it might be right, like there's a myriad of things depending on your situation right One might be, you know, one might be alienation, one might be finances, one might be something else, but all of it is going to be very complex and very stressful in going forward, so focusing in on yourself, which is counterintuitive also to what you described as empath, like you're using empaths as kind of like codependent people, I think, people that give to get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just people who are kind-hearted, nice givers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which, which, which I was, my case, which I find oftentimes with the alienated parents are. You know, it's counterintuitive for them to stop and say I got to take care of myself, I got to figure this stuff out, I got to take the time to go to therapy, I got to get myself physically fit. I need to be healthy and eating right and getting the sleep and rest that I need. Right, like you know, and we probably don't have time to go in it. But like I did the same thing, I started to become super dad and almost kill myself because I wanted to do everything, as I was up till midnight steaming the, the, the, the girls uniforms, because I wanted to make sure that they, they looked perfectly good and it would be a first thing. Making breakfast and lunch and making sure that they're like their hair was done and all like it was insane, insane. It was the outward focus, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would think something. So a good way of summarizing it is there are three things you need to do, that the, and in no particular order, but exactly as you were saying, as a parent you need to get, you need to restore your own mental and emotional resilience, because without that you can't help your kids and you won't have the strength to take on the alienator. Have the strength to take on the alienator. Second one understand alienation from your child's perspective. Really put yourself into their shoes. There's like 18 to 20 things.
Speaker 2:That's like a list of things that affect most children. You can literally walk through the list and say this is the sort of experience they're either having right now or they might have in the future, because these things are dynamic. But you can kind of work out where your kid is on that spectrum and then say, right, what do I need? How do I need to adapt my parenting style for what my kids need for me today and be prepared to keep adapting that style as the situation changes. So that's's you know. One sort yourself out. Two learn about alienation and become the person your kid needs. And the third one is you're not going to change the alienator, but we tend to be very reactive to what they do, because they're normally ahead of us in terms of the stuff that they do, like going and contacting schools and having us stop from receiving a mission or telling all our friends what a bad guy we are, or telling our families so we don't think like alienators and it's very unnatural for us, but we have to.
Speaker 2:So start thinking like an alienator, put yourself in their shoes and say, okay, okay, what is that person going to do? You know, today, tomorrow, next week, next month and six months in a year. Go out as far as a year and say, okay, is, is that person going to try and move my kids out of school, to try and hurt me? And, you know, break the connection further. Are they going to try and hurt me? And you know, break the connection further.
Speaker 1:Are they?
Speaker 2:going to try and move state, are they going to try and live somewhere else? Are they going to come chasing after me for money, you know, are they going to try and take me to court, are they going to hit me with false allegations Just like what's the range of things they're going to try and do to me and, where possible, mitigate some of those that the kind of options and actions that they're likely to take in advance of of them coming up with them right, so it's not, they've been playing chess, we've been playing checkers.
Speaker 2:We now have to learn to play chess as well.
Speaker 1:But we need to get, like any good chess master, you know five to seven moves ahead of your opponent so that you can start reducing the impact of the damage exactly and in in the way that I I try to real and I want to reassure the, the, the dads that are listening to is, after a period of time and experiences, you start to kind of like, if you play chess against somebody enough times, where you play any game, you kind of start to pick up how they're playing the game. You will start to understand their playbook and you'll start to be able to do what you're describing like knowing okay, this is what's potentially going to come up, or we're changing schools here soon, or I'm probably going to be dealing with an issue of this. You're going to start to know and you're going to start to know the frequency of this and you can almost like I can almost now be like, hey, it's, you know, it's once a quarter, I know it's going to be something, and like what is that? That's, that's gonna, that's gonna be. But but I will say, charlie, that that the you know, your, your, your points about restoring your own, like that number one, like that is a huge job in and of itself, right, like your three steps that you need to do, but that's the number one thing at least for, for, for me, that I, that I've seen from my success and and and other successes.
Speaker 1:If you, if you are able to restore yourself mentally, emotionally and be grounded in a good place, that resiliency, once you deal with it a couple of times, unfortunately, it feels like a war right. And there's all these battles that happen in this grand war, that once you almost become a battle-hardened general going through this and then you kind of know what the what's going to happen, you're in a good place and then you can do those other things like put yourself into you know the kid's shoes and understand, and then and then adapt parenting style Like that's hard too. Parenting is hard. Period parenting style like that's hard too. Parenting is hard. Period Adapting to different kids and what their different experiences are going through with somebody like just. And then if they're teens it's even harder, right, like it's just so, so, so much.
Speaker 1:And even in an intact, healthy family dealing with the teens and all that pushback, but you've got the separate households and environments and somebody that's undermining and doing that. So with those three steps I've found that that first one, as long as you put yourself on solid foundation mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually you get yourself in a place, then you're able to handle all those, you know, those geez, the nine emotions you talked about. I mean like just grief alone has all the different five aspects of going through grief, and then like that comes up and that might go away and you talk about then I like there's so many. So if you can get yourself into a place where you're steady and you're able to deal with all that stuff, that is going to be the biggest, biggest thing.
Speaker 2:And I would like to give a message of hope. Okay, because for most parents who are going through this right now, it's like you're staring down this bottomless pit of pain and you think you know, is this ever going to get better? Am I ever going to get through this? And this is why people commit suicide. You know, they really get themselves into such a state that, although there's no guarantees with any of this stuff, the majority of people end up reuniting with their kids. Now, they don't do it at the pace they want, right, they do end up reuniting with the kids. So you have to keep remembering this. This is, this is going to go on. The pain is going to go on longer than I want, but I am going to get through this. My kids are going to get through this. So I have to just hold that. Hold that light in sight at all times, even when it's like at your darkest moments just myself. No, I'm going to get through this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's. That's great. That is absolutely true. I can attest to that myself personally. And get involved in a community of you know, charlie's community of people that are going through this, so that you're not isolating yourself and that you do talk to other people. We've got dads that, uh, in our group too, that that have gone through it, that have dealt with it, that have come out better on the back end. So surround yourself, get involved, charlie. Where can people connect with you? Your website is terrific and so, at the very least, listeners go to the website. There are all kinds of resources you can get yourself to. What we talked about is just like a drop in the bucket and we're going to try. Yeah, there's so much more and we're going to. We're going to do some more.
Speaker 1:We're going to do some more around this with, with, with Charlie, and talking about it, cause, as you've heard today, it's complex, there's a lot, and we need to be supporting dads going through this, but where can they get a hold of you? What's the best way to do that?
Speaker 2:So so my website is charliemccreadycom, so that's nice and easy. You can also find me on Instagram If you just look up Charlie McCready. If you look up Facebook, I've got a page Charlie McCready, but I've also got empowering you to overcome parental alienation behaviors, so that's a group group, okay, so there's two different sites there. I've also got some stuff on youtube which is progressively building over time, so there's some like q a master classes. There's some specific points where I talk about exactly this stuff, what parents can do for themselves. But I would encourage everybody the the thing about parental alienation bottom line it's it's very complicated. It's also very simple one. Once you understand how, how it operates and the things, the tangible things that you can do and I'm all about practical actions your, your experience is literally transformed.
Speaker 2:But but this is why going and getting help is really, is really beneficial, because the resources they will deal with narcissism by itself, but they don't really deal with alienation as the thing that the person is doing Right. There's quite a lot of stuff which is from the kid's perspective, but it doesn't talk about it from the parent's perspective. And then's lots of well-being stuff, but there's no, there's very little well-being material that's actually related directly to the experience of parental alienation. So even where people go to psychiatrists and therapists, they can get some generalist help but they're not actually getting the help of. Why am I feeling grief specifically related to this experience of me missing my child? There's only people who've been through that missing your child component and all the other emotions that can relate it back and help you to say okay, these are the things I need to actually do that are going to help me man.
Speaker 1:That's. That's terrific, charlie, we're gonna we're going to do some more work around this and do whatever the two of us can do to get this out and help more of the dads out there. I sincerely appreciate the blessing that you are in helping all of the dads and sharing with us today and I look forward to us chatting again soon.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm so glad to have the any any chance to help parents to get through this thanks, my friend, we'll talk soon wonderful.
