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
287 - When The Truth Hurts Your Child More Than A Lie
The hardest part of alienation isn’t the shouting match—it’s the silence before it. In this special replay from our members’ call, parental alienation coach Charlie McCready unpacks the quiet mechanics of pre‑alienation and shows how small shifts—subtle digs, shrinking one‑on‑one time, “false choices” that adultify kids—set the stage for a later cutoff. We dig into what actually helps: airtight parenting plans that leave no wiggle room, steady documentation, and fast but measured enforcement when orders are breached.
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Hello, gentlemen, this is Jude. And first and foremost, I want to wish those of you across the world who are celebrating Christmas a very merry and blessed Christmas. It is one of my favorite holidays here in the Sandvail household. The second thing is that this episode is a little bit different than the others. What I wanted is for you to experience a little bit of what the members experience behind the paywall. This is a replay from our meeting, uh our group meeting that we had this past Saturday. We had a special guest. You may have heard him on the podcast before, Charlie McCready, who is an alienation, a parental alienation expert. And he got on with us and he shared some real specific details, specifically around pre-alienation with the group of men listening. It's a really great call for uh conversation, and Charlie is an absolutely amazing parental alienation expert. So I hope that you enjoy that. If you'd like more content like this, replays of meetings like this, check out the website at thedivorcedavicate.com and go to the membership sites or let's do some coaching. We still have the offer of 25% off of any one-on-one coaching going on between now and the end of the year. So get the support that you deserve and need. On to the show. Enjoy.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm just going to make sure I've got enough power in my mic to get through the hour, which should be okay. I use it occasionally when I'm I'm looking at legal things because although it's not entirely accurate, it can get it can be quite helpful in asking it sort of questions about your the specifics of your case. You can ask it about laws in your specific county and your state. You can ask it about laws in your country, you can ask it for some stats on stuff. But but I would say it's it's helpful, but then go off and get advice. And and the same thing applies with parental alienation. It's it's got a fairly good idea about some stuff, but what it lacks is the kind of the knowledge about your particular situation. So just be a little bit wary about generic advice. And of course, all the stuff that I'm helping with with today is going to be broadly generic, but it'll it'll still be kind of helpful. But if you really want to get specific advice about your unique situation, then it is helpful to go off and and and get that support.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. One of the things we talk about a lot, Charlie, and in the group is getting up to speed and knowing and understanding what your statutes are, where you're at, so that you can have an intelligent conversation and help guide your attorney in the direction that you want things to go. And so that's one of your point is precise about being able to this AI has made it so much easier to do instead of having to look up those statutes and have to read like you can go to AI now and say, here's where you can find the statutes, and this is my situation, and then it can textualize the stuff. So yeah, it's it's an awesome, awesome tool. Amazing.
SPEAKER_04:And Jude, just since we're on a different format today, I was wondering if I could get a quick second to plug the legislative update.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so give me a quick second, Andy. So yeah, what we're gonna do, guys, we'll get going here. Now it is gonna be a little bit different today. So I want to give give our friend Charlie here an opportunity to to chat with us. But it is uh late where he's at. He's he's tuning in from the UK, and so it's the end of his day if you didn't hear us talking about that. So we're gonna spend the first hour just uh chatting with uh Charlie. He's a parental alienation expert. And then Andy, I'll give you a second before before we do that to to plug that because I know you got to go uh usually got to go a little bit early. And then and then we'll just get up into uh introductions and uh open conversation after that. I got about an hour and a half slated today. I got some dad duties, so we're gonna cut it a little bit short uh to today. So we got about an hour and a half total to to get through things. So after introductions, maybe we can uh do some do have some open conversation. But John's here, and if John's willing to stay on a little bit, I can transfer hosting to him to stay on for a little bit longer if he'd be willing, or anybody else would be willing to just uh hang out for a little bit longer. So on that, let's get going. Andy, give us an update on yeah, on the legislative work. Yeah, I can I can do that by the way, Jude. Okay. Thanks, my friend.
SPEAKER_04:Just a quick update. I did hear back from my um so so everybody knows I'm in South Orange County here in California, and I've been working with Robert Garza, who is based out of Texas, who has written legislation for all 50 states. A lot of it is around parental alienation, but generally speaking, family law and and parental rights within family law. So I've taken the torch for California or for my district in particular. There is a different groups for each state that Robert has set up on a Facebook chat. So I'm in the California group and I'm working with them to press assembly members to pass legislation, very nonpartisan, gender gender-neutral legislation. There's really no reason to object to it. My assembly person recently got back to me and told me that she would be willing to co-author a bill, which is a win. That that's a big win. So now I'm on the hunt for somebody who will actually author it, like armed with this information that I have, someone who will co-author. So I'm I'm working in that area. And I would just encourage everybody on this call to reach out to your assembly members wherever you are. Robert, if you go to robertgarza.us, you can see all the different legislative proposals he has made. There's like 10 of them, I want to say, for each state. He's tailored it for each individual state's statutes. He's also given you templates on there on how to reach out to your local assembly members or or senators within your when you within your state. And then, like I said, there are support groups on this Facebook chat to help you through this process. He'll he has regular Zoom calls to help you through this process. He's really leading the charge. I would follow him on Facebook and Instagram. It's he's a godsend. The amount of energy he's putting into this and the fervor that he is putting into this is just remarkable. And I encourage us all to move in that direction because we can be on this chat group and we can in this group and we can talk about these issues, and it's helpful, it's therapeutic, but until we actually get legislative change, we the these behaviors by the narcissistic borderline personality disorders that cause these sort of alienation situations are going to continue to happen because we all know the system incentivizes this. So let's I just encourage everybody one last time to move in that direction. Let's get some legislative change done.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a that's a that's a great that's a great victory. You got somebody that's gonna close on Andy. Way to go. I did have a conversation last week with a the group from Michigan, and they've got like 20-some sponsors on theirs. So it looks like that's probably gonna get passed in in Michigan this session. So Robert's doing a great, amazing job with this stuff. And just to be clear, like Andy said, guys, this isn't this is not a partisan issue, this isn't uh a gender issue. It simply closes the loopholes that these individuals that have these mental emotional issues are able to exploit and then do things like alienate the children. And so it's it's it's really, really terrific. It literally will take maybe a half hour, maybe a half hour of your time. And all you're doing is teeing this up for Robert to really do the heavy list lifting. You don't have to, you don't have to become a legislative expert. You're not gonna be testifying, like you're not doing all that. You're simply teeing this up for Robert to take the ball. And and like Andy said, he's just doing an amazing amount of work on this. Uh, Robertgarza.us is the website. Go check it out. It's a little bit hard to traverse. So if you have questions, call Andy, call me. Robert's good with the Facebook page and then the the weekly meetings on on figuring that stuff out. There's also a link on our website at the divorce advocate.com to Robert's website as well if you can't find it. That's just under the um trusted allies section. So signal chat. Yeah, like signal chat. And and in the signal chat too, yeah. So jump on the signal chat and you you have direct questions, we can we can answer those in real time too. So awesome. Thanks, Andy. Again, Charlie, thanks for your patience, my friend. I'm gonna just gonna I'm gonna let you take it away and introduce yourself a little bit, and then we can get into conversation. I think though, if if you don't mind to kick off the conversation, if we can maybe start that with a little bit of conversation around pre-alienation and some of the signs of of pre-alienation, so so that guys kind of have a a clue, and then we can just take it from there.
SPEAKER_00:Cool. Well, thanks very much again for for inviting me once more, Jude. This is really, really helpful. It's a wonderful opportunity to kind of engage with with everybody here. So, my as as Jude said, my name is Charlie McCready. I'm a parental alienation coach. I live in the UK, but I help parents all over the world because it's basically the same stuff that we are facing wherever we are. And I've been through this personally as well. So, so in terms of a bio, it's almost like telling you telling you the history I've been through myself. So I I went through what I would I talk about this thing called pre-alienation, which I hadn't ever heard anybody else talking about previously. But I went through 10 years of that personally. And then I went through five years of full alienation when I separated from my ex, including two years of no contact with one of my children. So my kids were two girls, 14 and 16, at the point in time that we separated. I was advised by the lawyers that it was hopeless even attempting to get custody for the kids just because of their ages and the voice of the child. So that really made my life particularly complicated. But then I did manage to recover the relationship with both of those, those, those children. So they're now 33 and 31. I would say that I'm still going through the healing process with them, even 11 years on. It takes a really long time for the kids to really recover from alienation and to fully trust the parents again. It's you know, every kid's going to be different and every situation's going to be different, but it's not unusual for these very long periods of time to be required. But I do, I, I, both my kids now live in different countries. So one of them is living in Australia, the other one is moving as uh is now living in Sweden. It is, uh I don't think this is any coincidence that they've moved out of the country. I think it's because they still feel that there's an element of tension living in the same country as the parents, even though I'm not warring with with their mum, she's still she still thinks I'm a really bad person, even now, and still tells people I'm a really bad person. But one thing I'm glad to say that I'm personally going to be doing is in two weeks' time, I'm going to go and visit my daughter in Australia. The first time I've been to visit her, I've been to Australia before, but first time to visit her, I'll have two weeks with her. And I realized the other day that this will be the longest period of time I've spent with her for 25 years. Wow. So so even when we were living together, you know, which was 16 years ago, I didn't really get any time with the kids because my ex was always taking them away, like they were permanently out of the house. So that this is like a really big, big step forward. But just to talk about that, that that pre-alienation. So a lot of people are not aware that they're actually either going through pre-alienation or that they've experienced pre-alienation. So for those of you who are already encountering alienation, I would encourage you to kind of cast your mind back and start looking at what the dynamics were in the relationship with your ex, you know, years ago and really go back years and years and years, because some of this stuff, let's say, my experience was a decade. Other people have had it for even longer periods. But but basically what your ex is doing is they're beginning to lay down the foundations for what then becomes alienation. So they will start denigrading you as a person, they will start criticizing you to your children, they will start undermining your ability to provide rules and regulations within the house. They will start accusing you of, you know, maybe having affairs, they will be accusing you of being mean with money about not caring about the children. They will do things like they will present themselves as the safe parent, you're the unsafe parent, they're the only person who can look after the kids, you don't care about the kids. They will do things like try not to allow you to have time alone with the kids or to to cut off your relationship with the kids, even in, you know, while you're still married to that person. And a lot of the time, this can be done incredibly subtly. And we don't often notice that that you know we're not having the time, or we're being, you know, degraded or denigrated by by the alienating parent, because sometimes it's not done in front of our face, sometimes it's done behind our backs. But when when you really start paying attention to the dynamics of that relationship, even when it was in the past, I think a lot of you will start seeing signs of how this has impacted your relationship now. Because once that pre-alienation has been set down, it's much easier for the alienating parent to then get the child to align with them at the point of separation. So it's really the foundations of alienation. But I'm I'm really happy to take any questions about pre-alienation or anybody's experiences, or you know, if they're wondering whether or not they've been alienated, I can help clarify that. So I'm I'm kind of here to help you guys for whatever questions you have.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Charlie, and I just wanted to clarify clarify also or enhance what you said, which is this stuff can happen even when you're still together. So it's not just post-divorce. It can and and and usually if you like you said, you look back, you see that this has happened, particularly if you you're down the way down that parental alienation, that that that this has started, this started to happen way, way before you realized it. It started to happen while you were together. Some of these subtle things that you thought were maybe like part of the dynamic or just quirks, you know, whatever you chalked it up to were actually things that were were undermining and doing damage to your relationship with your kiddos.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So the majority, it's a very good point, Jude. The majority of people will experience this while they're still in the relationship, you know, what you know, the partnership, the marriage, whatever. Some people are a little bit more fortunate and they they get to the point that things have been relatively okay during the relationship, and things might even be relatively okay after you get separated and divorced. One of the dynamics that that often comes along that that changes uh the behaviours of the children is when our exes meet a new partner. And if if they meet if they meet somebody who is quite narcissistic as well, and quite quite a jealous person, quite a greedy person, a controlling person, often we s we see the partners instigating alienation. And they they can actually become the primary alienators. And indeed, this I mean this this does happen with women who are introducing new men into the relationship, but it happens a lot more with for women who've been alienated, and the husband has a new wife, and the new wife becomes very territorial, and alienation kicks off. And that that actually happened to my second wife, my current wife, Emma. So, so she was fine until there was a new woman on the scene.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Charlie, I guess my my first question to you would be what would what can you do immediately when you start to see some of these signs happening? Seeing your your your your your wife or your ex-wife starting to denigrate or hear denigrate you or hearing from the kids that mom said this, or or start to feel them distancing from you maybe a little bit because they're starting to have to protect themselves. What are what are the what are some of the things that we can do immediately to nip this in the bud?
SPEAKER_00:Well, so this is there's there's kind of two options. There's trying to go down the legal route, which is because a certain amount of of the pre-alienation ends up with you your ex being in breach of the court orders. Okay. So and and but this can also become quite expensive, because unfortunately, this is where the the the legal system tends to be fairly ineffective. And this is why it's great that Robert Garza is is doing all the work that he is to try and make those things more robust. Having a really good parenting plan is is really critical, something that's that that's watertight and that has ideally that also has conditions in there as to what happens if somebody is in breach of that, in breach of the plan or if in breach of the court order, because ideally you want to get the stuff all signed off by a judge.
SPEAKER_02:So you're saying if they're in the middle, if you're in the midst of a divorce and you're starting to kind of see some of these red flags, make sure that you that your your agreement is and when you say airtight, I just want to clarify that because you know a lot all none of us ever experienced any of these agreements until the first time we experienced these agreements, right? And like we're like and we don't know what's what should go in there, what shouldn't go in there. And unfortunately, we we trust just an attorney, and usually the attorney has some boilerplate thing that they put out, and depending upon their experience, they'll just say, Yeah, this is what you need. And and this is like very, very nuanced and very different from what the majority of of attorneys deal with, which is most parents can be amicable and figure this stuff out, right? Because they're they're mentally, emotionally healthy. So when you say airtight uh agreements, it's Things like specific pickups and drop offs, specific parenting time, specific parenting time on the holidays, exactly when that starts, exactly when that finishes, like I like airtight, like everything. Everything's specified.
SPEAKER_00:Everything has to be specified because exactly as you say, Jude, a a lot of so that generally speaking, the lawyers do not understand parental alienation. And it's not just parental alienation, they don't understand that they're dealing with somebody who has a mental health disorder, you know, cluster cluster B, narcissistic personality disorder, all that sort of stuff. These are diagnosable mental health. And they don't recognize that these people will will lie, they will, you know, try and control, manipulate, coerce, do whatever they can in order to get their way. So you're not dealing with two rational parents who are willing to co-parent. You're actually parallel parenting. Or, you know, they could some people even call it counter-parenting, because you're you're not working together as a team. And so you want exactly as it you want to be very specific about every single aspect of that arrangement. Where the law often is unhelpful is it creates these wishy-washy, you know, there is they provide a degree of flexibility, which seems like a good idea at the time, you know, in order that it's not too rigid, but actually that that flexibility, any flexibility, tends to be taken advantage of by the narcissistic parent. So you want you want to have it as as as rigid as possible and then stick to it. And ideally, if you can, if they'll allow you to do it, put in there what happens if the parent doesn't give you access to the kids. And one of the best things to put in there is is reciprocal time. So you get the time back that you lose if if the parent has messed you around in some capacity, you know, because a lot a lot of parents who are going through alienation don't see their kids for a lot less time than they should. And part of the problem is they they haven't set it up correctly in the first place.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So the yeah, that's so I can't I cannot emphasize enough how important what Charlie's saying right here is. And and this is just and generally you should do this in in your divorce process, just so it's very, very clear. But it's even it's even more important with this. And and I get guys all the time that are like, yeah, well, we can figure that out, or or I can, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to be too inflexible because it's it's gonna be difficult on the kids, right? Like they're gonna be in the middle of this. Well, guess what? They're gonna be in the middle of it no matter what. Like if your ex is exhibiting this stuff, it's not gonna get better, it's only gonna get worse. So being so being inflexible, if you want to call it, or just following uh the rules and getting this airtight is actually going to be beneficial in protecting your children going forward. So so don't think that by not doing that, trying to make peace with her on this and try to be flexible and and amicable on this, that that you're gonna actually make it better. It's not gonna make it better for sure. And then to to Charlie's other point about using the court system, Charlie, maybe we can get into that some more. I think what you're saying is that stick to the plan. And when the plan, when you're not getting your parenting time, then you need to very quickly remedy that situation by by by entering court, unfortunately. The only way that you, the only way that you are able to enforce that that agreement is by going back to court. See, this was the thing, this was my big fallacy, Charlie, right? When I did this and when I went through mine, is I thought, oh, okay, well, now the court said it and it's agreed upon, and she has to follow this, right? Little did I know a decade later of being in hundreds of thousands of dollars of having to go back to court, right? To to not only enforce but also dot all those I's and cross those T's because we didn't, is they don't have to. It's incumbent then upon you to force them to follow the rules. And if you as you know, as Charlie knows, and many of us who experienced this, these people don't want to follow the rules, they're above the rules. So so I think that's what you're saying, right? About going to going to utilizing the courts to to mitigate some of this pre-alienation stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and and I think a lot of people end up exactly where you find yourself, or where you found yourself, Jude, is is that you you trusted, and why wouldn't you? You trusted the the people that you were paying to help you, the lawyers and the legal system to protect you and the children, and they kind of do what they think is going to work for most normal situations, but this is not a normal situation. And so they write something that that that isn't really very comprehensive because they think they're dealing with reasonable people, and then you spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars going back, taking, you know, trying to to correct the orders, trying to try to evidence the fact that this person is actually doing this intentionally, and it's a nightmare because that often you don't get the same judge, and the very often you'll go back to court two or three times and they'll just get a slap on the wrist, and nothing actually happens. And each time it can take quite a long time to even get into the court, and all the while your your child is being is continuing to be alienated by the other parent, which kind of which also comes back to the the original question which you were asking, which was well, what what do you do if you can see if you start seeing signs of alienation? So as well as trying to address it in the court, something that we often are not great at doing, a lot of a lot of the people who end who who who find themselves in a position of being alienated tend to be quite empathetic by nature. And so that means we don't really like conflict. And you know, we're also trying to deal with somebody who is high conflict, and and our exes, especially after you get separated or divorced, they become very different people. You know, they they were quite difficult to deal with when we were in the relationship. Now they become outright impossible. You can't negotiate or mediate anything with these people. And one of the biggest challenges is that when we start trying to push back and you know, reassert boundaries, reassert times, I mean, that's certainly a good starting point. But if if that doesn't work, you almost need to go the opposite direction. Now, this can be kind of deeply uncomfortable for people because if you have a parent who's intent on alienating your kid from you, and the court is failing to protect you, and you've got all those issues of voice of the child and everything else, you're unless you are prepared, which I wouldn't recommend, unless you are prepared to do the same thing as the alienator, which is basically put that kid under enormous pressure to align with you, and that's gonna do a lot more psychological harm to the kid. It's like a race to the bottom of who can put the most pressure on the kid. I wouldn't recommend, I wouldn't recommend doing that because you're you're going to really mess your kid up even more. And if you love your kid, you're gonna take a more subtle approach to to dealing with alienation. And unfortunately, it does mean that the the alienator is going to get away with a degree of alienation for a period of time. That's that's because it's it's basically if if they're so intent on winning, they will do anything, they will screw your kid up in any way possible just to get them to align with them. And anything that you do that fights them on that. So, you know, when you take them to court, by the way, when you take them to court, they're gonna get pissed at you, they're gonna try and take action against you. So even going to court backfires for many of us, many of us in many ways, but outside of court, just trying to fight for the kids back again, that can often increase the alienation and make it worse. So often it's it's better to instead, and I would encourage everybody who's on here today, go and learn and understand what alienation means to your kids. Because there's there's about 15 to 18 different things that kids typically go through. So there's the loyalty conflict, which is essentially the the parent, one parent, the alienating parent, or the mum in this case, encouraging the child to align with her rather than with you. Anything that reminds the kid of being in that loyalty conflict will put enormous pressure on them. But also innately, it goes against, it goes against the kid's very nature to not want a relationship with both parents. So even a child that's being psychologically abused, physically abused, even sexually abused, still wants a relationship with that parent. So I mean, and proof of that is they want the relationship with the alienating parent who is psychologically abusing them, sometimes even physically abusing them, but they they don't feel they can have the relationship with us. And this is crucifying for a kid. But we have to recognize that this is like putting massive pressure on the kid. There's a lot of fear in this as well, because the child is is terrified of the of what punishment is going to be meted out by the alienating parent. There's also other things going on, they're being given false choices. So that that is, you know, saying to the kid, Well, you decide if you're going to see your dad this weekend. And this is part of an adultification process where they're basically, and it's a false choice because the the kid is being given the responsibility for determining whether or not they're going to see you or not. And then the other parent turns around and says, Well, I gave the kid the choice, and you know, I can't force them to do it. They've made up their own mind. It's the same false choice that that they're then encouraged to present to courts in the form of testimonies. And there's there's a whole bunch more. But but it's really important to understand that that what your child is doing with you, the way they're responding to you, these are all coping mechanisms to protect themselves. So they do want the relationship with you, they do love you. If they if they're going no contact, it's because they're severely alienated and they feel so terrified that they they don't feel that they can have the relationship with you currently. But it is transitory for most of us.
SPEAKER_02:Which is one of the one of the pre-alienation signs, right? Like if you they start to pull away from you, they're not responding to text, they're not picking up the phone calls, they're not doing what they used to regularly do. That's typically a sign that then they're they've there's something happening in the other household where they're feeling uncomfortable that they're able to cultivate that relationship as they used to with you, or talk nice about you, or whatever else. That's their they're they're loyal, they're like you said, they're they're having to align their loyalties with the alienators in order to adapt their behaviors because they're literally their life is hell, right? And they're being brainwashed, and so that's an adaptive behavior that they're that they're adopting in order to survive, right? They're getting into a survival mode to protect themselves that has nothing to do with you. So let's talk about that for a second, though, Charlie, because this is it's a very dangerous time and it's a very precarious time, right? Because as you just described, they're they're they're lit, it's abuse. It's not let's just let's not sugarcoat it, it's a it's abuse what they're what they're doing. And when when it's when it begins to happen as it goes through it, I a lot I struggle a lot of the time with uh well you know you you don't want to put your your kiddos in the middle of it. Well, I want to be clear, if you're the alienated parent, you're not doing you're not choosing any of this stuff.
SPEAKER_03:No, right? Like we're not choosing any of this.
SPEAKER_02:We're not choosing any of this stuff. We don't have a we don't have a choice, but Charlie, or our choice to to make sure that we execute our parenting time and do, I feel, almost whatever is necessary in order for that to happen, I feel is is critical. And and maybe we can talk about that because I get this conversation a lot with guys about well, I don't want to put in the middle. And my response is exactly what I just said. I said, you're not choosing this. However, I I I take issue with the idea, well, it's a race to the bottom, and you're only increasing the the conflict. Except the the likening that I have to that is well, like if somebody was physically punching your kid, like you wouldn't be like, Well, I'm just gonna wait until that subsides. Like, I don't want them to punch more by getting involved to protect them. Uh, you know, so I feel like we need to, as dads, we need to do whatever it takes to make sure that we have the ability to spend time with them, that we are getting parenting time with them because, like you, like you said also in the in the beginning, that we're we're what what did you say?
SPEAKER_00:Not parallel parenting, but well, it's parallel parenting, but they're counterparenting. Counterparenting, yes, that's what you said.
SPEAKER_02:We're counterparenting because our environment is healthy and stable and and loving and a place for them to to to actually be a child, right? And and grow up. The other is not, it's uh it's a it's a mess.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and but but this this is where it's such a complicated area because everybody's have everybody here will be having a slightly different experience of of alienation, but there are lots of common themes. If if you kind of think of of like the the three players, so the three players is who who the narcissist themselves or the the the ex, typically they're narcissists. I mean, in virtually every instance that I come across, they're narcissists. So understanding narcissism will help you enormously because narcissists are very predictable. The second part I would add on to that, people are narcissistic typically because they've been traumatized. So understanding what it was that happened to your ex, usually in the past, very often then their childhood, what was it that happened that traumatized them in the first instance that made them narcissistic, which is basically just coping mechanisms. That's all it is. It's control, the deceit, the lies, the manipulation. That that's just ways of that person protecting themselves because they're they're very scared of the world around them. That might not be the way they present themselves, but that's what's really going on. So if you understand what traumatized them, you can see what their sensitivities are. And what I would say is do not prod the bear, because every time you do, they're going to take it out on your kid. And then if you look at your kid, your your kid is going through, and this is this safety thing, your your kid is is having all this pressure put on them. And so the the ways that they're responding with us is, you know, which comes back to that visible science of alienation. So they will start being, you know, you'll you'll start noticing they're feeling uncomfortable with you. Then it might increase to being rude. Then you might start noticing that they're not abiding by your rules. They don't want to stick with your boundaries. They might also be quite disrespectful with you. The the kind of you might find that these kids are also starting to be quite angry with you. Now, this is this is counterintuitive. So much of the stuff is counterintuitive because the kid can't get angry with the alienating parent because the narcissist won't stand for it. So they can only get angry with us. And it's almost like we're a release valve for them. And this this is where it's it's it's kind of counterintuitive because we would naturally think, well, hey, I need to put down boundaries as well. I need to to tell the kid that I'm, you know, I'm the good guy here. I need to correct the record. And actually, when we do all of that stuff, we just increase the pressure on the child. And guess what? The child is less likely to want to spend time with you if you do those things because you're going to push them away into the arms at the alienating parent. I said this stuff is very counterintuitive.
SPEAKER_02:So when you say poke the bear, you mean like you don't need to be defending yourself to what is happening. Just understand the dynamic. It doesn't mean that you don't need to still have rules in your house and still have an environment that is healthy and functioning properly. Just means that you don't have to be fighting back to the alienation, alienating part of what's happening because of how they're showing up. Is that what I'm is that what I'm understanding you saying? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the top, top, top tip. Take your kid out of that loyalty conflict. Because any time that that kid feels they're in a loyalty conflict with you, or that they feel like there's a loyalty conflict going on, they are not going to want to spend time with you. Because you're basically making them feel unsafe.
SPEAKER_02:Can you describe what you're talking about? What what what would be some things that would be a loyalty conflict, like some scenarios so that we have an idea of what that looks like?
SPEAKER_00:So this again, this stuff gets the the thing about parental alienation, it's it's really subtle. It's it's not sort of obvious, obvious things that that take place. So a less subtle version of a lot of the loyalty conflict in action is your kid comes in, they're they're saying stuff that their mum has said about you, or they're saying stuff that you know is a false memory. When you contradict them, or you say something critical about their mum, you've immediately put the kid into the loyalty conflict. Because they're now thinking, I'm kind of having to do everything that my mum says, and I'm having to appease my mum, but you're telling me that my mum's a bad person, or you're telling me that my mum is wrong. Well, I can't, that makes me feel scared. That makes me feel really uncomfortable. That's an obvious one. Less obvious ones, you you guys will all get triggered all the time because you're feeling insecure, you're feeling vulnerable, you're feeling worried about the relationship with your kid. And things that will trigger you are criticisms of you, or your fear that you're not having the relationship that you want with your child, or you'll you'll feel powerless. There'll be lots, there'll be tons of different things. When you get triggered, you're not really reacting, or you're not responding and acting in the way that you want. You're you're reacting to things. And normally when we react, we don't we don't say the right things. So simple things that the kids pick up, we it's not necessarily us criticizing the other parents. When we get triggered, but we will change our body language. That the kids pick up on that. We will change our facial expression. We might put on a poker face. We might go silent. We might change our tone of voice. The kid will pick up on every single one of those things. And it basically says, Oh, hang on a minute, dad's not comfortable. So if dad's not comfortable, I can't be comfortable. So I don't want to be in this environment. It gets harder than that. There's a whole different layer of subtlety on top of that. Every single one of us is an electromagnetic human being. And basically, I mean this is the stuff that regulates our hearts. But but you'll all know about what I call the vibe. So you can walk into a room of people and you know, without a single word being spoken, you can tell from the atmosphere literally that's in that room, are the people happy? Are they stressed? Are they worried? Are they anxious? You know, are they euphoric? Just you know where people are at. Your kids pick this up about you every moment of the time that you're with them. They'll pick it up on the telephone, they'll detect it in your text messages, in your emails. So this is this is something that's really difficult for you to hide. And when and when they detect that you're feeling uncomfortable, you're putting them in that loyalty conflict. And this is why I talk about parents, it's so important for every single alienated parent to really heal themselves. And when I say heal, it's literally understand every single thing that triggers you, go away and work out, because the the trigger is just a symptom. And I when I'm working with parents and I'm coaching them, we typically discover 50 to 100 triggers, easy. But these these 50 to 100 triggers normally go back to five to ten things that are past insecurities, deep-rooted insecurities. And when you understand those those old insecurities, you can work on getting rid of them. Then you you are literally going to be a different person with your kid. You are literally going to be somebody who's not sending out the wrong vibe because you're no longer carting these old limiting fears and limiting beliefs around in your subconscious. And if you really want to help your kid, heal yourself and perceive yourself as being the strong, confident parent. Don't correct your kid, comfort your kid, give the kid love, give them support, let them know that you are genuinely there and you will help them through anything. But but they have they have to sense that you're in a healed situation. You you are a healed parent. Because when they do, it's like you've only got one warring parent now, which is which is the it's kind of you can't have a battle when one person's saying, I'm not fighting. And we're not being like pacifistic. We're being very strategic in not fighting, and we're being very strategic in being healed in ourselves, because a lot of the trauma that we go through with alienation is our experience of it. And and one of the things I'd just give you, because I'd like to try and put examples in where possible. One of the insecurities that we often have, because a lot of us are empaths, is we've had some experience of an aloof parent or some sense of rejection or some sense of abandonment because we didn't get enough love, care, and support ourselves when we were growing up, which is why we became empaths. And so the thing that we like least is a sense of insecurity that all is not well in the world around us because we're always trying to fix it. That's how we control the world. We're always fixing stuff, we're always fixing people, we're way too kind, we're always giving far too much. It's like the opposite. So we're givers, the narcissists are takers. And and and so when you're when you're healed and you're confident again, you start becoming a very different person with your kid. Because when they're when they're rejecting you, what you're doing is you're no longer. Sorry, I've described that slightly wrong. So that those old fears of of rejection and abandonment is something that you are trying to avoid for your child. So your parenting style will all be about trying to make sure your kid never went through what you went through. Now your kid is going through alienation, so you feel bad as a parent that this is happening to them. You'll feel guilty about that as well. Those are your insecurities, that's stuff you need to go off and deal with. But when your kid starts rejecting you, this starts reminding you of your old past experiences. And I talk about insecurities and vulnerabilities, and I talk about the current world as it is today. This is your kid going through alienation today. And what we do is we take the stuff that our kid's going through today, alienation, and they're using their coping mechanism to protect themselves. So it's not personal about us. And we take our old our own insecurities and we make it personal about us, we put the two things together, and we make things really bad for the kid. And we have to learn that when the kid is protecting themselves, we we need to give that kid 100% of our attention and our focus and say, okay, I'm gonna give you all the love and care I can to help you get through alienation. But the only way we can do that is to be healed. Because otherwise, we're just focusing on ourselves. And a lot of the time we're not really, you know, we get very upset with the kids rejecting us or the kids not telling us about their life, or the kids not answering our messages. That's us with our own insecurities. Deal, we have to deal with those things separately to what the kid is going through with alienation. Yeah. I hope that was kind of a clear enough explanation of like what's going on.
SPEAKER_02:Very clear, and I appreciate that. You guys, we got about 10 minutes left of Charlie's time. I just want to see if anybody has. I've been asking lots of questions. Hopefully, it's been touching on stuff that's been been helpful for everybody. Any specific questions that that any of you want to pose to Charlie? That must mean Charlie that you like nailed it, you know, hit the nail on the head with a good answer.
SPEAKER_00:There are always questions, it's just nobody ever put puts their hands up.
SPEAKER_01:Be an empath, it's like, how do I how do we ask a question without being rejected? So I've been trying to tell my children the truth. And I'm learning that sometimes I'm acting from that place of insecurity. And I've also been saying, like, trying to hit on the L, like, it's okay for you to have a relationship with mom. It's okay to have a relationship with me. And kind of saying, You're gonna have special experiences with your mom, you're gonna have special experiences with your kids. Yeah. Am I kind of on the right track to help release the burden on my kids, or am I doing the opposite?
SPEAKER_00:You're not gonna like the answer. The one thing our kids don't really want to handle right now is the truth. Because basically that's putting them into the loyalty conflict. Because you're saying something contrary to your ex. And that and and what happens, there is this thing called cognitive dissonance. And and that that's essentially a person, and particularly a child, cannot have two belief systems running through their running through their mind at one point in time. And that's the conjuring act that they're trying to do when they're being alienated, is they're trying to work out, well, who's right, who's wrong. And the splitting, which is where you see the kids polarize, that that's the point where the pressure to try and live this kind of dual personality becomes too much for the child. And invariably they align with the person that they are most afraid of. So the person who's going to cause the most chaos in their life, they align with. So that's why they go to the alienators and not to us. So the kind of a golden rule is try, and I know it sucks, this stuff really sucks, but you will get through it. Stop trying to constantly correct everything. Deal with the fact that the kids are being lied to, that they're being manipulated, that they're being coerced. Give them love, give them care, give them support. Help them through their experience of it. And at the same time, work on your, you know, you use this as an opportunity to say, okay, the stuff that mom's saying about me, that's hurting me. Right. I'm gonna use that as an opportunity to learn about me. Why is it hurting me? What's really hurting me deep down? What is my my deep insecurity about this? Okay, I'm gonna go work on that. And and Charlie, start using it to your advantage.
SPEAKER_02:Is is is saying something like, that's not how I remember it, but this is an adult conversation that we can have when you're much older. Is that an appropriate way to kind of mitigate some of this?
SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't even say that. I mean, it it all really depends on on you know how alienated you. This is where the the whole generic tailored stuff comes in, because I'm giving generic answers to what are very unique situations. So it all really depends on on how alienated the kid is, the sort of person you're dealing with as an alienator, the sort of person that you are, the character of the kids. There's lots of different subtleties here, but generally speaking, don't talk about alienation and try not to correct the record. And as I said at the very, very beginning, my kids are 31 and 33, they still don't want to have the conversation about alienation. And if I go there, if I go there, they push me away. Interesting. So well, because that's still because I put straight conflict.
SPEAKER_02:Like, and and I know I got this a lot, and I hear this from a guys a lot. Like, they'll start saying stuff like, Oh, mommy said you stole the house, or mommy said that you ran up credit cards, or mommy said like they'll come with and and they and they often come with they're not accusations, they they're more questions. Like, mommy said this, and then that's when you don't want you don't need to set the record straight, but you can say something like that's not how I remember it, but this isn't an adult, it's an adult conversation that you don't need to be involved in. Like, how else do you deal with something like that?
SPEAKER_00:I I would say something more like that, yeah, rather than the other bit that you said before, which is we can talk about it at some point in time in the future. I would deal with it more lightly and say, Yeah, well, you know, it's quite normal for you know two people together, one of us has one perspective, the other person has another perspective. You know, kids, you have this at school, you'll see it with your friends, not everybody agrees all the time. You know, try try not to make it contentious, try to generalize it back out and and normalize it to some degree of saying this is not unusual that that people have disagreements. It's okay for for people to have a different perspective. But but that's a lot less that that's a lot less conflictual than mummy's lying or mommy's telling you this wrong or mummy's telling you that wrong. You know, as soon as you start hitting them with the hard rebuffs, that's when you put them back into loyalty conflict. You know, hopefully what I'm saying it makes enough sense that you guys will be able to kind of figure out for each individual situation that you face am I putting the kid into a loyalty conflict or am I handling this gently and in a way that that you know the kid's not going to feel stressed?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, kind of taking what the thoughts were coming to my mind was recognizing when my child or when my children are bringing those questions, they're not asking specifically for that question to be answered. They're more asking, am I okay? Is this normal? Do you still love me? That's their root concern is am I loved? So my answer needs to be, wow, that's a big burden. Thank you for trusting me to ask that question. Putting in the that's adult conversation, but I want you to know that I love you and we're gonna work through this together. I'm here to help you. So it's really oh, that's the way you're talking about the healing. As I heal, I can accept that my child is different than me and go there with them and sit with them. Yes. And so it's not it's not about fixing it, it's sitting with them, loving them, and relieving their burden instead of the other way around, which is that insecurity. Yeah, because it's happy.
SPEAKER_02:Charlie, it's not even about the question. It's like the question has nothing to do with what's going on in their mind and their psyche, right? So it's the it's what's happening behind the question, is I what I'm understanding you say is that we just we need to generalize the question away, really, which is kind of just gloss over it, let them know it's okay to ask that question, and then just make them feel comfortable, right? And and I would say I want to I want to say something about what you what you said, which is you don't have to get into the to to defending yourself, et cetera. If you feel something like come up in you, like an emotion that's a strong emotion, whether that's anger, sadness, or something else, don't have, don't respond. Take, take a few minutes and then and then think through how you can understand what Charlie's just described here, which is it's not about the question, it's not about whether you did or didn't do this or whatever, whatever their questions are. It's about their safety and security, and then like they're almost testing to see if it's okay for you or if it's okay for them to be safe and protected by you, right? And if you're coming right away with, well, that's bullshit and she's lying, then then they're not, right? Because then, like Charlie said, then you're you're creating a conflict and you're pulling them into it and you're pulling everybody down. If you do the opposite what Charlie said, which is if you have a strong emotion, just take a minute, go to the bat, like whatever, and then come back and then gloss over the question, but let them know that oh, you appreciate it, you love them, that they can always talk, like whatever, however, you're gonna do that, just so that they feel because it's not about the question. Is that fair? Is that a fair kind of yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it it's it's it's more about keeping them feeling safe. And and some of the some of you might be in extreme situations, and I've I've faced this as well, where the time that you do have with the kid is virtually impossible because they're so angry with the butt, they're not just angry, they're scared. So, so what tends to happen with with with children is because the the consistent message from the alienating parent is time with you or time with with you dads is going to have consequences for the child because mom's not going to be happy. So, you know, having a phone call with you, mom's not gonna be happy, receiving a text from you, mom's not gonna be happy, having physical time with you, mom's not gonna be happy. So they they start learning that association with you is bad. And they start creating this subconscious sense that they can't even understand themselves or put their finger on as to why they feel uncomfortable when they're in your company. There's a guy, you know, he's now a pastor, Kevin. He's on quite a few sites, and I did an interview with him as well. He's 42, he's now a pastor. At 41, he realized he went through a therapist who understood parental alienation. He didn't realize that this, he didn't realize he'd been through parental alienation himself. And again, even at the age of 42, he was wondering why he was feeling uncomfortable with his dad. And I I can still see this in my youngest daughter. You know, at 31, I can still see she's got this kind of subconscious feeling of being uncomfortable. But even when you have a kid who is disengaged, won't tell you anything, is rude, is hiding in their room all the time, you know, and it's just not engaging with you too, and it's impossible. Stick with it. It's much better for that kid to be with you in a safe, calm environment where they have an opportunity to experience who you are rather than the person they've been told you are by their mom. And this is this is the really key thing I would say to every parent. Try try not, instead of, instead of getting caught up in this, I need to tell the kid the truth, use your influence at a far subtler level because kids pick up on everything. So if you go along and you're a confident parent, a loving parent, you know, but you're also you're sympathetic and empathetic to the child, they will they will pay attention to everything that you do, they will pay attention to how you treat people, they will pay attention to your values, and they're absorbing all of this stuff all of the time. So even though you might not think you're having a big impact on your kid, they are learning who you really are, not the version they've been told about you. And and that's the way you that's the way you kind of start subconsciously rebuilding the relationships with the child as well. And you can influence the child in that capacity. And you'll notice little things. So they might repeat a little catchphrase you use, or they might repeat something that you think is important, or they might talk about the way that you talk about how to treat people. You know, that's a subtle, subtle way of understanding. Okay, I'm still connecting with my kid. Because that's one of the things we get really worried about. We get very that there's this sense of injustice. My kid doesn't know me, my kid doesn't understand me. I've got all this knowledge and experience to share with them, and I can't share it with them because they've not engaging with me. They are engaging with you at a far more, you know, a deeper subconscious level. Yes, it's really subtle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's amazing. So you know, we we're out of time with Charlie, and I want to be respectful of his time. It's he's been he's been very generous, and and I sincerely appreciate you. Charlie, where can uh the the dads try get in contact with you, look uh find some more of your your information? I know you've got a great website that's got lots of information on it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so so you can find me at charliemacready.com, and I guess it spells it all out in the bottom of the zoom here. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. So there's quite a lot of videos on YouTube that goes into a whole bunch of stuff. We do posts every day on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, in fact, where we provide insights and guidance. And I think the biggest thing for all of you hope. You know, don't give up. You will get through this. I know it seems pretty damned awful right now. I've been there, I've gone through it for years. This for my Most of you, this is just transitory. I know it feels like a lifetime, but it's transitory. You will get through this. And if you do the right stuff, the faster you'll get through this. And some of the right stuff is very counterintuitive, but it will get you through this much more quickly and much more successfully. Yeah, so please please please do go look for me on social media. You know, I I hope the I hope our posts and stuff are really helpful for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and you've got a lot of good stuff. And I and I think you also have some like some cohorts and some group or some private coaching too, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I I do so I was gonna say if I could if I could quickly plug something. So I've got like three different three different options in addition to what's available free every day on on social media. So there's something called the parental alienation sanctuary on Facebook. This this is a private group. We do charge for it, so it's it's$14.99 a month. But what you get for that is two Q ⁇ A's a month. So that's with me. You get e-guides and you get videos that I'm I haven't made available anywhere else. And also people can ask any questions they want. It's it's a small community, it's private, so nobody else can see it. Uh, and people can ask questions and share experiences within that community. I also do one-to-one coaching, which people can either do it on the basis of, I've got some general questions, you know, how can I help specifically, or I can take them through a little process that essentially teaches you how to understand who's the version of you you're bringing to the party, what your kid is going through, and how you can make the changes that are going to be helpful for you and your kid. And because you're spending the time with me, it's tailored to you and your your unique experience of alienation. And then there's kind of the the the premium version of that, which is something called the nine-step program. Uh, and that's basically going through an extended version of that strategic approach with two follow-up sessions at the end as well. So it's an it's eight weeks of modules that I've written. So basically, you you read the modules, do the exercises, you come to the Zoom sessions loaded with the insights about your particular case. We talk through all the concepts, and and uh you basically end up with a personal plan and how to put that into action that is specific to you and your family. And I include things like your partners, because you know, many of you are new, you you're in new, sorry, you're in new relationships, and you need to help them along this journey as well. So often I do this work with couples rather than just with dads. But yeah, the night that the the nine-step, all this stuff is available on the website in terms of of further details. But I'd say the key thing is I'm all about practicality, I'm not about the wishy-washy theoretical. I can't stand that stuff. I just want to do stuff that actually has a real difference that helps you to rebuild those relationships with your kids and for you to be yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Charlie, thanks so much. I really, really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And yeah, and then I think we've got uh we've got you uh booked January 17th, I think, for another QA.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, when I'm back from Australia with my daughter.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, have a terrific and just blessed trip and enjoy that time with your daughter, my friend.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And I I think everybody should say these words yourself to yourself. I am a great dad, and I deserve good things. Yeah, every day. Amen. Cool, cool. Thank you so much for the opportunity to come on and and thank you guys for listening. I look forward to seeing you again in January.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Charlie.
SPEAKER_00:My pleasure. See you then. Charlie, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:All right, fellas. So this was a little bit different. We weren't able to get Charlie last week for our QA, so I asked him to come on today for those of you that are just jumping on the call a little bit late. He's an amazing man, and I've had some great conversations with him, a lot of great information. So, and if you guys are an experiencing any alienation, just yeah, get get with him. He can definitely help you through it. So we'll start. We've got about another 50 minutes or so, our normal format. We'll we'll just start with going around and introducing ourselves, sharing with with the group uh in about a minute or less, just a little bit about yourself, what you've got going on, maybe uh how many kids, where you're at in your divorce process. If you've got something you want to talk about or you want to bring up to the to the group, you can bring it up in your introduction, but we're we're gonna give everybody time to go through first and then we'll open it up to discussion. I mentioned I've got some dad duties uh in about 20 minutes here. So I'll end up jumping off my good friend John, who's been part of the community here since pretty much the the beginning, will take you through the the rest of the time and facilitate the conversation.
