320 - The Word 'Sure' Is Costing You Custody: Breaking the Nice Guy Pattern in High-Conflict Divorce

The word "sure" is quietly costing high-conflict divorce dads their parenting time. If you're the guy who keeps the peace at work but gets cornered at pickups, pulled into off-the-record texting, ignored by your own attorney, or slowly stripped of parenting time through "one quick change" — this episode breaks the pattern.

We unpack the high-functioning "yes man" pattern in divorce and co-parenting: years of peacekeeping and absorbing conflict that quietly become your default. Then we cover what changes once divorce becomes an adversarial legal process — where documentation, consistency, and enforcement decide outcomes. Ground you don't defend gets taken. Boundaries aren't combative; they're calm, clear, and non-negotiable — especially with your kids watching.

You'll get a real framework for parenting apps like OurFamilyWizard and TalkingParents, attorney responsiveness, and one-directional parenting-time swaps: Name It, State It, Hold It. Plus BIFF-style communication so you stop feeding emotional bait and start building a clean record.

In this episode:

• The "yes man" pattern and why it forms during peacekeeping years
• Why undefended ground always gets taken in high-conflict divorce
• The Name It, State It, Hold It boundary framework
• BIFF replies for parenting apps and co-parenting communication
• How to stay calm and non-negotiable without becoming combative

Transcript

A Real No With A Period

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hello, dads, and welcome to this week's show and this week's briefing. And before we get started, I want to ask you something before we jump in. And that is when was the last time you told someone no and actually meant it? Not the no, but let me think about it. Not the no, but I'll probably cave in 20 minutes kind of no. I mean a real no, a no with a period, not a comma, not a question mark, a period, full sentence stop. And if you're sitting there and you can't think of something and you're struggling to remember the last time that you have that that that happened, stick around because this episode is for you. We're going to be talking about a pattern I see constantly in my conversations with dads going through high conflicts and high conflict divorce and custody battles. And it's a pattern that, if left unchecked, doesn't just cost you during divorce. It costs you for years afterwards. And worse than that, it teaches your kids a lesson you never meant to teach them. And what I'm talking about is about the high-functioning yes man. You've heard me reference that before. The guy who is competent, successful, capable, drives a stable career, pays his bills on time, shows up for everyone, and yet somehow cannot bring himself to hold a boundary in his personal life, particularly when it matters most. So this episode, I recognize it might sting a little bit, but I just ask you to stick with me because by the end of the episode, you're going to have language, you're going to have scripts, and you're going to have a plan for how to stop being the guy who gets walked on starting today. But before we get completely into it, I do want to name something plainly because I think it sets the tone for all of the rest of the episodes. A lot of the dads I talk to in the community and what I what I'd call high-functioning individuals, you're not disorganized, you're not checked out. You are more often than not the guy who is holding everything together. You've got the job, you've got the paycheck, you got the calendar full of responsibilities, and you meet every single one of them. And yet, in your marriage, and now in your divorce, you have a blind spot. And that blind spot is boundaries. And that's what today's episode is all about. And we're entirely dedicated to focusing on that blind spot. We're going to talk about why high-functioning men like yourself become yes men in the first place. And we're going to talk about the very specific, very real ways that this shows up during a high conflict divorce. Things like parenting apps not being used, that the court is ordered, attorneys who don't return your calls or emails, a parenting time that keeps getting quietly eroded because you keep saying it's fine, don't worry about it, when it's absolutely not fine, uh and you should worry about it. And then in the back half of the show, we're going to get tactical. I'm going to give you actual language, actual scripts, actual frameworks for how you set a boundary, and more importantly, how you enforce it once it's been set. Because a boundary

The High-Functioning Yes Man

SPEAKER_00 4:28

without enforcement isn't a boundary. It's a suggestion. And suggestions get ignored. And let me say that again: a boundary without enforcement isn't a boundary. It's a suggestion. And suggestions get ignored. So let's start, let's start here because I think if you don't understand what let's start with the why. Because I think if you don't understand the why, the how is never going to really stick. And in my experience, talking to thousands of dads in the community, coaching dads, the guys who struggle the most with boundaries during divorce are almost never the guys who were checked out or lazy in marriage. It's almost always the opposite. It's the guys who were the fixers, the guys who were the peacekeepers, the guys whose entire identity for years, maybe even decades, was built around being the reliable one, the competent one, the one who doesn't cause any problems. And look, on its face, that's not a bad identity to have. Being reliable, being competent, not being a source of chaos, these are all really good traits. The problem isn't the trait. The problem is when the trait gets weaponized against you and you don't even notice it's happening because it feels so familiar. It feels like just being who you are. And here's what I mean. In a lot of these marriages, and I hear this story over and over again with slight variations, there was an unspoken agreement, or maybe even a spoken, very spoken one, that your job was to keep the peace. Don't rock the boat, don't make a scene, pick your battles, except for the fact that somehow every battle got picked as not worth it. So you never actually picked any of them. Does that make sense? You just absorbed. You absorbed the criticism, you absorbed the last-minute schedule changes, you absorb being the one who apologized first, even when you weren't sure if you'd done anything wrong, because keeping the peace felt more important than being right, or worse, even being respected. And so I want to be really, really clear about something that's not a weakness. And I know it can feel that way when you're sitting in it, especially when somebody may have told you, maybe your ex, maybe a parent, maybe society at large, maybe therapist, who knows, that a quote unquote real man should just be able to handle things without complaining. What I'm describing is not a weakness, it's a survival strategy. It's a strategy that probably worked for you in some form for a long time. Maybe it worked with a difficult parent growing up, maybe it worked in a high-pressure job or staying calm and accommodating, kept things moving. Somewhere along the way, you learn that being the flexible one, being the accommodating one, being the guy who says it's fine, even when it's not, kept things stable. So these patterns, guys, are wired into us. And what happens is something like divorce comes up and it activates this pattern. Well, actually, the the circumstances throughout your marriage activated this parent, this pattern all the time. But now you're seeing that the problem is that the strategy has an expiration date. And for a lot of you, that expiration dates arrive the moment you filed for divorce or the moment you're ex-filed, and suddenly you're no longer operating inside a relationship where mutual goodwill, even flawed goodwill, was the baseline assumption. Now you're operating inside an adversarial legal process. And in an adversarial legal process, the accommodating strategy just doesn't just stop working. It actually becomes dangerous. It becomes a liability. It becomes something that can be exploited sometimes intentionally, but also sometimes just because your ex or her attorney or the system itself defaults to taking ground, whatever ground you're willing to give, give up. And that's just the default of the system. And let me say that again because I think it's the maybe the most important sentence in this entire episode. In a high conflict divorce, any ground you don't defend will eventually be taken from you. Not maybe, not sometimes, eventually, every single time. That's just how the adversarial systems work. Whether we're talking about your custody case, a negotiating negotiation at work, or even just geopolitics, right? Ground that isn't actively defended gets absorbed by whoever's willing to take it. So if you've spent your whole

Why Accommodation Turns Dangerous

SPEAKER_00 9:45

life being the guy who doesn't defend ground, because defending ground felt like conflict, and conflict felt like failure, you're now in the single worst possible environment for that pattern to continue. And and, and it's a big end, your kids are watching the whole thing. Which makes me want to pause here real quick and talk about why this matters beyond just you feeling steamrolled. Because I know some of you listening are thinking, okay, fine, I get pushed around a little bit, I'm a yes man, but I can handle it. I'm a big boy, I'm not worried about myself. Here's the thing: this was never just about you, even when it feels like it. Every single time you fail to set or enforce a boundary during this process, your kids are absorbing a lesson. They may not be old enough to articulate it. They may not even be in the room when it happens, but kids are remarkably good at absorbing relational dynamics through osmosis. They watch how mom and dad talk to each other, they watch how disagreements get resolved or don't get resolved, they watch who back down, who backs down, who accommodates, who apologizes for things that don't need an apology, and who consistently gets their needs met while the other parents' needs quietly evaporate. And here's the uncomfortable truth, dads. If you are consistently the parent who bends, who accommodates, who lets parenting time slide, who lets communication norms get violated without consequence, your children are learning right now, in real time, what a healthy relational dynamic is not supposed to look like. Except that they don't know that's what they're learning. They think this is just what relationships are. They think this is what it looks like when one person wants something and the other person just goes along with it to avoid conflict. So think about it. Think about your daughter if you have one, watching how her father is treated and how he responds to it. What is she learning about what she should expect or accept from a partner someday? Think about a son if you have one, watching how his father handles conflict. Is he learning that conflict means collapsing, disappearing, or giving in? Or is he learning that you can hold a position, you can communicate it clearly, and you can stand behind it without becoming cruel or explosive in the process. That is healthy. That's healthy masculinity, right? Because here's what I want to be really clear about, and I'll I'm gonna come, I'll probably come back to this, I am going to come back to this uh a few more times throughout the episode. Setting a boundary is not the same thing as being combative. Let me say that again. Setting a boundary is not the same thing as being combative. It's not the same thing as being difficult or vindictive or trying to win for the sake of winning. A boundary done correctly is calm, it's clear, it's non-negotiable, but it's not angry. And that distinct that distinction matters enormously, both for how effective you'll be in your case and for what you're modeling for your kids. You're not just fighting for parenting time right now, dads. You're not just fighting to make sure court orders are followed. You are, whether you realize it or not, actively teaching your children what it looks like to be a person who respects himself enough to say, this is not acceptable. And here's what happens if it continues. That is one of the most valuable things you can model for a child, and it is available to you right now, in the middle of what might be and probably is the hardest year of your life, but it's only there if you're willing to do the work. So lesson talk about what that work actually looks like in practice, because I don't want this whole episode to be just me telling you that the boundaries matter, blah, blah, blah, leaving you to figure out the rest on your own. I want to talk you through specific real-world scenarios that come up constantly in high conflict divorces. And I want to tell you exactly where the boundary needs to be and why. So, one of the first ones, and I'm gonna I'm gonna name several, is the the the court-ordered parenting app. If you have a court order, or even if it's just a mutual agreement, which I highly recommend you you you agree to or start to facilitate moving towards, that all co-parenting communication happens

The Lesson Your Kids Absorb

SPEAKER_00 14:44

through a parenting app like our Family Wizard or Talking Parents, whatever platform you're using. That that boundary is not optional. Uh, it's not optional for a reason that goes way beyond convenience. These apps exist because they create a time-stamped, unalterable record. They protect both parents from miscommunication, number one, but also from he said, she said disputes. And critically, they protect you from a pattern that I see constantly, which is a co-parent who wants to conduct business through text message, phone calls, or in-person conversations, specifically because those channels are much harder to document and much easier to dispute later. If your ex is regularly circumventing the parenting app, texting you instead, calling you instead, corning you at pickups and drop-offs to just have a quick conversation about something that should be documented. This is a boundary violation. And I want you to treat it like one, not like an inconvenience. You just have to tolerate because confrontation feels uncomfortable. Here's and so here's what that boundary sounds like in practice. When she texts you about a schedule change, your response is not to just handle it over text because it's easier, right? There's you have to put in the work on this, guys. You're gonna have to. I always uh the the phrase I always tell guys, you're gonna have to fight, you'll fight, you're gonna fight this battle sometime. You fight the battle now or you fight the battle later. Uh, if you put it off, the later, the the the later becomes much more difficult and much more expensive. So your response is not to just handle over text because it's easier in the moment. Your response is something like, I saw your text per our agreement, let's keep parenting communication on on the parenting app, I'll respond there. And then, and this is the part that trips you up, you actually do respond only there. And you don't respond in both places. You don't cave this, and then you don't cave the second time she pushes back and says something like, Well, you're being too difficult, uh, it's just a quick question. You hold the line every time, not most of the time, every time. Because what happens if you don't hold it consistently, the boundary, like I said earlier, becomes optional in her mind, which means it becomes a battle every single time instead of a settled norm. Boundaries that are enforced inconsistently are in practice not boundaries at all. They are just a slower, more exhausting way of eventually giving in. The second boundary that I see is your attorney's communication. This one hits close to home for a lot of you, and I get this a ton from guys in coaching, and I want to spend real time on it because I think dads tend to under-advocate for themselves with their own legal counsel. You are paying and paying a significant amount of money for legal representation. That attorney works for you. I've described it as you're the coach of the team, and this attorney is an important positional player like a quarterback. Not the other way around. And yet I hear from dad after dad after dad who tells me some version of the same story. I emailed my attorney three weeks ago and I haven't heard back. Or I've I've been trying to get an update on my case for weeks.

Stop Texting Use The Parenting App

SPEAKER_00 18:33

I don't even know what's happening with my hearing next week because nobody will call me back. If this is you, dad, I need you to hear this clearly. This is not normal. Uh, and it's not something you have to just accept because you don't want to be that difficult client. You are allowed to expect timely communication from the professional you are paying to represent your interests in one of the most consequential processes of your life. Now, to be fair to attorneys, I want to add some nuance here because not every single delay is a red flag. Attorneys are busy, courts schedules, court courts are just backed up. It's a mess. There's no doubt about it. Sometimes there's genuinely nothing to report yet. Like there's lulls in the divorce process. That's that's all normal. And you shouldn't be firing off angry emails or you know, blown up phones every time a week goes by without an update. But there's a different between occasional delays with reasonable explanations and a standard of being ignored or being an afterthought and being the client who has to chase down basic information uh about his own case. So here's how you can set this boundary. First and foremost, at the outset of the relationship, when you hire the attorney, and hopefully we've worked together, and I've got a whole process for how you interview attorneys and how you determine which one is best for your situation and for your case. And we do this in in coaching, and it's a whole process uh that helps you select the best attorney from from the start. And and then from the outset, you can you can of the relationship you can set the but this boundary right right now. Uh, but but if you haven't, you can do that, you can still do that now, which is ask the attorney directly what's your typical turnaround time for client communication uh and what's the best way to reach you for something urgent versus something that can wait. So ask ask them because I've I've seen and heard attorneys that will like the text a lot, which I don't recommend. I recommend getting things through through email and communicating mostly through email. But if you need like something quickly or there's an emergency or you need to react to a situation because this is high conflict, right? And you never know what's coming up from your your soon-to-be ex. Just get that and and understand that. The other thing that you can ask them is you can ask them to be BCC'd on all communications with the opposing counsel uh and then be forwarded all of the emails that they receive from opposing counsel. That goes a long way in not having to go back, not having to commute, like not having to regularly get updates or talk to them or call them or send them emails, because then you're you're kept in the loop. And you just frame it as that. But but get that expect expectation set explicitly, if in writing, if possible, so that there's no ambiguity later about what reasonable means. And that's all fair. The second is if you're not getting that level of response uh of responsiveness from your attorney, don't just quietly stew about it and complain. Address it directly with the attorney or their office. And I just we just I just coached a client through through dealing with this last week. And something like I want to flag, I want to flag that I've reached out a few times over the past few weeks without a response. And given what's at stake in my case, I need more consistent communication. Can we set a standard check-in, even briefly, and then set whatever you want it to be every week, every two weeks, so not left wondering what's happening what's happening. Now, hopefully you're getting BCC'd and forwarded, so you kind of have an idea, but you know, even that's a boundary. If you set it and you don't enforce it, then it's just a suggestion, right? So, so yeah, so my my next comment well, I'm say that, and I say it in a different way to say that is the enforcement pay piece is huge, like that's the hard part. A boundary without an enforcement is just a wish. It's just a suggestion. It's just a wish. If the pattern continues after you've raised it clearly and reasonably, you need to be willing to have the harder conversation about whether this is the right attorney for you. And I know that feels like a massive, scary, fear-inducing, disruptive step. Changing attorney's mid-case can feel overwhelming. And there's a cost and some challenges to getting it done and complications to consider. But I've talked to more than one dad, and I don't, and I, and I should say hundreds of dads, and it was my case as as well, who switched attorneys mid-case, and it's turned out to be one of the best decisions they've made. Because the look, look, guys, just like any profession, there are there are just lots of terrible, terrible uh operators in there. And so you can find one, an attorney that actually treats your your case and your kids like it matters. So your legal representation in a custody battle is not a place to be a pushover. So that's boundary number two. Let's talk about a third one. Parenting time. Stop being the bigger person at your kid's expense. And this one might be the hardest one for a lot of you to hear because it's wrapped up in something that sounds noble on the surface. A lot of dads tell me some version of I don't want to be the difficult, I don't want to be difficult about parenting time. I just want what's best for the kid. So if she needs to swap a weekend or needs extra time for something, I I try to be I try to be flexible. And I want you to be careful here because flexibility in and of itself is not the enemy. Two co-parents who can work together reasonably, who can accommodate genuine one-off needs, who aren't rigidly counting every single hour against each other. That's actually healthy. Uh it's mature co-parenting

Set Standards With Your Attorney

SPEAKER_00 24:57

dynamic, and that's generally what's uh happening. And if that's generally what's happening between you and your ex, mutual reciprocal flexibility, then that's that's great. Keep doing it. But here's what I see constantly instead, and I want you to be honest with yourself about whether this describes your situation. The flexibility only flows in one direction. You give up time when she asks, you arrange your schedule, your work commitments, sometimes even your vacation plans to accommodate, to accommodate her requests. But when you need something, a swap, an adjustment, even just to stick to the schedule as written, but when she wants to change it, suddenly there's resistance or guilt tripping or uh accusations that you're being rigid or difficult. If that's your dynamic, you're not being flexible. You're being unilaterally accommodating. And there's a massive difference between the two. Flexibility is a two-way exchange. What I just described is a one-way extraction, a one-way extraction. And every single time you allow it to happen without pushback, you're teaching both your ex and your kids that your time, your parenting time specifically, is negotiable in a way that's her that hers is not. And I want to connect this back to something we talked about earlier that I mentioned, because this is really where the stakes get highest. Parenting time isn't just a scheduling logistical issue. It is your relationship with your children. Every swap you give up because it's easier, every long weekend you sacrifice because she asked, and I didn't want to make waves, is time you're not getting back with your kiddos. It compounds, it adds up over months and years into a genuinely diminished relationship at exactly the moment in your child's lives when they need consistent, present, engaged time with their father, especially during divorce when their whole world is already destabilized. So here's the boundary. Your parenting time, as outlined in your parenting plan or court order, is the baseline, not the starting point for negotiation every single week. The baseline. If your ex needs to request an adjustment, that's a request, not an entitlement. And you get to evaluate it the same way you'd you'd the same way you'd want to want her to evaluate a request from you. Does it work for my schedule? Does it work for the kids? And importantly, is this reciprocal? Meaning, is there an expectation that when I need something, I'll get the same consideration? The actual language here might sound like something like, I can look at swapping that weekend, but I want to make sure we're doing this both ways, not just when you need something. If I need a swap next month for work or whatever reason, I'll be counting on the same flexibility. And then this is critical. If the reciprocity doesn't happen, if you ask for a swap next month and suddenly she's citing the parenting plan like scripture, that's data. That tells you the flexibility was never mutual to begin with, and you need to tighten back up to actual court order and stop offering unilateral accommodations going forward. Last week we we listened to uh IDN and he called it the the tit for tat system where where you give and then if it's uh you know if it's if it's received and then and then when you ask it's reciprocated, then that's good. If it's not, then you stop, right? So go back and listen to it. It's a brilliant, I like the tit for tat how how he describes it in game theory. Go back and listen to uh to next week's with with with Ideen because he's he came up with a great program for that. So just make sure and understand that that is the way to go forward. You stop offering those unilateral accommodations once you know it's not going to be reciprocated. Boundary number four, your own your own communication standards. And and this doesn't get disturbed, this doesn't get discussed enough, which is the tone and content of the communication you're willing to accept from your ex, particularly in high conflict cases where communication can become a weapon in and of itself and abusive. Uh, if your ex is sending you messages that are hostile, accusatory, manipulative, or designed, and this is the one to be careful about, or designed to provoke a reaction. That's where you got to be really careful. You do not have to engage with the tone. And this is a boundary a lot of high-functioning yes men dads really struggle with because your instinct, understandably, is to want to defend yourself, to correct the record, to explain that her character is her characterization of you is unfair or untrue. But here's the thing engaging

Protect Parenting Time With Reciprocity

SPEAKER_00 31:00

with the emotional content of a hostile message almost never, ever, ever, ever de-escalates the situation. And in a high conflict case, it often creates exactly the kind of documented back and forth that can be used against you later, especially if you say something in a moment of frustration that you wouldn't say if you had time to think about it and really think it through. So the boundary here is what a lot of co-parenting professionals call, and you've heard me describe in in past episodes and lots of times. And if you've been on one of our calls, we we we we talk through it a lot. It's the BIF meth, the BIF method, brief, informative, friendly, but firm. B I F F. You respond only to the factual, logistical content of the message. You do not respond to accusations, insults, emotional bait, nothing. If she writes three paragraphs about what a crappy father you are, wrapped around one actual logistical question about next Tuesday's pickup, your entire response is about next Tuesday's pickup. That's it. Nothing else. You're not obligated to defend yourself in every single message. In fact, it's much better that you don't. You know, one of the one of the guys on the call this this morning, we had our group call this morning. He said, I spent 14 years trying to convince her I'm a good person. Why now would I be deluded that I'm going to convince her through emails and texts when we're co-parenting that I'm a good person? Right? It makes perfect, perfect sense. I mean, just stop. Don't do it. Boundary number five, this is the final one we'll talk about today, is financial and third-party boundaries. And and I want to I want to talk about this, and and I do want to get into the second ethics show some some more strategy around this. But if you're if these are just a couple of ones, if you're being to ask to cover expenses outside of what's legally required, or being guilt tripped into paying for things that aren't part of your agreement, that's a boundary too. Generosity is a virtue, but generosity under duress, generosity because you're afraid of what happens if you say no isn't generosity. It's coercion. And you're allowed to name that in decline. And this is this is a hard one, guys, because lots of times in high conflict with with your swats, they're gonna they're gonna involve the kids or they're gonna start saying stuff to the kids like your dad won't pay for it, or your dad's you know doing this, or your dad's doing that. And it

BIFF Responses To Provocation

SPEAKER_00 33:36

makes it really, really hard because you just you want your kids to be happy. So I know it makes it makes it hard, but again, it's a boundary that has to be set. And one of the things we do in coaching is when this stuff comes up is is we talk about this in detail, how to deal with it and how to set yourself up success with your communication with your ex, but then also when your kids come to you and start to talk to you about this, because this is something that that your attorney doesn't help you and walk you through, that has a huge impact going forward on your relationship with your with your kiddos. That's part of what we we do here, is we fill in those gaps between the therapists and between the between the financial advisors, between the the legal advice, et cetera, with the stuff that that has is great of, if not a bigger, impact on your your life going forward post-divorce. Another one is if extended family, hers or even yours, is inserting themselves into the conflict, pressuring you to concede on things or using guilt as leverage, that about that boundary applies to them too. A lot of this wiring that, excuse me, this wiring that we've that we've assumed comes from those family members. And so it just becomes perpetual. You do not owe every family member an explanation for every decision you make in your own custody case. So, all right, we've we've walked through five, six, if you count the family piece, specific areas where boundaries matter, excuse me, enormously in high conflict divorce. Now let's talk about the mechanics because knowing what needs to change and actually change it are two very different things. And I don't want to leave you with a list of problems and no actual processes for fixing them. Here's the framework. And if you need to take a pause, I know this is long, that was already a lot of information, but hopefully you've got a real good picture and you've done some self-reflection. And now the framework for for how you how you deal with this. And I and I call this three-point, this three part, this three-part boundary structure. Name it, state it, hold it. Name it, state it, hold it. Part one is name it. Before you can set a boundary, you have to be able to name specifically and clearly what the actual issue is without the emotional noise around it. Not she's impossible, or your attorney doesn't care about you. Those are conclusions, they're not observations. Get specific.

Money And Family Pressure Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Like my ex has texted me directly about parenting logistics four times in the last week instead of using the app. Or I've sent three emails to my attorney over the past two weeks without a response. That's specificity, that's specific specificity, specificity matters because it's what allows you to communicate the boundary clearly going forward. And it's also what allows you to document the pattern if you ever need to. That's number one. Number part two, or part one. Part two. So you name it. Part one. Part two. State it. This is where you actually communicate the boundary. And I want to give you a structure of this because how you say it matters almost as much as what you say. The structure is acknowledge, state the boundary, state the reason briefly, state what happens going forward. And let me say that again. The structure is acknowledge, state the boundary, state the reason briefly, and state what happens going forward. And you don't need to over-explain. You don't need to justify yourself extensively extensively. Overexplaining is actually a yes man habit in disguise. And it's an attempt to get buy-in or approval for a boundary that doesn't require either of those things. So here's an example pulling it all together using the parenting app scenario. I got your text about picking Jacob or whatever your kiddo's name up early on Thursday. Going forward, I'm going to keep all parenting logistics on the app so there's a clear record for both of us. That's what our agreement calls for. I'll respond to your message there. Notice what's not in that message. There's no apology, there's no sorry to be difficult, there's no lengthy justification, there's no anger either. It's flat, calm, and factual. That's what a well-stated boundary sounds like. And finally, part three, the hold it part. And this is the part that separates people who actually change their patterns from people who read an article or listen to this podcast and feel motivated for about four days and then slide right back into old habits the first time somebody pushes back with guilt, anger, or manipulation. Holding a boundary means that when it gets tested and guaranteed, I guarantee you it will get tested almost immediately because anyone who has benefited from your lack of boundaries has an incentive, conscious or not, to get you to abandon the new one. You do not cave. And I will all also add to this is that it is likely to even escalate and get even harder because you're gonna they're gonna be pushing back on a new pattern or a new relational dynamic that's happening, and that's gonna be very uncomfortable for them. It's gonna be a different you. So you repeat the boundary calmly without escalating and without collapsing. This is sometimes called the broken record technique, and it's remarkably effective, specifically because it is colossally boring. You're not giving the other person new material to argue with, you're simply restating the same calm boundary over and over again. It's supposed to be boring and it works. If she responds to your parenting at boundary with something like, Well, I can't believe you're being this petty about a text message. This is exactly why the kids need to see a therapist, you're too rigid, you're authoritative, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Your response is not to defend yourself against the character attack. Your response is some version of message rep message received. I'll respond to your message on the parenting app. That's it. Same boundary, no new engagement with the insult, no escalation, no apology. Boring as hell. And I want to name something here too, because it's important. The first, yeah, the the other part of this too. It's it the first few times you do this, it's going to feel incredibly uncomfortable. You're gonna sit with that and you're gonna be like, oh, well, if you're a lifelong accommodator, holding firm with someone with somebody while they're upset with you is going to trigger every instinct in your body to have you fix it, smooth it over, give in justice once to make the discomfort stop. I want you to know this discomfort is not a sign you're doing something wrong. Actually, it's a sign you're doing something new, and new things that go against a deeply ingrained pattern are supposed to feel uncomfortable at first. That discomfort fades with repetition. You gotta train it. It generally does. Dads I've talked to who've done this work consistently tell me that, and I've done this myself too, guys. Look, I am I am this person that I'm describing to you. Okay, and that's why I need you to know what this is like. And and and and so dads who've done this work consistently tell me that after a few weeks or a couple months, it starts to feel less like a fight every single time and more like just how things are now. The other person, in a lot of cases, and maybe after the short-term escalation, adjusts to the new normal because the payoff of testing that boundary keeps coming back empty. They're not gonna, you're just not gonna do it. And then they have nothing to fight with, and that's it. And in the cases where the other person doesn't adjust, where they just keep testing indefinitely, that's actually valuable information too. It tells you clearly that you're dealing with someone who will keep taking ground as long as ground is available to take, which reinforces exactly why the boundary needed to exist in the first place and why documentation of these patterns matters for your case. Because then you're able to take that behavioral pattern and with facts and with documentation, demonstrate that to the court. So I want to close us out with or close out this tactical portion with something a little more encouraging because I know it's this has probably felt like a lot of confrontation for for you dads, uh, especially the ones who have spent years or maybe your whole life actively avoiding confrontation. Here's what I've seen happen over and over with the dads in this community who commit to this work. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not it's not going to sit here and tell our I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that that if you set one boundary and suddenly your entire dynamic will transform. It just does not work that way. You're rewiring decades of you know your your neural pathways and also relational dynamic. That's probably not just with your your soon-to-be-ex, but probably in many other parts of your life. This is incremental. It's boundary by boundary, and you might be then you know noticing what I just described,

Name It State It Hold It

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which is oh wow, this happens with my kids. Oh wow, this is happening at work, et cetera, right? So boundary by boundary, tested moment by tested moment, and slowly, month over month, something will start to shift. And what shifts specifically is your own sense of yourself. A lot of the dads I talk to describe it less as I finally, I will finally won or I beat her, because again, this isn't this isn't winning against your ex, even though I know it feels adversarial, right? In in a high conflict case, which in some senses it it is, but what they describe instead is something more like getting reacquainted reacquainted with a version of themselves that got buried somewhere along the way, the version of themselves that could uh that could say no, that could hold a position, that didn't need everyone around them to be happy with every decision they made in order to feel okay about themselves. And and and I'm telling you, your kids feel that shift too, even if they can't articulate it. Kids are remarkably perceptive about which parent feels solid and grounded and which parent feels like they're constantly bracing for the next demand. When you start operating from a place of clear, calm boundaries rather than anxious accommodation, your kids experience you as a more stable individual and not a less stable individual. And I know the instinct is to think that holding boundaries makes you seem harsh or difficult. But in practice, for the people on the receiving end who actually love and depend on you, the opposite is true. A parent who is clear and consistent feels safer than a parent who is endlessly negotiable because endlessly negotiable. Negotiable also means endlessly unpredictable. Let me say that again because I think that's an important, important, important sentence. A parent who is clear and consistent feels safer to your to a child than a parent who is endlessly negotiable. Because endlessly negotiable also means endlessly unpredictable. That's the real prize here, dads. Becoming the kind of father and the kind of man who your kids can point to years from now and say, my dad went through one of the hardest things a person can go through, and he came out of it more solid, not less. All right. I just want to leave you with something concrete to actually do now to implement this this week. Because I don't want this to be about a plan an episode, and you're going to nod along in the car, you're listening on the bike or the treadmill. Here's your assignment. I want you to do three things this week. So if you need to pause and get a piece of paper, pull over, pull out your phone and your notes, let's do it. Number one, identify one specific boundary from today's episode, one of the five that I gave you, or six that I gave you, the parenting app communication, or attorney responsiveness, parenting time, communication tone, whatever it is that is currently your weakest link in your situation. And just pick one, whichever one you think is the weakest, because we don't want to try to overhaul everything at once, because that's a recipe for burning out. And then you just give up on everything, right? It's like if you start to try to run a marathon and you run 26 miles, you can't do it. You got to start like running around the block. Okay. And then what you're going to do,

Write The Script Then Hold

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number two, is you're going to write out actually and write out. Okay, I want you to get a pen and a paper, not just out loud with them, but word for word, what you're going to say the next time that boundary gets tested. Use the structure that we talked about, acknowledge, state the boundary, brief reason what happens going forward. Okay. Practicing, then once you've written it down, I want you to read it out loud. Practice saying it out loud if you need to. It's going to feel weird, but you know, sit in your car and do it. Or get in front of the mirror and do it. Do it anyway, no matter how weird and odd it feels. And then the third thing I want you to do the next time, it's going to come up, maybe not between now and next episode, but in the next couple of weeks, the situation actually comes up, use the language. Hold it. And when it feels uncomfortable, and it will, remind yourself, hey, I want Jude in the back of your mind, right? That the discomfort is the sign you're doing it right. Okay. Jude's in the back of your mind, oh, this is uncomfortable. But Jude said this means I'm doing it right, right? Not the sign that you're doing it wrong. All right, those that's your homework, those three things this week. I know you can do it. Guys, dads, if you've recognized yourself in this yes man pattern we talked about today, help us to share with more guys. I learned this by talking to other guys and learning and observing other guys. We we we need to help each other to do this. That's why we have this podcast to get this information out. But I need your help in sharing this with other dads. So, you know, the worst thing is, and I know a lot of you are isolated in this and doing this by yourself. We need we have each other in each other's corners. So share this episode, share the podcast, share the community far and wide. It helps us immensely. And and and and come to the to the meetings. We got all these meetings that that are uh free meetings, or get on the website, take the the weekend visitor risk assessments.

Share The Podcast Get Support

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It gives you a it gives you immediate results of kind of where you're at in your case, and then you're even able to spend some time uh with me going over and triaging what's happening in your particular in your particular circumstance. Take advantage of this and share it with uh as many dads as possible. And as always, guys, stay strong. Have a blessed week, and I will talk to you next week.