Mary Ann Palmer spent years running the same routine on her son. Take him to the doctor, take him to the psychiatrist, take him to meetings, send him to rehab, and when none of it held, do all of it again in the belief that this time would be the time. It is the reflex every parent has, and she says plainly that it does not work.

Mary Ann is a certified parent coach and a certified CRAFT peer coach who works with parents whose children are struggling with alcohol or other substances. She is also the mother of a son in long-term recovery, and she coaches from both. Her first request in this conversation is about language: calling a person an addict turns a condition into an identity, so the field says substance use disorder, and she would like the rest of us to catch up.

The teaching half covers how this develops. Genetics load the dice without deciding the outcome, and co-occurring anxiety, depression, ADHD, and post-traumatic stress tilt things further, all of which is familiar territory in this community. She describes the stages from first use to abuse to tolerance to full dependence, what blackouts and binge drinking indicate, and what happens in the reward system when a substance floods the receptors that dinner with your family used to fill. Lisa draws the parallel to trauma bonding, and why people ask the same unhelpful question about someone who will not leave an abusive partner.

The practical half is the CRAFT approach: build the connection, speak so your child can actually hear you, and give them room to reach their own conclusion. Mary Ann tells the story of the night her son came upstairs drunk after a year sober, and how pausing instead of erupting changed what happened next. She covers boundaries drawn from your own values rather than from a rulebook, letting consequences land instead of covering for him, positive reinforcement she describes as watering the flowers and not the weeds, the difference between white knuckling and recovery, what a dry drunk is, harm reduction as progress rather than surrender, why relapse is part of the process, and why waiting for rock bottom is advice she will not give in an era of fentanyl.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why "addict" is shaming language, and what the field says instead
• The stages of addiction, and what blackouts and binge drinking actually signal
• How the brain's reward system gets overtaken, and why "just stop" is not available
• Why sending your child off to be fixed while you change nothing rarely holds
• The CRAFT approach: connection first, then speaking so your child can hear you
• Setting boundaries from your own values, and letting consequences land
• White knuckling, dry drunk, abstinence, and harm reduction, explained plainly
• Why relapse is part of recovery, and why waiting for rock bottom is bad advice

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why "addict" is a shaming word, and what to say instead
3:00 Genetics, co-occurring conditions, and why predisposition is not destiny
6:00 The stages: use, abuse, tolerance, dependence
9:00 How the brain's reward system gets hijacked
14:00 Teenagers, and why starting young changes the odds
16:00 Denial, and the parent who believes they can fix it
20:00 CRAFT, and the night her son came upstairs at two in the morning
23:00 White knuckling, dry drunk, abstinence, and harm reduction
28:00 Relapse, interventions, and not waiting for rock bottom
31:00 Boundaries from your values, and letting consequences land
35:00 Watering the flowers not the weeds, and pausing before you respond

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Mary Ann Palmer: https://www.maryanncpalmer.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Once parental alienation is underway, a false allegation of abuse is usually right behind it, and by the time it lands, your own child may believe it. In this episode, board-certified Florida family law attorney Charles "Charlie" Jamieson draws on 40 years in these cases to explain why it happens and, more importantly, what to do about it.

Charlie and Lisa get into the science the courts often ignore, that a child's memory is an active process that can be rewritten by an alienating parent, and the hard realities of family court: why its burden of proof makes false claims easier to land, why your reaction can matter as much as the facts, and why a forensic custody evaluation is often your best investment. He shares the defenses most parents never hear about: using every hour of your timesharing, building witnesses before you need them, and turning supervised visitation into neutral evidence in your favor.

This is strategic education, not legal advice for your specific situation.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✅ Why a false abuse allegation so often follows parental alienation, and how to see it coming
✅ How a child's memory gets rewritten, and why the allegation can sound credible
✅ Why family court's burden of proof makes false claims easier to land
✅ The "Alec Baldwin" reaction that hands the other side a win, and what to do instead
✅ When a forensic custody or social evaluation is worth every penny
✅ Why using all your 50-50 timesharing is your cheapest, strongest defense
✅ How to build your own witnesses before you're ever accused
✅ Turning supervised visitation into neutral evidence that helps your case

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meet Charlie Jamieson, 40 years in family court
4:08 Why a false abuse allegation almost always follows alienation
10:29 Fighting it in family court: experts, cost, and the "smoke means fire" myth
14:37 Don't take the bait, and why you need a custody evaluation
16:37 50-50 timesharing: your cheapest, strongest defense
19:34 Burden of proof: why false claims land easier in family court
24:02 When your own family turns, creating your own witnesses
31:28 Supervised visitation, reconnection, and documenting your efforts
38:27 Where to find Charlie

Living this with a high-conflict co-parent? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.

Books:
When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You: https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183
Been There Got Out: https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/

One spouse handles the money and the taxes, the other signs where indicated. It is an ordinary arrangement in a marriage and a liability in a divorce, because the signature on a joint return makes both people answerable for everything on it.

Tony Wimperis is a certified public accountant and certified valuation analyst whose practice covers individual and business tax compliance and planning, along with business valuation work. At the time of this conversation he was a tax director at a full-service firm in Ridgefield, Connecticut; he has since been named a partner at Adelson & Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He is careful throughout to point people back to their own attorney, which is the right instinct for this material.

The conversation starts where a lot of these stories start: the shared family accountant, and what happens to that relationship when the marriage ends. Wimperis explains what a preparer is and is not engaged to verify, which reframes the sense of betrayal a lot of people carry about a professional who knew things and said nothing. Then he takes the married filing jointly versus married filing separately decision apart: the tax advantage of filing jointly, the joint and several liability that comes with it, and the coordination that separate returns require, right down to both spouses having to itemize or both taking the standard deduction.

The rest is the practical layer. Section 1041, and why receiving assets in a property division is not taxable while the income they generate afterward very much is. What happens when both parents claim the same child, and how the return gets rejected. Updating your W-4 once you are filing as single, and the underpayment interest that catches people who do not. And innocent spouse relief: what it is for, the two-year deadline, the form, and the safety consideration that comes with the IRS contacting your former spouse about it.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a tax preparer is actually engaged to verify, and what they take on trust
• Joint and several liability: why a joint return puts the whole bill on both signatures
• When married filing separately is the safer choice, and the coordination it requires
• Section 1041: why receiving assets in a property split isn't taxable, and what is
• What happens when both parents claim the same child as a dependent
• Updating your W-4 for single status, and the underpayment interest that follows if you don't
• Innocent spouse relief, the two-year window, and the safety consideration in filing it
• Why telling your accountant early stops both spouses being copied on everything

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 The family accountant, and the conflict of interest in a divorce
4:00 Signing off on a return without the supporting documents
9:00 Getting across the accounts, with your attorney's blessing
11:00 Joint filing, joint liability, and who the IRS pursues
13:00 Married filing separately: how it works and what it costs
17:00 Forensic accounting is a different job
22:00 Tell your accountant early, and stop the copied emails
24:00 Section 1041, and the tax planning a divorce triggers
26:00 Claiming a child as a dependent when both parents try
31:00 Single status, your W-4, and underpayment interest
35:00 Innocent spouse relief, Form 8857, and the safety trade-off

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Anthony "Tony" Wimperis, CPA at Adelson & Company: https://www.adelsoncpa.com/Anthony.php

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

When your grown child stops speaking to you, the silence is its own kind of grief, made worse by a world that assumes you must have done something unforgivable. In this episode, psychologist Dr. Joshua Coleman, author of *Rules of Estrangement*, joins Lisa to explain why adult children pull away and what actually helps rebuild the relationship.

Dr. Coleman names what estranged parents rarely hear: this is common, it's rarely the story people assume, and divorce is one of its biggest drivers (70% of estranged parents in his research had divorced). He and Lisa separate estrangement from alienation and get honest about a hard shift: adult children now hold the power, and behaviors a previous generation shrugged off are now named as harmful. His advice is to listen without defensiveness, lead with empathy, and practice radical acceptance that keeps the door open. He also shares what the data says about reconciliation, and why there's real hope.

This is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ Why parental estrangement is more common than anyone admits
 ✅ The difference between estrangement and alienation
 ✅ Why divorce is one of the biggest drivers of estrangement
 ✅ Why adult children now hold the power in these relationships
 ✅ How shifting cultural definitions of harm fuel misunderstandings
 ✅ Why listening without defensiveness beats defending yourself
 ✅ How radical acceptance keeps the door open to reconciliation
 ✅ What the research says about reconnection, and why there's hope

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 Estrangement vs. alienation, and why divorce is a catalyst
 12:43 Why adult children hold the power now
 20:23 Reconnecting: empathy, radical acceptance, and hope

CTA (spoken): Navigating estrangement with your kids? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183 · Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/
 Tags: parental estrangement, adult child estrangement, rules of estrangement, joshua coleman, reconnecting, estrangement vs alienation, radical acceptance, high conflict divorce

By the time most parents realize their child is being turned against them, the campaign has been running for years. In this episode, UK-based parental alienation coach Charlie McCready, who lived it himself, wants you to see it far earlier.

His most useful idea is "pre-alienation": the long, quiet grooming phase before the refused visits and cold shoulder, where one parent subtly undermines the other. He and Lisa map the progression from mild to severe, clarify estrangement vs. deliberate alienation, and lay out the five triggers that escalate a narcissistic ex. His counterintuitive case: defending yourself against the false narrative often backfires, so anticipate rather than react. Underneath is a compassionate message for any rejected parent: manage your emotions first, keep offering unconditional love, and play the long game.

This is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ What "pre-alienation" is, and how to spot the grooming phase early
 ✅ The difference between estrangement and deliberate alienation
 ✅ How alienation progresses from mild to severe
 ✅ Why defending yourself against the false narrative can backfire
 ✅ The five triggers that escalate a narcissistic ex
 ✅ Why anticipating beats reacting
 ✅ How to keep offering unconditional love through rejection
 ✅ Why managing your own emotions is step one

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 Pre-alienation, and the grooming most parents miss
 6:14 Estrangement vs. alienation, mild to severe
 16:11 The triggers that escalate a narcissistic ex
 20:50 The emotional roller coaster of alienation
 33:12 Handling the triggers and rebuilding trust

CTA (spoken): Watching your child pull away? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183 · Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/
 Tags: parental alienation, pre-alienation, alienated parent, estrangement vs alienation, co-parenting, charlie mccready, child refuses contact, high conflict divorce, protecting your kids

Anxiety has a job, and Andrea Nave describes it as an alarm system. It is there to keep you alive, it goes off when it believes something bad is coming, and it does not always get the call right. Understanding that is the difference between fighting the feeling and working with it.

Our guest is Andrea Nave, a licensed therapist in private practice in Connecticut and licensed in New York as well. She specializes in anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and parenting anxious young people, and she is the creator of the How To Beat Anxiety Blog, which grew out of how many people were writing to her with the same questions. She spent a couple of years working with Dr. Eli Lebowitz, who created the SPACE program at the Yale Child Study Center, a parent-only approach to childhood anxiety that comes up several times here.

Andrea and Lisa talk through the misconceptions first: that being anxious is simply who you are and cannot change, and that worry is doing something useful. Andrea separates the thought your brain hands you from the choice you make about engaging with it, and she makes the case that acting is helpful while worrying is not. They then move to children, where anxiety shows up as stomach aches, vomiting, and irritability, and where irritability regularly gets labeled defiance at home and at school.

Two parts of this speak directly to anyone living inside a long court case. One is Andrea's point that a parent's anxiety is learned by the child, so a parent who cannot steady themselves cannot ask the child to. The other is her account of riding out a panic attack rather than fighting it, because fighting your own physiology teaches your brain that those sensations are dangerous. She and Lisa also cover what to do when a child's distress about going to the other parent is not irrational at all, and the nervous system is reporting something real.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why anxiety is an alarm system, and what happens when it fires at the wrong time
• How avoidance teaches your nervous system that the thing really was dangerous
• The question that separates useful action from unproductive worry
• How anxiety shows up in kids: stomach aches, irritability, and the defiance label
• Why a parent's untreated anxiety limits what therapy can do for the child
• Self-regulation and co-regulation: naming your feeling out loud in front of your kids
• Riding out a panic attack instead of fighting it, and why that works
• The SPACE program: reducing the accommodations that keep a child from coping

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Are people more anxious now, and what anxiety actually is
5:00 Exposure therapy, and why avoidance keeps the false alarm on
7:00 Misconceptions: "I'm just anxious," and whether worry helps
13:00 Anxiety in kids: stomach aches, irritability, and the defiance label
18:00 When a parent's anxiety becomes the child's
21:00 Self-regulation, co-regulation, and modeling it out loud
25:00 Parent burnout, self-compassion, and finding an outlet
29:00 Riding out a panic attack instead of fighting it
33:00 Facing an abusive ex in court: anxiety that makes sense
38:00 Validation first, and the SPACE program

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 How To Beat Anxiety Blog: https://www.howtobeatanxiety.org/
🔗 Andrea Nave on Instagram (@howtobeatanxietyblog): https://www.instagram.com/howtobeatanxietyblog/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

After narcissistic abuse, people tend to swing between two settings. One is the old one: assume the best of everyone, no boundaries. The other is the overcorrection, where nobody gets in at all. Chelsey Brooke Cole says the ground you need is in between, and she calls the skill discernment.

Chelsey Brooke Cole is a psychotherapist, coach, and best-selling author who specializes in narcissistic abuse, complex trauma, and relational trauma. She knew as a child that she wanted to do this work, started college at sixteen, and finished her master's at twenty-two. She arrived at this specialty from two directions at once: clients whose relationships did not respond to any standard couples-therapy approach, and her own relationships, which she describes as bringing its own shame given her profession. Her book is If Only I'd Known, built partly from more than four hundred survivor stories she collected. This is one of several conversations she and Lisa have recorded together.

In this episode, Chelsey works through disclosure decisions one setting at a time. Sharing online, where she suggests generalities, careful timing, and specific pages or private groups rather than an open post early in your healing. Recovery groups, where she explains why the pity-driven version of narcissism is drawn to them. Therapists, where she tells people to interview before committing: what do you mean by trauma-informed, how do you work, how many people have you worked with. Her rule is that credentials do not override how you felt on the first call.

Lisa brings in the legal-abuse angle, including why an open case changes what you can safely post. Chelsey and Lisa then cover dating again without deciding in advance that everyone is dangerous, the boundary test that reveals more than any conversation, enablers who are otherwise decent people, and a question from BTGO's support group about a parent whose ex reaches every new school friend's family first. Chelsey's answer is the same one she gives for surviving a smear campaign: a story can outrun you for a few weeks, and it cannot outrun years of you being consistently who you are.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why telling the wrong person can push you backward into doubting your own account
• How to share online safely: generalities, timing, and where to post instead
• Why recovery groups attract the pity-seeking version of narcissism
• How to interview a therapist before you commit, and the questions to ask
• What not to post while you have an open case, and why judges care
• Dating again: the boundary test, and the "sweet" pushback that still ignores your no
• Active and passive enablers, and setting limits with otherwise decent people
• Neuroception: what a genuinely safe person feels like in your body

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why telling the wrong person sets you back, and Chelsey's path into this work
5:00 Sharing your story online, and the timing that matters
8:00 When toxic people turn up inside recovery groups
10:00 Don't assume a therapist gets it: how to interview one
12:00 The legal warning: what not to post with an open case
15:00 Dating again without deciding everyone is dangerous
17:00 The boundary test, and the pushback that ignores your no
20:00 Enablers, flying monkeys, and the friends who won't hear it
24:00 The playdate problem, and outlasting a smear campaign
28:00 Neuroception: what a safe person actually feels like

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Chelsey Brooke Cole: https://www.chelseybrookecole.com/
🔗 If Only I'd Known, by Chelsey Brooke Cole: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6XT19Z4

🎧 More with Chelsey Brooke Cole on this podcast
Ep 12: Spotting a Narcissist on Social Media
Ep 137: Mindset Shifts for Healing From Abuse

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Ellen Schwartz spent 37 years as a family law attorney before she had a name for what she kept seeing. Cases that were not assaults, were not terroristic threats, were not quite harassment, but where a client was clearly afraid and clearly controlled. Reading Rachel Louise Snyder's No Visible Bruises gave her the vocabulary, and she has spent the years since working to get coercive control into New Jersey law.

This episode has two guests, both from Women Aware, a domestic violence agency serving Middlesex County, New Jersey, recorded during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Ellen Schwartz is its Director of Legal Resources. Maliha Janjua is Director of Client Services and a licensed clinical social worker who oversees residential and non-residential programs and has worked with survivors and their children for close to fifteen years. Between them the conversation covers the statute and the living room.

Ellen explains what New Jersey passed and what it does: not a standalone act of domestic violence, but a factor a judge has to weigh when deciding a final restraining order. She goes through the objections she heard from the bar, including that harassment law already covered it, and walks the actual elements of harassment to show what it leaves out. Nothing in it addresses being stopped from working, from seeing your family, from worshipping where you choose, or from making decisions about pregnancy and sex.

Maliha covers the child side. Once someone can no longer control an adult partner, the children become the route: threats about custody, interference with a child's therapy, messages relayed through kids, exchanges used as contact. She explains why the period after leaving is often more dangerous rather than less, what age-appropriate safety planning looks like, and why a child's instinct to intervene has to be redirected. She also describes how this surfaces in children, in aggression, in a six-year-old with a color-coordinated closet, in regression and missed milestones that a provider unfamiliar with abuse may not read as trauma. Ellen closes on choosing an attorney without repeating the dependence, and both explain the Family Justice Center model, where legal, medical, housing, and counseling services sit in one building so nobody has to tell their story twenty-five times.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why coercive control is a pattern rather than a single incident, and what that changes legally
• What a harassment statute does not reach: work, clothing, friendships, faith, and the body
• How the children become the route once the adult is out of reach
• Age-appropriate safety planning: code words, a designated room, a neighbor's door
• How abuse at home surfaces in kids, from aggression to perfectionism to lost milestones
• Choosing an attorney without handing over the decisions you just got back
• Why an account that comes back in pieces is a trauma response, not an inconsistency
• What a Family Justice Center is, and why to look for one near you

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What coercive control is, legally and clinically
3:00 Why some lawyers argued against the New Jersey law
7:00 Walking the harassment statute, and what it leaves out
10:00 Using the children once the adult can't be controlled
15:00 Staying for the kids: code words, neighbors, and real safety plans
19:00 How it shows up in children: aggression, perfectionism, regression
23:00 37 years in family law, and the cases that fit nowhere
29:00 Choosing an attorney without handing your power over again
35:00 Trauma-informed court prep, and why memories come back in pieces
42:00 PALS, creative arts therapy, and trauma-focused CBT
47:00 Family Justice Centers: every service under one roof

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Women Aware (New Jersey): https://womenaware.net/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

A father knocks on the door every week for his scheduled visit. Nobody answers. His daughter sits at the top of the stairs knowing she will not be allowed down. Eventually he stops coming. Years later, grown, she said the knocking had been the weekly signal that he still loved her, and that when it stopped, it felt like he had stopped.

Jon runs the Male Victims of Female Narcissists community and coaches men going through an abusive divorce. He has been a guest on this show several times. His own case involved a long marriage, four children, and a discovery he made on the day he said he wanted a divorce: his ex told him some of the kids would never forgive him, and he understood in that moment that she had been talking to them about him for years. He is three and a half years out and remains estranged from most of them. This episode was recorded heading into the holiday season.

Jon and Lisa spend the first half on how the ground gets prepared. Triangulation, where his children and eventually his own parents began routing information through his spouse rather than through him, so that he learned about his parents' retirement plans secondhand. The smear campaign that works through tone and implication as much as through anything stated. The difference between the version extended family recognizes immediately and the version that moves slowly enough to isolate someone from their siblings and parents before anyone notices. And the shame people carry when their ex is the one at their family's Thanksgiving table.

The second half is practical. Lisa explains why relaying your child's refusal to see the other parent puts you in the middle and can be turned into an alienation claim against you, and why a sentence as protective-sounding as telling a child to call if they feel unsafe at the other house does something else when it is said right before a handoff. She and Jon work through what to say when a child repeats the other household's version, which is to ask what they make of it rather than to correct it, because correcting is the same move the other side is making. Jon holds a line for himself: he speaks about his ex only in the past tense and only favorably, and he does not discuss the marriage with his children. They close on the holidays, and on his instruction to ask somebody now, weeks ahead, rather than arriving at the day alone.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• How triangulation puts your spouse between you and your kids, and your own parents
• Why a smear campaign runs through tone and attitude, not only through words
• Overt versus covert: why extended family spots one and misses the other entirely
• Why relaying your child's refusal to see the other parent can be used against you
• What "call me if you feel unsafe over there" plants, and how to say it differently
• What to say when your child repeats the other parent's version, instead of correcting it
• Why stopping contact is read by a child as confirmation of what they were told
• How to line up somewhere to be for the holidays before the date arrives

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why the holidays hit hardest, and the friends who stop calling
4:00 "Some of your kids will never forgive you": the moment he found out
6:00 Triangulation, and losing access to your own family's news
11:00 Overt versus covert, and why the covert version isolates you first
17:00 Why relaying your kids' refusal to the other parent backfires
23:00 The one consistent piece of advice, and the sentence that plants something
28:00 What to say when your child repeats the other parent's version
33:00 Why you don't give up: the father who kept knocking
43:00 The gaslighting question: what did I do to deserve this?
55:00 Lining up somewhere to be for the holidays

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Male Victim Jon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malevictimsoffemalenarcissists/

🎧 More with Male Victim Jon on this podcast
Ep 180: Parental Alienation With Adult Children
Ep 360: Four Years of Parental Alienation, Then a Text Back

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Tyra Juliette Schwartz was nine when a teacher told her she would grow up to be a waitress. It was not said kindly, and it was not said about waitressing. She carried it, and it did not turn out to be true, and the reason she brings it up is that a child that age has no defense against an adult's verdict except one: some sense, already built, that she is allowed to disagree.

Our guest is Tyra Juliette Schwartz, a performing artist who has toured internationally for most of her life and is now a children's book author. Her book The Sky Is Red came out of a game with her own daughter, in which Tyra insisted the sky was red and her three-year-old refused to fold, and it is written to teach self-trust as a superpower. She and Lisa were introduced by Marnie Grundman, a therapist and repeat guest on this show.

The conversation works through what it means to raise a child who can hold their own position without becoming a child who trusts no adult. Tyra's version is a thin line walked deliberately: obey and respect, and also ask questions, and also notice when your gut is telling you something. She and Lisa talk about how that carries into adulthood, including the years Tyra spent being told the person she was dating was wonderful while she was watching the red flags, and deciding she must be the one who had it wrong.

The last part is about custody. A parent who cannot be present at the other house cannot warn their child about it either, since running down the other parent runs down half of the child. Tyra's answer is to build self-trust and the ability to advocate, practiced in safe moments at home, and to teach a child that they are in charge of their own feelings and are not responsible for convincing anyone. She closes with the fifth-grade party she was pointedly not invited to, and where she was standing years later.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Where The Sky Is Red came from, and the game behind it
• Why questioning an adult is not disrespect, for a child or for you
• How to practice standing up to an authority in a place where it is safe
• Teaching a child that their instincts count, and what happens when nobody does
• Why warning a child about their other parent damages the child
• Self-trust as the defense against gaslighting and against alienation
• Building your child up instead of tearing down the other parent
• What to tell a child who is the only person in the room who sees it their way

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Where "the sky is red" came from
3:00 Who Tyra Juliette Schwartz is, from touring to children's books
5:00 Respecting adults and still being allowed to disagree
7:00 A fourth-grade teacher's prediction, and what it cost
9:00 Not everything you hear is true, and what teens said about it
11:00 Questioning is not disrespect, for kids or for adults
13:00 Instincts, red flags, and the person everyone else vouches for
17:00 Shared custody, and practicing self-advocacy in a safe place
19:00 Building your child up instead of tearing the other parent down
21:00 Being the only one in the room who sees it that way

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Tyra Juliette Schwartz, author of The Sky Is Red: https://tyrajuliette.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.