Dare To Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything

Finding the Missing Pieces: Absent Fathers, Identity and Men’s Mental Health with Simon Gordon

What happens to our sense of identity when part of our family history is missing?

In this deeply personal episode of Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything, Eve Stanway is joined by Simon Gordon, founder of Alexander Media Creative, to explore absent fathers, family separation, identity and the lifelong search to understand who we are.

Simon grew up with his biological mother and was adopted by his stepfather, while knowing very little about his biological father or paternal family. When Simon became a father himself, questions about his family history began to rise to the surface. What started as a desire to understand where he came from became a profound journey through family trauma, rejection, abandonment, anxiety, depression and, eventually, psychotherapy.

Simon speaks openly about reconnecting with his biological father and siblings, changing his surname and discovering characteristics in his paternal family that helped him understand his creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and way of seeing the world.

He also describes putting on a smile and appearing cheerful and capable while privately going through hell, before having a nervous breakdown in June 2020 and beginning the gradual process of rebuilding his nervous system, confidence and sense of self.

Together, Eve and Simon explore why children affected by separation need more than contact arrangements. They need access to their history, their wider family and the different parts of themselves reflected in both sides of their family.

They also discuss men’s mental health, the absence of older men to turn to for guidance and the importance of creating spaces where men can talk honestly about anxiety, depression, rejection and emotional pain.

The conversation moves from personal visibility to professional visibility, examining why knowing who you are can help you show up more confidently in your relationships, your work and your business.

This episode is for anyone who has struggled with an absent parent, unanswered questions about childhood, family estrangement or the feeling that an important part of their identity is missing. It is also an important listen for separated parents considering how family history, belonging and identity may affect their children as they grow into adulthood.

In this episode, we explore:

•  Growing up with an absent biological father 
•  How family separation can affect a child’s identity 
•  Reconnecting with a biological parent as an adult 
•  The emotional impact of unanswered questions about childhood 
•  Rejection, abandonment and family estrangement 
•  Changing your name as an expression of identity 
•  Men’s mental health, anxiety and depression 
•  Rebuilding after a nervous breakdown 
•  How psychotherapy can help us trust our thoughts and feelings 
•  Why men need people with whom they can speak openly 
•  The absence of older men to turn to for guidance 
•  Intergenerational trauma and the importance of family history 
•  Authenticity, personal visibility and showing up in business 
•  How difficult conversations can help us understand who we are 

About Simon Gordon

Simon Gordon is the founder of Alexander Media Creative and an Event and Digital Visibility Strategist. He helps female entrepreneurs and leaders elevate their visibility online with confidence and authenticity.

With nine years of experience across communications and media, Simon creates digital and print content that helps businesses tell their stories and connect with their audiences. His work includes photography, videography, social media content, web design and practical SEO.

Simon also brings more than 15 years of project management experience, including leading high-profile projects, managing teams and overseeing financial budgets. Today, he combines creativity and strategy to help ambitious women build beautiful, visible and impactful brands.

Connect with Simon

Website: www.alexandermedia.co.uk

Instagram: @alexmediacreative

Facebook: Alexander Media Creative

LinkedIn: Alexander Media Creative

TikTok: @alexmediacreative

YouTube: Alex Media Creative

Chapter markers

• 01:07 – Introducing Simon Gordon 
• 02:44 – Growing up with an absent biological father 
• 04:27 – Meeting Simon’s paternal siblings and father 
• 06:20 – Hearing both sides of your family history 
• 08:03 – Discovering creativity and entrepreneurship in his paternal family 
• 10:37 – Rejection, abandonment and ending the relationship with his mother 
• 12:11 – What children of separation need to know about their history 
• 14:19 – Changing his surname and reclaiming his identity 
• 16:35 – Psychotherapy, intuition and learning to trust himself 
• 18:21 – Men, emotions and living behind a mask 
• 21:32 – The absence of older men to turn to 
• 23:42 – Personal identity and professional visibility 
• 27:54 – Intergenerational trauma and reconnecting with family 
• 31:09 – Anxiety, depression and the impact of psychotherapy 
• 34:22 – Simon’s message for anyone who feels alone 

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Episode 34 - The Conversation You May Never Get to Finish

Some conversations remain with us long after they have ended. We replay the words, imagine what we might have said differently and wonder whether the other person will ever understand the impact of what happened.

In this solo episode of Dare to Speak, Eve explores the psychological and emotional impact of conversations that are never properly finished. She looks at why the need for closure can feel so powerful, how unresolved conflict can send our thoughts into a spiral and what happens when accountability is missing from a relationship.

This is particularly painful in difficult or toxic relationships, where one person may refuse to listen, acknowledge what happened or take responsibility for the harm caused. The conversation may be over for them, while the other person is left carrying the emotional weight of everything that remains unsaid.

Eve also explores why being heard matters, the difference between closure and accountability, and how greater self-awareness can help us begin to heal—even when the conversation we need may never take place.

In this episode:

•  Why unresolved conversations continue to occupy our thoughts 
•  The human need for fairness, acknowledgement and closure 
•  How a lack of accountability affects emotional wellbeing 
•  Why unfinished conversations can cause lasting damage 
•  The dynamics of unresolved conflict in difficult or toxic relationships 
•  How active listening and empathy support healthier conversations 
•  What we can do when another person is unwilling to engage 
•  The importance of community and support when navigating painful relationship experiences

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Episode 33 – What Lies Beneath an Affair? Shame, Self-Betrayal and Infidelity with Alex Croxford

What lies beneath an affair? Why do women cheat, even when they love their partner and never intended to leave their marriage?

Infidelity can cause profound emotional pain. Understanding why an affair happened does not excuse the deception or diminish the experience of the betrayed partner. It allows us to examine the shame, emotional suppression, loss of self and relationship difficulties that may have existed long before the betrayal became visible.

In this episode of Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything, I speak with Alex Croxford, a relational coach who supports women living with the emotional aftermath of having had an affair.

Alex shares her own experience of infidelity and the life surrounding it: a successful career in television, a marriage, a beautiful home and an outward appearance of confidence and control. Beneath that polished surface were years of unspoken needs, emotional suppression, disordered eating, fertility grief and a deepening disconnection from herself.

At the heart of our conversation is Alex’s belief that betrayal is often preceded by self-betrayal. When someone repeatedly swallows their words, silences their needs and hides the parts of themselves that feel vulnerable, they can gradually lose touch with their emotions, identity and sense of psychological safety.

That inner silence does not always remain silent. Sometimes it emerges sideways through behaviour that causes enormous harm.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why understanding infidelity is not the same as excusing it
• What shame does to someone who has had an affair
• Why some women cheat despite loving their partner
• The connection between emotional suppression and damaging behaviour
• Why an affair may create a temporary feeling of being seen, heard or alive
• How self-betrayal can lead to a loss of self-trust
• Why explanations can sound like excuses when someone does not yet understand their own behaviour
• The danger of dividing people into simple categories of “good” and “bad”
• How curiosity can open conversations that accusation immediately closes
• What to examine if you have had an affair or feel vulnerable to one

This is a compassionate and challenging conversation about what may lie beneath an affair: shame, grief, silence, emotional disconnection and the gradual loss of a person’s voice.

We do not minimise the injury caused by infidelity. We ask whether condemnation alone helps anyone understand what happened, take meaningful responsibility or prevent the same patterns from returning.

About Alex Croxford

Alex Croxford provides relational coaching for women who have had an affair and want to understand what led them there, move through shame and rebuild trust in themselves.

Find Alex at:
https://www.alexcroxford.com/

Follow Alex on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/iamalexcroxford/

If this conversation stays with you, follow Dare to Speak, share the episode with someone who may need it and join the conversation.

Content note: This episode contains a frank discussion of infidelity, betrayal, fertility difficulties, disordered eating and emotional distress.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Episode 32 - Dare to Speak Interview - The Father Wound: Why a Father's Presence Matters – with Laura McCoy


EPISODE DESCRIPTION

What happens when a parent is physically absent, emotionally unavailable, or simply unable to connect with their child?

In this deeply thoughtful episode of Dare to Speak – Difficult Conversations That Change Everything, I sit down with Laura McCoy, founder of Daddy Don't Go, to explore the lifelong impact of fatherlessness, divorce, and the conversations that have the power to heal generations.

Drawing on both personal experience and professional insight, Laura shares how growing up without an emotionally present father shaped her life, the difficult choices she made, and the healing conversation that transformed her relationship with her dad in the final years of his life.

Together, we explore why children need more than gifts and grand days out. They need to feel seen. They need curiosity, stories, presence and connection.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why a father's emotional presence matters just as much as physical presence
• The hidden grief children carry after separation and divorce
• The difference between being present and being truly connected
• Why children often long for ordinary moments more than extraordinary experiences
• The emotional impact of moving between two homes
• How parents can protect children by speaking respectfully about one another
• The importance of helping boys understand and express their emotions
• Rebuilding relationships with parents later in life
• The courage it takes to have the conversations that have been avoided for decades
• Why understanding our childhood helps us move forward rather than remain trapped by it

One of the most moving moments comes when Laura describes sitting down with her father and finally asking the question she had carried since childhood:

"How could you leave us?"

His answer changed everything.

This episode is not about blaming parents.

It is about understanding people.

It is about recognising that imperfect people often love deeply while carrying wounds of their own.

Most importantly, it is about discovering that healing remains possible, even when life has not unfolded as we hoped.

Whether you are a parent, grandparent, adult child of divorce, family professional or simply someone who wants stronger relationships, this conversation offers compassion, wisdom and practical insights that will stay with you long after the episode ends.

Connect with Laura McCoy

Laura McCoy is the founder of Daddy Don't Go, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of fathers in children's lives and supporting healthier family relationships.

Email: [email protected]

If this episode resonates with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear this conversation.

Because difficult conversations really can change everything.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Episode 31 - Social Media, Separation and the Conversations Parents Dread - with Mark Saxby

Every parent reaches a point where a phone becomes the thing nobody wants to talk about. The rules blur. The other household sees it differently. The child goes quiet in exactly the place where an open conversation was needed most.

In this episode, Eve is joined by Mark Saxby, founder of the social media consultancy Status Social and co-founder of the children's charity Positive Social, which has worked directly with over 15,000 children and their parents. Mark has spent the last decade watching what social media does inside a family, and what changes when a household is already under strain.

Mark shares guidance drawn from years of running parent sessions. Take an interest in what your child is actually doing online before taking a stance against it. Set the ground rules before the phone is given, not after, including never giving a phone as a gift, since that signals ownership rather than a loan. Model the behaviour you are asking for, something Mark learned the hard way when his own daughter changed the sign on her door from "no brothers allowed" to "no phones." Build many small conversations rather than one big one, since trust develops in the stepping stones, not the lecture. And hold the line between parent and friend, because a child needs the boundary held, not a peer relationship offered.

Eve and Mark also talk about why children lean into social media harder when family life is unsettled, and how to read the quiet signals a child gives when the words are not there yet.

This is one of the conversations that changes everything, not because it resolves easily, but because naming it clearly is where every difficult conversation has to start.
In this episode:
Why children lean into social media harder when family life is unsettled
Taking an interest in what a child is actually doing online before taking a stance against it
House rules that hold regardless of what the other household allows, and why a phone should never be given as a present
Why modelling the behaviour matters more than stating the rule
Building trust through many small conversations rather than one serious one
Why a child needs a boundary held, not a friendship offered
The one question Mark uses to judge whether a phone is helping or harming: is this adding to life, or taking from it

About Mark Saxby:
Mark Saxby founded one of the UK's first specialist social media consultancies in 2011. Alongside his consultancy work, he co-founded Positive Social, a charity supporting children and parents in building a healthier relationship with technology, reaching over 15,000 children through schools and parent sessions. He is a TEDx speaker and author.
Connect with Mark:
Website: www.positivesocial.org.uk
LinkedIn: search Mark Saxby

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Episode 30: Never Stop Learning: Sam Johnson on Parental Alienation, Fatherhood, and the Conversations That Change You

With multi-award winning divorce coach, Eve Stanway

Thirteen years ago, Sam Johnson left his marriage and intended to stay present in his children's lives. Within weeks they had been told he didn't want them. He went through the legal process. He didn't get anywhere. He hasn't seen them since.
Sam is a copywriter and founder of The Hook Book, a service that turns a single hour-long conversation into a professionally written and printed book for busy entrepreneurs. He is also a stepfather, a husband to the main breadwinner in his household, and a man who has made a deliberate decision to keep learning long after most people stop.
This conversation covers parental alienation and the absence of meaningful legal recourse in the UK family court system. It covers what it looks like to rebuild, to apologise to children when you've got something wrong, and to question the assumptions you didn't know you were carrying.
Sam talks about the moment his wife stopped him mid-argument and asked, simply: why are you shouting? That question changed something. It is a precise example of what a calm, well-placed question can do in a conversation that is heading somewhere no one wants to go.
There is also an honest exchange about competitiveness, the instinct to win even within your own family, and what it costs when that instinct goes unchecked.
Sam's single piece of advice: never stop learning. Not as a slogan. As a daily decision.
About Sam Johnson
Sam Johnson is the founder of The Hook Book, which helps entrepreneurs produce a short, readable book from a single hour-long conversation. He has ghostwritten a Sunday Times bestselling book and works with business owners across the UK and internationally.
Connect with Sam
Website: www.thehookbookofficial.com
Instagram: @hookbookofficial

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything

By multi-award winning divorce coach, Eve Stanway

Episode 29: Five Things Your Children Hear When You Think They Are Not Listening

Most of the concern during a separation focuses on the logistics. Who lives where. What the arrangements will be. How to divide what was shared.

Children, meanwhile, are watching something else entirely.

They are not assessing the custody schedule. They are reading the emotional atmosphere. They are tracking tone, tension, silence, and the quality of what passes between the adults around them. That is what shapes them. That is what they carry.

In this episode, I address something that gets said far too rarely: the separation itself is rarely the most damaging thing for children. The ongoing emotional environment is. Parental conflict, unregulated distress, the unspoken signals that children intercept and internalise: these are what determine long-term outcome.

This is not about blame. It is about understanding what is actually within reach, and what changes when adults take responsibility for their own regulation.

What This Episode Covers

Parental emotional regulation as the primary protective factor for children, not the specifics of the separation itself.

How children read unspoken cues, micro-expressions, shifts in tone, the quality of silence, and what they conclude from what they observe.

Why ongoing conflict and emotional instability in adults cause more lasting harm than the fact of a family restructuring.

How children adapt to perceived adult states, including the development of coping patterns such as perfectionism or withdrawal that mirror what they have absorbed.

Why addressing the emotional environment is more consequential than negotiating arrangements or managing logistics.

What consistent, regulated parenting actually looks like in practice, and why daily self-care is a form of child protection.

The Core Argument

Children do not need their parents to stay together. They need their parents to be emotionally stable.

Resilience in children is not built through the absence of difficulty. It is built through the presence of regulated, predictable adults who demonstrate that difficult things can be navigated without collapse or escalation.

When adults manage their own emotional states, they create the conditions in which children can do the same. When they do not, children fill the gaps in ways that become habitual, often long after the circumstances that produced them have changed.

This episode is for any parent navigating separation who wants to understand what they can actually influence, and how to direct their attention where it will have the most impact.

Key Points

•        A child's emotional resilience is shaped primarily by how the adults around them regulate, not by the event of the separation.

•        Children pick up far more than words. Tone, body language, held tension, and the quality of silence all communicate. Children interpret what they observe as information about their own safety.

•        Repeated parental conflict and emotional instability are the significant stressors. Reducing these, rather than managing logistics, is where meaningful intervention lies.

•        Children's capacity to adapt is real, but it depends on predictable, emotionally consistent adults. Without that, adaptability becomes survival strategy rather than genuine resilience.

•        Self-regulation in parents is not a luxury. It is the mechanism by which children learn to regulate themselves.

•        Children develop coping patterns that reflect the emotional environment they have grown up in. Those patterns can be redirected, but only when adults become conscious of what they are modelling.

•        The emotional quality of the home, the tone of exchanges, the presence of calm: these matter more than any particular arrangement or agreement.

If This Episode Raises Questions

If you are navigating a separation and want to think carefully about how to protect your children through it, or if you recognise patterns that concern you, my work is focused precisely here.

Difficult conversations around children during separation require clarity, regulation, and a clear understanding of what is at stake. That is what I help people develop.

You can find out more about working with me at evestanway.co.uk.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Guest Interview - Episode 28

 The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath

Guest: Geraint Anderson | Book: How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath

Geraint Anderson spent a decade as a top-ranked City of London stockbroker. He left, blew the whistle, and has been writing honestly about what he witnessed from the inside ever since.

His latest book, How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath, is characteristically irreverent in tone. The argument underneath it is serious: we have built cultures, in finance, in business, and increasingly in wider society, that celebrate traits which, in any clinical context, would be recognised as deeply problematic. Ruthlessness dressed up as ambition. Emotional detachment reframed as strength. Manipulation presented as influence.

In this conversation, Geraint and I look at what those traits actually are, where they come from, and what they cost. Not professionally. As a human being in relationship with other people.

In This Episode

•        What Geraint observed during his decade in the City, and what he eventually recognised about himself

•        Why psychopathic traits are significantly more prevalent in high-pressure, high-reward professional environments, and what that tells us

•        How the traits rewarded at work, charm deployed strategically, emotional detachment, a willingness to prioritise winning over honesty, do not stay at the office

•        The messaging men absorb, from childhood onwards, about what strength requires and what vulnerability costs

•        Why separation and divorce bring all of this into sharp focus, and what it actually requires of the men who find themselves there

•        What recognition looks like, and what changes when a man begins to ask whether the way he has learned to operate is actually working

About Geraint Anderson
Gerraint Anderson is a writer, commentator, and former City of London stockbroker. He now lives in Monmouthshire with his wife and two children. He is the author of Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile and How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath. He writes with rare directness about culture, ambition, and what happens to people inside systems that reward the wrong things.

How to Con Friends and Manipulate People: The Subtle Art of Being a Total Psychopath by Geraint Anderson is out across all major platforms on 2 July 2026. Buy it here.

Watch Geraint's showreel.   Watch Geraint explain the book.

Contact Geraint: [email protected]

Read the Full Blog Post
Eve has written a full article drawing on this conversation: The Traits We Celebrate at Work Are the Ones That Destroy Relationships, available at evestanway.co.uk

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations That Change Everything

EPISODE 27 - When You Do Not Recognise Yourself in an Argument

With Multi-Award Winning Divorce Coach - Eve Stanway

You are calm at work. Measured. Known for your ability to handle pressure without losing composure. Then you get home, the conversation turns difficult, and something happens that you cannot fully explain. You become someone you do not recognise. Louder than you intended. Repetitive. Rigid. Your partner looks at you differently. Your solicitor has concerns. You look back at what happened and feel genuinely confused.

This episode is about that gap. The distance between who you know yourself to be and how you behave when emotional pressure arrives.

Richard's Story

Richard was not a difficult person. By every external measure he was calm, capable, and emotionally available. At work, colleagues described him as steady under pressure. At home, in conversation with his wife, he became someone he did not recognise. Loud. Repetitive. Impossible to reach. His solicitor had raised concerns. His wife was watching him differently.

Richard was not manipulative. He was deregulated. His nervous system had reached its threshold and run out of useful responses. Once he understood that distinction, the work became possible.

His story runs through this episode. Not as a cautionary tale. As a map.

What Is Actually Happening

When someone accuses you of controlling behaviour, the instinct is to defend. To explain. To point out what they are missing about the situation or about you. That instinct almost always makes things worse.

Most of the behaviour that looks controlling in a relationship is not strategic or deliberate. It is deregulation. Shouting, repeating the same point, refusing to let something go, dominating the space in a conversation. These are not the actions of a calculating person. They are the actions of someone who has lost access to their more considered self.

That does not make the impact on the other person any less real. It does not remove responsibility. What it does is change where the work needs to happen.

Where It Comes From

For many men, the roots of this deregulation are in childhood. Not necessarily trauma in the clinical sense. More often: an environment where emotional discomfort was not something that got named, explored, or tolerated. Where feeling overwhelmed meant something was wrong with you. Where the options were to push through or shut down.

Those patterns do not disappear in adulthood. They go underground. They resurface in the moments when you feel most at risk, when the stakes are high and your usual tools are not working. Recognising this is not an excuse. It is the starting point for changing it.

In This Episode

Eve walks through how the Listen Speak Lead framework applies to these moments of deregulation, beginning with the first and most important stage: Regulate.

You will hear:

•        Why deregulation is not the same as toxicity, and why that distinction matters

•        How to identify your own early warning signs before a conversation escalates

•        The specific language that de-escalates rather than defends

•        How to exit and re-enter a difficult conversation with integrity

•        What accountability looks like when it is not accompanied by self-destruction

•        How Richard changed, and what made that change possible

This Matters Legally as Well as Personally

For men going through separation or divorce, the stakes are not only relational. Behaviour in conflict situations is observed, documented, and used in proceedings. A solicitor's concern about how you present in an argument is not a minor thing. It has consequences for how you are perceived by a court, by a mediator, by your children.

Learning to regulate is not just about becoming a better partner or a better person. In high-conflict separation, it is protective. It is one of the most important practical steps you can take.

Change Is Possible

Richard was not a lost cause. He was a deregulated man who learned better responses through self-awareness, accountability, and the right support. His relationship improved. His sense of self steadied. The pattern changed because he was willing to look at it honestly.

If you are navigating a separation or a high-conflict relationship and you know that your responses in difficult conversations are working against you, this is the episode to start with. The skill is learnable. The pattern is changeable. The work is specific.

Find out more about working with Eve at www.evestanway.co.uk.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...

Most grief comes with a name. This kind does not.

There is no funeral for the connection that was never quite there. No ceremony for the encouragement that did not come, the safety that was absent, the moments of being truly seen that simply never arrived. Yet the loss is real, and for many people it runs quietly beneath the surface of adult life, shaping how they relate, how they parent, and how they feel about themselves.

In this episode, Eve Stanway explores the grief of the childhood we wished we had experienced. Drawing on her work as a psychotherapist, divorce coach and parent, she explains why this particular grief is so often dismissed or misread, and what it costs when it goes unacknowledged.

Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a process that, when allowed to move, creates understanding. This episode examines what that process looks like when the loss was not a single event but an accumulation of what was missing.

The conversation also turns to children navigating separation, divorce and significant change. Eve addresses a question many parents carry: how do I protect my child from pain? Her answer is direct. Children do not need protection from every disappointment. They need an adult who remains emotionally present, who listens carefully, and who helps them move through difficulty rather than around it.

In This Episode
•       The grief that does not have a name

•       The impact of emotional, physical and psychological neglect

•       Why this grief is so often misunderstood or overlooked

•       The stages of grief, and why sadness is not something to manage away

•       How childhood experience shapes adult relationships

•       Why children need support through disappointment, not protection from it

•       The difference between grief and depression

•       Why listening can be more powerful than problem-solving

•       Supporting children through separation, divorce and family transition

•       Why emotional presence matters more than perfection

Key Takeaways
•       Grief is a normal response to loss, including losses that took place in childhood.

•       Healing begins when we allow ourselves to acknowledge what was missing, rather than minimise it.

•       Children do not need perfect parents. They need adults who can remain present with difficult feelings.

•       Listening without immediately fixing or solving is one of the most significant things we can offer a child.

•       Unacknowledged grief accumulates. Creating space for feelings to be expressed and understood is not weakness. It is the work.

Resources
Free webinar: How to Talk to Children About Separation and Divorce - Click Here

www.evestanway.co.uk

https://evestanway.co.uk/webinar-how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-separation

Thank you for listening. If you would like to comment or share a difficult conversation topic for a future podcast, please message me.🫶✨️

Connect with Eve Stanway

Eve Stanway is a psychotherapist, author and specialist Divorce and Separation Coach, working particularly with men and fathers navigating relationship breakdown, emotional overwhelm and the difficult conversations that accompany major life changes.

Through her coaching, writing and Dare to Speak podcast, Eve explores how we can approach challenging conversations with greater confidence, understanding and clarity.

If this episode resonated with you, find out more about working with Eve or book a free 20-minute confidential chat to talk about what is happening, what support you need and whether working together feels right.

Website: www.evestanway.co.uk
Email: [email protected]

Join the Dare to Speak Community for thoughtful, non-judgemental support away from social media. Access Eve’s courses, expert interviews, monthly webinars and live Power Hour Q&As:
https://join.evestanway.co.uk/

Connect:
Instagram, YouTube & TikTok: @evestanway
Facebook, LinkedIn & Substack: Eve Stanway

Books:
Dare to Speak: Navigate Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Clarity — www.evestanway.co.uk

Out now: Dare ...