Speaker 1: 0:00

Thanks for joining me on another episode of the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, danielle Black. Hey, I'm Danielle Black and I'm the coach you need if you're dealing with post-separation abuse. I help you make sense of ongoing abusive behaviour after separation and help you take back your power and control. Let's go.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Today's episode is part six of unpacking the various types of post-separation abuse, and today I'm going to be chatting about the way in which controlling and abusive former partners will undermine and disrupt healthy parenting post-separation. This can include accusing you of being a bad parent, of referring to you in disparaging ways, such as calling you crazy, irrational, stupid, unreasonable, lazy, etc. As a means to undermine your confidence, to create and continue conflict and chaos and to paint a narrative for others that you are the problem. And all of this ultimately helps them to gain and maintain control. Controlling and abusive former partners often have a very disruptive and dysfunctional parenting style. They tend to parent in one of two ways, or maybe both, just not at the same time Fun, fast and easy. This can also be known as the Disneyland dad or overly strict, oppressive, authoritarian, dictatorial, draconian. You get the idea. Fun, fast and easy parenting, as the name suggests, tends to avoid anything that your former partner considers to be undesirable or challenging, such as the real heavy lifting of day-to-day parenting stuff that they consider to be beneath them or boring. This can then create challenges for you because, understandably, the kids come back from dads talking about how fun it is at dads, how dad's buying them things, all the things that they're getting to eat. They're getting to have maccas, chicken nuggets all the time, chocolate, whatever the currency for your kids might be. Again, this is about your former partner wanting to win, wanting to be the best, wanting to be the preferred parent. So it's using your children to further their own goals, but it's also undermining and disrupting your healthy parenting.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Controlling and abusive former partners often make degrading and disparaging comments both to and about you, and they can say these things in front of the kids or in the presence of the children. They often use the children as spies and messengers, questioning the kids intently about what they do when they're in your care, about your life, in order to gather information. This can include questions like does mum have a new boyfriend? Where does mum work now? Are you guys going to be living in that house forever? Where do you think mum's going to want to move to. You get the idea.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Controlling men can attempt to isolate the kids from you on the children's birthdays, on your birthday, on Christmas, on Mother's Day, special days of that kind. This might be done in subtle ways such as claiming to have innocently made conflicting plans or claiming that the children have asked to stay with them and then, if you don't agree with that change in plans, they will then accuse you of being selfish. This is really common. If you insist on sticking with the parenting orders or on parenting plan arrangements, it's also common for controlling and abusive men to coerce children and other people to align with their narrative that you're the problem, that they're really the best parent. I know it can be hard if kids come home from spending time with their father and they've had a great time and they talk about all of the wonderful things that dad lets them do, the places that dad takes them, the things that dad buys them. I know that that can be really hard to hear, especially if you're struggling financially and don't have the capacity to provide similar experiences. It can be important to instead reflect on the fact that it's good to that the children are having a positive experience with the other parent, but also important to keep in mind that you know exactly who your former partner is. He has not had a personality transplant since the relationship has broken down. His values, beliefs and attitudes have not changed. The way in which he is controlling and entitled in his interactions with you is exactly the way that he is with the kids.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Young kids can be really easy to manipulate. Most kids can be very, very easily bought with a PlayStation, an Xbox, an iPad, a trip through the Macca's drive-thru. That changes. The older that kids get, there then are significant cracks in the relationship between children and the other parent. Older kids don't like being controlled. Older children don't like being shamed. Older children don't like being told what they should like, what they should want, what they should do, what they should prefer, how they should think, and that's what so many controlling and abusive men expect when it comes to their kids. Please know that your kids love you. Please know that you are your children's safe place. No amount of McDonald's, of technology, of gifts is ever going to change any of that, but even with knowing that, it can still be really tough. This is something that I chat about with a number of my clients and if this is something that you'd like some support with from someone who genuinely gets it. Please reach out. I'm here to help. Thank you so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.