Latest / The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast / 77. When loving the other parent feels like betrayal - How to support your child without making them choose

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77. When loving the other parent feels like betrayal - How to support your child without making them choose · The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of the Post Separation Abuse Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Danielle Black.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when you've survived an abusive relationship?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: You've done the work to leave, you've built a safer life for your children, and yet one or more of your children still very clearly loves, defends, or regularly misses the parent who has caused so much harm.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking about today.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most confronting, complex and tender realities of post-separation parenting, when your child's love for the other parent can feel like a huge betrayal.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever caught yourself thinking how can they still love that person after everything that we've been through?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This episode's for you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with why this can hurt so deeply.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: When your child seems to run towards the person who's harmed you, it's not just confusing, it can feel like rejection.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It can light up every single scar that you've carried from the relationship.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: The gaslighting, the control, the fear.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is your brain isn't really reacting to your child's behavior.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's reacting to perceived danger.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system sees that bond and screams they're walking back into the fire.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's trauma logic.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's protective and it's love in action, doing its absolute best to try and keep your child safe.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing what feels protective in your body can feel suffocating to your child's.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't work to regulate and reframe, our children can become the emotional caretakers, managing our fear instead of being allowed to have their own emotions, their own thoughts and feelings about their own life and their own relationship dynamic with the other parent.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Before we go further, I want to say this really clearly.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you've had that reaction, that twist in your gut when your child defends the other parent, it doesn't make you bad, it makes you human.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about the mirror trap.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Many survivor parents without meaning to really want their child to quote see it, and to mirror their own emotional truth.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: This makes sense because if our kids can finally say dad was abusive or mum treated you terribly, it can feel in many ways like a form of justice.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's validation.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But children, especially those raised with coercive control, have been conditioned to believe that the perpetrator's behavior is normal.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's familiar, it's all they've ever known.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so when they're asked, either overtly or subtly and indirectly, to take sides, it can feel like they're being asked to amputate a part of themselves.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we also need to keep in mind that once upon a time we loved that person too.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: We lived with them, we made choices with them, we had children with them.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Our kids didn't choose any of that, and yet we then expect them to hate that parent in order to prove their loyalty to us.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're asking them to carry a burden that was never theirs.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's the reframe of that.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your child's love for the other parent doesn't mean that they're blind, it means they're surviving.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's really common for children to align emotionally, behaviorally or both, with the parent who seems to hold the most power and control.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: That alignment can be conscious or completely unconscious, and it's primarily about safety.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: If a child senses that one parent holds all the cards, maybe money, confidence, emotional dominance, perhaps physical dominance, siding with that parent feels safer than standing with the one who's vulnerable, and no judgment here, but the reality is that oftentimes the protective parent has not been able to protect the child, especially prior to separation.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even though we're wanting our kids to be safe, we're wanting them to move away from the perpetrator parent.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is that our kids don't always actually see us as a safe place.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's hard to hear.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredibly hard to make space for the fact that children don't always feel emotionally safe with the survivor parent, even though they might be far more physically safe with you.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: If the survivor parent, the protective parent, is still living with hypervigilance, anxiety, or unresolved trauma, a child's body feels that energy.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: They might instinctively pull away not because they don't love you, but because their own nervous system is overwhelmed.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even the kindest, most loving survivor parents can sometimes slip into reactive patterns.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Snapping, over explaining, over monitoring, collapsing emotionally.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is what happens when we've been worn down by an abuser for years.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't make you abusive, but it does mean that there is repair work to do.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts with regulation.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we shift out of harmful patterns?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: How do we stay steady when our kids love someone who has caused us harm?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: We need to stop being the mirror and we start being the lighthouse.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is a metaphor that I talk with clients about on a regular basis.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that lighthouses don't chase after the ships, they don't scream through the storm or throw the ropes into the waves, they stand still, they shine steadily.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: They say when you're ready, you'll see me.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always here.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's your work now.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: This means regulating before you try to relate or interact.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It means validating your child's feelings, even when they're hard to hear.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It means saying I can see that you missed ad.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Missing someone doesn't mean that you agree with everything that they do.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay that you missed ad.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: It means allowing your child's emotional truth to exist beside your own without needing to cancel either one out.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It also means doing your own nervous system work because when you're calm, you become the one steady place that your child can land.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what ultimately draws them back into safety and connection.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've lived through this, I know how hard it can be to support your child, while knowing exactly what the other parent is capable of.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent nights awake praying that my son was safe, hoping that he would one day connect the dots, and still wanting with every fibre of my being for the other parent to finally be a good parent, an emotionally attuned parent.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I never shamed my son for loving his other parent.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I never told him he was wrong.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And even now that my son's an adult and has not had contact with his father for a long time, if he decided to see his father again, I would never stand in his way.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would support him one hundred percent.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what emotionally safe parenting looks like holding space for your child's love even when it hurts.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: When we expect children to reject their other parent, we risk repeating the very dynamic that we escaped from.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Control dressed up as righteousness.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our job is not to make them choose.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our job is to stay steady enough that when the truth becomes clear to them, as it, in my experience, almost always does, they know exactly where home is.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: If your child's love for the other parent feels like a betrayal, please remember that it is not rejection.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: More often than not, it's about survival.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: As hard as it may be to hear, your child is doing what you once did, trying to stay safe in a system that taught them that love means compliance.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And your healing, your capacity to stay grounded, calm, and emotionally available, is what helps to break that cycle.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode resonated with you, you'll find more resources inside the post-separation parenting blueprint, particularly in the lessons on emotional safety, nervous system regulation, and attachment repair.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can also join me and other women that I work with in our Stronger Braver Together community for ongoing support accessed via a coaching package.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Stronger Braver Together community is a space away from social media where we stay connected with other parents who are walking this same path.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the SBT community is available to those who are working with either Trudy or myself via a coaching package.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: If that's something that you might be interested in, the first step is to book a one-on-one initial coaching call with either Trudy or myself, and you can do that via the website danielblackcoaching.com.au.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thank you so much for listening, for being here with me today, and for choosing to be the lighthouse that your children can always find.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, please take care of yourselves.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to chatting with you again soon.