Overwhelmed by your ex's shenanigans? 🐍

⚖ Your ex is constantly filing frivolous motions, appeals, or court actions. You feel trapped in an endless legal battle, financially and emotionally drained, with no end in sight.

💔 Your ex is manipulating your kids, turning them against you. Your kids are withdrawing and treating you with hostility. You’re heartbroken.

💰 Your ex is hiding employment to avoid child support or just downright refusing to make payments. You can’t afford to pay a lawyer to go to court and get it ordered and even if it was, your ex still wouldn’t pay.

📢 Your ex spreads rumors and lies about you in the community. They’ve turned your kids’ teachers against you and the other parents avoid you on the sidelines at sports practice.

🌍 Your ex, who, after your divorce, left the country you immigrated to with him 6 years ago, is now refusing to sign the forms required to include your minor children in your own permanent residence application.

Whichever of these scenarios applies to you (if the last one sounds weirdly specific, it’s because it’s what happened to me, but I’ve experienced most of the others myself) you probably feel like you’re at rock bottom. Defeated, Trapped. Like there’s no way out of this never-ending torment.

Freedom. Happiness. Joy. They seem like impossible goals… 🏔️

…but they don’t have to be.

I’m an unashamed sci-fi buff, and one of my favorite movies is “Interstellar”. I’ve watched it four times so far. The most powerful scene is one where the astronaut hero, played by Matthew McConaughey, is trying to dock his small craft with a spaceship spinning out of control.

“It’s not possible,” says his robot companion, which can calculate the odds of success perfectly.

“No, it’s necessary,” McConaughey’s character answers. And (spoiler alert) docks successfully with the ship.

When my ex refused to allow our children to stay in Canada, I did my own version of “No, it’s necessary.” I was prepared to move heaven and earth to make it work.

I wrote a long letter to Immigration Canada, detailing all the abuse my children and I had endured since my separation and explaining to them that they would be enabling domestic violence if they didn’t grant our children permanent residence. Then I enlisted our local Member of Parliament to intercede for us. After calling Immigration every second day, his amazing assistant reached a senior female manager and spoke to her, mother to mother.

That afternoon, I got a call saying that my application was being approved right away and all my children would be able to stay in Canada. I had been ready with plans B to Z (well, to D, at least) but plan A worked. Even better, thanks to my ex, we got permanent residence within 9 months of applying, instead of the standard 24 months.

So, you say, “But Interstellar is a movie, and scriptwriters can write whatever they want…

but what about real life? No scriptwriter can magically solve my problem for me.”

Yes, some problems are insurmountable. But it doesn’t mean that just because something seems impossible, it is. Even for insurmountable problems, there are often ways around them. And there are ways to find these.

One way is a model created by a coach called Brooke Castillo.

The basic premise is:

Your thoughts produce your feelings
Your feelings generate your actions
Your actions cause your results.

Let's take this situation: "Your ex is manipulating your kids, turning them against you. Your kids are withdrawing and treating you with hostility. You’re heartbroken." and apply Brooke Castillo's model to it:

The situation

Your ex is manipulating your kids, turning them against you, which results in your kids withdrawing and treating you with hostility.

Brooke Castillo's model

Circumstance:
The circumstance is neutral and factual: Your ex is manipulating your kids and their behavior towards you is changing. This is something happening outside of your control.

Thought:
Your initial thought might be: "My ex is ruining my relationship with my kids." This thought sets the tone for your emotional reaction and your next actions.

Feeling:
This thought leads to a feeling of heartbreak, betrayal, or powerlessness. Feelings are the emotional response to your thoughts and they drive your actions.

Action:

Based on feeling powerless or heartbroken, your action might be to withdraw from your kids, confront them or your ex in an unhelpful way, or perhaps give up on trying to improve the situation.

Result:
The result often reflects your actions. If you react with desperation or anger, the situation might deteriorate. If you take informed, calm actions, you can mitigate the manipulation and start rebuilding your relationship with your kids.

Ultimately, the results confirm the original thought, creating a cycle that can either be vicious or virtuous based on the initial thoughts and subsequent actions.

Applying the Model to create change:

Now you start with the result you want and go backwards from there.

The result you want:
A strong, mutually supportive relationship with your children.

The actions you can take to get this result:
Taking positive steps to strengthen your bond with your children.

The feelings you need to have to take these actions:
Empowerment, hopefulness, determination, optimism, and resilience.

The thoughts you need to think to have these feelings:
Instead of thinking, "My ex is ruining my relationship with my kids," consider the thought, "I can find ways to strengthen my bond with my kids despite my ex's efforts." “My children need my love and support, especially now.” “I have the power to improve my relationship with my kids, no matter the external influences.” “Every interaction is a chance to strengthen our bond.”

Now you’ve worked out which thoughts will be more conducive to the result you want, next time the situation comes up and you feel those negative thoughts coming into your head, you can just replace them with the positive ones.

Hint:

If you can’t come up with the “new” thoughts, you can ask ChatGPT for some suggestions on them.

Speaking of ChatGPT, don’t forget that my guide to using it to communicating with your nacissistic ex is available for download. Just as a reminder, here’s what you get when you download it.

If you enter the same email address you got this email at, it won’t subscribe you to my newsletter again, so don’t worry that the button there says “Subscribe & Get It.”

Want to know how I can help you?

Resources

It’s “giving away guides” day today because this week’s resource is the link to more information on Brooke Castillo’s life-changing model. Just click on the image below to learn more and follow the instructions at the link to download the guide.