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Articles and Blogs
Our articles and blogs dive deep into the emotional reality of conflict separation, exploring the pain, fear, and growth that come with co-parenting, rebuilding after loss, and learning to love again. Through honest reflection and grounded insight, we unpack the hidden patterns and emotional triggers that shape how you think, feel, and respond during and after separation.
These writings explore what it means to raise children between two homes, to face the uncertainty of new relationships, and to navigate the complex layers of identity that form when love, family, and trust have been tested. These writings aim to help you recognise your emotional triggers, understand your behavioural responses, and uncover the internal representations you’ve built from your past experiences, the mental and emotional filters that shape how you see the world, others, and yourself.
By bringing awareness to these patterns, you begin to shift from reactivity to regulation, from fear to understanding. Our goal is to help you find calm through the chaos, rebuild emotional safety, and create relationships, with your children, your partner, and yourself, that are rooted in awareness, authenticity, and growth.
Conflict Separation, Identity, and the Workplace
After a conflict separation, an individual—whether navigating it independently or through the family court system—may find that their internal world and their sense of self is deeply altered. Hypervigilance sets in. They begin to monitor how they see themselves based on an almost constant attempt to keep others happy. The family court system is one of the most brutal experiences a person can endure—second only, perhaps, to war, abuse, and similar traumas. The judgments, the t
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 62 min read
The Employee’s Roller Coaster of Emotions
For employees navigating separation, especially those chained to the family court system. The ups and downs of emotions can be hard to predict or navigate. Sudden sick leave or mental health leave may become frequent, not because the employee is trying to sabotage the business or hates their position, but because they need some control while they process the chaos in their personal life. Businesses that demand too much from employees, with little to no culture or sense of bel
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 63 min read
The Anxious Attachment Style, When Fear Feels Like Love
We often mistake anxiety for passion. The longing. The urgency. The desperate need to be understood, to feel seen, to be chosen again and again. But beneath these powerful emotions lies something far deeper—a fear of abandonment that stems not from weakness or failure, but from wounds formed long before our adult relationships began. Anxious attachment is not a flaw. It is a response—a strategy developed in early life to secure connection in environments where love felt unpre
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 610 min read
Dating, The Holding Back of Telling Our Truth, Fear of Rejection
The Holding Back of Telling Our Truth – Fear of Rejection I think we all have this feeling — the hesitation, the holding back — especially when we feel that our past experiences might define how someone sees us. People say they don’t care what others think, and maybe that’s true to a point. But that usually erodes pretty quickly when we meet someone new. When we start to feel something. When the chance to be seen comes along. It doesn’t always start like that. Sometimes we’re
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 63 min read
Settling for Stability While Ignoring Red Flags
I see this all the time, and I’ve felt it in myself. That drive for stability after separation, to rebuild, to feel safe again. It’s understandable. When you’ve been through something as intense as a high-conflict separation, you don’t just want love, you crave ground beneath your feet. So we meet someone who seems like they have it all together. Good job, good car, a nice life. It looks like everything we’ve been trying to rebuild on our own, already built in front of us. Bu
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 62 min read
Wishing Others Would Change, And Why That Keeps Us Stuck
So many people sit in relationships feeling stuck. It’s the same person, same arguments, same frustrations—but we hold on, hoping something will shift. Some leave, thinking they’ll find someone “better,” only to end up in the same dynamic with a new face. Others pray that their partner will change, that the universe will finally deliver someone who matches their values, their vibe. As if there’s a shortage of people, or worse, as if it’s all about finding someone else to fill
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 63 min read
The Test We Receive to Grow
It is so easy to form the perspective that we just need to remove the dislikes we saw in our previous relationship, the things that made us angry, the personalities that set us off, and the situations that evolved that we’d say provoked us to behave the way we did. We look to the external world to blame for why we are the way we are. We hand over emotional authority to what happens outside of us. But what if these are actually tests? What if they’re opportunities to reveal t
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 62 min read
The Chase of a Partner
As we start to date again, especially after heartache or separation, it’s not uncommon to feel that pull — that yearning for connection. Some of us turn inwards out of fear, scared to be seen again. Some of us reach out, longing for the warmth of another. And every now and then, we go on a date, have a coffee, enjoy a walk — and something unexpected happens: genuine interest. Not just ours, but theirs too. And that’s when it hits. That moment where reality collides with desir
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 63 min read
You Weren’t Robbed, They Were Just Passing Through
It’s a strange feeling, that hollow ache when someone you’ve just started connecting with suddenly disappears. A date, a spark, a few days or weeks of what felt like potential, gone. Maybe they ghosted, maybe they said it wasn’t right, maybe they just drifted away without much explanation. And somehow, we’re left with more than sadness, we’re left grieving a vision. Not just the person, but what we thought they could be for us . We don’t often fall in love with who they are,
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 63 min read
Dating After Hurt — Saying the Truth Without Losing Yourself
I don’t want you to feel bad about holding onto your truth when you meet someone you genuinely feel a connection with. Sometimes we meet someone at the gym, while out for coffee, doing the usual routine, and there’s this moment where you finally get the courage to say hi. You feel a spark. Maybe you swap numbers, grab a coffee, laugh a little, feel that familiar feeling of being seen again. But then there’s that gut pull — that internal voice that says, “You need to tell them
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 54 min read
The Hidden Cost of Holding On: Fear, Authenticity, and Commitment
It’s not surprising when we see individuals caught in relational conflict. More and more, the authentic self is being hidden—an attempt to shield the heart from the risk of rejection. So we hide. We meet people wearing the same masks, talking ourselves up while concealing the past that we fear may be seen the wrong way. We don’t want to hide, but it takes courage to be honest. Most people step into a new relationship, a new love, a new life, while still holding onto something
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
Learning to Trust Again
I know it’s hard to move into new genuine attraction, to let go of what feels like it protects us. We never want to experience the hurt we’ve been through before, so we protect ourselves. Sometimes we protect so much that we forget to experience the full impact of what could be possible. But it’s okay to feel this way, too. I want you to know that you are capable of rebuilding and of trusting again — knowing that if it doesn’t work out, it won’t hurt as much this time. And if
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
How Much Resilience Should Our Children Endure?
So many people say that children are resilient. And while this is true to some extent, it does not mean they will automatically develop healthy emotional coping strategies. In fact, when a child is constantly placed in an environment where they must adapt to pain, unpredictability, or emotional instability, their coping strategies may become their character. But are those coping strategies healthy, or are they survival mechanisms? What if what we often call resilience is actu
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
A safe place to call home, Why Stability Matters More Than You Think.
I can understand, as a father, being the one who has to leave the family home. All too often, fathers are leaving their home or being kicked out and having to look for their own accommodation. But let us focus here on how our children feel in our home or place of residence. Whether this be a rental, your own house, or even if they are staying with their mother and you only get to see them on the weekend. If you cannot see your children at this time, it is hard to have any con
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Emotional Outbursts and the Safety to Feel
It can be confronting when your child begins to unravel emotionally after separation. Maybe it starts small: irritability, resistance, mood swings. But then comes the outburst—in public, at school, in a restaurant. A wave of emotion that catches you off guard, and with it, an urge to control, to shut it down quickly. Often, it seems less about the child's behaviour and more about controlling the perception of others: What will people think of my parenting? What does this say
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
Its Ok To Keep Going, Even Through the Tears
So often, we feel like it’s not okay to feel the way we do after separation. The world seems to shout that we must have it all together. So, on the outside, we put on a brave face — a mask for the world — while at home, we quietly fall apart. Neither is wrong. These protective behaviours serve us in different ways. The brave face protects us from external judgement. The internal breakdown is where we let it all out. But here’s the part we don’t always see: our children are wa
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
You Do Not Need to Know, Child interrogations don't bring clarity.
You may feel that you have to know what is going on in the other parent’s home and with your child, but you don’t. The urge to question your child after contact or visitation is common—often driven by a deep desire to protect or prepare. But beneath this surface lies something more primal: the attempt to soothe your own nervous system. The feeling of not knowing can feel intolerable in a high-conflict separation, and parents may turn to their child to fill in the blanks. But
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
The Importance of Extended Relationships for a child
If your child has been withheld from you and you are going through a custody battle, then more than likely, you and your entire family are being prohibited from seeing your child or children. This behaviour—where one parent withholds a child—is one of the most painful experiences a parent and extended family can endure. One day you might be interacting with your children daily, and the next, they are gone, with legal proceedings becoming your only path forward. You may turn t
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Tying children to our own personal image and why it often backfires.
Our children do not need to be like us. We may, at times, try to control our children’s behaviour in environments where we really should stay out of it. We may have a sense that our child’s behaviour is somehow a reflection of our own values, but this is not true. Let’s say our child is acting the clown at sports day (I have had this happen) and the other parent or yourself wants to tell them off or stop the behaviour. While this may seem like a logical and normal response to
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 54 min read
Court ordered Child focused programmes
Programmes such as kids are first and other parenting programmes are what I think is one of the best courses for any parent ordered by the Family Court, simply because both parents are usually ordered to enrol in the training, it seems to be the only course that both parents actually have to enrol in, however, the coarse is not reported on, or evaluated other than the parent receiving a certificate of completion, a simple “tick the box” to please the court, while some parent
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
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