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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.
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
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
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
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
Family Court, creating Trauma for children.
With so many parents, individuals, court employees, specialised and experts expressing dissatisfaction with the Family Court system it becomes increasingly clear that the issues within the system do not fall solely on the judges, lawyers and experts. While some may make grave errors and be swayed by personal biases and external influence, it appears more and more that the Family Court system is fundamentally broken. It is no longer serving those who seek its shelter and aid.
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
When Stress Silences Love: How High-Conflict Separation Shapes Parent–Child Bonds
High-conflict separation, especially when drawn out through the family court system, can be one of the most emotionally destabilising experiences a person can go through. If you already live with an anxious attachment style, this process may feel like confirmation of your deepest fears, of being abandoned, misunderstood, or rejected. When the future of your relationship with your child feels uncertain and you are being scrutinised at every turn, your nervous system can easily
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
Poor Behaviour That Hurts Children and Your Position in Family Court
Let’s look at some poor behaviour that does not serve children, or a parent’s position, during high-conflict separation and the family court process. First, it’s important to acknowledge the pain you may be feeling. The actions we take in these moments often feel like desperate attempts to connect with our children—especially if we are spending less time with them, or have not seen them for some time. Family court is an environment of immense emotional stress, and that stress
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
When High-Conflict Separation Overwhelms a Mother’s Capacity to Care for a Young Child
I’m saying this directly to the men who are hurting: if you’re trying to control the situation, no matter how false the claims or how manipulative your former partner may be, please sit with this picture for a moment. I know how hard this is if you haven’t seen your child, or you’ve been shut out of updates for weeks or months. I’m not minimising your pain. I feel it with you. But every choice we make, and it is a choice —lands somewhere in a child’s world, either helping or
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 54 min read
Choosing Fulfilment Over Familiarity: A New Path
You may be standing at a crossroad right now—torn between going back to the job you used to do, the one that paid the bills but never truly lit you up, or choosing a new path that feels more aligned with who you are becoming. After separation, trauma, or life upheaval, it’s natural to crave safety. To crave stability. You might think, “Maybe I should just go back to what I know.” But something feels different now. That old life, as familiar as it was, doesn’t quite fit anymor
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Relationship Choices After Separation, And How They Affect Our Children
The truth is, after high-conflict separation, many parents are driven by a strong urge to jump straight into a new relationship. It helps calm our nervous system. It makes us feel wanted again. We crave that feeling of being chosen, and sometimes, the return of butterflies feels like healing. But what if those butterflies aren’t chemistry, but familiarity? What if the pull is not a sign of something new, but a sign we’re repeating something old? And what if, in the rush to fe
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 54 min read
Seeing Through Their Eyes, Why Your Former Partner’s Perspective Matters
In the aftermath of high-conflict separation, it is natural to become consumed by your own perspective. You’ve likely spent countless hours analysing what went wrong, replaying events, and trying to understand how someone you once trusted has now become unpredictable, even adversarial. When legal accusations, emotionally charged texts, and conflicting co-parenting approaches enter the picture, your instinct may be to focus on disproving, defending, or correcting your former p
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Fear of Success After Separation
After a harsh and conflicting separation, many of us don’t simply walk away unscathed. The trauma lingers. It’s not like being hurt by someone and then leaving the environment and person behind, it doesn’t just stop. For many, the pain and conflict carry on well past the breakup. The body remains on high alert. The nervous system becomes heightened, hypervigilant, constantly searching for where the next threat might come from. I once met a woman who slept with a knife under h
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 54 min read
The Search for Validation: Why We Struggle to Keep Moving After Separation
The Search for Validation: Why We Struggle to Keep Moving After Separation At some point—after the heartbreak, the longing, the endless tears—we decide it’s time to get our life back on track. We make that quiet commitment to change. To heal. To start again. But here’s the thing: if we focus too much on the result rather than the process, we often find ourselves slipping back into old roles. Most notably—the victim. It might sound harsh, but inside each of us, there’s a const
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Letting Go Is More Important Than Gaining
With the world we live in today—marketing, ads, content everywhere—it’s easy to get stuck in the mindset that we are lacking. That we need to go find something, someone, some next step to finally feel better, to get back on track. But here’s the truth most people miss: it’s not about gaining more. Most of the time, it’s about what we need to let go of. We often forget that it’s ourselves holding us back from healing and growth in nearly every part of our life. It’s the small
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 52 min read
Breaking Free from the Programmes That Keep Us Stuck After Separation
If you’ve been through a separation, you may find yourself replaying the past, focusing on everything that went wrong. It hurt. The emotions you feel now may be hard to sit with. If you suffered abuse, betrayal, or had the rug pulled out from under you, the shock can be overwhelming. “How was I so blind?” is a question many ask themselves. Often, people play their character so well during a relationship that their underlying motives never surface — though occasionally, they p
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Breaking Free from Fear: How Attachment Patterns Shape Life After Separation
If we look at the behaviour of an adult after separation and even before, in a failing marriage, there’s often a chronic shrinking of the self. You feel unsafe to take risks, to chase your dream, to really live. Attachment theory, pioneered by John Bowlby, shows that children who experience responsive, consistent care early on, particularly from ages 1 to 3 develop a secure base for exploration and confident connection later in life. In those early years, a child uses their
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 51 min read
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