Family Disappeared

False Allegations & High-Conflict Mediation w/ Matthew Brickman Part 1 - EP123

• Lawrence Joss

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Lawrence and Matthew delves into the complexities of family dynamics, particularly focusing on the impact of parental relationships on children. It highlights a troubling incident where a mother instructs her child to make false accusations against the father, leading to legal repercussions and involvement from child services. The discussion emphasizes the emotional and psychological toll such situations can have on families.

Key Takeaways

  • The influence of parental relationships on children's behavior.
  • False accusations can lead to serious legal consequences.
  • The role of child services in family disputes.
  • The emotional impact of family dynamics on children.
  • Communication breakdowns can escalate conflicts between parents.
  • Support systems are crucial in navigating family issues.
  • Understanding the legal framework surrounding child custody disputes.
  • The importance of maintaining a stable environment for children.
  • The psychological effects of parental conflict on children.
  • The need for open dialogue in co-parenting situations.

Chapters

0:00 – Opening: The Healing Journey & Welcome
 2:02 – Why Picking The Right Mediator Matters
 3:10 – Matthew’s Background In Family Mediation
 4:26 – When Amicable Turns Into A Bloodbath
 7:06 – False Allegations And DCF At The Door
 10:50 – Covert Alienation In Our Body Language
 12:42 – First-Time Crisis: What To Do
 16:30 – From Shock To Service: Becoming A GAL
 20:00 – Therapy As A Safe Conversation Space
 23:15 – Kids Surviving By Saying What You Want
 26:00 – Shift Focus: Build Children, Not Cases
 30:00 – Adult Children, Lingering Impacts & New Norms
 37:00 – Winning Peace By Letting Go
 40:00 – Mediating Between Ex And Son
 43:05 – Reflection, Resources, And Closing

If you wish to connect with Lawrence Joss or any of the PA-A community members who have appeared as guests on the podcast:

Email - familydisappeared@gmail.com

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lawrencejoss

(All links mentioned in the podcast are available in Linktree)

Connect with Matthew Brickman:
Website: https://ichatmediation.com/⁩

Please donate to support PAA programs:

https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=SDLTX8TBSZNXSsa bottom part

This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team:
Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host
Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager

Connect with Lawrence Joss:
Website: https://parentalalienationanonymous.com/
Email- familydisappeared@gmail.com

SPEAKER_00:

How I did it, not realizing at the time, was their mother would call, and I would see her number and her name come across my phone, and this is what I would do. I would huff, I would put my head in the air, I would roll my eyes, and I would say talk to your mother. That's alienating as well.

SPEAKER_01:

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually, and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding, we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves. In today's episode, we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today. Welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss, and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Today we have a fantastic guest. His name is Matthew Brickman, and he is a Supreme Court certified mediator in the state of Florida, and just has some wonderful stories and information about mediation. Also, a previously alienated parent, estranged parent that went through some struggles, and also has a different kind of perspective on what he learnt and talks about service, how he got through this crazy thing, false allegations. There's some really great stuff in here, some really interesting stuff to learn. And he's a storyteller, a lot of great information. If you're new to the community, welcome to the community. We have a bunch of great resources in the show notes. Matthew's information will be in there too. And we also have a free 12-step support group, Parental Alienation Anonymous. The links in the show notes too. We're a 501c3 nonprofit. Love to have your support if that feels appropriate. And when we ask for donations, it's about helping the next person in. We'd just like to expand them and offer you more stuff. Let's get into the show. I remember when I was going through my divorce and I thought, hey, mediation sounds like a good deal. And I went and found a mediator, took my then wife to mediation, and we sat down with a mediator and we tried to get through the process and did no real research. This was only one of two mediators in our area, and we we sat through the process, and it wasn't particularly great. I love this interview. And if you listen to near the end of the interview, Matthew's talking about all the different things you want to look for in a mediator. And the reason that I share this story is it's a learning process that so many of us go through when we're going through divorce and child issues and alienation, estrangement, whatever's coming up, and we're not really equipped to understand who we're picking as a professionals to help us and how important that is. And this conversation with Matthew, even though it's super engaging, also gives you the basis of what to look for and how to do that. So that's plenty out of me, and let's hear what Matthew has to say. Matthew, it's great to have you on the show and see you again after a couple of years. And uh just for folks out of the community that do not know who you are, could you please go ahead and introduce yourself to the community?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so my name is Matthew. I am a Florida Supreme Court certified mediator. Uh currently I'm just certified doing family and appellate law cases, but um I have held a county civil family dependency and appellate certification for a number of years, but specialize in family matters. Spend my life helping people get through family issues primarily. You know, still do some business, some disillusion of companies, and not a whole lot of small claim stuff. I've done a foreclosure recently, but really specialize on family conflicts. That seems to be my specialty, what I love. And that is what got me into mediation was family conflicts. I say all the time, I live in the friction of life. I enter into that part of life that a lot of people try to avoid, the friction and the conflict, but I willingly put myself there to help people navigate and get out of a lot of times, get out of their own way and get out of the hell that they've created or had created for them so that they can transition to a peaceful existence.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for that, Matthew. So, Matthew, I know you're in the mediation business right now, but you were actually in the estrangement alienation parent business for a while in your own personal life and experience. And are you willing to share what that looked like for you and kind of like what happened in your story with parental alienation?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so you know, alienation can come in at so many different phases and can look sometimes as like you can really identify alienation, and sometimes it's very subtle. One of the things that, you know, I realized with my own life was how, you know, my ex-wife was what I would call an intentional alienator, and I was an unintentional alienator. So she would do things to intentionally poison the well and try to turn the children against me. So, for example, this was on one occasion, and just actually let me just give you a little background. So I got divorced. We had a very amicable divorce. We did it ourselves, no attorneys, no mediator. We sat on the floor, filled out divorce papers on Mother's Day night. We filed it on that Monday, right after Mother's Day, and we were divorced three days before Father's Day. So it was very quick, very amicable. But what happened was today's amicable divorce turned into tomorrow's bloodbath. And so it was about a year or so later that all hell broke loose, and we spent 12 years post-divorce in and out of court. 43 motions for contempt enforcement, and we had a major shift in all the parenting. When we first got divorced, I didn't know how to get divorced. Um, so I was like, I think you get the kids, and I think I visit, and I think I pay child support. And so that's what we did. In Florida at that time, the early 2000s, we still had primary parent, secondary parent. Mothers were generally primary parent, fathers were generally secondary parent. So I had a visitation schedule. And so I saw my children one day a week and every other weekend. And then, you know, holidays and had some summer vacation stuff, but that was it. They spent, what was it, over, yeah, it was like 37% of the time with me, and the rest of it was with her. And then, you know, just as life happened in that first year or so, you know, she had her car voluntarily repossessed, had her lights turned out, no food in the refrigerator. And I'm like, my kids deserve better than this. And then she met somebody and wanted to move away and take the children, and I'm like, no, you're not. And so she's like, here, you can have them, and she left. And so I went from having my kids one day a week, every other weekend, to having them 80% of the time because she left. And so she had an out-of-state schedule. The problem was then she decided to meddle from afar. And that's where then the alienation started to come in, Lawrence, was you know, we had a number of occasions that this happened, but on one particular occasion, she had told my middle school son to go to school and tell the teachers. Now keep in mind, I'm the only parent that the teachers know. She's not around. I'm the one that takes them to school, picks them up, parent-teacher conferences, you know, all of that. And she told him to go to school and tell the teachers that I abused him. And then her mother, who was local, he's said, you know, grandma will pick you up and then you can come live with me. So not only did he do it, but then my daughter corroborated the story. They got my daughter, who is 22 months older, to corroborate the story. So I get a knock on the door from Department Children Family Services with the police. And when they knock on the door, they don't ask to come in, Lawrence. They show their badge and walk right in. And I'm like, okay, welcome. Come on in. And they came in and sat down. And she said, Department Children Family Services rep said, Do you know why we're here? And I said, Okay, who did I hit this time? Because, you know, this had happened before. And I was just like, you gotta be kidding me. So I'm like, who did I hit this time? Let's see. It's Tuesday. So probably, I guess your report says I probably hit somebody on Monday. I mean, sorry, Sunday. They went to school yesterday, told the teacher they're a mandatory reporter. They called you. You went and saw the kids today, and welcome to my home today, right? And she said, yes. I said, okay, let's see. Who did I hit? Did I hit my son on Sunday? She goes, Well, that's what the report says. I said, Great. So did you find any lacerations? No. Welts? No. Bruises? No. Any indication that I hit him? Well, no. I said, Do you know what happened on Friday? She said, No, I don't know that. I said, I filed another motion for contempt enforcement against their mother for failure to pay child support. I said, Do you know who I am or what I do? And she's like, no, sir, we don't know anything about you. I said, let me bring you up to speed. I am a Florida Supreme Court county civil family dependency and appellate mediator. And at the time, Lawrence, I was also a guardian at Lydom. Oh, I was a child representative for Department of Children Family Services. And I'm like, really? Now at that point, the police officer put his hand over his head, like, oh no, what did we just walk into? Right. And I said, this is retaliation. And she's like, I don't know anything about that. And so that was the alienation that she was intentionally trying to inflict. Now, what was interesting, it was like a Seinfeld episode. You couldn't have scripted it better because, and it was just real life. So she said, Well, I need to see that you have food in the home for the children, and I need to see where they sleep. Now, ironically enough, this was at the beginning of the school year. The kids had just spent the summer with their mother and had come home. And while the kids were away from the summer, my wife and I redid their entire bedrooms, flash green TVs, Xbox, bike, brand new beds, painted. And that particular day, I had just got, I picked them up from school. I had just gotten home. Groceries were still on the counter, and I had just made fresh rice crispy treats that were cooling on the stovetop. You can smell rice krispies in there. Yeah, I'm abusive, all right. I'm making homemade rice crispy treats for my kids. And so her and the police officer stand up, they go in the kitchen, they see groceries still there, not unpacked, fresh rice crispy treats. And she's like, Well, where are the kids' room? I'm like, Well, they're right back down the hallway that you passed. My daughter has the master bedroom. My son is right next door to them. And they looked in there and they said, Okay. And I said, You let yourself in, you can let yourself out. And I was pissed. Right. So they leave, Lawrence, and my son comes up to me. I'm back. Like, I am visibly shaking. I am so upset. I feel so betrayed, so hurt. And I'm trying to raise crispy treats for my kids. And my son comes up to me and he goes to give me a hug. He's like, I'm sorry, Dad. And I looked up and said, do not touch me. Like, you went to school and said that I abused you. No, no, no, no, no. This is no, this is not happening. So I call my wife, who's at work. Now, my wife, we had to pick her up at work because her car was in the shop getting fixed. And so I'm I call her, I'm like, oh my gosh, you will never know what just happened. And I told her, she's like, what? So, so now I don't trust my kids. Like, I just don't trust them. Like, what are that, what are they gonna do? What are they gonna say next? So I told him I said, You're not staying here alone while I run up the street to get married. You know what? You're coming with me. I don't trust you. So I got him in the car to go pick her up, and we're coming back. And I'm driving, and my wife is just, you know, in the front seat going, guys, what are you thinking? What are you doing? Are you kidding me? Like after everything your dad has done and all of this stuff. And in the rearview mirror, Lawrence, I see this light, this brightness, or something. And I turn around, and there's my daughter in the backseat with her cell phone, and it's lit up. And she's got her mother on the phone listening to our conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And I grab that phone and I see that. I hung up and threw it on the floorboard while I'm driving. And all of a sudden, and I'm like, and then my wife is really going off. What are you thinking? Like, you're calling your mother in the midst of all of this. But this was all the alienation that she had gotten in. Like, that is a direct, overt alienation, like intentional alienation, right? So then we get home and my ex is blowing up my phone. Because I took my daughter's phone, my son's phone. She's blowing up my phone. And I'm not answering. I'm like, why am I gonna like this is all the same day. And now, Lawrence, I get a knock on the door. It's now the police department. My ex-wife called the police to do a welfare check because she was in fear for her children's life against their father. Really? So the police took my children and they had her on the phone, and one of the police officers blocked me in my own home and would not let me out. I had to call my attorney, put her on the speaker phone to tell the police officer, you will not block my client, or we will file a lawsuit against your department. That was my day. And I mean, I was like, what in the world? Now, that was the third time that she had done this. So this was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Like even when Department Children Family Services showed up, and I'm like, okay, who did I hit this time? The first time it happened, I was freaking out. I didn't know what to do. I'd never had department children family. I didn't have false accusations. I didn't know what to do. This was the third time. So that was an intentional overt, hey, I'm going to try to alienate the children from their father. So I said that I was also guilty of it, but in a completely different way. So how I did it, not realizing at the time, was their mother would call and I would see her number and her name come across my phone, and this is what I would do. I would huff, I would put my head in the air, I would roll my eyes, and I would say, talk to your mother. That's alienating as well. That is, I am sick of this person. She has no value, no worth to me, but I have to allow this phone call. So I guess you need to talk to your mother. But that too can form an opinion and an alienation that the kids know my feelings. It's very overt, my feelings toward them, even though I might not say your mother is a piece of, or your mother is horrible, or your mother is despicable. My body language, my huffing and puffing, my rolling of eyes, it conveys the same exact message. And so as parents, it's really, I mean, we really have to be intentional with everything we do because it can be very overt in your face, Department of Children Family Services comes and there's false accusations, or it can be talk to this person that I have no respect for, and I just can't stand, and you shouldn't stand them either, but we have to, so here.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's an intense story, and I really appreciate you bringing up the alienator in us too, and some of these more covert and nuanced things that we do in front of our children because they're watching everything that creates a form of alienation too. And I think that's a really important part of the conversation that a lot of parents don't understand. Yes, someone might be overt in doing these alienating tactics like you experience, and how do we look at our part too, which is part of the healing, and we'll get to that in a little bit. And you covered a lot of ground there.

SPEAKER_00:

Sort of dump truck a whole bunch of information. So now you can weed through and be like, hey, what piece do we want to go talk on?

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm gonna start with the piece because a lot of people are sucked into the court system and false allegations and stuff like that. And child protective services show up, the police shows up, like my whole nervous system would crash. I wouldn't know what to do. Like you said your first time. Having experienced that, and we're talking about the subject, what do you suggest for folks now when they enter something like that? Because we don't have the verbal vernacular that you have or the experience with the court, like I would just roll into a fetal position and just probably start crying on the floor. You know, that's an exaggeration, but what do you suggest when people are experiencing this for the first time to answer, equip themselves, engage with these folks that just show up?

SPEAKER_00:

So, all right. So, going back to remember, I said that was the third time. The first time you said like you would just like crawl into a fetal position, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Wait, you know what happened with me the very first time?

SPEAKER_01:

I can't wait to hear in a good way.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you know what that is? Visually, from your description, no, I don't know what it is, but I'm imagining what I found out it is very common in Major League Baseball. I didn't know this. So it's very, very common in Major League Baseball players. So when a player gets drafted into the major leagues for the first time, the stress that they feel going from minor to major and playing in a giant stadium and the weight of that pressure, a lot of major league baseball players end up with what they call abscess ulcers. So think of it that okay, you get a cold sore on your lip or maybe on your tongue, right? Imagine an entire outbreak on your lips, your gums, your throat, your tongue, the top of your mouth, everything inside you is nothing but just giant cold sores. You cannot eat, you cannot drink. Anything hot irritates, anything cold irritates. It is from your lips to your tongue to your mouth to your throat, nothing but cold sores. Wow. Yeah, my body went into complete shock. And it's not just okay, you go there and it's like 24 hours. No, it's about seven days. I lost, I think I lost like 12 to 15 pounds in a week because I couldn't like I remember I went to like I would try to drink something and it hurt. So I went to McDonald's to get a vanilla shake and it burned. I mean, it it was such a shock because I got I got served papers on abusing my children. And I'm like, how do you fight false allegations? How do you prove a negative that didn't happen? I didn't know what to do, and my body just went into shock. And and what's hard is you can't talk. And at the time, I was not a mediator. So when this first happened, Lawrence, my job was I was teaching and I had to talk. And I had to go to work because I had to provide for my kids. So I'm having to go to work and teach and talk all day long with nothing but just every time I moved my tongue, my mouth or swallowed, it just pain and agony. And then I couldn't eat and I couldn't drink, and so I'm fatigued and I'm a little dizzy. Like beetle position would have been amazing. Like just crawl into a fetal position and be like, oh, this sucks. Oh, that would have been awesome. But no, I mean, like, and so physically, I mean, I just went into shock. So what did I do? Like, I didn't know what to do, like I didn't know who to call, I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to do. And so, but I knew that the clock was ticking because I had, I mean, it said one on when I got served, you have so many days to respond. And I'm like, how do I respond to false allegations? So what was interesting, and I don't know if this is for everyone, like, but this worked for me, and it was pure genius, but this led me, this was my first leading to becoming a mediator. So I get served papers for false allegations of domestic violence, the first step of starting to try to alienate me from the children. And so I remember, I remember I I went to the, I was, I was in the taming bed, and I was just my mind was swimming, like, what do I do? How do I fight this? How do I fight this? And the only thing I can think of was I'm gonna go get certified as a guardian ad lightum. Now, for those, for those that do not know what a guardian ad lightum is, is guardian ad lightum means guardian of the case. So it so I had to go get so so I'm like, when's the next training? So I went to the courthouse and I went through the training to become a guardian adlidum, which means that I would work side by side with Department Children Family Services, and they would assign me a case, and it was to meet with a child, do investigatory work with the child, report back then to the courts, make a report to Department Children Family Services, and help be the voice of the child through their trouble. So what was interesting was it helped me, how I got out of my own way was actually giving back and helping others. Not fetal position and becoming defensive and selfish, but it was like I'm gonna go help others, and that actually empowered me with my own. Because when I got certified as a guardian adlime, and that was my response to the false accusations of domestic violence against my children in the first step of alienation. Guess what her attorney did? Immediately dismiss the case because there was no way that that attorney was going to go into court alleging that a court-appointed guardian ad lightum is abusive.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I I I love that your thought in the tanning bed is to become you know guardian ad lightum. And it's also super empowering, educating yourself about the system, learning how the system works, what you do, what you don't do, and being of service. You know, like if for everyone that's in pain, like the last thing you would do is think you want to go help someone else. But just like you're saying, it's like it's actually a breathing apparatus when you're feeling like you're gonna die when you go out and you be of service to someone else, kind of like what we're doing now, just having a conversation, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. And what was interesting was that was the first step leading me even to become a mediator. Because I knew I liked my kids, but I didn't know if I liked other people's kids. And as a mediator, you know what? I'm there to help other people and their families. And so it was my first step into discovering my calling and my passion as a mediator and helping other people. And that has also helped me become a better father, a better husband, because in hindsight, you know, I got divorced, I think it was 01, it's 2025. I spent 12 years fighting with my ex. And I have done cases, Lawrence, that when I was done mediating that case, if I was still married to my ex who pulled all of this craziness, it'd still be better than that crazy one I just mediated with. Wow. Because there's levels of craziness and there's things that my ex did, like I'm telling you, that are bad, I have encountered much worse. I've encountered so bad that it makes my ex look like Mickey Mouse in Disneyland. And so there's degrees of dysfunction, but for me, like that was so personal, right? And it was like, oh my gosh, nobody is ever gonna understand what I'm going through. And the best thing that you can do is to talk. You know, a lot of people don't want to share what they're going through. They are embarrassed, or they feel condemnation or guilt, or maybe I did this and I created this. And there is a community of people out there. You are not the only one. I wrote a book years ago about my story called You're Not the Only One, because when I was going through it, I thought, Lawrence, nobody will ever understand this. I am alone, I'm on an island, I'm isolated. And the more I started to get out there as a guardian at Lightum and then started to talk with parents at school, you know, that that went to school with my kids, I realized, wow, there's a lot of us out here going through this. And that was also empowering too, because it was like, well, how did you navigate it? Well, what happened to you? Oh my gosh, you went through this too. And you have empathy and sympathy, but there's a community to help and support and navigate and guide you as well. And so, you know, that sort of isolation, like when it like you're just like, okay, I just want to go into my fetal position. Fetal position is a good place to visit, but you don't want to live there.

SPEAKER_01:

100%. And I just want to follow up on just the kids before we get into more of your background and mediation and what's going on in the world today. But like you're going through this, you get these false allegations, you know, you're having all this physical stuff going on with you. Like, what's happening in relationship to the kids as you're going through these different services and they're getting affected by you, they're getting affected by your ex. Like, what's that relationship looking like? And how do you even have a conversation with them about what's going on? And do you even have a conversation with them as this is going on?

SPEAKER_00:

So once Department of Children Family Services was involved with those allegations, we were ordered into therapy. Uh, and that's where the conversations took place. They took place with a licensed therapist that was trained and knew how to navigate those conversations. Because, I mean, look, if I'm gonna have them outside of therapy, that's a dangerous balancing line between moral and legal. Like, legally, like we got divorced, we had a parenting plan, we had shared parental responsibility, and part of shared parental responsibility is you can't talk smack about the other parent. That can cause you to then lose custody and visitation and time sharing with your child because you're poisoning the well. You're now alienating the child by going, oh my gosh, your mother, and but how do you educate your children to this is morally not good without bashing them, right? That's a fine line. How do you explain what's going on without actually bashing the other parent? It's almost impossible. And that's why I believe that Department of Children Family Services says go to therapy. Because a therapist can then say, you understand that this is not normal and that is not healthy, but you're not doing it. You have a neutral third party that is pointing out the children's negative behavior and pointing out, hey, this is proper, this is not, and they're the ones guiding that, and you're not the one influencing it. And the other thing that's sort of helpful is I could say to my children over and over and over and over again, that's improper, that's not right, that's not right. And there's a piece of them that will still defend their mother because it's their mother. I mean, the children are part me, part their mother. So if their mother is bashing me, They're going to defend. And if I'm bashing their mother, a part of them is going to defend because we're their parents, right? Even though a lot of the times in a separation, a divorce, paternity action, you know, a lot of times it's very easy for the children to be manipulative, but simply to survive the situation. They will tell me what I want to hear and mom what mom wants to hear to survive the situation. And that can also be dangerous. That happened to me for years. I kept going to court, kept going to court, kept filing things, she kept filing things. We were all caught up. And I'll never forget my ex and I were on my daughter's track and team sidelines, watching my daughter do her stuff. And my daughter, and there was like one couple in between my ex and I. We're not sitting next to each other. And my daughter runs up to her mom and says something to her. And then out of the corner of her eye, she saw me. And then we're like, oh my gosh, and ran off. And I looked over at my ex. I said, What did she just say? And she said, Well, you know, dot dot dot dot. And I'm going, Well, that's not what she told me. And she's like, Well, what did she tell you? And we actually started to have a conversation. And we found out that my daughter had been playing both of us against each other, not because she's bad, not because she's devious, not because she is a manipulative child. But she was telling me what she thought I wanted to hear, and mom what she wanted to hear. And you know what? We kept going to court and fighting, and she was causing a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's such an interesting nuance to the conversation. Yes. And with the kids and going through this, what I'm hearing you say for folks that are kind of like in the middle of this is go to a professional, have these conversations with the professional, and be a parent outside of that, and don't bring the stuff up because you put yourself in a bad situation, put the kids in a bad situation, let the professionals do their work when you're in the center of this really intense conversation, correct? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And one of the other things that I that that I tell people all the time in mediation, and it's interesting, a lot of the advice and stuff that I give people comes from my own experience of what not to do. Because I made a lot of mistakes for a long time. And now I can look back and go, don't do this. It's not good. It's not healthy. Don't do this. Like I went through this, and as a mediator, I now want to help you not be me. Don't be me. You should not be caught up in the judicial system for 12 consecutive years nonstop. That is not healthy. It's not healthy emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, in any illy at all. But one of the things that at our church, the pastor's wife told me when I sat down with her one day is she said, Matthew, you're going about this all wrong. And I said, Well, what do you mean? She goes, What you are trying to do is you are trying to expose their mother. You're filing in court, you're exposing all of her stuff, filing with the court, telling them what she's doing. And you're all of your energy is going into exposing your ex. You're just focusing on your ex. And I said, I want the kids to see that that is dysfunctional. And she said, I understand your goal, but you're going about it all wrong. You are so focused on exposing her that you are not encouraging, educating, and building up your children because you're focused on her. She said, Try this. Stop focusing on her and start building up your children. Teach them what you know. Teach them how to be a good person. Teach them morals, teach them good values, teach them how to treat others, build them up so that when they do look at their mother, they look at her and go, huh? Well, that's not good behavior. Because they have been educated on what good behavior actually looks like. And so it's a different way of thinking. Instead of going, I'm going to expose them, it's like build them up and they'll figure it out on their own. Because you know what? Exposing her, they're still going to defend her if that's their mother. But when I switched that and my you know, with my kids, my relationship with my kids and that bond was built even stronger because now I'm focusing on them. Think of it that you're trying to build a wall and hold a baby. You're trying to nurture the child and then you're also trying to build a wall. Or think of it that, okay, well, you're trying to nurture and hold a baby, but you're fighting somebody else with a sword. Something is going to lose your focus. Either you're going to focus on the child and you're going to get stabbed, or you are focusing on fighting and you may not realize that you dropped the child. And so I realized, you know what? Focus on the child. And then the child raises up and says, That's not proper. That's not good. And my son did this. So my son is um, he'll be 28 this year. So I think it was about two, three years ago. He came over to my house, and it happened to be on the day of the anniversary of my ex and I being divorced. And we're in the pool throwing the ball and talking. And he said, Hey, Dad, you know, today's the anniversary of you and mom getting divorced. I said, Yeah, I know. He said, Yeah, mom, mom said that you sent her a tax, happy anniversary. My ex and I do that every year. So, you know, it's the anniversary of us getting divorced. Not getting married, but getting divorced. And so I said, Yeah, yeah. And he said, You know what's interesting, Dan? Is, you know, it's been 20 years. He said, You are not the same person that you were. You've actually changed. Mom's still the same person as she was all throughout these years. And I said, You know what, buddy? I spent 12 years in court trying to get a court of law to change your mother. I wanted her to become a good, decent, moral parent that would do right. That's not the court's job. The court's job is to enforce the law, not dictate morality. I said, your mom will change when your mom chooses to change. And she may or may not ever change. But that'll be her choice. And you know what? I chose to change. And so I went to school and I got an education, and I have taken control of me. And I can't change her. I would love to. And Lawrence, a lot of people in mediation, you know, when I'm mediating, they're talking about morality versus legal. And I'm like, the court's job is not to dictate your version of morality. And at times, I'll tell you, I wish the court would deal with morality, not just legal. Make them step up and be a good parent. But then at the same time, you know, because it's a double-edged sword, I want the court to dictate morality. But whose version? The judges? Mine? My ex's version of morality? Her attorney? My attorney? No. You know what? All I can do is fix me, take care of me, get my own therapy, grow as a human being, pour that into my children, and then if the other party chooses to change, that will be on them. The other problem is the more I paid attention to her, I fed my own monster. She enjoyed the chaos. She enjoyed the fight. She enjoyed the drama. And the more I gave it to her, the more she just engaged it. But when I stopped engaging, well, there's nothing to play with. And so I stopped engaging the monster. And I started building up the children. And now at 28 and my daughter's almost 30, they can see a visible difference between mom and dad.

SPEAKER_01:

That's wonderful. And your pastor's wife giving you that advice sounds fantastic. And I think so many of us have so much energy put in the direction of judging other people. This is the way it should be, trying to educate our kids that we're doing exactly what you're saying. We're not paying attention to the baby. And I love that you bring that up. And that's a new strategy that you learned. And also the idea of all these mistakes we've made that we want other people to hear about so they don't have to make the mistakes. And anytime I interview someone, I just see my whole life flash past me and all the things that I did, and you know, to fight in that fight and holding the baby and not building my kids up to the degree that I could have. You know what I mean? And what a great opportunity that this conversation's like this going on. Just to wrap up on the kids so we can jump more into the mediation, because I love what you do with mediation. What does it look like with the kids today? Was there more struggles along that path? And how does it feel?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so there's an old proverb that says the parent eats the fruit and the child tastes the bitterness. And it's true. The things that my ex and I went through, the children are still dealing with it. Even at 28 and 30. As adults, they're still dealing with it. There's still issues that my son and I still have issues. I mean, four years ago, I mean, he's he was 24. We were in therapy, back with his therapist that the DCF had ordered us, just because we're now older and we don't have a court order, but we're still having communication problems. Because a lot of it still was because of her, because when he was 18, oh no, 17, when he was 17, you know, um, we had gotten divorced when he was six, and I raised him for 12 years. And when he was in uh his senior year of high school, he comes to me, he goes, Dad, my ex had moved back, and he wanted to move in with her. And I felt so betrayed. I'm like, the enemy? Like, what? And so he did. And I'm like, I had sacrificed everything, gone to court, 12 years of fighting. And then at the end of it, he's like, I want to move in with mom. And I'm like, I just felt so betrayed. And that actually had impacted us for years, just with even just how as adults we interacted, because there was still, I mean, especially now living with her and having that influence, even as an adult every single day. Now I'm seeing everything that I created undone. And now I see her manipulation and her beliefs and her morality really impact him because he's there every single day. That even as an adult led us into really unhealthy communication to the point where it's like we have got to get back into therapy. We need a therapist to even help us as adults communicate because, you know, those effects affected them all the way through. Same thing with my daughter. My daughter's almost 30. She has not spent a Christmas with her mother since she was, I think, seven or eight years old, and still won't. She's married. She's about to have a baby. I'm going to be a grandpa uh come January. And she has not spent a Christmas with her mother. She doesn't want to engage in the chaos. She doesn't want to bring her family, her husband into it, does not want to engage in the chaos. She's like, no, that is dysfunction. It has chosen not to change, and I choose not to be a part of it. So even as adults, it still has a lingering effect, which is why, as a mediator, my goal is to try to help the parents create a world where their conflicts are not always going to be resolved, but to give them tools to help them resolve them, because this is long-lasting and it can affect generations. You know, as a mediator, sometimes I tell people in certain situations, you know, when it comes up properly, I'll tell them, I'll just stop mediation and I'll tell them, I'll be like, Lawrence, you understand that this divorce is not about you. And you'll be like, What do you mean? I'm getting divorced. And it's like, no, this is not about you. You're like, okay, well, who's it about? And I'll be like, Well, all right, Lawrence, you've got parents, right? It's like, yeah. And you had grandparents, yeah. So I'm sure that, you know, your parents, your dad, probably a lot like, you know, mix of his mom and and and dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh your mom and dad, you're probably have some good traits, bad traits of your mom and dad. Yeah, yeah. And your kids, you know, your kids, I guess, you know, part, you know, they've got some good traits of you and, you know, mom, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's why this has nothing to do with you. Because if your dad is like your grandpa and you are like your dad, don't think that your son is not watching what's going on right now. And what we're doing right now in mediation has nothing to do with you. We are trying to set a new tone and a new atmosphere for your unborn grandchildren. And Lawrence, usually at that point somebody starts to tear up. I mean, it's a powerful, powerful, powerful moment going. The choices that we make, whether we are going to intentionally or unintentionally try to alienate a child from their parent, can be long-lasting, generation after generation after generation. And we have to be paying attention. We have to pay attention. Because while we feel like we're in this battle, whether good, bad, right, wrong, fair, unfair, which are all moral perspectives, and it's okay to have a different perspective. You know, as a nation, as a world, right now we're enemies. If you don't agree with me, you are an enemy. Oh, okay, okay. Well, if we're all the same, like Lawrence, if you and I are identical, one of us is no, is no longer necessary. We're duplicate, right? Like, no, it's okay to have a different point of view. Okay, well, how do we coexist with a different point of view? Because look, I believe what I believe from my vantage point. Maybe I have a skewered vantage point. Well, what do you believe from your vantage point? Well, we put that together and now we can start to get a full picture. Awesome. And so what we do collectively, having a conversation, being open and not demonizing or criticizing or alienating children from the other side, can impact generations. And so while we feel like, wow, we're in this battle and we have to win this battle, and I'm gonna fight against my ex, I'm gonna win this battle. What a lot of times as parents is we lose sight of is the generational war. For example, take a look at Israel. Israel has been at war with the Arabs. Jews and Arabs have been at war since Genesis. Abraham. That's how long this war has been going on. It's a family feud between two brothers, Ishmael and Isaac. Same father, different mothers. It is a family feud of who gets the blessing. And whether you look at Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, they all have one common figure, and that's Abraham. And because of that family, here we are in 2025, still dealing with Palestinians and Jews warring over land, which was inheritance. And every single terrorist organization in the world has modeled the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Every single one, because it's the first and the only, and it's the first in the original. And it's it was a family conflict. That sort of blows your mind. Like that sort of blows your mind going, you know what? That means that the conflict that I had with my ex could last for centuries. It could affect my kids and their kids and their kids and how they parent because of the alienation that happened. It is so important not to do that. Show love, mercy, forgiveness. And you know what? That's how I won my war. That's how I won my war with my ex. Was I actually, after 12 years of fighting with my ex, I dismissed everything, forgave everything, and walked away. I fell on my own sword and I died to myself. And I won the war. Because when we were done, our war started because she gave me custody of the kids. I had the kids, she owed me child support, and she stopped visiting the children and wouldn't pay child support. And I'm like, I'm gonna make you pay. You made me pay, I'm gonna make you pay. And I kept going to court and kept going to court and not getting any relief. And she owed me$33,000 in unpaid child support. It's a lot of money that I that I was legally entitled to, but I couldn't get a court of law to give it to me, make her pay. And at the end, I forgave it and walked away. And guess what I won? I won peace. Cost me 33 grand, but I won peace. I fell on my own sword. What was interesting, just another piece of my story, was when my son was 25. It's about a year after we had done our therapy, I got a call from my ex-wife that said, I need your help. I'm like, what do you mean you need my help? She goes, I need you to mediate between me and our son. He was still living with her, and they were at each other. I guess more than even him and I were at each other and needed therapy, Lawrence. And I said, You have got to be a special kind of stupid. That's what I said to her. I said, you expect me to be neutral and mediate between my arch enemy, you, and my own flesh and blood. And you want me to be neutral as a mediator and help you guys resolve your conflict? I said, you are a special kind of stupid. You know what she said, Lawrence? I need your help. You're the only one. And I paused. I know, I mean, amazing. After years of fighting with this person and all that we went through, and she calls for my help. And I said, I said, you're serious. She goes dead serious. You are the only one. And I said, game on, challenge accepted. So, long story short, I mediated with them. We had two sessions, and we created peace, and it's been great ever since.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a funny part to your story. I know. It's like it's like a twist.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like, oh my gosh, and all the alienation, and poor Matthew, and poor Matthew, and she's so horrible, and she's so horrible. And then she's like, I need your help. It's like, what? And then I was able to be a neutral force between her after everything I went through and my son and help them create peace again. Lawrence, I go back to how did I get out of my own way? I gave to others as a guardian adlight. How did I help my own family and start to shift the generational dysfunction? I helped my own ex and my own son create peace.

SPEAKER_01:

That's wonderful and a fascinating story. And also want to say with the analogy with Israel and Palestine being about family conflict and looking at a form of alienation back before time, and also saying that that conflict is creating a lot of pain and a lot of nuances, and we're not trying to make light of it and acknowledge everything that's struggling out there. That's horrible. Oh, yes. And moving on to mediation, like what is mediation in a quick snippet from you, from your perspective, and then I want to ask you some questions about how to do it, where you do it, how it works, so people can get a little bit bigger view of what's happening. Wow, what a great show. I really enjoyed Matthews' enthusiasm and all the different stories that he has to share, and also the complexity that he shared in this first part of the interview about his journey with false allegations and what that looked like, how his body reacted, and how he got through that. And it's fascinating because so many of us are going through different forms and fashions of this. And I also want to acknowledge the point that he brought up about how there's the alienator in us too, even if it's super subtle and it's super nuanced, and we're just rolling our eyes, or you know, presenting the other parent in a particular way that puts the kids in a situation that they gotta defend, protect, and also try to just assimilate what we're talking about, another parent, or or again, just rolling the eyes, those little nuances. How do we not make the kids have to hold that for us, even if we are the alienated parent? How do we start to look at some of those nuances and our behaviors? And how do we elevate the kids, like Matthew's saying, you know, and put down the wanting to fix, change the other parent and make them do something and just really concentrate on the kids? I really love that point. So thanks for coming out to listen to the show today. It was great playing in a sandbox with you. All the resources will be in the show notes from the show today. Free 12-step program, Parental Alienation Anonymous. The meetings are great, incredible community. Matthew spoke about community. There's opportunities to be of service in the community, which is also a great way to heal. And we are a 501c3 nonprofit. Donate if you can. Please like, share, let folks know what uh what's available in the conversation, and thanks for coming out to play today. And in case no one's told you yet today, I love you, and I hope to see you around the neighborhood soon. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of Family Disappears Podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we are discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together we'll continue the exploring growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.