Ep. 39: Letting go without giving up

What happens when you’ve done everything you can to protect your children—and they’re still being manipulated, alienated, or turned against you?

Many protective parents believe that letting go means giving up.
It doesn’t.

In this episode, Chantal explores one of the most difficult yet liberating mindset shifts you’ll ever make: learning to release what you cannot control without ever abandoning hope for your children.

You’ll discover:

● Why letting go is not the same as giving up.
● How to stop living in constant survival mode without betraying your children.
● Why your healing is one of the most powerful gifts you can give them.
● How creating a joyful, peaceful life models the courage your children may one day need to escape abuse themselves.
● What it means to fight differently—not through fear and exhaustion, but through strength, resilience, and hope.
If you’ve been carrying guilt for smiling, finding happiness, or rebuilding your life while your children remain under the influence of an abusive parent, this episode is for you.

Because your story isn’t over.

And your healing may become the roadmap that leads your children home.

If this episode resonates with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another protective parent who needs to hear this message today.

For more support, join The Collective, my coaching community for protective parents, or apply for my 8-Week Private Coaching Program to receive personalized guidance as you navigate this incredibly difficult journey.

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me. 

And find it all here at: https://linktr.ee/chantalcontorinescoaching

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. 

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:01

Welcome everybody to the Survivor's Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor of abuse. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that you can learn to live lives you love despite what the abuser in your life does or doesn't do? And today, I'm gonna be talking about a very brutal reality for so many protective parents. It is literally the go-to tactic for every abuser, and it happens in varying degrees. And this is for those parents who feel broken, who feel like they're constantly relentlessly having to fight, that their children have been completely weaponized against them. One of the hardest truths protective parents have to face is this: sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to let go, not of your child, not of your hope, but of the life you thought you were going to have. If you're listening today and your child has been turned against you by an abusive parent, I know those words might be very hard to, hear because every fiber of your being wants to fight for your children, wants to keep engaged because you're losing or you feel like you're losing the most important person or people to you, and you wanna keep fighting. You want to explain, to prove, to rescue your children from what you know is very obvious harm, and is so obvious to those who know what coercive control looks like. To somehow undo the psychological conditioning, the brainwashing that's been done to your child, and please hear me when I say this, that instinct does not make you wrong. It does not make you weak. It does not make you a bad parent. It actually makes you a parent, a protective parent, which is the very definition of a protective parent is to protect your children from harm. But there comes a point where that fight starts consuming you. It becomes all-consuming, and there is no life left outside of that fight, where every waking moment is spent wondering what your child thinks of you, whether they'll ever come back, whether they're okay, whether today's the day they'll call you. You stop living. Your life becomes paused and paralyzed. You stop laughing. You stop dreaming. You stop hoping. Your entire existence becomes a waiting game. You get stuck in this purgatory. You're not forward. You're not back. You're stuck. You're stagnating. You're waiting, you're desperately waiting for your child to return. You're waiting for justice to happen, for the system to finally see what is so obvious to you and those who know coercion. You're waiting for your abusive ex to change and somehow, in all of that waiting, your own life has quietly slipped away Today I want to offer you a different perspective, one that isn't about giving up, although it may very well feel like you're giving up, but it's about letting go, and not like Elsa, because letting go and giving up are not the same thing. Giving up says, "I'll n- never see my kids again." Letting go says, "I refuse to stop living while I wait," and that is a very big distinction. Giving up says, "My life is over." Letting go says, "My child would want me to have a life worth returning to." Giving up is hopelessness. Letting go is acceptance. It's radical acceptance, and it's radically accepting the unacceptable, truthfully. Acceptance that today is what today is. Acceptance that there are things outside of your control. Acceptance that you cannot force someone to see the truth before they're ready. And here's what I know after working with so many protective parents. The ones whose children eventually reconnect rarely spent years frozen in place. They grieved. They grieved so deeply it... they thought it was going to break them. But then they slowly but consistently rebuilt, intentionally rebuilt, not because they stopped loving their children, but because they loved them enough to survive, and that's a big difference. Because surviving is not betrayal of your children. Healing is not betrayal of your children. Finding joy isn't betrayal, although it feels very guilty for so many protective parents to feel joy and to be healing while you know your children are not living their best life. Laughing is not betrayal. Traveling is not betrayal. Falling in love with life again is not betrayal. It's resilience, and resilience is one of the greatest gifts you can leave and give your children. Here's something I don't think we talk about enough. Children living with an abusive parent are watching, even if they've rejected you. Even if they repeat the abusive parent's narrative, they're still watching. They're watching to see what happens to people who leave and escape. They're watching to see whether freedom exists. They're watching to see whether life outside the abuse is actually safe and worthwhile because they're going to have to sacrifice so much to escape. I want you to think about that for a moment. If every time they look towards you, they see someone completely broken, someone who hasn't smiled in years, someone whose whole identity is grief, what message does that send them? Not intentionally, but subconsciously. It tells them leaving destroys you And if leaving destroys you, why would they ever leave? Children don't escape abuse simply because they recognize abuse. They escape because they believe something better exists on the other side of this incredibly scary thing. Hope has to feel believable. Freedom has to look possible. Healing has to feel attainable. And you, a protective parent, you become living proof that life after abuse exists, that a good life after abuse does in fact exist. Not because you've forgotten your child, although a counter parent will absolutely say that to your child. That would be the narrative, "Your parent abandoned you." But you can't control what they say. You can't control their narrative. Not because you've moved on from loving them, but because you've shown them that pain doesn't have to become your permanent address. Imagine your child at 25 or 35 or 45 finally beginning to question everything they've been told. Imagine them wondering, "If I leave, where would I go?" Who do they picture? A parent who has spent fifteen years emotionally frozen, or a parent who has built a peaceful life, who has friendships, purpose, laughter, boundaries, peace, perhaps even new love. Someone who says, "You can come here. You're safe. I've been waiting, but I didn't stop living." That parent becomes a lighthouse. Lighthouses don't chase ships. They don't throw themselves into the ocean. They don't abandon their foundation. They stand strong. They stand steady. They stand visible. They stand ready. Your job isn't to rescue your children from the waves that are crashing, from the storm their abusive parent has created. Your job is to keep your own light burning so that if and when they're finally ready, they know exactly where home is. This doesn't mean you stop hoping. Hope is beautiful. Hope and prayer is a beautiful combination. Hope, hope is what keeps us human. But hope should sit beside your life, not replace it. You can hope and still go back to university. You can hope and start a business. You can hope and travel. You can hope and make new friends. You can hope and laugh until your stomach hurts. You can hope and find peace. These things aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're necessary because there's another truth. Your abusive ex would love for your entire life to revolve around your pain, around them. Control doesn't always end after separation. In fact, if you're listening, you probably are well aware that post-separation abuse is simply an extension of the abuse you endured during the relationship. Sometimes the greatest act of resistance is refusing to let them steal another moment, another day, another week, another month, another year, another decade. Every day you choose yourself, you reclaim something they've tried to take. They've tried so hard to break you. Every boundary you keep, every joyful moment you curate, every new memory you create, every step towards healing, even if it means five steps forward and two steps back, is an act of defiance and resistance. It's saying, "You don't get to decide how my story ends." And that's the story I want protective parents to start believing. Your story did not end when your child was turned against you. It probably nearly broke you. It's probably the hardest reality you ever had to e-experience. Your story is still unfolding. Your child may still return. Many do. Many don't reconnect until adulthood. Sometimes it's in their twenties, sometimes in their thirties, sometimes it's later. But what we do know is this: you deserve a life today. Not someday, today. A life filled with purpose, a life filled with meaning, a life your future child can walk back into and feel safe and secure, not because you were waiting in suspended animation, but because you had the courage to keep living. Let that sink in. So if you're listening to this, and you've been holding your breath for months, years, I want you to ask yourself one question: If my child came back tomorrow, what kind of life would I want them to find me living? Not a perfect life. No life is perfect. Not a pain-free life. No life is pain-free. But a real one, one where you've shown them that abuse doesn't get to be the final say and the final chapter and doesn't get to have the final word. One where you've shown them that healing is possible, one where you've modeled exactly what freedom looks like because children don't just learn from what we tell them. In fact, we know that they learn from what they see. They learn from what we embody, what we model. Become the safest place they'll ever know, not just emotionally, but by showing them through your own lived life that there is, in fact, life after abuse, that joy and grief can, in fact, coexist, that love and boundaries can coexist, that hope and acceptance can coexist. You don't give up on your child, but you do have to stop giving up on yourself, and perhaps those two things are far more connected than you ever realized Thank you for listening to The Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode helped you feel less alone, more confident, more empowered, more educated, perhaps even more capable, please share it with somebody else who may also need to hear this message today. And if you're ready for deeper support-- And if you're ready for deeper support, you can join my monthly membership or find all the free tools. All links are in my show notes. Remember, your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy. You are not alone. You are not powerless. Until next time, keep going. I see you