Anthony Johnson: Co-Parenting Guilt, Boundaries, and Control

Guilt is running a lot of the decisions in a high-conflict separation, and Anthony Johnson wants to know how those decisions have worked out. Staying because the kids did not ask for this. Loosening every rule because your child is struggling and you think you caused it. Buying things. Becoming a friend instead of a parent. He is not unsympathetic about where it comes from. He is direct that it does not leave anyone feeling better afterward.

Our guest this episode is Anthony Johnson, a co-parenting coach. Before coaching he spent more than two decades in leadership, first as an Army officer running training, then in the Air Force as a coordinator for the sexual assault response program, the person survivors came to and the person who walked them through the investigation. He moved into the co-parenting space because he sees fatherhood as the leadership role that matters to him, and he is candid about what it takes to hold professional boundaries as a man doing this work.

Anthony reframes what a parent is for. Not protecting a child from every hurt, because hurt is coming either way, but teaching them how to handle it, on the theory that the job is to prepare them for a life you are not in. From there he takes it to the case people here are living: you cannot protect your child inside the other household, so the thing you control is what they come back to. If they leave chaos and arrive at chaos, nothing has been gained.

He and Lisa go through the good-night text and who it is really for, why a parent who falls apart every exchange teaches a child that other people's feelings are their job, boundaries with an ex who still treats your life as their business, and how to answer a parenting app message that mixes real information about your kid with an attack on you. Anthony closes on acceptance, including the question he asks people who cannot get there: is there anything you are getting out of staying stuck.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why decisions made out of guilt and shame rarely feel right afterward
• Overcompensating when your child struggles, and how it makes you a smaller parent
• What a parent's job actually is, and why shielding a child from hurt works against it
• You cannot control the other household, so control what your child comes back to
• Why missing your kids out loud puts a weight on them you did not intend
• The good-night text: how to tell whether it is for your child or for you
• Answering a parenting app attack while writing for the judge who will read it
• The question to ask yourself when acceptance will not come

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Anthony Johnson's background, from the military to coaching
5:00 Guilt and shame as decision-makers, and why they never pay off
9:00 Overcompensating when your child is struggling
11:00 What a parent's job is, and why shielding backfires
13:00 You cannot protect them over there, so be the calm they return to
15:00 Missing your kids, and why they cannot be your whole world
19:00 The good-night text at the other parent's house
23:00 Boundaries with an ex, and responding on a parenting app
31:00 Giving yourself grace, and moving toward acceptance
37:00 The uncomfortable question: is there a payoff in staying stuck

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.