Talia Bombola: Assertiveness in High-Conflict Co-Parenting

Talia Bombola came across a line she calls painfully accurate: people harmed by domestic violence are the only ones who have to keep communicating with the person who harmed them, weekly or daily, and are then judged on how pleasant they managed to be about it. She points out there are only two timelines where that stops. The child ages out of the system, or the other parent dies.

Talia Bombola is a licensed marriage and family therapist and relationship coach specializing in confidence and assertiveness. She has been a professor, has hosted three podcasts, and works with clients on the assertiveness skills she says most people never get taught. She has also been through family court herself as a single mother, and is direct about how that felt professionally: she did for herself what she would have told a client to do, and it did not work, and she felt foolish. Her conclusion is the one she now gives clients, which is that the adult logical part of you is not the part that chose the relationship.

In this episode, Talia separates assertive from aggressive, and makes room for what she calls respectfully aggressive: emphatic, protective of something you consider just, and not trying to make the other person afraid. She explains why she starts by asking where someone learned to please people and what it protected them from, and why the goal is retiring that part rather than shaming it out of existence. She and Lisa also work through why an absence of arguments is not peace, and why pushing a controlling partner toward an equal footing is the thing that usually breaks the arrangement open.

The middle of the conversation is a genuine professional disagreement, and worth the listen. Talia points people toward canned responses; Lisa explains why BTGO teaches against them and what strategic communication does instead, including anchoring the other parent in a statement nobody will disagree with in writing. Talia adapts on the spot. From there they cover court-ordered mediation and what to expect from it, why an agreement worked out privately beats a template handed down from the bench, the attorney's rule about being held to whatever you write into a plan, and why filing again too soon costs you credibility for the time you actually need it. Talia closes on projective identification, the question of how old you feel in a given moment, and working the betrayal somewhere other than at your ex.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Assertive, aggressive, and respectfully aggressive: what actually separates them
• Retiring the people pleaser instead of trying to cut it out of yourself
• Why having narcissistic traits healthily integrated is just a working ego
• Why "we never fight" can be the sign, not the reassurance
• The case against canned responses, and what to use instead
• Court-ordered mediation: what to expect and how to prepare differently
• The parenting-plan rule: if you write it in, be ready to be held to it
• Projective identification, and the question "how old do I feel right now?"

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Assertive versus aggressive, and being respectfully aggressive
4:00 Meet Talia Bombola, and retiring the people pleaser
8:00 Narcissistic traits, healthy ego, and the fear of becoming like them
10:00 Why "we never fight" isn't peace, and where coercive control begins
13:00 Canned responses, and why BTGO argues against them
17:00 Universal agreements, the invisible audience, and texting like a judge reads it
24:00 Mediation, and why a plan built outside court beats the bench's template
30:00 Lisa's hundred court appearances, and judges who want your help
33:00 Being held to your own terms, and not filing too soon
37:00 The over-resourced team, the marathon, and how old you feel right now
45:00 Betrayal, radical acceptance, and detaching them from the ally role

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
🔗 Talia Bombola, coaching: https://taliabombola.com/
🔗 Therapy with Talia (California residents): https://therapywithtalia.com/
🔗 Talia Bombola on Instagram (@taliabombola): https://www.instagram.com/taliabombola/

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.