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If you have ever felt like your ex still lives rent-free in your head — whispering old criticisms, triggering old fears, making you second-guess every parenting decision — you are not alone. Research consistently shows that the psychological aftermath of a toxic relationship can outlast the relationship itself by years. The abuse does not stay outside of you. It gets in. And for co-parents still navigating shared custody, school pickups, and legal filings, there is often no clean break to help the healing begin.
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That is exactly why I was so excited to sit down with Dr. Kerry McAvoy, PhD for Episode 7 of Coparenting Beyond Conflict. Kerry is a retired psychologist, author, trauma survivor, and the host of the Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse podcast. Despite more than 25 years as a practicing psychologist, she found herself in a deeply toxic — and dangerous — marriage to someone she describes as likely a psychopath. She knows this terrain from both sides of the couch, and what she shared in our conversation was profound, practical, and deeply healing.
You can listen to the full episode here. But if you want the highlights, I have distilled the most powerful insights below.
Why Your Ex Still Lives In Your Head (And What Dr. Kerry McAvoy Says to Do About It)
One of the first things I asked Kerry was something I hear constantly from our listeners: I have gotten to parallel parenting. I barely talk to my ex. So why do I still hear their voice in my head critiquing everything I do?
Kerry’s answer stopped me in my tracks. She explained that humans are what she calls a “semi-open feedback loop.” From infancy, we are wired to take in signals from the people around us and let those signals shape our sense of self. When a loving caregiver holds a baby and responds with warmth, the baby learns: I am visible. I matter. I am worthy of love.
That loop never fully closes in adulthood. And when you are in a relationship with someone who is emotionally immature, personality-disordered, or narcissistic, the feedback you receive is distorted. Their failures become your fault. Their instability becomes your problem to fix. And because you are still operating as that semi-open system, you internalize the criticism as if it were true.
“If you look at Richard Schwartz’s work — Internal Family Systems theory — he says we do that in order for protection,” Kerry told me. “That negative voice you hear in your head is really yourself trying to protect yourself from external consequences.”
The protective inner critic is not your enemy. It is a scared part of you doing its best. Understanding that is the first step toward quieting it. This is also why tools like the Coparenting Journal inside BestInterest can be so valuable — giving you a private, structured space to process what you are feeling without exposing yourself to further provocation from your co-parent.
The “Second Act” Nobody Warns You About: Healing While Still Legally Tethered
One of the most validating moments of our conversation came when Kerry named something that so many co-parents feel but struggle to articulate: leaving the relationship does not end the control.
“You just stepped into the second act,” she said. “You didn’t realize there might even be a third act.”
When you are still co-parenting with someone who operates from fear, manipulation, and chaos, every interaction becomes a potential landmine. You start performing — being the “perfect parent” on paper, not because it is who you are, but because you are terrified of what might happen if you are not. And as Kerry pointed out, that performance is its own prison.
She shared that she experienced this firsthand while writing her book, Love You More. She caught herself writing from a place of fear — preemptively softening her truth to avoid legal retaliation from her ex. “Then I realized I’m being controlled,” she said. “I can’t say what I want to say if I’m worried about what might happen.”
This is why I always recommend that co-parents understand where the real boundaries are and stop living inside the imaginary ones their ex has constructed for them. Family court, for all its flaws, is largely not the omnipotent weapon your ex wants you to believe it is. Learning that can be deeply liberating.
If you are still being triggered daily by direct messages from a high-conflict co-parent, the Message Shield inside BestInterest acts as an emotional airlock — filtering out toxic content before it reaches you, so you can respond from a grounded place rather than a reactive one. Kerry’s insights about “semantic abuse” — where a high-conflict person deliberately shifts the verbal goalposts in communication to keep you confused and disempowered — made this tool feel more essential than ever.
5 Strategies Dr. Kerry McAvoy Recommends for Reclaiming Your Authentic Self
Throughout our conversation, Kerry wove in concrete, actionable guidance for survivors who are trying to find themselves again. Here are the five that stood out most:
- Name the protective voice. When your ex’s criticism shows up in your own head, recognize it as a protective part of you — not the truth. Ask yourself: What is happening right now that is making me feel insecure? Then tell yourself the truth. This is the core of IFS-informed healing, and it works. (We have explored IFS and co-parenting communication more deeply in another post if you want to go deeper.)
- Shift from “What do I have to deal with today?” to “How do I want to show up today?” This reframe moves you from a reactive posture to an intentional one. It reconnects you with who you wanted to be as a parent before all of this happened.
- Put yourself back in the room. Kerry shared a beautiful visualization exercise she used with clients: close your eyes, imagine a room full of the most important people in your life, and ask — where am I standing? If you are on the outside, faded, or nearly invisible, that tells you everything. The goal is to put yourself back in the center, fully colored in.
- Make space for hard emotions — in yourself and your kids. Feelings are not dangerous. Kerry calls them “warning lights on a car — just information.” Teaching your children that anger, sadness, and disappointment are okay to feel out loud is one of the most powerful gifts you can give them, especially if they are navigating a difficult relationship with the other parent.
- Practice saying no. Kerry called the ability to say no “an act of reclamation.” Every time you decline something that does not serve you — a bait message, an unnecessary interaction, a guilt trip — you are taking a piece of yourself back. Start small. It builds.
Helping Your Kids Grieve the Parent They Wish They Had
This section of our conversation hit me particularly hard, and I think it will resonate deeply with many of our listeners.
Kerry talked about the moments when your child comes home crushed — a missed pickup, a wrong gift, a parent who clearly does not know their child’s interests or age. The instinct is to fix it, to explain it, or (let’s be honest) to quietly validate what you already know about your ex.
But Kerry offered something more powerful: help your child grieve the idealized parent they wish they had.
“That’s often what they’re expressing,” she said. “I wanted mom or dad to show up this way and they didn’t. I’m hurt that I don’t have that connection with the parent I wish I did.”
You do not need to trash the other parent to hold space for that grief. You can simply say: “It’s hard when that happens. I’m really sorry. That’s hard.” That is enough. And it teaches your child something that will serve them for life: there is a difference between who someone is and who you wish they were. Letting go of the idealized version is what allows us to step into reality and take action — for ourselves and for our kids.
This connects directly to the work of helping children trust their own reality when the other parent operates from manipulation or denial. You do not have to name the dysfunction. You just have to keep the door open.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy on Why Your Ex Craves the Conflict (And How to Stop Feeding It)
Toward the end of our conversation, Kerry said something that every co-parent dealing with a high-conflict ex needs to hear: they are not looking for resolution. They are feeding off the conflict.
“The whole point was, they were upset and they want to get you upset so they feel better,” she explained. “People who are conflictual — the chaos may even regulate them.”
This is not about you. It is not about the pickup time or the school form or the holiday schedule. It is about their inability to self-regulate. They use your emotional reaction as scaffolding to hold themselves up. Kerry put it perfectly: “They are broken-down churches with scaffolding beside them, and the scaffolding is trying to fix the foundation.” You are not their scaffolding.
Her communication advice for these moments was crisp and familiar: stay on point, be repetitive, do not JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain). The more you engage with the chaos, the worse it gets. The more you disengage — calmly, consistently — the less power it has over you.
This is exactly where slowing down co-parenting communication pays dividends. When every message goes through a buffer — whether that is a deliberate pause in your own process or a tool like BestInterest’s Tone Guardian, which helps you review your outgoing messages for tone before they land — you stop reacting and start responding. That shift alone can change everything.
If you want to go deeper on why your ex’s chaos is not personal, I highly recommend reading The Monster is a Toddler: Navigating Narcissistic Injury in Co-Parenting on the BestInterest blog. It reframes the behavior in a way that can genuinely lower your emotional temperature.
The Lightning Round: Kerry McAvoy’s Truths for Co-Parents in the Thick of It
We closed the episode with a lightning round that produced some of the most quotable moments of our entire conversation. A few that stayed with me:
- Healing is not a destination — it’s a lifelong journey.
- A healthy boundary feels like respecting yourself.
- The biggest lie parents are sold about family court is that it’s about proving who’s wrong. (Kerry was clear: the court is asking whether you can parent together — not whether your ex was abusive to you. It is frustrating, but knowing it helps you stop trying to win a case the court is not actually hearing.)
- You know you’re thriving when you stop asking what they are doing today.
- One small act of self-reclamation is the ability to say no.
- A child’s resilience is rooted in the knowledge that failure is survivable.
And her closing message for any parent who is in the thick of it right now, feeling like they have lost themselves entirely: “Let yourself be in the room of life. If you can start to just make yourself a little bit more visible every single day, you are going to regain your sense of self, step by step.”
Final Thoughts from Sol: Why This Conversation with Dr. Kerry McAvoy Matters
What I love most about Kerry’s work is that she does not let survivors off the hook into permanent victimhood — but she also never minimizes the real harm that was done. She holds both truths at once: what happened to you was not okay, and you have the power to reclaim yourself.
That is the work. And for co-parents, it is not abstract — it plays out in every message you send, every pickup you navigate, every moment you choose to engage or disengage. The more you invest in your own healing, the better you show up for your kids. Not as a perfect parent performing for a judge, but as a real, present, self-possessed human being they can actually learn from.
If you are doing this work and want support in managing the day-to-day communication chaos that makes healing so hard, I built BestInterest for exactly that reason. You deserve an emotional airlock between you and the conflict — a place where you can respond thoughtfully, document carefully, and protect your peace.
And if you want more of Kerry’s wisdom, please listen to the full episode and explore her work below.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- KerryMcAvoyPhD.com — Dr. Kerry McAvoy’s website, including her podcast, groups, and app
- Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse — Kerry’s podcast (available wherever you listen to podcasts)
- Love You More by Dr. Kerry McAvoy — her memoir and guide to surviving narcissistic abuse
- The Empathy Gap: It’s Black and White by Tammy Triolo — mentioned by Kerry as a book that reframed her understanding of self-empathy
- The Unlikely Guru: Finding Unconditional Peace While Moving On From Narcissistic Abuse — BestInterest blog
- Why Your Difficult Ex is Your Best Post-Traumatic Growth Personal Trainer — BestInterest blog
