319 - High-Conflict Co-Parenting — The 'Tit for Tat' Boundary System That Actually Works

Hello, and welcome back to this week's show and briefing.

Gentlemen, today we're taking a deep, uncompromising dive into what it actually takes to hold the line for your children when the entire apparatus of the modern family law is stacked against you.

Now, I know many of you dads who come into this community start with the exact same story.

They tell me something like, "Hey, we wanna keep it civil.

I'm just gonna stay flexible.

I'm taking the high road.

We're-- I'll let her cool down," something to this effect, and, and, "Once she sees I'm playing fair, we'll, we'll work out everything else, the, the 50/50 parenting time, the decision-making, et cetera." And now that can happen, dads, but lots of times, and even if you're not in that place yet of high conflict, this story is a mirage.

It's the peace that you bought with-- for many of you, and this was my case and, and my guest today's case, it's the peace you bought by being a yes-man during your relationship, and that's the long and short of it, and you're mistakenly assuming that if you just keep submitting, she'll play fair in return.

And so today, my guest is a man who learned that lesson the hardest possible way.

His name is Aidin Kolenich.

Kolenich.

[laughs] Goddamn it, I tried so hard.

I was working so hard on that.

And he's the author of a powerful new memoir called Fighting to Be Father: A Memoir of Love, Justice, and Legacy.

And Aidin's a former corporate business analyst, a tennis entrepreneur, and a mental toughness coach living in Amsterdam.

Nine years ago, when his son was born outside of marriage, he walked into a legal nightmare.

He was living in Amsterdam at the time, and under Dutch law, an unmarried mother held 100% sole custody by default.

And he experienced within one week of his son's birth, his ex packing up the apartment, taking all the furniture, down to the plastic cutlery, and moving across the country.

So Aidin went from being an expectant, devoted father to a man who had zero legal rights, no custody, and was forced to drive three hours round trip just to get a single hour of supervised visitation with his newborn.

And over the next y-years, he faced 12 separate court appearances, over 75 pages of manufactured accusations from his ex's entire extended family, calling him aggressive, dangerous, a flight risk, all kinds of things, false police reports designed to frame him for abuse, manipulative videos filmed by his ex-mother-in-law, and unilateral rel-relocations, gatekeeping, financial extortion, like almost the whole sh-sh-whole shebang, guys.

Yet, despite facing a system where his lawyer told him, and, and you guys know my take on lawyers and what they [chuckles] all-- what they're saying all the time, which is not necessarily true.

"If you don't-- If you didn't have the money and endless determination, you wouldn't have been a father to your, to your son." Actually, that's a good thing.

Sorry, I this-- There's another thing that his attorney says later that I don't agree with.

But if you didn't have the money and endless determination, you wouldn't have been a father to your son.

So Aidin fought this way from zero rights all the way to 50/50 joint custody and equal parenting time, and he didn't do it by screaming, making threats, or getting bitter.