What stage are you at?

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What stage are you at?

I’ve been thinking about how to help us all understand where we are in this… well, I was going to say journey but I hate that word. Where we are in this mess, I suppose.

I’ve created five stage tags for our profiles, and I wanted to explain what they mean. But first — and this is crucial — these aren’t linear. You don’t graduate from one to the next like some kind of twisted school system. I’ve bounced between stages more times than I can count.

Newly-alienated — Your world just fell apart. Maybe it was sudden, maybe it was gradual and you’re just now naming it. Either way, you’re in shock. Everything feels surreal. I remember standing in my kitchen last March, staring at my phone after my 14-year-old Emma hung up on me for the third time that week, and thinking “this can’t be real.”

In-legal-process — You’re fighting in court, or preparing to, or dealing with lawyers. The system has become your unwanted second job. I spent two years here, burning through savings, hoping each hearing would be the one that brought Emma home. Sometimes it overlaps with newly-alienated, sometimes you cycle back here from other stages.

Long-term-estranged — This is the hardest one to write about. It’s been months or years since meaningful contact. You’ve had to learn how to live with a child-sized hole in your life. It doesn’t mean you’ve given up. It means you’ve had to find ways to survive while still loving them fiercely.

Reconnecting — Contact is happening again, but it’s fragile. Maybe it’s stilted phone calls or awkward coffee meetings. Progress feels possible but nothing’s guaranteed. The hope is almost harder than the despair sometimes.

Reconnected — You have a real relationship again. It might not be what it was before, but it’s genuine. You can breathe again.

Right now I’m somewhere between long-term-estranged and reconnecting. Emma reached out two months ago through a mutual friend — she’s 17 now, can you believe it? — and we’ve had three careful conversations. I don’t want to say too much and jinx it, but. There’s something there again.

The thing is, I was reconnected with my older son Jake for almost a year before his mother moved them to Portland and the alienation ramped up again. So I know these stages aren’t permanent homes. They’re more like… weather systems that move through your life.

Where are you right now? And if you’ve moved between stages, what was that like? I think it helps to name where we are, even when it changes.

-Malcolm

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Same boat here - somewhere between long-term-estranged and reconnecting after my daughter reached out last month. The hope really is harder than the despair sometimes.

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This is so spot on Malcolm. I’m definitely long-term-estranged and have been for four years now. My twins were 7 when everything went sideways, they’re 11 now. The bit about learning to live with a child-sized hole - except in my case it’s two child-sized holes - that really got me.

I keep thinking I see glimpses of them around Sydney but it’s never actually them, just kids who have their laugh or the way one of them used to scrunch their nose when they were thinking. The worst part is I don’t even know if they remember our silly Sunday morning pancake fights or how they’d both try to steal the remote at the same time. Four years is such a long time in kid-years.

I’m holding onto hope that they’ll reach out when they’re older like Emma did with you. That’s amazing by the way - 17 is old enough to really think for herself. Fingers crossed for you both.

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This really hits home, Malcolm. I’ve been sitting here reading your post twice because it captures something I’ve struggled to put into words for ages.

I’m definitely in the reconnecting stage, and mate, you’re so right about the hope being almost harder than the despair sometimes. My daughter Sophie found me on Instagram about eight months ago when she turned 17 — just sent me a direct message out of the blue saying “Dad?” and I nearly dropped my phone in the pub car park. We’ve been having these careful, tentative conversations ever since, and every single one feels like I’m walking on glass. The other day she told me about her HSC subjects and laughed at something I said, and I felt this rush of joy followed immediately by panic — like, what if I say the wrong thing next time? What if this fragile thing we’re building just… breaks?

The weird thing is how different she is now. She’s not my little girl anymore, obviously, but it’s more than that. She’s got her own opinions about everything, her own sense of humour, and sometimes I catch glimpses of who she might have been if we’d never lost those years. Other times there are these awkward silences where we’re both trying to figure out how to be father and daughter again. I keep reminding myself not to rush it, not to try and cram four years of conversations into every text message, but bloody hell it’s hard.

Your point about these not being linear really resonates. I think I’m learning that reconnecting isn’t a destination — it’s something you have to keep choosing, every conversation at a time.

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This is so spot-on, Malcolm. I’m deep in that in-legal-process stage and have been for over two years now. Three court hearings down, and honestly? I feel like I’m living in some alternate reality where up is down and truth is optional.

My ex made false allegations against me — I still can’t even type the specifics without my hands shaking — and suddenly my two kids, ages 8 and 11, think their mom is dangerous. The court-appointed guardian ad litem keeps saying she needs “more time to investigate” while my babies are being poisoned against me every single day. I’ve spent $80k I didn’t have on lawyers and forensic evaluators and therapists who nod sympathetically but nothing changes. The system moves at glacial pace while alienation moves at warp speed.

What you said about these stages not being linear — God, yes. I thought I was getting somewhere last spring when the judge ordered supervised visits, then my ex filed another motion claiming I violated some microscopic detail of the order. Back to square one, except now I’m broker and more exhausted. Some days I feel newly-alienated all over again, like I’m just discovering the scope of what’s been done to my family. Other days I catch myself already grieving like they’re gone forever, which terrifies me because they’re not. They can’t be.

Your reconnection with Emma gives me hope though. Seventeen is old enough to think for herself.