About Blog Contact Testimonials Podcast
Services Resources Store Login

When Leaving Isn’t the End: Coercive Control, Custody & Family Court - with Sarah McDugal

Season #3

Key Takeaways:

      • Sarah McDugal, High-conflict Custody + Co-parenting Coach and Founder of FREEDOM Navigator and Wilderness to WILD, joins Megan in discussing coercive control, custody and family court.
      • They discuss the significant challenges survivors of coercive control face when co-parenting with a high conflict co-parent.

Notable Quotes:

      • "So coercive control is an intentional, ongoing pattern of behavior used by one person to exert power, dominance and control over another in an intimate or family relationship, and the main goal of coercive control is to strip away the other person's freedom - their autonomy, their independence - to make them completely dependent on the coercive controller (the abuser)... It's  like death by a thousand cuts." — Sarah McDugal
      • "Something like 95% of divorce and custody cases never make it to court." — Sarah McDugal
      • "You have all this history, and you have all this fear for the future, and all this sadness, and all of this, and then you tell your client, okay, this judge is going to thin slice you. You have five minutes... so let's perfect it." — Megan Owen
      • "Nobody's probably told you that custody evaluators and parenting evaluators are actually taught in their training to view moms that don't do anything outside of their children, where parenting is their sole identity, their primary identity, to view those moms as enmeshed, and as, illegitimately, a danger to their kids. They are taught to assess that." — Sarah McDugal
      • "I have battled cancer. I have been in a car wreck that left me with a traumatic brain injury that took me six months to heal from, and I still have issues from it today. I nearly died with two pregnancies. I have multiple autoimmune issues. I've lived in the mission field... and I would still say... the hardest thing is healing while co-parenting with someone who made you terrified for your life." — Sarah McDugal

Resources: