I'm Alex. I'm a dad of five.
In 2009, my marriage ended. It wasn't dramatic. It just stopped working, and one day she'd had enough, and the life I thought I was building wasn't the life anymore. I won't pretend I handled it well. I didn't.
I spent the next two years reading everything I could find about being a man, a father, a partner — the kind of stuff most blokes don't admit they're reading. Some of it landed. Most of it didn't. The bits that did, I started writing down. That became BetterDads, in 2011.
Then life got loud.
More kids arrived. A business to run. The early version of BetterDads went quiet — not because the work didn't matter, but because there were nappies and school runs and electricians to manage and a hundred small things that pulled the oxygen out of any project that wasn't urgent.
For fourteen years I told myself I'd come back to it.
In April 2026, I did.
This time I came back with five kids, more grey hair, the same set of questions, and a clearer view of what actually helps. I came back because the bloke who needed BetterDads in 2009 is still out there — at 11pm, in the kitchen, after the kids have gone to bed, trying to work out how he got here and what he's supposed to do next. I was him. I'd still be him without the work.
So this is the version of BetterDads I wish had existed when I needed it.
What you'll find here
Eight programs. Foundation for the everyday work — knowing yourself, your triggers, your patterns. Rebuild for separation. Practice for tonight. And five more across the everyday-support and separation tracks.
Two-hundred-eighty conversations. I've sat down with men I respected — Olympic medallists, Victoria Cross recipients, NRL legends, comedians, psychologists, blokes who'd lived through what I'd lived through. Mark Donaldson VC. Michael Klim. Steve Baxter. Mark Geyer. Tim Ross. Peter Sterling. The full list lives on the YouTube channel. Watch any of them and you'll see what you don't get in books — men telling other men the truth.
A weekly Substack. Long-form on the things I'm thinking about, what I've learned the hard way, what other men have taught me.
Movie lessons. Because most blokes won't sit through a parenting podcast but will watch Gladiator. So we wrote the fatherhood lessons inside the films we already love.
What this isn't
It isn't therapy. I'm not a therapist. If you need one, get one — they're worth every cent.
It isn't a parenting program for kids. There's plenty of those. This is for the man who's doing the parenting.
It isn't a brand pretending to have it figured out. I'm a bloke who's screwed plenty of things up. The reading and the work has helped. That's all I'm bringing to the table.
How to start
If life's good and you just want to get sharper as a dad — start with Foundation. Twenty-eight days. The deepest cut.
If you're going through separation — start with Rebuild. Then Recharge, Reconnect, Rise when you're ready.
If you're not sure — pick one Practice move and do it tonight. See how it feels. Come back tomorrow.
If your marriage is wobbling but not broken — read the Repair guide. Seven moves. They work if you work them.
You don't need to commit to anything. Read what helps. Skip what doesn't. That's the contract.
One last thing
This is built for Australian dads first. Most of the men in the interviews are Aussie. The voice is Aussie. The references — co-parenting after a separation in Australia, Family Court Orders, Mensline, the lot — are local. That's deliberate. The American resources are great. They're just not for this version of the bloke.
If you're not Australian and the voice still lands, you're welcome here too.