October 18, 2024 • 34 mins
Unlock the secrets to effective communication in divorce mediation and transform misunderstandings into mutual understanding. Have you ever wondered why a simple desire, like being a "50-50 dad," can spiral into conflict? We promise to equip you with the tools to navigate these emotional landmines, spotlighting the imperative role of clear intentions and assumptions that can escalate tensions. Our episode sheds light on how professionals diligently maintain neutrality, ensuring both parties in a divorce feel heard and understood, despite the emotional reactivity that often pervades the process.
Through real-life scenarios and expert insights, we dissect the art of distinguishing between complaints and character attacks, guiding you toward more productive conversations. Discover how mediators can transform conflict into cooperation by clarifying complaints and avoiding the triggers of defensive responses. As we explore the intricate dance of mediation strategies, we emphasize persistence and the nuanced understanding of underlying issues. From financial settlements to property division, see how personal desires can overshadow objective considerations and learn how mediators, alongside mental health professionals, help clients articulate hidden needs, paving the way for empathetic, effective resolutions.
The Three Wisemen of Divorce are divorce experts Mark C. Hill, CFP®, CDFA®, Financial Divorce Consultant; Peter Roussos, MA, MFT, CST, psychotherapist; and Shawn Weber, CLS-F*, Family Law Mediator and Divorce Attorney.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever had it?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
happen.
Where somebody says I want to,my counterproposal is I want to
take the kids to McDonald's oncea week, except when the McRib
sandwich is on the menu.
Then I want to go twice a week.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Has that ever happened, I would have to say
you know what I would agree withthat.
Anybody would take their kid toget a McRib.
Yeah, must not love theirchildren.
Welcome to the Three Wise Menof Divorce, money, psych and Law
podcast.
Sit down with the Californiadivorce experts financial
(00:37):
divorce consultant Mark Hill,psychologist Scott Weiner and
attorney Sean Weber for a frankand casual conversation about
divorce, separation,co-parenting and the difficult
decisions real people like youface during these tough times.
We know that if you are lookingat divorce or separation, it
can be scary and overwhelming.
With combined experience ofover 70 years in divorce and
conflict management, we are herefor you and look forward to
(01:01):
helping by sharing our uniqueideas, thoughts and perspectives
on divorce, separation andco-parenting.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
So, guys, I think that in the course of our work
you know, we're seeing peoplecertainly at the start of a
process, or even throughout aprocess, for that matter we're
encountering people who areoften experiencing more
emotional reactivity.
Things are more fraught betweenthem, there's a lot of
uncertainty, and that reallyraises, I think, the potential,
(01:42):
or increases the potential riskcommunication really raises, I
think, the potential orincreases the potential of
miscommunication.
So one of the things I wonderedabout is if we might talk about
the kinds of patterns ofmiscommunication that we
encounter in our work and whatdo we do about that.
How do we help people tominimize the potential for
miscommunication and tocommunicate more effectively
with each other?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
and to communicate more effectively with each other
.
I think you're right, peter.
We see this all the time andyou know, marriage is end
because trust is broken down atsome level and the lack of trust
can increase thatmiscommunication, because people
start thinking about, well,what's her motive, by saying
that what's behind that, and somakes people more cautious and
(02:27):
more likely to, as you say, besuspicious and reactive is the
way I would describe it.
You know why is he saying that?
You know what's what's he?
I don't trust him.
He had an affair.
I can't trust him on any levelbecause he had an affair.
So if he's saying this aboutthe children, what's behind it?
(02:47):
What's he not saying?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think that's true.
I mean, I think people have atendency, when they're triggered
, to hear what they don't wantto hear.
You know, you hear a lot ofpeople say, well, he only hears
what he wants to hear.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I think a lot of times in our work when people
are really triggered and feelingnegative or feeling on guard
with each other, they hear whatthey don't want to hear.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So almost like reflexively assuming the worst,
right.
And I think you know, you knowwhat assume makes out of you and
me, right.
So assumption is kind of theenemy of understanding in many
ways.
You know, there's the case Ihad where a guy said he wants to
be a 50-50 dad and my brain andthe wife's brain was
(03:34):
immediately going to well, hewants 50-50 timeshare.
He wanted, you know, like a2-2-5-5 schedule or something
like that, where it's, you know,on a calendar it's very clear
that you have 50% of the time.
But luckily I drilled down alittle bit and asked him well,
what does he mean by that?
What does that look like to him?
What kind of schedule would helike to have?
And he said well, you know,every other weekend and you know
(03:58):
, maybe, you know, on my offweeks I'll have a midweek dinner
with the kids.
And I'm doing the math in myhead and I'm thinking, well,
that's about 30%, 30, 35%.
I said, well, that's, that'snot 50, 50.
So I drew, I spoke to him somemore.
Well, how, what about that is a50, 50 plan to you?
Because from my chair thatdoesn't look like 50, 50.
(04:19):
And he says, well, I, you know,I have to work, I can't you
know I have to work.
I can't you know I'm working,I'm contributing to the rearing
of the children by providingmore of the income and and I
(04:40):
just you know I do.
What I mean is I want it to beclear that I'm just as important
as it was value, and mom, whenshe heard that she was on board
with it, she's like okay, yeah,we can make that work, you know,
because it alleviated that fear, that assumption she had that
he was going to push for a 50-50schedule which she didn't think
was tenable given his work timecommitments, you know.
So for that particular couplethe assumption got in the way.
(05:02):
But once we kind of dove downand I didn't give up, you know,
if I, if I would just kind ofstopped and didn't scratch
deeper, we would have beenworking with an assumption that
was false, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I think you know oh.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, you go ahead, go ahead.
No, I was.
I was thinking about how, insome ways I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, you go ahead, go ahead.
I was thinking about how, insome ways, I think the role that
the two of you play in yourprocesses has has an aspect of
it that's more challenging thanthe way I work.
In this regard, the two of youare working Well, sean.
(05:39):
When you're doing mediation,mark, and your role as a
financial professional, andcertainly when you're doing
mediation as well, you're thereas true neutrals.
And then my work.
I'm paid for my judgments andto share them, and what I'm
struck by is is, I think, thechallenges that it takes to be
(05:59):
neutral in a process where youmay hear both sides of a story
or two views of a situation, andone of those views might sound
more correct or more right toyou, or more appropriate or
healthier, and you can't takethat position.
You've got to try to facilitatetheir communicating about their
(06:23):
respective viewpoints in aneffective way.
So I'm curious for the two ofyou what kinds of tools do you
use in your work to help clientscommunicate more effectively
and to help you maintain thatneutral position that you have
to be?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
in.
I kind of do what Sean does,but perhaps in not quite as
structured or disciplined a way.
I just sort of ask questionsand I will even go to the point
where I say, well, yes, man, youcould keep the house and you
could give up all of theretirement and you could get the
buyout of the spousal supportto cash him out totally and you
(07:07):
would own the house.
But I'd be really worried aboutwhere you might be three or
five years down the road.
Would you like to explore that?
Would that be helpful to you?
So I'm neutral in the regardthat I'm not saying God, that's
a stupid idea.
You're going to be broke, lady.
You're going to be tearing upfloorboards to stay warm in the
(07:27):
winter.
You know, I'm just raising aconcern and asking deeper
questions so that the person canexamine their position a little
more.
What's the word?
A little more sort ofobjectively, because these are
often coming from verysubjective, emotional.
(07:49):
I must have the house.
Everything around me is fallingto pieces.
The marriage is gone, I don'tknow where the kids are going to
be.
The house I decorated, I raisedthe kids there.
It's the only stable thing inmy life.
I must have it.
And I see that emotion, andit's not just around the house,
you know, it's around otherthings too.
If I don't get the condo up inthe mountains, my family is
(08:12):
going to kill me.
So I must have that, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, I do think the concept of asking questions.
You know, I'm a lawyer, so Iwent to law school and we're
taught with the Socratic method,which is the concept of you ask
questions, followed by aquestion, followed by a question
, so that, as the person isgiving their answers, you're
kind of leading them down theprimrose path where they realize
(08:38):
the fallacy of their position.
It's a powerful way to realitytest without taking a position
on it.
So somebody comes up withsomething like well, we're going
to do, we're going to split thekids up and I'm going to live
in England and with one childand the other person is going to
live in the United States withthe other child, you know like
(08:58):
the parent trap.
And I might say, well, haven'tyou seen that movie, the Parent
Trap, and why would you do thatand what's wrong with you?
And you know I would just askquestions like okay, so how is
that going to look?
Okay, so they're going to be,one's going to be in one country
and the other's going to be inthe other country, and when are
you going to see the other childand when is that child going?
(09:19):
Okay, so the children are goingto switch occasionally when
they have their vacations, sothen you'll have the child
that's with dad while you havethe, you know, while he has your
child, the child that's withyou.
When are those two childrengoing to see each other?
And then they're like oh Right,yeah, oh, that's kind of a
(09:40):
problem, isn't it?
How's that going to work?
You know how are they.
When are they going to see eachother?
How are that going to work?
You know how are they.
When are they going to see eachother?
How are they going to grow upand know each other?
Know their siblings?
I could have said you know, oneof the most important
relationships a person has intheir entire life is their
sibling.
And you're depriving yourchildren of that.
And how dare you?
I could have done that.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, and do you know the damage you're going to
cause?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
What's wrong with you , you know, but instead it was.
It was more of well just askingthe question.
So they get to the logicaloutcome and you just keep asking
question upon question uponquestion until you get them to a
place where they can, or ormaybe you ask question upon
question, they've got all theanswers.
It actually does make sense.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I've had that happen you know, not being a lawyer and
not having been taught thesocratic method, I use what I
call the colombo approach yes,exactly, just one more thing
which is basically help meunderstand this, I mean yeah,
scratch my head a little bityeah, really I.
You know I'm having troublehere, help me out, you know I'm
not quite we've all been trained, since we were little children,
(10:40):
to be helpful and help people Iusually come back.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
okay, just one more thing.
You know, if I think Iunderstand it, I ask one more
question.
So that's something that canhappen, but what I'm really
trying to get to here with thequestioning that I'm doing is
what is the rub, what's the realrub between the parties, and
that's what's the complaint.
So you might hear he alwaysleaves the house a mess and the
(11:05):
kids never have a clean house,and what is it that?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
there's your first problem, ever and never, and all
right words like never, right?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
yeah, that always is a clue to me that people are
reacting emotionally, but youknow.
So there's a complaint there.
So what is is the complaint?
Well, he's a slob, right?
Well, what is it that you want?
So I'll ask them.
Well, you know, I'll do what wecall the reframe, which is a
technique that's very importantto mediators.
So, basically, what you'redoing is you're restating the
(11:38):
complaint, so it sounds morelike a proposal.
Okay, so it sounds like whatyou want is for the house to be
more organized and more cleanfor the kids.
So cleanliness is important toyou.
Yes, you finally understand me,you know, and so then we can
work on a proposal there.
(11:58):
So what's a proposal that youwould like to make so that you
can solve this problem that isupsetting to you?
Well, I'd like him, every night, with the kids, to do the
dishes before he goes to bed.
You know, it could be somethinglike that.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It could be any issue .
Have you noticed the complaintisn't process, the dynamic
between the people around,whatever the issue is?
And then also the other thingthat I think happens often is
where people are expressing acomplaint, but they're doing it
(13:00):
in the form or as a form ofcriticism, or it's being, it's
being interpreted by the otherperson as a criticism and then
things just become much morereactive criticism, complaint
being really about a behavior,criticism being much more
character, logical commentaryabout the other person.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
yeah, I've seen that, where it just devolves.
Yeah, it starts off a bit aboutbeing the issue and then, by
the time you're five minutesinto it, there's character
assassination going on on bothsides well, if I think about the
example that sean you just gave, it's you know, the, the uh.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Instead of saying I uh, that cleanliness or the
house being organized isimportant, it's delivered as
you're a slob, yeah, or you'reuh, you know whatever how can
you live?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
like this yeah yeah, well, have you seen the inside
of her closet?
Yeah it's clean outside, butit's chaos in there, you know,
and that's the kind of thing youget, because then they start
arguing about detail and wedon't have, you know, we don't
have a movie, knowing whatreally happened you know.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, that's why, you know, I like to ask questions.
I ask who, what, where, when,how, but I'll never ask why.
Because why gets you into thehistory, you know, why gets you
into people's anger and theirmotivations and things like that
.
But just like, what exactly doyou want?
(14:30):
I want the house to be cleanedby 8 pm before the kids go to
bed, for example.
Or I want to make sure I haveenough money to live off of.
Okay, so how are we going to dothat?
What is going to happen to makethat happen?
When is it going to happen?
Who is going to make thepayment?
Where is the payment going tobe made?
But I'm never going to ask well, why do you want that?
(14:53):
Well, because he never tookcare of me, and I'm going to
start, and I'm afraid.
And it could go on and on andon.
And so what we're trying to getthem out of is is away from the
, the triggering things that aremore in the past, and more into
the dysfunctions that led tothe relationship breaking up and
more into.
Well, what's a proposal now forwhat we're going to do right
now, kind of a more presentconcept.
(15:16):
What's a proposal for ourfuture, as opposed to.
This is my complaint about thepast.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You know where I think a why question is
important, but it can bedelivered in a different way.
Just in terms of the semanticsof it is that I always want to
know why something is importantto someone.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
What does it mean to them?
What?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
does it represent to them.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, and so I might ask this question what problem
are you trying to solve for withthat proposal?
You know, um where, what aboutthis is important to you, but I
I find that I get in troublewith why, especially if it's a
higher conflict couple, and I Itry to you.
(16:02):
You know this mark.
I try to train them not to usey yeah, we.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You will literally say that we're not.
When you ask them a question,you'll say we can talk about a,
b, c and d, but not e, which isy yeah, but but I do train them
on how to get to what'simportant to them about that.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So you know what is important to you about receiving
support.
Well, I want to make sure Ihave enough money and that the
kids have enough money.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah.
So, Sean, you just mentioned,like, if you're working with a
high conflict couple, I wouldimagine that with a high
conflict couple, I know this iswhat I see in my office.
Imagine that with a highconflict couple, I know this is
what I see in my office.
Sometimes I have to approachtheir communication or
interacting with them in a morestructured kind of way, and so
do you have a specific structure, if you will, for how you try
(16:56):
to approach a dynamic betweenclients where they're missing
each other, they'remiscommunicating or
misinterpreting or whatever?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I do, I do.
So, and you know, I, I, I.
I kind of have it spelled outfor myself so I can keep track
of it, but in real practice it'sa lot more fluid than the way.
I did here.
But you know there's there'ssteps to this.
So you maybe you have asituation where there's a mess,
they're not hearing each other,and so there's a complaint going
(17:29):
on, and so you'll clarify thecomplaint with the listener.
You know the person that'shearing the complaint.
You know maybe she said um orhe said um, she always gives the
kids McDonald's, and the kidsneed to eat more healthy, and I
just can't stand that there'sMcDonald's happening.
And so you might ask thelistener, well, what did you
(17:51):
hear?
And then her response might besomething like he thinks I'm a
horrible parent.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
And then I might turn to the speaker yeah, and then I
might turn to the speaker worsethan that, he's suggesting that
I don't care for my childrenyeah, I don't care enough for my
children and then I'm gonna be,
Speaker 3 (18:11):
in the garbage, right .
So I'll ask the speaker well,was that what you meant?
You know I'll ask clarifyingquestions and oftentimes that's
not what he meant.
I didn't mean that she's awhore.
I think she's a good parent.
I just don't like the mcdonald,you know.
So I go back to the listeneragain.
Ok, well, what did you hear now?
You know, how is this differentfrom what you heard before?
(18:36):
Oh well, it sounds like he'sreally worried about them
getting to McDonald's.
You know, or I might have tofacilitate that a little bit,
you know, and I'll ask that I'llreframe, like I mentioned
before for the speaker.
It sounds like healthy foodchoices is what you would like
to see.
You would like to see somethingaround healthy food choices,
(18:58):
some kind of a neutral statementthat's not pointing the finger
at her.
It sounds like you want her tofinally feed the kids healthy
food.
You know that wouldn't be, butwhat I might say is it sounds
like it's important to you thatthe kids have healthy food
choices we probably say stoppoisoning the children so then
(19:21):
I'll turn to the speaker again.
All right, did she hear you thistime?
Is that what you meant?
And if it's yes, then I try tofind out where the proposal and
the complaint is, because Ialways say a complaint is a
proposal in disguise.
A complaint is a comment aboutan unsatisfactory situation that
you'd like to change, and theproposal is how you change the
situation so that it's better.
And if they still don't get it,then I go back and I still do
(19:45):
the back and forth to try tohave them kind of restate it and
reframe it in ways that each ofthem can understand.
You're almost playing the roleof a translator then, when
you're a mediator, and so thenwhen you're going on to
proposals, I encourage myparties to make their own
proposals.
One party makes a proposal Iwould like us to only do
(20:07):
McDonald's on special occasions,maybe once a month.
That could be a proposal andthe other party can ask
questions about that proposaland I'll say who, what, where,
when, how, never, why, dependingon the couple, like if they're
high conflict, I'll steer themaway from why I can ask
questions about it and then wemake sure we understand the
(20:27):
proposal.
And then there's only so manyanswers the listener can make
once they've received a proposal.
It could be, you know, yes, Iagree with that, and then we
write it up.
Or it could be no, I don't agreewith that.
But here's my counter proposal.
How about I can take him toMcDonald's once a week, you know
(20:52):
, and then that's a new proposal.
I have to go back through theprocess again.
Now there's a new listener.
I got to go back to the newlistener and say okay, do you
have any questions about thatproposal?
Do you agree with that proposal?
Okay, so there's a counterproposal.
And I always say just becauseyou get a no on a proposal
doesn't mean that it stops there.
The person that says no has aresponsibility to make a counter
proposal.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Have you ever had it happen where somebody says I
want to, my counter proposal isI want to take the kids to
McDonald's once a week, exceptwhen the McRib sandwich is on
the menu.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Then I want to take the kids to McDonald's once a
week, except when the McRibsandwich is on the menu, then I
want to go twice a week.
Has that ever happened?
I would have to say you knowwhat?
I would agree with that.
Anybody who'd take their kid toget a McRib must not love their
children.
You know, I'm contemplatingmaking a terrace off warning to
Child Protective Services.
No, but you get the point.
(21:45):
I do try to keep my ownpersonal stuff out of it, though
you know.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You know what Sean it's it's.
It seems I appreciate the wayyou're saying it that you know.
Complaint is a proposal indisguise, and to me, what that
connects with is is generallyspeaking, it's so much easier
for people to say what theydon't want that's the complaint
versus being able to say whatthey do want, which is the
proposal.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, right, but it gets their minds focusing the
right way.
Yeah, so our friend.
I'm sorry, Mark, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Well, I was going to say one thing that I found,
remember.
I'm a financial guy, so I'malways dealing with the numbers,
and there's a lot of feararound the money in a divorce
because everyone knows, you know, they've had friends that have
gone through it whose financialsituation is not as good as it
(22:38):
was.
So there's a lot of fear aroundit.
So one of the things I willoften do is I will reduce it
back to the numbers, I'llquantify.
Okay, you're really worriedabout this, let's see how much
we're talking about here, youknow, and I'll put a number on
it.
And sometimes it's easy to sayyou know, guys, we can carry on
down this road.
But in your case this number isfairly small and often it would
(23:00):
diffuse it based around that.
But the fear was it was goingto be huge and have an impact.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
But if you can quantify it and bring it back to
an objective reality thatnobody can really have an
opinion about, it often helpswell, and that's where the
clarifying questions can be sohelpful is because when you,
when you eliminate theassumptions that people are
making based on what'striggering them, you know, then
they, they might see that theyagree more than they realize.
(23:29):
Yeah, you know there's, there'smore commonality here than they
thought there was.
But because they've beenspending so much energy and time
being angry with each other oror afraid of what the other
one's going to do to them,they've been in this constant
fight or flight syndrome wherethey're not really thinking
clearly and they hear what theydon't want to hear.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And I believe that some people come, especially the
higher conflict people comeinto mediation with the
expectation the mediator isgoing to validate their position
.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Right.
Well, I had that to validatetheir position, right.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Well, I had that happen.
The other day.
Yeah, just put me in front ofthe judge.
Your judge will see just what ajerk he is and give me
everything.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That does happen.
You'll have a client that'llwant to expose the other party.
Right, and have me see just howawful they are.
Yeah, and then I have to becareful around that one, because
if I don't play along andexpose that person, then the
other person gets upset becauseI didn't do what they thought I
was going to do.
I must be on their side exactlyso you do have to be careful.
(24:34):
You just take all the charge outof your words and make them
more neutral, you know.
And then you just ask verybasic questions like well,
what's this going to look like?
How will we make this happen?
Who will do what?
When will it happen?
Where will it happen?
You know, that kind of thing.
You know, and something I didn'tmention, I failed to bring up
(24:54):
with the proposal process.
So I said there's theacceptance.
That could be a response orthere could be.
I don't like it, but here's mycounter proposal.
A third response could be youknow what?
I need some time to think aboutthis and we'll give them that
time.
We're just going to probablyput timelines on it that were
like okay, well, how long do youneed to think about this?
What do you need to do to getyour answer?
Who do you need to talk to sowe can set them up for success,
(25:17):
so that when they come to thenext meeting, they're ready to
give an answer or a counterproposal, like either a yes or
no.
I don't like that, but I'll dothis.
But I do think one of thethings that we mediators have to
do is to be very tenacious inthe proposal process.
Just because we get a nodoesn't mean it's over.
(25:40):
We keep going until they'rerunning out of the room.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, and that raises the point Sean that sometimes
they do get stuck, yeah.
That raises the point, sean,that sometimes they do get stuck
, yeah.
And so that's when I think it'sokay for me to step in and say
let me, would you be interestedin having me share how I've seen
other couples address thisissue?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not metelling them what to do, it's
(26:08):
hey, these are things I've seen.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Does any of these appeal to you?
It's always my favorite outcomewhen the parties come up with
their own solutions, but I havethose cases where you have to
give the mediator's proposal,but that's usually the last
thing.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, I think what also happens and we've touched
on this before where the clientsget stuck, um, but what's
happening is that, for example,it's one of the contexts we've
talked about before wherethey're, uh, focusing on an
issue having to do with with thekids, but really focusing on
(26:49):
what they want for themselves,for whatever reason, yeah, and
the impact on the kids is notsomething that they're really
thinking through.
So the example that you gave,sean, of the parent-transparent
that's, proposing that they'regoing to live separately in
different continents, and how anissue like that might affect
(27:10):
children, or the one that we'vetalked about over several years,
has been how parents thinkabout the dividing of the time
at the holidays for theirchildren.
You know the idea of I have tohave my kids every Christmas.
Well, what's it like for thechildren to not have Christmas
with the other parent?
And, I think, being able tosort out what is the hidden
(27:35):
agenda, or the more personalagenda, if you will, versus the
objective for all of these otherstakeholders in an issue.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I think that's very important for us to keep in mind
is, like I said, the issue isnever the issue, or often not
the issue, and there is a littlebit of work that needs to be
done to parse out well what ofthis conversation is.
The same fight that they've hadfor 15 years that never
(28:06):
resolved itself, and what can wedo to kind of break the way
they view this issue and just byusing different words that are
more neutral and have lesscharge to them, it, it can
sometimes help, kind of you getthem past the anger that they
have over the particular youknow what this discussion
(28:27):
reminds them of that went badlybadly in their marriage to okay,
we really do have to have asolution here, and that's where
I think it's great to bring in amental health professional on a
co-mediation when you find thatyou have some couples that just
can't get past stuck.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
And it can help to have a mental health
professional come in and justkind of help calm that down.
Like I had a case one time witha it was a collaborative case
where we had two attorneys andtwo coaches and a financial
specialist and one of thecoaches it was actually the
husband's coach was talking tothe wife it was like cross table
(29:11):
talk, which happens a lot incollaborative practice was
talking to the wife.
It was like cross-table talk,which happens a lot in
collaborative practice, and thewife just could not land on an
amount of alimony that shebelieved was appropriate for her
to receive.
No number seemed satisfactoryto her and the coach for the
husband kind of figured out whatwas going on and he's talking
(29:31):
to her and he's like you know,you you gave a lot to this
marriage, didn't you?
You know I'm paraphrasing, butit sounds to me like the reason
that a number is difficult isbecause when you talk about an
amount of alimony, it's likethis is what your worth is and
maybe there is no number thatcan really address what your
(29:56):
value as a human being in therelationship was and how
devalued you might've feltduring the marriage.
And then of course, you know she, the flood works with her and
she opened up and then we wereable to get to a number because
she was somebody had gotten herin the room and it happened to
be husband's coach, who was themental health.
(30:19):
One of the mental healthprofessionals on the cage was
able to see that and and breakthrough that and communicate
that to her and and and therewas a.
There was an exchange and anunderstanding where she was able
to let go of something that wasblocking her from finishing and
so like okay, we, logistically,we have to come up with a
number for support, and it's notabout what your worth of the
human is, it's about what thelaw says.
(30:41):
What is it that's going to giveyou the runway?
You need to be okay After thedivorce.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
You know, I had exactly the same situation in
the case I alluded to earlier,which was the, the, the lady who
had to have the, the, the condoin big bear.
She had to have it andbasically it was because of the
family, but it didn't come outuntil one of the coaches drew it
(31:07):
out of her that her familywould kill her if she didn't get
the condo up there.
Okay, and, but she couldn'tbring that to the table on her
own hard for her to say it.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I mean, people are fun, people are interesting.
There's always, you know,different points of view that
come forward.
There's a lot of emotionalityaround what we do.
Um, for folks that are outthere just trying to get an idea
of how do I approach mymediation, one way to approach
(31:39):
it is to think of it as abusiness decision.
You know we have to come upwith an agreement and we know
that there was a long story thatgot you into this room, but at
the end of the day day we needto be able to figure out a
resolution so that you can moveforward with your life.
(32:01):
Sometimes they don't want tomove forward with their lives
that is true sometimes yeah well, we've done it again, gentlemen
for sure, indeed for sure, sopete if.
If someone needs to work withyou on a divorce case because
you're a mental healthprofessional and very good with
emotional needs, what would theyneed to do?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
PeterRussoscom, that's
P-E-T-E-R-R-O-U-S-S-O-Scom, andyou can email me there from my
contact me page.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Okay, and Mark, if they have a need for some
financial analysis in theirdivorce, what would they do?
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Go to my website.
Pacific Divorce Management isthe company.
The website is PackDivorcecom.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And for divorce.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Sorry, we have a contact form on there and our
phone numbers.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
And for divorce mediation services or for any
dispute that you have, go toweberdisputeresolutioncom and we
will match you with aprofessional mediator to help
you resolve your dispute.
Again, that's weberdisputeresolutioncom.
Weber, like the grill dispute,like we had a fight and
resolution, like we solved itcom.
(33:19):
Okay, well, very goodconversation.
I enjoyed it.
Yes, thank you guys very muchAll right.
(33:46):
Take care.
See you in two Thanks, Bye-bye,Thanks, Bye-bye.
Be in a similar place Untilnext time.
Stay safe, healthy and focusedon a positive, bright future.
This podcast is forinformational purposes only.
Every family law case is unique, so no legal, financial or
(34:08):
mental health advice is intendedduring this podcast.
If you need help with yourspecific situation, feel free to
schedule a time to speak withone of us for a personal
consultation.
Have you ever had it?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
happen.
Where somebody says I want to,my counterproposal is I want to
take the kids to McDonald's oncea week, except when the McRib
sandwich is on the menu.
Then I want to go twice a week.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Has that ever happened, I would have to say
you know what I would agree withthat.
Anybody would take their kid toget a McRib.
Yeah, must not love theirchildren.
Welcome to the Three Wise Menof Divorce, money, psych and Law
podcast.
Sit down with the Californiadivorce experts financial
(00:37):
divorce consultant Mark Hill,psychologist Scott Weiner and
attorney Sean Weber for a frankand casual conversation about
divorce, separation,co-parenting and the difficult
decisions real people like youface during these tough times.
We know that if you are lookingat divorce or separation, it
can be scary and overwhelming.
With combined experience ofover 70 years in divorce and
conflict management, we are herefor you and look forward to
(01:01):
helping by sharing our uniqueideas, thoughts and perspectives
on divorce, separation andco-parenting.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
So, guys, I think that in the course of our work
you know, we're seeing peoplecertainly at the start of a
process, or even throughout aprocess, for that matter we're
encountering people who areoften experiencing more
emotional reactivity.
Things are more fraught betweenthem, there's a lot of
uncertainty, and that reallyraises, I think, the potential,
(01:42):
or increases the potential riskcommunication really raises, I
think, the potential orincreases the potential of
miscommunication.
So one of the things I wonderedabout is if we might talk about
the kinds of patterns ofmiscommunication that we
encounter in our work and whatdo we do about that.
How do we help people tominimize the potential for
miscommunication and tocommunicate more effectively
with each other?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
and to communicate more effectively with each other
.
I think you're right, peter.
We see this all the time andyou know, marriage is end
because trust is broken down atsome level and the lack of trust
can increase thatmiscommunication, because people
start thinking about, well,what's her motive, by saying
that what's behind that, and somakes people more cautious and
(02:27):
more likely to, as you say, besuspicious and reactive is the
way I would describe it.
You know why is he saying that?
You know what's what's he?
I don't trust him.
He had an affair.
I can't trust him on any levelbecause he had an affair.
So if he's saying this aboutthe children, what's behind it?
(02:47):
What's he not saying?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think that's true.
I mean, I think people have atendency, when they're triggered
, to hear what they don't wantto hear.
You know, you hear a lot ofpeople say, well, he only hears
what he wants to hear.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I think a lot of times in our work when people
are really triggered and feelingnegative or feeling on guard
with each other, they hear whatthey don't want to hear.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So almost like reflexively assuming the worst,
right.
And I think you know, you knowwhat assume makes out of you and
me, right.
So assumption is kind of theenemy of understanding in many
ways.
You know, there's the case Ihad where a guy said he wants to
be a 50-50 dad and my brain andthe wife's brain was
(03:34):
immediately going to well, hewants 50-50 timeshare.
He wanted, you know, like a2-2-5-5 schedule or something
like that, where it's, you know,on a calendar it's very clear
that you have 50% of the time.
But luckily I drilled down alittle bit and asked him well,
what does he mean by that?
What does that look like to him?
What kind of schedule would helike to have?
And he said well, you know,every other weekend and you know
(03:58):
, maybe, you know, on my offweeks I'll have a midweek dinner
with the kids.
And I'm doing the math in myhead and I'm thinking, well,
that's about 30%, 30, 35%.
I said, well, that's, that'snot 50, 50.
So I drew, I spoke to him somemore.
Well, how, what about that is a50, 50 plan to you?
Because from my chair thatdoesn't look like 50, 50.
(04:19):
And he says, well, I, you know,I have to work, I can't you
know I have to work.
I can't you know I'm working,I'm contributing to the rearing
of the children by providingmore of the income and and I
(04:40):
just you know I do.
What I mean is I want it to beclear that I'm just as important
as it was value, and mom, whenshe heard that she was on board
with it, she's like okay, yeah,we can make that work, you know,
because it alleviated that fear, that assumption she had that
he was going to push for a 50-50schedule which she didn't think
was tenable given his work timecommitments, you know.
So for that particular couplethe assumption got in the way.
(05:02):
But once we kind of dove downand I didn't give up, you know,
if I, if I would just kind ofstopped and didn't scratch
deeper, we would have beenworking with an assumption that
was false, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I think you know oh.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, you go ahead, go ahead.
No, I was.
I was thinking about how, insome ways I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, you go ahead, go ahead.
I was thinking about how, insome ways, I think the role that
the two of you play in yourprocesses has has an aspect of
it that's more challenging thanthe way I work.
In this regard, the two of youare working Well, sean.
(05:39):
When you're doing mediation,mark, and your role as a
financial professional, andcertainly when you're doing
mediation as well, you're thereas true neutrals.
And then my work.
I'm paid for my judgments andto share them, and what I'm
struck by is is, I think, thechallenges that it takes to be
(05:59):
neutral in a process where youmay hear both sides of a story
or two views of a situation, andone of those views might sound
more correct or more right toyou, or more appropriate or
healthier, and you can't takethat position.
You've got to try to facilitatetheir communicating about their
(06:23):
respective viewpoints in aneffective way.
So I'm curious for the two ofyou what kinds of tools do you
use in your work to help clientscommunicate more effectively
and to help you maintain thatneutral position that you have
to be?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
in.
I kind of do what Sean does,but perhaps in not quite as
structured or disciplined a way.
I just sort of ask questionsand I will even go to the point
where I say, well, yes, man, youcould keep the house and you
could give up all of theretirement and you could get the
buyout of the spousal supportto cash him out totally and you
(07:07):
would own the house.
But I'd be really worried aboutwhere you might be three or
five years down the road.
Would you like to explore that?
Would that be helpful to you?
So I'm neutral in the regardthat I'm not saying God, that's
a stupid idea.
You're going to be broke, lady.
You're going to be tearing upfloorboards to stay warm in the
(07:27):
winter.
You know, I'm just raising aconcern and asking deeper
questions so that the person canexamine their position a little
more.
What's the word?
A little more sort ofobjectively, because these are
often coming from verysubjective, emotional.
(07:49):
I must have the house.
Everything around me is fallingto pieces.
The marriage is gone, I don'tknow where the kids are going to
be.
The house I decorated, I raisedthe kids there.
It's the only stable thing inmy life.
I must have it.
And I see that emotion, andit's not just around the house,
you know, it's around otherthings too.
If I don't get the condo up inthe mountains, my family is
(08:12):
going to kill me.
So I must have that, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, I do think the concept of asking questions.
You know, I'm a lawyer, so Iwent to law school and we're
taught with the Socratic method,which is the concept of you ask
questions, followed by aquestion, followed by a question
, so that, as the person isgiving their answers, you're
kind of leading them down theprimrose path where they realize
(08:38):
the fallacy of their position.
It's a powerful way to realitytest without taking a position
on it.
So somebody comes up withsomething like well, we're going
to do, we're going to split thekids up and I'm going to live
in England and with one childand the other person is going to
live in the United States withthe other child, you know like
(08:58):
the parent trap.
And I might say, well, haven'tyou seen that movie, the Parent
Trap, and why would you do thatand what's wrong with you?
And you know I would just askquestions like okay, so how is
that going to look?
Okay, so they're going to be,one's going to be in one country
and the other's going to be inthe other country, and when are
you going to see the other childand when is that child going?
(09:19):
Okay, so the children are goingto switch occasionally when
they have their vacations, sothen you'll have the child
that's with dad while you havethe, you know, while he has your
child, the child that's withyou.
When are those two childrengoing to see each other?
And then they're like oh Right,yeah, oh, that's kind of a
(09:40):
problem, isn't it?
How's that going to work?
You know how are they.
When are they going to see eachother?
How are that going to work?
You know how are they.
When are they going to see eachother?
How are they going to grow upand know each other?
Know their siblings?
I could have said you know, oneof the most important
relationships a person has intheir entire life is their
sibling.
And you're depriving yourchildren of that.
And how dare you?
I could have done that.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, and do you know the damage you're going to
cause?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
What's wrong with you , you know, but instead it was.
It was more of well just askingthe question.
So they get to the logicaloutcome and you just keep asking
question upon question uponquestion until you get them to a
place where they can, or ormaybe you ask question upon
question, they've got all theanswers.
It actually does make sense.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I've had that happen you know, not being a lawyer and
not having been taught thesocratic method, I use what I
call the colombo approach yes,exactly, just one more thing
which is basically help meunderstand this, I mean yeah,
scratch my head a little bityeah, really I.
You know I'm having troublehere, help me out, you know I'm
not quite we've all been trained, since we were little children,
(10:40):
to be helpful and help people Iusually come back.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
okay, just one more thing.
You know, if I think Iunderstand it, I ask one more
question.
So that's something that canhappen, but what I'm really
trying to get to here with thequestioning that I'm doing is
what is the rub, what's the realrub between the parties, and
that's what's the complaint.
So you might hear he alwaysleaves the house a mess and the
(11:05):
kids never have a clean house,and what is it that?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
there's your first problem, ever and never, and all
right words like never, right?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
yeah, that always is a clue to me that people are
reacting emotionally, but youknow.
So there's a complaint there.
So what is is the complaint?
Well, he's a slob, right?
Well, what is it that you want?
So I'll ask them.
Well, you know, I'll do what wecall the reframe, which is a
technique that's very importantto mediators.
So, basically, what you'redoing is you're restating the
(11:38):
complaint, so it sounds morelike a proposal.
Okay, so it sounds like whatyou want is for the house to be
more organized and more cleanfor the kids.
So cleanliness is important toyou.
Yes, you finally understand me,you know, and so then we can
work on a proposal there.
(11:58):
So what's a proposal that youwould like to make so that you
can solve this problem that isupsetting to you?
Well, I'd like him, every night, with the kids, to do the
dishes before he goes to bed.
You know, it could be somethinglike that.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It could be any issue .
Have you noticed the complaintisn't process, the dynamic
between the people around,whatever the issue is?
And then also the other thingthat I think happens often is
where people are expressing acomplaint, but they're doing it
(13:00):
in the form or as a form ofcriticism, or it's being, it's
being interpreted by the otherperson as a criticism and then
things just become much morereactive criticism, complaint
being really about a behavior,criticism being much more
character, logical commentaryabout the other person.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
yeah, I've seen that, where it just devolves.
Yeah, it starts off a bit aboutbeing the issue and then, by
the time you're five minutesinto it, there's character
assassination going on on bothsides well, if I think about the
example that sean you just gave, it's you know, the, the uh.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Instead of saying I uh, that cleanliness or the
house being organized isimportant, it's delivered as
you're a slob, yeah, or you'reuh, you know whatever how can
you live?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
like this yeah yeah, well, have you seen the inside
of her closet?
Yeah it's clean outside, butit's chaos in there, you know,
and that's the kind of thing youget, because then they start
arguing about detail and wedon't have, you know, we don't
have a movie, knowing whatreally happened you know.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, that's why, you know, I like to ask questions.
I ask who, what, where, when,how, but I'll never ask why.
Because why gets you into thehistory, you know, why gets you
into people's anger and theirmotivations and things like that
.
But just like, what exactly doyou want?
(14:30):
I want the house to be cleanedby 8 pm before the kids go to
bed, for example.
Or I want to make sure I haveenough money to live off of.
Okay, so how are we going to dothat?
What is going to happen to makethat happen?
When is it going to happen?
Who is going to make thepayment?
Where is the payment going tobe made?
But I'm never going to ask well, why do you want that?
(14:53):
Well, because he never tookcare of me, and I'm going to
start, and I'm afraid.
And it could go on and on andon.
And so what we're trying to getthem out of is is away from the
, the triggering things that aremore in the past, and more into
the dysfunctions that led tothe relationship breaking up and
more into.
Well, what's a proposal now forwhat we're going to do right
now, kind of a more presentconcept.
(15:16):
What's a proposal for ourfuture, as opposed to.
This is my complaint about thepast.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You know where I think a why question is
important, but it can bedelivered in a different way.
Just in terms of the semanticsof it is that I always want to
know why something is importantto someone.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
What does it mean to them?
What?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
does it represent to them.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, and so I might ask this question what problem
are you trying to solve for withthat proposal?
You know, um where, what aboutthis is important to you, but I
I find that I get in troublewith why, especially if it's a
higher conflict couple, and I Itry to you.
(16:02):
You know this mark.
I try to train them not to usey yeah, we.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You will literally say that we're not.
When you ask them a question,you'll say we can talk about a,
b, c and d, but not e, which isy yeah, but but I do train them
on how to get to what'simportant to them about that.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So you know what is important to you about receiving
support.
Well, I want to make sure Ihave enough money and that the
kids have enough money.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah.
So, Sean, you just mentioned,like, if you're working with a
high conflict couple, I wouldimagine that with a high
conflict couple, I know this iswhat I see in my office.
Imagine that with a highconflict couple, I know this is
what I see in my office.
Sometimes I have to approachtheir communication or
interacting with them in a morestructured kind of way, and so
do you have a specific structure, if you will, for how you try
(16:56):
to approach a dynamic betweenclients where they're missing
each other, they'remiscommunicating or
misinterpreting or whatever?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I do, I do.
So, and you know, I, I, I.
I kind of have it spelled outfor myself so I can keep track
of it, but in real practice it'sa lot more fluid than the way.
I did here.
But you know there's there'ssteps to this.
So you maybe you have asituation where there's a mess,
they're not hearing each other,and so there's a complaint going
(17:29):
on, and so you'll clarify thecomplaint with the listener.
You know the person that'shearing the complaint.
You know maybe she said um orhe said um, she always gives the
kids McDonald's, and the kidsneed to eat more healthy, and I
just can't stand that there'sMcDonald's happening.
And so you might ask thelistener, well, what did you
(17:51):
hear?
And then her response might besomething like he thinks I'm a
horrible parent.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
And then I might turn to the speaker yeah, and then I
might turn to the speaker worsethan that, he's suggesting that
I don't care for my childrenyeah, I don't care enough for my
children and then I'm gonna be,
Speaker 3 (18:11):
in the garbage, right .
So I'll ask the speaker well,was that what you meant?
You know I'll ask clarifyingquestions and oftentimes that's
not what he meant.
I didn't mean that she's awhore.
I think she's a good parent.
I just don't like the mcdonald,you know.
So I go back to the listeneragain.
Ok, well, what did you hear now?
You know, how is this differentfrom what you heard before?
(18:36):
Oh well, it sounds like he'sreally worried about them
getting to McDonald's.
You know, or I might have tofacilitate that a little bit,
you know, and I'll ask that I'llreframe, like I mentioned
before for the speaker.
It sounds like healthy foodchoices is what you would like
to see.
You would like to see somethingaround healthy food choices,
(18:58):
some kind of a neutral statementthat's not pointing the finger
at her.
It sounds like you want her tofinally feed the kids healthy
food.
You know that wouldn't be, butwhat I might say is it sounds
like it's important to you thatthe kids have healthy food
choices we probably say stoppoisoning the children so then
(19:21):
I'll turn to the speaker again.
All right, did she hear you thistime?
Is that what you meant?
And if it's yes, then I try tofind out where the proposal and
the complaint is, because Ialways say a complaint is a
proposal in disguise.
A complaint is a comment aboutan unsatisfactory situation that
you'd like to change, and theproposal is how you change the
situation so that it's better.
And if they still don't get it,then I go back and I still do
(19:45):
the back and forth to try tohave them kind of restate it and
reframe it in ways that each ofthem can understand.
You're almost playing the roleof a translator then, when
you're a mediator, and so thenwhen you're going on to
proposals, I encourage myparties to make their own
proposals.
One party makes a proposal Iwould like us to only do
(20:07):
McDonald's on special occasions,maybe once a month.
That could be a proposal andthe other party can ask
questions about that proposaland I'll say who, what, where,
when, how, never, why, dependingon the couple, like if they're
high conflict, I'll steer themaway from why I can ask
questions about it and then wemake sure we understand the
(20:27):
proposal.
And then there's only so manyanswers the listener can make
once they've received a proposal.
It could be, you know, yes, Iagree with that, and then we
write it up.
Or it could be no, I don't agreewith that.
But here's my counter proposal.
How about I can take him toMcDonald's once a week, you know
(20:52):
, and then that's a new proposal.
I have to go back through theprocess again.
Now there's a new listener.
I got to go back to the newlistener and say okay, do you
have any questions about thatproposal?
Do you agree with that proposal?
Okay, so there's a counterproposal.
And I always say just becauseyou get a no on a proposal
doesn't mean that it stops there.
The person that says no has aresponsibility to make a counter
proposal.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Have you ever had it happen where somebody says I
want to, my counter proposal isI want to take the kids to
McDonald's once a week, exceptwhen the McRib sandwich is on
the menu.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Then I want to take the kids to McDonald's once a
week, except when the McRibsandwich is on the menu, then I
want to go twice a week.
Has that ever happened?
I would have to say you knowwhat?
I would agree with that.
Anybody who'd take their kid toget a McRib must not love their
children.
You know, I'm contemplatingmaking a terrace off warning to
Child Protective Services.
No, but you get the point.
(21:45):
I do try to keep my ownpersonal stuff out of it, though
you know.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You know what Sean it's it's.
It seems I appreciate the wayyou're saying it that you know.
Complaint is a proposal indisguise, and to me, what that
connects with is is generallyspeaking, it's so much easier
for people to say what theydon't want that's the complaint
versus being able to say whatthey do want, which is the
proposal.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, right, but it gets their minds focusing the
right way.
Yeah, so our friend.
I'm sorry, Mark, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Well, I was going to say one thing that I found,
remember.
I'm a financial guy, so I'malways dealing with the numbers,
and there's a lot of feararound the money in a divorce
because everyone knows, you know, they've had friends that have
gone through it whose financialsituation is not as good as it
(22:38):
was.
So there's a lot of fear aroundit.
So one of the things I willoften do is I will reduce it
back to the numbers, I'llquantify.
Okay, you're really worriedabout this, let's see how much
we're talking about here, youknow, and I'll put a number on
it.
And sometimes it's easy to sayyou know, guys, we can carry on
down this road.
But in your case this number isfairly small and often it would
(23:00):
diffuse it based around that.
But the fear was it was goingto be huge and have an impact.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
But if you can quantify it and bring it back to
an objective reality thatnobody can really have an
opinion about, it often helpswell, and that's where the
clarifying questions can be sohelpful is because when you,
when you eliminate theassumptions that people are
making based on what'striggering them, you know, then
they, they might see that theyagree more than they realize.
(23:29):
Yeah, you know there's, there'smore commonality here than they
thought there was.
But because they've beenspending so much energy and time
being angry with each other oror afraid of what the other
one's going to do to them,they've been in this constant
fight or flight syndrome wherethey're not really thinking
clearly and they hear what theydon't want to hear.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And I believe that some people come, especially the
higher conflict people comeinto mediation with the
expectation the mediator isgoing to validate their position
.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Right.
Well, I had that to validatetheir position, right.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Well, I had that happen.
The other day.
Yeah, just put me in front ofthe judge.
Your judge will see just what ajerk he is and give me
everything.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That does happen.
You'll have a client that'llwant to expose the other party.
Right, and have me see just howawful they are.
Yeah, and then I have to becareful around that one, because
if I don't play along andexpose that person, then the
other person gets upset becauseI didn't do what they thought I
was going to do.
I must be on their side exactlyso you do have to be careful.
(24:34):
You just take all the charge outof your words and make them
more neutral, you know.
And then you just ask verybasic questions like well,
what's this going to look like?
How will we make this happen?
Who will do what?
When will it happen?
Where will it happen?
You know, that kind of thing.
You know, and something I didn'tmention, I failed to bring up
(24:54):
with the proposal process.
So I said there's theacceptance.
That could be a response orthere could be.
I don't like it, but here's mycounter proposal.
A third response could be youknow what?
I need some time to think aboutthis and we'll give them that
time.
We're just going to probablyput timelines on it that were
like okay, well, how long do youneed to think about this?
What do you need to do to getyour answer?
Who do you need to talk to sowe can set them up for success,
(25:17):
so that when they come to thenext meeting, they're ready to
give an answer or a counterproposal, like either a yes or
no.
I don't like that, but I'll dothis.
But I do think one of thethings that we mediators have to
do is to be very tenacious inthe proposal process.
Just because we get a nodoesn't mean it's over.
(25:40):
We keep going until they'rerunning out of the room.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, and that raises the point Sean that sometimes
they do get stuck, yeah.
That raises the point, sean,that sometimes they do get stuck
, yeah.
And so that's when I think it'sokay for me to step in and say
let me, would you be interestedin having me share how I've seen
other couples address thisissue?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not metelling them what to do, it's
(26:08):
hey, these are things I've seen.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Does any of these appeal to you?
It's always my favorite outcomewhen the parties come up with
their own solutions, but I havethose cases where you have to
give the mediator's proposal,but that's usually the last
thing.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, I think what also happens and we've touched
on this before where the clientsget stuck, um, but what's
happening is that, for example,it's one of the contexts we've
talked about before wherethey're, uh, focusing on an
issue having to do with with thekids, but really focusing on
(26:49):
what they want for themselves,for whatever reason, yeah, and
the impact on the kids is notsomething that they're really
thinking through.
So the example that you gave,sean, of the parent-transparent
that's, proposing that they'regoing to live separately in
different continents, and how anissue like that might affect
(27:10):
children, or the one that we'vetalked about over several years,
has been how parents thinkabout the dividing of the time
at the holidays for theirchildren.
You know the idea of I have tohave my kids every Christmas.
Well, what's it like for thechildren to not have Christmas
with the other parent?
And, I think, being able tosort out what is the hidden
(27:35):
agenda, or the more personalagenda, if you will, versus the
objective for all of these otherstakeholders in an issue.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I think that's very important for us to keep in mind
is, like I said, the issue isnever the issue, or often not
the issue, and there is a littlebit of work that needs to be
done to parse out well what ofthis conversation is.
The same fight that they've hadfor 15 years that never
(28:06):
resolved itself, and what can wedo to kind of break the way
they view this issue and just byusing different words that are
more neutral and have lesscharge to them, it, it can
sometimes help, kind of you getthem past the anger that they
have over the particular youknow what this discussion
(28:27):
reminds them of that went badlybadly in their marriage to okay,
we really do have to have asolution here, and that's where
I think it's great to bring in amental health professional on a
co-mediation when you find thatyou have some couples that just
can't get past stuck.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
And it can help to have a mental health
professional come in and justkind of help calm that down.
Like I had a case one time witha it was a collaborative case
where we had two attorneys andtwo coaches and a financial
specialist and one of thecoaches it was actually the
husband's coach was talking tothe wife it was like cross table
(29:11):
talk, which happens a lot incollaborative practice was
talking to the wife.
It was like cross-table talk,which happens a lot in
collaborative practice, and thewife just could not land on an
amount of alimony that shebelieved was appropriate for her
to receive.
No number seemed satisfactoryto her and the coach for the
husband kind of figured out whatwas going on and he's talking
(29:31):
to her and he's like you know,you you gave a lot to this
marriage, didn't you?
You know I'm paraphrasing, butit sounds to me like the reason
that a number is difficult isbecause when you talk about an
amount of alimony, it's likethis is what your worth is and
maybe there is no number thatcan really address what your
(29:56):
value as a human being in therelationship was and how
devalued you might've feltduring the marriage.
And then of course, you know she, the flood works with her and
she opened up and then we wereable to get to a number because
she was somebody had gotten herin the room and it happened to
be husband's coach, who was themental health.
(30:19):
One of the mental healthprofessionals on the cage was
able to see that and and breakthrough that and communicate
that to her and and and therewas a.
There was an exchange and anunderstanding where she was able
to let go of something that wasblocking her from finishing and
so like okay, we, logistically,we have to come up with a
number for support, and it's notabout what your worth of the
human is, it's about what thelaw says.
(30:41):
What is it that's going to giveyou the runway?
You need to be okay After thedivorce.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
You know, I had exactly the same situation in
the case I alluded to earlier,which was the, the, the lady who
had to have the, the, the condoin big bear.
She had to have it andbasically it was because of the
family, but it didn't come outuntil one of the coaches drew it
(31:07):
out of her that her familywould kill her if she didn't get
the condo up there.
Okay, and, but she couldn'tbring that to the table on her
own hard for her to say it.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I mean, people are fun, people are interesting.
There's always, you know,different points of view that
come forward.
There's a lot of emotionalityaround what we do.
Um, for folks that are outthere just trying to get an idea
of how do I approach mymediation, one way to approach
(31:39):
it is to think of it as abusiness decision.
You know we have to come upwith an agreement and we know
that there was a long story thatgot you into this room, but at
the end of the day day we needto be able to figure out a
resolution so that you can moveforward with your life.
(32:01):
Sometimes they don't want tomove forward with their lives
that is true sometimes yeah well, we've done it again, gentlemen
for sure, indeed for sure, sopete if.
If someone needs to work withyou on a divorce case because
you're a mental healthprofessional and very good with
emotional needs, what would theyneed to do?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
PeterRussoscom, that's
P-E-T-E-R-R-O-U-S-S-O-Scom, andyou can email me there from my
contact me page.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Okay, and Mark, if they have a need for some
financial analysis in theirdivorce, what would they do?
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Go to my website.
Pacific Divorce Management isthe company.
The website is PackDivorcecom.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And for divorce.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Sorry, we have a contact form on there and our
phone numbers.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
And for divorce mediation services or for any
dispute that you have, go toweberdisputeresolutioncom and we
will match you with aprofessional mediator to help
you resolve your dispute.
Again, that's weberdisputeresolutioncom.
Weber, like the grill dispute,like we had a fight and
resolution, like we solved itcom.
(33:19):
Okay, well, very goodconversation.
I enjoyed it.
Yes, thank you guys very muchAll right.
(33:46):
Take care.
See you in two Thanks, Bye-bye,Thanks, Bye-bye.
Be in a similar place Untilnext time.
Stay safe, healthy and focusedon a positive, bright future.
This podcast is forinformational purposes only.
Every family law case is unique, so no legal, financial or
(34:08):
mental health advice is intendedduring this podcast.
If you need help with yourspecific situation, feel free to
schedule a time to speak withone of us for a personal
consultation.
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