July 28, 2025 • 51 mins
Today's episode is about one of the toughest challenges some dads face—navigating a high-conflict divorce and co-parenting with a toxic ex. If you’ve ever felt like the legal system is stacked against you or that you’re losing control over your relationship with your kids, this conversation is for you.
We’re joined by Lisa Johnson, co-founder of Been There Got Out, a high-conflict divorce strategist and certified domestic violence advocate. After going through a brutal legal battle herself, Lisa represented herself in court and won a case that is now being used as legal precedent. She also played a key role in passing Jennifer’s Law, which expands the legal definition of domestic violence to include coercive control.
She and her partner, Chris, help parents in custody battles, co-parenting nightmares, and legal abuse situations. Her book, Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances, is a must-read for anyone dealing with a difficult ex.
For those who need guidance, coaching, or legal strategies, where can they connect with you?
👉 Join Lisa’s FREE workshop on co-parenting with a toxic ex at programs.beentheregotout.com/SC-Register 👉 Get her book Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances 👉 Follow her work at beentheregotout.com
Listeners, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with another dad who might need this info today. And as always, subscribe, leave a review, and stay tuned for more great guests.
Check out the Website for Interactive Activity Guides, Resources, Full Transcripts, all things YDP- www.youngdadpod.com
Clink the Link for YDP Deals (Joon, Forefathers &more)- https://linktr.ee/youngdadpod
Want to be a guest on Young Dad Podcast? Send Jey Young a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/youngdad
Lastly consider a monetary donation to support the Pod, https://buymeacoffee.com/youngdadpod
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
And welcome into the Undead podcast, whether you're outside
grilling, mowing the lawn, changing dirty diapers, or maybe
just maybe you got a moment to sit back, relax and listen to
your favorite podcast. Whatever you're doing, wherever
you're at, thanks for being hereand thanks for tuning in.
And of course, thanks for telling a friend.
I'm your host, Jay, and today's episode is one of the toughest
challenges that some dad's face navigating a high conflict
(00:32):
divorce with Co parenting with atoxic ex.
If you've been there, you know, if you know, you know.
And so it's one of those topics that not everyone, I hope, I
pray and hope that no, not everybody has to go through.
But if you do, thanks for being here and thanks for listening.
Thanks for tuning in. I hope you find some solace in
this episode that we're about toget into.
So if he's ever felt like the legal system is stacked against
(00:54):
you or that you're losing control over your relationship
with your kids, well, this conversation is for you.
I'm joined by Lisa, the Co founder of Ben Ben there Godel,
a high conflict divorce strategist and certified
domestic violence advocate. After going through a brutal
legal battle herself, Lisa represented herself in court and
won a case that is not being used as legal precedent.
He's also played a key role in passing Jennifer's Law, which
(01:16):
expands the legal definition of domestic violence to include
coercive control. She and her partner Chris help
parents in custody battles, Co parenting nightmares and legal
abuse situations. Her both Been there, got out
toxic relationships, high conflict, divorce and how to
stay sane under insane circumstances is a must read for
anyone dealing with a difficult act.
So make sure you grab your juicebox, grab a snack and let's jump
(01:37):
into the conversation. Lisa, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me,Jay of.
Course, thanks for being here. I'm really excited.
So many parents, especially dads, go into a divorce or
custody battle completely unprepared for high conflict,
for how high conflict they can be.
So I guess kind of to start out here, share a little bit of your
(01:58):
story and what led to the books and kind of everything that
you're doing now and whatnot. OK, that's a huge question, but
I'll try. So I was, I was with my ex since
since I was pretty young, nearlyhalf my life, about 20 years and
the and never imagined that I would get divorced.
(02:18):
We didn't fight that much. Of course, looking back, there's
always some red flags that were like, how could you have not
seen it? But everyone seems to feel that
way. We have two kids together.
And then at some point I starteddiscovering that he had been
living a double life for the entire relationship and took a
long time to figure out what to do about two years to to finally
(02:41):
exit the relationship. And one of the things that he
kept saying was if you divorce me, you're going to ruin our
kids lives. So in my head, I had this idea
that if I broke up this intact family, my kids lives would be
destroyed. But at some point I real and you
know, lots of therapy, realized that it was probably better to
go than to stay and that the kids would somehow be OK.
(03:04):
And so I started the divorce process and quickly learned that
mine was not what's called a normal divorce, which is when
people, you know, everyone's angry at the beginning and then
they kind of settled down and realize that the bills are
really high and let's kind of goon with our lives and be the
best Co parents we can be with our kids.
So that's not what happened. The divorce itself took a year
(03:29):
and $100,000 that I had to borrow that I'm going to be
paying back forever. And then it was about a total of
10 years in the legal system because during that first year,
my lawyer said your ex is not going to comply with your
agreement even though he, no judge ordered us to do what we
decided, but be ready for it. And so you're going to have to
(03:51):
go back to court and you can't afford me anymore because your
ex is going to continue to use the legal system to financially
decimate you. So about a year and a half ish,
I went back to court because of course my ex was not following
the agreement, but I was kind ofready for that, never expecting
seven more years of and about 100 court appearances in two
(04:12):
states of having to deal with him and his lawyers.
And I couldn't afford a lawyer at that point.
So I just represented myself andeveryone around me was kind of
like, why is this happening? Like, why doesn't your ex just
do what the right thing is for your kids?
Like, why is he withholding money from their college?
Why doesn't a judge just do the right thing?
(04:34):
You know, this is the legal system.
And nobody could believe, especially me, that I just
continued to deal with someone who didn't comply with something
that he agreed to. And courts that just kept
saying, well, we'll give it another chance or let's try
this, Let's try this. Finally, justice and karma were
served beautifully. And and then my ex had appealed
(04:57):
4 times. So we went to a higher court.
And again, like I represented myself because I didn't want to
spend $20,000 on a lawyer to talk for 20 minutes about
something that I knew better than anything else.
And the case was so notable thatit got published in the
Connecticut Law Journal, which means it became case law for the
state, which I always say is this huge honor for any
(05:17):
attorney. And I've been told that that no
one has ever heard of a pro SE or self represented litigant
getting that kind of accolade. So I'm, I'm always say I'm
really proud of that. And so then years later now
Chris and I, my partner who's the male half have been there,
got out. We help men and women all over
the world dealing with situations like this where
(05:39):
basically their ex is using the legal system to wear them down
and bleed them dry financially, where they feel completely
isolated, that they're very successful in other areas of
their lives and they're beating themselves up for getting
involved with someone like this because they never expected it.
So yeah, that's essentially whatwhat we do.
(06:01):
I hope I answered the question. No, 100%.
I loved hearing that story because it's a, it's one of
those one of those things that you don't, you know, you, you
talk to other people that are divorced, right, all the time.
But rarely do you get into the nitty gritty, the intricate of
other people's stories and understanding kind of what they
went through, You know, being only here like $100,000 divorce,
(06:24):
right? You think, oh, that's, that's
not going to be me. That's not going to be me.
We'll be able to settle this. Symbolly Yep, that's.
The word, thank you. I had the syllable there, but
I'm like, what's the rest of it?But we'll be able to settle
this. Simply do what's best for the
kids. And I think that's the that's
the big part, right? Is that it?
(06:46):
You want when kids are involved,you want to do what's best for
the kids at the end, you really do.
But egos and emotions and hurt and pain can really get in the
way. And mental illness.
And addiction. Yeah, that too.
Those definitely make some, somebig warning signs there.
(07:07):
So what so kind of looking back now looking back on your that
relationship a little bit, what were some of the warning signs
that this was going to turn intosomething high conflict?
So I never imagined, I didn't know what high conflict was.
I didn't know what narcissism was.
I didn't understand, you know, that wasn't part of my world.
(07:28):
Because like I said, I never imagined getting a divorce.
The first time that I ever heardthat anything was wrong was
during the consult with a divorce attorney who said yours
is going to be bad. And I thought, what do you like?
How could a lawyer know that within 20 minutes?
Because in my head, I thought myex was this good person who had
just done some bad things. And I thought of, you know, at
(07:51):
that point we had both decided that we were going to proceed
with a divorce. So why wouldn't this just take a
couple months and a few $100 to get it done?
And later I interviewed my attorney before we put out our
book and he gave me several indicators of high conflict
divorce. And one of them is when somebody
is has an addiction or some kindof mental illness where but it's
(08:17):
let's talk about an addiction inparticular, when someone has
something that's more important to them than anything else, they
don't have proper judgment. And so the same thing with a
personality disorder. So they're not thinking in their
right mind, they're not thinkinglogically.
They're thinking more about short term and not long term
consequences. So they won't even do things
(08:38):
that benefit themselves because they're so consumed by whatever
is, you know, they need at that moment.
So that that can indicate a highconflict.
Divorce someone who's in recovery, totally different
story. But someone who has an active
addiction or personality disorder, you can't be logical
with. So that ends up delaying things.
Another thing is financial. So we see people all the time
(09:02):
hiding assets, hiding money, or thinking that what's mine is
mine and what's yours is mine too.
So those are a couple of indicators that were present in
my own relationship. Someone who's not logical.
Yeah, no, those two key things can be incredibly difficult
because I mean, going through the divorce process, you, you
(09:23):
can easily find yourself being incredibly selfish, right?
Wanting to take, you know, and make any like reprimands for
what you feel was wrong by the other person.
So if the other person is takingsome essentially they're not
taking anything from you. But if you feel like they're
taking quote UN quote, taking something from you, then you
(09:44):
want them to pay you back in some way, shape or form for
that. And that's, I think you're,
you're spot on there. It's, it's so true.
Then, you know, mental illness, personality disorder, someone
who doesn't think logically. I mean, divorces are pretty
black and white, especially now more than ever.
You go down to the courthouse, you get your your stack of
(10:04):
papers, you seal them out, turn them in, show up for your your
hearings and call home pretty much.
That's the fantasy for for us inour community, that's.
For real. No, that's.
The Dream. For real.
But it's like, right? That's like, it's a logical
process. It's a very logical process
(10:26):
because I mean, you're filling in the blank.
It doesn't take much, you know, But when someone's not thinking
logically, it's not thinking straight due to a personality
disorder, addiction, something underlying, then that could be
incredibly difficult for you in your situation.
Yeah, so let me get into like why people do things like that
and what it looks like. So like I said, a normal
(10:48):
separation or divorce, people are angry, they settle down,
they want to go on with their lives.
But post separation legal abuse,it happens because in these
different situations where thereis a personality disorder or an
addiction, instead of wanting togo on and move away and and go
on separately, it's the opposite.
(11:10):
That person wants to stay engaged with you as long as
possible because they require your attention.
So the divorce process, which issupposed to separate you, is
what they don't want. And so they do the opposite.
So instead of going down to the courthouse and filling out
papers, they'll be like, I'm not, I'm not doing anything like
you can't leave. This is not going to end.
And So what happens is during the divorce process, there's
(11:34):
something called discovery or disclosure, which is when
everyone shows what they have financially and then whoever,
whether it's a mediator or a judge, is going to split things.
They know what they have to split.
But someone who doesn't cooperate with the process,
which is what we see all the time, they don't want to supply
the information. And so it makes it impossible to
(11:55):
move forward with going on with your life.
And so it becomes extremely frustrating and expensive
because you want to try to work things out outside of court.
My ex used to show up to mediation with a blank legal
pad. He'd say instead of so I'd have
all my credit card statements, the tax returns, whatever.
He'd be like, oh, you already know what I have.
(12:15):
I didn't know what he had because I found out later, like
he'd been hiding all kinds of things for me.
Plus he had 14 rental propertiesthat he shared with his sister
that he always kind of kept separate.
He'd have things sent to a different address without
telling me and making it seem like there was this whole other
thing that that was like with his sister.
(12:36):
But in the tax returns that we were doing, I didn't realize
that I was signing things that included stuff with those
properties. So all kinds of nonsense with
money is part of post separationlegal abuse.
And if you're up against someonelike that, you're paying a
lawyer to file subpoenas to get that information when it could
be so much cheaper if they just showed up and like you said,
(12:57):
like at the court with the paperwork and it can just get
done. So that's something that makes
it really, really hard. And obviously, paying lawyers in
our country, in America is superexpensive.
Like I'm in New York, Connecticut, and lawyers tend to
be 600 to $1200 an hour. Think about all the time that it
takes for someone to go through records and to chase after
(13:20):
documents to prepare for trial, trial itself.
When you when you're in court, alot of times you're not in front
of the judge doing your thing. You're waiting around.
So it's just like we always say,they want to wear you down and
bleed you drive financially, so you just give up and give in.
And and that's what post separation legal abuse looks
(13:40):
like. Also, in our cases, people say
that they're going to change custody, so there's always this
threat hanging over their heads,like if you don't do what I
want, I'm going to take the kidsor I'm going to make it as
though you're an unfit parent. And so dealing with all kinds of
false allegations, whether that person is filing motions against
(14:01):
you or like in my case where I had to keep going back to court
to try to get an order in force,all of that is considered legal
abuse. It's also known as litigation
abuse, judicial terrorism or stalking through the court.
Because once you get out of thatphysical relationship, we always
say that is limited to three ways to still get at you.
Money, kids and the court. And money in the court go hand
(14:25):
in hand. And the kids are the thing that
they really get you with. And that's that's the topic of
the book that we're working on now, which is how to handle when
your ex is trying to turn the kids against you.
Because that's something that wesee.
It's almost baked into legal abuse.
It's like we're not in court. I'm going to be whispering
things into your kids ears so that they think that you're the
(14:45):
bad person. Yeah, yeah, that's unfortunate
to, you know, the legal abuse, the money they, they go hand in
hand, right. The courts, the money they go
hand in hand because at the end of the day, everyone wants to
get more and no one wants to, topay anything.
(15:05):
No one wants to pay up their their portion that they're being
told to pay up by the courts because it's fair, it's unfair.
It's, you know, it's damaging their image, you know,
especially to a narcissist or someone that's really going to
really going to tear them down because it's essentially telling
them that everything they've been doing is wrong when in
their world, everything that they do is right and perfect.
And so that really tears them down and destroys them,
(15:26):
especially because they think that they're they're in the
right all the time and they theydo nothing wrong.
And so that makes it really difficult.
Speaking of kids and whatnot, it's really easy to see a
manipulated situation right to where the kids are part of the
manipulation and where Co parenting becomes a battle in
(15:47):
itself. The time, the money, the effort,
the getting kids back and forth is very easy to manipulate the
system for kids, you know, make false allegations, all CPS calls
say, Oh yeah, look, red mark kind of thing.
I just picked them up and now look, they have red Marks and
things like that. Or they said they didn't eat for
three days or whatever kind of thing and just file all this BS
(16:09):
when it's easier. Just talk to the other person,
say hey, there's the kid dabricating this kind of thing,
but they're also incredibly impressionable.
Like very, very impressionable. So what if from what what you've
done, your work and whatnot? What's the best way to handle,
you know, the constant manipulation, the Co parenting
battles? That's a there's a huge
(16:31):
question. So people always get really
scared because often our clientsare, well, our clients are
always the ones who, you know, they're what we call the
protective parents. Like they love their kids.
They're worried about their kidsand their kids safety.
And so when they're dealing withsomeone who, you know, is the
other parent, but they've been the primary caretaker or they've
(16:54):
been closer to the child and then they have to share custody
and they start sensing that something is wrong with their
kids are coming back and saying dad said this about your mom
said this about you like this terrible thing.
And then they want to defend themselves and say that's but
that's not true. Like, why would you ever think
something like that? And it's it's like they see
their children start to get a little bit brainwashed against
(17:16):
them. That is absolutely terrifying.
Like nobody ever imagines that achild that they loved and raised
that they were close to would ever think bad things about
them. But when this this starts
happening by trying to defend yourself, it doesn't work
because kids, kids think that both parents love them and that
their parents are authority figures and both parents tell
(17:39):
them the truth. So when one parent says
something and the other parent says the opposite, they're like,
what? Who am I supposed to believe?
So really one of the best protections that you can do is
it's not a quick, easy thing, but it's establishing a close
relationship with your child so that when they start not, and
I'm not saying if, when they start hearing these messages
(18:01):
about you that you're unsafe, unloving and or unavailable.
They have their own reality where they're like, no, that's
not really true. Because mom or dad, like we've
spent time together, mom and dad, you know, mom or dad has
really like invested their attention in me.
And you know, when I go over to their house, they, they really
(18:23):
focus on me and do they play games with me together?
I can talk to them and I I know it's not true.
Helping a child develop criticalthinking skills and spending.
I always say like it's somethingcalled the 10 minute rule.
Like when you're with your child, even if you're not
divorced, if you want to have a really close relationship, try
to spend at least 10 minutes a day with that child, like
(18:45):
completely focused on something that they want to do.
I mean, not something ridiculous, but even if it's not
something that you want to do, like if they want to play a new
video game, get down on their level and say, hey, I see you're
doing that. Like can you show me how this
works? Can you teach me how to do
something? Like, that's the way that you
establish close relationships with your children so that when
this happens and the other parents start saying bad things
(19:08):
about you, the child doesn't just believe it because they're
like, no, I know that mom or daddoesn't like that because that's
not my experience with this person.
So that's like a good way to prevent it because a lot of kids
are told bad things about the other parent, but not every kid
falls prey to believing it. And it's, that's what, that's
(19:29):
what you need, right? You 100% need to spend that time
with your kids so that they don't believe it, right, So that
they aren't falling victim to, to the manipulation.
Because who knows their kids better than their parents,
right? And they know how to manipulate
them. They know how to get them to
think one way. And it's really easy to get our
kids, I think that way. And it's also really damaging to
(19:52):
them, right? Because yes, a lot of kids go
through divorce, but yet at the same time, kids still need both
their parents. You can't just break those
relationships off. And it's not fair to when a dad
goes from being involved 100% ofthe time to then being a weekend
warrior kind of thing and getting the weekends kind of
thing to where there's there's nothing that's showing that
(20:14):
that's necessary. There's nothing that's showing
that that's needed. This dad's very capable, has all
the things he needs. There should be no reason
whatsoever other than that. It's just another form, I think
of that, of that legal abuse to where it's like, well, I'm going
to take the kids from you. I'm going to keep the kids from
you. You're only going to get them
for this long. I'm going to file to keep them
more. You're not going to get them as
often kind of thing. And that's really tough.
(20:36):
That will destroy someone's psyche really quick, really
quickly. And and that's so common, so
common, what you've just described, we see that all the
time. And we interviewed a lawyer in
Colorado named Evan Fair. She used to be a sheriff and
then she was also a Child Protective Services worker.
(20:58):
And now she's an attorney. And she said that right now she
feels like is one of the most dangerous time for men and
stepfathers, for fathers and stepfathers because of false
allegations. And we see this all the time
because when someone makes an allegation, it takes time to be
investigated. And a lot of times judges or
people involved with the child, like an attorney for the child
(21:20):
or someone who's doing custody evaluation, they want to be on
the safe side. So when they do that
investigation, often you're not allowed to be near your kid.
And then it just turns into thislonger process where you end up
having to defend yourself against something that's not
true a lot of the time. And it's really terrifying for
(21:42):
for men in particular, We have had women clients who have been
accused of sexual abuse. One of our clients was in jail
for two years on false allegations of sexual abuse.
There's so, so much involved. It's not just the impact that it
has on how could my child be part of this kind of false
(22:03):
allegation, but how it affects you as a human being.
The smear campaigns, the fear about your job.
Sometimes people end up losing their licenses depending on what
their job is as this investigation is happening.
Because even though we say you're not innocent until proven
guilty, when certain types of allegations come out, people
already assume that it's true. And, and, you know, it's it's
(22:25):
really, really terrifying where a lot of men in particular can
get depressed and suicidal. Yeah, And a lot of men end up
losing their job and because they're just spending so much
time in court, they're being drugged through this process or
they just want to. Honestly, men just want to.
A lot of men just want to go home.
They just want to sign where they got to sign, pay what they
(22:46):
want to start paying and just bedone, do what they got to do to
just be done. And that's where the very
beginnings to just be done. And you mentioned, you know, the
kids and the false allegations and how detrimental this is.
And yes, we should believe people when when things happen
and it happens on both sides, right?
It happens to man, it happens towomen, but it disproportionately
(23:08):
happens to men. You know, I want to say the 8020
rule is applicable here, but it's more like a 9010, I think
in, in reality, whereas 90% men are affected by 10% women are
affected by it. But I could be totally wrong
with that. 8020 specifically theones that you mentioned, I think
there's other ones that, you know, that can be easily
flipped. There's other ones that could be
more 5050, but specifically the allegations that you mentioned,
(23:31):
you know, the abuse, the what's the word I'm thinking of here?
That particular kind of abuse isis generally men are accused of
it way more often than women. Yeah.
And so like you're saying here, you know, it's, it's one of
those things that you want to believe the people, you want to
(23:54):
believe the person saying it, but you also have to look at the
whole context, right? Like, is this mother just saying
that because they're going through a divorce all of a
sudden? Has this ever happened before?
Has there ever been any allegations of this ever before?
And you have to look at the whole picture.
And like, so a lot of people will just quickly jump to
assumptions and will believe theworst case, which isn't fair.
(24:14):
You know, there's a, you know, there's plenty of legal cases
that we see about how people arefalsely accused of sexual
misconduct, a sexual assault andall these ways, you know, the Me
too movement, you know, really charge that up and unless
something controversial will say, but I'm fine with it.
I'm saying it so you know, it. It's difficult.
(24:37):
It's sad to see because a lot ofdads will again, that's just
another way to defeat, defeat someone, right, to pull them
down and, you know, essentially ruin their lives.
And that's not what the process should be like.
It shouldn't be about ruining lives.
Your marriage didn't work out, plain and simple.
Maybe someone cheated, maybe someone did something bad, but
at the same time, those mistakesshouldn't carry into your kid
(24:59):
and the relationship that they have with the other parent
unless something specifically did happen to them.
But it's never OK for a kid to lose their parent to false
allegations, spend two years in prison like you mentioned.
But then coming out of that, howdo they get a job like, you
know, take care of themselves and do all the normal things?
Like their life isn't normal anymore after that.
(25:19):
And so it's going to be even harder for them to see their
kids. And why would you wish that on
any child? That's not not OK.
I know and it happens all the time because that those because
being a high conflict divorce strategist like these are the
cases that we deal with only allthe time and people whose lives
are, you know, often affected byfalse allegations, different
(25:43):
kinds of abuse allegations. So men are often accused, not
often, but in the situation, percentage wise, men are accused
of that type of abuse more than women.
But women are often targeted as being like an unfit mother.
And so people lie on both sides.Like legal abuse is 5050.
(26:03):
Like everyone lies in court. We've interviewed police
officers who say they spend their day talking to liars.
Like, most of the time when people are reporting stuff, it's
false. And that's why things have to be
investigated. But that always takes time.
And that's the part that can feel so unfair is when somebody
lies and then you have to wait for justice.
(26:24):
How do you live during that time?
How do you live knowing that that you've been lied about and
all of these unfair things are happening?
And that's why it's can sometimes become harder for
people in these situations because they're so angry that
when they are presenting to an evaluator or an officer of the
court who's trying to make a determination, that anger gets
(26:46):
in the way. And that's what people see
first. You know, we talk about
something called the seven 3855%rule.
And that's when you're communicating with someone,
they're only paying attention to7% of your words.
They're paying attention to 38% of your tone.
And Oh my gosh, what's what did I just say?
(27:08):
57% is your body language. It's, you know, a lot of it is,
is in your presentation. And if you are sending out like
fury and anger, even though it'sjustified, you're going to make
a bad impression. And that's why it's so important
for people to work with professionals who can help them
learn to present properly to experts and not just let their
(27:32):
emotions take over. But it's really, it's really,
really hard. Yeah, because those emotions are
what fueling you, right? That's essentially your fuel in
all this. You know, some of that fight to
keep going, especially when it gets like tougher and tougher,
those false allegations happen. You're trying to live with, you
know, someone that you. I think the hardest part here
(27:54):
that for anyone and where the emotions come from is you want
to think the absolute best of ofthis person, right?
That you were with, that you loved for many, many years
probably and had children with and started a whole life in
family with, right. But then to know that they're
lying about you and accusing youof stuff that you both know that
you never did, and all of a sudden they're the ones accusing
(28:17):
you of that. That's just, that's just harsh.
That's just hard, really hard because you're like, how could
you? Are you serious?
You know, like we were together for how long?
But you know that I would never that I'm not like that.
But that's not me at all. You know what?
That's not part of my character at all.
But then just this character assassination has these
(28:40):
narratives, right? That victimhood.
It's like, oh, I need to have everyone.
I need to be the victim. So everyone takes my sight on
this kind of thing and, you know, sees my side as I'm the
one that was hurt the most, right?
And everyone just wants to show that they were hurt the most,
that they had the most damages against them, that they're, you
know, they're hurting more. And so they need, you know, this
(29:03):
retribution financially or whatever it is, or I'm less well
off now kind of thing, you know,from, you know, what I see in my
experience, you know, working with their families and what not
from a different angle of all this is that, you know, not a
lot of people want to take the accountability or for their
part, they want to point the other finger outward or versus
(29:25):
pointing it inward to say, well,I didn't not no, not me, never,
not me. When that's false most of the
time because yes, 100% you, you,you cause part part to this.
You know, it takes 2 to tango, takes two people to get
divorced, but you know, there's a lot of accountability that has
to be taken. So are there any like mistakes
(29:46):
that are made in how people are talking to their ex step can
backfire in court? Oh yeah, so one of the biggest
mistakes that people do is in their Co parenting
communication. We call it popping off where
they lose their temper and they attack their ex and it's
documented. And I'm not just talking about
recordings because a lot of, I'malways thinking court, like a
(30:08):
lot of times courts don't like recordings except maybe for
certain domestic violence issues, which are separate from
custody issues unless it affectsthe child directly.
And that's a whole other topic. But a lot of people communicate
post separation in an app or in text or an e-mail and they'll
get really angry and then it's preserved in writing and that
(30:30):
makes it very difficult for themto appear like a healthy Co
parent. And so one of the things that
Chris and I do with people is teach strategic communication
where we say you are writing to your ex, but you are writing for
that invisible audience. You're under the courts
microscope all the time. And anything that you write,
just imagine reading it out loudin court because it could always
(30:52):
turn into an exhibit. And so it's important to
remember to restrain yourself, but to still get out what you
need to say, but not necessarilyto send it to your ex or to
pause before you send things. And one of the, the perks we
have for our clients is we call it the permission slip plan.
I used to be a high school English teacher.
So we use a lot of education metaphors.
But we'll say when you think youwant to say something like write
(31:15):
it down. And you know, we teach strategic
communication, write, write us adraft, send it to us first.
And we will proofread and edit it for you because we want you
to have clean hands and for the record to be clean.
And that way you don't have the burden of having to do it
yourself. And this keeps you from popping
off. And so this way, it forces
(31:36):
people to pause and then they have to wait, they have to wait
for us to answer. And we always do it, you know,
usually in less than a day. But by just taking the time to
like simmer down a little bit, it makes their communication
look a lot better. And also it's better for the ex
receiving it because it's thoughtful and, and it's
strategic. And one of the best exhibits
(31:56):
that you can ever give if when you're back in court is your
correspondence with your ex, that becomes part of the record.
So it's such an opportunity to present yourself as someone
who's just trying to work with that other person because in
terms of it takes 2 to tango. If you are like engaging with
your ex, which is what a lot of toxic ex's want, they don't care
about whether it's positive or negative attention.
(32:19):
They just want to have your attention.
So if they can fight, they'll want you to fight.
So we want to like rain you backin and say let's not look bad to
other people. And there's ways to do it.
And there's ways to also get your ex's voice out of your
head. One of the best ways is through
strategic communication. We actually just released a
course last month called How to Communicate with your ex without
(32:40):
destroying your case or losing your mind, since that seems to
be the way that the person stillterrorizes you through the kids,
through the communication about the kids.
So it's it's really, really important to learn how to
communicate strategically knowing that other people are
going to be looking at what you said and the impression that you
make to those people. Upset and I think that's that's
(33:05):
so important, right like they'relike your ex will always look
for every opportunity to tear you down during the process,
right and even after they alwayswant to have gotcha moment.
I'm like 5 going on six years post my divorce and whatnot.
And there's still like attempts to to do gotcha moment kind of
things like that start, start shit.
(33:25):
Like there was just something I want to say it's when the within
the last two weeks to where No, it was like last week.
So yeah, within the last two weeks to where My oldest
daughter has spring break this week and she's going to be with
me for spring break and, you know, recording this in April.
So if this comes out well after April, then here's some context.
(33:47):
So it's spring break this week and she has like multiple days
off. My oldest daughter wanted to
stay with her and I said no, shegoing to be over here and she's
going to do what I already planned for her.
You know, she's going to go to YMCA, she's going to go to her
break camp and do these things. She has a couple of day with her
friends planned already too and stuff like she's going to be
fine. I didn't tell her all that.
(34:07):
I'm like, no, the answer's no. She's coming here.
She's going to do what I alreadyplanned for and that's it.
And my actual course, you know, just saw an opportunity to say,
well, you're being really controlling because the guy's
kind of her tune. And so, you know, we're, we're
many years removed from all thisand this probably wasn't very
strategic. So just to make an example,
right, She's so she's still looking for those things and
(34:29):
those opportunities to to say something, to start something to
stoke the flames a little bit. And I just said, look, this
isn't a discussion that I'm going to have with you because I
already have a plan. So she's going to be with me.
And then she tried to bring upload all these things like,
you know, and just continue to stoke the flames saying that,
you know, well, legally if I'm home, doesn't she have to come
(34:49):
with come to me? I'm like, no, she has childcare.
So that's already set up like you're the last option and all
these things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, when she's called me controlling, it's like,
that's very controlling. And you're like, you need to
change your tune. You were saying the same thing
for five years. Now how about you find something
different? And then it was end of
conversation. After that she didn't respond
because she has no response whenshe was called out.
(35:10):
Right, right. So the thing we I always think
of is like, well, what's the access schedule like?
It's not about controlling or not, it's whose parenting time
is it. Exactly, that's my parenting
time. She's going to go where I tell
her to go. She's 7, right?
Like she's 7 and that's what I told her like she's 7.
She doesn't get to pick and choose where she goes every
single day and what she does, she's here.
(35:31):
She does what I say when she's with you.
She goes where you tell her to go and the.
Story right? Like if I believe you are her
parents, like each of you have your rights and you have your
responsibilities. Yeah, and so then she just, you
know, continue to try to manipulate like, well, no, she's
not going to have a fun spring break and she's going to be
stuck going there. Like she's going to have a
(35:51):
plenty of fun spring break. Trust me.
Anyways, do you actually need something or do you are you done
kind of thing? And then it's just in a
conversation after that. So, you know, there there are
finer tuned ways to do that. You know, like I said, it's five
years post everything. So it's, it's a little bit
easier to, you know, get away with that because I know she's
(36:11):
not going to do anything. Our situation is very different.
Like I know she's not going to go and do anything and whatnot.
So it's, it's one of those. But my advice is to always, you
know, keep it, keep it short, sweet, to the point and do your
absolute best. You know, it can be strategic,
yes, but also if you don't, there is an opportunity, there's
(36:33):
always opportunities to just notrespond.
So you don't always have to respond to everything.
You can't ignore the other person.
It's totally fine. Guess what?
Ignoring is just going to make them more mad because
essentially, if the other person's attacking you, at least
from my experience, from what I know, is that they're attacking
you because they want to engage you.
They want to get you to react. They want to get you to respond.
(36:55):
They want to get you to essentially pop off of them.
So they're antagonizing. They're antagonizing.
The more you ignore them, the more they're that's going to
cause them to in turn pop off because they they just can't
function without having that control over you and being able
to say and manipulate you to that point to where you pop off
and they get the satisfaction. Right, right.
(37:15):
And they say look at how abusiveyou are.
But we don't want that to happen.
No. And it's turned instantly back
on you and then you're like, wait, you were the one that was
antagonizing me kind of thing. And then attack a nation does
come through kids a lot of time too, because they'll tell the
kids to tell you something specific that'll set you off,
(37:35):
that'll get you to then engage them and then again get you to
look bad. And honestly, the kids need to
just, you know, stay out of it the most they can.
When you involve them or overly involve them and all this stuff,
it's it's really bad for them. It's really bad for them because
they're they're too young to understand all the intricacies
and what you're doing. They want to, of course, help
(37:58):
mom and dad. They want to, you know, they do
the things that you tell them because they they want to love
you. And now they're going in this
new situation and they're tryingto adjust and they want to love
everybody and they don't want topick side, but you're forcing
them to pick side and that's notfair to them.
Exactly. It's like kids should 100% be
left out of it. Here in the state of Washington,
on the court papers, it actuallysays that if there's anything
(38:19):
negative said that can be held that can be filed and against
the other person has the contempt of court.
Like if there's any of those things that are actively
happening with the kid being told to the kids that are like
found out about or whatnot, thatcan be that can hold the other
person as a contemporary court. Yeah.
So there's something called the non disparagement clause that's
(38:41):
pretty standard and a lot of separation or divorce agreements
that says that each parent is never supposed to badmouth or
etcetera, say bad things, give the child a bad impression of
that parent because it is so harmful.
The problem is it's hard to enforce that clause because it's
like, OK, they said this one thing about me.
Are you going to pay however much to go to court and have a
(39:02):
lawyer say it to a judge? And then what are you going to
ask the judge to do? Are you going to ask for the
person to pay your legal fees? Are you going to ask for more
custody time? Are you going to say that that
person needs to be on supervisedvisitation because they made
this one comment. So when you're going to build a
case like that, it's really important to understand what we
call the alienation factors, which relate to that or
(39:24):
disparagement clause actually, so that you can build a case
effectively based on those factors and figure out what
relief to ask the court for, like what consequences.
Because it it's hard to build one of those cases and you can't
usually do it on like a one or two time incident.
We always say it's about showingthrough strategic communication,
(39:45):
your ex's patterns of behavior over time and the direct impact
it has on your child and on yourrelationship with your child.
So we often say like one of the most important custody factors
or best interest factors is which parent is likely to
support the child's relationshipwith the other parent.
And that flip side is what we'vebeen talking about is one parent
(40:06):
attempting to undermine your relationship with your child
because it's recognized how unhealthy it is.
Like these are your, your kids primal attachments.
And if somebody is trying to sever one of those significant
attachments to a parent, that could affect the child's.
Attachment, you know, their relationships for the rest of
their lives that can create unhealthy attachment patterns.
(40:28):
So you don't want to let that happen.
But we always want to do what wecan outside of court because
courts, it's so it's so nuanced and it's so subtle that courts
often don't know what to do withit, except in extreme cases
where it's already the kids doesn't want to talk to you
anymore or is afraid of you and there's no justification.
So it's it's really complex. Yeah.
(40:50):
So are there any legal steps that someone can take if they
feel that their relationship is essentially being poisoned or
the alienation's happening? Yeah.
So I would say the most obvious one, and this is from
interviewing several attorneys, is when your ex starts violating
your parenting schedule. So let's say you had, like we
(41:11):
just talked about before, you have your access time with the
kids, your parenting time, your ex has their parenting time.
And then somehow it starts becoming, oh, the kid doesn't
want to see you. Oh, they have other activities
basically to make it as though your relationship isn't as
important. And then you start losing that
precious time with your kids, which is, you know, I don't even
need to say why it's so important.
(41:33):
That's a sign when when somebodystarts violating A parenting
plan, you want to go to court pretty quickly and tell a judge
to make sure to enforce it or toask for sanctions or whatever it
is, attorneys fees. But that's the first time.
Generally when they really starttrying to cut the child off, we
say they're blocking contact andcommunication.
(41:53):
That's very easy for the court to see.
The other stuff that can take a while longer, but always watch
for when your ex starts violating the parenting
schedule. OK.
OK. So kind of jumping into just
some like little advice questions here.
So you successfully represented yourself in scores of court
cases, right? So are there any?
(42:14):
Is there any specific advice that you would have or someone
considering going pro southeast?Yeah.
So with pro SE, it's hard. It's not something you just do.
And if you're in the middle of adivorce or an initial custody
situation, first of all, you always need a lawyer in the
background at the very least, because you want to make sure
that you follow proper procedure.
(42:35):
I mean, lawyers go to law school.
They, they know the insurance and outs of law.
We don't. So you need to make sure that
you follow proper procedures so that your case doesn't just get
thrown out on some kind of technicality.
And the second most important thing is it's better to do, you
know, to have a lawyer more involved for the initial divorce
or custody issue because once you get an agreement or some
(42:57):
kind of order, that's the basis of everything else.
And that makes it easier to go pro SE because then it's more
limited. But for the initial thing, I'd
always recommend having a lawyerhandle the bulk of that if you
can afford it. And the second thing is
emotional detachment. It's so hard because this case
is your life and you're up against, you know, if your ex
(43:19):
has a lawyer, they don't get this is just business to them.
And there's something called court demeanor and you need to
know how to behave yourself. And one thing in court is you
have to be as calm as possible and as objective as possible.
That could be so hard with theseemotional cases.
So if you still are really emotional it's not an A good
idea to go pro southeast. What are some of the mistakes
(43:40):
that you you made kind of looking back on everything that
could have hurt you and may hurtsomeone else going forward?
I use my attorney as a therapist.
That's why the pills went up so high.
Another thing that people waste tons of money on that that both
Chris and I did, that we have now saved our clients loads of
money on is using lawyers to communicate for you and using
(44:02):
lawyers to negotiate for you. How much money gets wasted in
back and forth negotiations where your ex is constantly
moving the goal posts? And that's why it's so important
to learn how to do more things yourself because lawyers are
generally not trained in communication and that's not
their job. I think people come in and make
the mistake that their lawyer istheir everything and that's,
(44:22):
that's just going to cost you loads of money and you're not
going to get the best service. So learning which resources to
use for specific things. We always talk about something
called taking strategic oversight, which is like running
your case like a business being like the lawyer stays in the
legal lane, the therapist stays in that lane.
You know, friends and family have their own lane.
And then Chris and I kind of fill the gaps between what
(44:44):
attorneys are on it trained to do and therapist don't
understand. Interesting.
OK, what? Someone can't afford a lawyer
for even any of the process, Youknow what's there?
Is there any like best option that they have available for
them? Yeah, so most courthouses have
(45:07):
something called a pro, say helpdesk or some kind of volunteer
lawyer program where you can go in and sometimes you sign up,
sometimes you could just walk inand usually lawyers will be
there and they'll give you like 20 to 45 minutes of legal
advice. They won't take on your case,
but they could at least, like help you figure out what angle
to do legally. There's always people at a
(45:28):
courthouse who could help you fill out forms.
So I would definitely start there.
There's also something called Legal Shield, which we recommend
to a lot of our clients who can't afford attorneys where
it's like I think it's $29.00 a month and they partner you with
a law firm that won't take on your case but can give basic
legal advice and you get up to 15 hours.
(45:50):
So for $29.00 for 15 hours of lot like before you get started,
I would definitely recommend spending the $30 and getting
like the basics. And then I guess just one, what
is one piece of advice that you would just offer to any parent
preparing to go to Family Core and go through this whole
process? Well, so we are in the world of
(46:14):
high conflict and nobody imagines that theirs could be
high conflict because at the beginning I said everyone is
angry. Anyone going through this needs
a team of support like you cannot do it yourself.
And this is one thing that we see with our clients who tend to
be like the sweetest, kindest, most successful, empathic,
creative, responsible people whohave been shouldering the world
(46:37):
themselves already being in one of these kinds of relationships.
They were targeted for their amazingness, and so they often
resist asking for help because they feel like, oh, I should be
able to do it myself. Like, look, I'm doing everything
else myself. This is not a time to go
independent. Like you need support because
that's going to affect everything moving forward with
your child. Like, the better, the better
(47:00):
support you have as a parent, the better you can parent your
child. Or your child's not going to be
worried about helping regulate you emotionally because they see
you upset. Having that support, it's going
to help you be as calm and get through this as smoothly as
possible because it's not going to be easy, but it'll make you a
better parent. And hopefully no will will not
(47:20):
make your child subject to intergenerational trauma.
Because if you're OK, your child's going to be OK.
I love that. All right.
Are you ready to jump into the dad zone with me?
Yes. All right, let's do it.
Proper transition failed it. So the dad zone is just some fun
(47:40):
lighthearted question. We had a very serious
conversation. I like to have a little fun here
at the end because as dads do, we have we're serious for a
little bit and then we have to have some fun.
We only can be serious for so long.
But that was seriously just a great conversation.
I think there's a lot of great Nuggets in there for people to
take away, especially going through these situations and to
really not feel as alone. So I absolutely love, love the
conversation we had today. So first question here in the
(48:02):
dad zone, does pineapple go on pizza?
Absolutely. Pineapple and ham.
Hawaiian pizza. Interesting.
OK, to each your own. That's OK.
You said this was still such a great conversation that I will
still air this episode even though you answered that
question. That's an ideal.
I'll still air it. That's OK.
Who are three people, dead or alive, that you would invite to
(48:25):
a dinner party? My God, All right, Judge Lynn
Toler, I love her. She used to be on divorce court.
She she's amazing. And let me think Saul Williams
is this slam poet who I always admired, and my partner Chris,
because he's super funny and makes everyone laugh.
I love it, I love it. And then what is your guilty
(48:45):
pleasure food? Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice
cream. Not the fake dairy stuff like
the real mint chocolate chip. I could sit there and eat like
an entire tub myself. That's what my dad used to do
when I was growing up. And I probably shouldn't, but I
could. I love it.
And then last question of the dads on here, what is one piece
of advice that you would offer to a young parent, 18 to 22
(49:08):
years old that's just starting out on their parenting journey?
I hope you get some sleep because the sleep deprivation is
the worst and sometimes it can take like 3 plus years, but
it'll it'll get better and and good for you that that you have
a child while you're still so young because it's going to take
so much energy and you can be a young parent. 100% yeah.
(49:30):
No, it I, I don't see anything wrong with being a young parent.
I mean, maybe I'm biased. I became a dad like 2122, so you
know, I spent all of my 20s. I mean that not really doing
anything else. So it keeps you grounded too.
Like for men, if if you do end up having a child in your early
20s, I don't think it's bad for you at all because it definitely
keeps you grounded. It keeps you sane, and it keeps
you focused on the right things versus the wrong things, say,
(49:54):
from. The energy you've got the energy
that you need to take care of babies because they exhausting.
A lot true. Well, Lisa, this has been
nothing less than an eye open conversation.
I learned a lot myself as well. And I know a lot of parents, dad
specifically listening, are going to feel more prepared and
more in control of the situationafter hearing this.
Or maybe they'll be parents who are like, oh, you know what?
(50:16):
I'm I'm in a red flag situation.I need to take some control of
this and I need to do something,talk to someone, something like
that. For those who need guidance,
coaching or legal strategies, they can connect with you.
Where or I guess where is the best place to connect with you?
So we are pretty active and engaged on social media.
Instagram is my home base. We're also on Tiktok, LinkedIn,
(50:39):
Facebook, etcetera. If you just look up been there,
got out like the on Instagram, it's at been there, got out with
little underscores. But our website
hasbeentheregotout.com. Our first book is been there,
got out. The one we're working on now has
also been there got out. It's just got a different
subtitle about, you know, how tohandle when your ex is turning
the kids against you. But we're we're everywhere.
We have a podcasts, we have a YouTube channel.
(51:01):
Just look up, been there, got out and we're super easy to
reach. And it's just Chris and I.
So we will always answer you ourselves.
Love it. That's amazing.
Well, Lisa, this has been great.Listeners, make sure you go and
check out been there gotout.com.I'm sure that's in all the
socials are connected to the website as well.
Perfect, perfect. So listeners, if you found this
episode helpful, please share itwith another parent, another dad
(51:23):
who might need this info today. And as always, subscribe, leave
a review and stay tuned for moregreat guests.
And until next time, keep showing up, keep fighting for
your kids, and of course, take care of yourself too.
And that's.
And welcome into the Undead podcast, whether you're outside
grilling, mowing the lawn, changing dirty diapers, or maybe
just maybe you got a moment to sit back, relax and listen to
your favorite podcast. Whatever you're doing, wherever
you're at, thanks for being hereand thanks for tuning in.
And of course, thanks for telling a friend.
I'm your host, Jay, and today's episode is one of the toughest
challenges that some dad's face navigating a high conflict
(00:32):
divorce with Co parenting with atoxic ex.
If you've been there, you know, if you know, you know.
And so it's one of those topics that not everyone, I hope, I
pray and hope that no, not everybody has to go through.
But if you do, thanks for being here and thanks for listening.
Thanks for tuning in. I hope you find some solace in
this episode that we're about toget into.
So if he's ever felt like the legal system is stacked against
(00:54):
you or that you're losing control over your relationship
with your kids, well, this conversation is for you.
I'm joined by Lisa, the Co founder of Ben Ben there Godel,
a high conflict divorce strategist and certified
domestic violence advocate. After going through a brutal
legal battle herself, Lisa represented herself in court and
won a case that is not being used as legal precedent.
He's also played a key role in passing Jennifer's Law, which
(01:16):
expands the legal definition of domestic violence to include
coercive control. She and her partner Chris help
parents in custody battles, Co parenting nightmares and legal
abuse situations. Her both Been there, got out
toxic relationships, high conflict, divorce and how to
stay sane under insane circumstances is a must read for
anyone dealing with a difficult act.
So make sure you grab your juicebox, grab a snack and let's jump
(01:37):
into the conversation. Lisa, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me,Jay of.
Course, thanks for being here. I'm really excited.
So many parents, especially dads, go into a divorce or
custody battle completely unprepared for high conflict,
for how high conflict they can be.
So I guess kind of to start out here, share a little bit of your
(01:58):
story and what led to the books and kind of everything that
you're doing now and whatnot. OK, that's a huge question, but
I'll try. So I was, I was with my ex since
since I was pretty young, nearlyhalf my life, about 20 years and
the and never imagined that I would get divorced.
(02:18):
We didn't fight that much. Of course, looking back, there's
always some red flags that were like, how could you have not
seen it? But everyone seems to feel that
way. We have two kids together.
And then at some point I starteddiscovering that he had been
living a double life for the entire relationship and took a
long time to figure out what to do about two years to to finally
(02:41):
exit the relationship. And one of the things that he
kept saying was if you divorce me, you're going to ruin our
kids lives. So in my head, I had this idea
that if I broke up this intact family, my kids lives would be
destroyed. But at some point I real and you
know, lots of therapy, realized that it was probably better to
go than to stay and that the kids would somehow be OK.
(03:04):
And so I started the divorce process and quickly learned that
mine was not what's called a normal divorce, which is when
people, you know, everyone's angry at the beginning and then
they kind of settled down and realize that the bills are
really high and let's kind of goon with our lives and be the
best Co parents we can be with our kids.
So that's not what happened. The divorce itself took a year
(03:29):
and $100,000 that I had to borrow that I'm going to be
paying back forever. And then it was about a total of
10 years in the legal system because during that first year,
my lawyer said your ex is not going to comply with your
agreement even though he, no judge ordered us to do what we
decided, but be ready for it. And so you're going to have to
(03:51):
go back to court and you can't afford me anymore because your
ex is going to continue to use the legal system to financially
decimate you. So about a year and a half ish,
I went back to court because of course my ex was not following
the agreement, but I was kind ofready for that, never expecting
seven more years of and about 100 court appearances in two
(04:12):
states of having to deal with him and his lawyers.
And I couldn't afford a lawyer at that point.
So I just represented myself andeveryone around me was kind of
like, why is this happening? Like, why doesn't your ex just
do what the right thing is for your kids?
Like, why is he withholding money from their college?
Why doesn't a judge just do the right thing?
(04:34):
You know, this is the legal system.
And nobody could believe, especially me, that I just
continued to deal with someone who didn't comply with something
that he agreed to. And courts that just kept
saying, well, we'll give it another chance or let's try
this, Let's try this. Finally, justice and karma were
served beautifully. And and then my ex had appealed
(04:57):
4 times. So we went to a higher court.
And again, like I represented myself because I didn't want to
spend $20,000 on a lawyer to talk for 20 minutes about
something that I knew better than anything else.
And the case was so notable thatit got published in the
Connecticut Law Journal, which means it became case law for the
state, which I always say is this huge honor for any
(05:17):
attorney. And I've been told that that no
one has ever heard of a pro SE or self represented litigant
getting that kind of accolade. So I'm, I'm always say I'm
really proud of that. And so then years later now
Chris and I, my partner who's the male half have been there,
got out. We help men and women all over
the world dealing with situations like this where
(05:39):
basically their ex is using the legal system to wear them down
and bleed them dry financially, where they feel completely
isolated, that they're very successful in other areas of
their lives and they're beating themselves up for getting
involved with someone like this because they never expected it.
So yeah, that's essentially whatwhat we do.
(06:01):
I hope I answered the question. No, 100%.
I loved hearing that story because it's a, it's one of
those one of those things that you don't, you know, you, you
talk to other people that are divorced, right, all the time.
But rarely do you get into the nitty gritty, the intricate of
other people's stories and understanding kind of what they
went through, You know, being only here like $100,000 divorce,
(06:24):
right? You think, oh, that's, that's
not going to be me. That's not going to be me.
We'll be able to settle this. Symbolly Yep, that's.
The word, thank you. I had the syllable there, but
I'm like, what's the rest of it?But we'll be able to settle
this. Simply do what's best for the
kids. And I think that's the that's
the big part, right? Is that it?
(06:46):
You want when kids are involved,you want to do what's best for
the kids at the end, you really do.
But egos and emotions and hurt and pain can really get in the
way. And mental illness.
And addiction. Yeah, that too.
Those definitely make some, somebig warning signs there.
(07:07):
So what so kind of looking back now looking back on your that
relationship a little bit, what were some of the warning signs
that this was going to turn intosomething high conflict?
So I never imagined, I didn't know what high conflict was.
I didn't know what narcissism was.
I didn't understand, you know, that wasn't part of my world.
(07:28):
Because like I said, I never imagined getting a divorce.
The first time that I ever heardthat anything was wrong was
during the consult with a divorce attorney who said yours
is going to be bad. And I thought, what do you like?
How could a lawyer know that within 20 minutes?
Because in my head, I thought myex was this good person who had
just done some bad things. And I thought of, you know, at
(07:51):
that point we had both decided that we were going to proceed
with a divorce. So why wouldn't this just take a
couple months and a few $100 to get it done?
And later I interviewed my attorney before we put out our
book and he gave me several indicators of high conflict
divorce. And one of them is when somebody
is has an addiction or some kindof mental illness where but it's
(08:17):
let's talk about an addiction inparticular, when someone has
something that's more important to them than anything else, they
don't have proper judgment. And so the same thing with a
personality disorder. So they're not thinking in their
right mind, they're not thinkinglogically.
They're thinking more about short term and not long term
consequences. So they won't even do things
(08:38):
that benefit themselves because they're so consumed by whatever
is, you know, they need at that moment.
So that that can indicate a highconflict.
Divorce someone who's in recovery, totally different
story. But someone who has an active
addiction or personality disorder, you can't be logical
with. So that ends up delaying things.
Another thing is financial. So we see people all the time
(09:02):
hiding assets, hiding money, or thinking that what's mine is
mine and what's yours is mine too.
So those are a couple of indicators that were present in
my own relationship. Someone who's not logical.
Yeah, no, those two key things can be incredibly difficult
because I mean, going through the divorce process, you, you
(09:23):
can easily find yourself being incredibly selfish, right?
Wanting to take, you know, and make any like reprimands for
what you feel was wrong by the other person.
So if the other person is takingsome essentially they're not
taking anything from you. But if you feel like they're
taking quote UN quote, taking something from you, then you
(09:44):
want them to pay you back in some way, shape or form for
that. And that's, I think you're,
you're spot on there. It's, it's so true.
Then, you know, mental illness, personality disorder, someone
who doesn't think logically. I mean, divorces are pretty
black and white, especially now more than ever.
You go down to the courthouse, you get your your stack of
(10:04):
papers, you seal them out, turn them in, show up for your your
hearings and call home pretty much.
That's the fantasy for for us inour community, that's.
For real. No, that's.
The Dream. For real.
But it's like, right? That's like, it's a logical
process. It's a very logical process
(10:26):
because I mean, you're filling in the blank.
It doesn't take much, you know, But when someone's not thinking
logically, it's not thinking straight due to a personality
disorder, addiction, something underlying, then that could be
incredibly difficult for you in your situation.
Yeah, so let me get into like why people do things like that
and what it looks like. So like I said, a normal
(10:48):
separation or divorce, people are angry, they settle down,
they want to go on with their lives.
But post separation legal abuse,it happens because in these
different situations where thereis a personality disorder or an
addiction, instead of wanting togo on and move away and and go
on separately, it's the opposite.
(11:10):
That person wants to stay engaged with you as long as
possible because they require your attention.
So the divorce process, which issupposed to separate you, is
what they don't want. And so they do the opposite.
So instead of going down to the courthouse and filling out
papers, they'll be like, I'm not, I'm not doing anything like
you can't leave. This is not going to end.
And So what happens is during the divorce process, there's
(11:34):
something called discovery or disclosure, which is when
everyone shows what they have financially and then whoever,
whether it's a mediator or a judge, is going to split things.
They know what they have to split.
But someone who doesn't cooperate with the process,
which is what we see all the time, they don't want to supply
the information. And so it makes it impossible to
(11:55):
move forward with going on with your life.
And so it becomes extremely frustrating and expensive
because you want to try to work things out outside of court.
My ex used to show up to mediation with a blank legal
pad. He'd say instead of so I'd have
all my credit card statements, the tax returns, whatever.
He'd be like, oh, you already know what I have.
(12:15):
I didn't know what he had because I found out later, like
he'd been hiding all kinds of things for me.
Plus he had 14 rental propertiesthat he shared with his sister
that he always kind of kept separate.
He'd have things sent to a different address without
telling me and making it seem like there was this whole other
thing that that was like with his sister.
(12:36):
But in the tax returns that we were doing, I didn't realize
that I was signing things that included stuff with those
properties. So all kinds of nonsense with
money is part of post separationlegal abuse.
And if you're up against someonelike that, you're paying a
lawyer to file subpoenas to get that information when it could
be so much cheaper if they just showed up and like you said,
(12:57):
like at the court with the paperwork and it can just get
done. So that's something that makes
it really, really hard. And obviously, paying lawyers in
our country, in America is superexpensive.
Like I'm in New York, Connecticut, and lawyers tend to
be 600 to $1200 an hour. Think about all the time that it
takes for someone to go through records and to chase after
(13:20):
documents to prepare for trial, trial itself.
When you when you're in court, alot of times you're not in front
of the judge doing your thing. You're waiting around.
So it's just like we always say,they want to wear you down and
bleed you drive financially, so you just give up and give in.
And and that's what post separation legal abuse looks
(13:40):
like. Also, in our cases, people say
that they're going to change custody, so there's always this
threat hanging over their heads,like if you don't do what I
want, I'm going to take the kidsor I'm going to make it as
though you're an unfit parent. And so dealing with all kinds of
false allegations, whether that person is filing motions against
(14:01):
you or like in my case where I had to keep going back to court
to try to get an order in force,all of that is considered legal
abuse. It's also known as litigation
abuse, judicial terrorism or stalking through the court.
Because once you get out of thatphysical relationship, we always
say that is limited to three ways to still get at you.
Money, kids and the court. And money in the court go hand
(14:25):
in hand. And the kids are the thing that
they really get you with. And that's that's the topic of
the book that we're working on now, which is how to handle when
your ex is trying to turn the kids against you.
Because that's something that wesee.
It's almost baked into legal abuse.
It's like we're not in court. I'm going to be whispering
things into your kids ears so that they think that you're the
(14:45):
bad person. Yeah, yeah, that's unfortunate
to, you know, the legal abuse, the money they, they go hand in
hand, right. The courts, the money they go
hand in hand because at the end of the day, everyone wants to
get more and no one wants to, topay anything.
(15:05):
No one wants to pay up their their portion that they're being
told to pay up by the courts because it's fair, it's unfair.
It's, you know, it's damaging their image, you know,
especially to a narcissist or someone that's really going to
really going to tear them down because it's essentially telling
them that everything they've been doing is wrong when in
their world, everything that they do is right and perfect.
And so that really tears them down and destroys them,
(15:26):
especially because they think that they're they're in the
right all the time and they theydo nothing wrong.
And so that makes it really difficult.
Speaking of kids and whatnot, it's really easy to see a
manipulated situation right to where the kids are part of the
manipulation and where Co parenting becomes a battle in
(15:47):
itself. The time, the money, the effort,
the getting kids back and forth is very easy to manipulate the
system for kids, you know, make false allegations, all CPS calls
say, Oh yeah, look, red mark kind of thing.
I just picked them up and now look, they have red Marks and
things like that. Or they said they didn't eat for
three days or whatever kind of thing and just file all this BS
(16:09):
when it's easier. Just talk to the other person,
say hey, there's the kid dabricating this kind of thing,
but they're also incredibly impressionable.
Like very, very impressionable. So what if from what what you've
done, your work and whatnot? What's the best way to handle,
you know, the constant manipulation, the Co parenting
battles? That's a there's a huge
(16:31):
question. So people always get really
scared because often our clientsare, well, our clients are
always the ones who, you know, they're what we call the
protective parents. Like they love their kids.
They're worried about their kidsand their kids safety.
And so when they're dealing withsomeone who, you know, is the
other parent, but they've been the primary caretaker or they've
(16:54):
been closer to the child and then they have to share custody
and they start sensing that something is wrong with their
kids are coming back and saying dad said this about your mom
said this about you like this terrible thing.
And then they want to defend themselves and say that's but
that's not true. Like, why would you ever think
something like that? And it's it's like they see
their children start to get a little bit brainwashed against
(17:16):
them. That is absolutely terrifying.
Like nobody ever imagines that achild that they loved and raised
that they were close to would ever think bad things about
them. But when this this starts
happening by trying to defend yourself, it doesn't work
because kids, kids think that both parents love them and that
their parents are authority figures and both parents tell
(17:39):
them the truth. So when one parent says
something and the other parent says the opposite, they're like,
what? Who am I supposed to believe?
So really one of the best protections that you can do is
it's not a quick, easy thing, but it's establishing a close
relationship with your child so that when they start not, and
I'm not saying if, when they start hearing these messages
(18:01):
about you that you're unsafe, unloving and or unavailable.
They have their own reality where they're like, no, that's
not really true. Because mom or dad, like we've
spent time together, mom and dad, you know, mom or dad has
really like invested their attention in me.
And you know, when I go over to their house, they, they really
(18:23):
focus on me and do they play games with me together?
I can talk to them and I I know it's not true.
Helping a child develop criticalthinking skills and spending.
I always say like it's somethingcalled the 10 minute rule.
Like when you're with your child, even if you're not
divorced, if you want to have a really close relationship, try
to spend at least 10 minutes a day with that child, like
(18:45):
completely focused on something that they want to do.
I mean, not something ridiculous, but even if it's not
something that you want to do, like if they want to play a new
video game, get down on their level and say, hey, I see you're
doing that. Like can you show me how this
works? Can you teach me how to do
something? Like, that's the way that you
establish close relationships with your children so that when
this happens and the other parents start saying bad things
(19:08):
about you, the child doesn't just believe it because they're
like, no, I know that mom or daddoesn't like that because that's
not my experience with this person.
So that's like a good way to prevent it because a lot of kids
are told bad things about the other parent, but not every kid
falls prey to believing it. And it's, that's what, that's
(19:29):
what you need, right? You 100% need to spend that time
with your kids so that they don't believe it, right, So that
they aren't falling victim to, to the manipulation.
Because who knows their kids better than their parents,
right? And they know how to manipulate
them. They know how to get them to
think one way. And it's really easy to get our
kids, I think that way. And it's also really damaging to
(19:52):
them, right? Because yes, a lot of kids go
through divorce, but yet at the same time, kids still need both
their parents. You can't just break those
relationships off. And it's not fair to when a dad
goes from being involved 100% ofthe time to then being a weekend
warrior kind of thing and getting the weekends kind of
thing to where there's there's nothing that's showing that
(20:14):
that's necessary. There's nothing that's showing
that that's needed. This dad's very capable, has all
the things he needs. There should be no reason
whatsoever other than that. It's just another form, I think
of that, of that legal abuse to where it's like, well, I'm going
to take the kids from you. I'm going to keep the kids from
you. You're only going to get them
for this long. I'm going to file to keep them
more. You're not going to get them as
often kind of thing. And that's really tough.
(20:36):
That will destroy someone's psyche really quick, really
quickly. And and that's so common, so
common, what you've just described, we see that all the
time. And we interviewed a lawyer in
Colorado named Evan Fair. She used to be a sheriff and
then she was also a Child Protective Services worker.
(20:58):
And now she's an attorney. And she said that right now she
feels like is one of the most dangerous time for men and
stepfathers, for fathers and stepfathers because of false
allegations. And we see this all the time
because when someone makes an allegation, it takes time to be
investigated. And a lot of times judges or
people involved with the child, like an attorney for the child
(21:20):
or someone who's doing custody evaluation, they want to be on
the safe side. So when they do that
investigation, often you're not allowed to be near your kid.
And then it just turns into thislonger process where you end up
having to defend yourself against something that's not
true a lot of the time. And it's really terrifying for
(21:42):
for men in particular, We have had women clients who have been
accused of sexual abuse. One of our clients was in jail
for two years on false allegations of sexual abuse.
There's so, so much involved. It's not just the impact that it
has on how could my child be part of this kind of false
(22:03):
allegation, but how it affects you as a human being.
The smear campaigns, the fear about your job.
Sometimes people end up losing their licenses depending on what
their job is as this investigation is happening.
Because even though we say you're not innocent until proven
guilty, when certain types of allegations come out, people
already assume that it's true. And, and, you know, it's it's
(22:25):
really, really terrifying where a lot of men in particular can
get depressed and suicidal. Yeah, And a lot of men end up
losing their job and because they're just spending so much
time in court, they're being drugged through this process or
they just want to. Honestly, men just want to.
A lot of men just want to go home.
They just want to sign where they got to sign, pay what they
(22:46):
want to start paying and just bedone, do what they got to do to
just be done. And that's where the very
beginnings to just be done. And you mentioned, you know, the
kids and the false allegations and how detrimental this is.
And yes, we should believe people when when things happen
and it happens on both sides, right?
It happens to man, it happens towomen, but it disproportionately
(23:08):
happens to men. You know, I want to say the 8020
rule is applicable here, but it's more like a 9010, I think
in, in reality, whereas 90% men are affected by 10% women are
affected by it. But I could be totally wrong
with that. 8020 specifically theones that you mentioned, I think
there's other ones that, you know, that can be easily
flipped. There's other ones that could be
more 5050, but specifically the allegations that you mentioned,
(23:31):
you know, the abuse, the what's the word I'm thinking of here?
That particular kind of abuse isis generally men are accused of
it way more often than women. Yeah.
And so like you're saying here, you know, it's, it's one of
those things that you want to believe the people, you want to
(23:54):
believe the person saying it, but you also have to look at the
whole context, right? Like, is this mother just saying
that because they're going through a divorce all of a
sudden? Has this ever happened before?
Has there ever been any allegations of this ever before?
And you have to look at the whole picture.
And like, so a lot of people will just quickly jump to
assumptions and will believe theworst case, which isn't fair.
(24:14):
You know, there's a, you know, there's plenty of legal cases
that we see about how people arefalsely accused of sexual
misconduct, a sexual assault andall these ways, you know, the Me
too movement, you know, really charge that up and unless
something controversial will say, but I'm fine with it.
I'm saying it so you know, it. It's difficult.
(24:37):
It's sad to see because a lot ofdads will again, that's just
another way to defeat, defeat someone, right, to pull them
down and, you know, essentially ruin their lives.
And that's not what the process should be like.
It shouldn't be about ruining lives.
Your marriage didn't work out, plain and simple.
Maybe someone cheated, maybe someone did something bad, but
at the same time, those mistakesshouldn't carry into your kid
(24:59):
and the relationship that they have with the other parent
unless something specifically did happen to them.
But it's never OK for a kid to lose their parent to false
allegations, spend two years in prison like you mentioned.
But then coming out of that, howdo they get a job like, you
know, take care of themselves and do all the normal things?
Like their life isn't normal anymore after that.
(25:19):
And so it's going to be even harder for them to see their
kids. And why would you wish that on
any child? That's not not OK.
I know and it happens all the time because that those because
being a high conflict divorce strategist like these are the
cases that we deal with only allthe time and people whose lives
are, you know, often affected byfalse allegations, different
(25:43):
kinds of abuse allegations. So men are often accused, not
often, but in the situation, percentage wise, men are accused
of that type of abuse more than women.
But women are often targeted as being like an unfit mother.
And so people lie on both sides.Like legal abuse is 5050.
(26:03):
Like everyone lies in court. We've interviewed police
officers who say they spend their day talking to liars.
Like, most of the time when people are reporting stuff, it's
false. And that's why things have to be
investigated. But that always takes time.
And that's the part that can feel so unfair is when somebody
lies and then you have to wait for justice.
(26:24):
How do you live during that time?
How do you live knowing that that you've been lied about and
all of these unfair things are happening?
And that's why it's can sometimes become harder for
people in these situations because they're so angry that
when they are presenting to an evaluator or an officer of the
court who's trying to make a determination, that anger gets
(26:46):
in the way. And that's what people see
first. You know, we talk about
something called the seven 3855%rule.
And that's when you're communicating with someone,
they're only paying attention to7% of your words.
They're paying attention to 38% of your tone.
And Oh my gosh, what's what did I just say?
(27:08):
57% is your body language. It's, you know, a lot of it is,
is in your presentation. And if you are sending out like
fury and anger, even though it'sjustified, you're going to make
a bad impression. And that's why it's so important
for people to work with professionals who can help them
learn to present properly to experts and not just let their
(27:32):
emotions take over. But it's really, it's really,
really hard. Yeah, because those emotions are
what fueling you, right? That's essentially your fuel in
all this. You know, some of that fight to
keep going, especially when it gets like tougher and tougher,
those false allegations happen. You're trying to live with, you
know, someone that you. I think the hardest part here
(27:54):
that for anyone and where the emotions come from is you want
to think the absolute best of ofthis person, right?
That you were with, that you loved for many, many years
probably and had children with and started a whole life in
family with, right. But then to know that they're
lying about you and accusing youof stuff that you both know that
you never did, and all of a sudden they're the ones accusing
(28:17):
you of that. That's just, that's just harsh.
That's just hard, really hard because you're like, how could
you? Are you serious?
You know, like we were together for how long?
But you know that I would never that I'm not like that.
But that's not me at all. You know what?
That's not part of my character at all.
But then just this character assassination has these
(28:40):
narratives, right? That victimhood.
It's like, oh, I need to have everyone.
I need to be the victim. So everyone takes my sight on
this kind of thing and, you know, sees my side as I'm the
one that was hurt the most, right?
And everyone just wants to show that they were hurt the most,
that they had the most damages against them, that they're, you
know, they're hurting more. And so they need, you know, this
(29:03):
retribution financially or whatever it is, or I'm less well
off now kind of thing, you know,from, you know, what I see in my
experience, you know, working with their families and what not
from a different angle of all this is that, you know, not a
lot of people want to take the accountability or for their
part, they want to point the other finger outward or versus
(29:25):
pointing it inward to say, well,I didn't not no, not me, never,
not me. When that's false most of the
time because yes, 100% you, you,you cause part part to this.
You know, it takes 2 to tango, takes two people to get
divorced, but you know, there's a lot of accountability that has
to be taken. So are there any like mistakes
(29:46):
that are made in how people are talking to their ex step can
backfire in court? Oh yeah, so one of the biggest
mistakes that people do is in their Co parenting
communication. We call it popping off where
they lose their temper and they attack their ex and it's
documented. And I'm not just talking about
recordings because a lot of, I'malways thinking court, like a
(30:08):
lot of times courts don't like recordings except maybe for
certain domestic violence issues, which are separate from
custody issues unless it affectsthe child directly.
And that's a whole other topic. But a lot of people communicate
post separation in an app or in text or an e-mail and they'll
get really angry and then it's preserved in writing and that
(30:30):
makes it very difficult for themto appear like a healthy Co
parent. And so one of the things that
Chris and I do with people is teach strategic communication
where we say you are writing to your ex, but you are writing for
that invisible audience. You're under the courts
microscope all the time. And anything that you write,
just imagine reading it out loudin court because it could always
(30:52):
turn into an exhibit. And so it's important to
remember to restrain yourself, but to still get out what you
need to say, but not necessarilyto send it to your ex or to
pause before you send things. And one of the, the perks we
have for our clients is we call it the permission slip plan.
I used to be a high school English teacher.
So we use a lot of education metaphors.
But we'll say when you think youwant to say something like write
(31:15):
it down. And you know, we teach strategic
communication, write, write us adraft, send it to us first.
And we will proofread and edit it for you because we want you
to have clean hands and for the record to be clean.
And that way you don't have the burden of having to do it
yourself. And this keeps you from popping
off. And so this way, it forces
(31:36):
people to pause and then they have to wait, they have to wait
for us to answer. And we always do it, you know,
usually in less than a day. But by just taking the time to
like simmer down a little bit, it makes their communication
look a lot better. And also it's better for the ex
receiving it because it's thoughtful and, and it's
strategic. And one of the best exhibits
(31:56):
that you can ever give if when you're back in court is your
correspondence with your ex, that becomes part of the record.
So it's such an opportunity to present yourself as someone
who's just trying to work with that other person because in
terms of it takes 2 to tango. If you are like engaging with
your ex, which is what a lot of toxic ex's want, they don't care
about whether it's positive or negative attention.
(32:19):
They just want to have your attention.
So if they can fight, they'll want you to fight.
So we want to like rain you backin and say let's not look bad to
other people. And there's ways to do it.
And there's ways to also get your ex's voice out of your
head. One of the best ways is through
strategic communication. We actually just released a
course last month called How to Communicate with your ex without
(32:40):
destroying your case or losing your mind, since that seems to
be the way that the person stillterrorizes you through the kids,
through the communication about the kids.
So it's it's really, really important to learn how to
communicate strategically knowing that other people are
going to be looking at what you said and the impression that you
make to those people. Upset and I think that's that's
(33:05):
so important, right like they'relike your ex will always look
for every opportunity to tear you down during the process,
right and even after they alwayswant to have gotcha moment.
I'm like 5 going on six years post my divorce and whatnot.
And there's still like attempts to to do gotcha moment kind of
things like that start, start shit.
(33:25):
Like there was just something I want to say it's when the within
the last two weeks to where No, it was like last week.
So yeah, within the last two weeks to where My oldest
daughter has spring break this week and she's going to be with
me for spring break and, you know, recording this in April.
So if this comes out well after April, then here's some context.
(33:47):
So it's spring break this week and she has like multiple days
off. My oldest daughter wanted to
stay with her and I said no, shegoing to be over here and she's
going to do what I already planned for her.
You know, she's going to go to YMCA, she's going to go to her
break camp and do these things. She has a couple of day with her
friends planned already too and stuff like she's going to be
fine. I didn't tell her all that.
(34:07):
I'm like, no, the answer's no. She's coming here.
She's going to do what I alreadyplanned for and that's it.
And my actual course, you know, just saw an opportunity to say,
well, you're being really controlling because the guy's
kind of her tune. And so, you know, we're, we're
many years removed from all thisand this probably wasn't very
strategic. So just to make an example,
right, She's so she's still looking for those things and
(34:29):
those opportunities to to say something, to start something to
stoke the flames a little bit. And I just said, look, this
isn't a discussion that I'm going to have with you because I
already have a plan. So she's going to be with me.
And then she tried to bring upload all these things like,
you know, and just continue to stoke the flames saying that,
you know, well, legally if I'm home, doesn't she have to come
(34:49):
with come to me? I'm like, no, she has childcare.
So that's already set up like you're the last option and all
these things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, when she's called me controlling, it's like,
that's very controlling. And you're like, you need to
change your tune. You were saying the same thing
for five years. Now how about you find something
different? And then it was end of
conversation. After that she didn't respond
because she has no response whenshe was called out.
(35:10):
Right, right. So the thing we I always think
of is like, well, what's the access schedule like?
It's not about controlling or not, it's whose parenting time
is it. Exactly, that's my parenting
time. She's going to go where I tell
her to go. She's 7, right?
Like she's 7 and that's what I told her like she's 7.
She doesn't get to pick and choose where she goes every
single day and what she does, she's here.
(35:31):
She does what I say when she's with you.
She goes where you tell her to go and the.
Story right? Like if I believe you are her
parents, like each of you have your rights and you have your
responsibilities. Yeah, and so then she just, you
know, continue to try to manipulate like, well, no, she's
not going to have a fun spring break and she's going to be
stuck going there. Like she's going to have a
(35:51):
plenty of fun spring break. Trust me.
Anyways, do you actually need something or do you are you done
kind of thing? And then it's just in a
conversation after that. So, you know, there there are
finer tuned ways to do that. You know, like I said, it's five
years post everything. So it's, it's a little bit
easier to, you know, get away with that because I know she's
(36:11):
not going to do anything. Our situation is very different.
Like I know she's not going to go and do anything and whatnot.
So it's, it's one of those. But my advice is to always, you
know, keep it, keep it short, sweet, to the point and do your
absolute best. You know, it can be strategic,
yes, but also if you don't, there is an opportunity, there's
(36:33):
always opportunities to just notrespond.
So you don't always have to respond to everything.
You can't ignore the other person.
It's totally fine. Guess what?
Ignoring is just going to make them more mad because
essentially, if the other person's attacking you, at least
from my experience, from what I know, is that they're attacking
you because they want to engage you.
They want to get you to react. They want to get you to respond.
(36:55):
They want to get you to essentially pop off of them.
So they're antagonizing. They're antagonizing.
The more you ignore them, the more they're that's going to
cause them to in turn pop off because they they just can't
function without having that control over you and being able
to say and manipulate you to that point to where you pop off
and they get the satisfaction. Right, right.
(37:15):
And they say look at how abusiveyou are.
But we don't want that to happen.
No. And it's turned instantly back
on you and then you're like, wait, you were the one that was
antagonizing me kind of thing. And then attack a nation does
come through kids a lot of time too, because they'll tell the
kids to tell you something specific that'll set you off,
(37:35):
that'll get you to then engage them and then again get you to
look bad. And honestly, the kids need to
just, you know, stay out of it the most they can.
When you involve them or overly involve them and all this stuff,
it's it's really bad for them. It's really bad for them because
they're they're too young to understand all the intricacies
and what you're doing. They want to, of course, help
(37:58):
mom and dad. They want to, you know, they do
the things that you tell them because they they want to love
you. And now they're going in this
new situation and they're tryingto adjust and they want to love
everybody and they don't want topick side, but you're forcing
them to pick side and that's notfair to them.
Exactly. It's like kids should 100% be
left out of it. Here in the state of Washington,
on the court papers, it actuallysays that if there's anything
(38:19):
negative said that can be held that can be filed and against
the other person has the contempt of court.
Like if there's any of those things that are actively
happening with the kid being told to the kids that are like
found out about or whatnot, thatcan be that can hold the other
person as a contemporary court. Yeah.
So there's something called the non disparagement clause that's
(38:41):
pretty standard and a lot of separation or divorce agreements
that says that each parent is never supposed to badmouth or
etcetera, say bad things, give the child a bad impression of
that parent because it is so harmful.
The problem is it's hard to enforce that clause because it's
like, OK, they said this one thing about me.
Are you going to pay however much to go to court and have a
(39:02):
lawyer say it to a judge? And then what are you going to
ask the judge to do? Are you going to ask for the
person to pay your legal fees? Are you going to ask for more
custody time? Are you going to say that that
person needs to be on supervisedvisitation because they made
this one comment. So when you're going to build a
case like that, it's really important to understand what we
call the alienation factors, which relate to that or
(39:24):
disparagement clause actually, so that you can build a case
effectively based on those factors and figure out what
relief to ask the court for, like what consequences.
Because it it's hard to build one of those cases and you can't
usually do it on like a one or two time incident.
We always say it's about showingthrough strategic communication,
(39:45):
your ex's patterns of behavior over time and the direct impact
it has on your child and on yourrelationship with your child.
So we often say like one of the most important custody factors
or best interest factors is which parent is likely to
support the child's relationshipwith the other parent.
And that flip side is what we'vebeen talking about is one parent
(40:06):
attempting to undermine your relationship with your child
because it's recognized how unhealthy it is.
Like these are your, your kids primal attachments.
And if somebody is trying to sever one of those significant
attachments to a parent, that could affect the child's.
Attachment, you know, their relationships for the rest of
their lives that can create unhealthy attachment patterns.
(40:28):
So you don't want to let that happen.
But we always want to do what wecan outside of court because
courts, it's so it's so nuanced and it's so subtle that courts
often don't know what to do withit, except in extreme cases
where it's already the kids doesn't want to talk to you
anymore or is afraid of you and there's no justification.
So it's it's really complex. Yeah.
(40:50):
So are there any legal steps that someone can take if they
feel that their relationship is essentially being poisoned or
the alienation's happening? Yeah.
So I would say the most obvious one, and this is from
interviewing several attorneys, is when your ex starts violating
your parenting schedule. So let's say you had, like we
(41:11):
just talked about before, you have your access time with the
kids, your parenting time, your ex has their parenting time.
And then somehow it starts becoming, oh, the kid doesn't
want to see you. Oh, they have other activities
basically to make it as though your relationship isn't as
important. And then you start losing that
precious time with your kids, which is, you know, I don't even
need to say why it's so important.
(41:33):
That's a sign when when somebodystarts violating A parenting
plan, you want to go to court pretty quickly and tell a judge
to make sure to enforce it or toask for sanctions or whatever it
is, attorneys fees. But that's the first time.
Generally when they really starttrying to cut the child off, we
say they're blocking contact andcommunication.
(41:53):
That's very easy for the court to see.
The other stuff that can take a while longer, but always watch
for when your ex starts violating the parenting
schedule. OK.
OK. So kind of jumping into just
some like little advice questions here.
So you successfully represented yourself in scores of court
cases, right? So are there any?
(42:14):
Is there any specific advice that you would have or someone
considering going pro southeast?Yeah.
So with pro SE, it's hard. It's not something you just do.
And if you're in the middle of adivorce or an initial custody
situation, first of all, you always need a lawyer in the
background at the very least, because you want to make sure
that you follow proper procedure.
(42:35):
I mean, lawyers go to law school.
They, they know the insurance and outs of law.
We don't. So you need to make sure that
you follow proper procedures so that your case doesn't just get
thrown out on some kind of technicality.
And the second most important thing is it's better to do, you
know, to have a lawyer more involved for the initial divorce
or custody issue because once you get an agreement or some
(42:57):
kind of order, that's the basis of everything else.
And that makes it easier to go pro SE because then it's more
limited. But for the initial thing, I'd
always recommend having a lawyerhandle the bulk of that if you
can afford it. And the second thing is
emotional detachment. It's so hard because this case
is your life and you're up against, you know, if your ex
(43:19):
has a lawyer, they don't get this is just business to them.
And there's something called court demeanor and you need to
know how to behave yourself. And one thing in court is you
have to be as calm as possible and as objective as possible.
That could be so hard with theseemotional cases.
So if you still are really emotional it's not an A good
idea to go pro southeast. What are some of the mistakes
(43:40):
that you you made kind of looking back on everything that
could have hurt you and may hurtsomeone else going forward?
I use my attorney as a therapist.
That's why the pills went up so high.
Another thing that people waste tons of money on that that both
Chris and I did, that we have now saved our clients loads of
money on is using lawyers to communicate for you and using
(44:02):
lawyers to negotiate for you. How much money gets wasted in
back and forth negotiations where your ex is constantly
moving the goal posts? And that's why it's so important
to learn how to do more things yourself because lawyers are
generally not trained in communication and that's not
their job. I think people come in and make
the mistake that their lawyer istheir everything and that's,
(44:22):
that's just going to cost you loads of money and you're not
going to get the best service. So learning which resources to
use for specific things. We always talk about something
called taking strategic oversight, which is like running
your case like a business being like the lawyer stays in the
legal lane, the therapist stays in that lane.
You know, friends and family have their own lane.
And then Chris and I kind of fill the gaps between what
(44:44):
attorneys are on it trained to do and therapist don't
understand. Interesting.
OK, what? Someone can't afford a lawyer
for even any of the process, Youknow what's there?
Is there any like best option that they have available for
them? Yeah, so most courthouses have
(45:07):
something called a pro, say helpdesk or some kind of volunteer
lawyer program where you can go in and sometimes you sign up,
sometimes you could just walk inand usually lawyers will be
there and they'll give you like 20 to 45 minutes of legal
advice. They won't take on your case,
but they could at least, like help you figure out what angle
to do legally. There's always people at a
(45:28):
courthouse who could help you fill out forms.
So I would definitely start there.
There's also something called Legal Shield, which we recommend
to a lot of our clients who can't afford attorneys where
it's like I think it's $29.00 a month and they partner you with
a law firm that won't take on your case but can give basic
legal advice and you get up to 15 hours.
(45:50):
So for $29.00 for 15 hours of lot like before you get started,
I would definitely recommend spending the $30 and getting
like the basics. And then I guess just one, what
is one piece of advice that you would just offer to any parent
preparing to go to Family Core and go through this whole
process? Well, so we are in the world of
(46:14):
high conflict and nobody imagines that theirs could be
high conflict because at the beginning I said everyone is
angry. Anyone going through this needs
a team of support like you cannot do it yourself.
And this is one thing that we see with our clients who tend to
be like the sweetest, kindest, most successful, empathic,
creative, responsible people whohave been shouldering the world
(46:37):
themselves already being in one of these kinds of relationships.
They were targeted for their amazingness, and so they often
resist asking for help because they feel like, oh, I should be
able to do it myself. Like, look, I'm doing everything
else myself. This is not a time to go
independent. Like you need support because
that's going to affect everything moving forward with
your child. Like, the better, the better
(47:00):
support you have as a parent, the better you can parent your
child. Or your child's not going to be
worried about helping regulate you emotionally because they see
you upset. Having that support, it's going
to help you be as calm and get through this as smoothly as
possible because it's not going to be easy, but it'll make you a
better parent. And hopefully no will will not
(47:20):
make your child subject to intergenerational trauma.
Because if you're OK, your child's going to be OK.
I love that. All right.
Are you ready to jump into the dad zone with me?
Yes. All right, let's do it.
Proper transition failed it. So the dad zone is just some fun
(47:40):
lighthearted question. We had a very serious
conversation. I like to have a little fun here
at the end because as dads do, we have we're serious for a
little bit and then we have to have some fun.
We only can be serious for so long.
But that was seriously just a great conversation.
I think there's a lot of great Nuggets in there for people to
take away, especially going through these situations and to
really not feel as alone. So I absolutely love, love the
conversation we had today. So first question here in the
(48:02):
dad zone, does pineapple go on pizza?
Absolutely. Pineapple and ham.
Hawaiian pizza. Interesting.
OK, to each your own. That's OK.
You said this was still such a great conversation that I will
still air this episode even though you answered that
question. That's an ideal.
I'll still air it. That's OK.
Who are three people, dead or alive, that you would invite to
(48:25):
a dinner party? My God, All right, Judge Lynn
Toler, I love her. She used to be on divorce court.
She she's amazing. And let me think Saul Williams
is this slam poet who I always admired, and my partner Chris,
because he's super funny and makes everyone laugh.
I love it, I love it. And then what is your guilty
(48:45):
pleasure food? Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice
cream. Not the fake dairy stuff like
the real mint chocolate chip. I could sit there and eat like
an entire tub myself. That's what my dad used to do
when I was growing up. And I probably shouldn't, but I
could. I love it.
And then last question of the dads on here, what is one piece
of advice that you would offer to a young parent, 18 to 22
(49:08):
years old that's just starting out on their parenting journey?
I hope you get some sleep because the sleep deprivation is
the worst and sometimes it can take like 3 plus years, but
it'll it'll get better and and good for you that that you have
a child while you're still so young because it's going to take
so much energy and you can be a young parent. 100% yeah.
(49:30):
No, it I, I don't see anything wrong with being a young parent.
I mean, maybe I'm biased. I became a dad like 2122, so you
know, I spent all of my 20s. I mean that not really doing
anything else. So it keeps you grounded too.
Like for men, if if you do end up having a child in your early
20s, I don't think it's bad for you at all because it definitely
keeps you grounded. It keeps you sane, and it keeps
you focused on the right things versus the wrong things, say,
(49:54):
from. The energy you've got the energy
that you need to take care of babies because they exhausting.
A lot true. Well, Lisa, this has been
nothing less than an eye open conversation.
I learned a lot myself as well. And I know a lot of parents, dad
specifically listening, are going to feel more prepared and
more in control of the situationafter hearing this.
Or maybe they'll be parents who are like, oh, you know what?
(50:16):
I'm I'm in a red flag situation.I need to take some control of
this and I need to do something,talk to someone, something like
that. For those who need guidance,
coaching or legal strategies, they can connect with you.
Where or I guess where is the best place to connect with you?
So we are pretty active and engaged on social media.
Instagram is my home base. We're also on Tiktok, LinkedIn,
(50:39):
Facebook, etcetera. If you just look up been there,
got out like the on Instagram, it's at been there, got out with
little underscores. But our website
hasbeentheregotout.com. Our first book is been there,
got out. The one we're working on now has
also been there got out. It's just got a different
subtitle about, you know, how tohandle when your ex is turning
the kids against you. But we're we're everywhere.
We have a podcasts, we have a YouTube channel.
(51:01):
Just look up, been there, got out and we're super easy to
reach. And it's just Chris and I.
So we will always answer you ourselves.
Love it. That's amazing.
Well, Lisa, this has been great.Listeners, make sure you go and
check out been there gotout.com.I'm sure that's in all the
socials are connected to the website as well.
Perfect, perfect. So listeners, if you found this
episode helpful, please share itwith another parent, another dad
(51:23):
who might need this info today. And as always, subscribe, leave
a review and stay tuned for moregreat guests.
And until next time, keep showing up, keep fighting for
your kids, and of course, take care of yourself too.
And that's.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.