LinksMy office phone rang at 6:25 p.m. on February 13th. I was just packing up my briefcase to leave for the night. I had planned to stop at the Hallmark store to pick up a card. When I picked up the phone, the voice on the other end sounded desperate.
“I was referred to you by my friend. You handled her divorce. She told me that you used to be a therapist before you were a lawyer. I really need your help in both of those ways, and I need it now. My ex-wife is crazy, but people don’t see it right away. She makes my life a living hell, and I can’t get her to stop. Now, her new husband is taking me to Court.”
In short order, I learned that the caller was the 45 year old father of two teenagers, a son who was 16 and a daughter who was 13. He had been divorced for almost 10 years, but he was still involved in daily harassment and constant threats of re-litigation of custody issues from his ex-spouse, Marla.
As Donald described it, Marla’s behavior and emotional stability had quickly changed within the first year of what ultimately was a 7 year marriage. What had been a sexy, exciting courtship, where Donald had been lauded by Marla as her “savior” had rapidly devolved into an emotional roller coaster for Donald. Marla seemed perpetually to be in an argument with someone – her family members, her revolving door of friends, her co-workers, the teachers at school. Donald described that Marla could become angry “at the drop of a hat.” Her moods quickly changed from sad, to angry, to elated, and back again, within a matter of hours. Marla was always accusing Donald of planning to abandon her. For Donald, who was a screenwriter, her enduring sarcasm and constant belittling of his writing and his ability to support their family were paralyzing. Most of all, whenever anything went wrong in their life, regardless of the circumstances, Donald was blamed for the problem.
Even after Donald gathered the strength to divorce Marla, her harassment and emotional abuse continued through a 3-year legal battle in which Marla falsely accused Donald of sexually abusing their son, falsely accused Donald of hiding assets, and ultimately wore Donald down through hearings and depositions to the point where he agreed to a less-than-favorable settlement as a way to end the litigation.
Donald had hoped that the divorce settlement, in which he continued to have custody of the two children approximately 40% of the time, would bring some relative peace to his life. Now, 10 years later, he had obtained little true relief, beside the ability to live in his own home and to dictate larger portions of his own life. His interactions with Marla left him defensive and feeling helpless. As his sole coping strategy, he had taught himself to simply “give in” to Marla’s demands. Nevertheless, the conflicts with Marla typically started with an unreasonable demand made by Marla, a logical refusal or explanation offered by Donald, then an unreasonable emotional response by Marla, to which Donald reacted defensively. When Marla would then change course and viciously criticize Donald’s defensiveness and his inability to handle the matter “rationally,” Donald would typically capitulate on the issue.
This time, Marla was demanding that Donald be required to communicate with her on a daily basis, by either e-mail, text messaging, or telephone call. Marla claimed that their teenaged children required daily “conferences” between their parents to avoid having them fall behind in school “and in life.” Marla had conscripted her new husband, who was a criminal law attorney, to represent her for free. Her new husband had given Donald notice of an “ex parte,” or emergency, hearing scheduled for the next day. The fact that the ex parte hearing was to occur on Valentine’s Day apparently had been overlooked by Marla and her new husband. Marla and her attorney/husband were asking the Court to dictate a communication schedule between the parents and to set up “penalties” in the event that the schedule was not maintained.
I took down some more history and information from Donald, and promised to meet him at the Courthouse the next morning at 8:30 am to handle the hearing.
The hearing was presided over by a new Judge, who had just completed a rotation in traffic court, and who had attended a one-week seminar on family law. I argued that daily communication was not necessary in most cases, and certainly not in the situation where two teenaged children were doing well handling themselves. I also argued that there were no specific “emergencies” that appeared to need immediate attention from either the parents or the Court. I attempted to give the Judge a flavor of the way that Marla had used continuing contacts and interactions in a negative and abusive way. But, the opposing side’s argument that “good co-parenting requires constant communication” apparently struck a chord with what the Judge had learned in family law boot camp. When the Judge indicated his tentative ruling to grant the requested relief, I again suggested to the Court that a form of “parallel parenting” where each parent handles matters that arise during their respective custodial time would be more appropriate for this particular case.
I have come to learn that sometimes I “win” cases that I should have “lost” and that sometimes “winning” arguments fail to convince the Court. This was one of the latter experiences. My client and his ex-wife were ordered to remain in “daily contact” with regard to the children, and my client was given a 4 hour window in which he was required to respond to any emails send by his ex-wife.
Regrouping after the hearing, Donald and I agreed that, for a short time, he would forward every email that he received from Marla to me, so that I could draft a sample “response” for him to consider using based on a draft response he would draft. In this way, Donald would hopefully learn a new and more effective way to deal with Marla. Likewise, I explained to Donald that the prior pattern where Marla denigrated him, refused to follow logic, became increasingly emotional in the communication, and then ultimately berated him for responding emotionally himself had to stop. I explained that, unlike the lottery, the only way to “win” with a person like Marla was to try to keep things as simple as possible, and not to try to convince her she was wrong using either logic or emotional arguments. Both would ultimately fail. Donald’s prior attorney had insisted that he respond to every email to make sure that there was a “record” of which, if any, of Marla’s allegations were “true.” However, I explained that Donald could not “play” Marla’s accusation and defense game and hope to feel good at the end. Instead, we would, together, look at each issue presented as a simple “yes” or “no” decision to be made, which would be communicated in a non-defensive and also non-explanatory manner.
Finally, I suggested to Donald that Marla’s efforts to keep him “involved” with her, and her choice of Valentine’s Day to go to Court were not accidents or coincidences, but were ways to keep him “close” even though they were divorced. Donald agreed to enter into individual therapy with a psychologist who had extensive experience in contested divorces, as well as a particular acuity with personality disorders. Donald, his therapist, and I signed the appropriate waivers so that his therapist and I could conference to make sure we were providing coordinate support for Donald.
On my end, for six months, I reviewed daily emails from Marla to Donald, and proposed simple responses. Donald and I would briefly confer on the responses. For example, one early interaction looked like this:
Marla: “[Our son] is going to need an SAT tutor because you have never taken the time to work with him on homework, and also because you are too easy on him and let him stay up late, so he doesn’t do as well in school as he could be doing.. I’ve talked to you about this several times previously, but you never get back to me. We are running out of time. If [our son] doesn’t get into a good college, it will be all your fault.”
Donald’s suggested response: “I already talked to [our son]. He’s not sure what he wants to do. He may not want to go straight to college. Maybe he’s not the A+ student that you want him to be. And, by the way, we haven’t talked about this before, I do spend time with [our son] on his homework, he doesn’t stay up too late at my house, and I’m not going to be blamed for everything.”
My suggested response: “O.K. I’ll talk to [our son].”
In this particular instance, the parties’ son wanted to have an SAT tutor, and asked his father if he could have the tutoring at his father’s home, because he felt he could concentrate better there. The final communication from Donald to Marla on this issue was: “Ben would like to have an SAT tutor. I’ve set it up. I’ll get you the invoices so you can reimburse me for your half.”
After a time, Donald’s suggested responses got more and more simple, avoided a revisiting or correction of the historical record, and also put more and more power over the decisions directly into his children’s hands. Soon, Donald’s suggested responses were almost identical to what I would have proposed. And, by not giving Marla anything to fulminate about, Donald had also managed to avoid being “taken to Court” by his ex-wife and her in-house, pro bono counsel. Likewise, when Donald refused to play the “mouse,” Marla became less and less interested in trying to play the “cat.” Her emails decreased in frequency to something close to one per week.
Donald, with some excellent therapy, also was able to separate his own view of himself and his abilities from the opinions of others, most significantly his ex-wife. He gradually became more confident in other social situations. Donald’s children enjoyed the active role in their own life decisions that their father offered them, and the children learned by observation that they, too, could sometimes avoid their mother’s emotional outbursts by “refusing to play the game.”
(names and identifying information have been changed)
Your primary goal is to protect your children while being as open and honest as you can.
If at all possible, both parents need to be present when telling the children about the divorce so they can reinforce firsthand that although they will no longer be married, they will always be parents and love their children. And, get your story straight so that you and your spouse do not contradict one another or argue while you are breaking the news of the divorce to your kids.
Choose a time when the conversation will not be rushed and both parents will be around afterward to answer any and all questions the children may have. It would be best to tell children about the divorce on a day they do not have to go to school, so they can process and deal with their feelings at home with one or both parents around.
Begin the conversation by telling your children how much you love them and that nothing will ever change that. Reassure your children that the divorce is not their fault. Don’t go into any gory details, but provide an age-appropriate explanation about the reasons for the divorce, which will go a long way in helping your kids deal with the news.
Your kids will want to know where they are going to live and with whom, and how their lives are going to change. You can help your children to be prepared for these changes by being honest about what you know, and what you don’t know.
As always, Good Luck.
--David.
When parents are willing to work cooperatively, and are diligent about tuning into their children's emotional needs, they help to promote their children's long term adjustment. And while it is impossible to eliminate stress from the situation, parents can certainly reduce the stresses associated with divorce so that their children can not just tolerate but also overcome them.
Here are 6 great ways to do this:
1. Reassure Your Child:
Children want to hear that everything is going to work out "alright." They need to hear that their parents have a plan, and that plan has things that are important to the child as part of it. More specifically, you need to reassure your child that their school, friends, play-dates, sports activities, and other favorite things to do will all remain the same. The only thing that will be different is that their parents will be living in two different homes, and they will spend part of each week with each parent.
2. Encourage Your Child to Talk:
The best way to encourage your child to talk is to show him or her empathy and respect when they do try to talk. The positive experience of being listened to and understood by parents is probably the single most important element in encouraging further talk. Giving your child the experience of receiving active and empathetic listening is even more important, ultimately, than providing a problem-solving experience. Make your child feel comfortable about coming to you with problems first; try to jump in and solve them a little later.
3. Accept Your Child's Feelings About the Divorce:
When you talk to your child about the divorce, or when your child brings up the subject in other arenas, be ready to recognize and accept any emotional state that may accompany the talk. It does not matter if your child is sad, or angry, or frustrated, or confused. If your child is feeling that way, then you, as the parent, need to acknowledge that feeling, validate that feeling, and then try to help your child modulate that feeling.
4. Show Your Child That You Have Feelings About the Divorce, Too:
By admitting to your child that sometimes you are afraid, or feel sad, or get angry, you validate their own feelings, and also show your child how successful modulation of your own emotions gets you through.
5. Maintain as Many Routines As Possible:
Routines mean stability to children. Stability means security. By maintaining the same weekday and weekend schedules, as much as possible, and as similarly as possible between your child's two homes will go a long way in making your child feel secure in his or her brand new world.
6. Support Your Child's Relationship With the Other Parent:
Let's face it, if you and your ex-spouse got along so well, you'd still be together. Nevertheless, if you and your ex-spouse can learn to get along, can remain friendly, and can avoid, altogether, any badmouthing of the other parent, your child's probably of not just surviving but thriving in a divorced family jumps considerably. Your child needs to hear and feel that you know that it is safe to be with the other parent. Your child needs to see that you are happy that he or she enjoys his or her time with the other parent. And, once you are successful, you will find you have new free time that you didn't have before when you can take a quick break from being a parent, and focus more on what you want your own future to look like.
Good luck.
--David.
On January 1, 2011, Family Code Section 217, which codified some of the Elkins Family Law Task Force's recommendations, took effect. Section 217 was designed, in part, to achieve efficiency and fairness in marital dissolution hearings, and to provide equal access to justice for all litigants, whether they are represented by counsel or are representing themselves.
The top five changes this new code section will bring to family law litigation are:
1. Obtaining interim orders will take longer and will be more expensive for family law litigants because the Court will not be able to handle as many cases each day due to the need to accept live testimony in many more cases.
2. However, because of the requirement that litigants provide "Notice" of the witnesses they intend to call, there is less change of "litigation by surprise."
3. Judges will still be permitted to reject the need for live testimony from non-parties.
4. As a result, I expect that most OSC and Motion pleadings will still contain detailed declarations from non-party witnesses (in the event that live testimony is rejected) as well as the required notice of proposed witnesses and offers of proof as to their expected testimony.
5. It will take several years for one or two cases to wind their way through the appellate process before we can really be sure as to how this new code section will be handled by the trial courts.
--David.
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