Navigating High Conflict Divorce and Co-Parenting Challenges with Lisa Johnson

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And one of the emotions that you didn't mention that I went through that I think most people go through at the end of a a marriage is grief. It's so complicated because even when the person has, you know, done terrible things, you have a life together and and you disrupt this person. And and it's not just grief that the marriage is ending, it's grief for that few those future dreams that you talked about. It's grief for your identity as a as a wife or a husband. Um you know, you feel like a failure. I I I was the own the first person in my family to get a divorce. My parents have been married for like 60 years at this point. Yeah, 61 years. Um, so I didn't have that in our in our family. You know, I didn't I and there was a lot of shame.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Welcome to the podcast ABCs of parenting adult children. Please join us as we discuss parenting adult children and the unique struggles that it comes along with.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Hello, and welcome to ABCs of parenting adult children. My name is James Moffitt, and I will be your host. Today we have Lisa Johnson joining us on this episode. Lisa, how are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Good. How are you, James?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I'm pretty good. So, Lisa, uh, do me a favor and introduce yourself to our listening audience.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Okay, so I'm Lisa Johnson. I say I'm the female half of In There Got Out, and my male partner and I are high conflict divorce strategists who help people going through the worst situations, difficult divorces, separations, custody battles, and co-parenting hell have the chance of the best outcome in family court and beyond. We support men and women all over the world. I personally was in the legal system for 10 years with my own case and represented myself for seven years and prevailed, and it took a long time, but justice was finally served. And my case is published in the Connecticut Law Journal. So now it's case law for the state. So my partner and I have a weekly legal abuse support group with people from, again, all over the world, and we basically strategize and we help parents in particular deal with issues during and post-divorce, like how are my kids going to be okay, especially if I have a difficult co-parent, and how do I co-parent with a very difficult ex. We always say we have the all this wisdom and knowledge and experience that we never wanted, but we love what we do. And again, we only deal with the very extreme cases.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I gotcha. Well, there's a lot to unpack there. I would think that there's probably a huge need for your expertise in this area. And I know that we have a lot of parents that listen. Well, I would like to say we have a lot of parents that listen to this podcast. I was maybe I should say we have some parents that listen to this podcast. And and of those people that are listening, I would imagine there's a certain subsection of people that have been through a divorce already and uh they're sharing custody of their children, or maybe they're going through a divorce, and that process is probably creating some stressors, not only in the parents' life, but in the life of the children. And so, you know, my my goal, uh envision, mission statement for this podcast, as well as our parenting support group, is I want parents to to have hope. I want parents to get the tools that they need to navigate their way through, God forbid, divorce in parenting, you know, being a single parent. Uh there's all different types of families out there, right? And uh so so that's why you're here, because I know that there are people that need to hear what you have to say.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Good. Well, I'm happy to be here and um we're all about hope and realizing that there's a lot of things that you do have control over, even when it feels like everything is helpless.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Right. So do you feel comfortable telling us a little bit about your your experience?

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Sure. Do you want me to talk about the divorce or what what in particular?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah, you can talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah. So I was um I was with my ex-husband for 20 years and thought he was like a best friend. Uh, of course, there's a couple of issues throughout the marriage asn't any, but then about 18 years into it, I realized that he had been living a double life basically since before we even got married. And after some long, hard thought and multiple attempts at counseling with a variety of counselors, I decided that it was really more painful to stay than to go, you know, especially after somebody breaks your trust over and over. I um have two kids, a boy and a girl. And at the time that we did separate, they were 14 and 11. And um I I really believed that it would be amicable. I thought that um my ex was a good person who had done some bad things. And I was afraid to get a divorce because I was I didn't want to ruin the intact family. And that was something that my ex used against me as well. He kept saying, if you you, you know, end this relationship, you're gonna ruin it for our children. They'll be damaged because of you, you know, it's your fault rather than taking any accountability for his behavior that led me to want to leave the relationship. So, but finally, after two years of the marriage kind of being over in my head and doing everything I could to try to keep it together, um, I made the decision and I talked to a lawyer, and the lawyer said, in 20 minutes in, he said, Yours is gonna be a really bad one. And I was astonished because my ex and I didn't really fight. I didn't think we fought that much, except you know, those couple of years. But um, he was right, and the divorce took a full year and a hundred thousand dollars, which I'm gonna be paying back for probably the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

And then um, I've been in the legal system a total of about 10 years and seven years. I I represented myself because the divorce just financially decimated me. And I had a wonderful attorney, but he said, You can't afford me and your ex isn't gonna comply with this agreement, so you have to be ready to go and do it yourself. And so I did. So I went through about a hundred court appearances in two states and uh yeah, learned a lot along the way. And of course, my ex didn't like any of the court orders because he kept kept losing. And so he appealed four times. And then I went to the appellate court and against the advice of people, you know, the retire judge who said this is very serious, Lisa, you might not want to represent yourself because you could lose. I said, No, I'm already, you know, out so much money and I've learned so much along the way. I'm gonna do it myself. So I did it. And um, not only did I win, but the case was so notable that it's published in the Connecticut Law Journal. So it's case law for the state, which is a huge honor for an attorney, and it's unheard of for a self-represented litigant like me, because I'm not an attorney. That was like a tremendous victory.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yeah. And um, and then I moved on to doing some advocacy. I I gave live testimony for something called Jennifer's Law, which passed and made my state of Connecticut the third in America to expand our legal definition of domestic violence to include something called coercive control, which is all that invisible abuse that people didn't used to take as seriously emotional, verbal, psychological stalking, legal abuse, revenge porn. All of that is now looked at in a much broader lens than just imminent threat of physical harm or physical abuse. And so now there's seven states. Massachusetts was just the seventh to pass coercive control laws. So that was very exciting as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

That was very educational. I didn't know anything about that.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

And I think it's important to to illuminate to the listening audience that you this is a decision that you didn't just make on the fly.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

And that you were you were in a relationship where your partner, husband, best friend had violated your trust on m multiple occasions. And and I'm sure there was a lot of love involved there. Why do we get married, right? Because we love one another and we we have we have dreams of living together forever, and you know, the white picket fence and raising kids and all this kind of stuff. And and uh so you went through probably stages, you know, of of you know, for there's probably a whole panorama of of emotions that you went through. You know, you went through you went through anger and and resentment and you know, trust was violated, and you went probably went through denial and you you did everything you could to keep the the marriage together and keep the relationship together for the sake of the children, right? Of course, for the sake of the children, right? Because we want our children to be raised in a wholesome, safe environment where they get the love and affirmation and all the things that kids desperately need from their parents, right? And so at some point you finally said, Well, enough is enough. You you rounded a corner at some point and went, I don't like what I see back there, and I don't see it getting any better, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:10

I felt like I tried so hard. I mean, we had been through multiple couples' counselors. There was one that had known my ex, she had been his therapist, which probably wasn't the best idea for us to go see her together after she had been his therapist. But she suggested it and she said, come to me for six. Like when I started discovering all you can imagine the things I started discovering, and every weekend it was worse and worse and more kept coming out. And so I was ready to go emotionally. And this therapist said, Well, why don't you see me for six six months? And that way you can realize you've done everything you can to keep the marriage intact. And then after six months, if you still want to go, then then go. But really think about it, you know, this is a long-term marriage. And so at the beginning of seeing the therapist, she had us come to an agreement. My my ex had been having one of many affairs. What this one was online with a much younger person who even I didn't even know, you know, if this person was real or what the deal is, because you know, over the internet, internationally, who who knows who you're actually talking to.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Completely believed it. And so the therapist said that, you know, if we were going to do couples counseling, that he had to commit, you know, he had to make a decision. He could continue his affair and end the marriage and let me go. And then, um, or he would commit to at least trying therapy. So he made the commitment to doing therapy, and we did it for six months, and then found out that he had never ended the affair. He had lied to the therapist, he had lied to me, he had set a bunch of rules in in place in terms of uh loyalty mattering more than anything, but it was really my loyalty, and he hadn't actually made the commitments that he said. So that was absolutely devastating. And one of the emotions that you didn't mention that I went through that I think most people go through at the end of a a marriage is grief. It's so complicated because even when the person has, you know, done terrible things, you have a life together and and you did love this person. And and it's not just grief that the marriage is ending, it's grief for that few those future dreams that you talked about. It's grief for your identity as a as a wife or a husband. You know, you feel like a failure was the o the first person in my family to get a divorce. My parents have been married for like 60 years at this point. Oh wow. Yeah, 61 years. So I didn't have that in our in our family. And there was a lot of shame associated with this. You know, you think I'm gonna keep trying and trying and trying, but after a while, when someone keeps breaking promises, not just in the past, but doesn't really commit to um to making things better, you say it can't just be one person, you know, who's trying.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

So I I did make the decision to go and and I'll rem I'll never forget the day. It was it was like I said, it was about two years after that the first uh thing that I had found out about the online, the the latest online affair. And my ex seemed very concerned about um his own happiness. It was always like, I need to be happy. And, you know, we'd have hours and weeks of of conversations about his happiness and what he thought was right and all of that. And and I just remember one day um he had done something again that broke my trust. And he said, I and I I looked down at him and I said, you know, I think I'm realizing that what you want is completely different from what I think is best for our family. You keep talking about your own happiness, and all I keep talking about is keeping this family intact and just doesn't seem like it's working. So that's it. Like we're done. We we're just not on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

So Yeah, he was being very, very selfish.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

And uh you're right. Grief, grief um is a hard thing, and and uh I mean 18 years, you know, I can I can't imagine. You know, my before w we started uh recording, I told you about my first uh disaster. And uh we were only married for, you know, I don't know, two years, two or three years maybe at the most. And uh I have a son, Jeremy, from that uh relationship, 38 years old, and uh he was he was probably the one good thing that came out of that relationship. And uh we were both super young. You were we were in our 20s, we were we were in lust and not in love. You know, we thought we were in love, but I think it was the other one. And uh we actually met in church. And uh we met in church and and um anyway, her parents were constantly in the middle of our business. And uh I remember the day that she told me that there was no man good enough for her daughter. And at at that point, I d I don't even think we were married yet. I think at that point alarm bells should have gone off in my head, and I should have went, hmm, this is not gonna turn out very good. And I think all couples hope and pray that both sides of the family are are going to be accepting and loving and compassionate and show empathy. Maybe that never happens. You know, maybe I'm too being too optimistic there, but I think there's always one side or the other, it's like, oh, you know, they're horrible people, you shouldn't marry them, or they got this big laundry list of stuff, you know, you know, this this is uh this is the the perfect idea of your mate, right? They have this in their head of who you should be marrying, and if they don't if that person doesn't meet their criteria of the perfect mate or the perfect husband or wife for their precious child, then you know, then it's all it's all over with, you know. It's like in a in it and in-laws can make or break a marriage, right? And but you're you're you're madly in love with the other person, and you're like, I can overcome all obstacles, right? You know, and that's that's that's young love talking there, you know, and I, you know, and and we we get married and we think, and we'll even see things in our spouse that we're fixing to marry, uh, our best friend or our lover or whatever you want to call them, and we think, oh yeah, well, they've they've got a slight drinking problem, or they like to smoke pot a little bit, or they'll have money issues or financial issues, or they'll have some kind of none of us are perfect, right? And we all have negatives in our, you know, all of us have problems. And because we're we're human, and we think, well, I'm gonna marry them, and once we get married because we love each other so much, I can fix them, right? And and we find out very quickly that you're not fixing anybody, you know, you're who you marry is for better or for worse, right? And you have to take the good with the bad. But in your case, trust was violated way too many times, and you know, probably I would say did the thing that you were supposed to do, you know, not only for the sanctity of your mental health and emotional well-being, but that for that of your children.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Right. You know, it's interesting what you were saying about in-laws. Mine was a was was a little bit different. So my my ex's mother had died before I had ever met him. So it was just his interesting relationship. But my own parents, my mother had very high standards. And I think before getting together with my husband, I well, I was very young when I got together with him. I was 23. But before that, I had been um, you know, I had been in college and I dated a lot of men children. So I was off with the artsy types, the musicians. And so then I had lived in Europe for a year. I was teaching English in uh post-communist Hungary during the Bosnian War. And so yeah, my my degree is in education. And so when I came back, I part of me thought, well, I gotta stop like dating these men children, even though I'm like in my early 20s, like I gotta get with like a guy that that like has a career and is can take care of himself and responsible. So when my met my ex-husband, he was seven years older. He was an IT guy, he owned real estate, he loved to read. So on paper, I was like, this guy, you know, like this, he's perfect for me. He's like a grown-up. And my mom coincidentally worked for his mother who wasn't alive anymore. She had started a real estate company in our town, and my mom had worked there. So my mom found out that I was dating this guy, this man. She was like really impressed. And I wonder if part of my choice to marry him, because I actually wasn't madly in love with him and I wasn't even attracted to him, but I thought, well, this is this is like the right thing to do. This is a mature relationship, like this is the kind of person that I could see a future with where I wouldn't be the the parent in the relationship. And it was a mistake because I didn't really um, you know, pay attention to a number of red flags. And in my head, I just thought, well, he's older and he's responsible. And especially You're looking for stability.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Exactly stability, maturity, right? Somebody that had a stable background that would could provide for you and the kids. The kids probably weren't even involved in not yet. But but you were looking, you're like you said, you weren't looking for a man child, somebody that you were gonna have to raise. And another thing is is that women mature so much faster than men. I don't know why, but your four your frontal cortex develops probably times the speed of light compared to ours.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

I think it's like two to four years. Two to four years back, you guys.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah. So so women are always, you know, uh even when you're 23, you're you're way more mature than a 24-year-old young man, right? And and uh so so yeah, that's what you were looking for. You were looking for stability and maturity and somebody that was stable and that could that you didn't have to you didn't that didn't have a bunch of mommy issues you were gonna have to deal with and all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yep, yeah. But it was a mistake. But it wasn't a mistake because like you said, you get your children out of it. Like I I adore my children. I can't imagine my life without my children.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

How are your children today?

SPEAKER_02 19:06

They're good. So my son is almost 25 and my daughter's twenty-one. And um my daughter's in college. My son works, you know, full time, he's like project manager, some kind of like technology thing. I never can yeah, it's very different from my career. So it's like technology or some kind of healthcare thing, you know, with computers. Yeah, but they're they're happy and they're they're doing well. My daughter's graduating. She spent some time so I have the travel bug. My children also inherited that. And so my daughter was in Australia last year. Oh, wow. Wow. She b she uh traveled through Asia and Izzy, my son had also traveled through Europe for a while. Yeah, I'm really glad that they were able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Well, it sounds like they've uh um transitioned in a positive way. And I and I know that I'm sure that as you were going through the heat of the battle, I'm sure that they were uh how do you think they were affected?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

You know, so when we decid when I decided to finally leave the relationship, that was my biggest fear. Like, how are my kids gonna be okay? Their lives are gonna be ruined. And I got them both we ended up with some great therapists. But those first two years was really scary because my ex didn't stay in the picture. He he kind of just left all of us. He moved in with his dad. He I remember very um clearly how when he moved out, he had a keychain and on it was a little tag to go to the YW the YMCA and a library card. And he had used to drive my son. They'd they'd go work out sometimes and they'd go to the library together, and he took it off and flung it on the table and said to my son, I guess I don't need these anymore. And it was just like, wow. And um, and he said to my daughter, you know, I'm moving out, I have to be happy, and he just left. So that's where he started setting the stage for abandonment issues, and that was a big part of kids' therapy. And then he basically exited their lives. And so, you know, a lot of people in my community or clients, they wish their ex would go away. I didn't want that. I wanted my kids to have their father in their life, but he just was busy doing his own things and didn't even consider our children when we started off the divorce and mediation. And uh one of the things you do is is come up with what's called a parenting plan, like basically a visitation schedule or custody access schedule.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

He was like, You keep them. I want to have like 50-50 on paper and all of that. And then he didn't he didn't visit at all. He I remember like reaching out and being like, When are you gonna take them? Like, like I needed a break. And he just he just wasn't really interested. The kids were angry for a while, tried to Yeah, but really he just just didn't he wasn't interested. And um one of the saddest things was when he came to pick up I had to kind of beg him to come take his stuff out of the house. Um, when he moved in with his dad, he didn't have a bedroom for the kid. There was no thought of like where the kids would stay with him, just nothing. So but when he came to pick up his stuff, I had left a pile of uh pictures, like photographs of the kids for him to take. And he left them there and he took this is gonna sound so crazy. He took two trays of canned tomato sauce and he left the pictures behind. What? Yep, yep. And then during mediation, I remember because we were trying to come to an agreement with, you know, not just the parenting plan, but we were trying with finances. I I brought him pictures of the kids. And when my my kids did see him at some point a few months later, they were looking in the trunk and they found the pictures of themselves crumpled up in the back of his car trunk.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Wow. That's sad.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Right. So this, you know, rem keep in mind my situation is extreme. Like, like the clients that I serve. This is not a normal divorce that, you know, I think I'm I was dealing with someone who had some mental health issues. And I don't think that normal people ever behave this way. And that's why I think my experience for a while felt so isolating because people were like, why would somebody do that? Like, how could someone behave like that? And that's, you know, that's the reality for for certain people, especially people in my community. It defies logic. Everybody imagines that parents love their children. Some people are not capable, some people don't have empathy. And um, and it's important to realize that because people in these situations like me feel even more alone when you try to talk to someone about it and they just are judgmental and being like, oh, it must be you.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Right. So you talked about red flags. Can you talk a little bit about the red flags and how they came up? And because I'm sure there are moms or dads out there that might have a fleeting glimpse of a red flag, but they're so in love or they're doing they're in they're in a position of, oh my God, I want to save this marriage, and I'm trying to do everything I can to hold it together for the kids. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah. And as you're asking me that, I'm thinking, should I talk about red flags in a relationship, like when you're first getting together, or red flags with the divorce? But now I'm thinking I could kind of blend them together. Let's say at the beginning of a relationship, one red flag is when you feel like it's love at first sight and there's all of this chemical attraction. That actually I learned later that when you when you feel such a strong pull towards someone, that that's actually a fear response. That's your adrenaline going. But in our our brains, we see it as this romantic thing, but it's really like danger. It's a danger signal because something is telling you this is this is familiar and it's scary. So be wary when you feel like an instant pull towards someone to try to slow down a little bit. And that kind of goes into the theme with my own relationship with my ex. Um, you know, we moved in pretty quickly. My um, my ex-husband, when we first started seeing each other, he um basically interviewed me as a candidate for a wife. He told me that he he had dated, he dated many, many women, but like not many were marriage material. And he basically made me feel like I was really special and different from the other women that he dated, which is fine. But then like moving in quickly was that like looking back, that was a red flag. Like we really should have gotten to know each other a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Moving in together. So that was that was a mistake. There's there's like cycles in toxic relationships in that first phase, it's called love bombing, where somebody makes you feel they put you on a pedestal. You're just so amazing and the most spectacular person. And then once you get together, you don't just keep getting to know each other. It's sort of it becomes like a devaluation phase. So after a while, they start seeing you that that you're a human being, you're not just like this fantasy person. And then they start picking at you, and and a lot of, you know, you see like nothing you can do is is right anymore. A lot of people tend to be very highly critical. And then at the end, the last part of it is a discard. But before I get to like a discard and a breakup of a relationship, I'm gonna think about some of the things that I interviewed my attorney about regarding how he knew that mine was gonna be really bad, like when I thought everything is fine. So talking to him a couple of years after the divorce was over, he said one of the indicators, and this is the same in a relationship, is when someone has an addiction or a mental illness, because some an active addiction, I'm not talking about someone in recovery, but when someone has an active addiction, they can be very selfish and they often aren't even thinking in terms of what's best for themselves because their judgment is impaired. So when you're dealing with someone like that in a relationship, and especially during a divorce, it's very hard to proceed with logic because they're so consumed by whatever it is that they need, like an addiction, that that comes first. And so you don't think about the long-term consequences of their choices, which make things really hard. And my ex certainly had some issues with that. The other thing that I should have paid more attention to was hiding assets or also known as financial abuse. Financial abuse covers a lot of things, but financial abuse is present in 99% of abusive relationships. So that's where the finance, there's so many things that could happen where you have to ask permission for money, you know, like you get an allowance where you don't have like transparent knowledge about what exactly is going on with the money. My ex owned a number of real estate properties, and he always told me that that was like separate and that was like his money, and that he and his sister did it. I didn't realize that he was doing all kinds of things with our joint tax returns, and I wasn't really paying attention to stuff that was happening with the money. I didn't check anything. And a lot of times things he would say didn't really make sense. Like he'd say, Oh, you know, we have all these properties, but they're not making money, and we have to take money out of our joint account and like fund these properties. And I kept thinking, well, why? Like, what why what why would you keep them if they're not making money? And it had for years, like that doesn't make sense. And he'd be like, Oh, you don't understand. And he used to have bills sent to a different address, like his sister's address. So I I was really left out of the loop. And then, of course, during the divorce, like a lot of stuff came out.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Oh my God, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Wow, like I don't even know what I had been signing. And so that's that's like a huge red flag. And I often say that that when you're with someone who's kind of like, what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too. That's also something to watch out for. But it's not that everybody has to have tons of knowledge about the money, because often in in a relationship, like one person is a little more responsible with money, but the other person shouldn't be obstructed from having. Yeah. So that's just a couple of things I'd say red flags to watch out for.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

That's good. Where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_03 28:44

There's so many directions we can go. I know that's what's all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, I'm sitting here and uh you know, one of the things you were talking about, but especially when it comes to money, and uh that also ties into trust is transparency. It's like I know of a lot of different people that they have separate checking accounts, separate saving accounts, they have their own credit cards. And in an in and of itself, that's not a bad thing as long as people are transparent about what's going on. My wife and I, everything goes into a joint account. She has access to it, she has full access to it, I have full access to it. Savings is the same way. Now I have credit cards that that are in my name that I'm responsible for, but I also use it for us, right? If we need to go get groceries or if we need to fix a flat tire or whatever and we don't have enough money in the checking account, then I'll pull out one of those credit cards and use it for what that purpose, for the emergency purpose it's there for. But there has to be for trust, for trust to flourish, there has to be transparency, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah, I mean you're describing a partnership. Right. Like a healthy partnership.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

That's not present in that was not present in my relationship and in many, many people's relationships.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Well, I'm I'm sorry that you had to go through that. However, I would probably say you're a lot smarter and a lot wiser and maybe even a lot happier on the other end of that nightmare.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, I met the love of my life after that, and we have a business together. He's the male half of been there and got out.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

There you go. That's wonderful. How long have y'all been married?

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Well, we haven't been married. We part of me is a little bit scared of marriage, but we've been together for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

I got you. Katie and I have been together for 34. We're working on 35.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Oh my gosh, congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

We've been we've been around the block a couple of times. So one of the things that you said, which really kind of tickled me, I interviewed Katie as well. We um we met in church. And we met at first Baptist Church, Katie Freeway in Houston, and that's where I met my first wife, right? So Katie met me at First Baptist Church, and I they had a divorce support recovery group that I was in, and uh they had a uh what did they call it? A Christian life center. First Baptist Church is huge. They have like 6,000 members, whatever. Uh and they have First Baptist Church is the largest, and Second Baptist Church was the second largest in Houston, Southern Baptist Convention was a denomination. It was always funny because everybody that that was looking to get married would go over to Second Baptist, because that's where all the that's where all the matchmaking happened, right? So anyway, I was I told I told Katie at that time because I was still in divorce support recovery, my emotions were very raw. I was so in love with my ex-wife, and you know, she hurt me more than any human on this planet has hurt me ever, right? I mean, even to today, 45 years later, you know, I still remember that. I mean I've gotten over a lot of that, obviously, but but so my son Jeremy, I told you about, uh, who's thir was 38, he was like, I don't know, four or five years old. And so they had a Christian Life Center and they had a they had a mash party, but they had events for singles, right? And so I was not looking for a relationship or anything. And Jeremy was with me. It was my weekend to have him, and so he was off on the, you know, we were we were playing volleyball, co ed volleyball in the gym, you know, life center. And I was playing volleyball, and Jeremy was over in the corner. Well, Katie came in and said, because she was single, she's like, Hey, do you mind if I hang out with Jeremy? And I'm like, sure, why not? You know, that'll leave that'll let me, you know, play volleyball and not have to pay too much attention to him. And to this day, she'll she reminds me that she thought I was a jerk. And uh I probably was a jerk. Yeah. I and I and I told her back then, I said, I said, you know, we were we became fast friends, and and I and uh I remember one Sunday, she was so in love, and I I was really fond of her at that point, but all I was looking for was friendship. I didn't want another marriage. I was still getting over this this this this nuclear holocaust that had just ran through my heart, right? And dealing with all the garbage that I had to deal with. My my parents tried to keep me from seeing my son, and so I had to get an attorney and to fight for my parental rights. That's a whole new story. Oh, yeah. Anyway, one one Sunday she we were sitting in some chairs behind the auditorium, and she told me that she loved me and blah, blah, blah. And I just told her, I said, look, I said, I just want to be friends. Oh, I made her cry. My God. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Oh, you you friend zoned her.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah, yeah, I friend zoned her. But I that's that's where I was at. I had no desire to get into a deep marital relationship with another woman ever, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:15

At least we were honest.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Yes. And um, well, little did I know, she managed to steal my heart and she hasn't given it back to me in 35 years.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

And did that happen from the friend zone moment?

SPEAKER_00 33:26

I don't know. I still don't know. Well, what's funny is is Baptists love to eat. You go to church 60 minutes, you're out the door, everybody scatters and goes to eat, right? And so I didn't realize this, but her and all her female friends were plotting on me. And it's like we would we would wind up at the same restaurant and there would be a seat next to her. They always left a seat open next to her for me to sit in. Uh-huh. I was so clueless. I had no idea. I'm like in the friend zone, we're having fun, we're friends, and the next thing you know, we're married, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:00

What what was the time frame between that?

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Probably six months or so. And I told my I told Katie, I said, at you know, at some point the relationship was getting more serious and more serious and more serious, and there was more physical attraction and you know, kissing and all this kind of stuff. And and I told her, I said, she says, I told her, I says, I'm not gonna get married unless I see a burning bush in the middle of I-10 outside of the church. It's gotta be a burning bush in the middle of I-10 at noontime, at noon. And uh, Jesus, I guess I saw the burn instead of a burning bush, I think it was an automobile accident that caught on fire or something. So anyway, at some point she stole my heart and I'm following around like a puppy dog, you know, going, Okay, I'm in love, let's get married. We're we're still married, you know. And uh marriage is a lot of work, it's a lot of commitment, it's a lot of communication, it's a lot of forgiveness, it's a lot of compassion, it's a lot of empathy. I could write a book on it anyway. And I can write a book. I'm a subject matter expert on how to destroy a marriage and how to not have, you know what I'm saying? My experience going through that divorce, I learned a lot, you know. And that was one of the reasons I didn't want to get into it again. I didn't want to, I didn't want to get into another relationship. And then her and her female friends stole my heart. I don't know what they did with it. One day, one day I woke up and I was like, I'm in love. Yeah, I know I can't. So anyway, I went down that rabbit hole for a reason, and I'm not sure what that reason was.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Maybe it was when you said, I'm sorry this happened, but I bet you're happier now.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Right, right. So, yeah, we've we we've both had failed relationships and have experienced the aftermath of those failed relationships, and we've both certainly learned a lot of hard lessons, and I would say your your situation was way worse than mine.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

No, you know what? I we o was something I always tell our clients is don't minimize because for you to to be 40 something years later and still remembering this as some someone who hurt you more than anyone, that's that's not little. It doesn't matter that you were only together a couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

It can cause devastation. And for me, when people say I'm sorry you went through it, I'm like, no, don't be sorry. Like, I'm glad I went through it. I'm really glad. I didn't wish it on myself. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Wow, did I learn so much along the way? I mean, through the marriage, but especially during the divorce and post post-judgment these past few years. And I feel like it gave me the best education in the trenches trenches. I'm uniquely qualified to do this niche career that people are like, wow, you know, I didn't know you existed. I wish you had found I had found you sooner. Like help like men and women all over the world who are dealing with the same thing, feeling all kinds of shame, feeling like they're the only ones, and then finding our community and and feeling like, oh my gosh, it's not just me. I I feel better. There's hope, there's things that I can do about it, and there's and um and learn to trust themselves again and to trust their judgment again.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Because that's what you think.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

As you go through life, we all have our struggles, we all have our addictions, we all have our ups and downs, and we deal with emotions and mental issues, and just I always tell people in on this podcast that relationships are complicated, right? They're very complicated. And it and when you they're complicated. They're relationships like for between parents and children are complicated, and then you know, people get together and fall in love and get married. Well, that relationship can be complicated. It's not it's not that it's not that relationships are impossible. It's not that you can't work it out, you that you can't work through the issues, just it takes a lot of it takes a lot of willingness to work and a lot of willingness to fight for for what you love and what's for and what's for what's right, right? And that's what you did, that's what you did with your kids.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

Right. But but in terms of relationship, I feel like it has to be like you were talking about, a partnership. It has to be two people trying, not just one. Because when it's just one, what do you have? And often there's nothing lonelier than being in a relationship with someone who either is abusive or negligent, and you just feel like, why am I even like what do I have?

SPEAKER_00 38:17

I I think relationships ebb and flow. I think there I think there are times that I'm stronger for Katie and that I'm there for her when she needs me to be there. And there's times I give more to the relationship than she does. And to be honest with you, probably there's probably more times that she gives more to the relationship than I do. You know, because she's a very loving, compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic, just loving person all the way around. Uh so I always say she got the short end of the stick and not me.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

I don't know. I think it depends on how she feels, and I've I have a feeling she's probably pretty happy with you too.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Okay. Hopefully so. Hey Katie. No, I'm just kidding. She's probably sleeping. So how can parents recognize high conflict warning signs early?

SPEAKER_02 39:03

Well, I mean, between like in the relationship or with the kids, or I'll I'll talk about a little bit because you said parents. So let's talk about a little bit with the kids. One of the things that we see all the time, unfortunately, in our community, is parents who weaponize children. If they sense that there's an ending, they'll start turning the kid against the other parent.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

So I think a parent that undermines another parent in front of a child is a big red flag. Uh, I think about when my son was really little, when I try to discipline him and I'd say, like, okay, you know, you did something wrong, like sit here and, you know, you're in a timeout or whatever it was. My ex would come in and say, Oh, Izzy, you don't have to listen to mom. She's just cranky. You could take it back. So you you don't have to listen and and I'll let you do something else, and you can make it up by doing some other thing. And I just felt I used to be a high school English teacher. I felt like really undermined. And I think it it made my son think that that well, it made him develop less empathy because he thought, oh, well, if I do something wrong, it doesn't really matter. I could just take it back. And, you know, it's been it's been hard for him sometimes because that that kind of uh parenting led him to be a little bit more, uh a little less sensitive than say my daughter in particular, because it was like teaching a child that that other people's feelings don't matter as much as yours. And uh to me that that was a big red flag. I I really didn't like that. My son's gotten a lot better, you know, being raised like that for quite a while from a father, from the male role model, I think did affect him.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

So to me Is that part is that uh part of parent alienation?

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Yeah. So with alienating a parent from from a child, it's like you kind of turn the child against the other parent. And often the messages that you send to the child about that other parent is that they're they're unsafe, they're unloving, or they're unavailable. And sometimes it'll be things that that other parent has mock your behavior, your clothing, your friends, your family, your taste, things that you like. So these little tiny messages often start while the relationship is still intact, because the other parent is trying to create what's called like a loyalty bond. And so they want the child to have to pick and choose because the child isn't allowed to love both of you. And that's like a whole other big, big issue. But definitely that's the kind of behavior that starts while someone's still in the relationship, and only when they look back, they're like, Yeah. I mean, I think back when my ex would say, Oh, mom's just cranky. I'm like, I'm not cranky, like just trying to, I'm trying to teach him something.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Like to to win favor with him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

What are I'm just going through some of these questions, what are effective strategies for co-parenting with a difficult ex-partner?

SPEAKER_02 41:49

All right. So oh my gosh. So this is a huge question. I don't think we have time to get into much detail, but one of the best ones is how you communicate effectively with that person. And so a lot of our clients get very uh triggered by the messages that they receive from their ex because they don't realize that you're an ex in our world, our clients' exes, including mine, they want nothing more than your attention, positive or negative. And so they'll communicate with us in ways that get us really upset and keep us like arguing and engaging. And so Chris and I teach something called strategic communication, which basically um it acknowledges that you are going to be writing to your ex, but you're really always writing for the invisible audience of, let's say, a judge, because our clients are always back in court, like a judge or a custody evaluator, an attorney for the child. And the goal is you want to present as the best co-parent ever, but at the same time, you want to start documenting your ex's behavior, the patterns of behavior and the impact that it has on your child as well as on your relationship with your child. So all of the engagement about like what do you do and why, like that we kind of push to the side. That's something that's been part of a power dynamic that existed in the relationship. And so we try to teach people how to detach, but still communicate about the children. And doing strategic communication helps turn the power dynamic around. And it also, for court stuff, turns hearsay into evidence and protects them from false claims of parental alienation because often the person who's when they don't get their way, they'll say, Oh, you're just turning the child against me. But that's like a huge topic. So actually, hopefully later in the next week or so, we're going to be releasing our first course on strategic communication. It's called How to Communicate with Your Ex Without Destroying Your Case or Losing Your Mind. Because that is the thing that drives people crazy is the communication stuff and learning how to do it properly. So they're not still, in some ways, like married to the person and it's harder than ever.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Right. There's a lot to that, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah. There is saying like We don't have time to get into deep things, but communication, learning proper communication is going to save you.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Yeah, communication is key, no doubt.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Yep. Yep. And it's counterintuitive sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Sure. How does this will be the last question? How does legal advocacy play a role in resolving high conflict divorce scenarios?

SPEAKER_02 44:20

So that's interesting, but legal advocacy. So I did, you know, legal advocacy and worked with Jennifer's law, but a lot of people in our community say, oh, I want to get involved. Like I want to change the laws for my state. But the thing to realize is that justice takes a very long time. That's why they say the wheels of justice grind, you know, turn so slowly. So when you are, when you're in the middle of a case like this, it's actually a trauma response to say, I want to work on advocacy, because it takes a lot of energy to deal with your own situation. So my partner Chris came up with a little slide of The Simpsons and it has people like shouting in a mob and it says, let so we say, let the others carry the torches and pitchforks for now. And you have to work on your own case. Like you need to win your case. This is your life, your family's life. Worry about advocacy later. But focus that energy that's it's so easy to get distracted because it's easier to deal with other people's situations than your own. But learning how to deal with your own case, that's you advocating for your family and your children. That's the most important thing. If when you get out of it, you want to be involved in this world of domestic violence and legal advocacy, fine, you probably won't when you're done. But advocate for your children and your family and do as well as you can with your own case.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Do you do you have any PDFs or or information that could be sent to uh our parents?

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Sure. I mean, I I hope they're not in the situation that um that I've described a little bit with with me, but we do have um something called our legal abuse prevention tips list. And I can send you the PDF. But what also might be helpful is so our first book came out in 2023. I'm gonna hold it up. It's called Not Out, Toxic Relationships, High Conflict, Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances. That's like a great way to sort of get a sense if if you're on the verge of separating or you feel like something is not right, right. Legal abuse tips, that's like farther down. That's more of like when you're in the throes of it or in the beginning of like some awful situation. But but this this book basically describes like the different so the difference between high conflict divorce and separation versus normal. So um when you in it and we get into like red flags, like we talked about, also how to choose the right attorney for a case like this, what questions to ask. We have a chapter on who's who at the zoo, like all the people that get involved in cases like that. So that also might be helpful, but I can definitely send the PDF with the legal abuse uh prevention tips.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Cool. Well, hopefully parenting of adult children, hopefully, I would hope that none of those parents are involved in something like that, right? But if they are, this would be a good resource, right? And your your your organization would be a great resource for them as well. And um so having said all of that, I want to thank you for being on the podcast episode, right? You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

It's been my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Yeah, and to the listening audience, I'd say thank you for the privilege of your time. You can watch the video, this video on Spotify. On Spotify, you can go to the about page uh for ABC's of Parenting Adult Children, and you can see our website that I created. And on the website, you'll see contact information. You can send me an email, you send me a voicemail, and I'll respond to that. And you see the upcoming show schedule. This particular episode, I think I says it's coming out June 6th or something like that. And um so you can see the upcoming show schedule. And there's a place where you if you watch it, if you watch an episode and you like it, or you listen to an episode and you like it, go to our website and click on reviews and leave us a review so we'll know that you what what resonated with you. Uh, you can also listen to the audio version of this podcast on Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and Public Radio. I release a new episode every Friday morning at 8 a.m. So stay tuned and thank you for the privilege of your time again and have a blessed day. And again, Lisa, I appreciate you being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

My pleasure. Please tune in next week for another episode of our podcast on parenting adult children.