Amicable Divorce

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: This is Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby and you’re listening to The Love, Happiness, and Success podcast. 

[Intro Song: Degrees of Separation by Mr. and Mrs. Smith]

Dr. Lisa: That’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith with the song Degrees of Separation because today, we’re talking about the hard stuff. We’re talking about when you have to take the relationship apart, how can you do it in the healthiest, happiest, and most successful way possible under the circumstances. My guest today on The Love, Happiness, and Success podcast is Attorney Stephanie Randall. Stephanie is the managing partner of Burnham Law. She specializes in family law, and she even does parenting and custody evaluations. So she has a lot of experience in working with couples and families that are navigating the narrow path of divorce. She’s here to share her insight and wisdom with us today. 

Stephanie, thank you for being here.

Atty. Stephanie Randall: Of course. Thank you, Dr. Bobby, for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate the opportunity. 

Dr. Lisa: Well, it’s my pleasure, and this is a challenging topic. I wanted to reach out to you though and talk about it because many times, at our practice here at Growing Self and even on this podcast, our focus is always on ‘how do we help people repair their relationships and create healthy, enduring marriages and partnerships that last a lifetime.’ That’s always priority number one of our work. There are situations where for whatever reason, that isn’t possible or optimal, and there can be many variables going into that. Nobody wants that outcome. No couples get married anticipating that but it does happen. 

I have also seen in my role as a marriage counselor, therapist, and coach that sometimes, having that be the ultimate conclusion can actually lead to a lot of growth and ultimately, very positive things for both of the individuals in a relationship and also their children. I have even personally witnessed couples who decide to divorce come out the other side of it saying, “We make so much better friends than we ever did spouses. There are so many things about our relationship that I can appreciate now. It’s like we kept the good parts of us and just released the parts that weren’t working.” 

Particularly, in couples that have had children, for me, that’s always the ideal outcome. It’s that they’re able to be friends, and collaborative, and good co-parents together because they’re going to be together for years into the future doing this. As so often is the case, particularly through the process of divorce, couples who were already not in a great space with each other emotionally, it seems like it becomes worse because of the divorce process. 

My hope in speaking with you today was to, first of all, understand what the divorce process even involves, first of all. Also, get some of your insights around things that couples who are considering divorce or going through divorce can be thinking about or even anticipating that can help them just make small choices along the way that will increase the likelihood of having a collaborative relationship by the time all the dust has settled. That’s the hope. 

Atty. Stephanie: The process itself, it’s adversarial, right? If you have two people that show up and say, “Hey, this isn’t working. We’re better as friends.” Just like you said, they are going to have to engage in an adversarial process and I think that can make it difficult because you’re in a trust relationship in a marriage, right? When you decide to divorce, there’s a violation of that trust even though you both make that decision together or you decide that that’s what’s best. Because of the adversarial nature of the divorce and having to seek counsel or confide in someone about information that maybe you wouldn’t be very transparent with your spouse about…

Dr. Lisa: Like an attorney.

Atty. Stephanie: Like an attorney. There starts to be a snowball build of the violation of that trust, right? It’s someone maybe they were your best friend, or maybe you’ve just been together a super long time but you have these bases. A foundation of trust. Each violation of that trust turns you away from the other person. What I warn people about is when you’re ready to file and you’ve made up your mind, the best way to stop that violation from starting is to be transparent. To say, “Look, I met with an attorney and I am ready to file for divorce. I want to be fully transparent. I want to give you the information. I don’t want it to be a surprise.” Because no one wants to just get served by a process server and find out that they… Sorry, my phone rang. It’s a surprise that their spouse wants a divorce and…

Dr. Lisa: A trauma even. Some people are really blindsided.

Atty. Stephanie: So I think it’s really important to be totally upfront and to say, “This is what I need, and whatever the reasons are, let’s move forward.” Then if you’ve met with the attorney and you’ve prepared the paperwork, it’s time to file it, “I don’t want to surprise you. Let’s go ahead and sit down. Let’s have dinner. Let’s have a glass of wine, or some coffee, or something. Let’s talk about what this is going to look like.” Those couples are the most successful in co-parenting and in departing their marriage well. 

There’s a statistic that I like to make sure that my clients know. It’s that if you have children together and you’re going to be co-parenting, if you litigate the custody, if you get into a battle, it’s going to be three to five years before your co-parenting relationship recovers from that. If year after year, you’re having to file new things, whether it’s you or whether it’s the other party, every time you go to court and every time you engage in this, three to five years before your relationship can recover from it, on average. 

That’s your kids. How many three to five years segments do you have before your children are out of your house? How many of those segments do you want them to experience before things are peaceful, right? Do you want your kids to have both of you at their wedding? Do you want your kids to have both of you at their games, and their graduations, and all that? You have to think about that and whether the annoyance and frustration of dealing with your co-parent are worth making those compromises versus getting out there and just saying, “I can’t take it anymore. A judge is going to have to decide.” Getting back your relationship, those three to five years is really, really important. It’s different when it’s just adults that don’t have children. 

Dr. Lisa: Sure. Yeah. Like everybody, just be free. Doesn’t matter if you never talk to each other. Well, now there are couples though that run a business together, have those kinds of things where you also have to think about the end game. 

Backing up a little bit, and I don’t know if your office does any of this, but just for the benefit of listeners who might be thinking about these things and pretty clear they’re done but trying to figure out what the next steps are, would you mind briefly explaining the difference between mediation versus getting attorneys involved? What is the difference in terms of that process and when might someone consider one alternative or the other? 

Atty. Stephanie: Sure. At least in Colorado, which is where I practice, every case pretty much gets ordered to mediation. Your question is basically what’s the difference between mediation and potentially arbitration or having a court decide? 

Dr. Lisa: That’s even great to know. In Colorado, if anybody files for divorce, the first thing a judge says is “Go see the mediator; see what you can work out.” That’s good to know.

Atty. Stephanie: Exactly. Yep and sometimes, more than once, there’s some jurisdictions where they want you to mediate before any hearing. In the mediation process, you can get mediators involved before you hire attorneys. If you have a very, very basic case where you don’t really have any property, you don’t really have any debt, you don’t have children, you haven’t been married very long, you probably don’t need an attorney and I know that I’m signing us out of some business, but you probably don’t.

Dr. Lisa: It’s good advice though.

Atty. Stephanie: Go have a consult and make sure that that’s the case for you but you can hire an attorney and both of you can have attorneys and go to mediation. The mediator is a neutral person who, sometimes they have a background in law, maybe they’re an attorney or a former judge. Sometimes they are a therapist and they just are good at helping people to see things outside of their own entrenched perspectives. 

Basically, you go sit down with this mediator and they try to help you see a compromise position. Something that both of you can live with. Because everybody has a scale of what I can agree to and what I absolutely can’t live with. The goal in mediation, in a successful mediation is to find that middle ground for everybody. They say that a successful mediation is when everybody leaves unhappy and that’s because nobody got exactly what you wanted. You can live with it. You can live with it. 

That’s mediation and I highly encourage mediation and definitely have your mediation with a professional that has a good history of law in your state, who has experience, and a good track record of settling cases because that means that that person isn’t just a courier going back and forth between the rooms saying, “Well, this is what she says” or “This is what he says” or “This is what she says.” It’s someone who’s challenging you on your position and saying, “Hey, is it possible that maybe if you could give a little on this, the other party could give a little on this? Then we have a full agreement and you sign off on it? You can live with it and everybody’s done.” That’s mediation. 

Dr. Lisa: Just out of curiosity, briefly, what are some of the things that you have seen couples get hung up about? Where people have trouble compromising? Is it more around custody things and who has the kids on what day? Is it financial? What tends to create the most angst?

Atty. Stephanie: Definitely children, and I think money. You mess with someone’s money or you mess with someone’s children, that doesn’t usually go over very well. Some of the smaller things that people get hung up on that I would highly encourage people to work past are significant days. If you’re working on a holiday schedule, for example, people get really hung up about the child’s birthday, or Christmas, or Thanksgiving. 

The fact is that children adjust and they love having two Christmases. You can say that to someone and they’re like, “No. It’s Christmas. We got to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day. I got to be there with my kids when they wake up in the morning.” I understand that. But children, if you just tell them, “Look, you’re celebrating Christmas with Mommy on this day and you’re celebrating Christmas with Daddy, we’re gonna have another Christmas on this day.” They don’t mind. They love it. 

They get two Christmases. They get two days where they wake up and they’re excited, but you’ll have people that will throw down and go to court over “I have to have Christmas.” That’s really not worth it and same thing with the child’s birthday. That’s an important significant day, right? But even in the family’s normal practice, say little Susie’s birthday falls on a Wednesday, you’re probably celebrating it that weekend. You might have a cupcake or something on the actual day or maybe you have dinner or something, but you can find a way to celebrate and make that special for that child on a different day. There’s no reason to make it a litigated issue. 

That’s what I would say. It’s those kinds of things. Those are emotional and they’re important to the parents. They’re not as important to the child. I would just encourage people to get past that emotional barrier and be prepared to take turns or even let the other parent if they’re just… Sometimes you have people with different religions or whatever. They have reasons why. Maybe they want to do Christmas Eve mass and it’s really important to them to have Christmas Eve night because the mass is at midnight. Let them have it. You can have whatever other day.

Dr. Lisa: That is such good advice. Just sort of reminding people to not get attached to specifics and sort of be looking at the big picture. Also, the fact that many kids are like, “Yes, I would be very happy to have a birthday week. Thank you very much.” As opposed to getting super specific and remembering that there’s a relationship. If we get really granular about what has to happen and what it has to happen, that is a predictable path to having a very contentious situation that will probably create much more pain and suffering for a child if their parents cannot communicate or be in the same room.

Atty. Stephanie: You end up with children who hate celebrating the holidays. They’re just like, “Mom and Dad, I’m over it. I don’t really care.” Because they don’t. They just want it to be peaceful, and they want their parents to treat each other with respect and that’s all. I do get to interview children. They get so sick of it. It’s the parents, they just get so hung up on perceived insults and things building upon building. It’s again, those violations of trust and they just keep snowballing and they don’t ever go away because you never have like a Festivus where you can deal with those because that person is now your sort of enemy or opposing party. But you have to get past looking at it that way. 

The other thing that people get hung up on is money and frequently, it’s the person who’s not the high dollar earner. I’ve had men and women be in the situation so I don’t want to say this is frequently women. In a situation like that, I advise people to go meet with a CPA and go meet with a financial planner about what your circumstances are and what you need based on your income, and your situation, and your children to survive. Because otherwise, you get people in mediation or fighting all the way to court because they don’t really know what they need. They just feel like they need a lot. 

Those fear-based decisions are not where you want to be. You want to be able to be empowered with the knowledge of “This is how much money I need to take care of my family and to take care of myself. This is how much retirement I need at this point in my life.” When you’re talking about divvying everything up, that way, you’re not just going in saying, “Well, I need all of it because I’m not sure.” You don’t have to operate like that. 

Your financial planner and your CPA can say, “Here’s the deal. You need to be able to claim one child every other year.” Or “There’s no point in you claiming more than one child because of the current tax law.” Or whatever those things are. Those are very important pieces that… it’s not just about your attorney, but about knowing what you need and then you can go in. You’re equipped. You can make the decisions. You can make a compromise and then you don’t have to fight about “I have to have however much alimony or maintenance every year or every month because I know exactly what I need.” Then you know where your stopping point is and you can be equipped to make those decisions. 

Dr. Lisa: That’s such wonderful advice and thinking about it, too, from an emotional perspective, I could see, and in my experience, when people are in the situation exactly as you say, there’s a lot of anger and there’s a lot of fear and to be connecting with professionals who can provide reality-based information about “This is how much you actually need” can help, I would think, get clarity about what those boundaries are and just help you make decisions at a time when it’s probably very difficult to make decisions.

Atty. Stephanie: It’s scary. It really is scary. But you don’t want to make fear-based decisions. Panic is what makes you miserable and you don’t need to be waking up in the middle of the night and when you sign on the dotted line of your agreement, you know whether you made a decision that’s safe for you. That’s very powerful. Oftentimes, when I first meet with a client, I say, “I need you to go meet with a financial planner. I need you to go talk to your CPA. You know what you have. This is how old you are. This is how much money you make.” If it’s someone who hasn’t been in the workforce, then they probably need to go talk to someone about what’s their skill set.

Dr. Lisa: Little plug for career coaching right here. 

Atty. Stephanie: Yes. Career coaching is really important to interviewing, to create a résumé, to get yourself out there right now, especially during COVID but I think it’s a normal development in our culture. It’s to get yourself networking virtually and a lot of people aren’t accustomed to that. They’re used to when you have to go to coffee meet and greets. That’s not as much a thing anymore. Maybe your dream is to be, I don’t know, a designer? Great. What practically, how much school do you have to have? You’re gonna have to go meet with the guidance counselor at your local college or wherever it is that you want to go. Find out how many semesters, how much money does it take. 

That way you know. Again, when you’re going into the settlement discussions, how much money do you really have to have and maybe you’ll be able to scale back your maintenance or alimony after three years because in three years, based on your appropriate career track, you should be able to make whatever median amount that is and you’ll know what it is. Maybe you make zero now but in three years, you’re going to be making 65. Well, you can make a decision that maybe your ex can agree to because they don’t feel like they’re going to be paying a whole lot forever for you not to work or those kinds of things.

Dr. Lisa: Again, so much empathy for people really being pushed into a situation where they’re having to make really major life decisions about things like careers in the midst of such an emotionally tumultuous time. That’s a lot and it’s a lot of stress. I hope that that reflection provides empathy for people going through this. 

It really is hard and it’s so many things up in the air. There’s really a period of time where most people do feel very discombobulated. It’s like everything kind of blows apart and it takes a while before it all comes back together. There is a new normal and a new chapter and it’s a lot when you’re going through it, particularly if there’s also pain. That you didn’t want the divorce sometimes, and it’s having to grapple with that as well.

Atty. Stephanie: It’s awful. It really is awful and I advise my clients very frequently to get a therapist during the process just to help them deal with the trauma of the process of divorce because there’s just so much that feels unfair. Especially in family law, the court system is not really made up to deal with feelings, and it’s not about principle. But it feels like it is. It feels like it’s about fairness, especially if you’ve had a spouse that was unfaithful or that spent a bunch of money and was not honest about it or had an addiction or whatever it is, or maybe they have a personality disorder, mental illness. 

Those kinds of things, they just put people in really bad situations. For example, if you have a military spouse who’s been a primary stay at home with the children. They haven’t had a career because it requires one of the spouses, the one that’s not being deployed, to be at home taking care of the children and managing the household. Well, suddenly, there’s a divorce and that person is expected to somehow juggle all the things that they’ve been juggling plus have a career, and that’s not something that the couple decided. Again, the violation of trust. The thing that you decided on is no longer the thing. 

It’s an upside-down turnaround. It’s not fun and your friends can only go so far as hearing what you’re saying and they might be incensed on your behalf but at the end of the day, it’s better to be going to a professional that can help you work through those feelings and help you to function through them and give you the tools to deal with them so you’re not just in this vicious cycle of vitriol and bitterness because that’s not where you want to be with your co-parent. They may have been injuring you over and over and over but that’s not where you want to end up.

Dr. Lisa: Thank you for bringing that up. Break up recovery is a topic of great discussion on this podcast. I’m the author of a book called Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to an Ex Love that talks about exactly these topics and it is so difficult. It’s interesting because I think, sometimes, people who are in earlier stages of a relationship and going through a breakup can feel emotionally very devastated on a self-esteem and rejection level. 

People who are going through a divorce will also have those feelings but just the realities of life that you have to contend with in a divorce situation, particularly if you have children and are having to juggle all of these things, there’s the emotional healing part of it, but also all of these material considerations in addition to the very difficult feelings around anger, and guilt, and rejection, and pain. It’s so much. I’m glad that you advise your clients to get support around this because it’s too much to go through.

Atty. Stephanie: I compare it to a death, but it’s worse than a death because they’re still alive. 

Dr. Lisa: It’s worse than a death. 

Atty. Stephanie: It is. It’s worse than a death. It’s the grieving of a thing that you thought was gonna be forever. I firmly believe there is nothing worse than going through a divorce. There just is not. It’s so terribly painful, and whenever I meet with someone and they’re not really sure, I don’t push them into it because only that person knows when it’s really time. But I don’t blame people for wanting the education and the information, and you should get that information so you know about what decisions you need to make. 

It’s just terrible, and when you have a co-parent, you not only have the feelings of guilt. Even just like when we had a wedding, and all of our friends came, and it’s very embarrassing. They’re just things that you didn’t plan for. That’s not how you imagined that your life was gonna be. Then, you add children to it, and you don’t want them to be in a broken home situation but you also don’t want them to be seeing a toxic interaction between their parents.

It’s really, really terrible. You should get all the support you can and certainly don’t spread it all around on social networking because that’s not a good foundation for your co-parenting relationship. But definitely, if you have really close friends, and don’t share it with your family either, because they can’t ever get over it. Your friend or your therapist, they don’t have to run into your ex at social functions with your children in the future so try not to build those.

Dr. Lisa: Poison the well, yeah. Totally.

Atty. Stephanie: It’s not a good idea. 

Dr. Lisa: It’s good to have you say because I think, from my perspective, so many couples, they think about divorce because they don’t know how else to solve these relationship problems that feel bad to them. Again, there can be very appropriate circumstances for divorce where it really is the best answer. Just like what you’re saying, it creates all of these new problems, and it is a very difficult experience. Not to take it lightly and it sounds like the first stop would be hopefully, consulting with a very ethical attorney, such as yourself, who is able to provide some real-world, “Okay, here’s what you’re looking at” that might, I hate to say, slow a person down but give them reality-based information to make sure that this is the right path.

Atty. Stephanie: Well, and a lot of times, if we meet with someone, sometimes, they decide not to. Sometimes they decide to reconcile because they don’t want to go through all of the things that they’re about to go through. Maybe what they’re about to face isn’t as bad as turning to each other and saying, “We have some things to work on.” There’s definitely like you said, there are situations where safety and sanctity demand that the relationship be parted. Then there are other times where those two people can decide to figure it out, and that’s powerful stuff.

Dr. Lisa: Have you seen that? Do people get as far as your office and then say, “Wait a minute, maybe we can work on communication, and maybe I really do love you after all?” What have you seen? I’m curious.

Atty. Stephanie: I think it’s very rare that a person sits in my office and says, “I don’t love this person. I hate this person.” They might get there, eventually. But that’s not usually where they’re coming from. It’s just usually either they’re living a life that is a façade, and they just can’t deal with that anymore or there are all kinds of different reasons. There are religious reasons why people would stay together, there are moral reasons, or whatever it may be. 

I have people regularly come in and either do a consult and I never hear from them again, and they’re not filing. So I think that they just gathered the information and went back home and was like, “Well, I could take this out but I’m not going to.” That’s enough. We do have people that will even file and engage in beginning the process and then that brings them together. That’s sort of the low point and it’s a wake-up call and they have a real conversation with each other about, “Do we want to go down this road, or do we want to work on work on ourselves?” It happens and I’m always thrilled when someone says, “Hey, we’ve decided to reconcile. Can you file to dismiss my case?” Like, “Yes, absolutely.” 

The only time I ever tried to talk someone out of that is in my interview process when I’ve heard a lot of red flags about what I think is a danger to them, and that’s when we’re talking about domestic violence, dynamics, and really abusive situations physically or emotionally. In those situations, it’s still up to that person but I like to talk to them about the risks and statistics of what’s going on, and how unsafe I think it may be, and that they need to have a safety plan in place, and those kinds of things. 

Definitely, reconciliations can happen. Especially in domestic violence situations, I think the statistic is 6 to 10 times that the person tries to leave before they will actually leave. As a divorce attorney, you see people in those situations, too, and you feel scared, sometimes for them, about them walking back into their situation. But any time there’s none of that and it’s just a “Hey, we’ve developed these differences” or “We’ve grown apart” or whatever it may be, that doesn’t sound insurmountable to me. Like, “Can you not just work on that whether with a therapist or together?” I don’t know, I think it’s worth it versus going through all these terrible things that we’ve been talking about.

Dr. Lisa: That’s wonderful and you bring up such a great reminder that there are also different situations. While it can be such a beautiful thing for a couple to walk up to the edge of the cliff and then say, “Maybe this is a growth opportunity as opposed to jumping off.” But there are other situations where really the healthiest thing is actually to end and stop participating in a toxic relationship cycle. 

While we are on this subject, I hope it’s okay for me to ask you this question. In addition to working as a family law attorney, you also serve as a custody evaluator, like a parenting evaluation specialist. I’m curious if you could talk just a little bit about what that is, when it happens, and I’ll ask you why. 

Sometimes, I talk to people, usually, in the context of individual therapy, who are really unhappy in a relationship, and do not see a future with that person, and they have children, and they are afraid of what might happen to the children if they are with the other parent even part-time. They don’t trust their parenting decisions, and it’s not usually abuse or major addiction. That’s usually black and white enough to be able to deal with, more around questionable parenting, questionable safety, emotionally abusive communication that the children might experience when with the other parent. 

Take us on a little bit to what a parenting or custody evaluator does, when it’s appropriate, and when would somebody might consider enlisting that kind of support if they’re worried about that.

Atty. Stephanie: Sure. In Colorado, there are two types of child investigators. There’s a child and family investigator and there’s a parental responsibilities evaluator. I’m a child and family investigator, we call it a CFI. A parental responsibilities evaluator, and this is different state by state, but I’m sure there are similar roles in each state, but a parental responsibilities evaluator is a doctor. They’re a psychiatrist or psychologist that can actually do mental health testing or addictions testing. 

A CFI, which is the role that I serve, is someone who has specialized training and experience in children, and family dynamics, and best interests of children. They’re trained to go into households, and to interview children, and to basically report to the court as an agent of the court to make recommendations. I would say that what you’re describing is very frequent with parents who are like, “As long as I’m there to be a buffer, I’m not worried about this. But dad feeds them straight candy, and doesn’t keep a bedtime, and doesn’t do their homework with them, and doesn’t get them to school on time.” Or mom. “Feed some fast food, and doesn’t get them to soccer practice, and let them play on their iPad all day.” 

It’s very, very frequent that those kinds of things happen because you’re talking about two parents who decided that they didn’t want to be together anymore. Now they’re separate so all of the things that that one person may have been effectuating in the parenting style at the house is no longer there to be a barrier. Not only is that maddening as the parent who’s trying to be like, “Look, the kids should brush their teeth every day before they go to bed.” When they’re at the other parent’s house, they aren’t even taking a bath. That’s incredibly frustrating and sometimes you have medical issues from it, especially the little girls would get yeast infections or whatever. 

Those things are frustrating and the way that the court treats that is, “You had children with that person.” I know that’s very unsatisfying and unfair, but again, the court isn’t really designed to deal with nuance and grey area. It’s very black and white. If you have, like you said, the severe things like a major addiction, or a major mental illness where the person is debilitated from taking care of the children, or there’s black and white evidence of the children being endangered or neglected, great. You can get a restriction and you can limit the person’s parenting time or have it supervised. 

When it’s grey area kind of stuff like what I’m talking about, in my mind, as a parent, those are terrible things. I would not want that to be happening to my child. But in the court’s eyes, that’s not restriction material. What I encourage for that kind of situation is you have to recognize that you no longer have control at the other household. You have to let go of it. You have to let go of it, and you have to understand that you can only effectuate control with the children on those things when the children are with you. It doesn’t necessarily make the other person a bad parent. Those are individual parenting decisions which objectively, I think, most parents could say that those aren’t great things but it’s not killing them, and it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of abuse, like at the state level. 

If you have a good co-parenting relationship with your co-parent, you can work with them gently on some of those things. But if you have a terrible relationship, they’ll just be like, “Stop trying to control me. I don’t want to hear from you.” There are therapists who specialize in high conflict co-parenting, coaching. I always encourage people when they’re in a situation like that to work with a therapist who can help them word their messages well so that they aren’t triggering the other person into just being oppositional or abusive. Especially if the person that you’re dealing with, if your co-parent is narcissistic, or has borderline personality disorder, those are especially difficult because if the person can’t control you in the relationship anymore, they use the children to control you or they use finances to control you by perpetuating litigation and causing you to have to hire an attorney constantly. 

You have to work with someone in the mental health field to help you learn how to take the meat out of those fights for the other person so that they become bored with you so you can parallel parent and parent around them. I know it’s not a very satisfying answer but the bottom line is you just have to learn to accept that when that child is with the other parent, those things may happen and hope and pray that they may get in a relationship with someone who parents more similarly to you, and then you can make friends with that person and try to ensure…

Dr. Lisa: The perfect world. 

Atty. Stephanie: That usually happens. Sometimes they’ll meet the right person and it sort of rights their ship, and it’s good because that person manages the household well. It deals with the children the way that you would hope. I would say that that’s the most maddening part of going through one of these processes. But as an evaluator, when I’m looking at those things, I have to discount them because I know that the court, again, as an objective parent, I have concerns about them. But I know that the court’s going to be concerned about things that are actually endangering to the children and getting a cavity is not. Even though that’s not great. Not the way that you want to do it. 

You could if it’s possible. You can use that to say, “Hey, maybe I do need to work this out, and figure out how to make this relationship work so that I can still be there with them.” I think to the extreme side of it, when you have a domestic violence situation, it’s the same thing, only worse because you have a parent who says, “I’m there to be the buffer. I’m there to receive the angst and the anger, and if I’m not there, I’m afraid it’s going to turn to the children.” That’s very difficult and terrifying because there’s no evidence that it is going to happen, and there’s no way to make sure it’s not happening when the parents are not there to be the buffer. 

If you look at the scale of these things like Little Timmy not getting his teeth brushed versus an abusive parent potentially turning on a child, those are much smaller things that you have to learn how to let go of. I know. It’s terrible. 

Dr. Lisa: It really is. But I’m so glad that we’re having this very open and honest conversation from your perspective because I think that it can be very easy for people to idealize certain aspects of divorce like, “I’ll finally be free and I won’t have anybody criticizing me about the way I unload the dishwasher. I’ll be able to…” whatever. Whereas the realities are enormous, and I totally agree with you. Hands down. The hardest part of these situations is the parent who no longer has control over the way that their children are cared for or treated in their absence and needing to figure out a way to cope with that. 

What you’re also saying is that through, it isn’t always, but when possible, achieving an amicable collaborative divorce, there is more opportunity to have a cooperative parenting relationship where you still, I think what I heard you say is, there’s still, I hate to use the word, influence but the opportunity to say, “I know you’ve been so busy. Should I go ahead and just make these dentist appointments? I know it’s my day but whatever.” To have that be received well as opposed to somebody interpreting it as you being controlling and reject it. 

Thank you for talking about this. Going back, and I know we’re coming up on time here, but when it comes to that as being the goal, in light of all of the possible pitfalls we’ve been discussing, I heard you share a couple of really concrete things at the beginning of our conversation about how to achieve that. 

First of all, being really transparent about how you’re feeling and thinking this might be the best path for us, “I’m scheduling a time to go talk with Stephanie Randall at Burnham Law about our options, just wanted to let you know that’s happening.” So don’t sneak up on anybody. Also, be willing to consider the risks and consequences of divorce and being open to the possibility of doing things to improve your relationship prior to getting to that point. Then, I heard you say that the first stage, at least in Colorado, hopefully other states, will be to speak with a mediator and when you have the opportunity to go into mediation, be really willing to, kind of, let go of the small things, to compromise, to not go to war over Christmas morning or anything like that. 

I heard you say getting reality-based information about things like money, about how your kids actually feel versus how you’re imagining them that they might feel, all for the purpose of you being able to be more flexible. Let go with some things. 

In the event for whatever reason that doesn’t work the way we hope, there is a sticking point of some kind, then, the next step of that would be for each person to get an attorney and begin litigating, I guess, with how the things are going to be hashed out. When it gets to that point, are there still things that couples can do to decrease the likelihood of it becoming as acrimonious and conflictual as it could, or by the time people start getting attorneys involved and toggling with each other, is it difficult at that point to salvage?

Atty. Stephanie: There’s a couple of things that you can do. One of them is to be careful about who your attorney is. That’s really, really important because your attorney is your advocate, and they should be speaking for you in the way that you want them to. So if your attorney is conducting themselves unprofessionally, or making the issues personal to themselves, or attacking the other party personally, those might be signs to you that it’s time to get a different attorney. Those things exacerbate emotions and feelings and keep violating that trust, as I was talking about. 

When you have an attorney that’s on the attack like that, it warrants the defense. Then, a counter-attack because at some point, the other person is like, “I’m not just gonna sit here and take it. I’m going to attack too.” That becomes what I like to call the pile of caterpillars. It’s an Aesop’s fable about this caterpillar that walks by and he sees this pile of caterpillars and he says, “Well, there must be something great at the top so I’m going to climb up to the top.” He works all day to try to climb up to the top, and there’s nothing at the top. It’s just more caterpillars. 

That’s what this kind of litigation is like. You can be fighting, and fighting, and fighting, and both of you like making big issues out of things, and then at the end of the day, you still have the exact same issues that you started with but all you’ve done is spend a bunch of money and hate each other. That’s all it is. 

Dr. Lisa: This is so good. You’re saying something so important that your attorney is actually representing you and if you connect with somebody who’s a really aggressive bull doggy, super highly conflictual thing, they are your emissary in this. It will create a dynamic where people start fighting with each other over what turns out to be, ultimately, nothing but has destroyed your relationship and drained your bank account in the process. 

Atty. Stephanie: Totally. So there’s that, and then, there’s also you are the one that signs off on your things that are filed with the court at the end of the day. Your attorney signs it, makes it, whatever. You read it and you make sure that it is factually correct and that it is not personally attacking the other person. Because that’s just injurious. If you factually have to tell the court, “Look, this is what’s happening. I need you to know what it is.” 

You don’t have to call the other parent names and you can present that on the basis of fact alone. Try to keep it to just the facts. That helps. It still hurts because that other person’s throwing things out there, but it’s less hurtful than saying someone’s lazy because they’re not working or they’re just a dangerous and terrible parent.

Dr. Lisa: You have to defend yourself. 

Atty. Stephanie: Right. Don’t get into the hyperbole. Judges appreciate that too. I think it makes it disingenuous because nobody’s thrilled with each other in a divorce. Focus on the things that the court really needs to know, and pull the leash back on your attorney. Because you’re the one that’s in control and you have people that throw up their hands. “Well, whatever my attorney says is what I think that I should be doing.” That’s not right. You’re driving the bus. 

Your attorney just has the knowledge and ability to effectuate where you’re wanting to go. You have to focus on reeling those things in. When you have to go to court over it, hopefully, you’ve been able to narrow the scope to the things that you just couldn’t work out and both of you can acknowledge that and say, “Hey, we just had to have someone in a black robe decide, okay? It’s not personal.” You can get past that. But if you’ve used hyperbole and been attacking one another and allowing your attorney to drive up litigation, that’s hard to get over. If you’ve spent 50,000 dollars on your divorce instead of putting it into the kid’s college funds, that’s hard to get over. That’s decades of not getting over.

Dr. Lisa: I know it. People always say marriage counseling is expensive. You have no idea how many zeros can be on the end of a divorce situation, and you bring up so many good suggestions. Also, I think you’re alluding to this, but probably too kind to say it, that I have also seen couples separate or divorce, and one of them has connected with a probably less ethical or less scrupulous attorney. It is very much in that attorney’s best interests in order to have all kinds of suits, and countersuits, and litigation, and ongoing things because those are billable hours at the end of the day. 

When you sort of relinquish control on your good judgment about what is the best path to an attorney without being very cautious about who you’re working with, that can really create unintended consequences for you and your family far, far into the future. I’m so glad that you’re talking about these kinds of ethical issues and strategies that people can use to empower themselves through this process as opposed to just handing the reins over to someone who may not care if they can both be at their kid’s birthday party five years from now.

Atty. Stephanie: These are our jobs. The reason I became an attorney was because I wanted to help people, but that’s not why everyone’s in this business. Especially in family law, there’s a lot of attorneys who do domestic practice that hate family law. That’s probably not who you want representing you. If you have children, you want them to have some kind of education and knowledge about child development and psychology because you want that knowledge to be advising you about what your parenting plan to look like, for example. If for some reason they don’t have that, you need someone in your life that can help you make that decision. 

It does happen. To me, as a professional, it’s pretty transparent when it starts happening that every single little thing is raised, and there are motions filed all the time, and just things that you’re constantly dealing with that don’t really amount to a hill of beans or a hill of caterpillars. That’s a waste of money and when I have a client that comes to me and says, “Look, we’re just reactive here. I want to start lobbing some blows.” I ask them, “If you do a cost-benefit analysis, you want to fight about 50 dollars a month in child support. It’s gonna cost you 5,000 dollars for me to litigate it. You tell me, from now to the time that your child turns 19, is that worth it? It’s going to be three to five years before your co-parenting relationship recovers. Tell me if it’s worth it. If it is, I’ll file the motion.” 

A good attorney is gonna make you sit back and think about whether you really want to take the action that you’re asking and to make you look at the other side and play devil’s advocate, if you will. I actually have a negative review from a client who was like, “Stephanie was advocating for the other side.” I was not. I was just saying look at it from the court’s perspective, and look at it from this other person’s perspective, and then if you want me to file it, I will. 

That’s a good attorney’s job. It’s to try to help you sit back on your heels, and sleep on it, think about it, and make a good, thoughtful decision before you just pop off because of principle. I promise principle is not where you want to be in domestic relations because that’s not the place that you find, I don’t know, real fairness, or there’s no payback. Even if your attorney is successful and you win your case, did your co-parenting relationship win? You just have to think about all of those aspects. 

Dr. Lisa: Well, Stephanie, your clients are so incredibly lucky to have you to shepherd them through all this. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and perspective with my listeners today. This has been a wonderful conversation. If you’re listening to this and would like to speak with Stephanie Randall about your situation, you can learn more about her and her practice at burnhamlaw.com. They have a number of offices in Colorado. Again, Stephanie, thank you. This has been wonderful.

Atty. Stephanie: Of course. Thank you, again, for having me. 

Dr. Lisa: Also, Stephanie’s practice hosts their own podcast called the Deep Bench podcast. I believe they talk about a variety of topics that might be worth a listen if you’d like to continue educating yourself around the process and practice of law. Stephanie, thank you again. Thanks for your time.

[Outro Song: Degrees of Separation by Mr. and Mrs. Smith]