Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone. It turned out that my trial schedule for the last week and this week was so busy that I just ran out of steam trying to get a podcast out this week. I'm sorry about that. Instead of putting out an inferior episode that doesn't do justice to the topic, I decided to replay a popular past episode. That's always relevant high-conflict communication. This was episode number 64 from June June 2023, when we were still fortunate enough to have Linda Van Valkenburgh with us each week.

Speaker 1: 0:31

In this episode, we discuss a Reddit post in which the mother asks for advice about how to deal with her co-parent, whom she perceives to be the source of most of the conflict in their relationship. Listen to the conversation I had with Linda about what we might tell this mother. All right, welcome everybody. Today we have a Reddit post about high conflict communication and in this post, the mom is saying that she has anxiety when the dad communicates with her, and this is what she says. She says does anyone experience anxiety when you see the co-parent's name come across your phone? Granted, she says we have a high conflict co-parenting relationship. Rarely are his messages not an insult, arrogance or a tax that his relationship with our son is my fault, I admit she says that I like when we don't hear from him, as it stresses me out. But how can I not suffer from anxiety when we do have to communicate? So, linda, help this poor lady.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Well, the first thing I was thinking about is maybe you shouldn't be using the phone to communicate with this person, using the phone to communicate with this person, and there should be some guidelines, either in the divorce decree or via the parenting coordinator, and hopefully they have one, and if they don't, hopefully you can tell them how to go about that. But thinking just for myself as a girl, when I have that feeling, when I see somebody's name on my phone or my email, even it's somebody that I feel like, whether it's justified or not, has some power to hurt me in some way. Right, and I don't know if you ever feel that as a big guy, but I think I felt that coming from this Reddit post with this woman this Reddit post with this woman.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Yeah, when I feel that anxiety, it's usually because I feel like I did something wrong, or I'm wondering did I do something wrong or did I not do something I was supposed to do? Or, and usually if I'm feeling the anxiety, is because I wasn't as perfect as I want to be and it's more self-reflective.

Speaker 2: 3:06

That's interesting.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Because I'm not so much concerned about someone else and that's also just my personality. I'm not concerned that the other person is going to harm me. I'm concerned that I let myself or someone else down Very interesting?

Speaker 2: 3:22

Well, that's because you're a very conscientious person.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Well, good, well, I'll take it, but apparently not always, because I sometimes get myself in the position where I feel anxiety because I haven't done everything I'm supposed to do. So I think that's where it comes from. But in her case, we see this all the time in these complex. We see this all the time in these complex divorces with high conflict, and what I see in looking at this is this is a man, a father, who is in a weak position. He's not insulting her because she's the problem. I'm assuming he's insulting her because he's the problem. I'm assuming he's insulting her because he's the problem and he's trying to denigrate her and make her feel closer to how he feels about himself than how she should truly feel if she has a good sense of how she's interacting with the world and being a good parent.

Speaker 2: 4:20

I think that follows for anyone who bullies another person of any age. Going back to my years as a teacher, that was true. Anybody who's putting somebody else down doesn't feel good about themselves in some regard.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Yeah, and when I'm working with my client in these high conflict divorces, the thing that I try to get across to them in terms of how to respond emotionally is I try to get them to be appreciative of the ammunition that they're being provided. As she doesn't reciprocate with the same kind of denigration, insult acts, then, and assuming that, as you mentioned, their orders have proper boundaries in place to make the communication written as opposed to oral, then he's simply giving her ammunition to use with the parenting coordinator or in court and eventually, through accretion over time, he's providing her the case that will limit his access because if he's going to act that way, he probably shouldn't have it and will limit her need to communicate with him because the court will continue to fence him off into smaller areas if he shows that he can't or shouldn't have access to the broader areas.

Speaker 2: 5:48

So how would she accomplish that?

Speaker 1: 5:52

So if we have, if there aren't if she were my client first, I would say okay, we're not having telephone calls. Or if we do have telephone calls, then everyone needs to know that they're always recorded. Every telephone call is going to be recorded and I don't think that should be a hidden fact, because oftentimes when I know, like as the guardian ad litem or as the parenting coordinator, if I know that one party knew the call was recorded and the other party didn't and it's almost never the person behaving badly that has provided me with a recording Right Then I'm thinking to myself okay, I know that person behaving badly behaved badly, but I also know that was their actual response in the situation and it tells me something about them and where they're coming from. But I know that the person recording knew they were being recorded. So I don't have an actual sense of who they were. In that moment I have an actor playing a role.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Right.

Speaker 1: 7:01

If everyone knows that everyone's being recorded, then I have a better sense of what the relationship dynamics actually are, Right, and when you have people been in a relationship for a very long time, we know how to push the buttons and trigger the response. And the other person knows that we know how to trigger that. So it makes it even more personal because they're thinking you know what you're doing to me, Right, and so you're trying to hurt me and elicit this response. So here's this response you wanted to elicit Congratulations. You now have it, which is not a mature way to handle it, but it's a definitely human way to handle it, Definitely Right.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So from my perspective, no calls unless they're recorded. And everybody knows that they're being recorded to maintain the validity of the communication and to not diminish the value of the information to the finder of fact. Right. Preferably, let's have the communication be written and then, if it is written, one that's better because it's. I think it's a reasonable boundary Because even in an emergency you could use text message which is just as fast as a call, Because the person is more likely to respond to a text than to listen to a voicemail. Because I know when I get a call from someone I can't stand. I'm not quick to listen to the voicemail. Probably I'm going to wait until I'm in a good place to listen to it.

Speaker 1: 8:32

I'm going to wait until it's transcribed and I can read it like a text message right, right, right, because then you can filter it with whatever voice presentation you want instead of what it actually was right.

Speaker 2: 8:45

Yeah, exactly and the text message if you're on the way to the emergency room with your, with the child can be just very brief facts and then you can fill them in later.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Right, exactly, we'll have it be written, and then that also gives you some time and space to process the message, to make sure that the child's not around you when you're responding to it, that you can respond in a way that is appropriate and designed to be good co-parenting, and then it also it collects that data to be able to provide to the PC or your attorney or the guardian ad litem or the court, so that then the court can do something about it. But I, especially with my, especially with my male clients, they have a tendency to want to hit back in a way that is that is unsubtle, right, like my female clients have a tendency to hit back in a way that is subtle.

Speaker 2: 9:54

Right.

Speaker 1: 9:55

But neither is helpful, right, and so I tried to have both of them understand that what they have been given, they're receiving that communication, whether they use it to their advantage or not. Do you want to have that communication that you have to deal with and then you act like a jerk in response? So you had to experience it and you got no benefit from it and you hurt yourself by the communication. Or would you prefer to receive the communication? You had to deal with it anyway. But now you can be happy about it because you know that they did you the favor of giving you some ammunition against them and you can move on and know that you did the right thing right so that's, that would be my suggestion.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Um, I think that's why there were several, have been several different kinds of packages presented to parents, such as our family wizard, that where that's all built in to how you do communicate. I think that's the one that even has a process in it where you can run your response by the corrective part of it to see if there's anything that comes across as adversarial, to see if there's anything that comes across as adversarial.

Speaker 1: 11:16

Yeah, and I don't know I'm of two minds about that. I mean, I kind of like the fact that it's there. I like the fact that it's there in the sense of it's like having a communication coach in your pocket.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Right.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Where you can assess it and sort of fix yourself and try again. I think that's useful. I don't like it to the extent where the person hasn't changed their thought process, isn't changing how they're dealing, maybe, with their children about their co-parent, and is simply using it as a proxy for good communication. You might as well just have all of their text messages run through chat GPT and send them messages, but it doesn't help the relationship any, right, if you're just adopting a computer's sanitized version of the communication and now it's just like having an actor, except it's a robot actor, right? Who's participating in the communication?

Speaker 2: 12:11

communication, or they're trying to keep themselves out of trouble with the court and realize that if they do respond how they're really thinking, that would not be good.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Well, if they're doing that inner monologue and they're processing and recognizing that it wasn't helpful, then I think there's some benefit there, because I infer from that the possibility of growth.

Speaker 2: 12:33

I think that's what it was originally intended to be Right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 12:38

whether they use it that way the parents or not is, but it is. I am glad that there's that opportunity for growth because I mean, I think it's helpful. But you know, we have this as well. I mean, we deal with a lot of attorneys and even some counselors, frankly, who are not very nice to talk with and are kind or competitive and take things personally in our, in our work, even though we shouldn't take it personally, right, because it doesn't help to put ourselves into the middle of the emotional storm that's raging. But I know, and again this comes down to all sorts of differences, all sorts of differences.

Speaker 1: 13:37

So in my role, I have to acknowledge to myself, in thinking about this, that I'm a guy. I'm about 50 years old, I've been a lawyer for a while and so I'm not a baby role of the guardian that led them. Sometimes I'm the parenting coordinator, sometimes I'm the mediator. So with each role, I recognize that there's a different power balance and that I'm coming at it with different sensibilities, right, and so, as maybe that's, maybe there's some correlate there to the parents. So where I'm communicating with you right now, in this particular role, you know, maybe I'm the primary legal custodian, so maybe I'm the decision maker and I need to recognize that there's a power imbalance in this situation structurally, and maybe you're trying you're being mean to me because you're trying to make up for that power imbalance by taking some back for yourself, which is unhelpful, right? But if I understand it, then maybe I can mitigate some of that communication by recognizing the difference in the power structurally. Maybe I can throw you a bone.

Speaker 2: 14:38

Be more inclusive.

Speaker 1: 14:40

Right.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Ask for your input.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Right, exactly. So I think it's, I think it's she should not and I'm talking too much, linda, no, you're fine. So I think that she I think one she should assess for herself whether she's doing something she shouldn't be doing or not doing, something that she should be doing Because that's something within her control. And if she can change something and it's not whether he thinks that, it's whether she thinks that she's doing something she shouldn't or not doing something she should, something she should and if she can clear up that part of it, that'll give her some peace because she knows within her own sense of self that she's doing what she's supposed to Sure, and then that can maybe remove some anxiety.

Speaker 1: 15:34

And then to acknowledge that he is who he is, he's a flawed human. There's a reason that they're in this situation in terms of custody, and she can't expect that he's going to change. She don't expect him to. And give him some modicum of grace, knowing that he's burdened with this personality, not just in their relationship but in all of his relationships, and that's kind of a sad situation for him to be in. And maybe give him, have a little sympathy for him, even though he doesn't deserve it, and then to acknowledge that so long as she doesn't respond in kind, he's given her ammunition to assist her when she needs it, to put more structural barriers in place and more firm boundaries to protect her from further insult.

Speaker 2: 16:21

All that sounds really good.

Speaker 1: 16:26

I'm spent. I've said everything I know.

Speaker 2: 16:33

I think the part of everything you said, the part that's the hardest to do, is give the other person grace for being a flawed human.

Speaker 1: 16:45

But you would think it'd be the easiest, because we're all so flawed, except for you.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Yeah, oh yeah, right, no, it's. It's just hard to do. It's easier to see the flaws in someone else and think they need to change them, but I love your idea about starting with yourself and figuring out. You know, is there anything I need to change, anything I can change in order to make this easier? And sometimes it's just not a snarky response. Right, have a positive, very brief response.

Speaker 1: 17:24

Right, right, because I feel like the highest probability for an unhelpful response that will get yourself in trouble will derive from the fear that we previously did something wrong.

Speaker 2: 17:38

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 17:40

So just trying to put that out Exactly. So just trying to put that out.

Speaker 2: 17:43

A lot of times, something that is critical comes from the fear also.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Right, right, because what is it? Anger is? Fear that's not been dealt with, or some such.

Speaker 2: 17:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Yeah, okay, yeah would cover all of this situation with our principles. First, our communication protocol, which would help with crafting a response that's appropriate under the circumstances and with conflict resolution, so that she, in this case, could really identify what's upsetting her and why, and expressing what it is that she needs in moving forward with the situation.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Yes.

Speaker 1: 18:39

Okay, anything else.

Speaker 2: 18:41

I think that covers it All right. Well, everyone.

Speaker 1: 18:43

I think that covers it All right. Well, everyone, keep your insults to yourself. Don't attack your co-parent. Everybody play nice and we will see you next time.

Speaker 2: 18:55

Bye.