good morning everybody and welcome to another season of another episode of Seasons e and flow for the season of divorce and Beyond I am Lee a divorce coach and I am looking forward to today’s interview I will be interviewing mosha Ben Lev and he is also a divorce coach and he has a program that he works with his wife who’s a therapist and they work with couples sometimes together and then sometimes together and then separately and he’s going to tell us a little bit about how they’re program works and um the the Dynamics that they have found that have been beneficial working with their clients and so um I’m going to open it up to you mosha and let us tell you just a little bit tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into what you’re doing and then we will Dive Right In uh good morning hi everybody um uh I uh have been an educator for the last 30 years working primarily as an education director in faith-based um institutions um and um over those years had thousands of students and families who I’ve had the opportunity to interact with and meet with and listen to um and I dealt with a lot of families of divorce going those going through divorce those who were already divorced when I came on the scene and those who were going through separation um and I often had many conversations with those parents individually uh uh and uh over the years I I really began to listen more and more to the students in my schools um I’d walk the hallways and hear students talking to one another um or I’d have a child who was distressed and have a conversation with them and they would bring up the issue of their parents and what was going on and the struggles they were having and um I decided uh about four years ago to uh become a divorce coach so that I could help with those families and with those students in particular um and have really been focused um a great deal on the parenting co-parenting aspects of divorce um and uh what how parents can be uh most effective in raising a child with a stable child in an environment where there were two households where um perhaps one parent or both parents have remarried and moved on um and uh making sure that that child gets what they need um and is in a stable environment in both homes yeah that’s wonderful yeah I think uh when I work with my clients like I am constantly reminding them that Children’s Health and well-being absolutely needs to be front and center and yes the dynamic between you and your ex is something that is a challenge and but if you can put your kids in the front and center of your mind and remind each other that that is your goal to work together to make their lives smooth then it can help the divorce process itself stay on track in a healthy way so so I think that child centered approach just helps everyone yeah I mean I think we also have to acknowledge look parenting is not easy regardless of whether we’re divorced or not it’s not an easy thing but I think what we forget is that we are own in our own childhoods um experience things um some of them may have been very you know families where there was serious things like domestic violence or other terrible traumas terrible Events maybe ongoing um in other homes there was you know it seemed like a happy home where both parents work together to raise their child yet all of us bring out with us our own sense of how we were parenting our own wounds traumas whatever you want to call them that we bring into our own parenting and the way that we parent um some of it’s conscious and some of it’s not right and sometimes we don’t realize but our children trigger us you know how many times have we I mean me as a parent for example how many times have I I I yelled when there wasn’t necessarily a reason to have yelled or I got angry over something which perhaps I just misconstrued because my child triggered something from my childhood something in my unconscious that was brought to the surface I may not be aware of what it was but my reaction to it was anger and that anger or whatever it may be um affects how my child is parented so it is to at a certain extent there’s a there’s a you know it goes from generation to generation and being aware of that is kind of what I’ve focused on greatly yeah absolutely like when I look at my personal experience I feel like our upbringings and the environment that we grew up in has such an impact on the way we run our household parent and that was one of the biggest challenges between me and my ex-husband When We Were Young in our 20s uh getting together and having fun together our childhood backgrounds didn’t really come into play that much it was like oh his childhood background is so different and his was much more of that household that you don’t talk about things sweep things under the rug very calm and peaceful and I was drawn to that a little bit because mine was chaotic less structured uh a lot of bickering we could fight and then it would just go away after 10 minutes there was a lot of like probably unconscious nervous system disregulation that we weren’t aware of and that’s not the healthiest but then also sweeping things under the rug is not the healthiest so we were both probably if you think of a bell curve we each grew up kind of more in like the extremes of each and his was a little colder mine was very warm but uh neither was perfect we both appreciated what the other brought to the table but then when we had kids and we’re trying to create a household and I’m bringing my style that I know and he’s bringing his style that he knows and their Polar Opposites and trying to make that work and we weren’t mature enough um or self-aware enough to recognize that that was causing so much conflict and then you have kids and your parenting Styles kind of revert back to what you know it started to cause a lot of tension and um maybe if we had had therapy early on to learn some of these things but we didn’t and it just the friction and uh frustrations built and so uh I do think that your upbringing impacts so much of the way that you’re going to run your household and paren and so I always tell my kids now like look at whoever you’re dating and uh considering partnering with what does their household look like because chances are that’s kind of what your partner is going to want their household to run like and are you comfortable with that and will that work for you so yeah it’s uh we assume a lot of us I know my ex said oh I don’t want to be like my parents in so many areas but unconsciously we revert back to that because that’s what we know and it feels comfortable yeah exactly I mean we we we adapt there are things that we’re conscious of so if you were for example your parent uh uh when you were a child their way of disciplining you was perhaps hitting you spanking you or you know something that was you were very aware of you know you make a decision as a parent I yeah this worked for me and I’m going to do the same thing or this really was painful and I I really feel you know traumatized by that kind of experience I I’m not going to do the same that’s not how I’m going to parent but there’s so much more to it than that there’s so much under the surface there’s so many things that we don’t realize that we’ve our brains are very interesting so the way that we categorize things the way we put some of those memories especially if they’re really you know traumatic to us and when I use the word trauma I don’t mean like a very extreme um event that occurred it may be small things which is why in IM Margo therapy which we can talk about in a minute um we talk about woundings um people you know what happens to us are wounds um but there’s so many things I give you I give you a perfect example um about five or six years ago my sister and I were having conversation we just talk about family and you know the way we parent and stuff like that and she said to me hey do you remember that time when you almost hit Mom I’m like what she goes yeah yeah you almost hit Mom I’m like you talking about she goes yeah Mom you were about 16 years old and my sister’s eight years younger than I am and um she said yeah you’re in the kitchen and um she used to had this habit because at that time she was really kind of going through menopause and was the hormones were all over the place she got sometimes really physically little bit physically violent I guess is one way put he used to slap me across the face which was terrible um and um she said do you remember that time she went to slap you you grabbed her wrist and you said to her if you ever hit me again I’m going to kill you wow I said no I don’t remember that and it slowly began to remember it yeah so there were things thing and and then you have to think okay I don’t remember that that was in my subconscious my sister brought that out in me certainly a therapist would bring it out in me probably too but but the effects the feelings the way I felt those are still there and those can be triggered by something we don’t know what’s going to trigger us but something our child might do or our partner might do that would trigger those feelings of anger those feelings of extreme emotions those feelings of of feeling ashamed about the way that we are the way and those come across to our children those are played out with our with our families in particular so those are what I mean there’s some things we’re conscious about we adapt to them but there’s things that we just don’t and we can’t um we have to figure out how are we going to make sure that those subconscious things that disregulated us that we have to figure out a way of regulating ourselves that we don’t damage our own relationships with other people both in adulthood because we bring our childhood stuff with us into our adult relationships so that’s the Coupes piece but then there’s the parenting piece how we parent our children also goes back to those subconscious memories of how we were parented and it can do real damage if we’re not aware of them and when we triggered how we can effectively deal with it that doesn’t pass that damage on to our children that’s kind of what I’m interested yeah yeah I it’s it’s so true and I it is nice when you have a sibling my brother and I are very close and we share with each other and help remind each other and help each other heal and change the way we parent currently by reflecting on things that and jogging each other’s memory from things so yeah yeah if you’re lucky enough to have a sibling who you’re close with and who can help you process some of that all of that’s helpful yeah I I agree with you and I think finding finding the right program to help you um so my wife and I discovered some years ago that thing called Imago IMO dialogue imgo coup’s counseling um and it’s it’s it was started by a married couple who themselves were going through um some marital problems um harl Hendrick and um and Helen the Kelly hunts and uh they were experimenting as a psychotherapist so they both are so they they were exper how how can we improve our marriage how can we make sure because they were ready to like end their and they came up with this idea of a dialogue um a dialogue uh that looked at the childhood relationships those subconscious things and how they resurface in adulthood and they created something called the Imago dialogue which is now to dat what like 2500 Imago roughly imgo therapists throughout the world use uh and these are therapists but there also facilitators and there are people like me who do parenting using Imago um we trained in that and what’s beautiful about the IMO dialogue um is it gives you an opportunity to connect in perhaps ways that you have are not connecting anymore as a couple um and I actually spent a weekend my wife and I as part of her certification training we to do this long weekend during Co where we did Margo and it was transforming it was just incredible um how it works is that you you know you and I say we’re a married couple and uh we’re just not we’re not listening to each other we constantly wounding each other or we’re just getting mad at each other we can’t sit and have a real conversation uh if we’re facing with how it works you sit you face one another eye to eye and um the the therapist or facilitator prompts uh the person okay tell us what it is that bothers you today um about your your what your spouse does at home um that is is an issue you will say what you’re going to say your your spouse your your partner who’s sitting right opposite you looking straight at you has nowhere of escaping listening to you listens intently to what you’re saying and then has to mirror back to you what you have said which sounds simple but actually very hard because you have to listen very intently you have to understand you got process what’s being heard by the way for the person who’s saying it it’s also powerful because they’re getting to hear back their own words so a lot of process for someone for me for example who processes things differently perhaps in others um it’s really powerful and then you you know after the person’s mirrored and they’ve repeated back this is what you said did I hear you clearly the person says yes you did and then you ask is there more you want to share you go through this process until eventually the person has expressed and being mirrored and then you validate it how do you validate it so the person would say I I understand this is what you’re saying you know you’ve said that that I I I leave a mess in the house that that I don’t clear up um that I don’t listen to you when you ask me for help um and these are the things you’re saying to me then comes the empathy part this is called the move dialogue mov so the empathy dialogue part is so understand this really bothers you and I I get that you that you find it really hard when you come home and you find a mess everywhere you know it might not matter to me but it’s important to you it makes sense to you and you know I’m I’m really sorry that that I’ve caused you that kind of bad feeling because it reminds you maybe of your childhood or the way that you know these conversations make a lot of sense to both people they get to slow down have a conversation listen intent and then work on a way of being able to improve the relationship by being strongly connected so that’s the basics of the move dialogue um enables couples to connect in ways perhaps they hadn’t before to share to validate to show empathy to be understanding it strengthens the marital relationship for sure um and if it’s done on a kind of a daily basis it really is quite interesting it also brings up things from your childhood because yeah you know you end up exploring areas of your life and who you are that is really resurfaces or surfaces in a different way it helps you to also regulate better so they wrote this book years ago called getting the love you want um it was a wonderful book it was as I said transformative and Opera Winfrey happened to pick up on this book um and made them very famous by having them on the show like 25 30 times half in particular um and I after doing this weekend with my wife was so was so excited about this concept um and it turns out that I didn’t know at the time that they have a parent component to it because har and Helen decided realized early on hey if you’re a couple and you’re trying to have a good relationship and you’re trying to work together to create this bond this connection if you don’t do it with your children then that’s going to be a problem it it seeps into every part aspect of your life so they started working on parenting so that’s where I got my training uh doing parenting they have a book called giving the love that heals um so that’s that’s what IMO roughly what im Maro does okay and so yeah it’s interesting when we started talking um ironically my mom is a therapist and she’s the Margot train so when we found that you had as well it was like oh there’s because she introduced me to that when my ex and I were struggling and we did a few sessions with an amargo therapist and it is a wonderful uh transformative program with learning how to communicate and validate and dig up the resentments and mirror back uh what it is rather than thinking about how you’re going to respond you actually have to mirror back to the person what they are saying so that you stay with that person rather than defend and it becomes a pingpong of I’m right you’re wrong and um I think unfortunately my ex and I were like a little too far along the path and maybe just not a good fit at that point in our lives we had just grown into different people um I always say we had a good run and we grew up and were ready for different things but um I do think Margo is an amazing uh way to give your marriage one last chance if you are kind of on the brink so do you want to tell us a little bit about how you and your wife work together where she kind of works with the couples and you work with the focus on the parent and sure so I just want to emphasize that Imago therapists are actual trained therapists I’m not a trained therapist I want to make back L um but there’s a room there’s room for people like me who do coaching facilitating have a background in in a different kind of background that bring something into the into the room I think that’s helpful so how we do it together what you explain first of all my wife how she does it by herself when she does it by herself she has this couple sitting face to face and she is on one side of them on the outside and she facilitates the discussion the dialogue and she asks questions and she she really kind of does a lot of prompting um she doesn’t M she shows the mirroring and how it works at the beginning and then she has them mirror each other so she models it that way um but what we found uh early on is that when you bring um another person into the room especially if it’s a partner of the in my case of my wife the therapist it it’s an extra I think it’s really an extra wonderful resource it brings another layer into the room because um a you’ve got in our in our cases of the way we do therapy at least you know you have a man and a woman in the room it’s good to have another man in the room who can be a support I think partly for the for the for the man uh but it also shows you modeling of how a couple can have a conversation how they can be um a couple that’s good to model how a couple a healthy relationship should be so she does that I come into the room I bring in the parenting piece what do I mean by the parenting piece so we have couples that have children um sometimes they want to focus mostly on themselves um in our case we have a lot of couples that are divorced and it’s their second marriage uh maybe for one maybe for both um there may be a fight or something going on with the ex um which is affecting their children sometimes there were children uh from both you know the previous marriage and the new marriage that are being brought into the room um so I I’m helping with a parenting piece how do we discipline the children properly in a way that is loving that shows uh that that we care that we are a couple together even if we don’t always agree on everything there’s a whole process of doing that um and so when we start talking about the children I’m reminding them of if a child has neurodiversity issues um if a child uh has a certain personality um if a child uh we talk about age development a lot of parents don’t understand age development especially if you have a child that has neurodiversity uh you know for example I I was working with a couple where a child has you know pretty serious ADHD the child is 15 years of age um the child’s not medicated refuses to take the medication is running around going crazy all the time um and the parents are like focusing so much on the child’s ADHD and the school work and getting done what needs to get done that they haven’t quite understood that there’s the team element too there’s the development of that child at that age and what one can expect that part doesn’t necessarily marry with the other when in your mind you’re focused only on one issue and the issue is homework being done calmness in the house being able to you know have the family live in a calm State um so those are those are things we we I work on with those parents and my wife and I do it between us so we go back and forth with the imaga with the move with the dialogue with the parenting um it works really

well and uh if parents have different parenting Styles like my ex and I for example yeah um what are some ways that you help them in that scenario to uh work through those differences so there are a number of there are a number of things first of all it’s important for the co-parents to have an open communication as hard as it may be um you know both parents have to be honest and respectful of the conversations that they have about their values and beliefs I mean we know they have you know obviously they know their values and beliefs when they’re married it didn’t work out but as far as parenting goes it’s really important to be roughly on the same page or at least to be able to understand each other and acknowledge this is important to you even if it’s not important to me and I will respect that I will I will abide by that um I don’t want to do damage um all of this caveat to all of this is child comes first as parents we have to put away our own egos we’ve got to put away our own stuff that came from the marriage that didn’t work out uh and we have to focus on the children it’s it’s funny because one thing I I remember we learned when we were doing our coaching course was how much especially with mothers as opposed to fathers how much they really wanted to do good great parenting because they understood intellectually that the child is going through this terrible situation of parents dividing up house splitting up they understood it intellectually and they wanted to be there and they tried to put extra work in to making sure their child gets what they need but actually that’s the time when we are so vulnerable that we’re not able to be the great parent we want to be so we have to understand and acknowledge that and that’s why it’s important to work together being child focused so you have to find common goals um you know parenting Styles may be different but there are things you know we know we want the child to be respectful we know we want the child to be a happy child um by identifying the the shared goals and the values and coming to kind of a meeting point I think that’s really important um compromising being flexible uh those are are Essentials um We can’t agree on everything we have to we will agree on some things we have to be willing to compromise it’s not that different to when we were married yes but now it’s even more important because there are two households and we’re not reminded we’re not reminding each other or seeing that that value there face to there has to be consistency um it’s funny because again when you’re married consist consistency can be a very you know if we’re not consistent as parents our children get mixed messages they get very confused um and they don’t understand the expectations or the way we’re disciplining or the routines that we’re trying to create right um we also I think we have to set boundaries by the discussions you know when when we disagree and we’re going to disagree as co-parents we it’s okay to disagree it’s okay to have those conversations but not in front of the child m not while we’re on the phone not where we’re standing on the doorstep or wherever it is that we’re swapping the kids over we’re transitioning the kids um that’s really important that the child is not a part of it yes um also uh being respectful of each other’s roles you know there are decisions made if I’m responsible for my child’s you know we decided I’m responsible for the interaction um with uh with the school um I’m the one who actually I’m a example you know my wife and I um decided early on I’m an educator when it came to school stuff especially if there were issues or even just conferences or whatever it was I would be the parent that would go to the school that was my strength and my wife was respectful of that um and didn’t undermine wanted to know but beyond um you know a lot of parenting’s child and era you know things change um sure also children grow developmental there are different needs from the age of seven to the age of 15 yeah so it’s important for those co-parenting skills to actually be really used effectively in that regard um and then there’s you know supporting each other even when we disagree um it’s important to know that the decision that was made by you know me is being supported by my by my co-parent even if I don’t agree I can say it to them But ultimately that decision’s being made because the job is in my household that’s the decision and I think that’s one of the biggest challenges if you are divorced and you have two different styles is that even if you don’t agree it’s better for the children if you provide a bit of a united front as much as possible people tend to drop into their ego and want to tell the kids even uh covertly like oh my way is better your parents your other parent is digging in or their opinions wrong or they’re trying to push or control and the thing is if you want to address that together offline great but in front of the kids even a united front helps the kids when there is uh two sides and the kids are kind of being given messages that the other side’s wrong it creates opportunity for the children to manipulate the situation it creates confusion for the kids um it uh kids thrive on some structure it doesn’t have to be like black and white but when they feel like the parents have such different opinions and approaches the structure goes away completely and for them then they don’t feel safe and secure that the parents have their back and an approach that will ensure their Safety and Security so parents who are living in separate households trying to come up with some agreements of some consistency of you know how they’re going to parent in two separate homes that has some agreements of like are we going to encourage that the kids do their homework and have some relative structure with bedtime even as they get older phone usage and kind of stay on the same page is helpful for the kids rather than focusing on I want to make the other parent look bad so I’m going to say why my Approach is better and again just comes back to that child centered focus a absolutely you know Lee I I can’t tell you how many children I have seen where parents are fighting with each other through their children um where they just focused so much on the anger that brought them to that place where they got divorced and they really haven’t moved on they may have moved on in the sense that they’ve had their own new relationships and they remarried or whatever but this the stuff they’re saying in front of their child or to their child about their spouse their ex spouse is they don’t realize how damaging it is and added to that you know okay the child has an opinion as well and the child of ly you know sees things and is parented in a certain way by the other parent when they bring it in the house and they say you know Dad was such a joke he said this it’s really important for the other parent not to say yeah well he was a real joke when I was Mar when we were married and he did this it’s really important not to say anything it’s really important to say yeah I mean you can empath look you can say Hey you know I’m really sorry you feel that that way and and it must be very painful for you and why don’t we talk a little bit more about that um and and I think it’s really important to say that it may be even important to be able to say well that you feel that way did you did you tell your dad exactly how how can I how can I help you do that I can say from personal experience sometimes I’m really good at the I’m sorry I know it’s really hard have you spoken to him it’s important for you to speak openly and uh have conversations with him and have a very honest relationship with him and then there are the times where I’m like yeah I guess that’s kind of why I’m not married to him anymore so sure as good as I try to be it’s really tough when you’re in the moment or but so the one thing I remind my clients is we’re not perfect we’re going to have slips we are going to say things periodically but when you do catch yourself and then come back to the but you know we’re all human and we do make mistakes and it’s worth it for you to Circle back with him and maybe bring it up if it’s bothering you or you then address it with them in a healthy non-attacking way yeah and yeah so that you guys can uh try to ensure that the kids again feel like there is some semblance of a united front and you know the other thing that I wanted to ask you about is when kids are going back and forth to two different homes that have very different approaches and parenting Styles the settling back in when the kids arrive back after transition can be somewhat challenging absolutely can you give any thoughts on how to handle those transitions yes so it’s funny I did uh I I was invited a while back uh to uh meet um a mum’s group these are divorce mothers um who had high conflict divorces and really struggling and uh one of the biggest struggles they had was their child coming back from the ex the ex husband in this case and saying terrible things you know you’re you know the child will come back home and say say you’re lazy you you’ve never really worked properly you’re a terrible parent I mean this this kind of stuff and worse basically verbatim saying what the father had said um and um we talked a little bit about how how to deal with that and I think it’s really important to remember that um what our children are saying when they come back from if it’s an extreme this is an extreme situation but it does happen fairly frequently sadly uh it’s not to remember first of all this isn’t your child making this stuff up it’s not what they’re feeling they are basically giving a message the message that they’re hearing the goal of that message is to make you feel badly as a parent and so it’s really important not to be reactionary but to become more conscious understand where it’s coming from do breathing exercise is whatever it is to help regulate yourself and then to turn around listen to what’s being said and to turn around and say you just thank you for sharing what you just shared with me it must be really hard for you to hear all me that to hear your father talking about me like that must be very hard how does it make you feel how does it make you feel about me how does it make you feel about me being your parent that’s really tough let’s see if we can talk a little bit more about that and you can unwrap it in a really loving way but for the regular that’s an extreme for the regular switching over of you know you’re coming home from the the co-parent there’s going to be TR you know very hard transition it’s never an easy transition some are easier than others but some are not so it’s very important first of all to validate with your kids to acknowledge that they feel the way they do you know a child comes back how many times have I heard a parent say to me my my child came home uh and for two days I like a wild person it was like they were staying with their father or with their mother and it was crazy and and I I don’t know what to do with them it took me that long to get them to become and they were saying using words that they would never use with me it’s like okay that’s the way it’s going to be we have to have a way of being able to handle that let’s transition let’s figure out a way to First of understand where it’s coming from the feelings they have processing those emotions that they’re bringing back from the other parent and it’s okay have a check-in conversation when they come in the house hey what have you been doing what have you been up to what are you what’s going on now what’s in what’s in your mind some people also uh have a ritual um sit and have a you know with a younger child sit and have a a glass of cocoa and play game or read a book or some kind of way of transitioning in not for example when they come home say okay well youve got to do did you do your homework this has to be done right now and and you you know you you don’t forget you got to take the dog for a walk and you’ve got your chores and you need it’s got to be the transition like for all of us transition is hard for many but when it’s an emotional transition too it’s a physical transition it’s a a different cultural transition there’s so much to it the rules are different it’s I you know the unfortunate thing is the divorce course is chosen by the parents and but the kids have to deal with the transitions unless you Nest which is rare and hard so the kids are the ones who are packing up and having their life switch back and forth and I think we have to recognize that that’s hard and not get annoyed or frustrated with them but have an ability to have a healthy conversation like my Situation’s unique because since my ex doesn’t live in the country full-time when he does come back they go to him for like two or three weeks and I’ll see them throughout those two or three weeks but it’s a pretty big G Gap when they go they come home and they have to settle back in and we run our households quite differently and um and with one of my children in particular I find that the level of respect of the way just he speaks to me or uh um kind of there’s a slight condescending Judgment of the way this household’s run and right I know my household isn’t perfect but it’s I think it’s a very warm loving household that they’re thriving overall so it’s not terrible and I will after two days if I’m still finding that there’s this disrespect that I’m feeling I will just have a very simple conversation where I say like I you know I am feeling a little bit uncomfortable with the dynamic between the two of us and I know it’s a big transition for you going from one household to the other and but I’m not comfortable with this it it does hurt my feelings and I need you to just take a step back and look at yourself and your behavior and decide if you think that there’s anything that you can change to adjust back to this house and appreciate it for what it is and generally I won’t get a response but within a few hours the the attitude has changed and so I don’t yell and I don’t try and make him feel shame or guilt I just remind him to do a little bit of uh self-reflection and a little bit of awareness and it works for the most part and I’ve just kind of come to accept that that conversation kind of has to take place and it’s brief and it creates the change that’s needed yeah and I I think that you know this is is per what what you’re explaining about the way that you do the co-parenting and the transition is is perfect it’s you know calmly being careful with the words you use not you know causing any shame to arise not being critical of the other parent even though you God you probably want to be you know or you even want want to know what happened with my child in your house and it’s okay to have that conversation if you’re able to with the co-parent maybe you are maybe you’re not but I do think that a lot of what our children bring back it’s not conscious it’s just their way they adapted and imagine if you were doing this every other week um it’s it’s back and forth and it can take you know you have them for four days and it takes them two days to to to become the child that you had before it can be it can be really hard so that you know love lots of love lot lots of nurturing lots of regula and being calm um I I would say you know good therapy uh really helps with that um I’m a great believer being my wife’s a therapist obing I’m a great believer in therapy but I also think that that it’s it’s so important to be that like we’ve talked about the child focused element to this you know you made a commitment when you had a child with you like it or not to give them as much love and caring and to parent them the best that you can no one’s perfect and there such thing as a perfect parent but if you can focus on that and not on yourself on the relationship that didn’t exist that did doesn’t exist anymore um or changed to be a co-parent one where you have a lot of resentment still all of that has to come secondary to focusing on the child um sure and uh that sounds like what what you’re doing uh and and I you look I I I have the voice of kids in my head because I’ve heard a lot of things said a kids talking about bringing their bags from you know I didn’t I forgot to bring this I’ll ask the question as a teacher as an educator where where’s your book well I left it at my mother’s house and I’m at my dad’s house now and if you say well can you get it can someone bring it to you or oh well no no I I can’t do that yeah and really maybe they can’t and we have to be understanding not just parents but those that interact with Children of Divorce how do we make make them not feel ashamed or not upset because of something they don’t have control over so they can have a normal child life where they are not traumatized in wind and damage yeah exactly it’s a challeng that’s a goal it is a challenge yeah and yeah the parents just have to be adults and step up and be as respectful as possible for the benefit of their children children and it can be hard cuz our feelings get hurt and our uh egos get hurt and uh but remembering that kids pick up on the nuances you don’t have to say anything directly if about something you don’t agree with but over time you just have to trust that they will pick up the good from each household and hopefully not repeat the bad that occurs in each household no household’s perfect no rules are perfect and but creating a loving supportive environment and you know many times we don’t have much control over our ex’s we don’t have almost any control over our exes we hardly had control over them when we were married that was part of the problem that like so uh accepting that lack of control and uh just embracing that you can only do what you can do when they are in your house and creating that support and uh respect uh about the fact that their other parent is their other parent and they half the other parents genetics do you don’t want to say horrible things about that other parent because they’re half that parent so um that’s so truly it’s you’re you’re so right I mean like right you don’t have control over the co-parent you may have a high conflict divorce where the other parents never going to be okay in the way they parent or in the way they talk about you um and that’s I think where I found the imaro dialogue piece you could do it with your child sit listen mirror show love show empathy like you said Lee you know your it’s your household you only control what you can control but if you can bring as much positivity as much love as much nurturing as much safety as you can that’s the best that you can do understanding unfortunately that you don’t have 100% control of of your child and and just hope that the other parent you know comes comes around yeah exactly well this was a wonderful conversation I think it’s really helpful and just reassuring to people that uh there are tools like amargo and people like you who work with those uh dialogues to help people learn and uh explore new ways of working with each other and that uh co-parenting is is uh a lifelong growth 

Challenge and uh the the less we get in the weeds and the details and the anger and stay in the focus of how am I able to help my kid is where the wind is absolutely absolutely thank you so much for for having me join you it’s been a I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing so tell us a little bit about where you’re located how if you work remotely as well and where maybe people can find you and I’ll obviously add the links in the show notes but yeah just tell us a little bit more so we’re located in Maryland um and um uh the company that we we our name is moving forward um Psychotherapy and coaching um and uh you can uh visit our website uh moving forward uh you can also call me um I am available on cell phone text uh my number is 24286 5487 and we are um always looking for new clients and we want to help people as much as we can with parenting with IMO um and uh with divorce and uh always excited to to make a difference hopefully in a positive way in somebody’s life wonderful well it was so nice to talk to you and thank you very much and for everyone on here please like comment subscribe that helps get these videos out there and uh I will see you eventually on the next interview take care mosha you too

good morning everybody welcome back to another season another episode of Seasons Evan flow I am Lee Wright I’m a divorce coach and today’s interview I talking with Jackie Otero she is a mediator and we are going to be talking a little bit about mediation and how she works with her clients and uh the benefits of working with a mediator and we’re also going to talk to her a little bit about her personal experience going through her divorce and some of the takeaways that she tries to help her clients some of the speed bumps not make some of those mistakes and just the lessons learned so uh I’m just going to first turn it over to Jackie thank you so much for joining me and uh if you want to just tell everybody a little bit about what you do great well thank you for having me Lee um so yes I’m a I’m a certified family mediator through the Florida Supreme Court so I have my own solo practice it’s called quartertone mediation and I’m based in Winter Park Florida but I do virtual mediations for the whole state of Florida uh and I do everything on Zoom so this is kind of my world this is my office [Laughter] so I can help anybody in any County in Florida and uh yeah I opened my business almost a year ago I’m almost at my one-year anniversary so it’s a field that is new to me but conflict resolution is not new to me that’s something that I’ve been doing for a really long time so I actually started off um in higher education I’ve worked in higher education for the last 17 years and one of the most recent jobs that I had I was the conduct officer for a college and so all of the conduct issues came to me for resolution so as you can imagine talking with students and staff and faculty all the time about issues that come up and you think about people who are in college you know it’s not just about behavioral issues because you know in school you think about behavioral issues with maybe younger kids but in college you think about all the mental health issues that people are going through and you know a lot of people in college especially in the colleges I’ve worked at they’re adults they have families they have jobs and they’re in school so they’re juggling so much and sometimes people reach a Breaking Point and then they end up having to go to a conduct meeting to talk about how to correct that and the approach that I took was always one of trying to just restore them back to a good place not just penalize them so I had a lot of practice with conflict resolution there before moving into family media

a so what Drew you to decide to become a mediator yeah there were a few moments I think that stick out in my head so when I was the director of a business program I actually had several attorneys that worked for me because we taught law classes and I had two attorneys in particular that told me that I was good at conflict resolution and that I should consider being a mediator and it’s like it’s an attorney that you respect and they tell you something like that it just kind of got filed in the back of my mind one was actually a friend of mine who was going through a divorce and she was unsuccessful in her mediation and it was the holidays this was a couple years ago and you know I knew both people in the couple and it was just like it was paining me to see them arguing just over everything over the holidays and they were it was just like ruining their h holidays yeah offered to talk to both of them just informally I was like well how just try to talk to both of you because I had a good relationship with both of them and I ended up just having individual conversations and kind of helping them see that they weren’t very far apart from what both wanted they just could not communicate with each other and so this friend of mine is an attorney and I kind of helped with that situation and she told me you know you should be a mediator and then another attorney who worked for me and who was a professor um I helped resolve a student issue for her one time she had a just a student that was being super difficult in class very argumentative very combative and I got on the phone with a student and I had this wonderful conversation with her and it all came up about her insecurities and her anxiety over going back to school and it was all this internal stuff that she was botling up and she just needed somebody to listen to her and talk through that and at the end that phone call she sent an apology email to the professor wow and the professor calls me and said what did you say to her and said she told me in that phone call she said this is during covid so we were all working remotely she said you should teach conflict resolution so it was those like two people telling me that yes just filed it away in the back of my mind that I was interested in being a mediator and and I filed my own divorce my divorce was about 7even years ago and I was a corporate pargal like 20 years ago and so I’m pretty comfortable with legal paperwork so when I was ready to file my own divorce I just did all the paperwork myself and went down to the courthouse and filed it and I became the default friend that people came to when they were getting a divorce to be like how did you do that yes so that was kind of the other impetus just going through it myself and then also having the professional practice of conflict resolution it just seemed like a really natural way to bring it together absolutely so since you filed your own divorce um can you tell us some of the lessons that you learned along the way from that experience because there are lots of people who consider that and then are just like dear in headlights and so yeah just tell us a little bit about that process for you and what you learned sure I and I know when I’ve told people that before when they’ve gone through it themselves they’re like oh you’re crazy I could never do all that and I’m like it’s just papers it’s just a lot of papers you have to go through well I will say in so I got divorced in seminal County 

I’m in Orange County now but I’ve kind of grown up in Central Florida so these are the counties I’m pretty familiar with seminal county has the best prosay checklist I think so I refer it to everybody even if they’re not in seminal County oh if you’re not familiar with the term prosay that just means represented so you’re not you know represented bu an attorney you’re doing it yourself um so I would anybody who’s in Florida I would recommend that you Google seminal County’s pray checklist it’s about 20 documents and it kind of depends on what kind of divorce you have if you have children if you don’t have children um you know there’s a few kind of routes and there’s also a paternity checklist so if you’re not married but you need you know a parenting plan or you want to file for child support that kind of thing they have these really nice really nice laid out checklists that give you links to the Florida court documents and wow the Florida courts use the same templates for the entire state so they’re not really seminal County specific seminal County just has put it in a really nice list that’s very accessible so I always give that to people um beyond that I mean I literally printed everything notorized it and brought it to the courthouse and handed it to them um but now I would say you know definitely the eiling system is pretty easy to use too don’t be intimidated by it you do still they I know that they do still want you to notorized everything on paper like with actual ink but then after you have it notorized you can scan it and then e file it okay one other so that just saves you the trips to the courthouse so it’s kind of like do you want to spend the time scanning or do you want to just drive to the courthouse exactly exactly I mean for some reason

 I felt a little satisfaction in actually driving to the courthouse and handing it to them and then and then the clerk who you hand it to they’ll actually go through everything and kind of make sure that you got everything so that I liked having that confirmation too I think I would too like I feel like once it’s out out in the E you know also if they say oh this one isn’t filled out like the whole process back and forth it’s just I feel like in person for something like that makes a lot of sense yes and actually Orange County at the courthouse there they have a whole self-help center at their courthouse so you can go there and actually sit down with somebody and they’ll give you the right forms they’ll walk you through everything so that’s a really good resource for people too especially if you do want to go in person and sit down and talk with somebody um and I know that they do attorney consultations there too I believe that you do have to pay for them but they’re very cheap like I think you can sit down with somebody for 15 minutes and it’s a very reasonable fee just to get a little bit of information from somebody right that’s wonderful and I I was going to say one thing that I also learned so when I initially filed I didn’t know that you had to get a summons I thought that I would just file and then hand the paperwork over to my ex because we you know there was no secret he knew we were getting divorced he knew I was filing yeah and so I just thought oh I’ll just hand it to him and then we’ll go from there and I did that I remember handing him the paperwork and you know just saying I’ve I’ve initiated this and here’s what you’ve got to do next because you know whoever files it is the petitioner and then whoever’s responding is the respondent so they have to file a response within a certain amount of time but what I didn’t realize is that clock never started for how much time he had to respond because I never did a summons ah and so he could have taken all the time in the world if he wanted to and then after I found that out I went back to the courthouse then they sent me to the Sheriff’s Office it to me it was very confusing but I did finally have to go to the sheriff and have them actually serve him papers which I felt was so redundant I’m like why do I need to have a sheriff go serve him papers he already has everything but it was like we need it to officially start the clock on the right exactly and 

the I do feel like that whole process of having a sheriff bring the paperwork is so uh it creat like this okay you guys are in this possible antagonistic situation I agree like knocking on the door and like you’ve been served when I got mine it was so shocking and unexpected I didn’t even know he’d file like even though we were doing an amicable divorce he’d gotten not the greatest advice I think from his lawyer so um yeah it starts this like feeling of like oh I need a lawyer up and like yes just fear totally it’s all fear-based I agree and I think that that is probably the biggest issue that I see in our divorce system is just there’s so much fear and you know I’m in a lot of divorce groups on online just because I like to chime in and give give my tips and also tell them what I do but it’s amazing how many people as soon as divorce is talked about everybody says lawyer up you better get everything you deserve and you got to know what you’re entitled to and you got to get ready to fight and don’t be afraid to bring them to court and it’s just like everybody’s ready for battle I know it doesn’t have to be that way I’m convinced so I if you could get around like not having that sheriff like serve the paper I learned later that he could have filed a response at the same time as I filed the petition right I could have literally handed him the paper to say check off what your response is yes get that essentially both of you went to the courthouse together or you could have given him the paperwork and he could have gone and done the response at the court housee exactly so when somebody voluntarily you know submits their own response you don’t have to get that summons so that’s when I work with people now I typically work with prosay people who have not yet filed so called pruit pray right pre pre-filing and what I do is I help them get all their agreements together we do a full settlement agreement a parenting plan we’ll do a child support calculation and then I will if they want my help with the other paperwork I can also walk them through how to file the petition and the answer to the petition and then the respondent can actually file a a wave a waiver a waiver of service so they’re basically say nope I got everything I needed everything is settled and they can request the final judgment right there and then if you do it like that then it’s an uncontested divorce so that’s always my goal I’m like if I could start over or if I could advise somebody from the start I would say file an uncontested divorce if you at all can yes and I think some people think that they already have to have everything agreed upon no that like I understand there are always issues that need to be worked out that’s why you can come to a mediator like me and I can help facilitate that conversation and we don’t always settle in one session I mean that’s not always realistic sometimes it takes multiple sessions over a little bit of time to help resolve all the issues yes I’ll say one more thing while I’m on this train of thought the other thing you can do is you can also file a partial agreement when you file for divorce and that was one thing I also didn’t know so you don’t necessarily have to have a full agreement on all issues let’s say I have a client and they agree on everything except for two things like they’re not agreeing on what school zone to use and they’re not agreeing on international travel because those are a couple of issues that come up so let’s say everything else is settled I’ll write up a full well not a full I’ll write up a partial agreement um we’ll do everything they can file that and then they can ask the judge basically just to uh rule on those two things so they don’t have to go through a full trial they can just have a hearing and the judge might ask some questions and usually the judge will try to get them to agree to something even in a hearing right before they make a ruling on their behalf but I mean that can be another good way to do it so it’s it’s not quite an uncontested divorce but it’s a at least a partial agreement that that gets you a long way still through the court system yeah absolutely and if you can avoid trial in any way avoid it like that to me that’s the last straw that is like the final thing that you do when there’s just no other option left because I have sat in on divorce trials thankfully I didn’t have to do one myself but I have in on some and it is so painful the I can’t even imagine know the level of detail that is scrutinized for for each person every parenting decision every text message just it’s a brutal process not to mention super expensive yeah so try everything before you say you want to go to trial absolutely I didn’t know that you could have a judge just help you with like one or two things that’s really interesting like we finished everything in one long mediation session but I look back and our lawyers were sitting there all through mediation and it was so unnecessary the mediator worked with each of us very well she was uh a very experienced mediator and uh his attorney was giving him a lot of just encouraging him to go to court so not not an effective attorney so but if you’ve a good mediator I just think back and I’m like how much money we spent to have the lawyers sit there and do almost nothing and yeah I oh go ahead I love when I have clients who come to me before they’ve hired any professionals so that I can educate them about hiring a mediator and maybe having Consulting attorneys or learning about collaborative divorce before they hire an attorney because some of these attorneys some are wonderful and some really like fuel the fire and create that very antagonistic system and once it started and it starts to snowball backpedaling from that is so hard yes I agree so in my experience even though I did start the process myself my ex-husband did get an attorney and so once he had an attorney I actually got a very scary letter from his attorney um and it was sort of asking for everything in the Moon it was like oh he’s going to go for full custody and U child support and alimony and all these things it was basically like every possible thing that could be fought for that was in the letter and I was like so freaked out by it yes that I went and talked to an attorney and I was like well I’m I’m not going to go up against a family attorney when I don’t I’ve never done this I don’t know this system so I did end up having to get an attorney but then we did settle in one mediation kind of like you it was long one long mediation and you have to pay your attorney to sit there you got to pay the mediator so it’s a very expensive session very and but I was thankful that my attorney her whole goal was to keep me out of court and keep me out of so I appreciated that she was like she was kind of my reality check of like if I don’t agree to this at what level then will I agree to it later on after spending way more money or you know so she was good at giving me like a healthy reality check of like this is why you probably want to settle now even though it’s not exactly what you want because it’s going to be worse and more expensive down the road so I feel like I kind of saw both sides I did the prosay beginning and then I did the mediation with attorneys um I mean if there’s ever an attorney that’s encouraging you to go to trial right off the bat I just feel like that’s a huge red flag oh for sure and I recommend people go to attorneys all the time because there’s definitely a time and a place for attorneys but not every case needs them absolutely the people that tend to find me tend to want to stay out of court and they want to settle yes so I’m like nobody really just seeks out a private mediator before a divorce unless they want to settle like they’re very motivated to settle and get everything done yeah and I’m like if you don’t want to settle then don’t come to me right like go hire a lawyer and start Gathering your evidence right so I think there’s you know it’s a time in a place and every case is different um but before I have anybody sign an agreement I always recommend that they have an attorney look it over yeah I agree this is a legal document it’s G to govern your life for a long time you know at least get a consultation have somebody take a look at it and I felt in my mediation I was very pressured to sign sign sign like there in that session in that room in that physical room together and it was like if you don’t sign now and I’ve had other mediators tell me oh I never leave the room without a signature and I’m like I don’t do that but I also you know since I work with self-represented people too I want them to feel like they have time to go get a consultation to go have it looked over the second opinion I’d rather them take time and really think about it even if there are a couple more issues that we’ve got to work out after the fact right and pressure them to sign right there and then they feel awful about it afterwards yeah yeah I I see both sides we didn’t sign right there there were a few open-ended items but his lawyer who I think was so frustrated that we were working together because I think he just wanted us to go to court the the another thing I feel like is I think unfortunately my ex hired someone who advertised kind of like I can ensure you won’t have to pay alimony or anything and that’s really dependent on the situation but if you hire someone who says across the board I can guarantee this for you like they that’s false advertising and so one he was not well prepared by his lawyer when he got into mediation which put him kind of on like clueless waters you know he just didn’t have any knowledge so it wasn’t it didn’t set him up for success in mediation and so I feel like the type of professional you hire is really important from the get-go to set the tone but also to educate you in the right way because they could encourage you to go to court and then you go to court and you find out that everything that you disagreed with in mediation the judge is going to say that that makes sense so you want to hire professionals if you are using attorneys who are going to set you up for Success absolutely and I’ll give you another example when it’s a great time to bring an attorney in so I had some clients where you know we were doing it all pruit and we went through the whole parenting plan and that was that went pretty well but I think they both knew things were going to get real sticky with the finances so we did the parenting plan in one session it took I think a little over three hours and we got that done and then I started kind of setting an agenda for the next session just so I knew kind of what we were walking into and I always ask you know what are the major issues that you’d like to resolve for the next session just so I can get an idea of where we’re going yeah I knew that alimony was part of the discussion because they had both brought it up but both had no idea where to start it was like one didn’t know what to ask for the other one didn’t know what to expect to pay and you could tell that they just both felt very nervous about that conversation yeah and so we ended up taking a two week break between mediation sessions and I said I want you both to go consult with an attorney and I want you to ask all the questions that you have about alimony and I want you to think of what would be a starting point for that conversation because part of the mediator ethics and guidelines are that I cannot give legal advice that is one of the pillars of mediation I cannot give them any legal advice so I can’t help them strategize now what I will do and I did for this couple I can pull up the Florida statute like I’ll share my screen and I’ll pull up the alimony statute and I’ll say well let’s look at it together and we can see right there in the statute what it says what the guidelines are you know what’s considered a shortterm versus a long-term marriage you know different terms and percentages that are invol involved um so I can at least inform them but I can’t interpret it for them so I could tell that they just needed somebody to give them some advice before they came back and I think that’s a great time to just pay for a 30 minute or one hour consultation with an attorney you know definitely help get help with your strategy so at least you walk in knowing what maybe your starting point is um because I can’t really give you that starting point that’s that’s a little too much for me to suggest as a mediator um and I ended up taking them in different rooms and just talking to them about so how did your consultation go tell me about that right nice right so if I’m asking them I’m again I’m not strategizing with them I’m just asking them you tell me how did it go what do you thinking about it what would be a good starting point and that’s I got the conversation started with them nice and then you guys were able to come to agreement it’s wonderful yeah I mean I don’t want to jinx it by saying it out loud but so this is my first year of business  

in Family Mediation I’ve had 17 clients this year and I have settled 100% so far wonderful knock on wood I want to keep the streak alive but I always say because people who come to me are motivated to settle I don’t think it’s because I have some special technique I think the type of people that come to a prosay mediator before they file divorce they’re motivated to settle yes and if you want to settle and both people do usually we can get there yes yeah I think if both parties are rational knowledgeable like have done some research and like you said looked at the statute aware of how long they’ve been divorced maybe talk to friends who have gone through the process I gathered a lot of information just by pinging different people who I knew who had gone through it I learned a lot and uh yeah I feel like you have to be an advocate for yourself absolutely and even if you have attorneys don’t just rely on them like advocate for yourself I actually have a story about that because I I had that same thought while I was in mediation during my own divorce because that was back in the day when we were still doing all physical mediations I do feel like most of them tend to be virtual now yeah but we were in separate rooms um they put us in separate rooms from the very beginning and we were fairly amicable like we this sounds you know a little weird but like we hugged at the end of mediation yeah I think that’s beautiful like we could have conversations and we wanted the for our kids like there were still good vibes there even though we knew we could not be married anymore but they put us in separate rooms from the very beginning and I kept getting these offers from the other room that I was like I I know this isn’t coming from him I can tell because I’ve I’ve known this man you know 30 years I mean literally I knew my ex-husband since kindergarten yeah so I’m like I know him this is not him this is not what he’s asking for this is his lawyer giving him what I think is strange advice like over the top advice yes so I want to say was like the first two hours of our mediation we did not get anywhere because we were just in SE rooms going back and forth with these weird offers and I asked my attorney and I asked the mediator I said can I just go talk to him and they kind of like had to meet without me and like discuss like are we gonna let her talk to him and they came back to which is so funny I’m like this is a man that I have children with like you know yes I could talk to him but I get it it’s a whole system and so after they consulted with everybody they came back and they said okay you can go talk to him and I just went in the room with him and I said can we just talk for a minute he’s like of course and we just start 

talking and I’m like okay I thought we had already agreed that we were going to do it this way and this and he goes yeah that’s right I I agree I’m like so why are we arguing about this and paying two attorneys and a mediator to argue something for us that we don’t need to argue about and he was like I agree and then we finished the rest of the mediation in the same room together good for you that’s I’m use that example because I’m like this is your mediation this is your divorce you’re paying all these people to be here to serve you right so make sure that they are serving you like yes the thing is people again people are so scared about divorce and they’re so intimidated by the whole thing it’s very intimidating walking into your own divorce mediation like a scary thing and I think just out of fear they let the professionals take over totally yeah I can really doesn’t always serve them you know so I’m like you’re the boss of your mediation if something is going the way you want to guess what it’s all voluntary like even if you’re court ordered to mediation you get a check mark if you just show up like you it for going to mediation even if you show up so you can leave at any time you can take a break you don’t have to sign anything like you’re the boss you know yeah like your mediation it’s your mediation you’re the one paying for these people to be here in this room together right and if you if you feel like your professionals are pushing you towards antagonizing like like you said I know this person like I know and you might not be getting along right now but if you feel like they’re being given very bad advice like sometimes just having a conversation with them either before mediation just reminding them the agreements that you made like we’re going to do do this amicably we’re going to prioritize our kids we want to save our co-parenting relationship but I also remind my clients that the like few months that you’re in that like deep divorce where you’re like around mediation time and just after emotions are so RI raised that oh yeah yeah you might not be super amicable or want to be in the same room with that person but those emotions settle over time and that you you will rebuild that co-parenting relationship so be patient like Time Heals as well so totally agree I know people who have done mediation I I have friends who have done mediation I want to say like a eight to nine hour mediation session walking out with zero agreements on anything and then they wait six months and then they go back and they settle so sometimes it’s just exactly what you’re saying emotions are too high like you I know we’ve talked about this before divorce is a business transaction you know and marriage is a legal partnership it’s it’s like starting a business with somebody yeah you know I say 

I always wish that it was just as hard and just as much paperwork to get married as it is to get divorced because you think about like what does it take to get married I think I signed one document I mean yes totally I think there was much more it’s so so easy to get married but it is so hard to untangle it all at the end and so of course it’s easy for us to say this because we’re at a distance from it it’s like oh you’ve got to go in with a level head and you know treat it transaction treat it like a a business deal it never feels that way when you’re in it no I agree like that period of time like basically leading up to deciding to get divorced and then actually starting the process till you’re finally divorced like that is the hardest time you know it is like that being in limbo and mine was quick mine was like six months long so comparatively speaking that’s a quick divorce it felt like years yes I know it does just time slows it’s so stressful it does so and I totally I totally agree with you you know everything does get better over time and I do I do think once you decide to get divorced like I tell people take your time deciding to get divorced like it took me three solid years to make decision it really like I really felt like I had to exhaust every possible option before I settled on that decision but once decided then I’m like then don’t linger don’t let it drag on for years because right then rip off the Band-Aid because let’s get it done I totally agree do you want to tell us us a little bit about because I have clients in that stay orgo phase for a year or two and we just and I remind them it’s okay like this takes this is a big decision do not rush it but do you want to tell us a little bit about your process of how you finally got to that decision over those years yeah um I I mean I do think my situation was a little bit unique I I mentioned that I knew my ex-husband since kindergarten and I was very entwined with his whole family like I love his sister I loved his parents like we just did everything together we knew each other for a long time but he was suffering from addiction and that was the main catalyst of what dissolved our marriage in the end and what I think is so unique about dealing with addiction in the course of a marriage is you just you Fe you love the person obviously and I still have a lot of love for him and I always still felt like he’s a good person even to this day I’m like and he’s still suffering he’s still suffering quite a bit like it’s only gotten worse since we got divorced seven years ago and it’s very sad but it was like I struggled with do I divorce somebody who has an illness yeah you know because when I took my vows I meant them you know and I felt like okay if he had cancer would I be leaving him no of course not I would be like seeing him through that struggle and supporting him and so addiction to me you know it’s not like you’re a bad person because you’re an addict you have an illness and I saw it very close up and it got really bad like I said like the last three years were really really rough he was in and out of rehab he was in and out of AA you know getting sponsors he was he was trying a lot of different things I think it was because I made him do it to be honest I was sort of like you know managing his addiction which is also not a great place to be in which I’ve learned after many years um you know but I was sort of like always kind of trying to be that Catalyst to try to get him better because I was trying to keep our family together you know it’s like I had I had the biggest motivation to do that and it was three years of real deep dark addiction time and in and out of rehab in and out of jobs just big roller coaster yeah I remember I read a book I think it was called should I stay or should I go was like I need a formula I need a calculation to like tell me when is the right time to call this right right and of course like you know and I was going to therapy and everything I was going to individual therapy and you know couples counseling too because I thought we could just work through everything and um I remember reading this book and like kind of making you know Columns of like do I stay do I go you know writing everything down and I still was like I don’t know and I will say what what finally brought me to the point was my house was feeling like it was chaos it felt like my house was utter chaos like I would come home from work and I would not know what I would be walking into my kids were little like they were in let’s see they were in preschool you know going into Elementary School at this time and I think I had to make the decision for them I was like I need them to grow up in a more stable home and even though it’s like you’re trying to stay together because you think that’s a stable family is like a two parent house you know yes but I think I had to come to the recognition that the more stable life for them would be the one parent house that the one un stable parent and so so I think that’s what ultimately did it I was like 

I think my kids need a different environment to grow up in um and I also kind of in my head I gave myself one more round of rehab and sobriety and I told myself I was like I’m gonna do one more round I’m gonna give it one more shot it was leading up to our 10y year wedding anniversary I remember because I was like we’re gonna make it to 10 we’re gonna you know I was like I’m gonna but I was like if we do one more of this roller coaster I’m out and sure enough it happened and we ended up divorced right before 10 year anniversary wow and so it was it was awful it was a really I mean it’s the hardest time of my life but I will I always tell people everything since then has been better it’s like my house is calm I think it’s a great home for my kids unfortunately I don’t have their dad as a co-parent he’s just not able to do it anymore we did try in the beginning to do some co-parenting and some time sharing it just wasn’t it wasn’t Fe so my kids actually just saw him for the first time in two years they saw him a couple weeks ago and they had a nice they had a nice like one hour reunion so it’s like you know we still care about him it’s like we wish him the best but we can’t be in his addiction with him right yeah you can’t enable or that it he has to be able to make whatever changes or choices for him and I had to come to resolution that this is on him like I can’t make him get out of this yeah so we still so hard we still hope someday he’ll come out of it and maybe come back and want to be in their lives again but it’s just you know that’s not where it’s at right now yeah yeah it’s a pro it’s a accepting that and getting your head around that is a process I’m sure I’m sure it’s very difficult to make peace with oh yeah for sure but we’re in a good place you know it’s it’s like we all wish he was better but we also just know it’s it’s not up to us so I think we’re in a place and you know my kids and I they’re in middle school now um we talk very openly about it you know and I tell them I’m like there’s no secrets here if you want to ask me any questions or if you want to know anything just ask yeah we talk very openly about addiction and mental illness and you know alcoholism like we’ve talked about all those topics and I tell you what those were never topics I knew anything about growing up thankfully I’m happy I didn’t have to know about them absolutely but you know I didn’t know anything about this stuff so I feel like my kids of course I wish that they had a dad around who was healthy but man they are going into the world knowing a lot of stuff yes I agree hopefully that serves them hopefully you know it’s like their eyes are more open to world than I think mine never were yeah I 100% relate to that I I came from my parents were together but it wasn’t it wasn’t the healthiest relationship but I had no idea that that was all I knew and I feel like I didn’t understand the complications of marriage of relationships I just saw like oh it’s okay like you just stay together and like that maybe is what marriage looks like and I feel like I was very naive and now I feel like my children understand the gravity of when you decide to marry someone like that is a huge decision and it’s not just because it’s fun and feels good there’s so many other things to consider and uh understanding their household that they grew up in like is that something that you would want your household to look like those were things I never even thought about and we met young I didn’t like we were kind of each other’s first long-term relationship now I’m like to my kids you need to have a few if you you have to take the risk of losing someone if they’re the right person you’ll come back to them but if you meet someone at 15 16 18 like like you need other experiences before you can say this is the person for the rest of my life and so it’s unfortunate that I had to go through those life lessons but now at least I’m giving them the opportunity to learn from the things that I didn’t know oh I give my kids all kinds of unsolicited advice in that area like I have told them I’m like do you want to hear my real perspective on marriage now and they’re like yeah tell us like they’re interested for whatever reason yes and I was like well here’s what I think so I was a sociology major in college I studied culture and society and I remember actually I took a class called the the sociology of heterosexuality and it was about

 how every piece of media you watch from the time you a kid watching Disney movies up to like romcoms it all is programming you to want the same thing and it’s like how many TV series and movies end with a white wedding you know and it’s like that’s the end goal for everybody is to get married and then you can start a family and you can have this whole life right so it’s like it is so deeply programmed in us and it’s all a societal construct like and you know I’m I’m sorry to my kids that they have to hear me say this stuff but I’m like you know marriage it’s a madeup thing it’s it’s a madeup thing that Society does um it’s a legal contract that you sign to basically start a business with somebody and the business is the marriage and then everything that you make and all the debts that you incur it’s it’s of that entity and you are equally responsible for all of it and I just never thought of it in a critical way I just thought I want to have kids I want to be a mom I want to be married I you know I got married at 27 it’s not that young but it’s still not a ton of life experience but I’m like you know nobody talks about how you can have kids and you can have a house and you can have the whole life you want without the legal document so when I learn about people who are living that whole life without it being legally formalized I’m like they’re so brilliant you know I was like they’re just together because they want to be together right and if that ever changes like yes I respect marriage you know my parents are still married I mean they have a very successful marriage so it works for some people yeah and I would do it differently if I was starting all over right right I do think though the the challenges like if you don’t marry but you have kids together and a house together and you do have to uncouple if that happens it is just as complicated in some respects don’t you think or because you’re still having to divide everything and sure sure and I mean you could still end up in court over those property divisions it’s probably just going to be small claims court not family court right um I do just feel like there’s you just have so much more flexibility and I know I’ve argued with people about this before because a lot of people are like oh there’s protection when you get married and I was like well I wasn’t protected by marriage not in my situation right my situation I really felt like I only got the bad end of you know what I mean so I mean I had to give up so much of that for 401K I had been building and you know I always felt like I paid for every dime of that house yet I had to give him half the profits and I get it now I get why it exists like that of course time it just felt like I was being stripped of so many things I felt like I was being punished yes it felt like I was the one trying to make it work yet I was very financially punished by it yeah that’s a really hard thing to get over yeah

 I think when it comes to addiction it that is such a very unique not unique but very specific situation that the partner who is holding everything together really is taking on so much more of the burden of the family the business the house and so yeah I took on all his debts I I took care of all his debts it just felt like I had to take responsibility for everything in order to leave yeah that is a really hard pill to swallow it was it was very hard but you know I was also like I have a good job like I’m gonna be okay you know looking back on it now more objectively like the addict in that situation also needs to be protected like what if I just left him with absolutely nothing yeah you know so he did get you know a lot of funds right to kind of give him a Runway if he could change his exactly he did have at least a financial opportunity to get a new start right you know unfortunately you can guess how that went um like he did cash out the 401K money and then it was gone so it’s like you know I I agree with it now in theory that like that parent does need financials to get going and you hope that it actually works out for them and it it doesn’t always yeah do you have you found that like from your personal experience especially with addiction that you have a unique ability to help clients I do because I’ve been there I know exactly what it’s I don’t know what it’s like to be the addict but I know what it’s like to live in a household that is dictated by addiction Yes actually kind of coincidentally um my very first clients were this wonderful couple that one of them was right out of rehab and they were very amicable they had agreed to separate they had agreed to get divorced but they did it in a really loving way it was very inspiring to see because you tell that they were both really good parents and they wanted the best and it really helped that the addict admitted their own limitations and I think that that’s what you need when we when we talk about going into a successful mediation you know it’s about taking some level of responsibility and having a reality check for what what’s Best in that situation for the family and they both had that and so I actually I wrote a parenting plan that had three different levels of time sharing and I advocate for this for people who are in recovery because I all I ever want is to see somebody come out of recovery and be successful and St recovery and be able to be a great parent like I listen to armchair expert with Dak Shepard and uh he talks a lot about his recovery and his relapses over the years and his addictions and man when he talks about like the kind of parent he is to his girls it just warms my heart because I’m like we do we need good examples of how it can be successful too yes you know like you know addiction has has a very bad reputation out there you know and it’s you know but I I try to not blame the addiction or or I rather I try to not blame you know the parent and I give a lot of respect to people that are in recovery and really trying to get better so I would recommend and I’ve done this for people kind of a stairstep approach to Parenting plans okay somebody’s coming right out of rehab it doesn’t make any sense for anybody to go straight to 50-50 time sharing yeah that it’s you want to set them up for Success so in this instance this particular parenting plan we kind of had the beginning phase which was okay just starting off in recovery maybe you’re in sober living maybe you are just getting like an apartment or have roommates or something like that let’s just say what does it what actually makes sense maybe just some Daytime visits at first maybe some you know regular weekends together maybe there’s a grandparents house where you can spend the night together at a grandparents house so let’s like start slow right yeah and then once usually I would set like a time frame on that like if that is successful for the first 90 days maybe then we can transition into phase two which is okay maybe now they have their own apartment with an extra bedroom or something like that you can set it as like a time frame to reach the next Milestone right or something happens like you get an apartment that has two bedrooms right right and when that kicks in you go to the next phase which could be every other weekend you know plus a week night or something like that so you’re kind of building on that yes once you have that for let’s say six months and things are going smoothly then you transition to 50-50 time sharing and if involve the kids too I mean obviously it depends on the age of your kids and all of that but you gotta kind of let them in on the plan a little bit it’s like well here’s what we both want we both want you to have time with both of us right we’re not going to be married anymore so we’re going to live separately so here’s what that’s going to look like we’re going to first start here and then we’re going to build up to this so it’s like you know the less uncertainty for the kids the better you know so know that there’s some goals in place and you hope that everything goes smoothly and that you kind of graduate to 50-50 time sharing but I think if you just go straight into it like there’s just too much room for error yes and you want to set yourself up for Success not fail and then have to retry and for the kids the safe feeling safe like especially if they know the one parent has struggled yeah they might even though they adore and love that parent not feel 100% safe that that parent can fully take care of them so you want to give the kids the chance to build that confidence yeah for everybody absolutely and it’s like you know when you have somebody that’s going through rehab and all of that it’s like there’s so much trust that’s broken it’s like the trust between the parents is broken the trust with the kids like there’s just a lot of Chaos in it so I think yeah just I I like to use a parenting plan as a tool to give people structure that they can like find success within right I think that’s really important so that’s that’s actually one thing I’m really thinking like you know going into you know 2025 and thinking about my business and how I want to do things I’m really excited about working more with people in recovery like that just feels like a very personal mission to me and going all psychoanalyst on it like oh I I couldn’t fix my situation so I can help other people with theirs right like that’s so gratifying though to see somebody kind of come out of it successfully and be able to parent like that’s and then what a gift to the kids no to the whole family yeah it is it really is a gift so I feel very lucky that I can work with families like this and I just feel like a very personal drive for it absolutely yeah I think that that is for someone who for a family that’s going through that to work with someone who can personally understand it but also say like these let’s make a plan for success for you guys is really just makes everyone feel more comfortable right and I think addicts a lot of time feel punished for their actions and I never parenting plan to feel like a punishment it’s not like oh well you screwed up so now you’ve got this it needs to be set up to more like let let me lay out a path that you can follow towards your goal yeah you like let’s let’s not punish you but let’s kind of turn that around into like right and each Milestone like you get rewarded so there’s like incentive if you really do want to get to 5050 whether it’s timeline or Milestone like you have you follow this plan and you get what you want exactly so it takes away uncertainty right because anytime somebody is in addiction there’s just so much uncertainty yeah I know that feeling of like I don’t know if my kids are getting picked up today from preschool like I would get calls from the preschool director you know like nobody picked up your kids today you know so it’s like I know what it’s like to live in that uncertainty area and I’m like even for people who are still married and trying to get through recovery or rehab or anything I actually met with a therapist recently who suggested to me why don’t you do parenting plans for people who are still intact with their marriage and their family but kind of offer the same thing like give them a path to kind of re integrate into the family and I’m like that’s brilliant nobody talks about that no you know so true I think there’s so much opportunity to set people up for Success yes oh I love that well Jackie I don’t want to take too much of your time this is like so informative and I really appreciate you sharing so much about your own personal story and um just really sharing how you can help other people these types of things are so encouraging especially when it comes to a topic like addiction which a lot of people keep so close to their chest and feel a little isolated with that situation so just hearing someone who’s gone through it and come out the other and and is supportive to help other people it really that’s a really wonderful thing that you’re offering thank you so much and it’s a little liberating to talk about it because when you are dealing with addiction in your home you don’t talk about it to many people yeah like you said it’s kind of like something people feel a lot of Shame about yeah you do you kind of keep it close you don’t let a lot of people in that Circle and so it’s a little bit liberating to talk about it um you know with some level of objectivity but it’s I I’m sure that so many families have been suffering through that same thing that I have so I’m like I I want to at least give people a Shot For Success whether it’s staying in the marriage or sometimes the better thing is to leave the marriage and either way you just want great parents in the mix like that’s that’s really the goal yeah so true

 like protecting the kids they aren’t the ones who chose to be involved in a divorce to have parents who have challenges and so you just want to protect them if you can yeah well thank you so much and thank you for all the great questions and you made it very easy to talk about and it’s a very difficult subject that I don’t talk about very much so thank you oh well great talking to you and I will let you know also I just want to let you know well first if you want to tell people where they could find you oh yes so I do uh mediation videos I I record lots of informational videos on social media so you can find me on social media at jackieo mediator I’m on Tik Tok LinkedIn Instagram Facebook all the places YouTube um and then my website my company is quartertone mediation and my website is QT mediation.com okay and if it’s an appropriate time I to plug that you and I are doing a webinar together yes that’s right if you happen to be watching this video before January 27th 2025 we are doing a free webinar uh we’ve decided to join forces you know Lee being a divorce coach and myself being a mediator we just thought it would be really good to come together and answer people’s questions so we’ll be announcing more details soon and registration information but it’s called starting fresh in 2025 managing in your divorce with confidence so we want to empower you and answer your questions and help you you know get off to a fresh start so more details coming soon Lee and I’m looking forward to doing that with you yes me too and I will make sure all of those details about the webinar and all your links are in the show notes okay fantastic yeah all right well I will see you very soon and it was a wonderful conversation thank you