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138524804-oranges-gettyimagesWhat can an orange possibly help us with in our collaborative divorce or any divorce process for that matter? You may have heard about interest based negotiations vs. position based negotiations. When I am working as a financial neutral or mediator with divorcing couples, I use an orange to demonstrate these two different approaches. I place an orange on the table and then say to the couple; here we have one orange for the two of you. How are you going to decide who gets the orange? Most people will say cut it in half. While this certainly works, it may not be the best approach. Here is why. I then tell them each why they want the orange. One wants it to eat because they are hungry. The other wants the orange peel for baking. Now if we were to cut it in half as most people will say they both only get half of what they need. It is only when they state why the orange is important to them that an agreement can be reached. When negotiating divorce issues think of the orange and remember to talk about your interests instead of locking into a position. The quicker you get to the interests you will be that much closer to an agreement. Not only is emotion and conflict minimized you also get more of what you need/want.  Think orange.
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174895184-conflict-gettyimagesA strategy used by some divorcing spouses and their attorneys is to threaten that they will take the other spouse to court. Threatening court is a negotiation strategy in an effort to get the other side to give up or significantly compromise their position(s). When attorneys use this tactic, they often will prepare for a trial. The trial preparation ends up being extremely expensive and emotionally exhausting for the involved spouses. Often a hatred for the other spouse develops because of trials and/or the threatened use of court. The reality is a small fraction of divorces end up in trial. The overwhelming reason those cases do end up in trial is because spouses and their attorneys refuse to negotiate. Sometimes a spouse will tell their attorney to go for the throat or they say I want to make him/her pay. It is the divorcing spouses and unfortunately their children, if any, that end up paying the price financially and emotionally. Seeking revenge does not have a place in any divorce process and accompanied by an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith sets up a strategy to fail. Collaborative divorce on the other hand takes the threatened use of court totally out of the picture. Both spouses are represented by their own collaboratively trained attorney. Spouses and attorneys alike commit in writing not to go to court. Conceptually this enhances the likelihood of reaching agreements by placing the spouses and their attorneys on the same side of the table in an effort to settle on all issues. Let me ask you which process do you think provides both spouses with a potentially better outcome? Which process do you think you will have the most control over the outcome?   Which process will give your children, if any, a better opportunity for future success by creating an effective co-parenting plan? Finally, which process will seek to minimize the stress both emotionally and financially for you and your spouse? Download this free divorce knowledge kit showing a comparison chart between collaborative divorce and a court-based litigation process, case studies, and general information how a collaborative divorce may benefit you. Additional divorce resources can be found under the about us section at www.integrashieldfinancial.com. Remember to choose your process wisely.
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It does not matter in the life of a child how much money you have in your bank account or really how fancy of a home you may live in. What matters most to that child is the quality time that two loving and caring parents can give that child. I will also say being the father of three adult children this does not change with age at least not with my kids. Ten or twenty years from your divorce the one thing you and your children will remember is how you and your spouse went through this most difficult time in your life. Ask yourself how you would like to have your children remember it. Did they feel trapped in the middle like many children of divorce or did you and your spouse work together to keep them front and center. Your kids will remember and so will you. As a financial neutral and mediator, I use agendas to start meetings to give us a track to run on. Part of that agenda includes a section titled, “Let’s Have a Conversation People Before Numbers”.   I explain that as people they are far more important than any numbers on a balance sheet or cash flow statement. Sometimes it is too easy to get so caught up in the numbers of divorce negotiations the couple forgets that they are living breathing human beings with needs, interests, feelings and emotions. Sure, the financial issues are important but I believe in putting people ahead of numbers. Want to have successful divorce negotiations put yourself in the shoes of your spouse, which may be easier said than done. If you can do this, if you can put your spouse before the numbers, the numbers tend to work themselves out. Do this and not only you and your spouse will remember how you handled this most difficult time in your life, your children will too.
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173776883-chasm-man-woman-silhouette-gettyimagesUnderstanding the difference between interests and positions could make all of the difference in helping you negotiate a better outcome in your divorce. Position-Based Bargaining: Most people have a tendency to negotiate by arguing in favor of their positions. In divorce, this type of “position-based” bargaining can actually make it more difficult to get what you want. Once you and your spouse become locked into positions, the need to defend those positions can lead to a lengthy and expensive divorce. Often position based negotiations come to an end only after both parties have reached a point of physical and emotional exhaustion only to reach a “meet in the middle” agreement. One of the many problems with meeting in “the middle” is that the best solutions may have existed outside of either position. Creative negotiation that avoid positions and focus on interests can lead to outcomes that are better for both parties. Interest-Based Bargaining:   In divorce, couples start by determining their interests and look for true “win/win” scenarios. In order to appreciate how interest-based bargaining works, it is important to understand the difference between positions and interests. Positions are narrow; “win/lose” proposals can only be satisfied in one way. For example, statements such as “I want Sole custody” or “I need $5,000 per month in support” or “I must have the house” represent positions that require the other person to “lose” in order for you to win. On the other hand, “interests” (sometimes called goals) focus on big picture desires that can be satisfied in many ways. Statements such as “I want our children to be kept out of the conflict” or “I want financial stability for both homes” or “I want us to be able to communicate better in our co-parenting” are requests to have an important interest met. One of the advantages of focusing on big-picture interests is that you and your spouse are likely to have many of these interests in common. Therefore, although working on the details of how these interests can be met will still require some problem solving skills (and some bargaining) the negotiation becomes easier because you are both working toward these important common goals. Interest-based bargaining is a skill that needs to be developed over time. Divorce negotiations are usually improved when the professionals involved have significant training and experience in this method so that they can teach these skills to their clients. Most mediators and Collaborative professionals have training and experience in interest based bargaining. To locate a professional who understands this method to interview and to learn more about interest based divorce negotiation go to www.collaborativelaw.org or www.divorcechoice.com.
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507851475-unhappy-three-year-old-girl-in-bedroom-gettyimagesToday I met with two very attuned and caring parents who have, after many efforts at repair,  made the decision to end their marriage. Topmost on their list of concerns was the impact their divorce might have on their children, specifically that the decision to divorce might result in their children losing hope for the future. I have so much empathy for parents burdened with worry about the painful crisis their divorce might create for their children. It is important to keep in perspective that it is entirely possible to keep the emotional crisis of divorce from ever becoming a trauma for children. Crises are difficult turning points, but inherent in a crisis is the potential for healing. Traumas inflict deep wounds and can derail healthy development in children. In addition, the effects of trauma will reverberate across generations unless repaired. Two negative potential consequences of divorce can be especially traumatic for children, especially those who have secure attachments to both parents:  1.  that the conflict between their parents never resolves, and children are perpetually kept in the middle of that conflict; and 2.  that a parent’s contact with their children is so limited after the divorce that the children feel abandoned (or as one child sadly told me, “I didn’t know I would be divorced too”). How parents choose to divorce is key.  Any process that supports parents’ ability to maintain loving focus on the needs of their children is valuable for many reasons.  For the parents themselves, it helps to set the stage for the transition to effective co-parenting.  Respectful co-parenting creates the environment in which children can be resilient and thrive. A child-centered divorce process can also have immediate benefits for children in the following ways:  children will likely be more calm and centered when there is a tone of respect rather than acrimony between their parents during the divorce;  it benefits children when they can experience predictability and lack of drama during an already uncertain time; children are kept out of the dangerous middle of adult-level discussions and conflict;  children feel safer and are soothed when parents begin to co-parent effectively. Collaborative Practice is one way to create a child-centered divorce process.  For more information, please visit the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota website.        
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Lisa Green’s new book, On Your Case, is a great legal resource for women at all stages in life. Ms. Green is a lawyer and legal analyst who outlined various important issues in a woman’s life – relationships, parenting, employment, and aging – all from a legal perspective. She provides simple pieces of advice and more in-depth education on various matters that arise in life. One of the best sections, outlines divorce options. When a couple decides to divorce, there are various processes to use to divide assets, work on support options and come up with co-parenting agreements. Ms. Green discusses both DIY (do it yourself) divorce, mediation and collaborative divorce as alternatives to a typical litigation. Ms. Green provides a nice explanation of the benefits to collaborative divorce – it can be cheaper, less stressful and have less animosity than traditional court-based models. She correctly points out that the collaborative option may be hard to think about at the very onset of a separation – when emotions are hot and anger may cloud judgment. However, for couples who want to maintain control of the process and maintain respect throughout, collaborative law is a good option. Two important observations in the book, however, are worth noting. Ms. Green identifies a significant power imbalance as a concerning factor to the collaborative process. It can make the process more challenging and the couple may need more support from a collaborative team. Secondly, Ms. Green notes that communication is key to the collaborative process. While litigators often tell clients not to talk to one another – so all communication goes through the lawyers – collaborative clients are expected to communicate and discuss all issues with their team and with each other. Ms. Green’s book is a great resource for women on all legal issues. On divorce in particular, it has a lot of useful information to start the process and learn about considerations and options. If someone considering divorce wants to learn more about collaborative divorce, they should reach out to a collaborative professional to talk through the option.  
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Divorce is unfair in that is often asks people to make some of the most important decisions in their lives at a time when they may be impaired by many emotions, including grief. Many clients experiencing divorce have described the process as feeling like dealing with a death.  It is true that no person dies, and therefore the analogy of death is not perfect, but a marriage dies and some amount of grief would seem quite natural. In addition, grieving the loss of a marriage can be complicated because there is less of a support network.  As a culture, we have learned how to help people grieve death. However, the people in your support network may not know how to help you grieve the loss of your marriage, and that can cause them to respond with either anger or avoidance instead. One of the significant trends in our society is an increased understanding of the role of hospice when someone in approaching death. Hospice occurs after all efforts to preserve life have been exhausted. At that time, the focus of the medical team and support personnel turns away from finding a medical “solution” and toward providing comfort and care and preparation for what lies ahead. It may seem odd, to think about hospice for a dying marriage, but many of the same principles may apply. If all efforts to save the marriage have been exhausted, it may be best for the legal team, as well as friends and family, to switch to providing comfort, and, perhaps, to finding time to grieve. Giving divorcing clients time to grieve, and providing resources to help them with the grief, (including options such as coaching, or divorce closure counseling), could help people make better decisions when they are ready to focus on divorce details. If you are facing divorce, and feel like you need time to grieve, it is important to select a divorce team that understands why this is important, and to fully explore your divorce options so that your emotional health can be taken into account. To learn more, go to www.collaborativelaw.org or www.divorcechoice.com.  
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150973506-torn-childs-drawing-depicting-family-gettyimagesIn”The Importance of Attachment: Part I“, I outlined the key developmental value of a secure attachment relationship between a child and a parent.   Secure attachment is the foundation of resilience.  Adverse life events, like a divorce, can be mastered by resilient children, especially if their secure attachments are not threatened by the divorce.  As a Neutral Child Specialist, my goal is to make sure that the crisis of a divorce does not become a trauma for a child. I recently attended a workshop on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), a series of questions that allows researchers to understand how well an adult has integrated his or her own life experiences, both positive and adverse.  Adults who have managed to integrate their experiences into a coherent narrative are considered securely attached.  Unfortunately, according to a number of research studies, only about half of all adults have secure attachments as measured by the AAI.  The remainder have not been able to integrate adverse experiences, and remain either highly anxious or disconnected from them.  Some insecurely attached adults who were traumatized as children live in constant emotional chaos.  Researchers speculate that the quality of adult attachment is related to how capable a person is to form an emotionally safe, committed and loving relationship with another adult. Numerous longitudinal research studies have discovered another impact of adult attachment. There is a very high level of correlation between how an adult responds on the AAI and the subsequent quality of attachment that adult is able to create with his or her own child.  Compellingly, the life story a person tells on the AAI is a stronger predictor of quality of attachment with his or her child than actual observed parental behavior.  In other words, the impact of emotional distress and trauma in childhood will reverberate across generations unless a parent gets the necessary support and healing to integrate his or her life into a coherent narrative.  It is possible for adults to shift from insecurely attached to securely attached, but it requires the healing that comes from therapeutic relationships. Obviously the best way to ensure secure attachments for generations of children is to prevent trauma in their lives.  Of all the reasons to select a divorce process that supports respectful and healthy resolutions and builds the foundation for effective co-parenting, it is the legacy of secure attachment that will be left for your children and future generations.  Collaborative Practice is one such process.  
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117144501-couples-therapy-gettyimagesFinancial decisions are some of the toughest issues to work through in divorce. Deciding how to divide up assets or liabilities or devising long-term support scenarios to cover the expenses of two homes can be difficult. When you add in the emotions related to finances and personal financial experiences – it can get really complicated. In a collaborative divorce, where both parties agree to negotiate and settle their case out of court, financial agreements are often more thorough and more complete. Resolutions may include tax implications, cost basis analysis, or long-term financial projections. During the process, couples can more completely analyze the financial options and, often most importantly, the team can work to address emotional feelings about finances. In one type of therapy, called dialectical therapy, clients are urged to balance their logical minds with their emotional minds. According to the theory, all couples have both types of thinking. Logical thinking is orderly, concise and reasoned. A logical decision would be to keep money in bonds that are likely to be fairly stable over time instead of a risky stock investment that is volatile along with the markets. Emotional thinking, on the other hand, focuses on an individual’s feelings or history with decisions. An emotional decision may be to pay off a home mortgage because it “feels” good, even though having a mortgage may have more financial benefit. Other emotional decisions may rely upon personal experience. Someone may make the emotional decision to keep cash under the mattress in case he needs it in an emergency because that is what his father did and advised him to do. In a collaborative divorce, couples work with a financial neutral to help balance these two sides. In dialectical therapy, the overlapping space between the logical mind and the emotional mind is the wise mind. In divorce, couples who use their wise minds often have the best outcomes. They will balance the logical, smart decisions with options that feel good. While outcomes may not be perfect, they are more likely to feel good if they are in the wise zone. Take for example a couple that has equivalent amounts of financial value in home equity and a stock portfolio. The logical option may be to divide both equally – split the stock account in half and sell the home sharing the equity equally. Maybe one spouse is emotionally connected to the house and the other likes the risk of the stock market. Dividing the assets this way may make emotional sense, but is it wise? A wise option could be to evaluate the home market and estimate future value while looking at the stock portfolio and the level of risk associated. Analyzing the cost basis in both investments and potential tax implications could also help the couple create a wise resolution. Collaborative divorce allows couples an opportunity to commit to an out-of-court, non-adversarial process to reach mutually acceptable resolutions. Good collaborative professionals can help couples bring their best selves to the process and use their wise minds for the best possible outcomes.  
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152258425-family-gettyimagesAttachment is the term used to describe the emotional relationship between two people.  The earliest and most significant attachment develops between an infant and his or her primary caregivers.  This attachment is based on how consistently, accurately and soothingly the adult reads and responds to the cues of the baby Most infants form a secure attachment with their parents based on consistent and  responsive care.  The quality of the infant attachment relationship has lifelong implications for how a child develops into an adult.  The human abilities to manage anxiety, show empathy, regulate anger, trust others and feel hope for the future all have their roots in this first attachment relationship. If a parent is unable to provide emotionally consistent care or is emotionally rejecting, the infant’s attachment relationship becomes insecure.   If the care-giving is emotionally chaotic, the attachment becomes disorganized.  Disorganized attachment has profound negative impacts on future development.  Disorganized attachment history often has its roots in parental trauma.  One life event that researchers link to parental trauma is their own childhood experience of a divorce with the elements of high conflict and/or abandonment by a parent. I often tell parents with whom I work that divorce is a life crisis that does not need to become a trauma for a child.  A respectful, healthy divorce process that is child-centered or child-inclusive can help a securely attached child continue to feel safe.  With effective co-parenting, these children can maintain secure attachments with both parents and continue to thrive after a divorce.  This becomes the root source of children’s resilience. My next blog will focus on what we know about Adult Attachment and its implications for future generations.  In the meantime, please learn more about the Collaborative child-centered and child-inclusive divorce process on the website for the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota.