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When Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin made the recent announcement that they were consciously uncoupling, they clearly touched a public nerve.  There was immediate sniping from people who seem to prefer celebrity gossip leavened with spite and public histrionics.  Critics derided the process Paltrow and Martin are choosing and questioned their motives, and more than one “expert” opined that divorce could not occur without acrimony and anger.  I beg to differ. How cynical has the public discourse become when people would criticize a process of divorce that mindfully strives to create emotional safety for children?  What’s to be gained by scoffing at the notion of creating an effective co-parenting relationship?  Why is there an automatic assumption that hurt and sadness–even betrayal–must trigger fury and contempt, and that divorce is of necessity an adversarial process?

As a Neutral Child Specialist, I respect the calm and dignified way Paltrow and Martin have begun this sad journey, which, because of their professions, will need to be done in the public eye.  Understanding that language is powerful, I applaud the term conscious uncoupling, which, like getting unmarried, does not carry the emotional baggage of the word divorce.  I was especially impressed when Paltrow and Martin referenced the wish to co-parent and to continue to be a family for the sake of their children

A divorce process that puts the needs of children at the center is much healthier, not only for children but also for their parents.  It is true that effective co-parenting leads to a much higher quality of life for all family members.  These goals are embodied in the work of the Collaborative Team Practice community.   Collaborative Team Practice may not be chosen by those who don’t believe that parenting during and after a divorce requires mindfulness, a certain amount of self-sacrifice and hard work to keep children at the center and out of the middle.  However, it is an excellent process for parents who want to reduce the impact of a painful change on their children’s future.

   

 
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TissuesIn a collaborative divorce process – there are usually tissues on the table. When a client first comes into an attorney’s office to tell their story or learn about divorce, it can be emotional and scary. Some people cry. Some of those tears come from sadness, fear, or worry about the future. Some people feel guilt or are mourning the loss of a relationship. Whatever the emotions are, in collaborative divorce, it is alright to express them. Indeed, expression of emotion can be key to the process – help clients process the transition and be more honest in the negotiations. Sometimes, clients cry quietly and silently in the process. The team may keep the process moving or take time to acknowledge the emotion. Clients can always take a break or ask for a moment alone. Silence may be a useful way to acknowledge the emotion. At other times, emotions may run hot and anger can result in intensified behavior. The team may choose to discuss the emotions or use a coach (mental health professional) to help keep emotions productive in the meetings. Clients may cry during joint meetings or when meeting with other professionals. Some clients cry while a lot others hardly cry. In a recent joint meeting, two clients were sharing each of their desires to spend Christmas morning with the children. The attorneys asked each client to express their personal reasons in the meeting. In front of the attorneys and the other spouse, they each shared their thoughts on this subject. Wife cried during her turn – the emotions were pure and real. After a moment of silence, Husband’s attorney acknowledged her emotion, saying “I know that was hard and I thank you for sharing your thoughts.” Husband expressed empathy as well. When he spoke, he acknowledged her by saying “It’s hard for me to share my thoughts now because I know how important this is to you.” Emotion is real and the collaborative process allows for its expression. Indeed, there will always be tissues on the table.
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serenity-prayerMany recovering alcoholics claim that the wisdom of The Serenity Prayer saved their life.  I have found in my practice that the wisdom contained in this simple prayer can also serve as an essential guide for helping people through a difficult divorce. The Serenity Prayer, which asks for the serenity to accept the things you cannot change; the power to change the things you can and the wisdom to know the difference, provides an important framework for dealing with almost all difficult situations. Divorce almost always creates unfortunate realities that lie outside our control; the fact that you will not see your children on certain days; the reality that your family income will now be spread through two homes; and many other stubborn truths.  These realities cannot be changed and, in the end, the ability to find acceptance and serenity is a worthy goal. Divorce also requires people to summon courage to address daunting challenges; finding ways to co-parent when you are angry or scared; learning to manage new financial challenges; or trying to communicate effectively in painful situations.  People who find this courage in divorce are much more likely to achieve their goals. Finally, gaining wisdom about which areas need acceptance and which challenges require us to act courageously is often the ultimate challenge in a divorce.  While some of this wisdom may come from divorce sources, some of the wisdom can be gathered by finding people you can trust to help you focus  your time and energy on your most important goals. One thing I like about the Collaborative Divorce Process  is the focus on giving people the tools they need to truly help themselves.  The first step in the process is generally to help clients identify their highest goals.  As the process evolves divorcing couples are counseled to accept the things beyond their control so that they can focus their attention and limited resources on the things that truly matter.  Clients who truly commit themselves to these principles can move from chaos to a new sense of order; sometimes even a deep sense of serenity.  In any case,  I have found that giving people the opportunity to gain wisdom about when to  “let go” and when to work for change is the most important part of a divorce attorney’s job.
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Friends

“I hope we can be friends.”  This is not an uncommon wish of one or both people when going through a divorce.  Sometimes, however, there is a lot of pain and anguish going on for at least one of them and significant negative energy between the couple.  “How did we get like this?” is another frequent question I hear in my practice.  So how do we answer the question and can you become friends?  It is helpful to think about how relationships develop in order to answer the question.  I heard Isolina Ricci, speak to a group of mental health professionals and attorneys about her research around divorce and families a couple years ago.  She introduced a very helpful concept that I often share with clients to help them understand whether and how they can be friends.

When we meet people, we start with a business relationship.  We use more formal language, make few assumptions, make clear agreements, have minimal expectations and are not very attached to or invested in the relationship.  Ricci notes that we are private, explicit, cool and reserved.  As we get to know someone and move to friendship, we are less formal, begin to make assumptions and have expectations and are therefore more invested in the relationship.  When the relationship becomes intimate, we become very informal with each other, act based on assumptions formed from past experiences with the individual, give the benefit of the doubt, and are very invested in the relationship.  Ricci notes that we are vulnerable, implicit, hot and intense. However, when we reach the point of divorce, the relationship has moved from one of positive intimacy to negative intimacy.  We move from the positive qualities of intimacy to the opposite of those qualities, (i.e., shared to abused confidences, loyalty and trust to disloyalty and distrust, positive assumptions to negative assumptions, benefit-of-doubt to suspicion and blame, for example).  What we need to realize is that when we are in a place of negative intimacy, we cannot simply go back to friendship.  In order to become friends, we need to move from negative intimacy back to the business relationship and then rebuild to friendship from there.  Ricci calls this the detox-negative-intimacy, where we reset to a business-like relationship. In the Collaborative process, we actually help people learn how to step back to the business relationship by modeling respectful communication, not make assumptions but ask questions to clarify, strive to be trustworthy, make clear agreements, create healthy boundaries relating to times and means of communication, and sticking to facts rather than being emotionally reactive.  And this is very hard work!  But, by making the intentional effort to go back to a business relationship, we can start rebuilding trust by honoring agreements, getting rid of unproductive assumptions by asking clarifying questions, and redeveloping a give-and-take relationship.  Over time, it is possible to create a business like friendly relationship.
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Almost every potential client I meet with wants to minimize the negative effects of divorce on the children.  So many couples want to consciously have a healthy co-parenting relationship. And as parents, we know our kids better than anyone and should be able to make decisions about what our children need. Over my years of practicing family law, I have also learned that children benefit from having a voice in the process and an opportunity to feel heard. And they need a safe place to talk about what they are struggling with during the divorce.  Not surprisingly, kids do not want to tell mom or dad things they think will hurt their feelings yet, they can feel torn, even with the best of intentions by both parents.  What we know is that kids have undivided loyalty to both parents.  They can say very conflicting things to each parent (if the parents compared notes between them) yet, it was their truth each time they said it. They are afraid sometimes to speak about what they need, because they don’t want to “make waves” or cause sadness. When I went through my divorce, my former spouse and I worked with a Neutral Child Specialist in the Collaborative process.  After meeting with the specialist and talking about our kids’ temperaments, developmental needs, sibling dynamics and our concerns, the specialist met with our kids once together and then individually.  We then had a feedback session that provided us with some great insights by and about our kids that we used to create our parenting plan.  We learned what we were doing well, where our kids were struggling, what they worried about and how we could better help them.  We knew some things already, but also learned a lot while hearing things framed in a positive and constructive manner from the neutral. Then, about a year and a half later, my son (then almost 10) asked when he could go back and talk to that woman who helped us with our divorce.  Rather than pressing him about what prompted the request, his dad and I set up an appointment with him to check in with the Neutral Child Specialist. Low and behold, he was feeling a lot of stress each week because there were too many transitions between houses. We thought that our kids needed to see us each regularly but learned that the number of transitions was really hard on him.  So when we met together with the specialist, we created a new plan that kept us regularly involved in the kids’ lives, but decreased the number of transitions from 7  to 4 every two weeks.  Our son was worried that one of us would think that he didn’t like spending time with us if the time changed and that he was choosing one parent over the other despite having a great relationship with each of us. We were so glad that he had someone he felt safe with in voicing what wasn’t working for him and he could ask for help.  It was so much easier for him to talk to a neutral person, rather than worrying about how we might take what he was saying wrong. It was so helpful to hear from the specialist and have a safe place for us to problem solve. This is how the collaborative process helps keep children in the center, but not in the middle.
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Several years back, I was working on a case with another collaborative attorney and our clients were arguing about a parenting issue.  My client was trying to tell her soon-to-be former spouse how he should spend his time with their daughter.  Rather than being reactive and pushing back on my client, the other attorney pulled out a piece of paper and drew a rectangle and started talking about them sharing a back yard as a couple and that when they were together, they had a common vision or idea (not always void of conflict, mind you) about how they raised their daughter and spent their resources.  They let certain people enter their common back yard, decided how they would care for the back yard and how they wanted it to look. Then The other attorney took her pen and drew a line down the middle of the back yard and talked about how the back yard is now owned half by my client and half by her client.  And what was once a shared space is no longer shared, although they share a common fence.  They can look over the common fence and talk about things that are important to them about their common values and goals, but they each no longer had the same authority to decide what happened in the other’s yard or who the other let into that space.  She very gently and tactfully said that what we were talking about with regard to the daughter and how time was spent in the other person’s back yard, is no longer my client’s back yard to tend to.  And then she mentioned something that her client no longer had the right to tend to in my client’s back yard.  The couple paused and you could see the light bulb go on in their heads.  It was a great metaphor for what happens during a divorce. In a Collaborative Divorce, the team of professionals help the couple define their own back yards and identify what boundaries, ordinances, and communications are appropriate and necessary for their shared vision of parenting and a healthy divorce.   This can be a very difficult transition for many people.  And working with a divorce coach or neutral child specialist helps couples redefine their boundaries and expectations around parenting, communication and their newly defined relationship; all of which are part of creating a parenting plan/relationship plan.  Each couple has to learn what they continue to have a say over and what they no longer have a say over with their soon-to-be former spouse. During the next two meetings with this couple, they each commented on several occasions when they recognized they were entering the other’s back yard, and then stepped back and simply stated their concern or idea, but left it at that rather than forcing an issue.  It was a non-charged term they could use going forward as co-parents.  They learned where their common fence stood.  After all, good fences make good neighbors, right?