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Conflict With Your Ex

Bonnie Douglas · September 24, 2021 · Leave a Comment

Are you trapped by the stories you tell yourself?

Your Story

What’s the story you tell yourself about your ex? About how the relationship ended? About the part you played? Are you a victim in this story? Is your ex the perpetrator? What horrible things have they done and/or said to you? How often have you told this story to someone else? How often do you rerun this story in your mind?

Have you ever questioned your own story?

Please note – I am NOT talking about domestic violence cases.

Every single time you take a part of your story out to think about it or tell it to someone else it changes slightly. Most people have a tendency to reinforce, emphasize and the ‘bad’ and minimise or eliminate entirely the ‘good’ (unless they’ve painted themselves as a hero). As you retell it to yourself or someone else you see it slightly differently, and usually NOT for the better.

This leads to an increase in bad feelings towards the other person. It can increase stress, anxiety AND make you angry. It can be really hard to let go of that anger. When you try to interact with that other person, guess what? Your brain is primed and ready to fire!

Their Story

Have you stopped to consider that the other person has their own story? What do you think their story is? How do they portray themselves? How are you portrayed? Do you think they have an accurate picture of you?

Probably not.

You’re Both Right, And You’re Both Wrong

Here’s a tip – each of you is wrong about the other and is wrong about exactly what happened. You will never get to the ‘TRUTH’ (unless you’re Truman Burbank and your entire life has been captured on film). I see this in mediation all of the time. If one party tells me a story of woe about how they’ve been victimised by the other, I can guarantee that the other party will tell me the exact opposite story. This happens over and over again. It’s like living a groundhog day.

Instead of trying to figure out who did what to whom, why don’t you try a different approach?

Change Your Thinking

Take 100% responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings and actions. All of them. Write them down.
Take 100% responsibility for your part in the relationship. Be honest with yourself and never use the word, ‘but’ (e.g., I kept the children from them but I needed to because they weren’t paying me child support). Nope. You didn’t need to do anything.
Question your point of view and seek out exactly what the family law says. Ask an expert if you need to. The Family Law Act is easy to read so get online and read it! Many people believe they are in the right because it’s their opinion. Not because it’s written into law.
If you can’t seem to let go of the anger, or of being a victim, seek help. Not from someone who is going to provide endless sympathy, but from someone who can help you let go of the past, manage your thoughts, feelings and emotions, and achieve your goals.

Where to Get Help

If you’re having a hard time letting go of feeling like a victim, letting go of your story, or with managing your anger consider seeing a coach and tell them you’d like help to change. You will be pleasantly surprised with the results!

I Live In A Remote Location. How Can I Participate In Mediation?

bdouglasoz@gmail.com · May 30, 2021 · Leave a Comment

I live remotely. How can I participate in mediation?

Some positive things have come out of COVID19. Mediators have learned that mediation can be conducted over videoconference and by telephone. Some mediators use mediator-assisted negotiation via email. The process might take a little longer, and you might not be able to see the mediator and/or the other party face-to-face, but it is possible.

So, don’t worry. If you live remotely then you can definitely participate in mediation.

Some precautions need to be taken when participating in mediation via phone, videoconference or email.

You must ensure that nobody else is present, and that nobody else can overhear the conversation, even if it’s just your side. Remember, mediation is confidential. This is really important so everyone feels safe.
You may not record any part of the mediation. The mediator might ask you to sign an agreement that you will not record the conversation.
The mediator will ensure that a backup plan is in place if technology fails and the internet goes down, your computer crashes, or your phone runs out of battery.
If you’re using videoconferencing you should dress appropriately, on the top and the bottom! There are plenty of examples of people standing up to leave the room and everyone on the call getting a good view of their underwear or pyjamas.
Make sure that you know how to use the technology platform. If your mediator is using videoconferencing make sure that you have installed the appropriate software and can get into the session without a problem. If you’re unsure then ask the mediator to run a practice session with you beforehand.
If you’re using videoconferencing please don’t use filters or backgrounds that might be distracting to others. If your child was using your computer to videoconference with a friend, and had the cat filter turned on, make sure you can turn it off before your mediation starts.

If you have any questions or concerns about mediation, feel free to email bonnie@smootherseparations.com.au, or use the contact form below.

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Should We Wait to Agree on Splitting our Assets?

bdouglasoz@gmail.com · June 20, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Going to court? Assets are valued at the time of trial. All contributions by both parties between separation and trial might be thrown into the pool by the judge.

After separation, some people want to focus on parenting arrangements first and deal with property later. There are some possible reasons for this:
1. dealing with numbers is boring or intimidating to many people, and it can be very complex if businesses or trusts are involved
2. there can be a lot of information that you need to find and put together and it’s easy to put off
3. some of the information required can be challenging to obtain if you don’t have a good filing system
4. time with the children has a far greater emotional impact

In general, it’s considered best to get a prompt start on property settlement. If you can’t settle the matter between yourselves and wind up going to court, the judge might consider that all contributions made up until the trial (over a period of several years) must go into the pool. There are several precedents for this. And remember that asset value is that at the time of trial, not separation.

Even if you don’t have significant assets, if there is an imbalance between your superannuation accounts then an adjustment might be called for, with a transfer from the larger fund to the lesser. This can only be done with a binding financial agreement (with each party represented by their own lawyer) or court orders. The language used is specific and must be perfect, so using a lawyer is recommended.

Always check with a lawyer regarding property settlement. You do not necessarily need to engage a lawyer to represent you, but legal advice is extremely important. Many lawyers will provide an initial free consultation, and there are free legal services available in each state and territory. Just google ‘free legal mysuburb’ (replace mysuburb with your suburb).

Before you see a lawyer, get your information together so you don’t waste any time or money. You will want to list all assets and debts and obtain an estimated or actual value for each. Assets include property, cars, caravans, investments, superannuation, bank accounts, estimate of value of contents of the home, work tools, hobby tools, ride on mowers, jewelry. Then list all debts, such as loans and credit card balances. List contributions made before the marriage (if you brought significant assets into the relationship), contributions made during the marriage (tax returns help), gifts from parents, inheritances, lottery winnings, etc.. Since you’ll need to agree on valuations it might be a good idea to share this task with your former partner.

It’s easier for the lawyer if you can document everything in a spreadsheet.

If you’d like a spreadsheet that will help you think through assets and liabilities let me know in the comments below.

Strategies for reducing conflict – part 3

bdouglasoz@gmail.com · February 14, 2020 · Leave a Comment

If you’ve gotten through my previous posts and have mastered ‘beginner’ and ‘intermediate’ strategies to reduce conflict with the other parent, you might be ready for some more advanced strategies.

Eliminate the Scarcity Mindset

Stop keeping track of your time with the children. A scarcity mindset can lead you to keep frustration, a deep sense of injustice or anger boiling away under the surface. It can keep you from having any positive interactions with the other parent and lead to further conflict.

Instead of pining for what you don’t have, try to enjoy what you do have in the present moment when you’re with your child. Put your phone away and focus on the children. Make sure the time you spend with your children is quality, interactive time and make every moment count. Be curious about your kids and what is going on for them.

Keeping score of the hours you’ve had versus those ‘owed’ can impact negatively on your relationship with your children without you being aware of it. If you are desperate to make every moment count or spend your time with them fuming that ‘you should have more time’, your mood and therefore your interactions with them have a high likelihood of being negatively impacted.

This might be especially difficult if you don’t have an equal time arrangement and you are the parent who spends less time with the kids. It’s not fair to you. I get it. That’s why this is an advanced strategy. But you’re an adult and I’m sure you know by now that life is NOT fair and sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes equal time is just not practical and it might not be in your control (for example, if there are court orders). What can you do to make the best of a bad situation keeping in mind the best interests of the children?

Take the case of one father who was obsessed over getting every single minute he was ‘owed’. One Friday handover was delayed because one child returned home from school camp late by several hours after the bus broke down. At handover the father couldn’t contain his anger over the injustice done to him because his time was reduced. He demanded that the mother ‘make the time up to him’ even though she had no control over the situation. She responded in anger, and the kids witnessed a nasty verbal altercation between their parents. The father then terrorised his children by speeding away and driving erratically whilst ranting and raving that he was missing out on a precious few hours with them. The entire weekend was ‘ruined’, not by the bus company but by the father’s decision to make the count of time spent with the children more important than the experience of spending time with them.

How can I improve the time I spend with my children?

Great question!

Can you be curious about your children? What do your kids enjoy doing? What do you enjoy doing? Can you find something you can all do together that you all enjoy, or can you find a way to enjoy one of their favourite activities? Can you refrain from forcing something you enjoy, that they really dislike, down their throats?

Sometimes it can be really challenging to find something you can all do together, especially if the kids are pushing boundaries and insisting they hate everything except being on technology (that’s their job, after all). Keep trying, gently, and never give up. There are a multitude of websites and books that cover this topic. Still struggling? Try a mum’s group, dad’s group, local charities often run free or low-cost parenting classes, meetup group, contact your local council or community centre, ask at the school or daycare.

If you have a very young child then you can use ‘Google’ to learn about developmental stages and interact with your child at an appropriate level. Go to the library and take out a book on baby or toddler development. Contact your maternal and child health nurse. If you put your thinking cap on you will be able to devise safe activities for you to do with your very young child. For example, at around 12 months my daughter was fascinated with opening a box, putting something inside (like a small doll), closing the box, then repeating the action over and over. We would spend 20 minutes doing that same activity. I used an old shoebox and a little toy doll. Then we went outside an played with the letterbox, which had a little door (open, put flower in, close, open, take flower out, close). Mind numbing repition, but she was learning every single moment.

Focus on things within your control, let go of everything else

Let go of worrying about, and trying to control, every moment the other parent spends with the children. This was one of the hardest things I had to master as my ex-husband always had a very different idea of what constitutes a safe activity for children than I. Worrying about the kids whilst in his care was causing immeasurable stress for me not only while they were with him but also when I worried about their next visit with him. I had to decide to just stop. I focused on teaching them how to assess situations for safety without letting on that I worried about them in their father’s care, and how to assert themselves if they felt at risk. They’re still alive and well.

When the children are with the other parent please, PLEASE, refrain from texting the other parent or calling them unless there is a true emergency. Texting/calling to ask how things are going, to make sure the child had a nappy change and bath, ask how many grapes they’ve eaten or how many minutes they’ve had with technology is intrusive, offensive and inappropriate. You would hate to have the other parent doing that to you.

Remember, you are different from the other parent. You likely have different values and different beliefs about the ‘right way’ to raise the children. You can only control what goes on in your presence, under your roof. When the children are with the other parent you do not have a right to interfere so long as the kids are not in any physical or psychological danger. The Family Law Act provides a definition of family violence and specifies that certain people are required to report to children’s services if they suspect a child may be or is in serious danger. Serious danger does not cover things like eating ‘too much’ sugar, spending ‘too much’ time on technology, not getting ‘enough’ exercise, or not eating ‘enough’ vegetables.

Let go of the idea that you ‘own’ the children

This is related to the previous strategy. They go hand-in-hand.

For whatever reason (it’s too complex to explore here), some parents seem to feel that they own the children and have the sole right to dictate how and when the children spend time with the other parent. I hear these parents use language like, ‘I let the other parent have my children…’ or ‘My children may spend time with the other parent…’. Can you hear the possessiveness? Sometimes the other parent feels so disempowered that they use similar language (e.g., ‘the other parent won’t allow me…’). Hearing people use this language makes me feel sick. I feel for both parents and the children in these lose-lose situations. Long-term use of this type of language will impact negatively on the children, so it’s best to try to stop as soon as possible.

The Family Law Act assumes equal shared parental responsibility, and that children will spend equal time with each parent unless it is not practical (or safe) to do so. The court awards one parent sole responsibility only on very rare occasions. I’ve only heard of it once and the parent who lost responsibility (the mother) suffers from a very serious mental illness where she tends to lose touch with reality (the magpies give her directions). After reviewing the mother’s quite substantial medical records the children’s lawyer refused to agree to any orders that gave the mother any responsibility for the children.

I won’t deny it, if you are the parent who assumes you have ownership of the children and power over the other parent, letting go of this belief and behaviour can be extremely hard. It takes a lot of courage. I’ve been there and I still stumble.

You might honestly believe that you are protecting your children, you might be exercising power and control and it feels good, or you are doing it for some other reason. Unless your child is in serious danger (see above) then you are not protecting them, you are protecting some part of yourself and you are unreasonably denying your child their right to spend substantial and significant time with their other parent, to learn things from the other parent that you can’t teach them, to experience things with the other parent that you can’t or won’t provide. If you know you’re doing this and just find it too hard to stop please seek help. This belief system and the accompanying language feeds the conflict fire and can be damaging to the kids’ psychological wellbeing.

Can One Person Change the Dynamics of A Relationship?

bdouglasoz@gmail.com · February 7, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Yes you can!

When things aren’t going smoothly in a relationship many of us have a tendency to blame the other for all the difficulties. OK, we might take a wee bit of the blame ourselves, but some people tend to lay the majority of blame for the bad stuff on the other.

This is completely normal. It’s a very human reaction. Mentally it can let us off the hook for taking responsibility for our own actions, give us a sense of superiority, or protect our fragile egos.

If you want to change the dynamics of a relationship, whether it’s with a current intimate partner, an ex-partner (e.g., your children’s other parent), a sibling, friend or parent, you have the power to effect change all by yourself. You do not need to attend counselling together.

I can hear you scoffing from here, at the bottom of Australia. But, it’s true.

Imagine if you confronted the other person and decided to tell them exactly what you think of them. You lay every single thing you dislike about that person out on the table. How would they react? What effect would that have on your relationship?

See, you do have power!

Now, I’m not saying that it is easy to effect change. And I’ll let you know right now that the difficulty does not necessarily lie with the other person. It is hard because it requires that you change, and change is hard.

Our brains typically reject change. We humans like routines and habits. Things we can repeat without too much effort. Our brains become hard-wired when we do the same thing over-and-over and changing that wiring takes effort. So, it’s easier just to continue doing the same thing.

I am going to tell you right now, you have to stop doing the same thing, and do something different! You need to take responsibility for your own feelings and actions, and you might even need to get over some of your tightly held beliefs about what ‘should’ or ‘should not’ happen.

First, identify the pattern of discord in your relationship, especially what you do or say that gets a reaction from the other person. It doesn’t matter whether you understand why the other person reacts or not.

Second, identify several options on what you can do differently next time and test them for soundness. How will the other person likely react? Can you really get yourself to do something different and live with it?

Third, implement your idea and monitor results.

I’ll give an example. One couple used to have bitter fights about the cupboard doors. David would open the door to remove an item and then just leave it open. Debbie would walk by, slam the door shut and make some snide comment about his inability to even close a door. This was his opening to make a comment about her inability to park the car straight in the garage, and they’d be off. They were going to get divorced because of a cupboard door.

Debbie’s thinking: He is a grown man and ‘should’ be able to close the door himself. The kids are able to manage it! She ‘should not’ need to remind him, or close it herself. Someone could walk into it and it just looks unsightly. What if all of the cupboard doors in the house were left open all of the time? You’d have to walk around them. Some doors block access to other doors or items in the house. It would be chaos!

Did you catch those ‘shoulds’? Debbie was very tied to those shoulds. They reflect some underlying beliefs she has about how the world ‘should’ work.

Some therapists might delve into power and control issues. How the power battle over the cupboard doors represents the overall power struggle in their relationship. In my experience that’s interesting, but it doesn’t help move towards solving the problem quickly.

Some thingsDebbie could try to do differently next time:

Ignore the open door. Don’t say anything. Don’t close the door. Take a couple of deep breaths (which reduce anxiety), and casually introduce a neutral topic of conversation, such as what he might like for dinner that night. If David makes a snide comment, ignore it.
Take some deep breaths. Wait a few moments and calmly close the door. If David makes a snide comment, ignore it. Say nothing or casually introduce a neutral topic of conversation.
Leaving all of the doors open in the house might be funny, but given the state of their relationship it would likely be seen as a provocation by David. She might have gotten away with that the after the first few incidents early in their relationship. But, after many years of fighting over the cupboard doors, David could easily respond by walking out of the relationship immediately.

Basically, Debbie needed to decide how tightly she was tied to her beliefs in those ‘shoulds’ and whether going through a divorce was worth hanging on to them.

She tried the second option. David actually made a snide comment: ‘What, feeling weak today? You didn’t slam it.’ She ignored it and asked him calmly and nicely if he would like to come home early from work to attend their son’s soccer match that afternoon, and would he like to drive with them so they could get some pizza afterwards. She proceeded to talk about the match, the importance to the season and how their son really wanted his dad to attend. Things moved on. He tested her a couple of times after that. But she reacted in exactly the same way. At one point he asked her in a curious, non-threatening way about her obsession with closing the doors and what happened. She simply responded that she’d decided that their marriage was more important than who closed the door so she just decided to let go of it. Eventually he began closing the doors himself (most of the time).

Can this technique work with your ex-partner? Yes! Will it be harder to do? Probably. But, if you are invested in having as good a business relationship as possible with your children’s other parent then it is worthwhile trying. Try being respectful and polite. Try to give up some of those ‘shoulds’. Try, and see what happens. If you can shift some of the negativity in your relationship everyone will benefit.