Expectations vs Reality in Child Custody – Episode 296 of the Divorce University Online Podcast. When we are dealing with child custody issues, we have expectations of our children, our co-parent and most of all the Court. But when our expectations don’t match reality, we end up feeling all kinds of negative emotions like frustration, anxiety, depression, anger, sadness, and the list goes on. Shifting your expectations to more closely match reality will lower stress and frustration around the entire situation. To learn more about how I can support you in achieving success in your custody matter, please schedule a free strategy session at www.divorceuniversityonline.com/vip-coaching. Thanks for listening!
Divorce University Online
Expectations vs Reality in Child Custody
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And so obviously, as always, I'm going to kind of apply this concept to, you know, the child custody struggles that a lot of us go through. But our expectation, you know, of something versus the reality of it is always where the disappointment lies, right? Because you have this vision of how you think it's going to go or what's going to happen or whatever, and then reality just doesn't always work out that way. And so then we're left kind of disillusioned, disappointed, you know, all those kinds of things. So real quick, before we dive in, if you're watching me on YouTube, don't forget to hit like and subscribe to the channel so you get notified as new episodes are released. And if you're listening to the podcast, same thing, hit that subscribe button, rate and review me so that you are notified as new episodes are released also. Okay, so when we're dealing with expectations in the realm of child custody. I think there's kind of like three big areas where we have a certain amount of expectation. I think around our kids, and that's one that you may not necessarily even think about it might not even be really conscious. It's just sort of these assumptions that we have about our children and how they're going to behave and respond and react to things. And then we have the expectations of our ex, you know, or our co parent that we're trying to deal with. And then we kind of have our expectations of the court. And all three of these are areas that I find people really struggle with. But I think the court in particular is a really tough area because we just don't really have a concept of that reality or what it's going to look like because most of us aren't lawyers aren't steeped in, you know, the legal aspects of cases and child custody and all of that. And so when that reality starts to set in and you start to kind of get more educated and understand more what's happening. You kind of like, Oh, wow, that was not my expectation at all. I've had so many people come back after the fact and say, Oh, I wish I'd found you sooner. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that phrase, I wish I'd found you sooner, two years ago, eight years ago, six months ago, whatever it is for you. Most people say they wish they had found me sooner. And I think that that's a lot of the, a lot of the problem is we're moving through our world, especially in those beginning days through our expectations of the court, right, and what we think that's going to look like. And then when the reality of that starts to set in and you realize, Oh, wow, I haven't really been doing everything as well as I could have if I had known that this was really the reality. And so we start to struggle with that, you know, when we realize, and we start to try to adapt our behavior. And it's kind of funny because I think in some ways, you know, attorneys are sort of trained to kind of manage our expectations because they kind of have a general idea of what's going to happen. And they kind of a range of possible outcomes, but, you know, weird things happen sometimes and you can't always or see what's going to happen. And so I think a lot of times when we ask attorneys questions, we get answers like, well, it depends or, you know, well, it could be anything between A and Z and, and different things like that. And so I think that type of thing doesn't really help to manage our expectations. Now, attorneys aren't allowed to give us predictions on what the outcome of our case is going to be because they don't know. But I think sometimes in the name of trying to make the client happy, they're not quite as rudely honest about how poorly things can go as they maybe should be sometimes. And, you know, especially like if you have really aggressive, expensive type attorneys, a lot of times it's like, oh yeah, we'll get that done blah blah blah. And, and they just sort of lead you down this path. And then you become very disillusioned when reality sets in of, oh, that may not necessarily be how the court looks at it. So I think the, I'd rather have somebody that just tells me the cold, hard truth up front, it gives it to me just straight and sets my expectations early on. And then, you know, and then if it's, if it's better than that, great. But if it's not, then at least I know what my worst possible outcome is, you know, Thomas used to say, if you can accept the worst possible scenario, then you can go into court. And not have that stress and anxiety and all those things that we normally have when we go into court because it's sort of like, okay, well, I know that this is the worst thing that that could possibly happen out of it really. So, you know, I'm not going to worry about it beyond that. So, let's first talk about expectations of our children. And I think this one is almost like a built in inherent kind of thing that we don't, again, always really process or think about in detail. But I think as a parent, especially if you're the parent that, like, for instance, in my case, I will say that, you know, my ex has been had affairs I have been pretty open about that and up front about that. And so, I think in some ways, my expectation was that the kids would just side with me, right? Well, their dad did this horrible thing, right? So they're just automatically going to side with me, or I've also heard people who were the ones that had the affair who said, well, you know, I'm afraid my kids are going to hate me because I did this thing and it, and it blew up our marriage and their lives and all that kind of stuff. And honestly, kids usually love both their parents, even if one of those parents is, you know, kind of more, you know, meaner or kind of tends towards verbal and emotional abuse like the other parent thinks and all this kind of stuff. My experience is still that kids love their parents, you know, and, and they want both of them in their lives most of the time. And so, but we can kind of have this expectation that, oh, either the kids are going to side with us, or maybe we're afraid the kids are going to side against us, or whatever it is. And so that's what we're expecting. And then when that doesn't turn out to be the reality sometimes, because sometimes you dig a little bit deeper and it's like, okay, maybe they're not mad at you for having the affair or whatever I mean, they may not be old enough to know that but maybe they're not mad at you for being the one that left, you know, or whatever, or maybe they aren't siding with you because the other parent left and they're not necessarily favoring you, you know, maybe, maybe that's not really the side that they take. And, you know, for me, like, one of the things that happened was I can remember my dad asked me when my parents divorced because I was 17 when my parents divorced so I was almost an adult. And I can remember my dad saying to me at one point, well, well, I mean, don't you want us to be together. I can't remember what the exact conversation was, but I remember very clearly him saying, well, don't you want us to be together like it was the most obvious thing to him that, you know, you're a child. These are your parents, don't you want them together. And I can remember looking at him and saying, Dad, I just want you both to be happy. Because at that point, you know, they had separated three or four years prior and reconciled and there was so much conflict and so much arguing back and forth. And I was just so exhausted, not necessarily for myself of the arguing, but just of seeing them unhappy. And so I was just kind of like that. I just, I want you guys to both be happy. You know, if that's together, great. If it's not, that's okay too. But I just want to see both of you happy and, you know, that I didn't like that answer, you know, he wanted me to want them together and because that's what he wanted. And so, you know, I think that was a little bit of a reality check. I can remember going through that with my kids where, if you've been listening to podcasts for a while, you probably heard me talk about this story where, you know, my kids were 11 and 15 when we divorced and then they were 14 and 18. I believe one year when they went out with their dad for Christmas to do some shopping and they came home with a Christmas tree. And they said, Oh, look what dad bought us. He got this Christmas and they came in carrying this fresh Christmas tree, you know, ready to be put into a stand and decorated in the whole nine yards. And I was livid and I just, you know, I was so angry because from my perspective, you know, this is a person who hasn't paid their child support. I'm, you know, struggling financially. I didn't even have money for gifts that year. I didn't even have money for a Christmas dinner. Luckily, my kids were with their dad. And this was one of the first or second years of mine and Thomas's business. And I think I've told the story that, you know, it was just me and Thomas, his kids were with his ex wife, my kids were with their dad, thankfully. And so me and him had a frozen pizza and a cheap bottle of wine. And that was our Christmas dinner that year because I literally didn't have the money to go buy all the, you know, fixing, so to speak, and make Christmas dinner. And so I was really angry when they carry this tree in. And then on top of that, they're all like their dad's done this great and wonderful thing, you know, and I'm thinking, how can you think this is this awesome thing when you see me struggling. You know, I think they, I mean, I never talked to him about the money or whatever, but I think they knew they knew that the, that, you know, that their dad wasn't really helping or wasn't doing anything and they certainly knew that he didn't give them money. Anytime they would ask, he would say, oh, you need to ask your mom for that, you know. And so they, they certainly knew that he wasn't, you know, helping them in any way when they were with him. And so it was kind of shocking, right? The reality of that for me was like, wow. Okay. So I expected you to understand how absurd that gift is, but apparently you don't, you know, and their kids, right? They're kids. And so we're kind of putting our adult perspective on them, which they can't understand. The other thing that happened for me was that, you know, I think we have expectations that the kids are going to want to spend time with us, you know, more than the other parent, or they're going to think we're the better parent, or, you know, I remember Thomas saying when his kids were a little bit, you know, deep down. He really kind of wanted them to like him better, you know, he wanted to like win that battle for their affection. And I think, you know, deep down inside we're human. And of course, we have those types of feelings, even though we know maybe it's not the best feeling in the world to have, it's not a real positive feeling, you know, and it's a little bit selfish. But I think deep down, we reality is we do have those kinds of feelings. And so I can remember Thomas talking about, you know, him just, you know, wanting the kids to like him better and want to be with him more and think he was the better parent and more fun parent and all these kinds of things. And when my younger son was about 14, he went through a little phase where he wanted to go live with his dad. And I can just remember being appalled at that because I thought, okay, well, here's a person who doesn't show up for you, you know, doesn't, you know, make sure you have lunch money when you're at his house or, you know, if you forgot your ball shoes at his house too bad so sad he's not bringing them, you know, whatever, things like that that I always did for them, which is really just a difference in kind of personality and parenting style and all that kind of thing. And, you know, so I was kind of shocked that he wanted to go and, and live with his dad. And so the, when the reality of that came in front of me, I didn't deal with it real well I was quite upset. I remember, um, talking to Thomas and just having this fit and saying, what is he thinking and how could he, you know, and Thomas is like, look, you got to let him go. You got to let him go because his expectations, the child's expectations of what that's going to be living like what it's going to be like living with dad all the time versus the reality of what that's going to look like is going to be very different and you can talk to your purple in the face, but he's not going to listen he's going to have to experience it for himself. And Thomas of course was correct and my son went and I think it was about two months later he ended up back with me pretty much full time which is what he had been doing before. Um, so again, you know, his expectations versus his reality and so sort of letting him sort through that on his own and learn those lessons for himself. So our next area is kind of like expectations of our co parent. And I find this is difficult, a lot of ways for people, but it's sort of funny because we almost go into the co parenting with the same expectations that we were having in the relationship, where it's like, we think if we're just logical, or we reason in the right way or we say the right thing or we approach it in the right way or do the right thing or whatever that this person's going to magically go. Oh yeah okay I see that makes sense you're correct let's do it that way. That's that's sort of our perception and so people are almost like banging their head against the wall going, why is it I keep explaining this and explaining this and explaining this and this person isn't getting it. And it's like well I asked people sometimes will did they get it during the relationship and they're like no. Okay well why do you have any expectation they're going to get it now that you're not together like what reason would they possibly have to even try to get it now. I mean when you were together they at least had some motivation to try to get along with you or, you know, get on the same page as you with the kids or whatever now they're not even motivated to do that. So again that expectation versus the reality of how the co-parenting is actually going to go. You know I thought that I would have help in raising my kids I ended up having my kids about 99% of the time you know two boys 11 and 15. Single parenting them was very difficult and I had Thomas here in the house which is helpful to a point to have another adult in the house that's a male like the children but he's not their father. So there's a certain amount of the leverage and things that he just doesn't have that my ex has been had. And you know I can remember Thomas going over his ex wife called us a couple of times particularly when her husband was deployed he was a marine. And he was deployed and she was having trouble with one of the kids and he had been outside and been into something he should never whatever. And so she called and Thomas got in the car went over there and was like, hey, you know what's up you need to be behaving for your mom you need this is not okay you know. And he was really supportive of her in that way now that took years that that wasn't straight off the bat that was probably six seven years in. You know so a lot of it is learning how to deal with the other person how to approach things, how to create a safe space so to speak for that person to feel free to reach out to you for that help and that it's not going to be used against them. I think we had reassured her enough through our actions that she knew that we weren't then going to take that incident and go into court and go oh well, the child was out doing this and you know she, you know, didn't notice it till after the fact and therefore she should have less parenting time, you know, we didn't do any of that we didn't try to use any of that against her we went over and we were actually supportive. Now, you know it's great if you can do that a lot of times you don't have a co parent that reciprocates and so you have to kind of judge these things on an individual basis, based on the amount of boundary that you need with the other person and the level of cooperation that you're able to reach. Usually boundaries have to be really, really high at least for the first three or four years. And then after that you can kind of morph into a more cooperative footing a lot of the times, if you can learn to handle the situation correctly. But that's not always true. I mean I do see people who have to kind of maintain that boundary ongoing for the duration of the co parenting because the other, the other person just doesn't, the other co parent just doesn't get it. So, the other expectation I think I had as far as my co parent was concerned is that, you know, is that the children would never really be put in the middle or have to choose between us like I really, I really hoped I guess against all hope that he would not do things like, you know, I can remember, like I said, I was an adult with my parents divorced and I can remember even as an adult being like, okay, well, it's my child's first birthday. What do I do because my parents won't be in the same place at the same time. And that's really stressful even as an adult. It's really stressful when your parents put you in that position where you have to choose between the two. And so I was very adamant that I didn't want my children to ever have to do that. And as far as it depended on me. Anytime my ex has been and I were in the same place, I was going to do my very best, at least if the children were present, to be cordial and be amicable and all those things because I didn't want them to have to make those choices between us. Again, you know, it kind of depends on the other parent. I mean, my co parent has not been afraid about that, you know, he will say negative things about me to the children. I've probably been guilty of some of that over the years as well, especially as my kids became adults. I think once they started getting into that age range, I kind of felt like, oh, this isn't taboo anymore. I can actually talk about how I feel and whatnot. But what I learned really quickly is that that actually still has the same effect and puts my kids in the middle and put stress on them, whether they're 12 or whether they're 20. And so I think I kind of have this perception that, oh, once they're 18, 19 and they're adults, it doesn't really matter so much if I'm talking about their dad or whatever, because there's no court thing there's nothing the court's going to do to me right. But the piece that I didn't consider, I guess, is what that would do to my child. And so I worked really hard after that to try not to say negative things about their dad or situations involving their dad or whatever. And the one thing I can tell you is that I don't think my children worry if me and their dad are in the same place that there's going to be any kind of conflict. We have never had that happen. We were at both of our children's weddings and all that kind of thing and we didn't have, we got through it peacefully and amicably. So there were no blowups. But, you know, not always possible, you know, depending on, I mean, you can only, as far as it depends on you, right, is what you can control. You can't control the other parent. But if it is within your control and you're the parent that can do that, I would encourage you to do that because your children are the ones that ultimately suffer. It doesn't ultimately affect your co parent as much as it affects your children. So you don't want them to have to choose. The last area I think in the most important area and probably the area that people struggle with the most is our expectations versus reality of what happens in court. I think when we go into court, at least in the very beginning, we have this perception that if we just present our information to the court and we're reasonable. And especially if we're the parent that's taken on the vast majority of the responsibility, and we feel like we're a good parent and we're there for our kids. And we're doing all the things, right, that the court is going to kind of take our side, right, or give us what we're asking for or see that we're the better parent and award us more time. You know, any of those things, but really, that's not what judges base their decision on, right, that that's not the reality of how the judge views your case. It's your expectation of how the judge is going to view your case, but it's not the reality. And where you start with the reality is actually sitting down and looking up best interest of the child for your state. And the definitions are slightly different state to state, but in even, you know, country to country. Again, it's slightly different. But I can tell you that overall, they're, they're pretty, as a general rule, they're pretty close to looking at the same things. They're looking at is the child's health, safety, or welfare at risk. And if it's not, then then it just comes down to what's the policy of the state you live in. Is the policy of your state 5050 if there's no health, safety, and welfare issues, or is the policy of your state that the children should have one primary residence and then, you know, visitation with the other parent. You know, Texas is one of the states that's kind of really popular for that where they're, they kind of believe that the child should have for them for the most part children do better if they have one primary residence, and then they have what they call standard visitation for the non custodial parent, which is generally every other weekend and a weekday overnight. So that's their default position. A lot of states, including California where I am, the default position, if there's no issue with health, safety, and welfare is a 5050 position that children do best if they have equal time with both parents and both parents are as involved as possible. Now, sometimes you have logistical issues, right? People live further apart. Can't necessarily do an equal share time on the parenting side. But I think that that, you know, that expectation, setting your own expectation right off the bat of what you're looking at can save you a lot of time, a lot of stress, a lot of money. You know, because if I'm going in and I'm battling for, let's say, sole custody. I don't want the other parent to have any visitation at all. But I don't have concrete proof of any health, safety, or welfare issues. Like, let's say your issue is emotional abuse. Okay, emotional abuse is a very wiggly thing, right? It's hard to prove that, you know, because some of it's based on perception and that type of thing. And so that becomes an issue that's kind of hard to prove. So if I think I'm going to get sole custody based on emotional abuse, when my state's kind of default position is 5050, that's probably an unrealistic expectation. You know, could I get them to order the other parent to therapy or the parent and child to therapy or something along those lines? Maybe. But I'm probably not going to get a full physical custody to me. Just because I think the other parent is emotionally abusive. If I'm in a state that has that sort of 5050, you know, leaning policy. So it's important that you sit down and do your research and understand a lot of this. And, you know, I talk to so many people throughout the days and, you know, I know how expensive legal help is. I know how expensive attorneys can be. I get all of that. You know, if you're in a custody up to your eyeballs, you're probably not worried about the money. That's probably not your biggest concern. Your biggest concern is probably your kids. But let me just tell you that even if you don't have any resources and you say, there's no way I can afford to hire an attorney. Even if I wanted to. And man, I wish I could. What I tell people is like, look, go buy an hour of attorney time, sit down with them, talk to them, you know, ask them these questions, figure out, you know, find somebody that goes to your courthouse where your case is. And knows that judge and knows how that judge kind of views things and can give you that reality check. You know, I had somebody that called me earlier today, actually, that has an older teenager and the older teenager wants to go live with the other parent. You know, and they're actually in a state where the child is beyond the age that the court starts considering their opinion. You know, and this is a state that has kind of a little more. A lot of states, it just says, you know, generally around 14, that's kind of what California says. It's like, we kind of start listening to them. But there aren't that many states that say, as of X age, you know, the child gets input into this. And this particular one, it did say that. And so, you know, I said, you were like, look, you know, you can get an attorney, you can fight this, you can whatever. But at the end of the day, you know, you know, I'm guessing you're going to end up with, with, you know, whatever this child is wanting. And so find a local attorney, call them up, talk to them about this, find out what you're up against. You know, try to reach agreement, call the opposing attorney, negotiate that, and then take it back to the attorney you met with and let them review the agreement and make sure you understand it before you sign it. Then you're solving your problem, you're using realistic expectations, you're getting the legal advice you need, but you're not breaking the bank in order to do it. Right. So you're covering all your bases. You know, courts don't really care about the other parents lack of cooperation or not paying support or, you know, whatever those little things are because those aren't things that relate back to best interest of the child in that direct way. They're things that you don't like that make the other parent more difficult, but they don't necessarily impact the child directly. And so when we're talking about expectations of the court in custody, we have to expect that the court is going to be focused on what the court deems as their list of issues in the best interest factors. Okay, so educating yourself on these things is huge because it really can set your expectations kind of closer to reality, right, where there's not such a big gap, where you're blindsided like, Oh my goodness, I had no idea this is how it was going to go. Okay, because that's really where you just end up getting frustrated depressed, angry hurt, right, all of those negative emotions start coming in, because the gap between the expectation versus the reality. So when you can close that gap, you're going to be able to advocate for yourself better and you're going to get better outcomes. All right, so I hope this has been helpful. If you'd like to learn more about my coaching services, please go to divorceuniversityonline.com. There is a menu across the top that says programs, and you can go to the coaching services and book an appointment with my staff if you would like to learn more about the coaching programs that I offer. All right, thanks so much. I will see you guys next time. Thank you for listening to the Divorce University Online Podcast with your host, Tammy Ferreira. For more information, visit www.divorceuniversityonline.com.