What Is Your Priority? – Episode 306 of the Divorce University Online Podcast. Is your priority your ex or your kids? Now, I think any parent would say, the kids of course. But we often, unintentionally, communicate to the court and other experts that our ex is the priority. This happens through the behaviors we exhibit and the language we use not only with our ex, but when we speak to the court and other experts. In this episode, I’ll give you tips to help ensure that you are community that your priority is your children! 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
What Is Your Priority?
Well, you are listening to the Divorce University online podcast with your host, Tammy Ferreira. Hey, guys, Tammy here and this week we're going to talk about what is your priority, your kids or your ex? Now, I think most of us as parents would say are kids and that is the answer the court wants to hear. But I find a lot of times as I'm talking to clients through their behaviors, through their responses, their language that they're using in talking to court or experts or their ex or whatever is conveying the unintentional message that the priority is the X and not the kids. Okay. So before we dive deeper on this, let me just remind you, if you are watching me on YouTube and you find this content helpful, don't forget to subscribe so you get notified as new videos are released and of course, like this video, please. And also, if you are listening to the podcast, don't forget to rate and review me and subscribe so that you get notified as new podcast episodes are released each week. And of course, feel free to share any of all any and all of that on your social media platform that you use most frequently because as you know, if you're watching me, this help is hard to find. Okay. So the first thing is, I think that language, the verbage that we use becomes really, really important. And this is something that I frequently see people kind of struggle with and not really realize, I don't think it's always intentional, it's just kind of things that come naturally to us and we don't really think about the message that it's conveying. But I find that these little subtleties are something that particularly, you know, custody experts, therapists and courts will pick up on these little subtle, subtle indicators because they're trying to figure out what's going on in a case and so they're sort of in this mode where they're trying to absorb everything that's going on, right? And so the language you use in the presentation can be very, very impactful. One of the most basic things I start with with people is if you are saying my kids or my children or my child, my son, my daughter, right now, you need to start flipping that to our kids, our son, our children, our daughter, our whatever it is, okay? So that is a very simple thing that you can do. But again, when I have clients that are going in front of a child expert and they're saying my, I very, very quickly will start trying to correct that. And it's really helpful if you have somebody in your life that you talk to frequently about maybe this kind of issue that can just, every time you say it, just say, every time I say that, correct me, right, because we don't even realize it. It's like I have a friend that, you know, we kind of give her a hard time because we each have, you know, a specific word that we kind of repetitively use and hers is literally and so every time she says, literally, I go, oh, you did it again, you know, and then I have a word that she's always corrected me on. So you know, it's fine and we know that neither of us really mean anything by it. But in this situation, this is a very, you know, serious matter. And so you do want to have somebody that you trust to be able to, you know, gently remind you that, hey, you're doing it again, you're saying my because catching it in real time is the only way that you're really going to be able to correct yourself over the long haul. Okay. The second thing is, are you supportive of the other person's parenting? Now this can come in many, many forms. So I don't want you to think that just a couple little things that I'm going to talk about are necessarily the only way that you show support of the other person's parenting. I think it's sort of a general, just a general approach to the way that you handle, you know, pick ups mostly as they come up as to whether you actually support the other person's parenting or not. So one of the things that happens a lot is there will be something like an event on the other person's parenting time, right? Like maybe a birthday party for a relative or, you know, a family reunion or a graduation or any of those types of sort of events that can happen in one world versus the other. I remember Thomas's ex-wife at one point, her great grandmother passed away. And so the boys had, they were a little bit older, old enough to attend a funeral and they had been fairly close to, you know, the great grandmother and it was our weekend, you know? And so it's really easy in that situation to go really the great grandmother. We feel the need to take the kids. But of course we did and we rearranged and, you know, traded time or did whatever to be able to make that happen. So it's always good to support those things and to try to accommodate the other parent. And you know, in our particular situation, I think they were gone for several days. So we did kind of make adjustments to the schedule and accommodate that time. But even if Thomas had not gotten makeup time for that, we still would have done it. And I think that's another point that co-parents frequently get hung up on is, I get a lot of questions about makeup time, okay? And the court, again, doesn't want you to be hung up on kind of those legalistic type of issues of, oh, well, you know, you got a day extra or I got an hour less or, you know, whatever the situation is. Because when you get in that mindset where you're really focused on who got more hours and, you know, you missing time or them getting more or whatever, again, that's making it about them or you, right? It's not, you're not focused on the child, you know. So again, you're conveying that your priority is not the child. Your priority is either them or maybe it's making sure that everything with them is fair. That's an issue that comes up a lot. And the court isn't really interested in that. They're interested in and they want you to be interested in what's the best thing for my child in this situation? You know, if I can give the child the benefit of going and participating in this family event and feeling, you know, involved in both sides of the family and all that kind of thing, then why wouldn't I do that? It's good for the kid. The only reason I wouldn't do that is if I'm either a, you know, not wanting to give an inch to the other parent or be worried about having less parenting time myself. And again, I'm, I'm not saying that you can't coordinate makeup time or that that isn't a good thing to propose, but I'm just saying don't get hung up on that. You know, if you're going to get hung up on something, get hung up on what would be the best thing for your child in this situation and not you personally. Usually we're either looking at what's best for us, what damage or what damages the other parent? Right? And it hurts them. In other words, we're not always focused on the child. So that's where your focus needs to be. The third thing is when we're speaking about our co-parenting relationship or about our parenting with the children or whatever, you know, are you presenting any concerns that you have in a child focused way or in a way that is ex focused, right? You're focused on your ex. So again, even in therapy, like a lot of times we'll start the kids in therapy or maybe, you know, you're in co-parenting therapy or whatever the situation is, maybe every unification therapy. And a lot of times, and that isn't immediately something that is being reported to the court or that person isn't always asking to immediately give input to the court. But a lot of times, over time after months and months of therapy or something like that, one of the parents will file for some kind of modification. And then all of a sudden, that therapist's opinion is being brought into this situation. Now, I can tell you that, you know, I always tell clients, ooh, excuse me. I always tell clients, don't go in and say to the therapist, oh, we're going to need you to, you know, help us with court or give the court input or whatever. I mean, 99 out of 100 therapists are going to go, uh, no, I don't do that. I don't work with families that are involved that heavily in the court system. So you don't want to go in sort of like raising that red flag straight off the bat. You know, really the purpose of going into a therapist most of the time is to help the children, right? Or to help your co-parenting relationship or whatever that situation is. And so that's the therapist's job. That's the part they want to focus on. They don't want to be involved in court. Now I can promise you that down the road, if the court says to that therapist, you are coming in to talk to us that therapist is going to show up. They're not going to have an option, right? It's not going to be a choice. It's not going to be like the court's going to say, oh, would you like to come in and do this? So if push comes a shove and you need to do that, then you'll deal with it then. But don't go in straight off the bat saying that that's the issue, that it's a court issue and you're going to need their input. But when you, so my point is is that when you start in with somebody, you know, you need to make sure right from the, from the get go that you're being very child focused because you don't know at what point down the road, this person could potentially be asked to give input on your situation or input as to the child's feelings about the situation or something like that. I can tell you in California, we have a branch of the court called Family Court Services. And in some counties, we have what's called recommending Family Court Services, which means sort of a mini custody of Al essentially, it means that person writes a recommendation to the court of what the parenting plan should be if the parents aren't able to reach agreement. And many, many times, our Family Court Services will reach out to third party collateral contacts. So they'll reach out to therapists, they'll reach out to, you know, CPS, they'll reach out to teachers, they'll reach out to, you know, various third parties that can give some insight into the child and the preferences and the dynamic between the parents and all that kind of thing. So you just never know, so it's good right from the start to kind of teach yourself to present your concerns in a child focused way. And so let's take like a really obvious one, let's take like alcohol. I think this comes up a lot, a lot of people that I talked to are concerned on varying levels about the other parents' alcohol use. And, you know, when you come in, if you come in and you're like, oh, the other parent, almost like you're tattling, you know, well, the other parent drinks and they have five to six days, they have five to six beers every single day. And they're essentially a fun functioning alcoholic and on the weekends, they tend to drink even more. And I would find bottles in their car during the marriage and, you know, they've gotten three DUIs in the past and we're sort of presenting the issue in like this laundry list kind of way of all the bad things that I need to tell you about the other parent. Okay. Now, when we do this, it's not just the words we're saying, it's also the presentation of it, right? If I'm coming across and I am talking really quick and I'm listing all those things out and here's, here's number one and here's number two and, you know, they, they've gotten these DUIs and there was bottles in the car and they drink every day and there's, you know, this many things. And, you know, and I'm just kind of rattling it off one after the other, I am coming across as less credible because I'm presenting in a very anxious type of way. I'm almost like desperate to get the accusations out there, right? And I'm doing it. And think about it, if you have a child, when your child comes to you and they're tattling on another child and I'm sure you have had this at some point or another. If your kid is more than four, four years old, probably maybe even three. This happens, right? Especially like with siblings and things and they will come in and they're like, mom, you know, so and so hit me and I wasn't even doing anything and they just came over and they were angry and they hit me all the sudden and then they took my toy and I did it right and it's that kind of thing. And what do you do? You go, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Okay. Tell me what happened. And you ask questions and you get them to back up a little and then you might go to the other child and you might ask questions of them and you try to put the pieces together. And so you have to look at this in kind of a similar way where a therapist or expert of some kind or the court is trying to figure out what's happening. And when you come in and you're just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, slow down. And I have to do this with people a lot of times when I'm on the phone with them where I'll go, okay, just I need you to back up a minute because I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly what you're telling me. And so when you're in front of an expert like this, again, it hurts your credibility. So it's important that you learn to back up and take a deep breath and take a different approach to your presentation. So in the alcohol example, that first presentation is a very other parent focus, you know, an ex focused on your ex presentation. If I want to make that same presentation, but I'm concerned about the child and I'm presenting it in that kind of way, I would say, you know, I'm really concerned because, you know, my child is very young, our child, sorry, I did that right off the bat, didn't I see how easy it is to do our child is only three years old, really can't speak for themselves, can't protect themselves in any way. And I know that during the relationship, there was some excessive drinking by the other parent. And I have always been present. And so I never really worried about if it impaired their parenting or whatever, because I knew I was there and I was sober. And so now putting the child in that situation where there's really no supervision and nobody there if the other parent is freaking really could be dangerous for the child. The other parent also got a DUI last year and thankfully the child was not with them. But I do have concern that they could potentially make a poor decision if they've been drinking excessively and decide to drive with the child in the car. So I'm asking that there be an order for no, you know, no alcohol use during either parent's parenting time or within 12 hours. And I also think it would be safer for the child if there was maybe some sort of breathalyzer installed in the other parent's car. So you see how just just me slowing down and taking a breath makes that feel different, right? Like, I'm really concerned about the child and as I laid out those things, I talked about how they could potentially impact the safety of the child because safety of the child is the number one concern for the court. And look, I know what you're thinking. I can already like hear it being said, like, okay, Tammy. But if I go through and I list all the things that the other parent is doing around alcohol, shouldn't the court make that connection? Yes, or the expert or whoever. I mean, yes, they should. But again, I find a lot of times the way that a person presents really affects their credibility. And you know, when I talk about this, I always say to clients, it's not a one to one thing. I'm not telling you if you fixed your credibility issue that then all of a sudden the whole case is going to flip and it's going to go your way. But what does happen is that if you come across as credible, then what you build momentum and the things that you tend to say, if you can continue presenting in that calm, rational, child focused manner, the things that you say will tend to be believed by the court and the things the other parent says won't be. And I know we've all had this experience with narcissists where we're like, wow, this is a really, you know, charismatic, well-presenting person and I'm afraid the court won't listen. Well, ironically, that's almost what causes it is it's not necessarily that they're believable. It's that because people have believed them in the past because nobody has dug below the surface to get to the facts, right? They've been believed. Well, the court is going to dig below the surface to get to the facts. So at least that's the idea, right? And so when you come in and you've already got this anxiousness about you because of the past history and you're not trusting the process, then you're coming across this fearful anxious, you know, many times vindictive, whatever it is. And so you're almost like cutting your nose off to spite your face, right? You're shooting yourself in the foot, I don't know how many, how many, uh, slaying turns for that I can think of, but you're essentially shooting yourself in the foot because you're already creating an environment in your initial presentation of not being credible. And it's really rooted in your own fear and anxiety because of the history of this relationship. And so part of what you have to work through with a therapist or a coach or whatever is getting to the point to where you don't feel the level of anxiety and that you can take a deep breath and present the information in a way that's going to build your case and not sabotage it. Okay. The fourth thing is do you make decisions based on how it will affect the children or how it will impact your ex? Now I say this a lot to clients. We don't make decisions based on the outcome to the X because a lot of times people will say to me, well, if I do this, then the benefit to my ex is going to be that and it's like, I don't care. We have to move past that. I, I don't, I don't base anything on whether they will get a benefit or not. If they get a benefit, oh, well, they got to benefit. If they get, if something is detrimental to them, oh, well, something is detrimental to them. But in the very first instance, I'm going to make the decision on how I need to handle something based on what is best for the child. All right. That's going to be my number one priority. And so that's where your focus has to be. When we start trying to make decisions out of how it impacts the other person, usually that ends up backfiring on us. And secondly, usually the court can pick up on those things and it, it hurts our credibility and can make you seem like you don't support their parenting because it's like, well, I'm not going to agree to anything that would have any benefit for you. I'm not going to do that. Well, okay, that's not being supportive of their parenting. And that's also not prioritizing your child. That's determining your decision based on how much can I hurt you? And you know, as much as that's a natural feeling and I understand it and I went through it myself, the court always expects us to rise above. They always expect us to be the bigger person to set our feelings aside and to do the right thing. Now, the court may not even always agree with you on what the right thing is. But I think that if you're coming at it in that way, where it's not where you really are trying to do what you think is best and it's not about the other parent and it's not about sabotaging them and it's not about any of those things, but it really is you trying to do what you think is right. I think the court has a lot of flexibility in that. They understand that we don't all parent the same, right? And so, you know, don't let yourself get too overly concerned of, you know, oh my goodness, how is this going to look for the court? Just try to stay focused on how it affects the kids and the best decision in your opinion as their parent in that moment. Okay. And I think the fifth thing, which I've kind of talked about a little bit in a few other components of this is are you reactive? Because if you're reactive to the other parent and you have, you know, this huge emotional response to them or you're angry or you curse or you yell or your communication is laced with sarcasm or you're always telling them, you know, how pathetic they are or belittling them, that's not going to make you look good in front of the court. And it's kind of interesting because that really seems like a no brainer, doesn't it? But I can tell you that we as women, I think in particular are worse for this. I mean, I shouldn't say that because I mean, I work with female clients where, you know, the men are doing that and I also work with men who, you know, dads whose ex wives are doing that. So I do see both sides of the fence. I think women tend to be a little more emotional and out there with it. Men tend to be a little more subtle and kind of fly under the radar and their things will be very, very kind of subtle and little digs. And a lot of times it's things that maybe you wouldn't pick up on if you didn't really know the people and know the situation, you know, and that's what makes it difficult, right? A lot of times with the guys with the women. I think sometimes we're so reactive to them and we let our emotions get the better of us. And then we're labeled as hysterical, you know, and all those types of things. And so again, the court's going, okay, what's your priority here? Is your priority to attack the other parent? You know, is your priority to respond to the attack and try to defend yourself because you're worried about looking like a bad person? That's not a good priority either. Again, the court wants all roads to lead back to what is best for the child. That's ultimately the only thing that they are truly focused on. Okay. I mean, Thomas used to say this all the time, courts don't really care about the mom or the dad. And I don't really mean that from like a moral perspective. Of course, your judge, you know, probably cares about each of you as human beings. I think most of them do, but that's not their job to be there to worry about you. They're there to protect the kids. You guys are adults. You guys need to figure it out. You need to, you know, fend for yourself and their priority is to protect the kids. And I think when you kind of come at it from that perspective and understand that their job, their role in this is not to worry about you. You're an adult. You should be able to take care of yourself. So that's why things tend to come through in sort of a very child focused manner. So the more that you can get on board with that philosophy and you can show the court that your priority is your kids, the better you will do in your case. Okay. So if you would like to learn more about my coaching services, you can go to divorce university online forward slash VIP dash coaching. There is a link on that page you can book time for a free consultation with one of my staff and learn more about my services and how I might be able to support you on this journey. All right. See you guys next week. Thank you for listening to the divorce university online podcast with your host, Tammy Ferrera. For more information, visit www.divorceuniversityonline.com. Bigo Tires Biggest Black Friday Sale is here. For a limited time, get unbeatable savings on the tire brands you know and trust, plus savings on brakes, oil changes, air filters, and more, all with multiple financing options tailored to you. These savings won't last. Make an appointment online at bigotires.com or stop by one of your locally owned and operated greater Colorado Springs Bigo Tires today. Bigo Black Friday savings going on now, Bigo Tires, the team you trust. (upbeat music)