It's the Little Things – Episode 305 of the Divorce University Online Podcast. When you are dealing with a high-conflict co-parent, it’s often the little things that become the most frustrating. I’ve seen many clients who come out of Court and realize many of the details of their situation did not get addressed. And even when they do get addressed, a narcissistic co-parent won’t follow the orders anyway. So, you’re left with all the small daily aggravations that drive you insane. So, what do you do? 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
It's the Little Things
Are you a lover of all things dark and creepy? Of graveyards and monsters, haunted houses, and spooky legends? Then welcome to Lore. I'm Aaron Mankey. For close to 10 years now, I've been sharing history's darkest stories with millions of listeners around the world. Tune in each week as we explore the folklore, ghost tales, and local legends that delivered the chills you're looking for. Learn more and subscribe today over at Lorepodcast.com. Hello. You are listening to the Divorce University online podcast with your host, Tammy Ferrera. Hey, guys, Tammy here. And today I'm going to talk about it's the little things. And I feel like this is so true in every area of our lives, whether we're dealing with child custody, you know, divorce issues. I know with me, you know, walking through this season of grief of losing Thomas, it's the little things, right? It's not the big stuff, the big stuff we usually figure out, but it's, it's the little things that become that really the pain points or the points of irritation. And I think that's especially true when you're dealing with a narcissistic, hope parent in child custody. So as we dig into this topic, let me just remind you of as always, if you like this content, you're watching me on YouTube, don't forget to hit like on this video and also subscribe to the channel so that you get notified as new content is released. If you're listening to the podcast, please rate and review me and also subscribe so that you get notified as new episodes are released. And as always, please feel free to share this on your social media accounts. So many people need this help. So many people are dealing with these kinds of situations and really have no idea where to turn. So when you're dealing with a narcissistic co parent as you probably are, if you're listening to me or some form of high conflict and you know, again, there are varying degrees, some are worse than others. It's funny because, you know, I do a coaching and I have a group coaching program and it's funny because people get into that and then they start hearing the other people's stories and it's almost like, wow, I thought what I was dealing with was bad, but I'm not dealing with what the other person's dealing with, you know, or whatever. And it kind of gives you that little reality check of, okay, you know, this could be worse. This may not be as bad as I think it is. But again, the little daily things, which is usually the type of, you know, passive kind of thing that a narcissist will do a lot of times is really just to irritate you in a lot of ways. I've seen them do all kinds of different things. You know, sometimes people will be consistently late, you know, for pickups or drop offs, you know, by just a few minutes, whatever the window is that they have, if the court says they have 15 minutes, then they'll show up at 13 or 14 minutes, right? And so you're still waiting, but they're within that window and they will usually push those kinds of things. I've also seen a lot of times where they will intentionally misspell the other person's name in communication. And I think that's particularly true if the person has an unusual name or they know that that person is kind of always dealt with that issue their whole life, like, oh, nobody could ever spell it correctly. Like with me, with having a name like Tammy, there's obviously a lot of different spellings. And so my ex obviously knows that it's D-A-M-M-Y, that's how you spell my name. This isn't something that he in particular does, but, you know, I have seen situations where, you know, if he was, if he had that particular issue, he would write and spell it D-A-M-I, you know, or something like that. So that is another thing they do. And so if they're misspelling your name occasionally and you haven't really thought much about it, it probably is intentional. The other thing that they'll do is, you know, just not only be late for transitions, but also maybe kind of change the location on you last minute or something like that, especially if you don't have, you know, obviously if you have a specific designated place in your order, that's a little harder for them to do. But they will do that a lot of times and it's sort of like, okay, well, what are you supposed to do? You know, that, that locations, you know, three miles further than what you normally drive, but you want your kid, you know, or your kids, whichever the case is. And so probably you're going to go, but it's irritating. Or they'll do things like maybe change their dress or do something like that and not necessarily notify you not comply with the order, even though you have orders on some of these things. So what's a body to do? What is a person to do in this situation? Well, you know, I get this question a lot about like, okay, do I file? Do I clarify my orders? You know, how do I handle this? So yes, you know, filing and getting a modification of your orders is usually an option, right? I mean, some states have specific timeframes of how frequently you can file on custody issues and all that kind of stuff. So you know, you have to, you know, check your local procedures and rules and laws and all that kind of thing. But in general, yes, of course, you can go in and ask the judge to solve some of these problems for you. You know, you can ask them to shorten the window, you know, of what is considered late. I know in California, most of the time, if the judge sets a window and says, okay, you have a 15 minute window. And after that, you forfeit your visit. You know, of course, if you're getting your child back, that's not real helpful, right? If you're waiting on the other parent to pick up, sure fine, then the other parent's visit is canceled. That may be, you know, great. And that may solve the problem on that. But it doesn't solve the problem in getting the child back if the other parent is late dropping them off. And so, you know, having real specific orders on the little tedious day-to-day things can be very important when you're dealing with a high conflict person. And I think sometimes when we go into, in particular, settlement negotiations or something like that, you know, the court and attorneys tend to look at the big rocks, right? They go, okay, we need a parenting schedule, okay, we need a holiday schedule, okay, what's the vacation going to be? Can they travel internationally, you know, what are pick up a drop off time is going to be, you know, where's the kid going to go to school? Kind of those big things. But these little tedious pieces that the other person kind of skates around or that are essentially nothing that the court can really in practicality do about it. You know, because let's say that, you know, the order says that, you know, they're supposed to notify you within 24 hours if they move or change their address and then they don't. Okay, what do you do about that? I mean, you can go in and file and say, look, they didn't give me their address or you can file, you know, contempt. I get that question a lot, too, should I file contempt? You know, do I, you know, bring police into it? Do I, you know, people's brain starts going, how do I fix this problem? And you know, yeah, sometimes those things are options depending on the circumstances. You know, the problem with contempt becomes that it doesn't necessarily mean the court's going to go, oh, okay, this is a problem. Yes, I agree. The other parents in contempt. Okay. Now, you know, less parenting time for them, more parenting time for the other person. That's not usually part of the contempt. You know, usually the contempt is just did they do it or did they not? And then what are the parameters of the punishment and custody is not something the court uses as punishment. It has to be they're looking at what's best for the child. So usually some sort of punishment in a contempt is like a fine or something like that, which again, in practicality with a high conflict person really doesn't help you. It's kind of that slap on the wrist and then, you know, we're back to the same problem. So when you do go into a settlement negotiation or something like that, I do think that you need to have sat down and thought through what are the detailed things that your order needs to include and look, nobody can comprehensively tell you every single thing that's going to come up from here on in and kind of have this premonition of what needs to go into your order, right? You know your situation the best. You know the high conflict person that you're dealing with the best. And so you're going to have, you know, really a better idea, especially if you're keeping notes like I always recommend and you are tracking these things, then you're going to be able to see those patterns, see the hiccups that come and go, okay, I need some kind of order around this to at least try to help solve this issue. But again, with a narcissistic person, it doesn't always work. So you also have to have that expectation of, okay, I'm going to do everything I can to get this detail in the order and to be able to do what I can do and what's possible. And so brainstorming that ahead of time before you go into court or before you go into settlement negotiations is critical because if you've ever gone into court and had the experience of a hearing, you know that it just, it just whipped by like wind, right? It's like, everything's done and you're like, oh wait, it's over. You know, what happened? You know, it's that kind of feeling because it happened so quickly and it feels like, you know, these massive life changing decisions are made in just a split second. And then you get out of the courtroom and then you're like, Oh, I forgot to ask about these things. So I don't have orders on this, that or the other. And then you're left with the attorneys trying to negotiate back and forth and, you know, or they don't agree, whatever is happening. So, you know, it's good to kind of have your list beforehand and to make sure that if you have an attorney that you've communicated those things to them. But the list is particularly helpful because emotions are going to come up. It's going to get emotional, you're going to forget, you're going to get thrown off track, you know. And so you need that list in front of you to help you stay on track of remembering, okay, here are the things I need. All right. Now, one of the things that my husband used to say is the court is a blunt instrument. And what he meant by that is it is really hard for the court to manage the level of detail that's really needed sometimes in a case. And that's why, you know, a lot of times they'll involve experts or, you know, you'll go to mediation or do different things to try to resolve the issues because that's an environment where you can sit and kind of hash through all the little details. The court doesn't have that kind of time, you know, in a regular motion hearing, you know, you're looking at 20 to 40 minutes max in most jurisdictions. So not a lot of time when you consider that's two different sides talking, plus the judge talking, you know, we're talking five, 10 minutes eat, right, which is not very much time to present your side and all the different things that you, you know, all the different orders that you need to get in there. So having the list helps and it helps your attorney know, okay, these are the things that that you want. And a lot of times, you know, here's the thing to understand about attorneys. There's always a fire, you know, in family law, they're always jumping fire to fire to fire. It's like, okay, I've got a hearing on this this day, hearing on this this day, documents for this one or do this day, documents for that one or do this day. There's always some thing. And so you don't want to sit down too far in advance. You know, sometimes clients are guilty of that because it, frankly, the details and the facts will blur because of the, just the sheer volume of what most family law attorneys are handling. I think it's helpful to maybe send an email a couple of days in advance. And you know, what's really helpful is maybe taking your list with you to court on the morning of and meeting with them, you know, 10, 15 minutes before the hearing and going through everything so that it's fresh on their mind and so they know, right, what you're asking for. So, you know, definitely give them a little bit of a heads up in advance, but be prepared or reinforce that at the time of the hearing because that's when you really have their attention. That's when they're solely focused on your case, what's going on in your, you know, situation and not having all these calls and clients and things that are, that are interrupting. You know, most attorneys, they get to court. They're on that case. That's their entire world in that moment. They're very present in that situation. And so that's a good time for you to say, hey, here's these other little details that I need. But again, what do we do when we get out of the courtroom and the person still isn't following it. Now, so many times in groups, including in my own groups, I have a Facebook group and, you know, I have a free group and there's a lot of people chiming in on different things and, you know, and they're not always correct, you know, on what they're saying. And, you know, they're, they're sharing their own experience, but it doesn't necessarily mean that their experience is applicable to yours. And I find most of the time it's not. And very frequently, I find people will just jump to, oh, call the police, oh, you know, file contempt, oh, you know, just go for the jugular. And honestly, I find most of the time, that doesn't work well with a high conflict person. And, you know, look, when we're recovering from being in a high conflict relationship with a narcissist or something like that, we are all top boundaries, right? Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. We hear that word all the time. But I think we have a misconception of what that means. You know, it's not, you know, kind of putting your hands on your hips and stomping your feet and saying, "Hell no, I won't go." Like, that's not really what it is. You know, having a boundary with another person is really kind of like, I don't really care what you do. Like, nothing you do is going to bug me. I'm not going to let you get to me emotionally. I'm not going to let you ruffle my feathers. I don't care. That's when you really start having boundaries. As long as what that other person is doing is irritating you, then what you're doing is engaging in conflict. When you can move past it emotionally and you're to the point where you're like, I don't really care what they do. Whatever they do, I'm going to ignore it. I'm going to move on. I'm going to not let it upset me. That's when you know you're really starting to get to the other side emotionally. And that's called disengaging. And that is really what the court wants to see from you. And that's when you really know you have a good boundary. You know, with my ex-husband at this point, I mean, my kids are grown. They're adults, right? So in all fairness, I don't have a lot of the day to day that I used to have in the interaction with him. Right? It just doesn't exist. But on those two or three times a year that I do have to have some kind of interaction or conversation or whatever, because something happens, I am always like amazed at how little change there has been in this man and how those same habits, those same ways of moving through the world, the same little things will rear its ugly head in the situation. The only difference is now I don't really care. I just go, okay, whatever. He's still being him. He's still doing his thing. You're not going to help me. You're not going to help our kids. You're not going to do whatever. Okay. And on top of that, you're going to like try to make my life harder, whatever. I don't really care. I'm going to go back over here and try to do my own thing, right? And it just doesn't have the same emotional impact on me that it did in the very beginning. And you know, we separated originally in 2006 and I've shared this before, but my mother passed suddenly in 2014 and honestly, something clicked in my brain when my mother passed. And that's really the point at which I stopped caring or reacting to my ex-husband emotion. So it took me about eight years. So hopefully it doesn't take you as long. And if you're watching me, hopefully you're learning and educating and moving yourself through the emotional part and all that kind of stuff. And so hopefully you'll get through it much, much faster. But I just say that so that you know, like it's not an overnight process. It doesn't happen automatically, but it's what you need to work towards because that's where your piece is. If you are waiting on that narcissistic person to change for you to have peace, I am here to tell you you will never have peace. That person is not going to change. There's no order the court can put in place. There's nothing that an expert or anyone else can do that is going to change that person. A high conflict narcissistic person, the chances of them ever changing their behavior is solo. It's I think the statistic is like less than 1% of people that are diagnosed as narcissistic actually ever change. So it's practically nil. Okay, so if you're sitting around like banging your head against a wall thinking, oh, if I say this thing or do this thing or react in this way, like it's going to stop. No, it's not. It's not going to stop, but two things will happen. It will get more less frequent. It will happen more minimally because of the way that you disengage and you will get stronger emotionally. And eventually you won't care. You won't have that good reaction that not in your stomach, you know, that I'm sure you know what I'm talking about that comes up when you're in these situations with this person. So the thing you have to understand about a high conflict narcissistic person is if it bugs you, you get more of it, right? So if these little things like being late for the drop offs or changing the time on you last minute or whatever, bugs you, then you're going to get more of that. You know, I had somebody say to me the other day, well, you know, the other parents never have been involved in taking the kid to the therapist and now suddenly they want to take the kid to the therapist and I don't want to let him take the kid to the therapist because I don't know what they're going to say to the therapist. And I said, oh no, you just write them back and you say, oh, that'd be great. That'd be so helpful. These take so much time. Would you mind doing it every other week during your parenting time? You know, you almost like put it back on them because then you send that to a high conflict person and then they're going to go, well, what's that person up to? What are they trying to do? Why are they suddenly wanting me to go? Hmm. Maybe I don't want to go. It's like reverse psychology because as soon as you dig in and say, well, I'm the one that's always taking them. I don't think that's a good idea. I don't see any reason for you to need to do it. They're just going to push on you even harder and it's going to become this big battle. You know, and they don't always care about court orders and narcissistic person thinks they're above all of that. So, you know, if they're not complying, if they're not doing whatever, you kind of getting harsher about it probably isn't going to result in any kind of change from them. The only thing that I find that truly makes an impact in this is what we call extinguishment. And you know, if you've ever had a toddler, you probably know that word. It comes back to ignoring bad behavior, essentially, because with your toddler, the idea is even you giving it negative attention, like even saying, stop, don't do that, whatever. You giving it negative attention is still attention. And so the toddler will continue their bad behavior and narcissists are the same way. You know, I did an episode several weeks ago called, you know, how are narcissists and toddlers similar? And I talked about some of these behaviors and it's very true. You know, the best way that you can draw a boundary for yourself and your world is to simply pull back and ignore their behavior. Because if it doesn't bug you, they're not getting any jollies from it, right? The jollies from it for them is your reaction is you being upset, you being emotional, you arguing with them. It's sort of like this little thing in their brain that goes, "Ha ha, I got to that." You know, and in all fairness, I don't think that that's always conscious. Matter of fact, I would venture to say most of the time, it isn't conscious for them. They are not really aware of that kind of payoff that they feel in regard to that. But you know, psychologically, that's what happens. And so when they see you scrambling or see you arguing with them or see you being frustrated or whatever, then they're like, "Oh, okay. They're inside." "Oh, I hit the mark. I accomplished the goal." "Oh, that bugs them. Okay. Let me do that some more so I can bug them some more." So this is why that the extinguishment is the most effective thing. And again, a boundary is really more about I'm going to remove myself from this situation. I'm going to refuse to play. You know, I mean, let's look at it in the context of if I'm a child. And I go out with a bunch of my friends and I'm going to play baseball, okay? When I get there and we're playing and all of a sudden, a bunch of my friends start cheating and keep running the bases even though they're tagged out or stealing and they really were out and they refused to accept it or whatever, some form of cheating, okay? How would I have a boundary in that situation? Well, I could stand there and scream and yell and tell them what cheaters and liars they are, right? That's I think that's what most people would interpret a boundary as. But that's not really a boundary. What that is, is that the engaging in conflict and letting them know that what they've done has upset me. And instead, what I should do if I'm being taught well by my parents and you're modeling. Don't forget that you're modeling. So if you're engaging in conflict with your co-parent, guess what your children are seeing? They're seeing that this is how you deal with people that upset you or make you unhappy. And the real solution for that child is to turn and leave and say, you know, that's how you guys play and you cheat and do all that. I'm just not really interested in playing in that way. You know, I'd prefer a fair, you know, challenging game and I turn around and walk away. That's having a boundary. Having a boundary is I am not going to play. I am going to opt out. Now the reason that, you know, this becomes so hard in child custody in particular is because obviously it's an emotional situation and these are your children. And so as parents, we feel protective. You know, there's a reason. There's a phrase called mama bear, you know, in particular, not that dads aren't protective also. They are in a different way. But you know, those emotions come out, you know, that growling, that assertion and all that kind of thing. But that's not really having a good boundary. Again, a good boundary is just like, you know what, I refuse to play. I'm not going to let you upset me. I'm not going to let you steal my joy. I'm not going to let you ruin the rest of my day. I'm not going to let you get into my head so much that I can't even be present to parent my children during the time that I have them. I'm not going to give you that power. What I'm going to do is I'm going to walk away. So your lesson for today is don't sweat the small stuff. Okay. And probably the less you sweat it, the faster it will change. My experience is the more you practice the extinguishment around issues that are really upsetting to you, the less of it you will get. Now I'm not saying it will ever completely go away with a narcissistic person. But as a general rule, it will greatly decrease and they will usually find some other target to focus on at that point. Okay. So I hope this has been helpful. If you'd like to learn more about my coaching services, you can go to divorceuniversityonline.com/bip-coaching. There's a link on that page. You can make an appointment to talk to one of my staff and learn more about how I might be able to support you on this journey. See you guys next time. Thank you for listening to the Divorce University Online podcast with your host, Tammy Ferrara. For more information, visit www.divorceuniversityonline.com. Hey moms, looking for some light-hearted guidance on this crazy journey we call parenting? Join me, Sabrina Colberg and me, Andy Mitchell, for Pop Culture Moms, where each week we talk about what we're watching and examine our favorite pop culture moms up close to try to pick up some parenting hacks along the way. Come laugh, learn, and grow with us as we look for the best tips and maybe a few what not to do from our favorite fictional moms. From Good Morning America and ABC Audio, Pop Culture Moms, find it wherever you get your podcasts.