Author: bretrgoldstein@gmail.com

The root cause of much of the anger at ex-spouses is their effect on your life – even though you don’t want them around you and have no connection with them. It is difficult to fathom how someone you just want to go away is effecting your actions.   Use the strategy of trying to see the ex as a company or client that must handle.  I endeavor to take the emotional content out of the equation so that I can merely be irritated rather than infuriated by the effect of their decisions.

I am not saying that it was easy. In fact, it is very difficult.  Here are some actionable things you can do when you get pissed.

 

1. Remember that no matter how pissed you are that this anger is occurring in just one moment.  Every breath that you take is a moment in your life that passes.  Everything passes.  Anger passes.
2. Try your best to see the absurdity of the situation when you are angry.  It isn’t easy, but if you take a step back you can typically understand that the moments of anger are funny rather than painful. Keep your sense of humor.
3. Step back.  Try to step back from the moment.  Think about the bigger picture.  What is anger doing to you right now in terms of your emotional health and decision making? Get some distance.
4. Take yourself out of the situation. Say someone is calling you – find a way to get out of the situation so that you can get back your calm and prepare yourself for handling the issue that is upsetting you.  Give yourself time to plan.
5. Remember that it is not about winning.  The ex is an adversary and it is natural to want to compete.  Make the decision not to compete – make the decision to understand. 
6. Avoid saying the word, “No” like the plague.  When you say “no” you create further discord.  Say instead “Yes, but . . .” Look for agreement not negation.
7. Stop talking and listen.  Yes.  Just stop talking, arguing and fighting and really listen to or see – not just look at the other party and truly hear what they are doing to themselves by arguing with you.  You were just doing the same thing to yourself that they are doing to themselves.  Do you want to be a mirror image of them?
8. Figure out how you can both get what you want.  You would be surprised how easy it is to negotiate – and just how bloody hard it is to do it rationally, when you are angry.
9. Yes.  You heard me right.  Give in and give the other person what they want.  Tell them that you are doing it not because of their threats or anger but because you simply want to get along.  See what happens in the future. It can’t hurt to try.  Try an olive branch.
10. Let the lawyers handle it.   If you just can’t handle the emotion, then let your lawyer handle the problem.
11. Ask for a parenting plan to be worked out if the problems are insurmountable.

The key ability in these suggestions is the capacity to step back from emotion.  When you step back, it will give you a measure of control and the ability to handle the slings and arrows your ex throws at you.

Trying to be a better person when you are in the middle of the horror of a divorce is perhaps the most difficult personal challenge an individual will face in their entire life.  Having self-control is made even harder when there are children involved.

I remember being so angry.  I would get home from work and the kids would be there and I would be ready to blow, still jacked up from arguing in Court (I’m an attorney) and fighting the divorce.  I was overwhelmed and I would try to sit alone some place in the house and I would literally feel the stress pouring out of my body while I sat in the chair.  It was like a toxic black cloud pouring out of me as I relaxed.  When I was done, I was ready to handle my children with a semblance of calm and humor.   As I look back on it now I see my sitting in a chair alone and relaxing as what can be referred to as a washing maneuver.

I coach football and during games players make mistakes.  It is inevitable at every level of the sport.  It is important to forget the mistakes made and move on to accomplish what is needed during the next play.  One of the things we teach the young players to help them mentally overcome a mistake, is what we call a washing maneuver.  This can be any physical and mental action that lets you calm yourself and forget what has just happened.   One of the physical and mental actions we teach is to have the player dust himself off as a washing maneuver – taking the old play – the mistake and washing it away.

Remember you will make mistakes with your ex.  You will allow your emotions to run away from you and you will make mistakes with the children, doing things you should not do and saying things you should not say.  You need to understand that everyone does these things.  We are human and we make mistakes.  Divorce drives people to a kind of temporary insanity.  It is ok.  You need to forgive yourself.  When you make a mistake, you must come up with some way of washing your mistake away and preventing you from letting your error from effecting your next communication, contact or action.

Know that you can do this.  Know that you can control your emotions no matter how hurt and wounded you may be.  You can control you.  Truth.

One of the major issues arising in divorce proceedings that involve children is child support.  I am in this post, going to discuss how child support works in the most general of terms based upon the elements important in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Please note that the statements that I make are general and may not apply to you.  Moreover, they are not to be construed to be legal advice and are discussed here for informational purposes only.

Typically divorces start with the filing of a Complaint in Divorce in the county in which at least one of the parties resides.   The Complaint alleges that the parties should be divorced and gives a reason under your state’s laws.  The Complaint is typically answered after it is served on the opposing party.  “Service” means that the document is sent to the other party and or is handed to them so that they have notice of them being sued.   Every jurisdiction has its own rules about what constitutes being served with the complaint and those rules should be followed to make what is often called “adequate service.”

After the Divorce Complaint is filed, a complaint or Motion for Support is filed.  This is a document that tells one party that the other party wants child support to be paid.  Support is typically determined by some sort of calculation.  That calculation and the numbers that go into the calculation, are usually set forth in a statute.  Confining ourselves to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, support is primarily calculated from the following factors:

1. How much the parties earn;
2. The parties’ assets;
3. The amount of custody time the parties have;
4. Who pays for healthcare;
5. The children’s lifestyle prior to the divorce (the more financially privileged they were the more you tend to pay to maintain that lifestyle).

There are other factors which effect the amount paid, but in general the abovementioned factors are the biggies.  These factors go into a calculation based upon a statutory chart (in PA) – and from that chart you obtain the calculated amount you pay.   Your state likely has something similar.  Some states have child support calculators online that you can use to get an idea of what you need to pay.

But before we get ahead of ourselves there is one special thing that needs to be present before an of this process can start and that is that you need to be the father (or the mother).   After the motion for support is filed there is typically a hearing scheduled before a master or hearing officer and at that hearing if there is a dispute as to fatherhood, paternity is raised.  The hearing officer will immediately order a paternity test and many courthouses have the capacity to test you and the child right away after the hearing.  Once you take the test the results typically come back in around a week or two depending on how busy the testing facility is.  If it comes back and you are not the father you can do the Maury Povich dance and walk away unscathed.   If you are the father the hearing is reconvened and the hearing officer issues an order based upon the factors and the calculation and you pay.  There is usually an arrearage which stretches back to the date the motion for support was filed to bring payments up to date.

The parties have the right to appeal the amount and go before a Judge once the Order from the Hearing Officer is promulgated.

Please note that there are exceptions to the rule and no case is the same – but for a generalized understanding of how things work – the above is good enough for government work.

Example of the Maury Povich show – all rights reserved for Maury.

A friend of mine in one of his more sanguine moments said to me about my marriage that we both must have what he referred to as the, “loyalty gene.”  We don’t and didn’t cheat on wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, whatever.  Who knows if the desire to be loyal is a genetically inherited trait.  I am sure that someone may study that and perhaps there is a genetic test for loyalty in marriage that we will be able to take in the future.  Who knows?  Now, unless you know about someone’s past behavior and believe that it is an indicator of future actions, it is a crapshoot.  Suffice it to say that I never cheated on my spouse or even felt the need to do so.  I can’t even imagine doing anything like that now either.  It just seemed to me to be so illogical – even beyond the ruination of trust and relationships it causes. 

Believe me your affair will end badly.  It will end with a poor result no matter what you do.  Your partner in crime ends up either loving you like crazy – in which case they decide that they must immediately tell the world about you – which of course will blow up your world, wreck your marriage and make your children permanently hate you for what you did.  Or, perhaps the individual decides that they hate you because you won’t leave your spouse or  they hate you when try to end the affair and of course then they tell your spouse anyway and your life is wrecked.  Or perhaps out of guilt or boredom they end the affair when you are still in love with them, in which case you feel both incredibly guilty if you are normal and you live in pain because of what you did.  Not a bunch of good endings, is it?  Not to mention that you let another person have a powerful hold on you and they have the ability to wreck your life.  Sound good?

Not to mention how do you manage to look in your spouse’s eyes, let alone look in the mirror? There must be real sociopathy or anger to hurt someone that way.  I know that I just don’t have whatever that emotional capability to cheat inside me.  Who knows if that is good or not.  I am not going to sit in judgment – everyone has their reasons.

There are a ton of statistics about infidelity in marriage.  Some statistics indicate that over sixty percent of people cheat.  That blows my mind.  Six out of every ten married people? I just can’t believe that.  Some statistics say it is closer to thirty percent – which still is pretty bad – but that amount is much more believable.  Apparently, the divorce rate in the United States is around fifty percent per The American Psychiatric Association.  That is bloody rough, isn’t it?  Half of all people get divorced. 

I am going to make a broad statement which may upset some people.  Divorce is ok.  Really.  Sometimes it is better for both parties and the children to not “stay together.”  Know this.  You are not a bad person.  You are not a failure.  It is not morally wrong to get a divorce no matter what you swore when you got married.  However, cheating isn’t the way to go about compelling the result.  That’s just my opinion.  Remember you still have to trust your ex-partner after you get divorced, especially if there are children.

I just don’t see another secret relationship or another person as the solution to the problems in a marriage – which in my non-psychologist lawyer opinion, comes from people getting upset because they are not getting what they want out of the marriage, whether that be love, respect, support, sex, attraction, whatever.  It is my perception that unmet needs are the end of most marriages.   When I got married I swore to love, honor and respect my ex-spouse and that is what I tried to do for the thirteen or so years of my marriage.  I am not sure that I did it in the best way, but I did my best and I accept that I was an imperfect husband and am still an imperfect father.  I try with every cell in my body to improve every day.   The thing is, I can look at myself in a mirror just fine with all my imperfections and faults – which are legion.  I can look my children in the face just fine.

 

At some point during the divorce process, you should ask yourself, “Who am I?” Divorce eventually makes you ask that question.  You must figure out the person who you are going to be during the divorce.  You set sail on a voyage of self-definition. You ask yourself, what kind of person you are going to be when you confront at times unbearable emotions and yet, you must find a way to make the emotions bearable.  Every day you find out exactly who you are because every day is a new chance for self-definition.  This day, will you become the angry person filled with vengeance, telling your friends and children what a horrible human being your ex-spouse is?  This day, are you the person whose anger makes them into a person who is unrecognizable?  Every day is a new choice and a new opportunity.  Met with failure on all the other days – overwhelmed by sadness and anger – this new day, is a new opportunity for self-definition.  This is the opportunity to find and project your best self – even if on the inside all you feel is turmoil. 

Do you become the best version of yourself today?  Do you treat this difficult situation as a leadership opportunity today – instead of feeling like you are in hell?   Today do you make the choice to lead your children, your parents, your friends to a better version of your future.   Having this kind of self-control requires something greater than mere emotional strength.  It takes the ability to step outside your sense of righteousness and anger and prevent your lesser self from winning.   Forget about how you acted yesterday and make a different choice today.  Take control of yourself, of your life and your feelings.

You do of course have a lesser self that may have emerged unwittingly on other days.  That is the person who allows the road rage of divorce to take control.  That person does not comprehend consequences.  That person does not have to define you.  Breathe.  Work every moment to be your best self.  Work every moment to become the person that you admire.  Divorce can be the road to your best self if you have the courage to follow that road.

Imagine a married couple with children.  They both work.  The children were young and required the attention that young children normally require.  Both parents were stressed about their jobs and their responsibilities.  They saw each other in the morning and evening and were exhausted and often preoccupied when they went to bed.  The conversations tended to be about the nuts and bolts of handling their children and their lives.  They discussed who was going to do what the next day or at times, discussed their successes and reversals at work.

The wife went to the gym every day.  It was important to her and she liked how it made her feel and the compliments she got from her friends and co-workers.   She felt exercise was an important part of who she was.   At some point after thinking about the situation for a while the wife decided that she wanted to compete in a figure competition for bodybuilding.  She discussed this with her husband who was supportive of the commitment that it would take from her. 

Because of the decision to compete, she spent more time at the gym and began to work out with a group of men who also were figure competitors.  She saw these men every day.   At the beginning the conversations with these men became about working out, exercises, nutrition, supplementation, posing – all the myriad of subjects pertinent to competition.  However, as time passed and familiarity increased, the conversations became more familiar and eventually becoming more personal.  The subjects often became family, wives and husbands and work subjects.   

The wife and the husband had the typical disputes and disagreements that come about during a marriage.  Everyone has these arguments.  However, whenever the wife raised the disputes with her workout friends these men, some perhaps motivated by their attraction for her, would tell her that she was right, that she shouldn’t have to take that kind of behavior from her husband.  They would validate her position in the argument to the detriment of her husband.  Of course, the stories the wife told, tended to be told in a biased manner.  The wife was attractive and not too many men are always completely honest and critical when faced with a beautiful woman.  Men are men and there is a reason that sex sells.   Not all men and women are chivalrous or moral when it comes to sexual attraction.  

Thus, we have a situation where the wife was getting negative communication at home and positive communication from a group of men.  Who knows what those men might want from the woman? 

Recognize this situation.  Recognize that your “emotional friend” of the opposite sex does not live with you.  They do not deal with you when it comes to your children, finances and the at times caustic issues that make up a marriage.   Your emotional friend’s perception is biased both by their friendship and their potential attraction to you.   These relationships are seductive and at times based upon an illusion. You may be led to make poor decisions biased upon a biased and potentially false narrative about you and your relationship circumstances.  If you find that you are having the kinds of conversations with others that you normally should be having from your spouse – there is a problem.   Do your best to fix it with your spouse before it is too late.

 

Relationships Post Divorce

Love relationships immediately after separation tend to be a difficult prospect.  Individuals are often in a vulnerable state during the beginning of the divorce process.  Immediately getting involved with someone during your separation is fraught with difficulty.  The marriage erodes and break and you are miserable, lonely, even afraid.  You meet someone new and you hit it off right away.  Your relationship deepens.  You attach quickly.  It all seems so perfect. However, even if you think you love this new person and you firmly believe that they are your soul mate – statistically, such relationships do not last.   Such relationships tend to be a crutch or a bridge to independence from the marriage.  There may be a reason they call them rebound relationships.

Although not everyone is in this position – most people at the beginning of a separation are not in a particularly rational state either intellectually or emotionally.  We are trapped in the middle of something similar to fight or flight response and whether we realize it or not, we are looking for emotional lifelines.  Everyone needs support during the hard times that naturally occur like the waxing and waning of seasons (thanks Seneca[1]) during a life.  Usually our love partners provide that support and failing obtaining what we need from our partners, our friends and family become more important emotional resources.

The often-unpleasant reality is that during a divorce the concerns can be overwhelming.  One can feel angry, lost and out of control.  Often people make the mistake of depending on children to provide emotional support.  They look to the children for the emotional support, love and sustenance they need.   However, remember that children will be needing support from you – so expecting them to provide an adult parent with emotional support is not really an option.  There may be embarrassment regarding the reasons for the divorce that makes you uncomfortable discussing such things even with friends or family.  If you had an affair or were unfaithful, even if your reasons are supportable, your friends might be rejecting of you and thus unavailable for emotional support.   Because of this emotional void, you attach even more firmly to your compatriot in the infidelity or to another person.

Watch out.  A new partner who tells you that they love you, that they need you and who provides you emotional support and other emotional benefits can be very seductive in your time of need.  Please be aware of your vulnerability.  You may love love this new partner like you love a crutch.

Your new relationship becomes about discussing your ex-spouses, your divorce and the divorce process – and very little else.   I suggest that you take a step back and really look at your relationship.  Most of these initial relationships are about the process of emotionally separating from the marriage and in part getting validation for the breakup.  Such relationships are often the cause (in infidelity) or the means of an emotional break from the marriage.  They are the repository or the medicine for fear and uncertainty.  They are the potentially selfish basis for emotional support needed during the process.

I would suggest that you think about your relationship and think about what is going to happen in a couple of years when the stress dissipates and you have adapted to the new reality of your life.   Will you really still be there with this person?  The statistics are against you.

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/seneca/

I wanted to discuss anger a bit more. 

How everyone goes through the divorce process is unique.  All stories are different.  With some it is infidelity.  Some it is growing apart.  Simply put at some point something falls apart.  Perhaps you weren’t right for each other from the beginning.  Perhaps you grew apart.  However it happens, there is always anger.  Some people avoid this – but for the most part these people are rare.  Falling out of love can be torture.   Everyone experiences this in their own painful manner based upon the complexities of their personality.

The key is figuring out how to handle and control yourself before you cause yourself some serious problems with your irrationality.  For instance, one of the typical gambits used by divorced people to compel the other party to move out of the family residence is obtaining a Restraining Order from a Court.  Surprisingly even words can put you in a situation where a Court will grant an Order which will result in you being out of the house you lived in and purchased.  Moreover you will likely continue to have to pay the mortgage and the housing expenses at least initially after you are forced to leave.

The moral of the story is that anger and irrationality is not your friend both in terms of handling your ex spouse.  It is also not your friend in Court. 

Please note that this is not a gender specific commentary.  Although it can be more difficult for a male to obtain a Restraining Order it is still possible to obtain one.  Generally, a woman must demonstrate a greater level of irrational and dangerous behavior for a man to obtain a restraining order – but if you need one and you are the guy, don’t be a fool – get one.  It doesn’t take much strength to swing a bat or a pipe from behind or to pull a trigger.   If the threats are serious then take them seriously and don’t end up a statistic.   This is not meant to be sexist – it is just a reality that it is easier for women to get restraining orders. 

If you feel threatened and you don’t have one already – get a lawyer.

Don’t be afraid to call 911.  Looking silly is recoverable – being beaten to death by a psychotic angry ex spouse or spouse is not. 

Typically, you can call your County Sherriff’s office or Courthouse and ask the receptionist where you need to go to get forms.  Sometimes you need to go to the Courthouse.  Sometimes you can get them on line.  Fill out the forms and follow the directions for filing them.  There may also be domestic violence sections of the police or Courthouse you can call for advice.  

You typically get a quick hearing where you go before a hearing officer, magistrate or Judge who if they think you are providing significant cause will issue a temporary order.  If the order is temporary or is contested, there can sometimes be another hearing depending on your jurisdiction.  All of them are different.   Most however are good with giving out information about the process.

Once you get the order ask questions about what constitutes a violation and call 911 if there is a violation.  The police will be understanding but firm in enforcing the order. 

Most of all, there is no excuse for domestic violence no matter how angry one gets.   Stay cool.  Handle your anger. 

Anger.  Everyone who gets divorced at one time or another gets angry.  Well, let’s not call it anger.  Let’s call it blinding red rage and frustration that threatens to overwhelm all rational thought.  This happens to EVERYONE.  I promise that you are not unique.  I promise that the ex is just as angry as you are – whether they have a right to be angry or not.  All of the nutty things you hear about divorced people doing and you chuckled at because they were so utterly unhinged – that has become you.  If you think about it, it is an utterly humbling situation. 

I am suggesting that everyone gets angry but as the rational part of your brain knows, it is how you handle that anger that is the true evidence of your maturity and most of all your humanity.  My suggestion is this:  when you are truly mad, when you are thinking of bloody murder you must learn to breathe.  Yes, breathe.  Just breathe until the instinct to irrationality passes.  I personally found that writing a truly excoriating and evil e-mail and then waiting and erasing it did it for me.  Do not react!  Animals react and humans – yes, mature humans think!  I recall something, I think from Dune by Frank Herbert where a wolf caught in a trap is discussed.  The animal, being caught in the trap will bite its own leg off to escape.  The human, will wait in the trap and plot to destroy the hunter.  Be human.   Stay calm.  Do not threaten or rage or hop in the car to run over to fight with your ex.  That will only cause you misery and will like a tale told by an idiot all sound and fury – accomplish nothing. 

I promise I will get into the weeds on this one too. 

Children.  They didn’t bargain for this did they?  Everything that they thought was normal was turned upside down and they were forced to adapt to a new kind of normal.  

I remember being lost and angry and asking myself how I was going to handle parenting in this new normal and I can honestly say that the activitythat taught me the most and that had the most positive affect on my relationship with my children was coaching.   I ended up coaching all three of my children in baseball, basketball and football.   I grew to love it so much that I still coach tackle football and continue to be the attorney for the football organization after my children aged out of the league.   I am also the Player Safety Coach and Heads Up Football representative for the organization.

I can say that without reservation that coaching saved me.   It provided me time with my children that I will never get back.  It gifted me time to contribute to my children and other peoples’ children.  Coaching made me examine how I related to my children.  It gave me insight into who my children were outside of my home and how they acted at school, with friends, with authority figures.   Coaching brought me closer to my children and taught me to respect all of them in a manner that I could have never imagined as a parental spectator.  I became a participant in their lives.  I am closer to all of them for my experience.   Coaching was a gift.

If you are a parent and your teeth grind in frustration about custody  time and you want to spend more time with your children, then coach them.  Coaching children is an investment in their lives. It is a legal method of spending more time with your children which will look fantastic in Court.  Know this – children will soon forget who gives them things after the shiny new thing loses its lustre.  They will never ever forget the investment in their lives and they will carry those memories forever.  Invest  your time.  Coach. 

I promise that will get more into the weeds on this subject.