High-Conflict Divorce: What Men Get Wrong (w/ Chris and Lisa from "Been There, Got Out")

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person, real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Thank you for joining us live here today. For those that are watching, people will pour in as we, as we go on here. But I have with me today Chris and Lisa from Been There Got Out. Guys, tell us about what you do. Who the heck are you?

Uh, so, um, we're a team. I always say I'm, I'm the female half of Been There Got Out, and I'm a, um, I'm a state-certified domestic violence advocate and trained crisis counselor. Chris is the male half. He's a certified high-conflict divorce coach, and we've been a couple in real life for almost 11 years now. We always say that everyone we talk to, nobody who cares about that. Um, but we bet, you know, we have our own histories that we'll probably get into here, but we are high-conflict divorce strategists who work with men and women all over the world in the worst divorces, custody battles, and co-parenting hell so that they can get through the awfulness as healthy and unscathed as possible while protecting and preserving their relationship with their children, even while dealing with a —well, we say their own personal terrorist—who uses the legal system to wear them down and bleed them dry financially. Is there—

I, I love that we have the male-female dynamic here because this is awesome, because I try to keep this as fair as possible, but the majority of my audience is men who are going through this in some form and dealing with somebody that they label, whether it's correct or not, as a narcissistic person who is really pushing their buttons and trying to do all they can to use the legal system against them. And labeling them as an abuser and police are called. You've heard it all, I'm sure. But am I a little biased in that? Is it just as contentious on the other side of things, Lisa, for the women out there?

Yeah, so with what we specialize in, legal abuse, that's again someone using the legal system, it's about 50/50 from interviewing attorneys. So yeah, it's, it's both, and, and there's certain biases on both sides, but, um, but everyone is furious and upset at the injustice. So we always say that we believe abuse is a human issue, not just a gender issue. And, um, we have a weekly legal abuse support group where we do— I always say we do the unusual thing of blending our male and female clients together, which is amazing because we work with just one side of the couple, so the man or the woman. But the thing they have in common is that they are the sweetie pies, they are the targeted parents, and so they feel like they don't have a voice. And so it's great to see our men and women really supporting each other while understanding what it feels like. I think it's very important for women in particular to hear the male perspective on domestic violence because men tend not to talk as much.

About the physical side of things. Yeah.

Yeah. The, the core issue, it's a mental health issue right now. Lisa and I are not, you know, licensed psychotherapists or anything like that. We focus on the behaviors. So when you say to me, the person's a narcissist, I'm not hearing a clinical diagnosis. I'm hearing they behave in this way that is consistent with their— right? So from a practical standpoint, and that's Lisa and I are focused on providing practical, actionable advice to people who, who are in these hellish situations. To just get out in some way that it resembles acceptable, right? Like, it's because they can be so awful. But we don't diagnose anyone, but we do understand how to deal with that set of behaviors that is so common. And it could be— and this is a male-oriented podcast, that's awesome. There are female-oriented ones. There are like dads' rights groups, and there are, you know, believe all moms. And, and the core intentions are good usually, but, um, but we, we just see it as both. We don't see it as a male problem or a female problem. We want to— we help anybody. But any group that, like, you might be dad-focused, we want to help dads and we want to help moms. We want to help the targets of these people because they are very difficult to deal with. Very good.

Is there a particular flavor of awfulness, if you will, that the male victim in all of this has to deal with versus what the female victim in this may deal with?

Um, there are some common themes. I mean, we mentioned the word biases already. Um, you know, it maybe doesn't show here on, on the video, but I'm, I'm a big guy. I played college football. I'm like 6'3". I was like 245 pounds when I was playing football. Like, I'm a big guy. And my ex is, um, very good at the doe-eyed innocent, you know. She's a classical musician, so she's a performer. She's just like dressing up in a way that's, that's like classy, you know what I mean? And, and we go into court and, and she says I'm an abuser, uh, you know, who, who's going to be believed? There are those, those just cultural biases, you know. Judges are human beings. They were lawyers before they were judges. They've seen stuff, and we all have our, our biases. So men face, uh, that bias. We are susceptible to it's more believable when there's a physical domestic violence claim. And that we see that a lot, you know, on exit, you know, mom, uh, makes a false claim of some physical, gets a police report, gets a restraining order. All of a sudden, then the custody battle starts in that, um, you know, environment, that, that against that backdrop. So that's a big one for men.

I think that, um, that also from one attorney told us She said, now unfortunately is one of the most dangerous times for men and stepfathers post-MeToo movement of being accused of sexual abuse, false accusations. We deal with false allegations all the time with our clients, but I think men are more likely to be accused of that, um, because it holds such power and judges get like, well, we have to keep the kids safe. Uh, so we see a little bit more— well, we see a lot more of that with men, but we have had female clients who have been to jail for false allegations of sexual abuse.

I'll give you one more, and this one is something about men, not the system. You know that thing that when we're driving around and we can't figure out where we're going, like, ask for directions? No, no, I got it. I'm not gonna ask for directions. That's— that wiring hurts us. We don't speak up, as Lisa mentioned earlier. We don't look for help. We don't— oh my God, if we admit Well, you know, I mentioned I'm big, I played football, all this. I was an abuse victim from like this 5'4", 130-pound doe-eyed, you know, you know what I mean? That's, that's hard. You know, that's internal to me and coming to grips with that. I was raised by a single parent mother. So I have a lot of what we think of as— I'm an only child. I have a lot of what we culturally think of as like feminine traits. I'm like pretty introspective. And so I don't personally have a hard time talking about that. But how many got, you know, the abuse? But how many guys like get up and say, oh, you know, a woman abused me? Like, that's hard. There's a lot of pressure not to act that way in this, you know, machismo culture. Culturally, yeah, yeah, yeah, very—

how many times has a man confessed to something like that from his pixie little wife and his social circle literally goes And he's like, no, seriously, she hit me over the head with a plate and she stabbed me in the eye with a fork. He's like, it's not funny, I was abused. And but there's a social stigma to that, which is it's kind of funny. And no, it's not. There's also a cultural stigma. I've heard, I've talked about this often, where a man will tell me abuse at the hands of his ex and I'll say, that's not good. He's like, yeah, but she's Latina, you don't understand. In Puerto Rico, it's kind of a cultural thing there, you know, it's not unusual for grandma to hit the kid over the head with a shoe and stuff like that. Well, I don't care if it's cultural or not, it's still not a good thing, and it tends to escalate over time and get worse and worse. That's not a good thing. It's interesting to hear what I often hear from guys, especially your quote nice guy types, which is another term for very codependent men, is going into something like a contentious divorce and assuming that the law is on their side because quote I did nothing wrong, I'm a good dude, I'm a nice guy. I got 'all I got to do is go in there, tell the truth, and everything will work out in the end.' 'I'll have my day in court.' 'I'll have my day in court. She can say all she wants to say that's bad against me. I don't have to come prepared to prove, prove myself. I'm just going to say the truth and that's enough.' And a lot of those guys here, or learn later, like, 'Oh no, that's not true at all. I need to come with receipts. I need to come with proof of me being a good— I need to come with the black and white proof that I didn't do these things and everything else, or else I'm in trouble. Is that what you see from a lot of men in your world, is that they think, I'll just out-nice this whole situation?

They just think, if I'm honest, then it'll be okay. But they don't understand that, at least in America and a lot of countries, we have what's called an adversarial law system as opposed to what's called an inquisitorial law system. So in England, it's supposedly more inquisitorial, where the judge is an investigator and they hear from the solicitors, barristers— Chris and I never remember the name for lawyers in, in British English— but they, they present their case and it's like, let's, let's really look at the facts. In America, it's who can scream the loudest and who can capture as much attention. And so it's, it's very— it's like a very, uh, uncivil environment, and it's really, really scary. And We know that people often choose— well, our people, like our exes, choose lawyers like themselves who just come in on the attack. And, um, our clients get bullied all the time, and they're just like, I, I didn't even get to say anything, you know, they just went at me, and now the judge has this terrible impression of me, and I don't even know what to do. Or they think that when they go meet with, let's say, a custody evaluator, I'm a good dad, I'll just go in and tell the truth, but they don't understand how to effectively deal with it. Or they'll do the opposite. They'll come in and say— well, not that they're not telling the truth— they'll focus on the abuse, they'll focus on all of the bad things that their ex is doing. That ends up making them look bad, because one of the most important values of the court is, when it comes to custody, which parent is likely to support the child's relationship with the other parent, or is one parent attempting to undermine that relationship. And so when you go in attacking your ex And of course you feel like, look what they've done to me. Of course I'm gonna tell the truth. You, you look bad because you look like you are not able to separate your own issues with your ex from your children's right to have that relationship with that other parent. So it's very, very tricky. It's very emotional. And, um, Chris and I are what's called SMPs, stress management professionals. Like, we always say our goal is to keep you as calm as possible, which is extraordinarily difficult. Yeah, not by saying calm down, but by having you focused and organized on the stuff that matters. And most of the problem is people don't understand what matters and what doesn't. So they go in and they focus on the wrong things, and then they can't understand why things went sideways.

Yeah, one, one thing we see a lot, Ralph Brewer, is, um, some— something we, we gave it— I— we don't think it had a label, so we gave it a label. We call it the protective parent spin cycle. Right? So what that is, is like, I'm in an abusive relationship, the other person is abusive not only to me but the kids, and I go into family court. I've finally had enough, I leave. That takes so much courage to do that. And I get out, and in the legal process, in custody, I, I hammer that this person is abusing the children, abusing, abusing, abusing, but I don't have enough. And the other side comes back with, you see, they Chris is making that all up, right? Chris can't co-parent effectively. Chris has already expressed all these horrible things about me. I should have full custody. And that, that happens. So you end up coming— and I'm going to make an obscure movie reference, you can edit it out if you want, but my favorite movie is Pulp Fiction. And there's a scene in that where, uh, John Travolta and, um, um, Samuel L. Jackson— sorry, skits out for a second— but they're, they're, they're there to collect the, this money from these guys who screwed over their boss. They're in the apartment, right? And this guy, they're not sure he's there, he's in a closet. He comes bursting out with a gun and he goes boom boom boom boom boom, and he misses them, right? That's what it's like. Because for that guy, it didn't end well. He missed and then he got shot. Right? So if you go in there firing guns and you don't land it and you don't get what you're getting, it comes back at you harder. Yeah, you got to decide which way you're going to approach it. And a lot of times it's you, you don't pull the gun.

You go, go in with a plan, know what you're doing, go in with a plan. And what's tough for the nice guy types is, um, it means being a little ruthless. Not, not bending or not breaking the law, not making stuff up, but sticking up for yourself and going in with a plan. And there's a term, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with, gray rock, where you're dealing with a narcissistic person. And I talk about the example I often give is when you're in mediation with your ex who suddenly in the mediation session becomes very volatile and emotional because, 'You're taking the kids away from me. I can't believe you want the kids 50/50. They should be with their mother all the time. This is horrible. This is terrible.' And I say, and what you do with that is go Okay, on to the next issue. What you don't do is go, Karen, I can't believe you're saying that. And then the mediator says, okay, you guys aren't ready for mediation. You need to— we'll table this for another 2 months. You guys come back when you're ready, blah, blah, blah. And like, Christ, here we go. Now you're back into the back, you know, to ground one dealing with all this. It's not the way to do it. You need to have those skills and those tools in your toolbox to know how to deal with this situation properly, which is why they should work with somebody like you guys. So tell us, if somebody's like dealing with a Ultra contentious divorce. I don't know how to deal with this person, this narcissistic evil person who seems to be using the law against me. I haven't seen my kids in 2 months. I hear that one often. Step 1, let's calm down. Let's get— let's treat this as the business negotiation legal thing that it is and not so much the emotional thing. Well, they need help with calming down.

They can't just calm down.

Yeah, so step 1 is what do they reach out to you and you guys will take it from there? And like, here's what you need to do, buddy, let us handle this from here? Or how does this work?

I have an idea, but Chris, you look like—

well, no, we, we can do that. I mean, we, we do a lot of that, but, um, at least I want to hear what you have to say.

Yeah, so people can reach out to us, but I think it all starts with what we call strategic communication. And that— so before you even go into that mediation session, before you even get in front of a judge or a custody evaluator, we want to start setting you up as the most cooperative reasonable co-parent ever through your written communication with your ex. And we always say, so you're writing to that person, let's say writing to your ex, but you're always writing for the invisible audience— judge, custody evaluator, children's therapist, whoever. And so what you're doing while presenting is like, I'm just trying to figure things out with this person. You're documenting your ex's patterns of behavior over time, the visible impact it has on your children and especially on your relationship with your children, because we know that they try to sabotage your relationship with your children because that's what they do for revenge. And so in doing this, you're building the foundation of your case. You're turning the power dynamic around. You're turning hearsay into evidence. And this sounds so crazy, but you're protecting yourself from false claims of parental alienation, because even as they're the ones doing it, when they don't get their way, they'll say that you're doing it, because we know how often they project. So really understanding what we call the custody factors as well as the alienation factors, um, kind of bleeds into communication because there's only certain things that you really need to communicate about. And your ex wants your attention more than anything. So they want your negative attention more than anything because it shows they still have that dominance and power over you. So understanding, okay, I don't need to answer all these things, and when I answer, I have to do it this way. And why? Because this is going to be Exhibit A. Actually, communication is one of the best exhibits for court because a big custody factor that they care about is the level of cooperation or lack thereof. So you have this opportunity to come in, and this is not as easy as it sounds, it's what we spend more time on than anything, but to present as this really cooperative where you're not acting like the authority. There's certain words that you shouldn't ever be using, like my opinion, or I think, or we need, um, uh, because that'll, you know, your ex then can use it to attack you because you're showing your vulnerability. But there's lots of ways to do it, and again, it sets the stage for you to look really, really good before you even get somewhere. And we— a lot of this also involves negotiation in writing, just little, little tiny things. So big topic, but that's, that's my say on how to prepare for stuff like that.

Yeah, put stuff in writing is something that I tell a lot of men. Keep a lot of communication to email, text, so you have it in black and white right there, what was said and how it was said and so forth. Not a lot of room for a lot of interpretation there when it's in black and white there. Um, very important. A lot of attorneys say the same thing. In fact, I had an attorney— I wanted to bring this up— I, I had him on podcast who said that, uh, whatever you do whatever you do, gentlemen, don't bring up the word parental alienation or the phrase that, because the courts are like, oh God, we got one of these guys. He's, yeah, he's using this and he's, here we go. So that's been your experience as well, is that's kind of a negative term you don't bring up?

It's certainly a controversial term, um, and if you go online, you start, it's very easy to go down like the trolling rabbit hole of stuff. So, um, it's a label, um, for a set of behaviors, just like narcissism is. Um, it's a label that attorneys use, so we have respect for the fact that they use that label. We, we prefer not— when you're making a case, uh, whether it's to an evaluator, a judge, whoever, that you not use labels, but you instead describe behaviors, and especially the impact those behaviors have on your kids, on your relationship with your kids. Let them assign the labels. It's especially helpful to do that because so many people, uh, all, you know, judges, lawyers, custody evaluators, there's a lot of ego in the system. There's actually a lot of narcissism in the system, right? Those are powerful jobs, right? So they attract people who like that prestige, right? Not saying every judge or lawyer is a narcissist by any stretch, but there's a lot of it. Um, they like to be the authority figure. They are the authority figure. So don't tell them what to think. Come in, tell them what's happening, and let them go, aha, that's parental alienation. And then they go, look at me, I'm so— I identified it, you know, and let them, because that's what you want them. That's what you want. That's the conclusion you want them to draw.

Yeah, we teach what we call the alienation factors. So when, when I talked about the custody factors, there's a whole subset that we call the alienation factors that are based on the Baker model. Developed by Dr. Amy Baker, who we interviewed. There was like 17 factors that we kind of narrowed down into 6. And so those are the things to really look for and to document properly to say, you know, I don't understand why my ex has blocked contact and communication. Specifically, our parenting plan says this, and, and here's my, my pie chart that shows the little tiny bit of time that I've actually been given when I'm supposed to have this amount of time. Like that signals something is wrong because nobody should be blocking contact and communication. That's probably one of the easiest things to, um, prove in court is blocking contact and communication. A lot of the other stuff is kind of insidious, like sending poisonous messages about you that you're unsafe or unloving or unavailable, but it has to be put all together, especially into a request for relief. So this is happening, but what am I asking for? What am I asking the court to do? So all this stuff, it involves a lot of planning.

It's very much a game, isn't it? You got to know the rules— what to say, how to say it, what not to say, when to say.

We do a lot, we do a lot of explaining the rule book to people, for sure.

But it, but it butts heads with the, at least in my world, the very male world, especially our neurodivergent guys who are very much into justice. A sense of justice. This is right or black and white. Well, I shouldn't have to play all these games.

I'm laughing because we just got off a call this morning with a client who we absolutely adore, um, but he, he gets stuck on the logic of it. His background is in sort of a science field, medical science, and, and, and he was— our call today was about, um, an acceptable resolution that was in front of him but he didn't. He didn't. The, the people involved did not conduct themselves well. The process was bad. So he's— we're like, you have this, just, you know, pick up the brass ring and walk away. I know it's not perfect, but it's very close, you know, it's, it's a good outcome. And forget the fact that the way you got there was messed up because you're just gonna beat your head against the wall. There's the, the system is so flawed when you get that opportunity to get out with what you need, just take it and you'll be the next one later.

Yeah, his thing is that injustice. And there's really three emotions associated with what we call legal abuse and when your child's been turned against you. It's, it's rage. And I felt this also. It's like you, you just— for me, it was— I wasn't even angry at my ex anymore after years of this. I was angry at the system for allowing it, for not doing anything about stuff. And then that deep sense of injustice. And then the third one is despair, like, this is never going to get better. No one's seeing it. They've gotten away with all this stuff. They're lying and everybody believes them. And what do I have to do? And, and especially when you think about it, that the very system you're turning to for relief is making things worse. Yeah, thinking I'm gonna get justice and it's injustice.

I have I have run into more than a handful of men in my world who are just like, Ralph, I gave up. I'm heading off to parts unknown. I'm just— I hate it. I'll never see my kids again except for the emails and the maybe the FaceTimes or whatever it is, but I'm out of here. I can't afford this, whatever, child support, alimony. I can't— it's heartbreaking to see that. And I mentioned the neurodivergent thing. I don't know how much if you guys get into that world at all, but, um, I run into quite a few, quite a few men How to rephrase this— a larger portion than what you think of the male self-help space is men who are neurodivergent, guys that are ADHD because they have a lot of relationship problems, and guys that are on the autism spectrum. And the guys especially on the autism spectrum seem to be especially susceptible to your narcissistic partners who take advantage of them. They're, they're somewhat naive in relationship dynamics, and next thing they know, they're in the courtroom with a woman who's accusing them all kinds of things, and he's like I don't understand this. This doesn't compute. I don't— I can't deal with this. They're very rejection, uh, sensitive and so forth. So I don't know if you guys have run into that at all in your world.

And ADHD in particular, like, most of our clients have it, male and female. Yep, their kids have it. Super high rate of that.

There's, there's a lot of, um, like, common threads. It's not global, but it's, it's very common. In our client base, um, in our community to find people who are people pleasers, right? I was like, I met my ex and I saw her as like, she had, she said, admitted that she had some mental health issues, depression, stuff like that. I'm like, with my support, she can soar. Like, I can't wait. I can help her. I didn't think of it as fix so much as just like give her the support that she never had because her parents were, you know, I was told this backstory, very calm, generated empathy in me. With me, she can soar, right? Like, it's essentially I can fix her. I can be the knight in shining armor for her. Yep.

That's very common. And we see that all the time.

As Lisa said, men and women all the time. It's a little different flavor, right? When it comes from a guy, it is the, I can, I can fix it. I can make it right. That like, do, do, do, fix it, fix it, fix it attitude. I think, but there's one real quick, what it, the unintended, uh, side effect experience that we've had is that our, our people, our clients are the night, we call them sweetie pies. They are the night, fill in a blank, right? The most loyal, creative, kind, you know, successful, whatever it is. They are wonderful to work with and that's why they were targeted, right? So you're, you're the big fat zebra, right? Because you're, you're just so good that they target you. You're gonna make them look better. Um, so we all beat ourselves up. How could I have been so stupid? A lot of us do. Yeah, you were targeted for a reason, right? And it's a compliment to you, right? They're good at spotting rich, juicy, fat zebras, right? And, and they're very good at manipulation.

One of the things that I've noticed with the difference between our male clients and female clients is I think our men tend to be a little bit more hopeful that things are not going to be as bad. And we're just like, listen, you gotta, you gotta prepare for the worst. They'll be like, well, I still want to go over there and fix things because my kids are living there. Like, that, that's dangerous. Like, you're putting yourself in a very precarious position. Uh, there could be false allegations against you. We want to keep you. And they're like, but it's the mother of my child and I still love her and I still— and we're just like, she is not your ally. Getting in their head, I think women are a little more like, okay, I got it. I have to protect myself. But I feel like men are a little bit more vulnerable, which is unexpected.

I'm smiling and nodding because I hear this. I talk about it all the time. A common story, and this really happened, um, this— I've heard some version of this where the guy was cheated on, wife left, very contentious divorce, made his life hell. Finally, they were living in two separate places, the divorce is over, and he gets a call or text message, rather, uh, there was a storm last night, big tree fell in the backyard, can you come help me with the big tree in the backyard? And he did it, got chainsaw and his trailer, cut it all up and hauled it away. And he was telling me about this, and I was like, dude, she's not your responsibility anymore. What are you doing? Well, mother to my children, my kids have to go over there. What kind of asshole would I be to leave this big tree in the back? I got a chainsaw, I got the trailer, I don't mind doing it. And he was the type also, the garbage disposal is not working. I think, dude, she's not your wife anymore. But that gives him a sense of duty, a sense of I'm fixing things, and I to you. I think they kind of hide behind the whole, uh, I'm— she's still the mother to my children, I still have the kids to worry about. And it's just that Mr. Fix-It codependent mindset, which gets all— it gets you into a lot of trouble.

And, um, yeah, so yeah, that, that's like the boundaries thing, right? And that, for your recovery or your long-term emotional health, that is really important to address. I'm thinking about what you said earlier about like right at the onset, and I think you were asking about mistakes people make, or we were going in that direction. One mistake we see all the time is people underestimate what their ex is capable of.

Oh yes, right.

So like you, what you just said, that's what— that was what was ringing in my head. You're saying like, oh, she's the mother of my children, right? She is also hell-bent on destroying you, whether or not you realize it or, or not yet. So, um, don't underestimate what they're capable of. And if we're wrong It's like plan for the worst, hope for the best. Exactly. If we're wrong, I don't think, Lisa, we've ever had anybody come back to us and say, you know, it went a lot smoother than I thought at first. I don't think that's ever happened. Never.

Not with our community. But we only deal with the difficult cases. What you guys were just talking about, Chris, it made me think of when you and I first started dating and how you'd get those calls. We'd be sitting on the wall at the beach at night, like finally relaxing and enjoying ourselves, and you get the calls like, it's 10:30, the kids have no medication, you need to go and you need to get it and bring it over here right now. And Chris would be like, I gotta— I mean, like, wait a second, why?

She's a big girl, she can take care of that.

Yeah, but, but it was that knee-jerk, like, I gotta fix it, I gotta fix it, I gotta do it. And so it was a little— it took a little time for Chris to learn to pause and be like, it is not, again, my response. But she would use the kids. And another thing we see, um, fairly regularly is people saying, well, you must not care about our kids' mental health if you don't do what I want. So they put something in about the kids, and then the person feels like, oh my gosh, what if they're right? Or I'm, I'm gonna look bad to a judge if I don't do what they want. So they really know how to get under your skin. I don't—

I'm sure your relationship with your clients Does it end at the divorce, or do you— oh, okay. I was gonna say, because I wonder how often, I wonder how often you see men— I, I know men in my world do this often— get out of this horrible relationship, the divorce is done, whatever, and they just jump right back into a new relationship right away. And wouldn't you know it, she's an awful lot like the one that he just went through that horrible experience. So you see that often?

Yeah, I, I thought you meant that a little bit differently. So, um, Like, does, does the conflict with the ex end when the divorce settles? Oh, I see. We're like, no, no, no, we don't put that in like our advertising and marketing stuff because people would be jump— men would be jumping out of windows, right? Like, oh, when it settles, I'm still not done, you know? But a lot of it, um, it does go on long past whenever the— I mean, my— I've been out 12, going on 12 years. My divorce took 3 years, um, and since then, I mean, that's— so that's 9 years ago. She's as mad as she ever was. She hates me as much as she ever— I get some of the nastiest messages still. She hasn't changed. They're not going to change when, when it's one of ours, but we change. So it doesn't bother me like it used to bother me, but it doesn't end with a judge signing an order. In fact, my 3-year battle ended, the judge signed the order um, in October or September of 2017. I got served 10 days later. She wanted to completely throw away the entire thing. Of course. Yeah, change entirely. I freaked. I would— that was the last time that I really lost it. Um, it was 9 years ago. Um, but got through that. She got just rudely ejected from court the first time we showed up. The, the judge was like, get out of here, like No. So that was a relief. But since then, I— like, I— that gave me the glimpse that I needed into, you know, how hard it would be for her to undo anything. And I haven't had a freakout moment since.

What's really interesting in knowing Chris is he— the power dynamic has completely turned around. Chris, do you want to talk about that time in the kitchen with, um, remember you were like rehearsing what you were going to say?

So I was thinking, yeah, so, so one of the things that they do a lot, um, toxic people, is they, they want the engagement. They know they make you feel uncomfortable. So in our era of like Little League games and stuff and school events, my ex would sit uncomfortably close to me and I would get a knot in my stomach. I would lock up, you know. This is, this is the stuff I was saying before, like men don't like to talk about. I would like shake Sure, especially in a court appearance. I couldn't think straight, all that. And so what Lisa's referring to is we were sitting around my kitchen one morning, and I knew I was going to be around her. I was worried about this, this interaction. So it was like coming up with a mantra to say, like something, a canned line that I would rehearse and be ready to say, knowing that I couldn't think clearly. That was my mental state, you know, in 2015-ish. I think that's when it was. Fast forward to last year, there's a restaurant down the street that we go— my ex goes to all the time. Lisa and I go to every once in a while. And we went in there with Lisa's family, and my ex was there. And I wasn't uncomfortable at all. But my ex got up and left. Like, she fled because she wasn't comfortable being around me. And I've, I've seen that, like, she's like, for no— like, I'm not somebody to be afraid of. But she just— I make her uncomfortable now.

Well, you forgot to mention something significant. So years ago— so I, I didn't mention this earlier, but I spent 10 years in the legal system and I represented myself for 7 and a half years. About 100 court appearances in New York and Connecticut. Yep, at the appellate court level. Case got published, this case, like really big, big deal. So, but I used to say to Chris, I'd say, no offense, but like you could never represent yourself because you get all nervous. But he did, and he prevailed. So he was able to cross-examine his ex. He, he took charge, and he did really, really well. And we always say that's one of the most satisfying movie moments right there.

That's awesome. Oh, it was fun.

It was really fun. And my— and I asked some very pointed questions. My ex got really dodgy and pissed off the judge, and the judge and the bailiff, I guess, the, the officer that was there, the the, uh, whatever that person's title was, told her, do not speak that way to the judge. It was good.

Nice. So, so was there a defining moment, Chris, where you went from guy who was acutely affected by this to, eh, no, not a big deal anymore? Was there a moment for you?

Yeah, there was, there was a defining moment. It was 5 years or more of hard work on myself and just being around.

You got to deal with what's up here. Yeah, that's, it's all up there. Yep. So we have some— oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, Lisa.

I was gonna say, you know, I think, um, part of it also was with Been There, Got Out, Chris was nervous that he would be affected by working in this space with people dealing with all kinds of trauma, because if you're a sensitive, empathetic guy—

yeah, right.

So do you want to talk about that?

The opposite. It's had the opposite effect. And I, a lot of times I'll use the analogy of like in a 12-step program, whatever the issue is, the part of it is sponsoring others with the same problem, helping others along. And it helps you in your own recovery. Right? That's the principle. It's the same thing at play here. You know, it has been the opposite of like retraumatizing or triggering, whatever buzzword you want to use. It has been very good for me, very therapeutic. Absolutely not saying if you're an abuse victim, you have to go into helping others. You you know, a lot of people do say that kind of stuff, but for me, this has been very, very rewarding work and has helped me in my own recovery a lot.

Excellent. Yeah, in general, if you want to get really good at something, teach it. So if you want to be like— I got a guitar behind me— if you want to be really good at guitar, become a guitar teacher. And then you teach so many lessons, and you yourself as the instructor, whatever, or mentor, have a lot of little aha moments as you go along, and you become— and becomes ingrained in you just via repetition. And And learning from others over and over again. Yeah, that's how you get better. Unfortunately, you got to learn the hard way.

So I'm going to need to become a golf instructor.

So I'm not sure if it works that way, but maybe. We got Billy has some excellent comments here from Facebook. He said, my ex-wife and I separated in September 2016. It appeared amicable at first, and when it got closer to the first year of separation, I found out it was all a ruse to get me out of the house. It wasn't until an incident in 2022 when her action showed me she was out to destroy me that I finally realized that she wasn't my ally in any way. And then I'm talking about, uh, how dealing with her doesn't change. He says, no, it doesn't. Uh, you can't change their personality disorder, which by the way, Chris, it sounds like your ex qualifies for that. All you can do is learn healthy boundaries and focus on healing yourself. And then he continues, Billy with the good comments here, if she was given the opportunity to get custody or destroy me, she would do it in a heartbeat. That doesn't go away. Yeah, it's, it's sad. And, and for us, um, people that don't, I guess you could say, suffer from whatever disorder it is that they have going on, we just, we can't fathom why they would do something like that. But I always tell guys, don't— they always try to understand, men do. I gotta— I have one more, I need one more talk with her. I have to get through to her and have a closure. I need to understand where she's coming from. I need to understand where I, Mr. Nice Guy, went wrong. And I need to, I need to, I need to. It's like the more you dive in there and try to get into their mind and stuff, you come out just like, I'm even crazier than what I was before. And you're feeding them because you're giving them your precious attention. And then you eventually come to the conclusion of, I think distance is my friend here. I need to distance myself from them. And that's where the communication is text and email only and all this other stuff, because you You're not feeding that, you're not getting that back and forth, you're not going crazy in the process.

And that's right, I couldn't agree more. And the challenge becomes, if you're in a potential cut, like you've got a shared custody situation, you could be back in, in a custodial fight, is in establishing those boundaries without making yourself appear to be uncooperative, unwilling to communicate, like you're not participating in co-parenting. Right? It's really— we always tell our people, it's really parallel parenting. Um, that's what you're gonna do, but you're not going to call it that because the court wants to see you like, oh, kumbaya, we're working together for the kids, right? So the challenge— how do you protect yourself without being perceived as having a wall, not communicating, not cooperating?

Is it possible to overcorrect. I'm trying to think of an instance where you would be too amicable as far as kids' stuff is concerned. For example, you have your ex saying, I can't pick up my kid from school today, and it's not your day, and you have to get off work, and you have to leave work an hour early to go get— do you do that, or do you say, sorry, not my day?

It depends, right? It depends. We do see that a lot. Um, what I mean, if, if we can just speak about it as generic, because I don't want to say like, I don't know, But what we would probably tell someone not knowing anything else is, yeah, like, you've got a situation that's a crisis that needs, you know, it's, it's not an emergency, but it's, it's urgent. You do it once, but then you've identified a hole that needs to be plugged. Right. So then there's a communication afterwards. And then it depends on how you do want to handle it.

How do we avoid this in the future?

Yeah, exactly. Or play the part of Mr.

Nice Guy. What can I do to help you? Because obviously you wifey are kind of distracted with the work thing, and maybe there's a way we can work together to make sure Billy gets picked up from school on time every day, and whatever it may be. Yeah, cooperation there.

I think something that we see often in general, uh, with the— that dynamic is people who want to be the superhero. They've taken care of everything, and they're like, I— it's my responsibility, I have to fix it because I don't want my kids to suffer. I don't want them to know. I just want to make their lives easier. They don't deserve this. My ex is incapable. But then you get stuck in that situation where you're doing it all the time.

It's cutting up the tree, it's fixing the garbage disposal, it's all of that stuff.

Yeah, it's so tough when the kids are involved because it is—

but sometimes they have to fail and your kids have to see it. That's why it depends on the situation, how bad it is or how serious it is. But you have to let them fail if it's okay and if it's safe, and, and let them deal with the mess. You can't keep swooping in because that's a prison.

Exactly right. Let me see, we've got some other comments here that I missed. By the way, I want to be cognizant of your time. Do you guys need to get out of here by a certain time? It is 15 till the top of the hour.

We're okay for now. You want to check calendar, Chris? I am. Yeah, I think, I think we're okay. Let's keep going. Okay, very cool.

We got Two Soul Search on YouTube says, I have an ex-wife that doesn't like to hold up the divorce decree. She has put in my child's head that she is 15— the kid's 15— and the child can make up their— make up the choice of whether she wants to come over or not.

Oh, very, very bad. Yeah, um, she—

the ex does not want to hold up the visitation agreement. Any advice would be great. There you go.

Yeah, so that's really important because that's one of those, um, things where you're putting your child in the middle, and the court and human values are basically like, that's not good, because it creates so much anxiety in the kid, whether they show it or not, because they're, they're forced in what's called a loyalty conflict where they have to choose both sides. And a lot of times they'll choose the side of the abusive parent because it's easier, because they don't want to get their Ralph Brewer Brewer. So, but it really is, is not right to have a child decide what they want to do. It's more of, we either made this agreement or the judge said this, and this is— everybody has to follow the law. Just like, um, so, so one thing I remember when we interviewed Dr. Amy Baker, who talked about this, she said a parent can't have it both ways. They say, well, I can't make the kid come, or the kid doesn't want to do this, the kid doesn't want to go to school. Do you say Well, you don't have to. You don't feel like it. And also, what does that say about you as a parent, that you can't follow a court order? Are you an unfit parent because your child is running the show? So that, that can look really bad. But kids should not be, um, forced. And that's where I— like, with our clients, they deal with that all the time. We'll say, let's get into some strategic communication about— I'm sure we both can agree how important it is to not put our kids in the middle. So again, I'm writing for that invisible audience, even though my ex doesn't agree with that. Let's say she wouldn't say, I, I disagree, I think it's fine to put him in the middle, because then she's digging herself in even more deeply.

I love the writing for an invisible audience. That is perfect. I've never heard it said that way before, but that is— you're absolutely right. Pretend everyone can see what it is you're writing and write— cover all your bases and align with the values of the court.

There you go. I mean, courts want kids to not know about what's happening in court because we all know that when there's conflict, that bleeds onto the kids. So with Chris and I, we try to keep people out of court as much as possible.

You know, one thing I— but I'm hearing a lot of court, court, going back, doing this, holding it. That's a lot of money involved, no? So I talked to a lot of— I talked to a lot of men, unfortunately, who —thanks to the economy and being not so great in certain parts, right? I lost my job. I got laid off. I'm really struggling. I'm working a couple of part-time things until I can get back on my feet, and the wife has swooped in with the old divorce, and there's— now it's very contentious, and I don't have the money to fight all of this.

What do you say to those guys? So my divorce cost $100,000 and took a year, and I am paying back those loans forever. But my attorney said at the end, 2 weeks before the year mark, um, when we finally settled, when it never felt like we would, he said, your ex is not going to comply with this agreement and you are going to be back in court. You cannot afford me. You're going to have to go pro se. You're going to have to represent yourself. And then if you need me, you still can't afford me, I'll be in the background. I'll try to find you a good paralegal, but you have to do this yourself or he's going to continue to financially decimate you. So once you have orders, you already have the basis. That's your law. So we have many, many clients, and like me, I went pro se. And so it's not that you have to become an expert lawyer, but you do have to learn what's called courtroom decorum. You have to understand elements of being a persuasive speaker and communicator and get some help in the background with the procedural stuff. But we have many, many clients who are successful as, as pro se. It's, it's terrifying, and it's not something you should just go into and be like, oh, I can just use ChatGPT. Like, absolutely.

And if at all possible— like, we understand, like, financial realities are what they are for all of us— but if at all possible, have a lawyer for the original, whether it's a divorce or separation, the original orders, because it covers every— that's like the foundation for everything. Um, so you can make some big mistakes there that really hurt you. Yeah, you Usually when you're going back, it's for a specific issue. You know, it's a change to the schedule, it's a change to decision-making, it's a change to child support. It's one thing or a handful of things. It's not the whole thing.

It's limited. It's limited. So it's easier.

Yeah. Then we got Jack from YouTube says, "Pro se, oof, that's basically DIY." Yeah, well, for some people. Lisa, have you ever thought about going into law yourself?

Everybody says that. Yeah. I, I did think about it. I actually thought about it in, in college, but I, I love what we do because we're not geographically limited and because we're strategists, we think outside of the box and we come up, we can be a lot more creative. So we like having the freedom and we actually ironically have many attorneys as clients. And I'm always honored. Yeah. I say like, wow, you're a lawyer and you hired us. They said, yeah, because we don't learn strategy in school. You guys come up with all kinds of things that I would have thought about. But, but also, when you're in it, it's, it's— you can't use those skills. So a lot of our lawyers are like, I'm, I'm in your hands, and I have a lawyer. And then some of our lawyers have gone pro se in their own cases because they had to get their strength back. One of our clients in particular that we've had for years was a litigator, and we have this hashtag called #FromPuddleToNinja. So a lot of people arrive in this puddle state where they're like, I can't do anything, and and she was a lawyer, and, um, and she was like, I can't do my job anymore. My ex told me I was a terrible communicator and all this other stuff, and I have to be the hero, you know. He's not there for the kid. I have to take— pick up the mess. And we were just like, you can learn this. And she, she's gotten a lot better, and, um, and she's back to her old job.

That's awesome. Yeah. Jack from YouTube says, uh, have we talked about like the apps yet, like OurFamilyWizard What do you think of those apps?

Yeah, so I used OurFamilyWizard for a decade, and there are other ones— Talking Parents, App Close. There's, there, um, though I have not used those, but they are widely used. Um, we like them, um, for a couple of reasons. Um, the, the number one is that you can't alter that information. Those email messages back and forth cannot be altered. They are timestamped. You know when the other side viewed them. You know when they responded, you know when they most recently viewed them. I've had a situation where my ex claimed to have not opened a message, and I looked at OurFamilyWizard and I said, oh, it's funny because you opened it today, you know, like in your same— yeah, it didn't matter. But that stuff can be important. And like, if you and I had an email exchange, like a Gmail, like commercial, right? You write to me, I write to you, I respond, we get in a fight. I could go back and like edit the text in your original. It's just, it's like Microsoft Word, right? It's just a long flowing string of text. And then that could cause, bring stuff into question and we're not sure. And then text messages can be messed with. OurFamilyWizard and the other apps, presumably, I just haven't used them, um, keep everything locked down. They also have other things like calendars and it's, it's supposed to make it go smoothly, but it's, to me, it's the communications as Lisa was talking about earlier. Communication is everything. How you do that is everything. Um, we see a lot recently of, um, people who come to— oh, I use AI to communicate. Oh no, no, no, no, no. AI can be helpful. It's a tool. It would like to point out maybe some things you didn't notice, and the other side— it's a great tool. We use it all the time for all kinds of things, but it shouldn't be writing your communications that a judge might read someday. You need— this is the one you, you need to invest time and effort into learning how to do it right. Like Lisa said, we spend more time on this than anything. It was the first thing that we said, you know, eventually we want to have, uh, online courses to teach everything that we teach, all the big things. Communication is the first one we got out. Yeah, it's called that.

It's called— so of course it's called How to Communicate with Your Ex Without Destroying Your Case or Losing Your Mind. I love it. Yeah, I, I think also the communications are the things that trigger people's PTSD, where they're just like, oh no, oh no, I'm gonna get in trouble. What, what else, you know, what did I do now? And so when you just use AI, you don't get to the root problem. You have to learn how to stand up to the bully. You have to learn how to effectively deal with them and all the stuff that goes into communication and, and learning why they do what they do. It's so predictable, and when things are predictable, they're not as scary. Communication is the best way to start healing from this stuff. Excellent.

A form of exposure therapy. The more you're exposed to it, the less— yes, exactly what it is.

Yeah, so don't make AI your shield. There you go.

Bill— Billy says from Facebook, my lawyer never said anything to me about parallel parenting. I found out about it on my own. People close to me said we had to keep open lines of communication because of the kids. This only allowed continued emotional and verbal abuse and text messages. It was impossible for me to get out of survival mode. I struggled until I implemented parallel parenting in January 2023. So what do you guys think about parallel parenting? Have you heard something similar? It's hard to say. That's—

that was Billy, you said? Yes. So Billy is one of ours. I can hear it in what he said. You know, I don't mean one of ours like working with us. I just mean he's been there, done that.

You've heard this before.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So parallel parenting is, is really just like— it is, it's co-parenting, but it's co-parenting with like more acknowledgment that it's two separate homes. Like, we're not trying to have the kids go to bed at the same hour, to coordinate diets, to, you know, like, we're not— this is not touchy-feely. This is you do your thing, I'm doing mine. Um, and, and that's that's great, but we don't want to call it that because of the impression it creates. So when we're talking to people in the system— so that may be why, maybe why Billy's attorney didn't bring it up. Um, but there's another reason I'll get into in a second. But if you're parallel parenting, you call it co-parenting when somebody's listening, right? But you, you know, you give it that label, but it's like another step removed. What, what I think may be the dynamic with Billy's attorney is that these cases, like, it's all Lisa and I deal with. We've never dealt with the normal divorce, separation, custody. There is no custody battle normally, right? There's disagreements, but, um, we only deal with the nutty ones. And so it's, it's very easy for us in our, my, you know, in our experience to think like they're all like ours. They're not. Ours are the minority, 5%, maybe 8 or 10%. Are, are the— are ours— highly contentious, right? So attorneys don't understand these dynamics. They cannot— they, generally speaking, cannot distinguish between a client who walks in where the parties are furious with each other, but it will later settle down because it's not a personality disorder situation, they're just mad, right? Versus the person who comes in where one of them's got a personality disorder and they look the same, but it's never going to settle down. The lawyers are in their heads mostly— what they've told us— they're thinking, you know, 6 months down the road they're going to calm down, it's going to— they'll figure it out, they'll start to think about their future lives, they'll put the kids first, because they've seen it over and over again. In our cases, that never happens, right?

And that's why it's so important to write a solid parenting plan. That's actually Chris's superpower. He writes what we call airtight parallel parenting plans. And so a lot of things that people think they need to communicate about, they, they don't. Parallel parenting, we kind of limit it to the major decision issues. Otherwise, like, you do your thing, I'll do mine, we'll deal with logistics, and, and that's it. You don't need to report to me. I don't care about your opinion. Like, that— you have your own life.

It may sound conspiratorial, but how much is there a— how to say this— a system at play that benefits from keeping the couple as contentious and in court as long as possible to presumably spend a lot of money? Is that a very real thing? Yes.

Yeah, so a good lawyer is not going to do that, right? A good ethical lawyer is not going to do that. Um, what the other side tends to do is they, they are ranting about you, right? They're projecting, he's an abuser, blah blah blah, she's an abuser, whatever it is. Um, and, and they go meet with lawyers, and the good lawyers are kind of like, I'm not sure about you. So they find the bottom feeders. They find— we always say that they'll enable their nonsense. They're the ones who go, oh yeah, we'll file that motion, we'll do this, like, because they just want to get there. They're like the family law equivalent of ambulance chasers. That's who they hire. So they're the difficult ones. They're the ones that file motion after motion even when Dumb. We want your ex actually to have a good attorney, right? Because a good attorney— I call it the dude conversation, right? When a good attorney's client comes and says, I want you to file this, file this, file this, the attorney will go, dude, don't do that, right? Don't, don't, because it just ramps up the conflict. Good attorneys try and get you settled. Unfortunately, the other side doesn't usually choose good attorneys.

Yeah, I remember interviewing one attorney and I said, why would a lawyer take on someone like our exes? Like, how could they, how could they sleep at night? And she said, to be honest, Lisa, those are the clients that keep our office open.

Is there such a thing in your experience of an attorney who purposely tells their client, lie, make up untruths about abuse and other things too. Let's really ramp this up.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, there's a strategy. It's called the silver bullet strategy. It's been documented in one of these divorce, uh, documentaries where they actually recorded a lawyer telling female clients, listen, if you— when— if you know that you're gonna have a custody battle, file for a restraining order right away because it'll give you an advantage in custody. It's, it's known. It's like a known thing. And everyone's like, oh, I would never do that. But It's happening. We, we met with a couple of women maybe 2-ish weeks ago, Chris, right? They were at the very beginning of the process, and both of them told us that their therapist and their lawyer said, start this way, start with the restraining order, take the kids, put your parents out. I was like, whoa, why would you do something like that? Are your kids actually— the lawyer said, the lawyer said that I need to start off really hard. Wait a minute. Or like, but my ex has these weird, like, sexual issues. That has nothing to do with their parenting. That is not something that's going to impact custody, that particular case. And it was like, don't do this, because this isn't just about this divorce. This is about your kids' entire lives. If you start off with this whole thing as if they're— that he's unsafe when he's not, he could get really, really angry.

That's, that's what I was talking about before with the protective parent spin cycle. That is one of what Lisa is describing as a scenario which that would highly likely happen if she took that approach.

Wow. Yeah, it can get nasty, as a lot of guys have learned.

You know what, I'm sorry, but, um, what— at least this isn't exactly what Lisa was just talking about, but, um, it is under that same category of these sort of unethical blueprints that some attorneys have. I actually had one of the biggest names locally. I live in Westchester County in New York. It is a— oh, I know Westchester, busy, it's suburban, a lot of wealth in the area. I'm not one of those, but, um, but I, I did have a very wealthy attorney. I helped make him more wealthy. Um, when I first— one of my first meetings with him, he asked if my ex was accusing me of abuse, abusing the children, and I said no, no, she's not. No, not at this point, not yet. Um, and he said, well, that's okay. If she does, we'll just respond with a claim of parental alienation. It is not, is she alienating the kids, right? Just if she claims that you're abusing the kids, she punches, we'll punch back. We're gonna do— yeah, right. Not, does there— is there any credibility? Might we be able to make a case? No, it's just so ingrained in the system.

Wow.

That the, this knee-jerk sort of, this is the legal strategy, whether it's valid or not with given the facts of the case, this is how we approach this. It's not right. And that's what, that's where a lot of that underlying controversy around the term parental alienation comes from.

We got Ben here with a comment, and this will be the last one, then I gotta skedaddle here. But Ben says, um, and Ben is a member of our brotherhood, and you guys can learn more at help4men.com/join to join join our support— support— I can't talk today— our support community for men. But Ben says, can you briefly talk about strategy for custody evaluations? That's kind of a broad topic, and if you guys want to talk on that a little bit.

Yeah, Chris, you want me to talk about this? This is present— this is like a big part of what we teach in terms of presenting properly to custody evaluators, guardian ad litem attorneys for the children, if they have a chance to talk to you. So Knowing that first value of which parent is likely to support the child's relationship with the other parent, you need to go in keeping that in mind. You need to separate custody from domestic violence in most states. So instead of coming in with your big binders of all the terrible things that your ex did, you need to come in and be able to talk about— well, so we teach also like the custody factors, like which things actually impact your case. And a couple of themes— a lot of times people go in and they have all their stuff and they're like, who does this? Like, look at, look at what's happened. Think about being more resolution-focused. So here are these issues that I see, here's something that might work, and acting what we call inquisitorial. So you're either surprised or you're confused about your ex's behavior, but By coming in this way, you're not drawing conclusions for the professionals because they get very offended when people come in and they're like, I've been researching parental alienation, and this is what you need to think. That is so offensive. So know your role and know that you want to come in— we always say we want our clients to be the proactive problem solvers. So this is a huge topic, but don't come in on the attack. Come in of like Here's some issues, here's what might fix them. And the biggest thing is you want to try to figure out ways to show that you're interested in reducing the level of conflict.

Very good.

Because that's the most important thing for kids. Kids don't suffer with the divorce, they suffer with the conflict. You come in and you are wholly focused on, I will do whatever it takes to try to lower the volume on whatever's been happening with my ex and I, you will do great. Of course Feel free to reach out if you need a lot more information, but that's very good.

Very good. I know I said Ben's was the last, but I don't want to miss Sarah because I did miss her comment. It's very important here. Sarah says, my ex is very manipulative. I am afraid of being put on the stand and him questioning me. He is out to destroy me. He has threatened that he will take full custody. How do I protect myself?

Good question. I mean, I'll give the first part of it and then at least you you could do what I— whatever I leave, pick from the, the rest. But it sounds like Sarah is still dealing with his voice in her head, right? That he's the— I'm going to take the kids away from you. He's not— unless she left out that he was the judge presiding on the case, he's not gonna actually be able to take the kids away without making a strong argument and convincing someone that that would be best for the kids. And rarely is the judge— does a judge come into a case saying, I think one party should have 100%, you know, I think that, that person is so bad that the kids should be taken away? So, um, I, I would encourage, uh, Sari, is that right, to, um, work on getting— like, recognizing when she's giving her ex too much authority, authority that he doesn't have, because he's he sat in there and lived there for so long.

Yeah, I find myself saying all the time to men who come to me with, my soon-to-be ex is saying, is saying, is saying, is saying— I'm like, she can say whatever she wants to say. Whether the law does what it does is a completely different matter. She can say, I'm going to take the kids across the country and I'm going to have 100% of the time. You just gray rock. Okay, well, we will, uh, we had our hearing next Wednesday. I will see you then. And that's it. And but that's tough when you've been a person who's basically abused for years and years and, um, a very codependent person who's under the manipulation, if you will, of this other individual. It's tough. And that's something that, as you pointed out, takes years to overcome. And but eventually you get there.

Lisa, do you want to talk about the, the part about being on the stand? Because I think like Sarah's terrified of that, so I don't want to leave.

Yeah, well, first of all, Sarah, you sound exactly like one of ours. I was I'm gonna say if you want to reach out, we, we do like free discovery calls with people. But, um, the, the common theme of all of our clients' exes: I'm gonna leave you homeless, penniless, and childless. I'm gonna take everything from you, especially the kids. And feeling like he's going to destroy you, that, that is classic. Like, all, all of our clients have the same exact thing. Hundreds of people all over the world, same, same message. So I think like getting some support and learning again what's real and what actually matters when it comes to custody factors and alienation factors versus this fear of like, what if he does it? So one of the common things that we all do, and especially me, is awfulize. It's like, what if, what if, what if, what if? So getting out of that space and connecting with other people who can give you— well, Chris and I call it the harsh New York reality check of like, no, this is, this is what it actually means. That can settle you down because then you realize like, Oh, here's the things that actually matter in a custody case, and my ex doesn't have any of those things, so I don't have to be so scared. So I think dealing with the fear is important. In terms of how to be on the witness stand, that's like a whole other thing that we also teach. Um, but just know that you want to talk as little as possible. You want to only answer the questions that's asked. You want to say yes or no and not— we— our fear makes us talk more. So that also takes training and practice and controlling your face, which is hard for me because I roll my eyes. What exercise—

what exercise do we do with our clients? I'll try it on you now, Ralph. Um, here's— pretend you're on the stand. I'm a lawyer. I'm your ex's lawyer asking you a question. Do you know what time it is? Yes. Good job. Most people say yes, it is 1:09 PM.

You didn't answer the question. It's a yes or no question.

We do this. We have a dog muzzle. I have to keep you quiet. Stop talking. Stop talking. Oh, that's awesome, guys.

We have to know, I'm sure there are lots of people watching this and that will watch this on the replay that are saying, this is the kind of help I need because I am on my own and it's just, there's too much to take in right now. I'm emotionally a mess. This is, this person's out to destroy me. I'm scared. How can they reach out to you guys?

Super easy. So our website is beentheregotout.com. They could email us lisa@ or chris@beentheregotout.com. On Instagram and all social media, we're @beentheregotout. Our first book is Been There Got Out. Next book is coming out soon, also Been There Got Out When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You. Um, podcast, YouTube channel, everything. Like, just, just reach out. It's just the two of us. We always answer. And especially the legal abuse support support group, to be in a community of people that really understand men and women. It is like, we are— it's so rewarding what we do, seeing our, our people help each other.

So, been there, so all one word all together, beentheregotout.com. beentheregotout.com. Very good. And just curious, because I was recently up there, we almost moved there. Westchester, whereabouts in Westchester County are you?

White Plains. Very cool. Greenwich.

We're a couple of— White Plains, all that. Yeah, yeah, I know that area well.

Yeah, so we're a couple for more than a decade, but we don't live together yet because we're kind of waiting for the kids. So for— if you move to White Plains, I'll be here about another year and a half or so, and then you'll be 12 minutes— I'll be 12 minutes away. I will— I'll be in Greenwich with Lisa.

Okay, very cool. Wow, small world. Yeah, I was just up there. Very cool, guys. Thank you so very much. This has been awesome. Appreciate it so much, Ralph.

Thanks for hosting us. We so appreciate being able to talk about this.

Love it. Absolutely, my pleasure, my pleasure. And guys, thank you so much for watching. Before we head out, if you give me a like, give me a follow, subscribe, however it works wherever you're watching this, I would appreciate it since we are simulcasting on several different places. Um, and help4men.com— let me see, I have a little banner. Let me put that up.

Where is it?

There it is. I want to hear the jingle again.

One time thing.

I don't have an outgoing jingle, outro if you will, but help4men.com/join is the, uh, the URL to go to to join our brotherhood, our support community for men only.

So check it out, guys.

And Chris and Lisa, thank you so very much. Appreciate you. Thank you, guys. We had so much fun.

Thank you. Thank you.

We'll catch you on the next one, guys. Thank you.