Sol (00:01)
Today on Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict, I'm excited to welcome Paulette Rigo, the founder of Better Divorce Academy and the author of Better Divorce Blueprint. Paulette will share her expert strategies for navigating post-judgment co-parenting challenges and achieving amicable outcomes even in the most difficult of circumstances. Let's dive in.

Sol (00:22)
Paulette, it's so wonderful having you here on Coparenting Beyond Conflict. Thanks for joining me today.

Paulette Rigo (00:27)
Well, thank you so much for the gracious invitation to join you. I appreciate it.

Sol (00:32)
I'm always so curious how professionals like yourself end up getting involved with supporting people going through divorce. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey?

Paulette Rigo (00:41)
Sure, well I had no intention of doing this work, I'll be very honest.

I went to college and you know, did all that and met my husband when I was 17. Yes, I did say that. And got married at 22. I thought that that was the thing to do, right? It was on my checklist of well, be a good kid, get good grades, graduate from high school, go to college, get married, have babies.

Paulette Rigo (01:08)
Fast forward 10 years later, I had three little children and the perfect life and realized, my, I didn't marry a man. I married a family.

So I, after 20 years of marriage, realized that

this really wasn't the marriage for me. And I personally went through an eight and a half year litigated case that included a 12 day trial. The 12 day trial took place over nine months, you would think if it were 12 days, would be Monday through Friday, Monday through Friday and Monday, Tuesday. No, it doesn't work that way. And of course, there were two years of preparations all to even get to that.

I mean, there's so much to do even before you have the red flag of you're going to trial. So, of course, never mind the boring interrogatories and discovery and all the normal processes of plaintiff and respondent. After the judge listened to all the evidence of the case during the trial, he took nine months to deliberate. I could have had a fourth child in that

period of time. I always thought it was ironic that it took nine months. And Then after the judge made his decision, my ex did not like the judge's decision. So he appealed it on 17 counts. And that took an additional four years in state supreme appellate court, which is a completely separate judicial system from family court. The appellate court is a separate entity.

I didn't know that was even possible. So for about a decade-ish, my life was monopolized by the judicial legal system. Now, because of the careers I'd had, I knew a lot of women. I taught ballet. I was a birth doula, a lactation consultant, a yoga teacher trainer, a macrobiotic cook, and I did Ayurvedic counseling and taught yoga teacher training. And I just know women after, you know,

I hung around with a lot of girls, a of women. And so I watched them grow up and they got to know me and my story. And it was sort of At the infancy of social media, all of these people started to reach out to me. And the conversation would usually be, hey, are you okay? I heard about your case. Why is this taking so long? I thought he was a...

great guy. What's going on? would always end up with, can you help me? And I would say, no, I can't. I can barely help myself. But it kept happening over and over time and time again. And I thought, this is the universe's way of banging me on the head with a shoe or a hammer and saying, this is not a coincidence.

So I called my attorney and we got to know each other rather well after 10 years of hanging out together. And I said to him, I don't know what to do, but people keep reaching out to me for help. Should I go to law school? And he said, "Paulette, I can still hear him. You think like a judge, you act like a lawyer. And you feel like a therapist. You owe it to give back." And a little tear.

ran down my cheek and I think I slapped him on the shoulder because he's very tall and He said yeah that's what you should do. So he kind of took me under his wing and encouraged me to do that. Introduced me to a few professionals, the infancy of divorce coaching and mediation in an alternative dispute resolution and

I did a tremendous amount of education and training and certification, mentoring, interning, you name it, to found Better Divorce Academy as a credentialed family mediator in ADR or alternative dispute resolution and certified high conflict divorce coaching. So that's a little bit about why I do what I do. I'm very happily remarried. I believe in love. I believe in marriage.

Our children are all grown now. I have three children, two stepchildren and three grandchildren. So yeah, it's a journey.

Sol (05:02)
I really appreciate hearing more about your story and your background and what a tragedy to go through, but then it sounds like you've emerged to help others that are going through a similar circumstance.

Paulette Rigo (05:17)
I wanted to help other people avoid the mistakes that I made. And I made a lot. Out of ignorance, naivete, trusting the system, trusting my spouse to do the right thing, trusting everything. I just sort of surrendered and thought, well, this is the journey. This is the way it is. And it pains me to witness people make

mistakes. I do everything I can to make it as painless as possible so they can make wise decisions and divorce with grace and dignity and wisdom so that they can start their new chapter of their life to a better trajectory and also so it does less damage to the children.

Sol (05:58)
Co-parents that are post-judgment, what are some of the common challenges that you see they go through after legal judgments are finalized?

Paulette Rigo (06:07)
You have little children, young children, preschool, from birth to say four. a lot of that is the parenting plan that is just brutal to live up to. To put it bluntly, you know, sometimes the children when they're older fight that, you know, but When they're babies,

It's just, they're living in car seats and they're back and forth and back and forth.

It's difficult to still engage in a routine and structure for young children and still live up to the rigidity

of a schedule in which you are sharing time. Number two is that emotional part where you go from doing everything collectively, or trying to anyway, collectively making decisions on education, medical, extracurricular and religion. when you have to now make decisions

depending on your legal custody agreement. There's that mindset shift, right?

This is new and like anything that's new it takes practice. and yeah commitment now If they're middle school do we call it that now middle school? Yeah, it used to junior high so Middle school Poor kids stuck in the

Sol (07:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paulette Rigo (07:19)
It's hard for them. They miss their old life. They feel inconvenienced by having to have two beds and two toothbrushes and two sets of, well, pretty much everything. And sometimes they're okay with it, depending on the child. Some kids are very resilient and they like it.

Being aware as a parent too that each age group and development of children are going to deal with after divorce with the schedule and the logistics of it all can be challenging. and how the parents

Sol (07:48)
Mm-hmm.

Paulette Rigo (07:50)
Don't use the children as the communicator, the, what's it called? The carrier pigeon. You're the baton of like, tell your mother this or tell your father that, or tell your mother this. And you're like, you tell them, you know? There's a lot of frustration at the beginning.

You will need to be empathetic about their plight and see it from their point of view. The emotional development of the child or children can be

Sol (08:14)
Sure.

Paulette Rigo (08:20)
impacted by the parents' inability to be empathetic of how they see it.

Sol (08:26)
So For co-parents that are just starting out, I'm curious if you have any recommendations for them of maybe some common mistakes that you see in parenting plans.

Paulette Rigo (08:35)
It depends on if the parenting plan was ordered by a judge and they had nothing to do with it. It's sort of a bummer. Now You can always ask for a modification based on criteria, not just because it's not convenient or we don't like it. There's usually a reason why it's ordered based on work, travel, many, many different constituents. So if that has been ordered, ugh.

That's tough, you know.

It doesn't have to be written in stone, but once you get that, it feels like we're stuck with this thing.

If the two of you are able to communicate about, I'm unavailable to pick up the kids on blank at blank day, would you be available? Some people go, absolutely, don't worry about it. I'll be there. Thanks for reaching out. And others are like, how inconvenient, how dare of you ask me to do something, or instead of just a, I wish I could, but I can't type of thing. The level of communication between the two can...

influence sticking to that too. And if the agreement or the template that you chose is just not working, if both of you are willing to have a conversation about would it be okay if we sat down, the first of every year and reevaluated the schedule. I always recommend every six months depending on the ages of the kids, but annual is good too.

Maybe the times of the school have changed, drop off and pick up. If you feel that

you two can reevaluate that schedule without involving the court and without having to ask for a modification,

it does help when both parties are willing to have that conversation.

Sol (10:14)
We like to talk about building your co-parenting support team, your team of professionals. And when you talk about revisiting parenting plans and negotiation, what about co-parents that struggle with even making simple decisions together? Who should they involve on their team to help them renegotiate, keep their parenting plan updated?

Paulette Rigo (10:18)
in

Now if you have a relationship with a very informed, pediatric, juvenile, when I say pediatric I don't mean you know baby baby, you know pediatric mental health practitioner that has knowledge about co-parenting and skill set with that, I would suggest that both parents form a deep relationship with that

middle person that can work with the family dynamic, at least there's one person that both parties can see as a neutral that is there for the betterment of the minor children. Then spouse A can

feel like they have a place where they can vent without feeling judged or criticized, and also for spouse B. And then that, that mental health practitioner that works with the family unit can then work with the children to have conversations with that child.

When you're trying to foster

the best interest rule, are both parents

able to provide stability and structure and routine in the child's life?

If they're deliberately making rules that are counter to what the other parent is making or creating, I just use bedtime because it's so black and white.

You can then say to a professional, hey, I'm really struggling with bedtime here. And then that other professional can come in and say,

"So what time do you go to bed?" I, as a mediator, come in and mediate specifics of a co-parenting plan. I can mediate legal custody. I can mediate physical custody. I can mediate child support. Anything that has to do with custody in a divorce, I can meet with a family,

not the children, but maybe a guardian ad litem or some other mental health practitioner that could come and be a part of the conversation to really determine what actually is in the best interest of the child.

Sol (12:29)
What about counter parenting? Have you encountered those sorts of situations in your mediation practice?

Paulette Rigo (12:35)
Well, not usually because they're almost always litigated. If a couple comes to me and I find that there's so much conflict with decision making about sharing extracurricular religion, medical and extracurricular, just normal, day-to-day decisions like dentist,

pediatrician, normal parenting things that don't have anything to do with divorce, just, making decisions for kids because they're not able to make them themselves.

If they're not able to do that, and they also can't decide where the kid's sleeping, you know, like, they're not pitching a tent in the backyard, but they're with parent A certain time, and they're with parent B certain time,

then it's going to be very challenging to mediate. So typically, I'm able to get most people to say, let's be realistic, because normally a judge would pretty much say this.

That is tricky with that ability to mediate a situation where you've got counter parenting going on. that...

For those of you that don't know what that is, it's you tell me your rules and then I'm gonna create my own set of rules that are the exact opposite of what you want just so I can be a jerk. Whereas parallel parenting is you've got your set of rules and I've got my set of rules and they're not necessarily bad or good. They're just different. But we're kind of going like railroad tracks.

Whereas co-parenting is like we're kind of trying to be the same set of tracks, maybe they're rubbing up against each other sometimes, but we're trying to be a monorail versus a bi-rail.

It is really helpful to know what you're getting involved in before you go, that's what it's called. Why didn't I didn't know that was a real thing? I thought I was the only person in the world that had a spouse that just wanted to retaliate and be difficult. No, there are lots of people that do that.

I always say, Sol that it comes down to do you hate your spouse more than you love your children? Or do you love your children more than you hate your spouse?

Sol (14:42)
For a co-parent facing counter parenting situation where they find that their co-parent is antagonistic, combative, do you recommend a more parallel parenting

Paulette Rigo (14:54)
If they're 15 or 16,

you can at least say, I know this is difficult. I'm so proud of the way you're handling this and have authentic conversations with them without bad mouthing the other parent. Then you probably have to just amp up your courage muscles. You can't change the person. They are who they are.

It's one of the reasons you're likely divorced. Now, if they're really young, then I suggest

have to use a co-parenting

They didn't exist when I got divorced. Neither did divorce coaches. Interesting fact, everyone. So lucky you. We also have AI, and of course, I'm so excited to hear more about the

that you

Sol (15:33)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get 10 % off with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (15:55)
And now, back to the show.

Paulette Rigo (15:57)
There are only six things that kids need to know about divorce, you are and always will be loved by Mom and Dad. You are and always will be safe. Kids need to know they're safe. You are not to blame for any of this.

Mom and Dad will always be your mom and dad, particularly if the spouses either are starting to date or get engaged and remarried. Sometimes they feel like the other parent is not their parent anymore. Divorce is not about blame, it's about change.

Every aspect of your life changes due to divorce. And some kids love change. Others hate it.

So maybe teaching them how to adapt to change, and I don't mean because of the divorce, but just change in general. And lastly is everything is going to be okay.

If you're okay and you're not flipping out and you're calm and you got your act together, your kids are gonna be all right. Even if you're not, if you wanna cry in the shower and swear that's your business, go for it. Find a safe place to vent, journal.

Scream in the shower. No, Whatever you need to do to get it out. But to them you have to be composed, keep your Keep your wits about you. They need to know because if they see you falling apart Well, I'm not saying you can't have your moment. So we're all human. So It is Correct. Yeah. Yeah

Sol (17:17)
There was that safety out the window. Yeah. Yeah.

I'd love to dive into that a little bit more deeply around the next chapter of your life. going through divorce, there's a lot going on both with their kids and in their own lives. They're losing friends, they're gaining friends. How does someone restart and renew their life in a good way?

Paulette Rigo (17:39)
The idea of divorce being a failure is the beginning of the problem. Not to say that there aren't initial feelings of that, that Going through the stages of grieving is natural, and if you don't, uh-oh. If you don't know what they are, shock and denial,

Oh my God, why is this happening? Now, depending on the person, most people go through sadness in phase two. So sadness can be melancholy, reminiscent, nostalgia,

there's that general sadness and then it goes into negotiating and bargaining, fixing it. Let's go to therapy. Let's try to figure it out. For a kid, it's if I only I made my bed, if I only did my homework,

then maybe mommy and daddy wouldn't have divorced. Well, you and I know that's not true, but that's the development of a child thinking, negotiating, and bargaining. Mommy, what can we do to get you and Daddy back together? Daddy, how come you don't love Mommy anymore? That's the child intellectualizing stage three of grieving. And then next is usually anger.

Now, some people just get a little bit angry, there's degrees and gradients of everything. And then finally, it's letting go, stepping back, surrendering, like, it is what it is. And acceptance. It is, yeah. And then, unfortunately or fortunately, there is a sixth stage that most people don't know about or don't get to.

And that is what is the lesson? Because I'm the one professional in people's lives that do not want to repeat client. I don't want you calling me in five years saying, do you remember you mediated out my divorce? Guess what? We need you again. I will be like, uh-oh, I failed you. I failed you. So, and That's really important that we also see our stages of grieving along with the children's stages of grieving and they will not be congruent.

And what are your stages of grieving in comparison to your co-parent's stages of grieving? If you're both at acceptance, I can mediate your case in an hour. I'll save you at least $50,000 in unnecessary legal fees. I do it all the time. But if both people are not at acceptance, uh-oh.

That's one of the first things I figure out in mediation. Where is he and where is she? Or where are they? Because it, and I know If they're both at shock and denial, it will fail.

One other thing I wanted to mention that I forgot is The best tool I can teach people about dealing with a counter parent is the acronym B-I-F-F. I don't know if you know Bill Eddy, I've worked with him and, I love his work.

It stands for brief, informational, friendly, and final. Sometimes called firm. So brief, keep it short. They don't need a Shakespeare soliloquy monologue. They need a sentence or two. I'm running late, I'll see you in 30 seconds.

Take out the emotion. Number two, informational. Just give them the facts. Keep it short, friendly. So I want you to treat your co-parent,

like they are the checkout person at the grocery store.

You know, like you would treat a perfect stranger. You don't know them.

Text messages should be this long, never this long. They should not look like a ruler, right?

They should look like, you know, this much, like an inch. That's it. Informational, just the facts. No emojis, no exclamation points, no capitals. Just keep it simple. And then friendly. Say, if I read this to the person at the grocery store, would they give me the finger? If the answer is yes, don't send it. Send it to your divorce coach and ask your divorce coach,

What should I write? or email or call, right? And then firm, final. There's no question mark. So what I mean by that, there isn't an open-ended, we're not getting emotions involved. We're not looking about feelings and justification and integrity and validation and judgment.

Sol (21:40)
I love that. That's very helpful. BIFF, Bill Eddy, we'll put that in the show notes. And of course you're making me think about the Best Interest app because that's a lot of what we do is we help you create shorter responses that are more brief and informative.

Paulette Rigo (21:43)
Yeah. Have you heard of him?

All my clients send me these, I always call them emotional vomiting. Blah! I know that was graphic, I apologize, but... And then I take the emotional, make it very succinct. Also what I use in my genius zone is what will not come back to bite them in court. Because I need to make sure everything is admissible in court.

Everything you say, do, wear, think, feel, buy, et cetera, et cetera 86 % of evidence in divorce and litigation comes from social media.

Sol (22:27)
Going back to the stages of grief, it's about like rediscovering yourself and then also healing, right? So you don't repeat the same mistake. Yeah. What is the lesson? So what can you tell us about that? How can people really

Paulette Rigo (22:34)
I just said, is the lesson?

Hmm

Sol (22:41)
go for that and not repeat the same mistakes.

Paulette Rigo (22:44)
Well, that starts with the acknowledgement of the part that you played in the demise of your marriage. So if you, even if you part this much part, you still have to look, what part did I play in the demise of the relationship? And that could also be, what part did I play in the demise of the co-parenting experience? Did I sabotage the

success- or willingness to raise children or a child in a whole manner, because children are holistic beings. They don't just have muscles and bones and organs, you know. You have to look at the psychological, mental, emotional, spiritual side of them, but also the practical side of them too with

brushing their teeth and making their bed and going to school and doing their homework and learning and socialization and all that. There's the internal of the child and then the external, what everybody else sees. So that is not easy when you are so angry or resentful that I'm going to do whatever I can, including using the children to harm the other person.

That's always tricky, but if you have done any of that, slap yourself on the wrist or maybe another body part, but gently, and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Nellie, know, the horse, pull the horse back and stop it. You can't change the other person from doing it.

But you can control what you do. Now You can also control your reaction to what they do. That's not always easy. That's kind of that B-I-F-F thing, like do not engage. My attorney used to wear a tie with little fish on it. And he always say, "Paulette when you're tempted to open your mouth, just look at my tie." And he would tap on his tie.

As you can tell, I like to talk. So He would say, when does the fishy get in trouble?

When it opens its mouth.

Sol (24:47)
Love it.

Paulette Rigo (24:48)
I'm doing that if you're waiting at the home,

right? So they cannot, if Now I know you can sometimes get accused of being, you know, the silent treatment like you didn't respond or you ignored me, but chances are you need to emotionally step back a little bit so that you're not reacting, but that you're acting out of consciousness and mindful behavior. So going back to

the next chapter and learning the if you can be a big boy or big girl and accept, make a long list of everything you've ever done with the divorce wrong. Journal it. You can burn it if you want. Like, what did I really do to aggravate? And it might only be one thing.

You've got to at least do a little bit of self-study and acknowledgement of that behavior and notice, it a pattern? Is it a habit that I keep doing? You've got to re-examine and re-evaluate every aspect of your life. What are your core values? Are you living in alignment with your core values?

You have to know who you are. And that's one of the things that sometimes divorce does is it confuses us. Who am I? And doing a lot of that self study and taking ownership and full responsibility. And that might be an apology.

Sometimes it's just changing your behavior.

What I want everyone to know is that about 85 % of divorced people remarry within five years. So what does that mean? Well, now you're going to be a stepparent, most likely.

I have two stepchildren that I love to pieces and care about them just as much as I adore my own children. It becomes a different world when you divorce and then you get into a new relationship, right? So now co-parenting might be even more complicated because you got your own kids to worry about and then they got their kids to worry about, it doesn't get simpler.

The more work you do on you with self-study and taking responsibility and ownership and being mindful of your core values and what am I doing? Is this truly in alignment with who I want to be or is it counterproductive? Am I sabotaging my own future, my own financial sanctity, my own wellness? You know, One of the top 12 divorce mistakes that people make

their own wellness or health goes down because they do not deal with the stress of divorce and co-parenting well. They do not, I would say they prioritize it over everything else, but It's at the bottom of the list.

Sol (27:26)
Paulette, this has been a very informative interview. Thank you so much for joining us today. And I'm curious if someone wants to reach out to you for your mediation services or to read your book, where can they find you?

Paulette Rigo (27:37)
Easy, just BetterDivorceAcademy.com. I would have named it Best Divorce Academy, but well, you get the idea. So, Better Divorce Academy, Paulette Rigo You'll find me, I'm out there. Thank you.

Sol (27:51)
Thank you Paulette. Have a wonderful day.

Sol (27:54)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.

Sol (28:12)
The commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.