SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, I'm Sol, founder of the Best Interest App for Co-Parents, and the host of this podcast, Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict. I'm here to help protect your peace and your kids when the person you're co-parenting with makes all of that feel impossible. Joining me today is Karen Covey. Karen is an attorney and a coach who specializes in helping people navigate that 90% of divorce that the law ignores. Finances, kids, and all of the emotional fallout. We discussed why the court can't give you emotional justice and how to build that board of directors for your family so you don't have to carry the burden alone. You're tired of every interaction feeling like a trap. Karen is here to help us all find an exit. Let's dive in. Hi, Karen. Welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you on today.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So before we get into it, how is your week going? What's what's been a big win?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

The weather is finally sort of broke. It's still cold, but the sun is shining. I'll take that as a win.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

That's great. So I understand that you wear mini hats. You're a lawyer, mediator, author, coach. Um, what was the moment that you realized that the legal system wasn't enough and you had to step in?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

It was a gradual awakening or a multi-phased awakening because I started my career as a trial lawyer because I couldn't think of any other reason why anyone wanna be a lawyer, right? You go to an you go to court and you try jury trials. And so I did that for a while. Then I went to the government and I ran a bureau for a while, a bureau of a hundred lawyers. And then I decided to hang up the proverbial shingle. And when I did, I said, I will take any kind of case there is except divorce. And here we are, right? At some point I just threw up my hands and I was like, okay, I'll do divorce because that's what kept coming to me. But when I walked into divorce court, I had a decade of experience behind me. And I looked around and went, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. First of all, that branch of the court didn't run the same way that the other branches of the court did. And there's no universe in which sitting down and ripping your spouse's face off and cross-examination and then go sitting with them next to them at your good soccer game tonight makes sense. I was like, this is stupid. So that's when I started on the quest for the better way. I became a mediator, I became a collaborative divorce professional, I became an arbitrate, I became all these things years later. And I was doing all the things, but it still wasn't quite working. It's not a great system. And so one day I was in my office and my assistant at the time had worked for all the big guns in Chicago, all the big divorce firms. It was hot, the door was open. I had a client interview, client leaves, her desk was outside my door. She walks into me and she says, You know no one else does that, right? I said, What do you mean? And she said, You just spent over an hour sitting there with this person telling them, here's what your choices are, here's how the system works, here's what you you can do, A or B or C or you know, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, if the other guys aren't saying that, what are they saying? And she said, Here's a contract, sign here. And I was horrified. Horrified because it's not my life. I don't get to make your decisions for you. So that sent me on the journey of coaching. And one thing led to another. And here we are, because what I saw was the gap between what people think the lawyer is going to do and what the lawyer is actually going to do. I stepped into that gap because I speak lawyer and I speak human. So I could be the go-between. At this stage of life, as one person, I am not going to change the system. That's a little too ambitious, even for me, but I can change the people that go into it. And if I change my clients, that's better than nothing.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Oh, that's that's beautiful. Yeah, it is a it's a challenging system, isn't it? And it's great when there are professionals like yourself that have gone through the all the stages, have seen what it's like, and come full circle and realize that they need to be the change makers.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah. And I think the change is going to come from the bottom up, not the top down, because the law is slow to change. That's the nature of the beast. But people are starting to drive the change and ask for more and demand more from their lawyers. I think that's going to be what starts the change. There are a lot of alternatives out there to just going to court and fighting these days. And there's more alternatives being born every single day because people are looking for a better way. I'm confident that at some point something will catch and that we'll be able to do this better.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Well, and I think it starts with education, right? When we learn before taking action, then we're able to take better action. And I know in my own divorce, I wish that I had had a coach from the very beginning that would have led me through and shown me the way rather than just immediately going for the attorney, which I thought I had to do.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Right. That's what everybody thinks. And that's it's a mistake on a variety of levels. Number one, the better prepared you are and the more knowledge you have before you even start this process, the better you're going to do. It's like anything else in life. And then the second reason that having a coach or some someone to guide you before you go to the attorney is that the way most people find an attorney is they they go to their friend's attorney or their neighbor tells them or they get a referral and they go to the attorney, and the attorney says, I will fight for your rights. We can win this thing. The mediator says, you know, we can work this out. And the person, you are an emotional wreck when you're in a lawyer's office. Most people don't deal with lawyers every single day. So they're nervous to begin with. They're emotional on top of it. And what they're hearing is, this is what I need to do. But what the lawyer is saying is this is what I do, right? They're selling you on their way of doing things because the skill set it takes to be a mediator is very different than the skill set it takes to be a trial lawyer. And most lawyers don't try to do it all. They stay in their lane. And so picking your process first, based on your own facts and circumstances, and then finding the lawyer who specializes in that is going to give you a better outcome than doing it the other way around, which is unfortunately what most people do.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

What would your advice be for someone who is earlier on in the process and maybe they haven't even decided they're going to get a divorce, they're still trying to decide what the path is going to be. What's the first step?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

The first step is either to find a coach. I do what I call divorce and decision coaching. Because what I found was people get stuck in that headspace for years. And it's a miserable place to be because you're not 100% committed to your marriage because that's not working. You're not committed to a divorce because you don't know if you want that yet. So you're just in limbo. You're not living. A good decision coach or divorce coach or a good therapist can help guide you so you can figure some things out and make some decisions for yourself. Or if you and your spouse are both together in the indecision, then you can go to something called discernment counseling, which is limited scope therapy. And the whole point of decision of discernment is to help the couple decide: do you want to work on your marriage, do you want to get a divorce, or do you just want to keep on keeping on?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

I wish more people knew about discernment counseling as an option at the end or at the renewal, perhaps, of their marriage. It's it can be a very helpful tool.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

I like what you said, the renewal, right? Because I've seen people come back from marriages that you would think I thought were like toast, right? There's no coming back from cheating or lying or various forms of betrayal or substance abuse. And yet they came back, not to the same marriage, but to their marriage to the same person, but marriage 2.0 or 3.0. You know, sometimes it takes a couple tries. But it's possible if you want to work on the marriage that you have and both people are committed to that, then you've got a chance. I Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Well, so I've decided I'm gonna go get a divorce. I've heard you use this term on social being the CEO of your divorce. Can you tell us more about that concept? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

People think that they they go to their lawyer and they think their lawyer is going to be the CEO of their divorce project, right? Um, if you want to think of divorce as a project or a business or whatever, but the lawyer only does the legal part. And for most people, unless you've got something really complicated and squirrely, the law's about 10%. The rest, the other 90% is finance, it's kids, it's social life, it's identity, it's practical stuff. Where do you live? Do you sell the house? When do you move? Blah, blah, blah. It's all the things. What do you do? First, second, and third. Well, your lawyer's not going to do any of that for you. Somebody has to do it. And most people are just standing there because they don't know what to do. They've never done this before. So they're just like holding the bag, and things happen when they happen, how they happen. But that's not the best way to run a railroad. What you want to do is get through this process if you can with some intentionality. Like, okay, here's where I am in a perfect world. Here's where I want to be. Let me make a plan that gets me to that place, right? And if you make that plan, you might not end up exactly where you want to be, but you're going to have a way better chance of getting there if you if you decide that's what you want and make that plan than if you just sort of aimlessly wander around and at the end of your divorce, you ended up with the Tupperware, but you're you don't have your kids on Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Well, and and this is a big undertaking, getting a divorce. And so what I'm hearing from you is have an end goal in mind, the the ideal. What is what happens once I get divorced? What is it gonna look like five years from now? And shoot for that.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Exactly. It's like Stephen Covey, who is unfortunately no relation to me, said in the seven habits of highly effective people is you start with the end in mind. It's the same concept. If you know where you're going, now you have some direction to get there. But otherwise, you're gonna be batted all over the place because while you're going through a divorce, you're gonna be faced with making more important, life-changing decisions in a relatively confined period of time than you will in any other similar time period in your life. And you're doing it while you're an emotional wreck and your head's all messed up. So somebody needs to be that CEO, which is a role that I help my clients understand and fill because I can guide them to do that. Here's what's coming next. Think about this, make sure you plan for that. And together we plan the road ahead. They expect their lawyer to do that. Their lawyer's just not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Well, and so many people approach divorce, having an idea in mind of what to expect. And then they might find themselves down the path of having a high conflict X or having some very difficult financial decisions or withholding. How does this mindset play into that situation where it's almost like you're in an offensive position?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Mindset is so important, but it's about seeing reality as much as you can. It's hard when you're in the relationship, but to see reality for what it is, not better than it is, not worse than it is. And if you have been married to a high conflict spouse for a decade, to think that the heavens are gonna open, the angels are gonna sing, and it's gonna be an amicable divorce, I mean, you're dreaming. You're smoking something. So you if if that's the personality you're married to, that's the personality you're going to be divorced from. You have to be prepared to go to trial if you've got that high conflict person, because that's the only game they know how to play.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

For a divorce CEO, um, what sorts of tools can you employ in that business of divorce to help you along?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

The most important thing is putting together the right team. Back in the day, you got a lawyer and that was it. That's not the most effective way to run a divorce, just like it's not an effective way to run a business. If you're a solopreneur, there's a limit. You're the bottleneck of the business. You can't go beyond that. If you're the only one, you if and your lawyer is the only one working on the divorce, there's going to be a limit to their knowledge about finances. They don't understand, I mean, they understand some psychology, but they're not a therapist. They're not going to sit there and listen to your problems. They don't know how to sell your home. They don't know how to get you a mortgage. Some of them, if they happen to be a lawyer CPA, know more about taxes, but most lawyers don't. So it's all these things. It's like a divorce lawyer has to be the jack of all trades. So they know a little bit about a lot of things. However, if you want some depth to whatever area you're talking about, it makes more sense to go out and talk to the mortgage lender and find out, can I refinance? And if I'm going to refinance or my spouse is going to refinance, what are the criteria? What do we have to do to make that happen? Because it's different than what it might say in your divorce judgment. When I'm thinking about the kids and what's going to be best for them, maybe I have a couple of meetings with a child psychologist to say, for kids in this age group, given my children's personality, especially if your kids have special needs or they're on the spectrum or something like that, what do they need to thrive? Is the parenting plan that I've got in mind really going to be helpful for them or is it going to set them back? So it's all the things. It's putting the right players in the right seats. Most people, when they hear that, they're like, this is already so expensive. Forget it. No, no, no, no, no. It's actually cheaper because some of those professionals, like a realtor, if you're selling your house, they only get paid if you sell the house. The lender only gets paid if you get the mortgage. Some of these professionals will work with you for less money or no money up front, and they have the depth of experience that you need. So they're going to be able to get you to the end result faster and more accurately than the lawyer will. So it's about putting the right people in the right seats and then you, as the divorcing person, managing. That's why I say you have to be the CEO, because you've got to make sure that all the all the oars are rowing in the same direction or your boats just stay stuck.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Well, and and the natural thing here is to realize is that the lawyer is typically the most expensive team member that you have. If you can give that work off to a lower-level employee or or someone that doesn't charge as much, then that allows the lawyer to act more as a helpful tool rather than doing things that they're not even qualified for.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

That's exactly right. And a lot of lawyers don't want to do them. If the lawyer wanted to be a therapist, they would have been a therapist. They don't want to do that. If you let them do what they're actually good at, life goes so much better. Comparing this to the business analogy, because I see so many of my clients are in business or own a business or they're entrepreneurs. And it's so frustrating because when you're in business, you're rewarded for efficiency, for being on time, for when there's a deadline, it's really a deadline and you meet it and you do all this. That is not the way the system works. And so it goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago and your mindset to understand that you've got to work within the constraints of the system that is. If you are expecting anything close to efficiency, you're gonna go crazy. You're just gonna be so frustrated because it's not efficient. I mean, just to tell you how not efficient it was, up until COVID in the Cook County Circuit Courts in Chicago, we were still using carbon paper, carbon paper. So it's not an efficient system.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

In these situations, in in getting a divorce, it's natural to find yourself in this sense of paralysis. All these decisions that need to be made. What is your advice to someone feeling that way, that they're just stuck?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Get help because you can't see the forest for the trees. And what happens is you start to try to solve every problem at once and you start to loop in your head. And it's the same thing over and over. What about this? And what about that? And what about this? So what about and you've got to break the pattern. It's usually easier if somebody from the outside they can see your pattern and they can help you break it. And then you take one step at a time. You do the smallest possible thing that you can do today. And then tomorrow you do another thing. And you tomorrow you do another thing. It's like James Clear says in atomic habits. You do habit stacking and you just do one little thing every day, but it's the consistency that gets you to the end goal. What's frustrating is it sucks so bad to be in divorce. Everybody just wants to be done. So let's do as much as we can as, you know, and get it behind us. The problem is that doesn't work, right? You can't do it all in a day. And if you've got there's there's all this emotional and psychological stuff layered on top of what looks like it should be a fairly rational process until you deal with that and you work through your emotions and your spouse works through their emotions and your kids work through their emotions, all of that's gotta happen before you can get to the end result that you want. And it takes time. We are human beings, we are not robots, we are not AI.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah. And and honestly, seeing so many co-parents going through this and also having been post-judgment and have those issues still remaining. If you don't handle, like you said, some of these emotional challenges, if you don't face them early on, if you're just trying to avoid them, the courts are happy to avoid emotions and just go through the process. But then you'll be end up with a co-parenting arrangement that's just not that workable.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

That reminds me of the case that I had as a lawyer years ago. So these people, they want to save money. They they worked everything out themselves. They had three small children. So I think three kids under the age of nine. I don't remember their exact ages. They worked everything out themselves. They went to some schmuck lawyer who, one lawyer, wrote up everything. I think the wife had the lawyer. It was her lawyer. They signed it. They went through it. They were in and out of the entire court system in a few months and a couple thousand dollars. And they were like, Ha, yay, look at us. It was it was crap. So this guy comes to me and I said, What's your visitation schedule? And he said, Well, I get like this amount of time in my wife's house while she's there. And I'm like, Why did that make sense? Who signed that? Who told you to do that? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever you would never have your kids alone, ever. Why would you do that? And he was like, Well, I we wanted to save money and I didn't know. And I thought it would. And his wife was at that point, all the eggs were in her basket, right? She had everything. He had nothing. This poor guy had to slog through three years of litigation, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars more than what it would have cost him to just do it right in the first place. And all the grief and the angst and the stress on him and the kids and everything else to end up where he should have started.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

So many of us listeners of this podcast find themselves in high conflict situations. Oftentimes there's a dynamic there where maybe they were a bit or are a bit conflict avoidant, right? And not wanting to be in conflict. And gosh, divorce is like the pinnacle of conflict and challenge. So we're happy to go, nah, nah, nah, and I'm not here and not listen and not pay attention. And if we do that, then we're just avoiding the conflict that's gonna end up coming to back to bite us later.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

100%. Look, I always worry about the people who aren't conflict avoidant because they're I'm like, okay, are you a psychopath, right? Why do you like fighting? But there are some travelers that are like that. So I guess I don't know, it is what it is. But most people don't want to like jump into a big fight. Why would you do that? Especially with somebody that supposedly you used to love and you have kids together. Nobody wants to make a big fight. And it's not about loving the conflict or diving in and going, yeah, gladiator. It's about being able to stand in your space and in your truth and say, No, that's not okay. I won't agree to that. Like it doesn't have to be conflict heavy. It could be conflict light, but there it's about a boundary setting, is really what it's about. And if you've got an avoidant attachment style, then you what you've also got problems with boundaries. I had such boundary issues when I was younger. I can say from experience, you can get over that. The point is not to cause a fight, but to stand up and say, no, this is okay. This is not okay. And if you want to talk about it, let's talk about it. And there are communication styles, techniques you can use, or you can use a therapist or a coach to help you communicate with each other, or even a mediator if you're arguing about something that's got some legal significance, and say, okay, no, this is what it's gonna be, this is what it's not gonna be, and you just stand your ground.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

These things weren't necessarily modeled to us, boundaries, and they're quite simple once you learn about them. But if you don't have that modeling set from youth, it's scary and challenging to do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, I would say, Sal, that it's simple, but not easy. But it's what what the message of hope for people who are listening is that it's a skill. You can learn the skill. This is not something you're born with, and if you didn't get the gene, too bad, so sad, right? You're screwed for life. Not at all. You can learn how to do this. That's what this is about. And now is the time. Once you've got that skill set, you can use it for the rest of your life in a multitude of situations.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

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 BEONT10. Link in the show notes. And now, back to the show. What about the listener who finds that their ex has become a bit of an antagonist and maybe even is lying or manipulating, and it's it's causing them a lot of fear about the situation? What is Your advice for them?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Lying or manipulating to who? Them or the kids?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Ooh, that's a great question. Both, but let's focus on lying and manipulating to the kids. What do we do in that situation?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

That's the hardest part. It depends because the answer obviously depends on your kids and their age. The younger they are, the easier they are to manipulate, the more malleable they are. In that situation, especially, I'd be looking for help. I'd be looking for like a really good child psychologist, a therapist. The child needs to have a safe space. And here's the thing about kids they love both parents. I did a little work very briefly in Juvenile Court. It's a horrible place to be abused and neglect court. Parents can do really unimaginable things to their kids. And the kid still loves them. I don't know what it is about humans, but the children always love both of their parents. They want a relationship with both parents. And so when the parents are like this, what you have to understand is that when you're making your kid choose you're trying to manipulate your child, it's it's hurting them. It's twisting them. Because if you've got both parents that are going, no, mom is dead, no, bad is dead, no, listen to me. No, don't tell now the kids are a total mess. They need a safe space, they need somewhere where they can just let stuff out and talk with. And that's like the best, the best thing is some sort of therapist for the child that can work with them to give them that neutral safe space and the neutral opinion to say, it's okay if you feel this. It's okay to say this, to help model and teach them what's a boundary, what's okay and what's not okay. So for a younger child and even for teenagers, they still need that. So if you're manipulating the child, the best thing to do is to get the uh a third party involved. And for the parent, if you are the healthier parent, understand this is so unfair. But you'll get the bad behavior. The bad parent gets the good behavior, the good parent gets the bad behavior because the kid knows that you still love them. So they can act stupidly, they can let out their emotions, they can do the horrible things, have the temper, tantrum, whatever, and you're still gonna love them. But if they do that in the other house, they're risking love, and love is like oxygen. So don't throw your other parent under the bus. Don't do the tit for tat thing. They're saying bad things about me, I just say bad things about them. That only makes it worse. Take the high road, get your kid a therapist, and do the best you can.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yeah, and what a beautiful loving gift that we can give our kids of just being present with them in their various states and allowing them to just be how they want to be because they're not necessarily getting that in the other house.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah. And as the kids get a little bit older, then they start the boundary pushing because they're trying to figure out their own boundaries. Their teenagers, like, you remember that age. I remember that age. It was like you don't even know who you are. And you just do things because you do them and you want to see how far you can get. And so it's about like taking the high road, not allowing your child to use you like a doormat. There is, there's a point at which you say, you know what, sweetheart, that's not okay. You cannot talk to me like that. And I understand you're frustrated. I understand you're having a hard time. Go up to your room, work it out, walk it off, do whatever you got to do, but you will not treat me that way. It's not okay. I won't treat you that way. It's interesting when you start to put those boundaries up, the kid goes, Oh, okay. At first they're mad because, like, who wouldn't want to get away with everything you want? I mean, come on. But also, that provides your children with safety. Now they know what the rules are. They need rules, they need guardrails. And so you just gave them those guardrails and you said very clearly, this is okay, this is not okay. And the key is, of course, you got to follow through. If something isn't okay and you say, okay, if you do this thing, whatever it is, I'm gonna take your phone away. And they do the thing, you got to take the phone away and listen to them scream and rant and rave and do whatever. But it's like, whatever the consequence is, you've got to follow through. It's just it's basic parenting, but it it feels so much harder because you're the only one doing it. And but you know, it's interesting. I was talking to a divorced lawyer and a guy that was my senior by a lot of years, um, back in the day, and he said he went through a divorce and he he would get so upset because he and his wife would have a fight and the kids would always side with the wife. They would be like, Nope, see a dad, we're gonna go stay with mom. And he was devastated, right? Years go by, kids grow up, and at some point they were talking, and he just said to them, Why did, you know, why did you guys always side with her? And they looked at like totally deadpan and said, We knew you were right. We just didn't want you to fight. So it wasn't about right or wrong. It wasn't about we loved you more, we didn't. It was just like, if we go with her, we know it's over and the fight's done.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So returning to that dual question that we had, we can't talk to your ex in that way. You can't talk to me like that. You can't set boundaries like that with X, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

No, you still can. It doesn't sound the same though. You can't say, you don't talk to me that way, they'll go, oh yes, I do, and then off you go. Which just about setting boundaries differently, saying, if you start to scream at me, I'm gonna hang up the phone. And we can communicate on a co-parenting app. Then when they start screaming at you, you hang up the phone. It doesn't have to be, all right, I'm done. Slam. Although that's the old-fashioned phone. That shows you how old I am. Oh my God. But you can say, I'm gonna hang up on you because I don't want to be treated that way. And then you do, and the the consequence is just like, okay, now we communicate differently. And it's about understanding who you're dealing with. People can be high conflict for a variety of reasons. They might have a personality disorder, they might have a substance abuse issue, they might just have big anger issues, all of those things. What you're looking at is a human being in pain and they're acting out of their pain. And if you can start to see the human underneath the BS that's coming out of them, which is very, very hard. Not saying this is an easy thing, then you can start saying, okay, if I understand them, I can now start to deal with them better. And then it's about putting up those guardrails and boundaries around yourself. It's the communication style. Bill Eddy was beautiful at Biff. I don't know if you've ever met him in person, but I have. And he really has a heart for people in pain. And he looks at somebody with a personality disorder as you weren't born this way. This happened to you in your childhood, and he can see the humanity in them and deal with them from that perspective, not in a patronizing way. But yet he keeps his boundaries. It's like, so you keep your communication simple, clear, to the point. You're not going to fall in love with this person again. You're not going to let them into your life and let them take advantage of you, but you're going to deal with them in a very specific way. And that makes things as livable as possible.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

I feel like we could do an entire episode just on this one topic of navigating a high conflict X. What is some advice, additional advice that you might give for navigating challenging communication with a high conflict X?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

It's finding the communication style that works for you. For most people, if you've got a high conflict desk, yeah, you can try talking to them, but usually that doesn't work. And the other reason that talking doesn't work is there's no record of it, which is why I'm a big fan of the co-parenting apps. They give a memorialized record, which the high conflict person knows. So theoretically, at least, they're going to be a little less conflictual because they know that what whatever they write could potentially come back to bite them. But it's about making those guardrails and being very specific and having a parenting agreement that is very specific. For most not high conflict people, you could say, okay, you'll pick the kids up, Saul, on Friday after school, or if they're not in school at three o'clock and you'll have them until Monday. But if you're in a high conflict situation, it's going to be, no, you are going to pick them up at this school, at this time, in this way, and this place, and nobody else can do it, but you, and blah, blah, blah. Everything is laid out because if they violate a court order, you have a way of enforcing it. So the more specific it is, the more enforceable it is. And it sucks to have to keep taking them back to court over and over and over and over again. But sometimes that's the only way that you can enforce something. There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle, but making sure that you've got them all going the right direction is important.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Well, and you can see a parenting plan as a set of boundaries that you'll be able to enforce easily later on because they're written. When we're approaching our divorce as this managerial CEO, we're thinking about that business plan. We're thinking about the parenting plan. What are some important elements that we should be focusing on as the most important things to dial in?

SPEAKER_01 31:23

The most important thing when you're making a parenting plan in terms of time, use a calendar. If you see the days and you mark them off, you get a year's calendar because there's going to be exceptions. The problem with a high conflict person is there's no flexibility there. And life isn't rigid. Someday your kid is sick. One day there's a school holiday or school gets closed for a snow day that you hadn't planned on. And if you've got a regular spouse, you just call them up and you say, Hey, can you pick up the kids today? I've got to work and they've got a snow day. The spouse goes, Yeah, sure, no problem. You trade off. High conflict, people don't do that. Everything has to be laid out. If you have your holiday and your vacation and you structure it this way, all of a sudden you've gone three weeks without seeing your kids, and that's not what you had in mind, right? So that's that's one thing. And then think about what are the most important things to you? What are the hills you're gonna die on? For example, maybe decision making. And maybe it's decision making with respect to medical or school. You don't care about religion. You know your ex may be crazy, but they're not gonna join the Hare Krishna's. So you're okay with that, and you don't care about so much about extracurriculars, but this is important to you. Okay, then know that. And since you have to pick your battles, make sure that that's dialed in, that you have whatever it is that's most important in your circumstances. A lot of people, they have they're crazy about what's known as a morality clause. You can't have the kids overnight at your house if you've got somebody else that you're romantically involved with spending the night. And you're like, okay, fine, whatever, we'll do this. Well, guess what? Now you're romantically involved with this person for years. You have kids, she has kids, you want to go on vacation together and see if the kids can get along. You can't do it because the paper says something different. So talk to somebody who's seen these things play out and can know this is what you're not seeing right now that you want to think about. Do you even want that clause in there? Yes or no. What about how far away you live? A parenting plan might work great now when you're 15 minutes away from each other. But if you were an hour away from each other, that plan becomes unworkable. Your kids spend their childhood in a car. That's not okay. So you've got to think about the things that are going to matter and do your best to anticipate where things are gonna go and then give yourself a break because you're not gonna think of everything. The perfect parenting plan is like 70 pages. There is nobody in the world that's gonna sign that puppy. Nobody. It's great, it could cover everything. And guess what? There's still gonna be something in there that comes up that you didn't think about. So you do the best you can. You identify what matters the most to you and your family in your situation, and then you make sure that's dialed in. And the rest, you go, well, you know, that's life.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

I think you alluded to this earlier, but in a parenting plan, uh, especially those that are concerned about high click conflict dynamics, is there a way to ensure that you're reducing transition exchanges or shared decision making to reduce and dial down the conflict?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

It depends at what level of the conflict you are. If it's super, super, super high conflict. I've had plenty of parents that the transitions happen in the parking lot at the police station. May not be the greatest thing for the kids, but then again, at least you're not in the police station, so that's better. Or you do it at a neutral place or what have you. But it's about making sure that everything is specific. So for example, you're gonna do the transitions in the police station parking lot at five o'clock at night on a Friday. That's when the transition happens. Okay, great. What happens if they're late? What happens if you're late? The things that are gonna happen routinely, you want to make sure because you don't want to be sitting for an hour in the police station parking lot waiting for your spouse who is purposely messing with you. You can say, if they're more than 15 minutes late, then you can take the kids and go home and they lose their time. Or whatever rules you want to make, you can make, but you have to think of the like put yourself in the position and think, okay, what can go wrong? What could happen? That somebody stuck in traffic is kind of a normal thing. How long do you wait? And what happens? And what happens if a kid is sick? That happens all the time too. How do you communicate that? What do you do? It's about putting those guardrails in. That's a level of detail that you wouldn't have to do if your spouse is flexible. But if they're high conflict, you have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Are there any other high conflict proof clauses that you would consider non-negotiable?

SPEAKER_01 36:05

What's great if you can get it? Not a lot of people will agree to it, is where you say, okay, we will share decision making about schools. We'll just make this up. Okay, so mom and dad will share decision making about what schools the kid kids go to at every step of the way, like grade school, high school, middle school, all the things. Um, and if they but and if they can't agree, they'll talk about it. They can mediate it. If they can't agree at the end of the day, and a decision has to be made, dad gets the decision. Or mom, mom's decision rules unless and until they can go to court and get a judge to say no. The reason I picked, for example, school, or it's the same with medical or whatever, is that there the clock is ticking. You've got to enroll your children by a certain date, or they don't get in.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

I can see how that would potentially reduce a lot of conflict if there was one decision maker on each issue.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

That's perfectly fine. And in the uber high conflict situations where that's just not possible, or you've got two people that are triggering each other, and so the whole situation is high conflict. Think about a parenting coordinator. I mean, it's not the best option. And the a parenting coordinator is someone that can be with you longer than the litigation. Like you agree that this person is going to be the parenting coordinator. And in instances where a decision has to be made within a certain time frame and the parents can't agree, that parenting coordinator says, this is what you're going to do. So they become kind of like a mini judge and they say, This is what you're going to do. And then if one parent doesn't like the decision, they can then go to court and appeal to the judge and go through the whole system. But at least the child isn't living in limbo. They're enrolled in the school or they got the doctor's appointment or the medical procedure or the whatever. The medical actually gets really tough. Obviously, if it's urgent, somebody's got to make a decision. But just think about it. Your child fell down and broke their arm, and they're in the hospital, and there's the doctor, and you've got the two parents fighting over what's the appropriate medical treatment. What should they do? And the doctor's just like, you both are crazy, but they don't want to get sued. And the kid can't make a decision for themselves legally. So what do you do? It's things like that to make sure that somebody has the ability to make a decision when a decision has to be made. And then you can fight over it later.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Are there any situations where you would not advocate for doing a parenting coordinator?

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Most situations. If people aren't super high conflict, first of all, understand you're paying for that parenting coordinator. This is a third person who is not you or your spouse making decisions about your kids. Who wants that? I want that. For most people, you don't need a parenting coordinator. You don't want a parenting coordinator. But when you're that high conflict, absolutely you do.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

We're going to move to our lightning round now, Karen. Yeah, not not don't be worried. Um, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read off some sentences and you'll just fill in the blank and we'll discuss from there, okay?

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah, this is like a roar shed. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

One sec. Okay. The biggest lie co-parents are sold about family court is it's fair. Yeah, that's in keeping with what we've talked about so far. Can you tell me more about that? How is it unfair?

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Because fair, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What you think is fair is gonna be very different than what I think is fair, is different than what the judge thinks is fair. And so it's always going to feel unfair. And let's be let's be honest. There's nothing fair about your marriage falling apart. There's nothing fair about having to go through a divorce. Like, so if you just get that idea out of your head, you're gonna have a whole lot less angst. If you're not expecting it to be fair, then every time it happens to be what you think is fair, you're like, woo-hoo, bonus, versus poor me, poor me, or this sucks and I'm frustrated and what have you. It's just that that's the way it is.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Peace starts when parents stop trying to be right.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

You have a choice in life. What do you want to do? Be right or be happy? Sometimes as humans, you just want to win. You want to be right. Sometimes when you can let go of that and and just say, you know what? I don't care. Let's just be peaceful. When you're willing to step out of yourself and realize this is not some of these decisions are not life and death. They feel like they are. And when you can look back and go, I don't need to win this. I'd rather win the relationship. I'd rather win the peace for my children than the argument with my spouse.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

That's such a great answer. I feel like the process of moving from divorce to co-parenting is a huge process of letting go.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

It is. And it's hard. That's one of the hardest things I think to do is to let go because our tendency is to cling on, but the harder you hold, the more it's like the sand running through your fingers.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

The most misunderstood word in divorce is probably custody.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

People confuse custody and parenting time or visitation all the time. Custody is it's it's its own thing. Custody is either legal decision making or physical custody is who has the child in their hands right then. Residential custody, where does the kid live most of the time? But it has nothing to do with parenting time. And all of that just gets morphed into one big soup until you don't even know what you're talking about anymore.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

The family court system can't give you justice.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Most people go into court looking for emotional justice. There is no such thing. The court is designed to do one thing and one thing only. It is there to make a decision for two people who can't do it themselves. That's it. And the judges, the system is set up to follow laws and follow rules and all the things. And sometimes those laws and rules are going to work in your favor and sometimes they're going to work against you, but it's never going to be air quotes fair. It never happens.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Karen, it's been such a pleasure having you on today. For a listener who's listening right now and perhaps feeling a bit overwhelmed or deep in the trenches of their divorce or their co-parenting, what's one uh piece of advice that you could offer them?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Take one step at a time and baby steps count. Don't try to eat the whole elephant in one bite. Just little bit by little bit, one day at a time, you will get there. There will be a time when this is all in your rearview mirror and you're going, I can't believe I did that. You're not there now, but don't give up hope.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

I love that. For listeners that would like to connect with you and learn more about your work or your books, how can they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

KarenCovey.com. It's K-A-R-E-N-C-O-V-Y.com. There's no E in my version of Covey. And I'm Karen Covey everywhere on socials, but the best place to find me is on my website.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Great, Karen. Thanks so much for being on today. It's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

You're welcome. It's my pleasure as well.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Thanks for joining us on the Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict Podcast. To support our show, please subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on today's podcast appear in our show notes or on Coparenting Beyond Conflict.com. See you next time. 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.