Sol (00:01)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol, founder of the BestInterest App for Coparents. At BestInterest and on this podcast, my goal is to help you find peace in the storm. Today I'm joined by Dr. Lee Baucom, a relationship coach, therapist, author, and the host of the Save the Marriage Podcast. While you might be scratching your head now wondering how this relates to us co-parents,

Lee's insights are deeply relevant after divorce too, because as we all know, when you share kids, the relationship doesn't end. It changes. I'm excited to share this conversation because Lee helps us understand the emotional system that can keep conflict alive long after the legal process is over, and how one parent can begin to change the dynamic by responding from their values instead of reacting from pain.

If you're trying to stop getting pulled into the same old dance with your co-parent, then this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Sol (01:00)
Hi Lee, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you here today with us.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (01:04)
Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Sol (01:06)
I'm really appreciative of having you on today. Your background is really interesting to me. I understand that part of what you do is talk to people that are in marriages, how to save them. Obviously our listeners, including myself, we've been through the marriage and we left. So, that's not necessarily the advice we're looking for. But I appreciate your perspective and your support of relationships.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how you got here and how you found yourself in this position?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (01:34)
Yeah, and I think we can round around to where we get to, why does that fit in? If the Save the Marriage guys here, what is that about? Because one of my core things is that many marriages have children involved and therefore there is a connection that's gonna remain and the healthier we make that connection, the better off we are. So that's the end result, but let's back up. When I was growing up, I watched, in my extended family, some

pretty ugly divorces. My parents are still married, happily married. My grandparents too, but I had an uncle who managed, I think, six failed relationships and the first one was destructive to his kids' relationship. In fact, I have two cousins. I don't know where they are. I have one that is still in the family, but the other two split away because it was so bad. The other side

also watched two cousins go through a pretty brutal divorce with their mother and their father and then some other relationships along the way. And it gave me a reality of what can happen in mishandled relationships. That raised the question for me of how do you handle them well? So in college, I decided to be a therapist, that kind of natural inclination. I was the guy that people came to when they had problems.

I thought, why not do that as a profession? And so I did training at both a couple of masters and a PhD around therapy, individual and then marriage and family therapy. So I have a pretty good understanding of the individual psychology approach and also the systems approach, which is I think more where we're here, of talking about the system that gets into trouble. I specialized in marriage and family therapy and

was honestly not impressed with what I was being taught on how to help relationships be healthy, whether it's restoring a relationship or leaving a relationship, how to do that well. I kept thinking they were treating the symptoms, not the problem. I was already practicing by the time I finished, but I switched over to coaching, doing relationship and marriage coaching. And after you complain about something for a while, you probably ought to say, is what I think.

And so I started writing about what does help marriages, what does help relationships, from a systems perspective. That became the Save the Marriage system. And it's been used by people around the world to do one of two things. One, to save their relationship or two, to finally realize they can't and to leave with no regrets. So for me, that is a success. In fact, that's

been my thing. Some time ago now I did a podcast episode every marriage be saved?" because people accused me of thinking I can save every marriage. I don't think that. In fact, I don't think they should be saved. What I really think is if you're leaving a relationship, you're doing it with intentionality and with clarity. People often use my program and get to that intentionality and clarity and realize that they still have to deal with the relational issues

after the relationship when there are kids involved. So that's kinda how I got here.

Sol (04:19)
Yeah, and that's a really good point. I think many of us that have gone through divorce, there's this aspect of realizing that, gosh, this is not working. None of this is flippant. I don't think anyone just decides overnight to end a marriage. But then we realize in a different type of relationship that now suddenly is higher stakes, still has a lot of the same dynamics that we'd had in the marriage. And now it's even more challenging. So

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (04:35)
Yeah.

Sol (04:44)
given that, and your understanding of these dynamics, what carries over after divorce?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (04:49)
Many people live in this idea that you'll divorce and not have to deal with this person. If you've got kids involved, many are surprised that, especially if they've been in a very disconnected relationship, suddenly they're having to communicate more and more frequently and with more intentionality with this other person. The connection continues. It may transform,

but there is still a connection through that child because hopefully you're out for the best wellbeing of that child. For a number of years, I was well-rooted in a community where they were trying to figure out how to help families who were moving through that. In fact, it was called Families in Transition, how to move through that transition of divorcing. The goal was,

what do we do with these people who keep coming back to court to fight it out again? Because they haven't resolved those issues that are still infected into the system, baked into the system in some ways. We were doing a pilot project of how do we, with the court's blessing, create a structure to help people learn and process, not as a couple, so not doing any therapy work, but psychoeducation.

We worked with each of the parents and the kids in separate environments to help them take in what's going on and take in the shift to, you are in a relationship and that relationship is based on the wellbeing of that child. How do we best get there? We worked together to help them just understand that shift in perspective. It's not you two and your battles. It's you two together on figuring out how to best get that child forward.

The blessing of the courts continued because we were able to reduce the returns to court by 80 % by sending people through the program. So we have a deep understanding that if the conflict isn't dealt with, understood, addressed, and moved beyond, it continues to infiltrate the system. Then you're doing the dynamic pieces of the relationship

just through the legal process. Then it takes on A, an expensive and B, a very divisive process to fight out those same dynamics that are often what got them there.

Sol (06:52)
To add to that, the family court system, from my experience, observation and talking with so many that have gone through it, isn't equipped to handle a lot of these complex emotionally-laden issues. They just kind of do what they can do. And then the conflict continues.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (07:08)
Yeah, they're not there relationally, they're there legally and they're there to figure out how to process that. I watched that many times. I would watch the court constantly saying, "y'all solve this and come back when you have this." The "y'all solve this" piece kept recurring and in and out they would come trying to resolve it because the court wasn't able to solve it for them.

Sol (07:28)
Something that you mentioned in there that caught my ear was, it sounds like this was a program for individuals that were going through this. So it's not a dynamic that was like they weren't going in as two divorced

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (07:42)
Both were mandated to be there, but on separate occasions. So we were making sure that we weren't dealing in live because we were doing a group process and all you need are two people who were still willing to fight it out in public to be there together. No, we kept it separate. We also had the kids in a group. We started out by looking at a core of

kids between 10 and 16. And we ramped it up to 17 because basically at 17, the kids were enough on their own out of the house that they were less affected. And at that point, the court was already saying, the kids get to choose. They'd solved some of the issues, but we dropped it down to six. So we went from six to 17 as the

the people who had to come through the program and had to complete it in order to move through the process.

Sol (08:26)
Wow. This brings up the question that I have about your work and what you've observed. I believe you talk about how we are responsible for how we show up in relationship. Can you tell us more about that perspective and how that plays into your work?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (08:41)
That's that word responsibility, the ability to respond, to choose our response. And what is often happening in the midst of conflict is we're reacting, not responding, because responding is from our values. I'm choosing how I want this to come out. Reacting is from our emotions. In these emotionally charged moments, that's often where people lead. And so I have heard people, they have

let's say, unkind outburst, whether it's loud or whatever, towards somebody. Then they'll say, "I'm sorry, I just can't help it." So I just throw out a little test. Let's say you end up in court with this, the judge is sitting out there, are you gonna talk like this to your spouse? And the answer is always, "of course not." And my question is, what keeps you from that? And they will name the judge and the setting and everything else to which I will respond,

then you are making a choice to react that way, even though it may be culturally sanctioned or whatever else, but it actually is a choice because if you can stop it in one place, you have the capacity of responding differently at other times too, of kind of self-imposing. Responsibility is choosing a response over a reaction.

We step back and you can see this is what's spinning the system. This is what is continuing the process. Imagine that two people are arguing with each other and suddenly one of them decides not to do that. It's hard to continue that same behavior on the other side. You change the system. That's my whole thing. The marriage is a system and that system does continue if there are kids involved.

It does continue for life and you're still gonna have to deal with the system or change the system. So when people have said to me, "one person can't do it, it takes two to tango," my response is you're already tangoing. You just may not like how the tango is going, which leaves you the opportunity of changing your steps. Will that change the other steps? Not guaranteed.

Is it possible that'll change the other? Yes, because it's very hard for the other side to continue their part of a system if one part has changed.

Sol (10:42)
Yeah, I know some people that are really good at dancing solo. They continue on. This is a really solid gold insight that we have this dynamic at play, whether or not we feel like the victim or we see that we're maybe reacting ourselves. It is all reaction.

When we can slow things down and take more responsibility for what we say and what we do, then it has to change the dynamic.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (11:11)
To use another example, you're walking down the street. Some stranger yells something at you, just some insult at you. You could react. You can go over and get yourself in a bad situation, or more likely you're going to go, they don't know me. I'm not going to even pay attention to that. Right? They don't know me. And that piece of deciding that's about them, like they're yelling from their place,

is the same thing we can apply to people around us. That's about them. Reacting to their own emotionality, their own, to use the technical term, dysregulation, means that I'm suddenly at the mercy of

their reactions and to be able to go, you know what, I'm not going to take that in. I'm going to leave that at the door, is a skill we have. We prove it when we walk by somebody saying something in the car or somebody driving by us and flipping us off or whatever. We have the capacities of putting that in the right category that we can now expand into. How am I going to respond to an angry spouse or a insulting spouse?

Because they're still reacting from that system we've built.

Sol (12:12)
Yeah, that's also a really wonderful example and point. As someone who's gone through being a people pleaser and learning how to not be, for me it is still the process of learning how to unhook from wanting to control what other people think of me. And you're right, it's so much easier to do that with a stranger, still not easy, but then learning how to do that with a family member,

or an ex, sometimes we get hooked in by wanting to look like a good person, wanting to do the right thing. These things aren't helpful. We just should show up in the best way we know how at every moment and not care about what the other person thinks.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (12:47)
When we do that, we defuel the system. We're not adding our fuel to that fire. When you take that away, it's like taking the oxygen out of a fire. It's going to extinguish or they're going to have a hard time fanning it. They're going to have to continue working at it. For you changing that people pleasing behavior changes the dynamic. And for a while,

it probably is unsettling to the people who have gotten used to that, whether it's family members or an ex or whatever, they're used to that behavior. Initially they might continue on as if you were still doing Then they start being confused and then they start trying to figure out what's going on. And that doesn't change you. They're changing how they're reacting to the system.

Sol (13:29)
In a way, sometimes that behavior can even explode up and be magnified in that moment because they sense you're changing. So they go wild. Right.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (13:37)
You're not playing the game. Yeah. You suddenly

have changed the rules to the game and they don't know how to play that game anymore. And what do we do when we don't know what to do? We often react unless we're choosing another path. One of the things that I often talk to people about in that place of responsibility is looking at what you actually have to control. There are only three things you can control. I'll go through them and then you'll realize how many things fall out of that, that we often get wrapped into.

These are what you can control: your aspirations, your attitude and your actions. Your aspiration, like where do I wanna get to in life? I can choose that. I wanna have this peaceful, calm life where my kids are thriving. You can choose that aspiration. That doesn't guarantee you get there, but you can choose the goal. You can also choose the attitude. I'm going to figure this out or I'm gonna walk away. And those are both legitimate answers at different times.

Many times people forget that we have control over that. I can choose to hang into a situation and figure it out. I can choose to say no. And I've talked with people that it fits outside of marriage. I was talking with a business owner who had propped up and propped up and propped up his business. And he said, I'm going to figure out how to make this profitable. I'm like, "you've got debt now. Maybe it's time

walk away." Maybe that is the appropriate thing to do now. And then sometimes we feel like giving up and the answer actually is to say, I'm going to figure this out and move forward. So our attitude we get to choose. And then our actions, what we say and don't say, what we do and don't do, that's in our controls. We just proved with the judge that we can choose how that's going to go. That's it. So what's outside of that?

Somebody else's aspirations, attitude or actions, all the other things that are spinning around us. We don't have control over that. As we're changing how we're interacting, we might influence that, but still you have those three things to control, which in the end gives you a lot of power that people underestimate.

Sol (15:34)
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 with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (15:56)
And now, back to the show.

Sol (15:58)
Now let's dive into something that is oftentimes a very painful aspect of being in a high conflict dynamic with an ex that is leaning on the legal system to make our lives challenging. Maybe they're putting forth a bunch of lies or manipulation to the court to paint us in a certain light. Or maybe they're even alienating us from our kids. These are

common things that can come up. In that situation, it's so easy to fall into victimhood, like, why is this happening to me? How can we regain some of that self agency?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (16:29)
There is a difference between actually being the victim of something and feeling like you're a victim. Some people, no matter what happens, they're going to take on that victim stance. But when you're talking about those situations, there is a real sense of being a victim. And to be able to say, you know what, that feels One of the things I watch in people in those situations is they start

flailing around trying to find someplace to control it. In the midst of that, often end up proving people right. They're handing over their control to somebody else. And in the midst of that, instead of saying, you know what, back to what I can control. And yes, there are bad situations that come out of this and there's injustice and unfairness.

That's part of how the system is built, unfortunately. And to be able to say those are the pieces I can't control. So where can I find control in my life? How can I find support that can at least feel supportive of me? How can I continue to take good care of myself so that I continue to have the resources? Because those pieces, you don't have control over a spouse doing those.

That's their choice. And so then you say, "I'm not going to get wrapped up into that." One of the things that I have seen for some people is when they choose that route, it runs out of gas at some point when they don't fuel it. I've seen the reverse where I'm just sitting there going, you're actually creating exactly what they want from you. Like your reaction is playing into their game plan.

And so one framing is to say, I'm not going to give them that. I am going to choose my path because I don't want to feed that. I don't want to give them that. And you can call that revenge if it feels like it, or you can just call it sticking to my values. But there is something that does put it back in your control to say, I'm just not going to feed that. I'm not going to give them what they want, which is a reaction.

Sol (18:23)
Yeah, I'm hearing through all of this that we have the power in these situations to to feel our feelings about being in the situation and then not support or get into the reaction to it, which is often what those that are maybe more high conflict are looking for. They're looking for a reaction. They want to have an impact on us, negative or positive. So if we just learn how

to just accept that this is going on right now, it won't go on forever, and learn how to not take the bait, then we can not fuel the system and let it just run its course.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (18:55)
There is a painful reality that life isn't fair. And that's part of what gets people really wrapped into this because they want it to be fair. Sometimes our struggle is there's got to be a way to make this fair. The fact is life isn't fair. Given that we choose how we're going to still act, not waiting for it to be fair, but realizing that's not baked into the system.

There is some unfairness in the world, period. I mean, it doesn't take far to look. We look around very quickly and go, okay, this isn't fair. People getting sick, children being sick, the way somebody is treated. All of these pieces are just proof that the world's not fair. And then we ask the question, so how do I want to be in that? How do I want to go back to my value base? Because that is what I can control.

Sol (19:41)
Yeah, I'm really appreciating that insight and also the awareness that when you do things according to your value system, then you have that in the future to look back on and say, I'm just really glad, even though that was a really painful time, I'm glad that I stuck by my moral code and I did the things that I define now as good. Rather than looking back and saying, shoot, wish I hadn't done that. Yeah.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (20:05)
Yeah, we all

have those piles of regrets. so my thing is, can we reduce that? Can we get ahead of that a little bit and recognize that there are ways to minimize the regret, not eliminate, but minimize the regret? And one of the places that we often live in regret is when we look back and go, I reacted outside of who I want to be. I get some option of that, that responsibility.

I get to choose my response and I didn't choose the way I want to. So then the question is, can I, instead of just getting stuck in regret, ask, what do I learn from that? How do I then move forward differently? Because the circumstances are likely to repeat themselves. One thing about the systems that are stuck, they generally give you another opportunity to deal with it again, because the other person is likely to continue to operate the way they've been operating.

It's very unlikely that both people resolve their system issues at the same time. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

Sol (21:03)
Could you dive into that a little bit more to help us understand? We earlier talked about the shift from being a married couple to going through divorce to then now being co-parents. There is an aspect that remains and that is the relationship that you have with your ex. Can you tell us more about that system and what remains?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (21:22)
Yeah, there are deeper levels to this. So we'll just talk about some. We get into a pattern with a spouse. I'm going to draw a quick distinction, there are people who are in abusive situations and need to get out for safety. So now, you know that they've got an abusive person they're going to have to deal with after the fact. And that's a circumstance.

Then there are those who find that they have found someone maybe not abusive in a direct way, but they're a toxic person. And so they've decided they can't be around that person. So I'm gonna set those aside as those are situations, they're probably minority, and at least in my experience, they're the minority situations. And we'll go with more of the run of the mill marriages that got into trouble. And it's often because they disconnected along the way.

We humans are such deeply connecting creatures that when we are disconnected, that begins to create disdain along the way. You have resentments and disdain that come from that. And then suddenly you're dealing with the negative of both people colliding. That creates a negative relating. When we're in pain,

we are most aware of our own pain, not how we might be contributing to the pain of the relationship. We respond to 'why am I not getting what I need?', not how am I not involved in this relationship. That builds up over time. It's just the nature of that. When you get to the point of dissolving a marriage, that is the ultimate, I'm not going to be connected to you except for you can't disconnect.

The connection goes so deep there. The only exceptions I've seen of this are couples who married, realized that they didn't want to stay married, had no kids, didn't have a lot of overlap. They were able to do whatever they needed to just separate and go in their own directions and have really nothing to do with each other anymore. That's a pretty rare group though.

Most people have intermingled their lives and their friends and their community and the kids are there and the families are there and those dynamics therefore are more deeply rooted there. You can't just walk away from it. And by the way, the people who just walk away from it often find themselves in a new relationship that also has the same built-in dynamics because it never got resolved.

When we go back to the families that you're talking about where there is a child involved and the parents are still having to relate, that hurt of disconnection continues. What do we do when we are hurt? It comes out as anger and resentment. That's the external piece. Hurt is the internal emotion. So when we see somebody who's angry, that is a good sign that internally there's hurt fear or threat.

Those are the three fuels of it. But we don't lead with that. Just in our makeup as humans, our ancestors were much safer being angry outwardly than being hurt and vulnerable because that keeps you safe until you're in an intimate relationship. Then those end up fueling the fire. One of the things that I have watched in my office many times is when I can finally get the person to

turn down the anger response and turn up the hurt response. I am hurt here. When that happens, what do we do when somebody says, "I'm hurt, I feel fearful here, I feel vulnerable"? We tend to want to help with that. What do we do when we see someone who's angry? We tend to meet that with resistance and anger. And so that's just an opening piece of that dynamic that never quite gets solved between couples many times because of the hurt of disconnection.

Continuing disconnection continues out. You mentioned one yourself of saying you found the roles. For you being a people pleaser ends up being a role that plays into how you interact in the marriage. And over time that creates resentment for a people pleaser because you're never able to actually please the people. So you're left with that gap and it creates the other person going, 'well, what are you going to do now to please me?' Now we have this dynamic going

where the roles are in the way of actually having an authentic relationship. You're trying to get something. We're all doing that to some level. We're all trying to find that place where we matter to somebody else. That's what drives the people pleasing. I want to matter to you. Ironically, often get you the reverse of that. You matter less. Those pieces are still in play.

Sol (25:29)
You mentioned how resentment can create reactivity. Knowing sometimes what makes our ex tick sometimes takes the sting out of witnessing their reactions. I just want to underline that point that

you went through a marriage and regardless of who ended it, it ended and so you both probably felt some sting of rejection and if your ex hadn't really processed that, they might be reacting to you now with that piece still embedded and they're not necessarily even conscious of that. So, yeah.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (26:05)
Yes, often not

conscious of that. ⁓ We're playing the, "I'm not to blame here." That's the, fuel that often gets in the way of people instead of being able to step back and go, well, maybe I am. So just admission. I'm a Jimmy Buffett fan and Margaritaville has the part where it goes from, it's nobody's fault to, it could be my fault to, yeah, it was my fault. There's this progression that happens as time goes on.

The missing piece there is, it was their fault. That's often the starting point we have is, this is on them and then eventually we go, okay well, there are parts that we played in the dance, too. I don't think it ever needs to get to 'it was all my fault'. That's not what I see typically. In fact when it is all one person's fault, I'm not talking to that person. That person is

somewhere else doing more damage, 'You both had a role in this' is an important place to be. That disconnection I talked about, I call it the pause button marriage. And it happens innocently enough for most couples where they have built a relationship and they've decided they want to be together forever. They get into their marriage and they go, okay, we've got the relationship now and now we need to turn the energy we were putting into that

to these other things of parenting, of career, of whatever it is out there. So we've got the pause button on us, but we'll get back to us. We've already got that nailed down. What they don't see is that all that's carrying them at that point is the momentum of the connection. The connection is now beginning to drop and the momentum is going to run out. And what it runs right into is resentment.

And so now we have a, are you disconnecting from me? When I've had conversations with enough people to know that when I'm talking about that, they usually have started with, "I don't know why my spouse doesn't want to be connected with me" to finally going, "wow, we're both disconnecting from each other." Then they're able to ask the question, "so what now?" Here's the ultimate question for people is, what now?

Given where we are, what now? And the people who stay in trouble are the ones who go, but what happened? They're always referencing back there. The opportunity in a healthy divorce is to go, okay, what happened has happened. We now need to move forward. And how are we going to move forward for the wellbeing of our child?

As our child being the pawn of our games and our struggles, but for the wellbeing of our child. That changes a lot when people can get there. It's often in my observation where one person gets there first though, and it may take a while for the other to arrive at that place.

Sol (28:36)
Do you ever advocate for if you're that person who realizes there's something here that I could own but we're divorced now and there's this co-parenting dynamic maybe where we're not having these sorts of emotional conversations. Maybe we did go through a family court ever advocate doing something about that, sharing that insight with your

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (28:56)
One of the things that I've done with coaching clients is I think this is probably the first time I've said it publicly, but I call it olive branching. of the reason I've been thinking about it so much lately about talking about it more is because we've seen that on the public stage now. What does that olive branching look like? Because olive branching is not saying mea culpa, my fault. I'm the bad person here. I'm the one who messed up. It is saying,

we need to change our orientation from where we've been to moving forward. And so it may be for somebody to say, I'm realizing my contribution so we can kind of begin to shut that door, but not to have to wait for the other person to do that. A lot of my work was on the forgiveness process. And one of the things that I'm very clear about is that if you're waiting for somebody to apologize, you have handed over your

power to them. You have the power to forgive so that you're not carrying that around. That is a piece of this. But olive branching is an orientation to yourself of saying, I'm going to move forward. I would love for us to move forward in a peaceful way. And recognizing that whether they do or not, I can continue my stance. I can offer that. And I might need to say, I'm realizing that I was a part of this and maybe I have

not admitted that in the past. So yeah, that could be a part of it. There are times when people recognize that if they were to give that inch, the other person would take a mile. And so they do need to think through that and look at the patterns of what's happened in the past. If they said, yeah, I could see where I did some of that disconnection. Are they going to have the person go, so you admit that you fully are the one who's responsible for this,

But that doesn't mean you still can't change your orientation to say, let's focus on where we're headed, not where we've been. And an olive branch is that. To do olive branching is to invite somebody to shift, recognizing that whether they do or not, you're shifting.

Sol (30:48)
Yeah, that makes sense. And related to that, in these dynamics, oftentimes we're struggling to trust one another again. Trust has been lost. How can we help restore trust in a dynamic?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (31:00)
Yeah, so a great question. I talked about forgiveness and apology. So let me just say there's a forgiveness, apology, trust and reconciliation. And one of the things that I make very clear is those are four distinct separate pieces. Any of them can operate without the others, but we like to think it's going to be, I apologize, you forgive me. We rebuild trust and we reconcile. That is

not necessary for those four pieces. I know people who reconcile, even though there's been no apology, certainly no forgiveness and they still don't have trust. So they can still reconcile. I know people who trust when they probably should go not a wise move anymore because I see no responsibility. People who apologize don't get forgiveness. People who don't get an apology and still choose to forgive. Trust though is an interesting one because there's so many levels to it.

I've had people who've come to my office and this is particularly true, let's say around infidelity. That's a big one. That's a big rupture in the trust. And they'll say, I can never trust my spouse again. And I'll ask the question about what? And I usually get a blank stare back. For instance, I'll say, do you trust them to still take good care of your kids?

Yes, they cheated on you, but are they still good parents? Yeah, yeah, they're really good parents. And you trust them to manage the resources and not steal from you? Yeah, they would never do that. Okay, so there are pieces of trust in here. So let's start with those silos of trust and ask the question, how do we expand the places where we need to rebuild trust? If somebody has been unfaithful,

and you end the marriage, you don't have to trust them about fidelity anymore. You've already said that, but then they ask the question, where do I trust them in these other areas? There are lots of other areas that somebody can say, yeah, I still trust them. If you have somebody where you say, absolutely do not trust them with any pieces, including caring for the kids, you actually should be looking to how you can grab custody in that situation and prove that point. And if you can't prove the point to say,

maybe I'm pushing my trust issue too far, right? That maybe there is a place for that. There's a reality testing to this. Trust is one of those where there are just so many dimensions as opposed to say apology or forgiveness or reconciliation.

Sol (33:11)
That's a really good point. Shifting gears for a moment, because earlier you had mentioned that kids were a big part of the process that you took these co-parenting couples through, the divorced couples. I'm curious about the children's experience. And in particular, the common belief seems to be that you should, in a way, pretend for the kids

so that they're not involved in the dynamic, but that, you should show up to games together and even if maybe there's some conflict or whatnot, what is your take on the best way to be around the kids after you're divorced?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (33:48)
There are so many levels to this. So let's cut into a few of these. It depends on what somebody thinks they have to pretend. There are times when people will tell me, I guess I'll have to pretend to get along with them. I'm like, no, getting along is actually a choice. That's not pretending. That's choosing to get along in the presence of other people. That's a choice. Pretending that everything's okay, the kids know that's not the case.

One of the myths is that divorced people can manage friendship after the fact. And I always draw the distinction between being friends and being friendly. That's a very different thing. One is a behavior. I'm not going to be attacking and angry and everything else, but it doesn't mean we're friends. There is a different relationship that you have to evolve

after that. When people say, well, what do we have to do together? And my response is what's best for the kids? That is your ultimate goal. What is best for the kids? Back to the groups that we were running, there were a couple of things that we made very clear to the kids. The divorce is not their fault, nor their responsibility. The parents' well-being is not their fault, nor their responsibility. And those were

two central pieces backed with one other piece, your parents still love you. And this had nothing to do with that. This was a multi-week class that the kids would come to and the parents would come to. And that was the three things we were constantly trying to drive home with them to help them understand. Because when we started, they felt like it was their fault.

They felt like they were causing their parents to be unhappy and they didn't know if they were loved anymore. Now, the other one that we could hint at but couldn't promise was that they would be okay because there are legitimate changes in lifestyle that's gonna come in. We were dealing with people across the socioeconomic realm and there were some people who were going to struggle

post divorce and I couldn't say nothing's going to change for you because absolutely things were going to change. But that your parents want the best for you. Absolutely. I could continue to say that. So that was a minor fourth piece, but we were basically trying to get them to let go of responsibility because what do you do if you feel responsible for their divorce? You keep trying to get them back together. And here's one of the things we said to the parents. If you were conflicted

before your divorce and you continue that conflict after the divorce, your kids are going, nothing's changed. And so they continue to think if nothing has changed, we might be able to get back together. The reason we chose that age group, 6 to 17, 

was because we knew that no matter what was going on at home, their whole understanding of family was that. The parents might have another reference point from their childhood or other people, but for that kid, that was family. The fact is that their idea of family even if it was an unhealthy situation, still ending what they knew as family.

So for them to be able to see there is a change after divorce was helpful for them to reintegrate what family meant. When they were younger than six, a lot of what they would remember would fail them. They would start forgetting whatever was going on and they would reestablish a new sense of what family was anyway. Older than 16, 17, they were already looking outward anyway, so they were less affected by

For kids who were in that range, if they didn't see any change in the behavior between the parents, nothing had changed as far as they could tell. One of the things that we were saying to the parents is if you want your kids to fully take this in and process this and realize that this is for real, change how you're interacting.

Cut down on the conflict. The conflict, if it continues, is what drives them to think nothing's changed here.

Sol (37:26)
And then in terms of those families that you witnessed navigate and manage to stabilize the family system, what were they doing differently?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (37:35)
there There a couple of things that I watch repeatedly and that is the rising amount of conflict that would come all the way until when it was finalized and then the drop in conflict. If I didn't see a drop in that, then I realized that we still had dynamics that were connecting them. People had legally divorced, but not emotionally divorced. Part of the process was to help them

realize what that emotional divorce was gonna look like. So we would spend some time working through that and people who navigated it well, realized they had an emotional divorce. And yes, they had interactions they were gonna continue, but then they began to think about what rules and processes would we create for that? How do we need to manage that interaction?

Whether it was, let's create a family calendar so we can all know where people are without getting into a fight. Being very clear about the guidelines for who had the children when, and that kind of question. Having clear guidelines and roles and rules in place were the ones that really helped. Whenever there's ambiguity or ambivalence, the old dynamics kick in,

just because there's nothing to rely on. Whenever somebody doesn't know what to rely on, they're gonna get anxious about it. When we get anxious, out comes those old dynamics.

Sol (38:49)
This term you use, emotional divorce, is first I've ever heard it. Can you tell me more about what that looks like?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (38:55)
Yeah, I would watch people who would go through the divorce process, legal divorce, and continue to relate to each other the same way they had been before because they had not emotionally divorced from each other. They had not decided that that end of their relationship actually included ending the dynamics between them, the system between them, the emotional system between them.

There's not an absolute there, just like you have a friend and if you're around them, you continue to have some connection with them. So having an ex, there's still a relationship. You can't completely take that out. but when you can mostly take that out, like, whatever you do, that's not my responsibility, that's not my fault, whatever I do, not yours.

Then we get out of the roles that are continuing to fuel that emotional interchange between them. So you are doing the emotional divorce, which is for many people harder than legal divorce. You just got to go through the steps of that and it's laid out. Emotional divorce though, is often untying years and years of interactions with each other

that have years and years of patterns built up on top of each other that are what got you to going, "we can't continue to do this." And then you continue to do this. So the emotional divorce is going, "we're not gonna keep doing that."

Sol (40:12)
You have me imagining this parallel family court system that's the emotional divorce. You have to be declared emotionally divorced in order to actually step into the next stage. I wonder what that would look like.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (40:22)
As if the court system would wait for that. Unfortunately,

that would keep a lot of divorces on hold almost indefinitely. But in some ways, I would say that the legal divorce creates the place where you can begin to unwind the emotional divorce and to get to that point. There are some people and they are the ones who actually manage it better, who consciously

go through the process of going, "I'm pulling myself out of this. I'm not gonna react to this person anymore." And they are doing that already, which is where they go. So there's nothing here between us. We're capable now of moving on.

Sol (40:57)
Yeah, it starts with awareness. Lee, thanks so much for being on with us today. And I'd like to end the episode speaking to those listeners that might be just in a really tough moment in their divorce or post-divorce situation and maybe struggling. What's a piece of advice that you might give them to make today a little bit better?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (41:20)
That's a great question because I hear from lots of people who are like, I think I need to divorce. "I think I need" to is very different than "I've decided to." That's a conscious decision. So to change it from, I have the feeling that we're in trouble to no, I've made a decision. If you're in the feeling part, part of that is asking the question, what is possible for us, period.

And that is the route that often allows people to say, okay, now I feel good about my next step. I have no regrets. I took action. That's different than somebody who is like decided done. I'm in a conversation now with somebody who is at that point, it was like, I feel like this and I'm like, okay, feeling like this and doing this are two different levels.

And if you feel like it, that can be because of the dynamics that are still stuck here. You can change those dynamics. And when you're changing them, you're seeing whether there is actually any life there at all. And if not, you at least have clarity. So this is a question of clarity in my mind for people over anything else.

Sol (42:25)
Thank you so much for joining us today. For those listeners that would like to reach out to you, find out more about your work, how can they reach you?

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (42:32)
SaveTheMarriage.com is my website and I want to be clear. Save The Marriage is a path for people who want to see what's possible. I don't guarantee anybody can save their marriage but I guarantee you that there are tools that you can try, and get to the point of clarity through that. SaveTheMarriage.com where I have my

my website and my podcast and link to my books. There is a book that might be helpful. It's The Forgive Process. The Forgive Process actually helps people walk through a clear path to get to forgiving whatever they need to. And that certainly is a good point to be as you move forward.

Sol (43:09)
We'll put those links in the show notes and no apologies either, Lee. I think that we're all coming from this perspective of having gone through a divorce, but gosh, we're still living our lives. We're still dating. We're thinking maybe about getting married again. Maybe we're in the process of that decision. We don't want to repeat the past. And so this idea of showing up better in our relationships, creating better relationships,

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (43:29)
Absolutely.

Sol (43:34)
that's universally applicable. So thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you for the insights that you've shared today. Thanks for being on.

Lee Baucom, Ph.D. (43:38)
No, thank you. thanks for having me.

Sol (43:42)
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 (44:00)
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.