Battling Brainwashing and Frivolous Motions: Divorcing a Cult with Peter Young
Overcoming Cult Manipulation and an Impossible Divorce
Peter Young joins hosts Seth Nelson and Pete Wright to share his harrowing experience getting sucked into a cult led by his wife's "Uncle Robert", trying to save his marriage and protect his kids, and the messy divorce that followed.
Peter's Story
Peter met his wife Paige when he was working as a sports broadcaster in Idaho. Paige had been born into a cult led by "Uncle Robert" and was completely under his control. Though skeptical at first, after 20 years of marriage Peter eventually got pulled into the cult mentality as well. When Paige ultimately chose loyalty to Uncle Robert over staying married, it led to a nasty divorce and parental alienation of their children.
Peter describes how Uncle Robert used manipulation, paranoia, and ideological indoctrination to gain total control over Paige and eventually himself. Even after Paige filed for divorce, Peter fought hard to save his marriage and protect his kids from her cult delusions. With the help of a guardian ad litem, Peter was granted custody of their minor children. But the divorce process was dragged out through endless frivolous motions from his ex-wife.
Key Takeaways
The role of a Guardian ad Litem in high-conflict custody cases
Strategies for dealing with a spouse who files endless frivolous motions
How to navigate a divorce when your spouse is representing themselves (pro se)
The long-term trauma of parental alienation
Tips for saving money during an expensive divorce process
Importance of being the "bigger person" and avoiding conflict
Questions Answered
How can you save money when a spouse files endless frivolous motions during divorce?
What advice does Peter have for others going through a difficult divorce?
How to handle co-parenting with an ex who is manipulative or abusive
About Peter
Peter Young is an author and former sports broadcaster. After getting sucked into his wife's cult and going through a messy divorce, he wrote a memoir about his experience called Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger. He continues sharing his story to help others.
Links & Notes
Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger by Peter Young
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How To Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships from True Story FM. Today, Uncle Toaster is whispering and your toaster is listening.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Today we're talking with Peter Young, a former sports broadcaster who found himself sucked into a cult for nearly 20 years. In his memoir, Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, Peter provides an unflinching look at how cult leaders brainwash followers with paranoia and hatred. As you'll hear, Peter eventually made it out leading to a complicated and contentious divorce from his former spouse and the cult. Today, he's a novelist living in Montana, and he joins us to discuss his harrowing experience and what he learned along the way. Peter, welcome to the Toaster.
Peter Young:
Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Great to be on.
Pete Wright:
Seth, you got to know we're going to hear a crazy story. Also, I feel like I've been following Peter around most of my life. He was a coach at CU right around when I was there, a little bit before when I was there. I went to undergrad in Jersey. He's from Jersey and now he's on this show. It's like it was meant to be, meant to be Seth.
Seth Nelson:
When we hear what we're going to talk about at this show, I'm now very concerned.
Pete Wright:
This is an amazing story and I have the benefit of having had a conversation with Peter about this a month or so back when we were trying to get started, and I have plowed through the book and the story involves your marriage and without the better way to put it, your marriage to your former spouse and the cult that you were a part of and your extrication from that cult. It is a fascinating story. We want to talk about the complications of the divorce process as we get in here, but I don't think we can get into the divorce process until we set it up with what actually happened to lead you to find yourself part of a cult?
Peter Young:
Should I give you the quick Reader's Digest version?
Pete Wright:
Let's Reader's Digest it, yeah.
Peter Young:
I'm in southeast Idaho, Pocatello, Idaho, doing the 6:00 and 10:00 sports for the local ABC affiliate. I meet this woman who is the love of my life, Paige, she's tall and blonde, athletic and Christian, and I think we're going to have the greatest marriage ever. But before I ever even met her, I was kind of warned by a friend of mine that said she and her family have this weird family guru. Well, the weird family guru turned out to be Uncle Robert who was not related. Uncle Robert over the years, we were married 20 years slowly but surely just took over our lives, our marriage, parenting, communication, intimacy, you name it. I was skeptical of the guy for many years.
Paige listened to everything he said, revered the man. Was brainwashed and probably has been almost her whole life. I finally got worn down, about 17 years into our marriage. I got brainwashed as well. I just gave up. I was so sick of fighting it and going along to get along with my wife and save my marriage. In the end, it really wasn't good enough. Paige could either continue staying married to me, a faithful husband. There was never any infidelity, physical abuse or sexual abuse of any kind. It was all emotional, mental, undue mind control, manipulation from this Uncle Robert guy. She chose basically to adhere closely to him, so she left me and then the parental alienation started. It was off the charts horrible, all in writing, and all of it backed up by Uncle Robert and his craziness.
Pete Wright:
She was already a part of this cult infrastructure, for lack of a better word, before you met her? That's my understanding.
Peter Young:
It all started with Uncle Robert's Robert Booty. He's from Syria, he's short, bald, olive complexion, bald, jet black hair. I used to have blonde hair, so my family and Paige's family look nothing like him, so we're not related. He, Uncle Robert, got to know Paige's parents at a tiny seminary before Paige was even born. So, Paige knows no other life. So yeah, she was always kind of sucked into the same, she was born into it.
Pete Wright:
You do a fantastic job in the book of diagramming the nature of your relationship by the letters that go back and forth between you. At one point you're talking early in your marriage about how divorce would feel to you, and she says, "No matter what the lawyers or the court said, she would simply refuse to sign a divorce decree because it went against the word of God." That feels foreboding now that we know how that story plays out.
Peter Young:
I don't know if that word or any word does it justice, what it's like to read that now because she was so firm about it and believed so wholeheartedly that it would never happen. I never worried about it. Even when it got really bad, and if you read my book, you'll be like, "Oh my gosh, Peter, that's really bad. Why don't you see it?" Even until the end, the bitter end, I thought, "It won't happen. We won't get divorced." But it happened.
Pete Wright:
Seth, do you do a lot of cult divorces?
Seth Nelson:
Well, funny that you mentioned that. No, I have not had a party on either side of the cases I've been involved in that I am knowingly aware that were in a cult. There are always what I call ghost people around, and what those people are, the parents and the grandparents and the friends that people talk to, and I know they're there, but you just can't see them. That's why I call them the ghost people, and they're always influencing the client. One of my big rules with clients are, "Don't talk to anyone about your divorce." They're like, "What? I can't talk to my friends." I said, "You can talk to your friends. You don't have to take my advice. My advice is that you go get mental health counseling. You can go once a week and you can talk to that person about your divorce. You can talk to them about with me, but every single person you talk to is a potential witness in your case, and why are you going to drag them into court?"
Pete Wright:
Well, and that leads us to, I think the weaponization of Paige between Peter and Uncle Robert, right? Peter, you talk about Robert's influence and weaponizing Paige against friends, against former dear friends, against the woman who delivered your child. And specifically days when Paige would talk with Uncle Robert for hours, "While Robert and I would almost always share with Paige what we discussed. She shared with me very little of her conversations with Robert, and under no circumstance was I ever allowed to ask what they talked about."
Peter Young:
I made the mistake of doing that a few times where I would ask very timidly, "Hey, how'd your conversation go with Uncle Robert?" She would get angry with me, and your listeners might be thinking, "Well, what was your wife doing talking with another man for hours at a time?" Which obviously is a great question, but the answer to that is that everything that would've been inappropriate for you, Peter, or you, Seth, with another married couple, was never inappropriate for Uncle Robert. He could do or say anything, and it was always okay and justified because he knew better. He was brilliant, and we just had to go along with it.
Pete Wright:
Talk about how you were not able to withhold that pull. Eventually you gave up, and there are passages in the book where you talk about having hard conversations with Paige and then you immediately called Uncle Robert. Can you reflect a little bit on your relationship with Robert specifically as the ghost person that isn't quite a ghost?
Peter Young:
No, he was anything but a ghost. Holy smokes. He was everything but there in the bedroom with us. Yeah, I guess the way to answer that question was I finally got brainwashed. Again, I would say Paige, her parents, my children for a time, were all fully brainwashed. They were under the control, the mind control of Robert Booty. Then I finally succumbed for a few years, from let's say about 2015 to a few months after she left. When she left me in January 2017, I was convinced it was my fault. I was the one in error, even though again, I've been completely faithful, never wanted the divorce, loved the woman. I was also convinced that the only person that could save my marriage and thus keep my family together was Uncle Robert. When in reality, he was the quintessential fox in the hen house. He was and always was the problem.
I look back now and it's very clear to me that hindsight's 20/20, right? Or it can be. What happened if I did this? What if then? What if that? I can look back and think, "As long as Uncle Robert had that position of authority in Paige's life, our marriage was doomed." So here I am, just think about the irony of this. I can't sleep. I'm miserable. I'm not suicidal, but I'm anxious ridden, fearful, can't work, and I'm just in a daze, can't eat, wandering around town talking to this guy on the phone hoping that he can come up with a solution. He being Uncle Robert, and no one in my family knew. I didn't tell anybody at work, no one in town, none of my family knew for months and I'm talking to this crazy guy and he's the one. He is the problem.
Pete Wright:
That's extraordinary. I feel like that leads us into the pivotal and incredibly surprising turn in your relationship with Paige that she filed for divorce from you.
Peter Young:
Mm-hmm, yep. I remember, so getting back to that midwife that birthed two of our children, she and Paige had a blow up because she was going to divorce her husband. This is 15 years ago. Paige was very judgmental, self-righteous, and got angry over her divorcing her husband. So their friendship was ruined. In researching my book, Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger. I tracked her down, called her, had a discussion, said, "Hey, what happened when you and Paige had the breakup?" She told me Paige sent her this nasty judgmental letter and then before we hung up, because I hadn't talked to her in years, she said, "By the way, why did you file for divorce?" I said, "I didn't. Paige did." She was stunned. She's like, "Oh." Here was Paige who was judging this other lady, 12, 15 years down the road, she divorced me. Again, I was still in denial. It was 10 months after she left and I was stunned that she filed for divorce, which if you read the letters and emails that she'd been sending me, would not have been a surprise to you.
Pete Wright:
It's extraordinary.
Seth Nelson:
Do you think that filing because of the control that this gentleman had over her and using the term gentleman very broadly, was him telling her, "You need to get Peter out of your life and out of our life." Do you think he was controlling that as well, because there's such a chasm between you two now that there was nothing left for him to do with you?
Peter Young:
It's a very good question, and I've thought about it because other people have asked it in a similar way, "Do you think Uncle Robert calls her to leave me?" I think the answer to both questions is on one level, no. He was much more subtle or much more conniving, let's say. He was clearly the one that put Paige in that position to want to leave me and want to divorce me. He probably never told her. He was the one that controlled her mind so that she would do this. But when it finally came time for Paige to say, "Okay, I'm going to leave Peter," Uncle Robert would've switched gears and pivoted and done whatever he had to, to give Paige the theological cover or ideological cover to get away with it. Because Paige was always first and foremost, Uncle Robert's most important convert, important follower. I was just like a hanger on, right? She was Snow White and I was a dwarf.
Seth Nelson:
That leads me to my actually original question. How did you get involved in the first place? Because he had such a control over her and he identified her as the top-notch prospect if you're talking about college football, high school kids coming up. But she's the one, he wants her to be totally controlled by him, but he had to approve of the marriage in the first place, didn't he? Why did you think he even let you be in the game?
Peter Young:
Great question. To me, what that does is goes back to the real tragedy of all of this and the title of the book. Paige is in Pocatello, Idaho. We haven't met yet. Uncle Robert's in southern California. She graduates with her second master's degree. She gets baptized, publicly professes her faith, she's living on her own, she's independent, she's got a job, and then she has this incredible dream that's impacting her life. In the dream, there's a tiger. She's in a house with it and the tiger's going to kill her if it finds her.
The door to the house opens and a tall man comes in. She can't see the face of the tall man, but the tall man's there to get rid of the tiger. She doesn't want to really kill the tiger, she just wants to know where it is and control it, but not kill it. Then she writes about it, sends the email to Uncle Robert like a month before we meet. Uncle Robert takes that letter, turns it on its head, convinces Paige that she's the tiger. She's not really a Christian, still needs to be saved. She's still wicked. He's like five, six, he claims he's the tall man.
Seth Nelson:
Just for the record, I am five, six on a good day. I have never once claimed to be tall.
Pete Wright:
Objective, yes.
Peter Young:
I remember reading this letter, so Uncle Robert Booty writes page back this crazy, I mean crazy, okay? 23 page letter. And it takes a lot for me to say crazy after what I've been through. It's a crazy letter. He claims to be tall. I remember reading it at first like, "Boy, that's really weird. Everything I hear about this guy, he's short." I truly believe, to answer your question, that Paige was coming out of this. She was living on her own. She's more independent. She even said later on that, "I'm in love and I have such a free feeling being in love with Peter." But Uncle Robert turned it on its head and then used that dream and his letter to exert control over her again, and then completely controlled her life from there on out. But there was a moment, Seth, where she meets me, we're dating, we're away from Uncle Robert. Life has changed for her. She's on a new trajectory and then it all gets squashed by Uncle Robert.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Seth Nelson:
I even shiver, even the fact how easily you say Uncle Robert and Pete, my amazing co-host says Uncle Robert, I don't even want to call him that. I think it elevates him in a way that that's why I called him a gentleman before. Was it required, like everyone just had to call him Uncle Robert or is that just how it became his name? Just that, in and of itself I find very bizarre.
Peter Young:
I'm sure other people it drove them nuts. I remember I would talk to people after the fact and one guy was like, "Who's this Uncle George?" "Oh no, it's Uncle Robert." For me, it was like Uncle was his first name and Robert was his last name for 20 years. It may have taken me a year to even find out what his last name was. I remember when I got out of it, when I'm kind of deprogramming myself, I'm no longer brainwashed, Paige's younger sister who had been vilified viciously and shunned by the family because she opposed him, said, "Why do you call him Uncle Robert?" "Well, I don't know, I just do." She said, "That gives him authority that he doesn't possess." So you're right. It's just so easy for me to fall back in that pattern and call him Uncle Robert when his name's Robert Booty. I try and call him Booty, but my kids called him Grandpa Bob.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Peter Young:
My former father-in-law called him dad.
Pete Wright:
Even when you introduce him, you introduce him in the book as a Middle Eastern Santa Claus without the white hair. That engenders a feeling of affinity with this person that is by the end of the book ill deserved.
Peter Young:
What I did in the book was I tried to tell the story through my eyes. Back then he was always Uncle Robert. First kind of creepy, kind of weird... I don't know. Then he was the end all, and then near the end of the book, he's now Booty again. He's just Booty and he is a wicked evil cult leader.
Seth Nelson:
How is your transition during the divorce divorcing this woman who you didn't even file? You were shocked that she did. Tell us about that because I'm just imagining our listeners out there saying to themselves as I'm hearing this, it's hard enough going through a divorce. How do you get through a divorce and divorce a cult at the same time?
Peter Young:
Part of the story is too, that Pete, that you'd read that she said, "I would never divorce." A year or two into our marriage, her father just out of the blue was like, "I'm going to leave my wife." He was matter of fact about it, and Paige got down to her knees and sobbed for 15 minutes to convince her dad not to divorce his wife and they stayed together because of Paige. That's why it was all the more shocking.
Then when she filed for divorce in around Thanksgiving of 2017, again, I was stunned, hurt, terrified, frightened, anxious, all the above. Then we responded through my attorneys who were probably kind of like you, inwardly rolling your eyes like, "Oh my gosh, run from this woman," but I did not want the divorce. So we filed that, "We don't think the marriage is irretrievably broken," and I didn't want her just taking the kids. When I did that, she called all the kids together and said, "Children," we have five kids. "I need to speak with Peter," not your dad. She vilified me in front of the kids and called me the devil because I didn't want a divorce.
Pete Wright:
Because you didn't want a divorce. Oh, my God.
Peter Young:
Yeah, I was the devil. Then other people, I had been seeing a counselor for a while. She wanted to call Child Protective Services 'cause I would show her the emails from Paige, they were that bad. She told me this after the fact, and then my attorneys were like, "You need a guardian ad litem." I'm like, "What in the world is that?" They told me, and I was scared because I thought Paige and Robert Booty would be upset with this. Well, who cares? Of course they were, they were livid. Then the guardian ad litem, again, to your point, Seth, it's hard enough going through a divorce, but then the one spouse is convincing your children and terrifying them by the way. They're terrified of her, that you are Satan, sorcerer, and the devil. You got that going on and the kids are believing her. Then the GIL wrote a jaw dropping report and the judge adopted it and the kids got sent back to me, our three youngest, and they were with me for five years.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, and that's just pulling the veil back because when a guardian ad litem is there, that person, as we've talked about before, Pete, is there to represent on what they believe is the best interest of the children. They go meet with the children, meet with the parents, talk to collaterals, see their home environment, look at their school records, and then they write a report and then they go to court. They are put on the stand to discuss their findings, and one lawyer is usually happy with the findings Because they're saying, "Hey, Peter's lawyer is loving this. Kids are coming back." Then that guardian ad litem will be cross examined by the other lawyer and has to kind of defend their report and their opinions and the way they collected their information and synthesized it and analyzed it and came to a conclusion. In Peter, your case, it worked out where the kids then came with you.
Peter Young:
Yeah, and if I can kind of touch on guardian ad litem, so I know that guardian ad litems and parental alienation are, I didn't realize this, but are quite controversial. The concept of parental alienation is quite controversial. People just don't think it exists. It's been made up. I can tell you categorically in my case that they got it right, the guardian ad litems, we had two, did a very good job. If parental alienation is not a thing, I'm not talking to you right now. I guarantee you it is a real thing and it is child abuse. We had the one guardian litem who wrote the 50-page report, who saw it all. I remember she drove up to Idaho to meet with Paige and Uncle Robert, I'll call him Uncle Robert at this point, was going to be there. I was scared that he would be able to manipulate and pull the wool over her eyes. My lawyer said, "It's the best thing in the world that he's going to be there." And he was right.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. I was thinking the same thing.
Peter Young:
He couldn't hide who he is.
Seth Nelson:
Right. When you said Uncle Robert was there, I was like, bring him on in.
Peter Young:
Best thing that ever happened, that poor guardian around litem was probably terrified when she left that house and wrote that review like a week later. And again, jaw dropping. She left after a year 'cause as you said, Seth, there's always one party that seems happy. One party's not happy with the report. So, we got a second guardian ad litem who was in her role for about three years, and she just basically, I don't want to get into too much, but begged the court to be relieved of her duties. Because Paige was just abusing this lady, maligning her character, and threatened to sue her and have her arrested for the job she was doing, which I thought she was doing a good job. So, the GL finally said, "I'm done. I'm not getting paid enough to put up with this abuse." Now, we're without a guardian ad litem and we really need another one.
Pete Wright:
Wow. Just to sort of circle back on a story you started before we pushed record, you're still dealing with this. Can you talk a little bit about the recent indoctrination?
Peter Young:
Yeah, I'll kind of talk in little vague terms. We have five children. The two oldest boys, it's a work in progress. I'm not the first dad to have young men in their twenties who are angry and I still love them and I pray for them and hopefully one day our relationship will improve. With the third child, I had the five children with me for five years. Their mother had supervised visits because unfortunately nothing has changed. She still denies the guardian around litem report.
Seth Nelson:
Just so you're aware Pete, the supervisor was not Uncle Robert. I'm pretty sure [inaudible 00:21:38].
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I should hope. Goodness grief.
Peter Young:
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, the supervisors, were not Uncle Robert. Those visits has now been proven again this summer, not like I needed any extra proof, but they continued through the summer. Then of course, once the children either turned 18 or graduate high school, they were off the parenting plan. That middle child who had expressed a desire to stay with me in Montana was basically coerced and manipulated and is now back in Idaho at an address that I don't know, I literally don't know where she is. So, I'm back in the courts trying to literally find my daughter.
Seth Nelson:
Just heartbreaking.
Pete Wright:
Seth, I don't even know. I don't even know what to do with that story.
Seth Nelson:
What I tell people all the time is, "Our justice system is not set up to solve every problem." This is a problem that might be unsolvable through the court system. There's mechanisms to become a guardian of an adult, right, if they can't take care of themselves. That can be used very broadly depending on the state law, check your local jurisdiction. There's been stuff recently in the news, Pete, that you've seen with Britney Spears, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
When there's all sorts of things you can do to have a third party be "in control of somebody else," but it's usually there to protect the person that can't protect themselves. That is what Peter is describing here is a relatively young adult who is over 18, who is being manipulated, and the court system's like, "Yeah, I agree. You now can go handle their finances, make sure that they're safe, but you got to find them."
Peter Young:
Without going into too much detail, there are extenuating circumstances with this daughter in terms of health injuries that really would lead any rational adult to say, "She may be 18, but she's not an adult. She needs care." Paige manipulated that situation and took advantage of it. We're trying to find her. I've got now attorneys in two states trying to deal with this issue.
Seth Nelson:
'Cause that's what they say Pete, is two attorneys is better than one, especially in different jurisdictions.
Pete Wright:
Check your local jurisdiction.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, exactly. Terrible.
Pete Wright:
Unreal. It's just unreal.
Seth Nelson:
Let's get back to, if we can, the divorce process. You're in it. You got the guardian ad litem, she filed. Do you end up going to a trial? Does it end up settling? You're in court, the judge says, "These kids are going with you."
Peter Young:
Well, the whole process from the time she filed to when we got divorced was almost three years. She filed for divorce around Thanksgiving in 2017. The Guardian ad litem report came out in May of 2018. The children got sent back to me right away. 'Cause again, it's not like a, "Hmm, this is a tough call." Every single adult professional who's looked at our case, it is 100%, "Wow, this is obvious." So the kids got sent back to us and then there were certain things that Paige needed to do that were required according to the judge adopting this parenting plan and the guardian around litem report. She dragged her feet, didn't want to do it. We finally did have a court hearing. That was about a year after she filed.
Boy, it did not go well for her. Her lawyers were not good, and they were giving her horrible advice, and it was obvious what she was doing was just horrible. Then we were ordered to go into mediation, but as a part of mediation, it was we're going to go into co-parenting counseling, which went nowhere. It was like me and Paige and this young counselor whose never been married or ever had kids, in this room the size of a phone booth. It's really awkward. And Paige is calling me abusive and narcissistic, and she's very angry and it just didn't solve anything. We went to mediation twice. We didn't have much money to split either. I was broke quite honestly, embarrassed to say it, but I was. Money wasn't the issue, it was all about the kids. It took two years and we finally... Just back and forth. She went through four attorneys. She now represents herself, pro se. The attorneys who had to help her out, it was an impossible task.
Seth Nelson:
Do you end up in a trial?
Peter Young:
No, we finally hammered it out. We had mediation sessions in person with a mediator. Now, in Montana we're in separate rooms, so she's in one room with her attorney. I'm in my room with my attorney and the mediator who was another Montana attorney would go back and forth between the rooms, we're there all day. We did that twice. We got through the financial aspect on one day. That was pretty easy. Then a couple months later, we tried to hammer out the parenting plan with the kids because that was always the issue.
Seth Nelson:
And basically you got the kids?
Peter Young:
Yep.
Pete Wright:
I'm really curious about the Uncle Robert influence on the court activities, the mediation activities. At what point do you see that ideological influence seeping into the actual divorce process, if at all?
Peter Young:
Well, it certainly seeped into every single thought, deed, and word coming from Paige, spoken or written. When we got the guardian ad litem or asked the court for the guardian guardian ad litem, Paige wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't want any lawyers involved first of all. She only wanted Uncle Robert there to be her mediator. We of course said, "No, thanks, we're not going to do that." Then during [inaudible 00:26:56] mediation sessions, she wanted Booty there to be in the room with her. The lawyers were like, "No thanks. We're not going to allow that." I will say this. He never showed up in court because the guardian around litem report said, "Listen, Paige, you either disassociate yourself with him or you and he got to get an evaluation here." I can't go into too many details, but, "You either leave him or there are consequences."
So, he kind of drifted to the background. I haven't seen or spoken to him in five years, but I will tell you this, her fourth attorney was a guy I'd never heard of, nor had my attorneys heard of. Middle of nowhere, Montana, small town, and I looked the guy up. We were all like, "How did she find this guy?" Again, it's her fourth attorney. Robert Booty, apparently, as he claimed, and other people I can verify this with, was one of the highest degrees in Masonry. We looked up this attorney, this older guy in small town, Montana. Sure enough, blessed brother so-and-so was one of the highest orders of Masonry. We were pretty sure that Booty tabbed this attorney and he was the guy that finally got the deal done.
Seth Nelson:
Let's touch on a couple of things you mentioned as really themes running through this that I think are common to a lot of our listeners. You're not the only one out there where one parent is trying to convince the kids they should live with them and not the other parent. That happens all the time in subtle ways, very overt ways, very obvious ways, all sorts of things.
Pete Wright:
Qualifying question, at what point can it be just considered straight up kidnapping? If you take your child off the grid so the other parent can't find them anymore, when is that breaking more laws, right?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, so that's a criminal question. When is kidnapping, kidnapping? Every state defines it differently. Then there's international kidnapping laws, there's national kidnapping laws. In essence, Pete, it's what you said. It's when you take them, no one knows where they are. You're changing your name. They're off the grid.
Pete Wright:
And they're under 18?
Seth Nelson:
Yes, and that's different than the parenting plan says, "It's dad's weekend and I'm keeping them." People are like, "I'm calling the cops that's kidnapping." No, it's not.
Peter Young:
You're just not letting the parenting plan, right? Yeah, there's violating the parenting plan and then there's Pete, what you talked about.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. Exactly. Peter has an extreme case of a parent trying to convince and others to live with them. Then it gets just much more complicated when the kids are in different states or the parents are in different states because the case can have concurrent jurisdiction, which means both states might have the power to hear the case, but ultimately that should get resolved early in a case and like, "Okay, Florida's going to hear this case." Which is all well and good, but then you get a Florida order, which you then have to go enforce in Montana or Ohio, and then you have to domesticate that order which means you make it an Ohio order. From there, you have to go make it happen. It just adds extra layers of complexity to it. Then what happens is, as Peter mentioned, she went through four lawyers and now she's pro se, which means she's representing herself.
Peter Young:
Which means every time she makes a filing, we have to respond and I have to pay my attorneys who are very good, for that response. Now, instead of her saying to me, "Peter, how can I help?" 'Cause I've been a single dad with three kids for five years, "How can I help?" Instead, it is motion after motion after motion, which then bleeds me dry financially.
Seth Nelson:
Right, and that's why the two common questions I get asked in a initial consultation is, how long will this take and how much will it cost? I say, "I don't know. The average is six to 18 months, and I don't know how many motions, how many times someone's going to write a letter to the judge." We call it a motion. It's more formal than a letter, but saying that they want the judge to make a ruling and to do something. They want him to sign an order that says, "I'm allowed to do X, or he's not allowed to do Y," or whatever the case may be. You can think of anything, Pete, and it can be a motion.
Pete Wright:
Well, and that's sort of the following question. Let me say it this way, how do your attorneys classify the caliber of the motions that she's filing?
Peter Young:
Oh, my gosh. Well, I could say this much. First of all, we've hardly ever instigated a motion. There's been a few. When the GAL report came out, we instigated the motion to adopt it, otherwise we're always answering her motions. Again, it's kind of a collective eye roll or shaking of your head because they haven't matured or changed in six years. They're all really the same thing. They all read the same way from Paige. I'm astonished at the things that she will request from the judge. She will badmouth the guardian ad litems. We had a standing master 'cause the judge was so busy, so that's like the assistant judge and she badmouths everybody. It's everybody's fault but hers. Okay, listen, I'm not perfect either, but it just seems like there's almost no responsibility taking on her part. And again, everybody sees it.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, off the top of my head, motion to disqualify the judge, motion to disqualify the master, motion to disqualify the guardian ad litem, motion to have Peter pay for the guardian ad litem, motion to have the kids seen by somebody else. Motion to make sure that Peter's having the kids call every day at eight o'clock, motion to make sure-
Pete Wright:
Yeah, on and on.
Seth Nelson:
... and these are just off the top of my head hearing what I think she might've filed and they're all going to say something else.
Pete Wright:
Well, we'll note on the livestream that Peter's head just keeps nodding. Right?
Seth Nelson:
Exactly.
Peter Young:
Yes, It does. Because the ones you just rattled the top of your head, we've had most of those.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
It's extraordinary.
Seth Nelson:
Like I always like to say, Pete, that's what I call Tuesday at my office, but it's different when it's a pro se person and they're held to the same standard, they're representing themselves, they're held to the same standard as a lawyer. That's one of those things that I work really hard on to balance my advocacy in court in trying to get to the substance when I'm dealing with someone pro se. Immediately, I will tell a judge, Well Judge, we have a pro se litigant here, and here's the things that I have done to try to get this case squarely in front of you in a way to give you the information where you can make the decisions you need to make under the law. We will go above and beyond sometimes working with the pro se litigant because I don't want to get to trial and have the judge say, "Well, they're pro se Mr. Nelson. You know they don't know that." I'm like, "Judge, I don't know what they know and don't know, except I know the law says they're held to the same standard that I am." "Well, you know..."
Pete Wright:
Sympathetic judge.
Seth Nelson:
[inaudible 00:34:10] know again.
Pete Wright:
Well, Peter, you said it. Do you think it's part of her strategy to file all these things and she gets to avoid all the costs on her end and yet bleed you on this. I am presuming a vindictiveness that may be unearned. Do you think that's part of her manipulation?
Peter Young:
Well, I think you are accurate with the vindictiveness. I don't think you've gone too far there. If you know your Bible, there's a story in the New Testament Christ tells, it's very brief about an old woman and she's not getting justice. What she does is... It's like three or four sentences. She complains to the judge over and over and over again. Then the judge basically says, "Good grief. I don't think this woman is correct, but she's driving me crazy, so I'm going to give her what she wants." Again, I'm paraphrasing, but it's in the Bible.
Pete Wright:
Effectively.
Peter Young:
I believe that's what she's doing. She's going to just keep wearing me down and hopefully one day just wear me out to the point where me, my lawyers, the judge. Everybody just says, "Fine, whatever you want." Now, it's not going to happen with me.
Seth Nelson:
One of the issues though that Peter has is it costs him money. How do you save money on that? A lot of advice that I give when I'm dealing with a pro se person that's filing these types of motions is simple. Unless I'm required to under the rules, I do nothing. The motion comes in, I read it, my team forwards it to Peter. We set up a 10-minute call. I talked to Peter. I said, "Did you review it?" "Yes." I said, "Did you read it once?" "Yes." I said, "We're going to talk about it. You're going to put it away and not look at it again." Then we talk about it. He puts away, we don't look at it again until such time as they set it for a hearing and we're in front of the judge.
Pete Wright:
You're not required to respond to all these things, what you're saying?
Seth Nelson:
Well, it depends jurisdiction by jurisdiction and even within the jurisdictions, Pete, there's some motions that you are required to respond to and others that you're not.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
If I am not required to respond, I'm not going to respond. I'll just bring it up to the court at the time.
Peter Young:
We will often, I don't know if there's been any that we have not responded. There's been maybe one or two, but we will almost always respond. But we'll do in such a way Seth and Pete, that she will make a filing to the court. In other words, after the first court hearing where she really got hammered, the judge kind of laid down the law, "No ma'am, you need to do X, Y, and Z." It was really... I felt bad for her. It was a bad day.
A few months later, she just felt like my story has been out there, so she sent to the court a filing that was 128 pages. I remember my lawyers were like, "Boy, this was annoying to read." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, what do you think the judge is going to think?" She will often do filings that are like 60 pages, 40 pages, whatever and we respond with two. Where we say, "Listen, we're not going to respond to all this. We take objection to it all. But I'll just point out two or three points here where it's really egregious," and we leave it at that.
Seth Nelson:
And Peter, I haven't looked at your case file at all. I haven't read a pleading, a motion, the docket, anything. That is great lawyering.
Peter Young:
Yeah, they're very good.
Seth Nelson:
When you have a lawyer who has 128 pages and says, "I can dispense with this in two pages." That is a strategy and a tactic that you can use in and of itself to be like, "Judge, I read it. I know you had to read it. I'm sorry. Here's just bullet points, so to speak, that we're just going to knock this out and you're done." The last thing the judge wants to do is read a 90-page response.
Peter Young:
Two points. Number one, it's obvious to all of us involved, but unfortunately it's not to Paige because she's still brainwashed. Again, she's a victim just like I was. I know you might read the book and it'd be hard to consider her victim, but she is a victim. She's been brainwashed just like I was. Then number two, I used to be a sports broadcaster and my mentor was a guy that worked on Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl and the World Series, and he always said, "Less is more, especially in sports broadcasting. You can't beat the sound of a crowd after a home run so be quiet." What do you say to 130 pages of craziness? Just tell the judge you've read it. Make a point or two and step back and be quiet.
Pete Wright:
All right. You've written this book, which is wonderful from just giving us the perspective of where your head was in extricating yourself from this relationship. As you've now had some years behind you since the significance of the main event. What have you learned and what do you offer for others maybe who aren't in a cult themselves, but-
Seth Nelson:
They're in a tough spot, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. You're in a tough spot splitting up with kids and navigating a complicated, potentially contentious relationship.
Seth Nelson:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
What's dad's wisdom?
Seth Nelson:
Oh my God, Pete, I'm just so thankful you didn't say, what was Uncle Robert's wisdom on that? I knew you were going to use the word wisdom, and I was like, who's he asking for? I was panicked for a moment.
Peter Young:
Don't have a phone call [inaudible 00:39:05].
Pete Wright:
Does Uncle Robert podcast? No.
Peter Young:
Did you call him? What did he say? First of all, divorce is horrible. I liken it to when you throw a rock in a lake that's crystal clear, and then it ripples and ripples and ripples and ripples a hundred feet. The person that leaves is like, "Hey, I'll start over. I hate this guy or hate her. I'll start over." Well, number one, the kids don't ever get to start over. You will always be their mom or dad, and he or she will always be their other parent. It never goes away.
It affects so many different people. So number one, geez, try and work it out. But in our case, I couldn't. It was out of my hands. And I do not recommend anybody go through what I did, but I really felt like I had no choice because of the odd and crazy circumstances. It was less about fighting for my marriage as it was to protect my children. That's why mine got so messy. It was really trying to protect my children. Would it have been better if Paige and I could have communicated and maybe had more sanity? Of course it would've. But again, I look back and think, "I don't know if there're anything different I could have done." I really don't.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, and when I think about divorce now, I'm just telling clients all the time, "You're going through a surgery and it's going to be painful, and there's going to be scars."
Peter Young:
Yeah, that's a good one.
Seth Nelson:
One of the goals is to have it not be as painful and not that big of a scar. How do we accomplish that? But it's going to hurt. There's no way around it. Pete, I know you always ask for the pitch, but tell us where people can find your book and everything you're doing in your writing because this is phenomenal.
Peter Young:
Yeah, thank you. It's on Amazon. Again, it's called Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger. It's an Amazon bestseller, came out in March of 2023. You can also go to my website, authorpeteryoung.com. I've written more than one book and I've got a lot of other stories on my website. I consider myself a storyteller, and unfortunately, I have a crazy story to tell, but I do think it also has value in that it's an important one to tell.
Pete Wright:
Link's in the show notes everybody. Just swipe up, they're right there. Send you straight to Peter's work. Peter, cannot thank you enough for your willingness to sit down with us to tell us this story. It's an amazing story and grateful you survived to tell it.
Peter Young:
Yeah. Seth and Pete, thank you. I've done a lot of podcasts, but never from this angle, and I guarantee you, if you had told me 20 years ago or five years ago, "You are going to be on a divorce podcast," I would've punched you or fainted or who knows what, but it's been fun, so thank you.
Seth Nelson:
If you would've told me five years ago we would've been hosting a podcast with amazing guests and all these downloads, I would've told you you're crazy. So we're in the same boat, my friend.
Peter Young:
Yep. Appreciate it, Pete.
Seth Nelson:
Grateful for all of it, Peter Young. Thanks for being here, and we will definitely be in touch.
Peter Young:
Thank you.
Pete Wright:
Seth, that was incredible, and it's very timely that we actually have a listener question that relates in some part to the story we just heard. Do you mind if I read it to you?
Seth Nelson:
Read away my friend.
Pete Wright:
Here we go. This is from Anonymous. "Hi. My attorney requested guardian ad litem to our case, and she got appointed. The day the GAL sent us the questionnaire, my ex reached out to me for an agreement and settlement via text, and I agreed to a schedule that will work for both of us. Can the GAL be put on hold until we reach a final settlement via a mediation? My attorney thinks I have to go through the GAL process as we requested it, and she needs a report for the court from the GAL. I want to save costs and the time if we could mediate and come to an agreement on our own. My attorney continues to say that we cannot lock this in as a part of the final parenting plan without all the other holiday and summer schedules in place. Kindly advise." What do you think, Seth?
Seth Nelson:
Okay, so there's kind of two questions here. One, let's set the facts as I understand them. There's a guardian ad litem already appointed. Two, you're like, "Wait a minute, we're working everything out. Why do we need a guardian?" Because a guardian's there to investigate, to get information and ultimately tell the court what they think is best. That's one part. The other part is, "But wait a minute, we don't have everything worked out because we need a holiday plan and summer schedule as well." So, I'm going to handle that part first, the holiday and summer schedule. Check your local jurisdiction on all of this. In Florida when you submit a parenting plan, which is going to have parental responsibility, how decisions are made, time-sharing, that's what you're talking about now. People think of that as custody and visitation, including the holiday schedule. The judges want to see that because they don't want you coming back and saying, "You're arguing over Christmas. It wasn't in your parenting plan."
You don't have to have a lot of holidays in there. It can be the "regular schedule", and people don't realize this, but more often than not, there's a whole bunch of holidays that they just ignore and they use the regular schedule. Here's the example. If you are of the Christian faith, I am thinking you ignore Hanukkah. I am thinking you ignore the high holy days in the Jewish religion. I'm thinking you do not care about Passover. People are like, "I don't ignore holidays." Yeah, you do, because don't celebrate those holidays. So you don't need every holiday under the sun. You don't need Flag Day, you don't need Columbus Day. You don't need even Labor Day and Memorial Day. It can be the regular schedule. I try to limit the number of holidays because it just messes with the schedule and there's enough conflict. Let's just keep it easy, right? It all comes out in the wash.
Pete Wright:
What if I only celebrate the patriotic High Holy Days, Flag Day and the 4th of July? Can you just say the red, white, and blue?
Seth Nelson:
You can Pete, and I think a court would award those to you and give your wife every other day of the year.
Pete Wright:
Everything else.
Seth Nelson:
Just not those two days.
Pete Wright:
Oh, I wanted the holidays that end in a march.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, now back to the guardian ad litem, which we talked a lot about with Peter and his situation, who did in Peter's view, a very good job for him and his children most importantly. Courts are there to solve disputes, and there's all sorts of mechanisms to get information in front of the court, in front of the judge to solve that dispute and make a decision. If parents agree, there should be nothing for the guardian to do, but I'm a lawyer, so there's always, "But there's a however."
In Florida, the court is required to make a finding that the parenting plan is in the best interest of the children. Two parents can agree. They can submit the plan and the judge can be like, "Nope, I'm not accepting that plan. Nope, I'm appointing guardian ad litem because I want to hear more information." And then say, "I'm coming up with a different plan," and they can say, "Here's the order, here's the plan." I know listeners are thinking, "Seriously? A judge can tell us what we're going to do, even if we agree?" The answer to that is yes. Here's the next question. How do we get around that? One level, you don't.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, judge is going to tell you what to do.
Seth Nelson:
There's the court order. As a lawyer and a member of the Florida bar, I'm going to have to tell you comply with the court order. Then they ask me, "What if we don't?" Nobody cares.
Pete Wright:
Oh, you made it easier.
Seth Nelson:
If you guys agree, nobody cares. As you know, Pete, my son is 19-years-old, going off to college, got divorced when he was two and a half. By the age three, it might've been like two and three quarters. His mother and I decided the plan wasn't working. We changed it. Nobody cared because we agreed. We didn't go back to court and get a new plan. We didn't redo the child support. It was the same number of days and incomes and all this stuff. We changed it. Then he's 16 years old, 14 years after we had the first plan that we changed and no one cared. We changed again because of COVID. We went week on, week off because we thought it was better for him not to go back and forth during COVID. Nobody cared. With this person, if they came to me and they said, "Well, this judge is just hell-bent on having a guardian ad litem, and we are in agreement. We have the full parenting plan. Everything is great, but we can't get it by the judge. What should we do?" Dismiss your case.
Pete Wright:
Oh, that's an interesting end run.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, dismiss your case.
Pete Wright:
And the judge also likely doesn't care?
Seth Nelson:
Well, judge can't do anything about it. If you both filed for divorce, dismissed your case, and now you're saying, "But wait, you're telling me we have to stay married to do the parenting plan we want?" The answer is no. You do a full parenting plan. You do a full marital settlement agreement, and then you refile as an uncontested case and see if the judge will sign off on it.
Pete Wright:
Fascinating.
Seth Nelson:
But check your local jurisdiction. Talk to your lawyer.
Pete Wright:
That trick might not work everywhere. All right, well, thank you Anonymous. I hope that helps and maybe clears the path to a smooth uncontested settlement. Look, this has been a fantastic show. I'm so, so grateful to Peter Young for being here and for sharing that story. Seth, I learned a ton. I hope even as a seasoned divorce attorney yourself, you might be able to say you learned something too.
Seth Nelson:
I learned a lot, and I'm not going to call anyone uncle, even if they are my uncle.
Pete Wright:
That's the story. That's what you walk away from with this. If nothing else, watch those family relations. Don't forget everybody, if you want to ask a question to this show, you can visit how to splitatoaster.com. That's howtosplitatoaster.com and click the button that says Submit Your Question. It'll come to Seth just like Anonymous did about the guardian ad litem, and we'll answer your question on the show. On behalf of the fantastic Peter Young and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright and we will catch you next week right here on How to Split A Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How To Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
