Untangling Emotions: Prioritizing Children's Well-Being After Divorce with Wendi L. Dumbroff
Navigating Post-Divorce Relationships with Wendi Dumbroff
In this episode of How to Split a Toaster, Seth and Pete welcome Wendi L. Dumbroff, a licensed professional counselor and highly trained couple and sex therapist. The conversation centers on the challenges of maintaining civility and communication with an ex-spouse, particularly when children are involved.
Seth and Pete explore the intricacies of post-divorce relationships, seeking guidance from Wendi on how to manage the emotional terrain while prioritizing the well-being of the children. They discuss the significance of redirecting negative energy, establishing clear communication goals, and discovering ways to be heard and validated during the difficult divorce process.
Questions we answer in this episode:
How can I communicate effectively with my ex when emotions are running high?
What can I do to maintain a cordial relationship with my ex for the sake of our children?
How do I handle the feelings of resentment and anger towards my ex-spouse?
Key Takeaways:
Prioritize your children's well-being and use that as motivation for maintaining civility
Set clear goals for your communication and ensure your messages align with those objectives
Acknowledge your feelings while finding ways to avoid reactive behavior that could escalate the situation
Throughout the episode, Wendi offers valuable advice on reframing perspectives, understanding triggers, and doing the necessary personal work to navigate the challenges of post-divorce relationships. Seth and Pete provide relatable examples and insights, making this an engaging and informative listen for anyone grappling with divorce-related communication issues.
Plus, we tackle not one but two listener questions!
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright: Hello everybody, and welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, how are we going to help your toaster get busy again? Seth Nelson: Welcome to the show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Today, what does it take to get along with your ex when you need to, even when you don't want to? Our guest today is Wendi Dumbroff, a licensed professional counselor and a highly trained couple and sex therapist. She joins us today to talk about finding the thread of communication when communication is lost. Wendi, welcome to the Toaster. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Thank you, Seth. It's a pleasure to be here. Pete Wright: I am really glad you're here because I think we have a couple of issues to talk about that you're going to help us through that I think are challenging. And the first one I found myself thinking, "Okay, Wendi's going to explain my entire vibe when it comes to past relationships." I know there are people... and maybe it's the thing right now to just get along with your exes, but I never have. My exes, my relationships, when they're done, they're done and I don't really have strong ties to past years-long relationships, although I've only been married once and I am not divorced so I don't have that relationship to talk about. But I want to know from your perspective, what is it about getting along with your exes that draws people? Set the table for us before we talk about the post-divorce relationship. Wendi L. Dumbroff: That's an interesting question, Pete. When it's an ex that you're not bound to by children, there's nothing... you can separate and you are done with each other. You don't have to get along, you don't have to see each other. You really don't have to. Maybe some people do and they like to say, "Yeah, I'm in touch with all my old boyfriends or all my old girlfriends," but that actually is a bit of a risky venture also because I've heard more people reconnect with old flames when their things in their marriage are not really as nice as they would like them to be or as communicative as they want them to be. So when it's an ex-partner, you don't have to be in touch. If there is a friendship there and you'd like to have that friendship, there's nothing wrong with that unless your current partner objects to that. When it's an ex-partner where you share children, that's when it gets a little more important because you will forever be connected through those children and especially if they're young and there's decisions to be made. And so in that case, you don't have to be friends. Sometimes people can be. Sometimes people can be amicable, but to have something that is conflictual and angry is really not in the best interest of the children. So as best you can, it is useful to be cordial with each other, respectful of each other, respectful of the fact that you are both parents to these children that you jointly share and love because it is in the best service of the children to have a good connection with both parents. And I'll be heterosexist and say with mom and with dad, but if it's two dads, if it's trans people, whoever, but it is in their best interest to be connected to their parents. Pete Wright: I asked that first question intentionally because I wonder if there is a trend around younger people. I've got kids who are late teens, early twenties, and they have a predisposition to wanting to be friends with their exes. And I'm curious if that model does any service or if we've seen any of that start to leak into post-divorce relationships. If we culturally are more attuned to developing stronger relationships with past romantic partners, does that make it easier to divorce and maintain a relationship? Wendi L. Dumbroff: That's a good question. I work with some teens and early twenties and especially when they're still in high school, there is a lot more like, "Okay, yeah, we can still be friends," kind of thing. It gets a little trickier, I think, when you are in older, more adult relationships. Pete Wright: Stakes are higher. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Stakes are higher. Pete Wright: That kind of thing. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Teen relationships can sometimes be a couple of months. I don't want to say that they're not meaningful and important, and there are times where even teens don't talk to each other. Seth Nelson: I think this is fascinating because as you're asking this question, Pete, I didn't realize that's what the 20-somethings we're doing is staying friends, is in my long history of dating, which is quite lengthy, I can't imagine one of my former girlfriends wanting to be friends with me afterwards. Pete Wright: I've got a former girlfriend. We dated for many years in high school. It was pretty much our high school relationship and I haven't really spoken to her since. Come to find out she and my mother have had a decades-long friendship that I didn't even know about. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Oh my goodness. What was that [inaudible 00:06:00] for you to find that out? Seth Nelson: Oh, Wendi's right into counseling right now. I heard that question. Pete Wright: I'll be honest, it was a little bit... I hope none of the women in my life listen to this show. It was a little bit triggering because my mother has a stronger relationship with this ex of mine from high school than sometimes I think my own wife. They don't talk that much. What happened? So it's really interesting to me how just human relationships work out. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Yes, it is. Yeah. Pete Wright: So this gets us to the civility in the middle of resentment question because that's what we deal with, that's what Seth deals with, watching people who are coming through the post-divorce, we'll say generally small T trauma, maybe big T Trauma, of separating their lives. Seth Nelson: Or even during the divorce. Pete Wright: Yeah, and trying to figure out how to be civil with each other. How do you counsel people? What do you look for? Wendi L. Dumbroff: Sometimes, I will actually see the kids as their parents are going through a divorce and you can see the impact on the kids. "Oh, mom told me to tell dad this and dad told me to tell mom this," or they feel like they can't... even when I work with adults who have been children of divorce, it's like, "Well, I didn't want mom to think I was having fun with dad. I didn't want dad to think I was having fun with mom." The kids get in a loyalty bind and they're being pulled from both sides, and the best thing for the kids to know is that it's okay. "Mom is always going to be your mom. Dad's always going to be your dad. We both love you and this is not about you. Sometimes, grownups can't get along, so we separate, but we never leave our children and it's okay for you to be with dad and it's okay for you to be-" Seth Nelson: And that's all the stuff we've talked about when we began communicating with the kids. But here's where I really want to... where the rubber meets the road is, I've been in a lot of trials recently in court going at it, depositions, the whole works, and what I'm hearing more and more from the judges is... and I'm not talking about the trials I've just been in recently. Just across the bench, the judges that have been on the bench for a year, two, or three, they basically are done. They're saying, "These people hate each other. They do not know how to communicate. They both think they're in charge when neither one of them is. They're ruining kids' lives. There's nothing we're going to be able to do in court to fix it, so I'm going to just make my ruling." So judges are tired of reading text messages and our family wizard messages and talking parents messages. What can we do to help these parents when they're in the thick of it and they have a right to be angry and upset and hurt? No one is discounting their emotions, but to control those and communicate in a way that is not going to be viewed by the court as negative and harmful and just let all that stuff go? Wendi L. Dumbroff: If we had the answer to that or a magic wand for that, that would be wonderful. Seth Nelson: Well wait, you don't? You don't? Wendi L. Dumbroff: I left it somewhere a hundred years ago, I think. Seth Nelson: Andy, Andy, the man is not allowed to talk on the show. He told me this was the magic wand show today, Pete. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Oh, gosh. Pete Wright: I know. I feel it. We sold a bill of goods. Wendi L. Dumbroff: However, there are ways, first of all, to help people know this is for your kids. It's not for your partner or your ex-partner, it's for your children. We all love our children more than we love any other beings in the world. And so I often appeal to people through their children. "If you can do this for one person in the world or however many there are, do it for your kids. Take care of your health, do it for your kids. Take care of whatever. Do it for your children," because our children are our greatest treasure. So appealing to that side of it I think is important. And then literally, with any behavior that we want to change, there are ways to do that. I always say to people, "Look, you can't help how you feel." It's not a matter of letting it go. I don't like that terminology because if it was that easy, we'd all just, "Oh, okay." We'd open up the little portal and [inaudible 00:10:43] off it would go. Pete Wright: Oh God, if I had a dime for every time I dreamed that. Just reprogram me, for crying out loud. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Yeah, yeah. But it's rather to honor whatever's there. "Oh, this anger is here and this is the hardest thing in the world for me to honor it, to bow to it. I see you. I see you. I'm not going to ignore you. I know you're there and this is not how I would want it to be. This doesn't feel good, but can I be with this without being reactive to it?" Because the only thing we can control is what we do. Control is a myth. It's an illusion. We think we can control our partner, our children, our parents, our pets. We can't. The only thing any of us can control is what we actually do, our behavior. Pete Wright: You just said something really interesting to me though, too, and I'm going to say it and make it sound much dumber than when you said it, but this idea of just reminding yourself that it's for your kids. Even if you don't necessarily have kids in the mix in your divorce, the practice of reframing my resentment, my anger, into another thing that I do love and want to protect, whether that's a business that we're in together or a retirement that we want to keep growing and separate authentically, whatever that is, that redirection seems to be a nice little divorce hack. Wendi L. Dumbroff: No, absolutely. Absolutely. Take that energy and redirect it. Develop some skills even to use in the moment, even if it's just mindful breathing or knowing... one thing I always say to people, "The only thing I guarantee you, it's the only thing I guarantee it's that whatever you are feeling, it will change. So what should you do to get through that time without doing something that's going to make things worse?" Seth Nelson: Exactly. That's a good point because when you're saying for you to not make things worse, what I talk to my clients about is, what is your goal in sending this message? Wendi L. Dumbroff: Yeah. Seth Nelson: What is the goal? What are you trying to accomplish in sending this message? When you get on Uber Eats, there's a clear goal. You're hoping to get your food as you ordered it delivered to your place in the time it says. Pete Wright: But how often does that happen, Seth? Seth Nelson: Rarely. But I'm really good at getting other people's orders. Pete Wright: Yeah, right? Seth Nelson: And you know what? They order better than I do, Pete, so it kind of works out for me. So I maybe have order envy. I got Uber Eats envy and it works out. Pete Wright: Uber Eats envy. Yeah, it's good. Seth Nelson: But what's your goal? And then if you objectively read what you wrote, is any of that going to accomplish your goal? And look, if your goal is to tell the other person off, then you're probably succeeding but they probably don't care. But if your goal is to express your feelings, they don't care. If your goal is trying to co-parent, what's happening? Is this really going to do that? So what people tell me inevitably is... I'll get a call from opposing counsel. "My client told me your client sent the following text." I'm like, "Please send it to me." And I am hard on my clients about their communication because I know it's going to be exhibit number one in court on that level, and two, it's not helping anything to get them what they want. Pete Wright: I feel like there's... in terms of processing, sometimes maybe I feel very strongly that my goal is to move through my feelings of resentment and anger by sharing them with the vessels of that anger. Maybe that's my soon-to-be ex-spouse. Seth Nelson: That's a bad goal. Pete Wright: That's what I was just going to ask. How do we give ourselves some corrective action when we're in an emotional storm to remind ourselves that there is another path? Because those are the times when I don't recognize any other paths. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Exactly, Pete. And sometimes just honoring what's there... when you say, Seth, to let them focus in on what's your goal here? You're not going to get there if you throw in all this other stuff. Or if you want to create a time that you're going to meet and pick up your children, it's not going to work if you start throwing in all this anger and vitriol. Seth Nelson: "You're never fucking on time. Can you be on time this time?" Wendi L. Dumbroff: Yeah. But if we also let them know... I think what's important is to just let someone know We hear them. "I see how angry you are. I see how difficult this is for you." Sometimes I think people just want to be seen and heard. It's like they're saying, "I'm standing in the pouring rain." I always use this metaphor with my clients. "I'm standing in the pouring rain and you're telling me it's sunny, right? You're saying, no, no, just focus on your goal. But I'm in the rain and I'm freezing and I'm chilled to the bone. How can I do that?" And sometimes if we see them first before we say that, and here's what we want to accomplish, at least they feel seen. They feel heard. It's like, "Okay, you get it. You get it." Seth Nelson: Right. And that's the difference with attorney and counselor at law, Pete, because I have a lot of clients that want to hear that from their lawyer and then they complain about their bill. And I'm not even joking. Pete Wright: Yeah. Seth Nelson: So then it's a balance. And I tell potential clients this all the time. I'm like, "A lot of people don't like my style because I'm very direct. I will cut you off. I'll say you're wasting time and money." And some of my clients, potential, and clients are like, "That's what I like about you. I need that because I'll go on and on and on and on." And usually if you then go on and on and on and on, they get riled up more and then they hang up the phone and you've left them worse off than when they called you. Pete Wright: And poorer. Yeah. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Yeah. It doesn't have to go on and on. I'd just like to say, "I hear how angry you are, and." Not but, but and because but dismisses everything that came before it. Seth Nelson: That's right. Wendi L. Dumbroff: So it's like [inaudible 00:17:21]. "You are angry and you can still do this in the service of your children, in the service of yourself." Seth Nelson: Yeah. I start with that. I get the whole kid thing, but I'm like, "You're not helping yourself." And I really stress for people when we're at mediation and trying to get the case settled. I said, "You got to know..." and Pete knows this, we had Tammy Sbar, one the great, great family law mediators saying, "You know your spouse better than anyone here, don't send me over as the mediator with some bombs." And I tell my clients, "I'm going to have you do something that you rarely do. I want you to focus on yourself today. What are your goals? What are your objectives? What are you trying to accomplish? Don't worry about how this is going to hit the ear of the other side." "Oh my God, if I ask for that, they're going to blow them up. That's going to piss them off." We can tell Tammy, "Here's what we're asking. It might piss them off, but that's your job as the mediator to frame it in a different way." That's why Tammy's fabulous. But when you focus on yourself, it tends to then not be outward-looking in your messaging to the other side about all the shit they're doing wrong. Pete Wright: Well, sometimes though, when I focus on myself, I'm only reminded about the fact that my soon-to-be former spouse was unfaithful to me for years, or is taking my kids and turning them against me, or any number of infractions, emotional infractions. And so I look at this and I think, do those stakes, do they matter in your ability to kind of say, "All I want to do is be heard?" Does that balance that particular equation? Sometimes I want to be heard and also get my two cents in. Wendi L. Dumbroff: As you know, it's so sticky with divorce because there can be so much animosity, but I think in service of yourself, it's not going to serve you. I once heard this quote and Jack Kornfield said it, but I don't know if it's attributed to him. Not forgiving... and I'm not saying forgiveness in the sense of, "Oh, that's all okay," but not forgiving is holding hot coals and thinking the other person will get burned. Because it doesn't feel good when we get into that... all riled up and angry. We feel terrible. I often will, whether it's with an ex-partner or a parent, an adult with their parent, and there's a lot of history and animosity with a parent, I ask them to become an observer of the parent and the things that they do are not about them. It's not about you. The way your partner's going to react, maybe part of the reason you're leaving that partner, it's not about you. People are reacting to things usually way from their past, the things that trigger you. When something has a lot of charge to it, when something really zings, and it could be... let's say somebody feels criticized, but that for them blows them up. So when their partner says, "I can't believe you didn't throw the clothes in the dryer. I asked you last night to please throw the clothes in the dryer." And they feel... they take that as a criticism. They could get really angry, but it's really that's an old wound that's getting triggered. Seth Nelson: Yeah, that's really interesting. And especially when you're saying that wound comes out and then you want to be heard. So back to that Pete, it's like, "But heard by whom?" Pete Wright: Right. Seth Nelson: And so when you're saying, "Well, I just want to be heard..." and I get it. When my clients tell me this, I'm like, "So let me get this straight. In this divorce process, one of your goals is to be heard by your soon-to-be former spouse? We need to reset those goals because that is not an achievable goal that we should be striving for, because one, it might not be achievable. And even if it is, we're not going to strive for it in this process. Maybe down the road you guys will have some sort of friendship, reconciliation, come together, kumbaya moment. But right now, we're trying to get you through some pretty intense surgery, and it's not the time to talk to the person that you feel stabbed you." Pete Wright: One of my favorite movies is the Spanish Prisoner. It's a wonderful movie. And Ricky Jay's character in that movie has a line that I try to live by. His line is, "Worry is interest paid on a debt that never comes due." And I think the same thing is said for that kind of anxiety, fear, uncertainty, anger, doubt in the divorce process. It's all interest paid on a debt that will never come due, and you just continue to pay into it. Seth Nelson: That's brilliant. Pete Wright: Right? So I want to talk a little bit about the practical, because right now, we're talking about... so we all recognize this is really hard, but there's a how somewhere in here. What do I need to do? What is the work I need to do to be able to see again, to be able to separate these past marital infractions about which I feel very strongly and actually deal with the here and now and find the right goal? What do I do to do that when I'm in the storm? Wendi L. Dumbroff: Yeah, that's a great question and I think it's doing personal work to understand, again, to honor what's there and to know that it will shift over time. It is going to feel bad. You may not be ready to forgive and let be so that you're not holding onto that sense of revenge and hatred, but over time, it will abate. Over time, it will abate. And I think part of that work in getting there... I shouldn't say that because I've heard stories where years later, two people can't be in the same room. But if a person works on themselves and understands themselves, what was the dynamic between the couple? I'm doing this because I use a model called the vulnerability cycle when I work with couples to show them how when one person does one behavior, partner B feels something they do another behavior, partner A feels something, they go back to their behavior and they get caught in this loop and it's circular and it's co-created. And so when you can realize your own triggers and your own issues and what was it that got you all riled up... we can't control the other person. But when you work on yourself, whether or not the other person does or not, you can begin to understand yourself better. And how is it that I ended up in this relationship? And what was it that was getting me... because another thing I say to people is, "Look, we take ourselves with us wherever we go." So it's useful to work on yourself because you can recreate the same dynamic in another relationship. Seth Nelson: Well, I think that whole cycle is really interesting because one of the reasons, and I always think the biggest reason, is that there was a lack of communication throughout the marriage that led you to this point of getting a divorce. Now, I'm not talking about mental health issues or violence issues, just good old-fashioned divorce. And that whole cycle is, people going through it are still in the cycle. They get triggered, they say something, the other person says something, and this is like, "And you wonder why we're splitting up. Well, here's exhibit A," and people get really taken aback when I help them draft proper, what I would say, communication emails and texts in our family wizard message. And the person that gets taken aback isn't my client, it's the other side because now it sounds different and I have them put it in their own words, but the tone is totally different and they freak out because all the stuff that they've done to push the other person's buttons is no longer working. And sometimes, it gets worse, then better. And people will show me an email or a text or a message and they'll be all upset about it. And I'll say, "Well..." and some of it will be criticizing me. And I always say, "I love this message." And they're like, "What are you talking about? Look at what they said." I said, "This has no impact on my life. I get that they're saying nasty things about me, but I don't care what they say. If you can get to the point where your expectations are so low where you don't care what they say... and the reason why I like this message is not that you have to read it and it upsets you. It's because I'm going to use it in court and it's going to show their true colors. And let's work on a response that shows your true colors that is not negative, that you can control your emotions, that you can put things aside to try to work and solve the problem." It's always about solving a problem. Wendi L. Dumbroff: That's the same concept as the whole idea of you can't help how you feel, but you can help what you do. So you can put it out there calmly, sensibly, maturely versus being all emotional about something. Pete Wright: Speaking of all emotional, there is another side to this and I wonder your thoughts on how to... a couple of times, you said, "Do the work." When you're doing the work, my impression of that line is maybe I'm seeing a therapist, maybe I'm working with a counselor or a family counselor, something like that. I'm trying to be introspective to the point where I can see damaging behaviors in myself. But when I am in that storm, maybe I don't see too clearly or clearly enough that I'm the one who's turning my kids against my soon-to-be former spouse, that I'm the one who is unintentionally damaging the divorce process. In the course of our conversation, we've been talking about protecting yourself from that side. What if you're that side and you don't even know it? Wendi L. Dumbroff: And that's where you really appeal for your children. "I know this is hard for you. I get it." And for your kids, it's not useful. They're being torn apart. And usually, they'll know that because the kids will be acting out in some way. Their grades go down, they're going up to their room, they're smoking a lot of weed, or whatever it is. Seth Nelson: Wait a minute, what's wrong with that? Wendi L. Dumbroff: If that is your thing, you go for it. Seth Nelson: Come on, Wendi. You got a 10-year-old that just wants to eat some gummies. Pete Wright: Wait a minute, what am I supposed to say here? Objection, leading the witness. Wendi L. Dumbroff: [inaudible 00:28:50] keep that on board with a 10-year-old. Seth Nelson: I really went low. I was going to say 12. I'm like, "No, I got to make sure people know I'm joking. It's 10." So is there anything people can do? Should they be reading self-help books? Wendi L. Dumbroff: If it's accessible to you, I think that counseling is always a good idea. Find a good therapist. Find someone that you jive with. Go to more than one if you need to. Do a few interview sessions. Find someone that you feel you can be connected to and you feel safe with and comfortable with. And I think awareness... you said, Pete, what if they don't know? What if they're not even aware of that? So awareness is really, really important. I always say in the world of meditation and mindfulness, awareness is spoken of as wisdom because we can't change anything we're not aware of. So cultivating awareness, whether it's through meditation, whether it's just through just informally practicing mindfulness... meditation is a formal practice of mindfulness. Just being aware, just maybe learning a little bit of mindfulness skills, and there's a lot of books on that. There's a lot of YouTube videos on that. There's a lot of stuff about that. Pete Wright: As a therapist, what do you do to remain mindful? Wendi L. Dumbroff: I've been cultivating mindfulness for a long time. Pete Wright: I know it's a big part of your practice too, right? Wendi L. Dumbroff: Big part of our practice, my practice, yes. I weave mindfulness into all of my work, whether my clients know it or not. It's something that I also have a personal journey in as well, and it really starts, I think, from the time you're in graduate school. What I never realized when I was in graduate school is they were focusing so much on the therapist's reaction to what's going on. I attended a workshop this morning given by a woman who works with people who are suicidal because they experienced child sexual abuse and just sitting with her and what her experience is every day with these people that she works with. It's like, "Boy." It hits you hard, right? So part of graduate school is learning to be aware of our reactions so that we don't bring it into the relationship with the client or clients. Pete Wright: Yeah, I think that's fascinating. I think that's something that Seth deals with too, right? The whole act of the observer changes the observed. Yeah. We're going to wrap it up, but where do you want to send people to learn more about your work? Wendi L. Dumbroff: I have a website. It's wendidumbrofftherapy.com. It's Wendi with an I. Everybody spells it with a Y, but... Pete Wright: Okay, we will put that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Wendi, for hanging out with us today. Seth Nelson: Yeah, it's great. Wendi L. Dumbroff: Thank you. That was a pleasure to be here. Pete Wright: And now, we have to turn our attention to a listener question. Listener questions, everybody, it's time to dip our hands into the box of questions and see what comes up. The first one comes from the website on our twin box, the little box where you can ask a question right on there, and it'll interview the past show. Seth, we've talked about this before. I love that people are starting to use this tool. Please continue to use it. They're great questions, and we're going to be getting to more of those that are not sufficiently answered in the database. We're going to ask them here so we can fill in some holes. This first one from twin box, "What if I get pregnant during divorce?" Seth Nelson: Great question. Now, Pete? Pete Wright: Yes? Seth Nelson: I'm going to have you play the questioner in this little hypothetical that we're going to do, because I'm going to need some more facts. Because that's the complete question, correct? Pete Wright: That is the whole question, yeah. Seth Nelson: Okay, here we go. Step one, are you pregnant from your current spouse? Pete Wright: I'm going to say yes. In the world of imagining this scenario, yes. Seth Nelson: Okay, we're going to play the other scenarios out. Pete Wright: Oh, good. Okay. Seth Nelson: There's two more, but if it's yes, then what you'll do is you will get divorced, and I would ask the court to retain jurisdiction to enter a parenting plan after the child is born. Now, if you agree, like, "Hey, we have a child, the child's about to be born, here's the parenting plan." The judge may or may not grant it because God forbid that there's any issues with your child, but you're making an assumption that there's going to be a healthy born child and so you can't determine what's in the best interest of the child before the child's even born. Pete Wright: Okay. Seth Nelson: Okay? So that would be one aspect. That's Florida family law. Check your local jurisdiction. Okay? Second, what happens if the child is not your spouse's? Pete Wright: Yeah. Okay. Seth Nelson: Okay. So we're going to assume that for the sake of argument, this child is not your spouse and you're a hundred percent positive. Pete Wright: Got it. Seth Nelson: The first thing I'm going to do is if we have not already, if we've already filed for divorce, I'm going to amend the pleadings, which means I am going to change what we told the court previously because I'm sure previously I told the court that you were not currently pregnant. Now, I have to tell the court that you are. In Florida, there's a presumption that if there's a child born during the marriage that the husband is the father, and there's a whole lot of stuff you have to do to undo that. Pete Wright: Florida law hasn't watched any Florida-based reality TV shows. Seth Nelson: Exactly. It doesn't. It doesn't. Pete Wright: Because I feel like that could be settled law already. Seth Nelson: We could fly to Idaho, and we go based on what they do. So you have that issue, and what you do, depending on how far along you are, is first you got to make sure that you're going to have an affidavit that the child is not your husband's. You are going to do some other things that you can do in Florida if you know who the father is. If you don't know who the father is, there's other things you need to do as well if there's a question mark. The key thing is talk to your lawyer. Let them know as soon as you know, and keep them apprised and say, "What do we have to do to make sure that this child is taken care of on a parenting plan with child support, with medical bills and the like?" But handle it head on immediately, quickly. Let's deal with it. So here we go. Hypothetical, Pete. You're the lawyer. You're representing a client who is at full term pregnancy, is married, getting divorced. Everybody agrees it is not the husband's child. Here we go. That's the hypothetical. You walk into court. You're going for a trial about all the other stuff, and your client goes into labor. From a legal perspective, what do you do? Not call 911, not help the baby. From a legal perspective. The paramedics are there. From a legal perspective, what do you do? Pete Wright: Am I assuming that the end of today's experience in court, today's hearing, is going to end in a signed divorce? Is it going to be done? Seth Nelson: No. You're going for a full day trial. You have opening statements at 9:00. It's 9:30. You finished opening statements. Your client is on the stand. She's your first witness. She goes into labor. You are not going to finish the trial. What do you do? Pete Wright: Jesus, Seth. I have no idea because I, as a human being, feel like I have to go and say, "Look, judge, we got to pause proceedings and take care of this." Seth Nelson: That's right. You're going to do a verbal motion to continue the trial. Pete Wright: Okay. Seth Nelson: Perfect idea. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, "Your Honor, I have an ore tenus motion, an oral motion, to bifurcate this trial. I need to get them divorced now." Pete Wright: Oh, so... yeah. Seth Nelson: "Because if I get them divorced now before that baby's born, it is not a child born of the marriage." Pete Wright: Of the marriage. Seth Nelson: "And the husband is not deemed to be the father." Pete Wright: And everybody agrees, even the father. He doesn't want to be the father of this child. Seth Nelson: That's right. Pete Wright: Okay. Because if you stop and continue the trial later, like Good Samaritan Pete did... Seth Nelson: That's right. Pete Wright: ... then that would be a child born in the marriage. Seth Nelson: You got it. Pete Wright: Oh my goodness. Seth Nelson: You got it. You pass as Good Samaritan, you fail as a lawyer. That's okay. Pete Wright: Do you know what? Thank God, man. That's too hard. Seth Nelson: I know. That's too hard. All right, let's hit the next question. Pete Wright: Next question is from Rod. Rod, thank you for writing. This is a pattern recognition question for you, Seth. Have you seen any patterns in relationships that almost always lead to a divorce? Thanks for the show. Thank you, Rod. Seth Nelson: Yes. Okay, next question. Pete Wright: What are those patterns, Seth? Seth Nelson: Okay, great question. Yeah, so this is not going to be surprising. It's communication. It will manifest itself in thousands of different ways, but ultimately there's a breakdown in communication. Like we just talked on the show, maybe people aren't having sex for 2, 3, 4 years. There's a breakdown in communication. Pete Wright: In communication, right. Seth Nelson: And one spouse is going to go to the lawyer and say, "I'm leaving. She cheated on me." The other spouse is going to tell their lawyer, "That's true because he wouldn't have sex with me for four years." So there's just a breakdown in communication. That is the biggest issue that I see. Pete Wright: What's so interesting about that is that all of our conversations that we've had on this podcast, anytime we talk about the specifics of infidelity, of business dealings, whatever, you really can distill it down to a communication challenge. Seth Nelson: And part of that, I believe, is a lack of transparency that people have with their spouses about many issues. We've talked about financial infidelity, we've talked about sexual infidelity, we've talked about abusive behavior and how people communicate. We've talked about people just flat out not even telling their spouse where they are, where they go, and they don't get to pull the old, "I'm in the CIA," right? So there's all sorts of issues on how this lack of communication and lack of transparency manifests itself. Now, the other patterns are just mental health, just a lot of mental health issues. And in fact, I never realized, being a bit uneducated on this area of our society, that there was so much mental health issues out there over all socioeconomic classes. I've met some highly successful in the business world financial arena that have a lot of mental health issues. So don't just think because someone has a nice car and a nice house... Pete Wright: That they're not dealing with stuff? Seth Nelson: That they're not dealing with stuff. So that's a big pattern that we see people with anger management issues and getting triggered. Big issues. So those are some of the underlying issues that will manifest itself, but communication is the key. Pete Wright: Okay. Rod, thank you for the question. Appreciate you allowing us to talk a little bit about it. And everyone, if you have a question for Seth, please let us know. Howtosplitatoaster.com. There is a button that says, "Submit your divorce questions here." Click that and you'll fill out the form like Rod did. But if you see the little box floating across the bottom of the website, you can type right into there. And that is just the same thing as dropping us a question on the form. Ask a question. You might get an answer because it's something we've talked about in the past, but we'll see it and we will get it answered if we haven't. So thank you so much to everybody for downloading and listening to this show. Thank you to Wendi Dumbroff for hanging out with us and helping us talk through these issues today. On behalf of Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you next time right here on How To Split A Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships. Outro: How to Split A Toaster is part of the TruStory FM podcast Network produced by Andy Nelson. Music by T. Bless and the Professionals and DB Studios. 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.
