Episode 7: Putting your kids at the center — not in the middle — of your divorce
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast
Kate Anthony
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2018
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Whether your split is amicable or not, if you're separating from a mentally stable, otherwise reasonable person, there are steps you can take to keep it from going completely off the rails. Conversely, there are ways that the system is set up to be sure that it does... and all those ways benefit the system itself.
When I first split from my husband I consulted a divorce attorney—a litigator. I wanted to educate myself on my rights before going into the process. California is a no-fault state, so no matter who did what to whom, the laws are pretty clear: 50% of all assets or debts incurred during the marriage would be mine. The state even has a calculating program called the DissoMaster for figuring out support based on percentage of custody and the incomes of both parties.
Makes sense, right? My ex made more money than I did (I was a stay-at-home-mom, so he actually made all the money), so he would have to pay me child support and spousal support for a time.
Except then the litigator began to show me that if we slid the custody bar of the DissoMaster over, my support would increase. More custody for me meant more money from my ex. When I told the attorney that I wanted my son to see his father 50% of the time, that he was a great dad, and that I didn't want to take my child away from him, he scoffed.
He began throwing out scenarios in which I could disparage my ex in court so that I could get more custody, thus more money.
In the process, the attorney was going to make gobs of money off of me and the fight he was about to stage between me and my ex.
I didn't go down that road, and instead sought out a mediator who asked us an important question that set the tone for our entire divorce and mediation proceedings:
Do you want to put your son at the center, or in the middle, of your divorce?
This episode tells the story of how that all came about and how I gave up my house in service of my son.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have real, honest, smart, |
| 0:12.6 | and sometimes even hilarious conversations about co-parenting, separation, and divorce, and all that goes along with that. |
| 0:22.9 | I'm Kate Anthony, your Divorce Surv divorce survival guide and today I want to talk about what it really means to put your children at the center |
| 0:29.5 | of all of your decisions rather than in the middle of your divorce. And I put it that way because |
| 0:35.8 | that was actually the question that our mediator asked us. |
| 0:40.5 | When my ex and I had finally reached the point where we realized we needed to split up, we sought out a mediator. |
| 0:50.2 | And the very first question he asked us was, do you want to put your kid at the center of all of your decisions or in the middle of your divorce? |
| 1:03.2 | Because those are two choices. |
| 1:05.2 | He's either going to be at the center or in the middle. |
| 1:09.9 | And put to us like that, at that particular moment, there was |
| 1:17.2 | not a question, right? We were like, well, of course we want him in the center. Of course we do. |
| 1:22.2 | And what I see time and time again is that people aren't asked that question straight up in the beginning |
| 1:29.5 | stages, right? Because from that moment on, every single time things got hard, our mediator |
| 1:38.1 | would stop and he would say, what's best for your son? And it would shift. Even some of the most difficult decisions that we |
| 1:48.6 | had to make became a little bit clearer through that lens. And I'm going to tell you a story. |
| 1:56.0 | So this was actually also in our very first session where the very first thing on the table was |
| 2:03.6 | who's keeping the house and who's moving out and I was adamant that I should keep the house. |
| 2:12.3 | I think from a traditional standpoint I was the wife. I was a stay-at-home mom. Of course I got the house. |
| 2:19.7 | And my ex and I had spent years in what's called Imago therapy. And if you don't know what that is, |
| 2:30.6 | Amogotherapy was developed by a man named Harville Hendrix back in the 80s. |
| 2:38.7 | And it's a really, it's a powerful tool. It's a little bit weird and it's a little bit stilted. |
| 2:45.0 | But Imago therapy, I mean, the idea of Amago is that we all have an Amago match. Usually it is the person |
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