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If you have kids or hang around child-like adults, you have probably heard someone scream out “shotgun” as they approach the car. This modern tradition allows the non-drivers to lay claim to the front passenger seat when there is the potential it will be contested by another. What is so intriguing about the game is that the competing parties rarely have a practical interest in acquiring the seat. The 5’4 person will still belt out “shotgun” even if the competitor for the seat is 6’5 and the car is a sub-compact. The goal is merely to have a victory.

This same desire to win, even when it’s impractical, can also creep its way into the divorce process and create unnecessary and damaging results. A spouse may lay claim to an item, even though they know it is something they have no interest in, just to feel victorious. This little victory may feel good, but it can be costly, figuratively and literally.

The win typically leads to tit for tat retaliation from the other soon-to-be ex-spouse. And in the end, the retaliation usually leads to unworkable divorce and custody agreements. Meanwhile, each party is spending more time (read: more money) with their lawyers to try and salvage the things they really wanted to begin with.

In divorce mediation, we try to eliminate the child-like competition and bring practicality back into the process. Couples in a mediation session are given the opportunity to openly discuss their interest in an item and work towards an agreement that ensures everyone can claim a victory.

Pop culture has brought us a lot of great terms in recent years, including swiftboating, metrosexual, and my personal favorite, tivoed. But none is quite as catchy or appropriate as frenemy. For those of you not familiar with the term, it is a fusion of the words friend and enemy. It connotes a relationship where the two people masquerade as friends but in reality have negative ulterior motives. Some of pop cultures best known frenemies exist in soap operas and scripted “reality tv”. But frenemies exist in the real world as well.

While frenemy is a fun word to say, it’s not a fun relationship to have, especially when it is with your soon-to-be ex-spouse. A life change of this magnitude is difficult enough when a relationship is straight forward. It can only get worse if the relationship is duplicitous.
While some complexity in the relationship is expected, the frenemy dynamic is extraordinarily troublesome in mediation because it can distract from creating a workable divorce and custody agreement. For instance, if you think you are working together with your former partner to reach a equitable agreement, meanwhile both of you are attempting to undermine the other by omitting details or sharing incorrect information, the final product will be a waste of both your time and money.

To reach usable result in mediation, the couple must be straight forward and honest. Even if you and your spouse share a strong dislike for one another, there is a benefit in knowing where the other person really stands. This is not to say that being cordial is not an asset to a successful mediation, but manipulating your partner can only have negative impact in the end.

This post is courtesy of our friend Maria Simpson, Ph.D. You can check out more from Maria at http://www.mariasimpson.com/

The title of this piece is the title of a book that I think is valuable and can help make our most difficult conversations a bit easier. Written by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, it is a product of the Harvard Negotiation Project, the folks who brought you Getting to Yes. It’s in paperback, and I found it browsing the shelves of the bookstore. It’s worth the time to check it out.

The authors suggest that difficult conversations are difficult because they are “ . . . not about what is true, they are about what is important.”

To understand the complexity of a difficult conversation, they divide it into three distinct conversations that occur at the same time: the truth or accuracy of what happened; the feelings that drive both the conversation and how we feel about what we are saying; and personal identity, how what we are saying impacts our concepts of who we are.

The first part, what happened, should be easy to determine, but we have all been in conversations that were made more difficult because no one could agree on the basic events or the order in which they occurred. In a recent mediation, the basic facts were so completely in dispute that the parties were suing each other over the same situation. They’re on their way to court. In an organizational setting, a staff member was placed on a performance plan and argued strenuously against it because even the dates on which meetings were supposed to have occurred were disputed. How could a performance plan be fair if no one agreed on what happened?

An important component of difficult conversations, then, is that we each have our own truths, and those truths clash to make the conversation more difficult than if basic facts were agreed on and only their interpretation was in dispute.

Second, the feelings conversation is made complicated because important feelings are often not expressed or even avoided. The feelings conversation is silent; it goes on in our heads and is never openly expressed.

There are two reasons for why people are reluctant to express feelings. First, people anticipate the drama of strong feelings and don’t want to deal it. Feelings don’t have to be stated dramatically. Feelings can be stated simply and honestly, and they can be acknowledged and addressed equally simply and honestly.

Second, people are afraid to state their feelings because they are afraid they will be ridiculed. “Simply and honestly” doesn’t mean superficially or dismissively; it means seriously and respectfully.

The issue will never be resolved until the feelings are addressed, but people must be convinced that they will be taken seriously and their feelings treated respectfully before they will be honest about them.

Third, the identity part of the conversation occurs as people worry about what others will think of them if they admit to a mistake, even a small one, so they get defensive to protect their core identities. For example, part of my identity is the perfectionist who finds and corrects her own mistakes. (Or is that just OCD? Don’t know.) If a mistake gets past me, that challenges my identity as someone who does not give mistake-ridden work to clients. An over-reaction? All perfectionists over-react, but none of us, perfectionist or not, want our work to be considered mediocre.

An important part of a difficult conversation, then, is protecting people from thinking they will be considered “bad” as a result of what happened. It may sound like a contradiction to the previous emphasis on feelings, but focusing on how everyone contributed to allow room for the mistake, taking the conversation from the personal to the process, will mitigate the negative effect on identity. That means acknowledging some joint responsibility for what happened and assigning less individual blame, but it doesn’t mean that individuals shouldn’t explore their own part in the mistake and work to eliminate it in the future.

To address all three parts of a difficult conversation the authors advise moving from a battle conversation to a learning conversation, from fighting to exploring. I have talked before about exploring instead of reacting, of taking the time to understand the other person’s point of view before making decisions or assigning blame, and the authors are suggesting the same thing. The end result will be much more positive than the reprimand inherent in most difficult conversations will be.

For those of you who are into public radio, you may have heard of the NPR series, This I Believe. Created by Edward R. Murrow in the ’60s and revamped for the modern era, This I Believe is, “an international project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives.”

Inspired by the idea, and a little prompting from a member of the Peace Talks team, I decided to write an essay on what I believe and I thought I would share it with the Peace Talks community.

I believe “truce is better than friction.” Sure it sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s a belief that guides my work as a family law mediator and my life.

For years, I was a divorce attorney and, all modesty aside, I was really good. I helped my clients kill their ex-spouse (financially, that is).

Then people started actually dying. I had one client commit suicide and another whose former wife tried to kill herself when I won his case. Then, to top it all off, while I giving a closing argument, the opposing party dropped dead in the courtroom.

I took this as a sign that maybe the bloody courtroom battles I specialized in were not the best route to getting a divorce. Given that divorce impacts everyone, including children and extended family, I decided that there had to be a better, more peaceful way to get divorced.

That better way was mediation. Don’t get me wrong; I am not some peace-seeking hippie. I doubt holding hands or singing kumbaya is helpful, especially when your soon-to-be ex-spouse had a fling with your local Starbucks barista.
However, dialogue has always been a successful tool in conflict resolution. Moreover, it just seemed like the practical choice.

Think about it, most marriages fall apart from a failure of communication. Too often couples argue and, instead of listening, they are waiting for their chance to make their point. Or worse, they don’t talk at all until it’s too late.
In mediation, I ask couples to truly listen to and communicate with each other as they work towards a divorce. The structured discussion helps them recognize that there may be lots of different ways to meet each of their goals, and that the answer doesn’t have to include destroying the other person at all costs. Statistics show this truce often leads to more effective and long-lasting divorce and custody agreements.

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Don’t feel like sitting in front of your computer to get the Peace Talks tips on divorce, conflict, custody, and mediation? Now you can take Diana Mercer’s insights with you in audio form on your iPod or other portable media device! Click below for Peace Talks podcasts on divorce and kids and stay tuned for more podcast news to come.

Divorce & Kids Podcast (Right click , then choose “save link as” to download)

If you have been keeping you’re an eye on presidential politics in the last few weeks, you may have noticed that the dialogue on the Democratic side has devolved from a discussion of the issues into an endless fit of name calling.

This literal “he said, she said” reflects one of the most common communication problems that lead to divorce. That is, when couples first begin an argument the focus is usually squarely the issue. But as time passes, tangential arguments arise that are typically unimportant and distract from the real issue. Thus, a worthwhile argument about respecting each other’s time turns into who took out the garbage last.

One of the reasons divorce mediation is so successful is that the mediator is able to rein in these the extraneous fights and arguments. By bringing the focus back to the larger issue, the couples can more quickly and effectively resolve the problems that are preventing the creation of workable divorce and custody agreements.

If these politicians can’t get back to the issue, then a mediation session should be in their futures.

In the latest installment of the Peace Talks VideoCast, Diana Mercer, Esq. gives an overview of divorce mediation, the sane and sensible alternative to an expensive, litigated divorce.

When people think about the cause of their divorce, they often cite the last event before the decision to divorce was made or the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. But in truth, millions of straws were likely already straining the relationship, and the collapse was just a matter of time.

One of the benefits of bringing a relationship to a close via mediation is the opportunity to confront those underlying straws in a safe, secure setting. While resolving these aforementioned issues is not necessarily within the purview of the mediation session, bringing them to the forefront in an open conversation may give the clients the piece of mind necessary to move forward in the process.

This mean the separating couple would be more inclined to create a working divorce settlement rather than a one built on a foundation of frustration and spite.

While divorce mediation is in no way a substitute for therapy, it does offer participants a chance to get shed some of the emotional baggage related to the divorce.

Often, a significant portion of the anger, hostility, and frustration during the divorce process stems from unresolved issues in the marriage. Sometimes the soon-to-be ex-spouse didn’t even know it was an issue.

Communicating about these underlying issues can be key component of divorce mediation. When participants come in for their sessions, they are given the opportunity to discuss any issues in a safe and structured environment. While the problem is unlikely to be resolved in the mediation, just the chance to air the grievances can offer piece of mind.

With everything off your chest, the parting couple has a much greater chance of moving forward and creating workable divorce and custody agreements.