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The Truth About Healing Podcast
The Truth About Healing is a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based podcast designed to cut through the overwhelming noise of modern wellness culture and explain what healing actually is and what it isn’t.
In an era flooded with mental health misinformation, toxic positivity, spiritual bypassing, and oversimplified “coping strategies,” this podcast offers clarity, accuracy, and grounded nervous system education.
Hosted by EMDR therapist and consultant Dana Carretta-Stein, the show reframes symptoms as intelligent survival responses and helps listeners understand why they feel stuck, burned out, anxious, or disconnected without shame or pathology.
This podcast bridges the gap between clinical knowledge and real life, translating complex concepts like EMDR, polyvagal theory, attachment trauma, and nervous system regulation into language that makes sense and actually helps.
The Truth About Healing Podcast
Episode 13: Divorce, Trauma & Truth with Gus Dimopoulos
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What if everything you think you know about “winning” a divorce is wrong?
In Episode 13 of The Truth About Healing, Dana sits down with leading New York family law attorney Gus Dimopoulos, managing partner of Dimopoulos Law Firm and host of Split: A Podcast on Modern Divorce, for a candid conversation about what actually happens when trauma, psychology, parenting, and the legal system collide.
And this conversation goes places.
Dana and Gus unpack the overuse of words like trauma and narcissist, the reality of parental alienation, coercive control, high-conflict custody battles, social media during divorce, and why family court may not give you the validation—or healing—you desperately want.
Because divorce might happen in a courtroom.
But healing doesn't.
One of the most important questions Gus shares for parents going through a high-conflict divorce is:
Do you love your children more than you hate your spouse?
Because your child should never have to choose sides to prove they love you.
They need permission to love both parents, have their own emotions, and develop relationships separate from yours.
⚖️ The Courtroom Won't Heal You
One of the biggest truths in this episode is also one of the hardest to accept:
The legal system isn't therapy.
🌐 Learn More About Gus: www.dimolaw.com
🎙️ Listen to: Split: A Podcast on Modern Divorce
Work With Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling
Divorce can end a marriage. That doesn't automatically heal what happened inside it.
If you're navigating trauma, anxiety, relationship patterns, high-conflict dynamics, or the emotional aftermath of divorce, our team is here to help.
📍 In-Person Therapy: Scarsdale, NY
💻 Virtual Therapy: Available for residents of NY, NJ, CT, FL & CO
📅 Learn more or schedule a consultation:
www.peacefullivingmhc.com
Additional Resources
🧠 EMDR Resources for Clinicians & Clients
www.danacarretta.com/shop
🛠️ Recommended Therapy Tools, Regulation Resources & EMDR Systems for Clinicians
www.danacarretta.com/therapytools
🎁 Free Nervous System Resources
www.danacarretta.com/free
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Welcome to another episode of The Truth About Healing, a podcast that's here to challenge everything you think you knew about therapy. I'm Dana Coretistein, EMDR and neuroinformed therapist. And I'm on a mission to help 10 million people change their patterns, relationships, and future generations by teaching them how to gain control of their nervous system. Let's go with it. Gus Demopoulos is one of New York's leading family law attorneys and the managing partner of Demopolis Law Firm. For more than two decades, he has represented clients in some of the most complex, emotionally charged, and high-conflict divorce and custody matters, involving parental alienation, coercive control, psychological abuse, addiction, mental health challenges, and family system dysfunction. Recognized by super lawyers, lawyers of distinction, and premier lawyers of America, Gus has become a respected voice on modern divorce, custody, and family dynamics through his legal work, speaking engagements, media appearances, and his podcast, Split, a podcast on modern divorce. I am so excited to have him as our guest today. Gus, welcome to The Truth About Healing.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me, Dana. I appreciate it. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03I'm so glad that you're here. So Gus had a post on social media the other day, and Gus and I know each other from way back. Like we have the same trainer, we went to the same gym, and he's a killer divorce attorney, and he had this post on the word trauma being overused and overused in you know any proceedings that happen. And I just saw him as like, oh, this, yes, like this is so much, but we need to talk more about this. So, Gus, just tell me a little bit about where people get confused in terms of like when it comes to trauma, when it comes to what they think divorce is going to do for them in their relationship, tell me where most people get stuck.
SPEAKER_00Well, as it relates specifically to the word trauma, Dana, first of all, having been doing this for as long as I've been doing this, I have seen the worst of the worst. Um I have seen people abused in ways that no one wants to talk about. And I've seen people hurt in ways I don't care to relive. And there's obviously I'm not a mental health professional, but there is trauma, and people relive it, and people are, you know, forever affected by it in a very real way. The problem is that the word, as of late, has become um a catchphrase, so to speak.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's social media, it's people who do what I do. Um just overusing what I do, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. And overusing it in a way kids, teenagers, you know, that's traumatic. Or you know we're throwing a word around that is uh a word that deserves to be given a lot more respect.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And in court, um people are doing the same thing. And the problem with it, number one, is when a judge hears that word, uh, they're accustomed to hearing it, but they're expecting it to come along with a story that you just don't have if you're using it the wrong way.
SPEAKER_02Right. Evidence. Correct.
SPEAKER_00And they see it every day, they see the worst of the worst. But when you are that litigant who's saying, you know, that was so traumatic. And it was, you know, a kid left a backpack and dad screamed. Once you're labeled the person in court that is overusing words and trying to sell a narrative, right, you lose all credibility.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And what I'm trying to get across to people for them to understand is you don't you don't need to use these words. What you need to do is explain what you are experiencing.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And let everyone else draw the conclusions.
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. Yeah. Trauma is the end result, right? It's because we have like two people in the world who can experience the same thing. One is traumatized from it and one is not. But it what that person felt, that's more telling, right? Like the son was terrified.
SPEAKER_00And it's also that that none of us, okay, I'm a divorce attorney. The the the person up in the black robe is a judge. None of us have the ability, the education or the training to use that word in a clinical way. Right. Right? So when when a litigant throws it and the divorce attorney mimics it, you just you lose all cred credibility and you lose all respect. Right. So allow the judge who's seen situations or the forensic psychologist if that's the case, allow them to diagnose. Right. You know, tell the facts, speak your story.
SPEAKER_03Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So is that something that happens commonly? Like so to have like a forensic report, right, to say someone was traumatized, like they have PTSD from this relationship, is that something that is done a lot or maybe not as much as it should be? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Forensic evaluations, I would say so people love statistics, and let me try to break it down a little bit. If there are a hundred divorce cases, uh and I'm and I'm I'm using this in an anecdotal way, and I don't have any statistical research to back this, but in you know, how many people litigate custody of those hundred? Let's say fifteen, a small percentage of it. Of the 15, how many are high conflict, complex, requiring forensic evaluations? Let's say half. So you're dealing with a small segment of cases. The problem is those are the cases that everyone talks about. Those are the cases everybody wants to hear about. And the st the perception is that's all divorces. Right. And that's not the case. But when a forensic is involved, think about it from the perspective of what is what are we doing here? We're the judge is throwing up his or her hands and saying, I'm not a mental health professional. Right. I need help.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00I need someone with credentials and an education to tell me what the right thing to do here. Right.
SPEAKER_03Which is good, that they're they're acknowledging that they can't, that's not their wheelhouse, right? They're not 100%.
SPEAKER_00And they're they don't have the education. And then the problem with the forensic evaluation is that think about what the incentive is for each party. Oh, I see. My job over the next, you know, four to eight weeks is to prove that he or she is crazy and a terrible parent, and then vice versa from the other side.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And and everyone's misconception is that winning a custody battle is about proving the other side as a horrible person.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Without ever focusing the attention where it should be, which is let me show you all the reasons why I'm great.
SPEAKER_04Right.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Let me tell you all the things that I do that that are wonderful for the for the children and also that benefit the other spouse.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Let me tell you how I parent and how I co-parent.
SPEAKER_00And when people quote unquote lose, it's because they lose focus of what they're trying to prove.
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. And that's where we say, like, in those situations, the ones that always lose are the children.
SPEAKER_00That's universal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And that's something I know, like, I'm so passionate about. I know you are too. What is like so if parents are going through a divorce and there's a custody battle, like what do you like, if you could like shake someone, which you could, you know, what you could say to them, what would you say?
SPEAKER_00I I think first and foremost is you know, I don't want to get too nerd. I'll let it rip, yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I love to be nerd out. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00Look, everyone has to understand what the concept is first, right? First of all, there is everybody knows right and wrong. We're we're humans, we're we all know right and wrong. But when the term parental alienation gets thrown out in the context of a custody value, I think it's important for people to understand what it is, where it came from, and why we're talking about it.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00So there was a study decades and decades ago uh where it was labeled a syndrome. It was actually labeled a mental health condition, and they tried to get it in the DSM.
SPEAKER_04Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00And there was uproar. You know, this isn't a this isn't a mental health disorder. This doesn't belong in the DSM, this is something else. And people fought about it for 30 years.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So they would call it like parental alienation syndrome?
SPEAKER_00Yes, parental alienation syndrome.
SPEAKER_03And then interesting because that doesn't, that's not a symptom, that's an act.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And it's it's not only that, but it it was it was almost labeled as a disorder that the child had. So now we're putting the problem on the kid. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03Right. In my head, I'm already like, okay, so DSM-wise, that would be more of like a V code or Z code where it's like that's the situation that maybe, but what what symptoms does that cause? Does it cause PTSD? Does it cause anxiety?
SPEAKER_00Look, it it it the problem is that it caused so much infighting between the two groups. Right. Right. So nobody was actually focusing in on what the problem is, how it affects kids, right? So anyway, over the course of the next couple of years and research, and there are people, there are giants in this field. Yeah. Um Janet Johnson, you know, uh there, there, there are there are people that have done, you know, decade-long studies on the effects on children. So, you know, and I have resources, and you can look at my website and read all about that stuff. I'm not going to try and uh recap it here.
SPEAKER_03But I think it's really helpful to know it's there.
SPEAKER_00It's so it's it's and here here is the the the basics of it. You have someone who is trying to gain an advantage in litigation. Okay, this is my world. I think it happens when people aren't divorcing and no one ever sees it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it all the time. I can tell you as a therapist, where lot parents maybe should have gotten divorced and didn't, right? It happens all the time and it's terrible.
SPEAKER_00I'm talking about just in the context of a divorce, right? Someone wants a particular outcome. They want legal custody or they don't want more time with a kid. And they know that, you know, the other parent isn't gonna agree.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00So they literally lean on the kids, right? And sometimes it's big and sometimes it's small. I think the more dangerous type is small. I think it's the, you know, I'd love to do that, but your dad doesn't give us enough money. Or you know how your mother's gonna react to that. She's never gonna allow you. Subtle. Correct.
SPEAKER_02Really subtle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And those subtle acts over to over or or another way, how about this? Oh gosh, I wish I could spend more time with you, but I really can't. Yep. You know, I don't know why your mom won't allow me, or I don't know why your dad does this, right? So if you hear that three times a day, every day, right, for the course of the litigation, and I think at its core, it's a terrible thing to do to kids. But there are levels of it, right? Right. So there are levels that get so bad that you actually take a child, make him or her your ally in your fight. And that child takes sides.
SPEAKER_03Right. Which is not a position a child should be in.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And every time I've ever heard over the last 25 years, I've always heard this famous saying where people throw around court, the kids just don't want to be involved. Guess what? They are. Exactly. They're living in the house, they're dealing with each family.
SPEAKER_03They're involved because they're part of the family, and the family dynamic is changing.
SPEAKER_00Correct. So how do we figure out a way to involve them less? So when we talk about it's now morphed into resist and refuse and different uh terminology, but the core belief, and the court tries its best to protect against it, is you know, deal with your kids' schedules, tell them you love them, tell them you your dad wishes you could be there, your mom really has your best interest in my but people just don't, Dana.
SPEAKER_03And that's what's upset. So, like the way I think about it is what's so wrong with like, let's say you know your ex is a dick, right? What is so wrong with your kid growing up thinking that they're cared about, even if he really doesn't, and he let's say he's a narcissist, whatever. Do you really want your child growing up with that wound of feeling like unlovable and something? Or should we just be like, oh, you know, your your dad's bit like you don't have to like shit talk the other parent. You can say, like, oh, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00Let me challenge you and take it outside of the let's use politics as an example. We're not gonna talk about politics. But let's say you are a parent who so strongly believes in one side or the other, and your kid comes home and says, you know what? I really find the arguments on the other side interesting. Yeah. A good parenting move is, oh, tell me about that. Why do you feel that way? Okay, interesting. A bad parenting move is what are you, nuts?
SPEAKER_03Trying to get them to agree with you.
SPEAKER_00We as parents have to allow our kids to have independent emotions separate from us.
SPEAKER_03Curiosity, right? So curiosity is such a parenting technique and an interpersonal technique. It's not about getting the other person to agree with you and not like you need to understand me. It's tell me what I don't know.
SPEAKER_00If you put it in the context of the divorce, you are at the point in your life where some people, again, we're talking about small percentages of people, hate the other side so much with every fiber of their being. Right. And now you have the person you love most in the world who says, Dad and I had such an amazing time yesterday. Right. And you are geared, you're not at the best place in your life, you're you're you're you're psychologically at a bad place.
SPEAKER_03It's gonna hurt hearing that.
SPEAKER_00Now you it hurts. You question maybe don't even want them to feel happiness with the other side. So we're talking about people that are flawed, that are at their worst, that are that are not in a good place, and now they're being asked to be the most understanding version of themselves. Right. And expect them to act perfectly.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Takes this unique kind of person.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that's where therapy can be so helpful because of course that parent's gonna be feel hurt, right? It's the awareness of that hurt so that we don't take it out on our kids of like needing them to like, we don't want them to be happy either because we're miserable. We don't have to project our misery onto our children. And we're still allowed to have our feelings too.
SPEAKER_00The court uses it, I've heard it a thousand times. Do you love your children more than you hate your spouse? Ooh. Think about that one for a second. Right?
SPEAKER_04I like that.
SPEAKER_00Because if you do, if you truly love your children more than you hate your spouse, you will bite your lip, you will grin and bear it, and you will tolerate it. And you won't use every opportunity to bring the other side down because you know, but again, education. So first of all, uh do for people that are dealing with this issue in their lives or in their divorce or re read the research. Okay, there's a 55% increase in anxiety and depression in children who live in an alienation setting. Yeah. There's a 30% increase in suicidal ideation. So if people Those are big numbers. These are big numbers. These are big outlier numbers. Yeah. Here's the one that's going to blow people's minds. And it is a 50% or higher chance that an alienated child will then alienate their own children.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, that's generational trauma at its finest.
SPEAKER_00So if you if you arm, I arm my clients with the research, you know, I I I make it available in a court proceeding and I say to them, if you read this data and you continue to do it, something is seriously wrong with you.
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. How does that land when you say that?
SPEAKER_00You know, I I think some people hear it. And some people just need to be educated on what it means, practically speaking. Right. And what it looks like. You know, again, it's it's it comes in little ways. It is not this big dramatic act where it's like, okay, it's 814, I'm gonna begin to alienate right now. Right. It's little subtle things. And I think when you try to teach them things, alternate reactions, different ways to deflect. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Another way replacement behaviors, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that it works. But again, if there are people who are, you know, we we talked about this another time. When you have undiagnosed mental health conditions, yeah, they're not gonna stop.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00They don't know how. Right.
SPEAKER_03We repeat what we don't repair, right? I say it every time we close out our our episodes, and because we're not aware of it, awareness is the first step. But if you're so focused on the other person, like that person that you hate so much, there's no focus on you, and then you can't build that awareness.
SPEAKER_00But here's the beauty of it, and I've seen this all too many times. If you're the victim, right? You're the target of parental alienation, kids are pretty incredible.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, I I won't say this to give people false hope, but I have seen kids come around in ways that will blow your mind. So you have some kid who's refusing to go on weekend visits with you. The only thing I will tell you is be patient.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Don't fight fire with fire. Be patient, let it happen, rely on therapists, do the little things, let time go by. Kids are smart.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then they will come around.
SPEAKER_00They will be like, you know what? My my my dad told me all this stuff about my mom. But I don't think that's true.
SPEAKER_03And I never heard mom say anything about dad.
SPEAKER_00So be patient. It's a hard thing to ask.
SPEAKER_03It's so, it's, but that word patience is so important and so many because it's I need I need them to see it right now, right now. Trust, right? Like be patient and trust and be the person that that kid needs.
SPEAKER_00And that's why we rely on you guys, right? We constantly, in my case, is what did your therapist say? How should you what did your therap therapist tell you to rely on? I try to, I mean, I I can't open up a direct line of communication, but I want to know when my clients are experiencing something like that, especially when they're the target, it's like, okay, what what what did she tell you? Yeah. How do we react to that? Oh, that's good. That, you know, right. So their need because it is a therapeutic setting.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. It is. Absolutely. And that's where just like that communication between families, that's the goal, right? Anytime there's going to be a divorce or a breaking of a marriage and there's kids involved, I wish there was more of a focus of uh uh like ideally speaking, it would be so nice if everybody went to family therapy, regardless of how happy of a of a you know, decoupling it is, just to keep everything transparent and keep the lines of communication open, more so of like, let's think of our worst case here. If something comes up, how would we like to handle it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think people need to take away from this one thing is all of these things we're saying are wonderful, beautiful, and we're right. But here's the problem some people go there to do bad things. Yeah, some people go to court to hurt the other side. So while we can talk about family therapy and parental alienation, all this stuff, and I'm trained to combat it and all that people go there with an intention to do harm. Yeah. And sometimes it's a war.
SPEAKER_03And that's the problem with the legal system, right? Because like we're with people going with that intention, and people who go in with that intention usually have been building their case for a while to make sure their ducks are in a row, so if they had to pull that lever, it'd be ready, right? Like that coercive control that we talked about. So when that happens, how do we protect the person who is being victimized?
SPEAKER_00It's a great question. And I think to to to preface the question, you people need to understand that just in Westchester County, let's do it as a microcosm level. I'm sure it's the same everywhere else. There are four matrimonial judges in Westchester County, which is a lot. We used to have two. Okay. And they oversee thousands of cases. Wow. Thousands of cases. Last time I checked, each judge had over 250 cases assigned to them. Not all active, some active. That means 300 different stories, 300 characters, 300 people writing letters, making motions, claiming that all and sometimes There's only four?
SPEAKER_03Like my head is like, like I wouldn't be able to keep that straight.
SPEAKER_00I think there could be ten, and there still wouldn't be enough.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00But there are four. Okay? Each judge, on any given day, hears seven to eight cases. Wow. Right? So in you walk at 9 30 in the morning, you're the first one being called. Judge glances down at his or her agenda and sees eight more cases. And you, your lawyer wants to talk about all the terrible things that you've endured, and sometimes you have. Sometimes horrible things have happened. But that judge has a docket to get through.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then they also have, you know, a one o'clock call for their own purposes, right? Right. So what what you try to tell people is look, if you've come to this litigation setting to right the wrongs of your relationship and expect the court to give you the time and the attention that your case requires, that's your first mistake. You are not going to monopolize the court's time or get the time that your case really desires, which means you have to build your case in the background.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00You have to do your healing and your family therapy and your litigation strategy. And when you come to court, it is talking points. It is, I've got three things to accomplish today, Judge. Yes. And I've got to accomplish all three of them, or I'm not leaving.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Right? Right. So that means your lawyer's got to be razor ready. You have to be prepared with the facts, the evidence. Right. You can't show up at your lawyers, you know, 15 minutes early to court and be like, oh, let me tell you what happened over the last five days. Right. No, this is preparation because you know to be really intentional. Very intentional. Which requires work from the litigants. Because guess what? Lawyers are busy and they have cases.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the theme I'm hearing so much is time, right? There's just not enough time. Time in the day, there's not enough, like everyone's doing more than they can. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00And I also want your listeners to understand that not everyone cares as much as you do. I know. You know, sadly, the judges, and I'm gonna trivialize and say, let's pretend something terrible has happened in your divorce. Not terrible, but someone has consistently, you know, not followed rules with respect to um uh exchange times for the kids, or someone hasn't told you about a decision. These are all bad things that no one should have to deal with, right? You go into court and the person's expectation is the judge's hair's gonna light on fire and they're gonna take the imaginary gavel and bang. Right. No, because the day before someone kidnapped a kid and went to another state, or somebody, you know, broke someone's jaw, or a kid had a cigar put out on their forearm.
SPEAKER_04Right.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00And your They've heard it all. And your story, your trauma, to get back to our earlier theme, it's just a run-of-the-mill issue. So is that terrible? In a way it is, but will people have the right expectations and that this court system is not here to heal your abusive or narcissistic spouse? Right. They don't even understand what it is. Right. That your listeners have more of an understanding about narcissism than even the more experienced judges. Yeah. Sorry to tell you.
SPEAKER_03But it's true though, because a judge is not a therapist, right? Has no formal training on even how to identify the issues. Correct. And there's no like what law would then would be able to be kind of in you know played upon. There's nothing like you can't say, like, oh, ruling for the the defendant because the other one's a narcissist. There's no law for that.
SPEAKER_00And listen, you you you know more about narcissism than I do, but the way it shows itself. The way it shows itself in my cases is that the narcissist is actually seemingly the reasonable one. They're so keen prepared to always show that they're being compliant, and they've manipulated every situation five ways from Sunday.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And if you are not trained to identify the issues, then it just looks like they're being the good guy.
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. So how do you think that's a good thing? You look like the unorganized, chaotic one. Correct. Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, actually, she has no idea because I planned all these things for the kids. That person has spent an inordinate amount of hours trying to plan something that sabotages your life and your schedule. Right. And doesn't work for you. Right. But when they come to court and say, look at this wonderful planning, I did this.
SPEAKER_03I did everything the way I was supposed to.
SPEAKER_00And the second mistake for your listeners, they make is they think that at some point there's gonna come a time where my lawyer or I are gonna break through to them. Never ever gonna happen. And there truly are very, very few ways to deal with narcissistic litigants. And you just gotta bring everything to the judge.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And you have to leave the emotion out. That's a huge part of working with NPD is because they feed on that emotion and you just have to keep it straight with the facts.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03What can you, what levers can you pull based on the law.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Because if you don't have anything there, then that's you have to work through the distress that there were things that you couldn't control.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And that takes a lot of therapy to work through.
SPEAKER_00It does. You know, I I will say that most of my clients who are dealing with a spouse uh with those traits, they've done a lot of homework and they've done a lot of work understanding where they are. I mean, I I truly can't stand when someone comes in my office and say my spouse is a narcissist and they explain what the what the traits are, and I'm like, stop it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Your spouse is an asshole. I've just diagnosed them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, I miss the days when someone was just an asshole. Correct. That was the that was made life a little easier. They're just a dick. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So someone said to me that, you know, you're really uh one of the people that understands more about I said, I may not be an expert on narcissists, but I'm world-class authority on assholes.
SPEAKER_03So that you know but when you are seeing people when they're at their worst, too.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, but it's when you see it in action, when you see a true someone with those narcissistic traits in action, again, people need to understand it doesn't look bad to a judge.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00That's dangerous.
SPEAKER_03It's the charming ones, it's the ones that seem like they have it all together and they're perfectly controlled.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's dangerous, and people need to realize that you're not going to do business with that person. Right. You're just not.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah, that's so important, I think, for our listeners to know. So for for those individuals where, you know, that's who they're dealing with, they're not going to be able to, in the in court, be able to get their healing. So when you think about the court of public opinion, where like this is where my head goes is like, you know, some people take to social media, they they do this to kind of like tell their story. And then is there like, can that other person then like sue them for defamation or something like that? Like, how does that work?
SPEAKER_00I call it changing your audience, right? If you present your case to one audience and you don't get the reaction that you want, perhaps you go to court. Now you're presenting it to a different audience, and perhaps you don't get the reaction you want there. So what do you do? You go to social media and you look for a different audience. The problem is your audience in social media is often the people who think exactly like you. Yes. And there is no uh critical thinking. Right. So you get the same people that have been hurt in the same exact ways, telling their stories and repeating all their catchphrases. And look, the the single, I won't say the single worst thing you could do, but definitely on my list of top three stupid things you can do in a divorce is post anything on social media that even in the most remote way touches upon your case. And now this is going to infuriate a lot of people. They they are the First Amendmenters, okay?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they want to talk about, well, you know what? If if I'm being abused, why can't I tell my story? You can.
SPEAKER_04But you can be tactical.
SPEAKER_00You're in court for a reason, right? Let's say it touches on custody. You're in court to protect your children, you're in court to fashion a custody arrangement that's in their best interest, right? Yep. And that's why you can't, because you're there for a reason and that's how it's going to be perceived. And there's a uh a famous former uh judge in in Westchester. I don't know if he'd want me to say his name, but he used to say he used to say to litigants, he used to say, guys, I didn't send out invitations for you to be here. Let's remember one thing. You wanted to come to me. Yeah, I didn't invite you here.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00So you are now under my discretion, my rules, and you no longer have the freedoms you had the day before you filed.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00So that's how it touches on social media. Yeah. Yeah, of course. You're not in a divorce, do whatever you want. Right. But once you put yourself under the umbrella of the court system, guide yourself in a way that benefits you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but it goes back to being patient, right? It's you have to be really tactical about stuff. Sometimes it's like you need to stay quiet for now, wait till the divorce is settled. If you want to speak afterwards, whatever, I would recommend getting a therapist before letting it rip on social media. But everybody, I think, like especially as a therapist, what I see is um once someone has an empathic witness to their story, that's when the healing starts. For some people, that's social media, like they they feel seen and heard. That's one way to do it. Um, but really it's more of that like more intimate relationship, like one with a therapist. I don't mean intimate as sexual or anything, but some where I feel understood by someone and they can tell me where they disagree with me and I'll listen to them.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And there's an empathic witness to my story.
SPEAKER_00Let me tell your listeners one more thing about social media, because again, I'm I'm I'm very critical of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, as you should be.
SPEAKER_00Let's say you say something that is not particularly bothersome.
SPEAKER_03Someone might perceive it that way.
SPEAKER_00But let's say it's something that really couldn't even be construed by the other side. You do realize people can comment to that, right? And you do realize that your somewhat innocent statement then becomes in responses in comments. So what does the other side do? They take all of those, not just your statement, but the comments that were they received to it. Let's say the comment was received to it by someone who's lost custody of their children and been accused of assault six times and arrested twice.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00Right? Yeah. So now the other side is going to take those comments and say, look who this person is talking with on social media. Yeah. You see how it gets misconstrued? Wow.
SPEAKER_03So it's not just so you're associating them with.
SPEAKER_00Exactly right.
SPEAKER_03Even if you didn't know that person at all.
SPEAKER_00And they will twist it and they will say, Look how, look at the circles in which he or she is, you know, uh associating themselves with.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00So your little innocent comment just became a huge bullet in the other person's gun.
SPEAKER_03Wow. And that would never probably be a thought in someone's mind when they were posting it.
SPEAKER_00Right. So an an another thing that we say when we try to craft orders that prohibit it in court is not just don't post, don't like, share, or comment.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Right? Because someone else can say, You're showing you're associated with it, right? There's an association somewhere there.
SPEAKER_00Look, Dana, custody litigation lasts a finite amount of time. It does not last forever. Yeah. Your kids are one, two, three, four, seven, eight, twelve, they're gonna be eighteen, they're gonna be your kids forever. You're in this phase of life, which is terrible. Yeah. For a year, fourteen months, sixteen months, you have a whole life ahead of you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You have a whole life ahead of you, you have a whole life with your children.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All we're asking is that for this little amount of time, you behave a certain way.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00That's all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Do you see where, like my in my head, I'm like re like frequent flyers, right? Do you have, you know, people who have come to you multiple times, like where they've been in were divorced, they got remarried, divorced again, and noticing that pattern.
SPEAKER_00A few times.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00A few times. And I think of one particular client that I'm really quite fond of. Um handled his first divorce, divorced, finalized, did his prenup, did his second divorce. Yeah. And at the end of the second divorce, I won't obviously won't say his name. I turned to him and I said, Listen, just save yourself the trouble. If you're thinking about a third one, just come and drop off a check. Don't even bother. There's a pattern here that you need to address. Yeah. And before you go and do that again, so there are people who, you know, go through these divorces and do the the difficult stuff in therapy with you and with others, and that get better and that find love in a different way the second time around. You see that a lot. I keep in touch with a lot of my clients, and you know, I was invited to a wedding for a while. Oh, wow. And and it it it is it is incredible to stay in touch with them to see how they evolve. Less frequently, people just continue to repeat patterns. Yes. And, you know, they just didn't do the work.
SPEAKER_03Right. And that's such a big part of it, right? Is and that's where I think before anybody even gets married in the first place, to do your work first. Because more often than not, we play out our unresolved stuff with our partners, right? Or with our kids. And nothing makes your your unresolved stuff more like to the surface than having a child. Like I could speak to that absolutely. Um, I was pregnant with my son on my therapist couch with my husband in couples therapy. And she was like, Dana, I think your family of origin stuff is getting kicked up now that you're pregnant. Would you like to come in for some individual sessions? And I was like, Yes, please, thank you. Um, so getting into um therapy beforehand, because we do bring those things in, and there's the relate the attachment style, right? That is a dynamic we tend to repeat because even though we don't like it, it's familiar. And we will always choose what's familiar over what's quote unquote best for us, time and time again.
SPEAKER_00That makes a ton of sense.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because we're looking for a corrective emotional experience.
SPEAKER_00Do you think about the fact that you know you have to take a written test before you get a learner's permit? You have to uh take the bar exam before, you know, the therapists have to have a cajillion clinical hours, right? Yeah. Zero for parenting. Right. Anyone that wants can go have a baby.
SPEAKER_03Fascinates me, right? Like there should be some kind of like, hey, you know.
SPEAKER_00And what about this? What about the fact that you could love someone and get married to someone, right? And they could be the most incredible person in the world and they could be a go-getter career-wise or whatever. How do you know how they're gonna be as a parent? What what traits are you looking for, right? And the same traits that you might find attractive in a spouse, maybe horrible parenting traits. Right. You know, that's scary. Tell them how about conversations? How about some simple conversations about what would you do in a situation? You know, how do you feel about, you know, one parent staying home and not working, or how do you feel about, you know, kids going away to college? Whatever. Have those conversations. If people have fundamentally different beliefs with you about parenting, maybe you don't get married.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. And those are the like hard conversations need to be had and people want to avoid them. And so many people think, well, it's gonna be fine. Like, I'm they'll change their mind once we get married. They don't change their mind. If anything, it's worse because now they feel like pigeonholed, right? But to like have those really hard conversations, it really comes down to values. The everybody has their own set of core values that and and none of them are wrong. They're just different. But if you have different values from your partner that will fundamentally impact how you live your life, how you raise a family, that's stuff that needs to be talked about.
SPEAKER_00Well, people also, you know, I tell bad stories, I tell scary stories, but you know, the one thing I will say is that I can't tell you in how many hundreds of cases I have, you know, people going crazy about financial issues and you know, this valuation of that asset, and blah blah blah. And I said, How's parenting going? Oh, it's fine. We don't talk about it. I go, what do you mean? They go, whatever they want. We're we're good. You know, custody is like we we're great with the kids. Like that happens a lot. There are people that can war over money, yeah, but respect each other as a family and with children. And I don't want that, you know, really healthy demographic to be forgotten. Right. You know, well, well, what if he asks for this custody? Oh, he can have whatever custody he wants. He's a great dad.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know? Total scumbag with money, though. Total scumbag with money, but great dad.
SPEAKER_03And that's a therapist in me is like, well, what does money represent in that person? Right? Like the one who's like so trying to control it, right?
SPEAKER_00Look, there they're I I'm just trying to put a bright side to things that there are people that can that can compartmentalize their kids and the and their fighting i i in a healthy way. More often than not, sadly, those aren't the people that hire me because I I come with the complexity of the cases. Right. But there are a lot of people that just you know separate that stuff out and and and and leave their issues on the financial stuff there are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And it's the financial stuff that can be very um, a lot of conflict and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00But same amount of abuse. Yeah. Different reason.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely, absolutely. And again, it comes down to those things. What does money represent to that person, right? A lot of times it's safety, it's control, it's power. And so needing to like I need to be a scumbag about money is because to me, look, I feel like I'm nothing without it.
SPEAKER_00There are men who seriously look me in the face and say, I understand I'm gonna have to pay child support. She has no idea how to handle money. So can I just pay all of her expenses for her instead? Because if I give her the money, she's gonna piss it away.
SPEAKER_03That also sounds like he still cares, right? Like, so you're worried, so and if she pisses all of her money away, then what?
SPEAKER_00But I said, you realize that you're gonna be divorced, but she has to come to you to ask permission to spend money after that. He's like, oh no, no, no, you don't understand. What uh I'm more than I want to do what's best, right? So you know, people talk about this concept of coercive control, right? Sometimes coercive control doesn't sound that coercive. Right.
SPEAKER_03I'm trying to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_00You know, bless her heart. She just can't manage a checkbook. So I have to control her. That doesn't sound so bad. In reality, he has an alert on his eye. I Apple watched and notifies him every time she spends more than $50.
SPEAKER_03Right. And he's keeping tabs on her, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's again, it's it's understanding the issues and it's being able to call them out. But finances, are you kidding me? I see people try to control each other in ways, you know, you you it it's unbelievable to me that people come to me and I say, Well, this is how it's been for the This is how it's always been. Right. You know, he puts in just enough money, right? And I'm not gonna make this too much about gender, but when you have a female who's the moneyed spouse who makes the money, oh honey, it gets worse.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I believe that. Okay, so I believe that.
SPEAKER_00I didn't work this hard and climb the corporate ladder and and and and get to where I am by taking men's shit just to oh no. So let's not pretend that this isn't always the big bad thing.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, it goes both sides.
SPEAKER_00Because I've had a lot of cases where my client is the woman and she makes the money. Yeah. And let me tell you something, it is a whole different dynamic.
SPEAKER_03I bet. I bet. Yeah. What's the biggest like difference that you notice?
SPEAKER_00Look, I think if I'm gonna men have been trained for a hundred years. Right? What what are the what are some of the famous barroom colloquialisms? Cheaper to keeper. Gonna have to give half anyway. Right? So men in bars and golf courses have been uh acclimatizing themselves to getting a divorce, right? Right? It's always this backslap, ah, what are you gonna do? You know, anybody, right? When it comes down to paying child support, paying maintenance, splitting assets 50-50, they know what's gonna happen. But now you you reverse it, right? And some of my male clients are gonna get upset, but that's fine. In my opinion, women have worked a lot harder to get to the position where they are the financially independent one and supporting a family. Yeah, they have dealt with a lot more than men have ever had to deal with. Yeah. So here they are. They there are very few of them in the world, comparatively, who are now in a position where my husband stays home or my husband has a job that doesn't make as much, and now I'm in control of the finance. So they don't have that hundred-year golf course, bar room, you know. So they're now, wait a second, he's a man. Why why can't he go out and work like every other man? Right. That's not how the law looks at it. Right. It's like this is the life. Yes.
SPEAKER_03So it becomes very, very difficult when you have a feeling all of a sudden, if you don't want to have that control anymore, well, then that that control is gonna cost you in the long run. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And learning that, you know what, these are the choices you made during the marriage, and judges take a snapshot of your case the day before you filed, not the create the narrative you create in the three or four months after you file. Right. They're retrospective in their in their insights. So that's the life you you chose, and that's the life they're gonna enforce.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So be careful what you set up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, that's like the conversation out of prenups, I think, is an important one, right? What is your stance on prenups? So like trying to be intentional with how you're going into a marriage?
SPEAKER_00You know, I think people are getting more educated in many different ways in today's day. We have podcasts, we have social media, you know, we have and I think it's good. I think that people are now starting to identify how important mental health is and psychology and relationships and marriage in a way they didn't 20, 30 years ago when I first started practicing. So this prenups, huge topic. First of all, any lawyer that tells you that they're not a fan of prenups is crazy. I mean, it is something that could potentially make a divorce so much easier. Right, right.
SPEAKER_02That's like my kind of thought process behind them. You know, if they're done right.
SPEAKER_00If looking at it from that perspective, it just you've limited the issues, if not eliminated them. Right. Okay, yes, everyone should do some talking about it. But I think the the the social media sound bites don't take into consideration one thing. Most people don't have a lot when they get married. They're 28, they're 31, you know, they just started a job. What do you want a prenup for? Right. What are you gonna put in the prenup? Right. My, you know, $14,000 savings is my no one's gonna go to a lawyer and spend five, six, ten thousand dollars unless they have family wealth. So I think we're putting too much pressure on people to think about prenups where they don't need one. Right. Right? What you're what social media is jumping on is they're saying, legislate your divorce early, right? They're trying to say, think of how things are gonna go early. And you can't. Right. When I got married, Dana, I had nothing. Yeah. I had nothing. Yeah. I had uh God knows how little I had in my bank account, and my wife just started her first job. What the heck were we gonna tell the lawyer to put in that prenup? Right, right. So I don't blame people that 20 years later you have a prenup? No. Why? That's so stupid. No, it's not.
SPEAKER_03But then again, everything that you've created after you were married, you couldn't have done it without your partner. It takes two people to make those things work.
SPEAKER_00I I would not be here today without my wife. Yeah. Point blank. Point blank. So anyone that has this revisionist, you know, history of their marriage and divorce and everything, wow, you know, I did it all. Total bullshit. Okay. But again, I don't want to feed people to feel like, you know, they're they're 46 years old, they're thinking about a divorce, and everyone's like, well, why didn't you have a prenup? Let's go back in time and remember where things were 20 years ago and why we didn't need one. So if you have reason, if you're a high earner, you have some assets, you're getting into a marriage maybe a little later in your life. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But let's not uh throw everybody under the bus for not thinking to get a contract when their you know biggest asset was their Apple Watch.
SPEAKER_03It's very well said. We had when my husband and I got married, I actually he was the higher earner than I was when we got married. And I actually did ask him for a prenup. And my thought process was I want to make decisions. God forbid. I hope we never get to that point, but I want to make decisions while we still like each other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because I had the mentality of like, I know how I can get when the chips are down, so to speak, and I can get vicious and stuff. And I was like, what I'll what I think is fair now versus what I might think is fair if I'm upset, are gonna be two different things. And so I want to make decisions while we still love each other.
SPEAKER_00Right. I think it's brilliant, I think it's great, I think it's also a lot to ask of two 27-year-old young people who are finding their ways in the world. Well, what about this? Or we could do this together. Let's let's make a test.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00A marriage parenting life test. Think about this for a second. Companies employ these types of tests all the time to see if people are management level. What if we had a simple test that could score your personality in a way where you knew that you were completely compatible? Incompatible with someone or compatible with someone. And I don't I don't care if people really, you know, take it seriously. And you say to yourself, wow, you came out with this is super not important to you, and this is super not important, and this is super important to me, or you know the the the social media buzz behind prenups is people encouraging people to have conversations about real life issues early that will protect you. But you can have those in other ways, right? You really can and should, even if it doesn't result in a prenup. What if you just sit down with someone and say, listen, let's talk really seriously about how you feel about my parents living with us when they get older?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I'm traditional, I come from a culture. When my mom is 89 and needs care, I want her to live with me. Let's talk about that right now.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00I'm just used that came off the top of my head, but that's a big deal for people.
SPEAKER_03That's a huge deal for people. Right? It's a lot to ask for people.
SPEAKER_00Some people are like, uh-uh, not doing it. Yeah. Should you not get married? I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying these types of things.
SPEAKER_03Then there might be like an alternative solution you guys have to talk about. Correct. And it's just communicating.
SPEAKER_00It's communicating. The prenup conversation, I think, is is is is trying to teach younger people to have intelligent, important conversations about their lives.
SPEAKER_03Hard conversations, conversations, and that's why I think it's good. That exactly. That's something that's just so important. Where, because it's funny, you talk about like doing like a personality test, and my husband and I, if you put us like that, we on paper would probably be highly incompatible. Like we're like on a disc profile, we're polar opposites, all of that. Um, but what we have in common is that we're both we can communicate through conflict. Okay and that's important, right? That like that culture, I kind of I bring that culture into my business, I bring that culture into like my relationships of leave room for the conversation.
SPEAKER_00You know, people used to criticize people for marrying within their cultures and religions, right? I I you know, I look at it from a different perspective. I'm like, well, why did people do that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, why why for so many hundreds of years did you know Greek people marry Greek people or Korean people marry Korean people? Did it have something to do with the fact that you have baked in cultural assumptions that make your life easier? And so now people have gone so far from that, right? That's such an interesting perspective. So now you are the the furthest thing on your mind is if you're Korean or Greek or anything, is it marrying someone like that? But now you have to make guesses about culture and religion and parenting, right? Where when you married within your culture, you just not always, but for the most part, understood how you felt about elderly parents or disciplining children, right? It it it has a little bit to do with that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I has a lot to do with that, right? The difference in cultures, because I could see that being the like, well, it's easier if we have the same culture. My grandmother would say, my Sicilian grandmother, I'm one of 10 grandkids, five girls, five boys. She always said, Marry a Jew, they make the best husbands, right?
SPEAKER_00I tend to agree.
SPEAKER_01My last name is Stein now, right? So like I was the one that really listened and I'm happily married. God bless grandma, Sally for knowing what's what.
SPEAKER_00Um but don't let the girls in the Jewish culture, women have it had for the last 50, 60 years a prominence and an influence over a family in a way in a lot of other cultures they didn't. Right. So it makes sense. It stands to reason that Jews make good husbands because they're used to respecting women.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Even 80 years ago.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah. And I think my grandmother knew that like with any more Italian culture, the respect of women was more of a shift, maybe as a little bit, but in a lot of cultures. In a lot, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03But she um the cultural piece is important too, where you know, once you know, our son started Catholic school, and it's the funniest thing in the world watching my husband do religion homework because he is just like, he's learning, right? And then when I go to temple, I'm like I sat there at Beverish Bunch of like, oh, tell me all about this. I never learned this stuff. Um but I think it's the openness to the other person's world.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Isn't that the core?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Right. Isn't that the core? It's the core in everything. It's in what you do, it's in what I do, it's the core to be open and listen and and and and reliably allow the other person to be who they are.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell Right. You're not trying to absorb somebody into your world. You're trying to create a world where you both both of your worlds can exist.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But sorry, Dana, some people are trying to absorb the other one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. There's a regional mind, they're called energy vampires, right? They just suck everything out of us.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So we're gonna segue to like our little segment that I love called Truth or Bullshit.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I just like kind of ran off, run off a sentence and you say where it's truth, bullshit, or it depends. Okay. And then we'll have a little bit of a convo about it.
SPEAKER_00I'm ready.
SPEAKER_03All right. So number one, divorce is purely a legal process.
SPEAKER_00Absolute bullshit. It's almost more a psychological process than it is a legal process. Um sorry for outing you, divorce lawyers. The body of divorce law is very limited. Yeah. It is small. We have our own little law, the domestic relations law in New York. It's it's not that complex.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It applies to all the issues, but it is a way to balance psychology through talking about actual issues like money, right? So split this account. Simple, right? Not so simple when that account meant more to the other person because when he or she earned that account, something was going on in their life that meant it is very psychological.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It's when there's emotions attached to things, right? Selling a house, right? When there's like someone has an emotional attachment to the house, they don't care that it's only worth X amount. Oh, but it's where I raised my kids. Yeah, the market doesn't give a shit.
SPEAKER_00And fear. How about fear? How about how, which is a psychological component, right? How about I am fearful about my future prospects and earning potential. Therefore, I'm demanding more money and in turn looking like a money hungry pig. Right. When truly my goal is not more money, it's I need to compensate that my fear is controlling me. Right. So it's not, you know, again, not the money, not the calculations of child support. It's really you're dealing with someone's fear or anxiety and that they he or she will be able to be comfortable financially into the future.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah. They that sense of security.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Number two, winning in court means you've won the divorce.
SPEAKER_00Well, if somebody can define total bullshit. If somebody, if somebody can define winning for me early on in the case, I'll go with it. So you're in my office, it's the first or second meeting, and I say, what are your goals? Okay, give them to me clearly defined. Well, I'll tell you what, I don't really care about many, many things, but I it is super important to me that I have one, two, and three. I could deliver a win for that person.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If your goal is to get out of this as quick as humanly possible with the least amount of psychological damage to you and your kids, I might even be able to deliver that win. The win I can never deliver is when I don't have a goal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. When your goal, what are you shooting at?
SPEAKER_00The divorce, you have no goal. Right. I need to end this marriage and achieve the following three to four things that are super important to me that are not, you know, that are non-negotiables.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Fine. But if you come in there saying, I would like you to right the wrongs of the past 20 years, it's not gonna happen. Leave me feeling better about myself and inflict as much pain as you can. They all the the old saying, the only people that win are the lawyers. 100% true.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yeah. So true. So so true. And it's just it's making me think like we do EOS in our company of that entrepreneur operating system, and it's it's a rock, right? You need to have those clearly identified goals that you need to know what you're shooting at. Like that, you need a target. Otherwise, there is no outcome. You don't know how to deliver.
SPEAKER_00You're not allowed to change your rocks in EOS. Once they're set, they're set. They change, but sometimes what I will do is I will sit down with a client early on in the case and I'll say, I want you to write down how you feel about this settlement offer or how you feel about these issues right now.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00You have to show me. Right. Write them down for yourself. Because in four months, everything's gonna be different. That account's gonna be depleted, that that asset is gonna increase in value. So when these goalposts change, your goals shouldn't be forgotten. Yes. Write them down, keep them for your notes, keep them.
SPEAKER_03Be intentional with how you set the goal, right?
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I love that. Number three, the truth always wins in family court.
SPEAKER_00Hundred percent bullshit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Hundred percent bullshit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's the one that breaks my heart.
SPEAKER_00Look, the way I we talked about this earlier, okay. The the the the abusive spouse, the controlling spouse, the narcissistic spouse. You could you could say all the truth in the world about him or her. Right. But if you don't do it in the right way, you're gonna lose. Okay, so the truth doesn't always lose. What if I could identify what wins in court, I I would say that genuine people win in court. Right? So that doesn't mean truthful. What does a genuine person look like? A genuine person looks like someone who is literally trying to get through this process with his or her dignity and self-worth intact. That person knows that they're not gonna win everything.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That person knows that this divorce sucks for everyone. Right. For her or him, for the kids, it's not a good process. They know they're gonna lose a couple, they're gonna win a couple. They're gonna modulate, they're gonna be reasonable, and they're gonna always be genuine. And they're gonna say things like, guys, it's fine, it's fine, just let's move on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah. You could win in divorce if you have that attitude. Right. If you are rigid and you refuse to move off of topics, judges make personality assessments from the moment you walk into court on day one. And I will always tell my clients, look at the judge's eyes during this court proceeding. When that lawyer is talking, that judge is not looking at that lawyer the whole time. They're looking at you. And you're on the other side of the room. They're looking to see how you're reacting to things.
SPEAKER_03Are you doing that's not true? The theatrics, yep.
SPEAKER_00Right? Yeah. So it is, you know, the truth always wins. No. It is in many respects a personality contest.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and your personality will dictate what the truth is. And your outcomes. Yeah, 100%. If you're highly reactive, you can tank your case.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. The court system will protect someone divorcing a narcissist.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, positively, untrue. Um they don't even know what it means, Danny.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They don't know what it is. And their knowledge of uh of of narcissists may have come from the same false social media posts that everyone looks at. They and I say this not to disparage my beloved judiciary. They go, they're lawyers. They are, I think the requirement is you have to be a lawyer for five years.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Although many of them are lawyers for many long, much longer than that. And you have to win an election. You don't have to pass a test. Interesting.
SPEAKER_03You don't have to So just how many friends do you have?
SPEAKER_00How do you win elections? You get more people to vote for you. Yeah. So you then become a judge. And then the administrative judge who makes these decisions says, okay, here are the new judges. Uh car accidents, foreclosure, divorce. Whoa. So just like that. I could be a lawyer who won an election and became a judge, and have never handled a divorce case in my entire life. You heard me right.
SPEAKER_03And then what they do is it doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00Well, it gets worse.
SPEAKER_03Oh god.
SPEAKER_00And then what they do, and we don't have direct knowledge of of how this exact works, it's not publicly available. They go to what's commonly referred to as judges' school.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_00It's a one or two-day training, a couple of days a year, where they are given like a continuing legal education about the about the law. Okay? So I will tell you a story about I will say her name because I think she's fantastic. Judge Patel. She cycled through the matrimonial part a couple of years ago. She was a very top-notch litigator. She was a judge. I think she was in the court of claims. She got to the matrimonial part, and she would call people into the case and say, I know less about matrimonial law than you two lawyers do.
SPEAKER_04Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00I'm learning the best that I can and I'm reading everything I can, but I'm gonna rely upon you to tell me the truth and cite the vulnerability there. She was phenomenal and we lost her. But in any event, so you you you you ask questions about these things, and people need to understand what winning a case with a narcissist. A, they have no formal mental health training. They're not they're not clinicians, they're not anything, and they don't even necessarily have any experience ever having handled a matrimonial or custody case in their entire life. Wow. So do I say that with the intention to scare your audience? Yes. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because if you are hoping that your lawyer, who may or may not have any experience in, you know, high conflict custody or dealing with narcissist or forensics, you are now asking an unseasoned, inexperienced lawyer to explain to a judge that knows nothing a concept that evades even good clinicians.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And saying, I hope this works out well. Wow. It's not gonna work out well. Wow. So if you have any hope, it is get the studies, get the facts, do your work. Have conversations. Have conversations with professionals and say, Yeah, I know you know this stuff. I know you used to be involved, perhaps you were used to be a forensic psychologist. How do I present these issues in a way where I'm not gonna be judged the wrong way? Right. Or go to a lawyer that's and that you're gonna that is gonna listen to you, but that you're gonna listen to and say, those three things are horrible, but let me tell you all the bad things are gonna happen if we present those facts. Right. Be honest. Case in point. Client comes to me with a recording. Recording, if you listen to it, it's 37 seconds. It's horrendous. It's a father yelling at a kid like you would never believe. It was jarring. No physical abuse, but it was jarring. And she hands it to me and she says, Listen to this. When are we gonna present this in court? I said, Never. Why? I said, What were you doing?
SPEAKER_02That was my thought.
SPEAKER_00When your husband was doing 38 seconds, you thought, Don't protect my kid.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was my thing.
SPEAKER_00Don't step in and defuse the situation. Grab a recorder so I have evidence. And she looked at me with just this raw emotion of I'm a terrible fucking person. Because she got caught up. She got caught up and he's so charming, he's so successful, he's so this, he's so that. No one's ever gonna believe me. And she's right.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00But so again, as What does her kid think, right?
SPEAKER_03Does her kid feel safe and protected?
SPEAKER_00As it relates to custody litigation for your listeners, you are going into an African safari with lions and tigers and and and cheetahs. Get a good guide and listen.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because it is not what you think.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah. The the thought I just had is that, you know, the legal system and stuff won't protect someone from narcissism, but the parent can protect the child.
SPEAKER_00Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that's that's a big takeaway I think everyone should should take from that, right?
SPEAKER_00But that should be kids. That should be your goal. Your second goal is arm your child with the strength and the therapy and the tools and resources to protect themselves because you're not gonna be there.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna get divorced.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And the divorce ends, and and then your kids gotta deal with it.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00So arm that kid, right? What what's the old saying? Don't don't pave the road for the child, pay the you know, fix the f prepare the child for the road. I figured how it actually goes, but that's exactly it.
SPEAKER_03And that doesn't mean parental alienation, it just means like teach them like like model what a sense of security looks like. That's so much of like parenting is modeling, right? Be the person like you want your kids to grow up into, like someone who's strong and secure and who says no, yep, and who doesn't tolerate treatment. Right. That's what's important. Yep. That's how you set them up for success.
SPEAKER_00Agreed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Gus, thank you so much for being here and for talking about all these things. I think there's so many like nuggets of wisdom that our listeners are gonna really gain so much from. Tell everybody a little bit about where they could find you.
SPEAKER_00Oh, um uh my website, uh www.dimol.com. Uh pretty much is everything's there. Um you could uh listen to my podcast, you could uh see the social media stuff. Um, you know, that's it. Um and it I would just encourage if you're interested in any particular topics, do the reading of the actual article, study it. Please don't get all your information from my social media clips or anyone else's social media clips. Those are meant to be quick discussions to get people interested in a topic, and then go to the resources, read it, then read the resources that are cited, understand this stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Let the social media be the segue to where the information lives.
SPEAKER_00But thank you very much, Dana. Had fun.
SPEAKER_03I had so much fun. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, for listening. I am Dana Kredestein. This is the truth about healing, and I'm here to remind you that we repeat what we don't repair. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Truth About Healing Podcast. If you know someone who's still stuck, share this episode with them. Because as you know, the truth can set them free. And if you're ready to get started to see what you need to repair, contact us at peacefulliving mental health counseling.com and we will get you started. Until next time, I'm Dana Coretta Stein, reminding you we repeat what we don't repair. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health or medical advice. Listening does not create a therapist client relationship. If you need support, contact a licensed professional or your local emergency services.