BEFORE DIVORCE TOOLS: HOW EXPERTS PREDICT WHETHER A COUPLE WILL DIVORCE

Note: This is an excerpt from the book "When ALL Else Fails: Minimizing the Damage, Before, During, and After Divorce" by Kevin Karlson JD PhD available now on Amazon and Kindle.


Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.    Zsa Zsa Gabor

If you are thinking about divorce but are unsure about whether to do it
or not, this may help you decide. Dr. John Gottman, founder of the
Gottman Institute in Seattle, has emerged as a leading expert in the
understanding of marriage dynamics and in predicting divorce. After
more than 25 years of research and therapy with married and divorcing
couples, a number of basic patterns in how married couples interact can
be used to predict divorce (in the absence of change in these patterns).

First, there are two periods in married life when the risk of divorce is
higher:

 After 5-7 years of marriage when conflict is usually highest.

 After 10-12 years of marriage, as a result of lost intimacy.

It should be noted that marital conflict often increases when a baby
arrives, which usually happens during the first few years of marriage
(see bullet one above).

After the first child is born, 40 to 70% of couples
report significant declines in satisfaction with their marriage. So, a
period of marital dissatisfaction is the norm after the first child is born,
and in the absence of malignant interaction patterns, does NOT
necessarily lead to divorce . (Remember, most unhappiness is
temporary.)

The process that leads to loss of intimacy takes longer to result in
divorce, and research has identified the malignant interaction patterns
that DO predict divorce. These are:

 A one to one ratio between positive and negative interactions
(for happy couples the ratio of positive to negative interactions is
20 to 1).

 Mutual criticism (personal attacks on character, NOT
complaints about specific behavior).

 Defensiveness (“no I didn’t”, “yes but…”, “let’s talk about what
YOU did…” or other denials of any personal responsibility).

 Stonewalling (refusing to talk in order to avoid conflict).

 Contempt for the partner (eye rolling, sarcastic humor,
mocking).

Of the last four factors, those Gottman called the “four horsemen” (of
the Apocalypse), contempt is the worst, and most damaging to
marriages.

Here are some other findings from the research on marriage:

 Conventional wisdom says it is not a good idea to “go to bed
angry”. Gottman discovered that “flooding” – a physiological
phenomenon triggered by emotional conflict — leaves people’s
heart rates too high for them to think clearly and concentrate
on the conversation at hand. He found that taking the time to
calm down before finishing an angry conversation is more likely
to help couples stay close and connected. So take a time out,
and if it’s late, agree to start over in the morning.

 From the research on domestic violence, we have learned that
couples therapy with battering couples actually makes things
worse for the woman—not better—another significant
departure from the conventional wisdom. Partners need to get
individual therapy.

The Bottom Line

If your relationship is not overwhelmingly positive in your pattern of
interactions with your partner, but rather is characterized by Gottman’s
“four horsemen” of criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and
especially contempt, your odds of being divorced are more than four
out of five within five years. 

If you want to stay married, you both need to change the way you
interact. When marriages fail, both parties contribute to the failure.
Take responsibility for your contribution and get help. That means
getting professional help for both of you. Do it now.

Maximizing Christmas Joy: Tips and Tools for the Holiday Visitation

As the Christmas holiday approaches, most divorced families with kids will share   visitation time with the "ex". Here are a few suggestions to make that potentially awkward or even conflicted time turn out better for both the adults and the kids.

1. Confirm the time, place, and arrangements for the exchange in advance. By email. Get all the details straightened out far in advance, and then let the kids know what they are. Put it on the calendar or refrigerator or wherever you post important stuff.

2. Buy the other parent a Christmas present. A small but thoughtful gift. No snarky gifts with emotional bombshells attached. A nice gift. If you can't forgive your spouse and teach your kids to be kind and thoughtful givers, who will?

3. Be especially considerate about time. Be on time for the exchange. Make sure the kids get advance warning, and count down the time till the exchange so they are not surprised. Don't let the kids use Christmas as an excuse to generate conflict by being late--be on time, be polite, be considerate. Teach your children to do the same by following your example.

4. Let the kids take their new presents to the other parent's house. Kids will be excited about one or more of their new gifts and want to take it with them. Let them. Make sure they get back where they belong, by informing the other parent what they brought (by email if you can't talk politely).

5. Avoid the long good-bye and the "I will miss you so much over the holidays" tearful send-offs at the exchange. Make it fun, upbeat, and short. If you treat this as a normal event, so will your kids, and everyone will have a nicer holiday visit.

6. Use the time without the kids to take care of yourself. Read a book, go to the spa, go to dinner with friends, stay busy. Enjoy the holidays yourself so you will have stories to tell the kids when they get home and tell you theirs.

7. Make NO comments about how much the other parent spent (or didn't) on presents. Focus on teaching your kids to be grateful for whatever they got--it's a great opportunity to teach kids the value of family and relationships and to de-emphasize money and stuff.

8. Show modest interest in the family drama at the other parent's house. Listen, but don't interrogate. As someone recently said, "Every family has at least one crazy person in it. If you can't identify who that is, it's you!". Holidays mean that old family issues are re-played in virtually every family, including yours. Don't get overly involved in those dramas at the other parent's house. Teach your kids that everyone has their stuff, and teach them how to deal with it productively. In other words, model tolerance and understanding.

Have a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays).

Tools: Communicating with your spouse during and after the divorce [an excerpt from Your Best Divorce Now!]

TOOLS: COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR SPOUSE DURING AND AFTER THE DIVORCE

“Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way". John Kotter

Once the two of you decide to divorce, there will come a very uncomfortable period when you are still living in the same place, and if you have children, that discomfort could go on for years as you co-parent. Regardless of your unique circumstances, the divorce process, with or without children, requires periods of intensive communication to complete the divorce. A few people figure out how to communicate with their soon to be ex-spouse under the new circumstances and manage it well. Most don’t.

Here are my suggestions for how to do it with the least stress:

1. If you can still communicate face to face, stay on task, and NOT have a “Xerox conversation” (an identical repetition of a argument you two have had 100 times before), then sit down over the kitchen table and have a meeting with an agenda (written, but no more than 3-4 items per meeting) is the way to go.

2. Schedule the meeting at a mutually agreeable time, preferably NOT too late at night when you are both too tired to stay in control and solve problems.

3. Write down the agreement you reach for each item and sign it; give each spouse a copy.

4. If face to face meetings don’t work because the level of hurt and anger are too high, then choose the channel of communication LEAST likely to lead to escalation and MOST likely to lead to solution or agreement.

This is my ranking of channels, from LEAST likely to escalate to MOST likely to escalate into an argument:

• Letter writing (Least likely to escalate)
• Email
• Texting
• Phone calls--scheduled ahead of time with an agenda
• Face to face with a counselor or parenting coordinator/facilitator
• Face to face meetings in a public place--scheduled with an agenda
• Face to face in private with a friend present--scheduled, with agenda
• Skype or Face-Time--scheduled, with agenda
• Spontaneous, unscheduled phone calls
• Face to face alone; no agenda (Most likely to escalate)

5. If you are already in the “can’t talk without arguing phase” of your divorce, then start with “letter writing” and work your way DOWN the list above until you find a channel that works for the two of you.

The challenge with letters, email, and text is that all the emotional content is removed, making communication harder and misunderstanding more likely. The benefit of these more impersonal channels of communication is that these same channels remove the “triggers” which re-ignite old arguments because usually the triggers are facial expressions and tone of voice that are signals of criticism, defensiveness, or contempt.

When children are involved, use email and text to set up or change visitation arrangements and to share information about the kids. Keep your face-to-face interactions at the door during exchanges of visitation:

•  Brief, 
• Informative, 
• Firm, and 
• Friendly (remember the acronym BIFF).

This BIFF strategy also applies to texts and emails you send to the other parent. Protect your kids from seeing more of the conflict and start a new pattern of civil, friendly, cooperation and co-parenting for THEIR benefit. (Special thanks to Bill Eddy for the BIFF strategy.)

Even after the legal divorce is completed, you will still have occasions when you must communicate. Use the channel that works best for both of you.

[A note NOT included in the book]

There is a pattern among couples who are NOT really emotionally untangled that includes multiple emails or phone calls from one spouse (or ex-spouse) to the other about a myriad of issues, usually kids or money. The harassing spouse makes each issue sound like an emergency and demands (or expects) an immediate response, and if that is not forthcoming, adds that failure to respond to list of complaints in the next email or call.


There is a solution:

1. If you know the kids are safe, check voicemail and email from your ex ONE time per day.

2. Go through them all at one time, the same time every day, and if a response is needed to solve a problem THAT DAY, then answer THAT question. Ignore everything else in the messages--do NOT respond.

3. Do the same thing, every day, at the same time, and teach your ex to expect a response at that time of the day, and no other. (Don't bother to try to explain or get agreement on this, just start doing it and keep doing it.)

4. Eventually the calls/emails will taper off because if you don't respond, there is  no emotional payoff for them to continue to harass you. You MUST stick to this strategy forever for it to work. If you slip up and respond immediately to one message, the pattern will return and you will have to start over. So be vigilant, and stick to your guns.

This strategy of managing your communication will not only make your own life easier and less stressful, it will be another step in disengaging from a pattern that hurts both you and your children by maintaining the ongoing conflict at a high level. It takes both parents to truly end this destructive pattern, but one parent can wind it down by following these steps and sticking to it.


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