Let Me Tell You a Story

We all have them.  Here in the Trenches, we hear more than most.  What happened and who did what to whom is what we hear in the Trenches.  The interesting thing about our stories is that they are so one sided.    They are told from the perspective of our client, and are colored by their experiences in life and their emotions.  Listening to them is like reading a book told from the perspective of a single narrator.  I love books with narrators, but I especially love when the book has two narrators, and the story goes back and forth between them.  What you learn from those stories is how the same events can be seen entirely differently by two people.  We keep that in mind here in the Trenches.  We know that no matter how rational and detached the narration, our client's story is always colored by their past life and their emotions.  The impartial truth about the situation is usually not what they say, and not what their spouse says, but something that combines parts of each story.  When we say this to clients, it's not because we don't believe their story.  It is because we know that in order to help them move on with their lives and resolve the issues facing them, we need to understand the whole story, know what each of them includes and leaves out.  That gives us information about what is important to each of them, so that we can help fashion a solution that works for both of them.  If it only works for one, there will never be a lasting agreement.  As the song says, "It takes two."