TGIF

Twas The Week Before Xmas

And Panic Abounds

Sane, Normal Parents Are Not To Be Found

I Hate Me - Let's Fight

“We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.”
-- William Hazlitt


Isn't that the truth?  Or perhaps you would prefer "If misery loves company, misery has company enough." -Henry David Thoreau?  Have you ever noticed that unhappy people want everyone else to be unhappy as well?       It's almost as if they can't truly "enjoy" being miserable unless others are as well.  I don't know about you, but I  like wallowing in self pity all by myself.  I want someone to come along and convince me the party is boring and I should end it rather than joining it with me.  When I'm in a bad mood, I'd rather you talk me out of it.  When you yell at me, I try to figure out why - what did I do to provoke it, what might be going on in your life, why you handle disputes the way you do.  Do I yell back?  Sometimes, but I usually regret it.  The times I do take the bait are times at which I'm not at my best, when I'm tired or overwhelmed. Here in the Trenches, what I do does not affect how I live my life.  It does, however, affect my clients' lives.  Here are people enduring the biggest loss, next to death, that they will ever encounter.  Every aspect of their lives is changing, and they don't know how.  They're off balance and confused.  Every nerve in their bodies is raw.  Many of them blame themselves for the breakup of their marriage.  Maybe they didn't want the marriage to end.   I would call most of our clients dissatisfied with themselves and their lives.  Add to that their being high conflict people, and you come up with some epic quarrels.  Understanding this means we view the most quarrelsome client with compassion and understanding.  We help them feel safe, heard and respected so they can reduce the desire to quarrel.  It's all part of what we do, here in the Trenches.

Bad Behavior and the Need for Christmas Vacation

I know I sounded uncharacteristically pessimistic yesterday.  As those of you who read this blog regularly know, many, if not most, of my clients or their spouses are what Bill Eddy likes to call high conflict people.    To put it simply, these folks are tough, and it takes a lot of energy to deal with them on a regular basis.  What makes them so tough?  For starters, nothing is ever their fault - and I mean nothing.  If nothing is ever their fault, then it must be someone else's.  In the Trenches, that someone is usually their soon to be former spouse, but it can just as easily become their lawyer.  They do "bad" things and justify their behavior because of some action by the target of blame.  The problem is that bad events have longer lasting consequences than good, and bad behavior is more destructive than good behavior is constructive.  If you think about it cognitively, it makes sense.  It only takes one event to gain a bad reputation, but once you have a bad reputation, it takes multiple positive events simply to neutralize it, let alone turn it back into a good reputation (which may never happen).  Many people don't exercise or eat right to feel good; they do it so they don't feel bad.  What does all this have to do with the Trenches?  Contrary to popular belief, lawyers don't just provide legal advice.  Our jobs, done correctly, mean that we help our clients clarify their needs and goals, explore and weigh options, and negotiate effectively with their spouse.  We know that once someone engages in bad behavior, given that our clients are already in a negative situation, our jobs become that much more difficult.  That means that contemporaneously with helping our clients on a substantive level, we need to work to prevent bad behavior from occurring, both in them and their spouse (and probably the spouse's lawyer as well).  We have to identify the high conflict people, recognize and manage our reactions to them, and help them feel safe so they can resolve their differences and move on in life.  It's a tough job, and it can be exhausting and draining.  We keep doing it because we care.  We don't always like it.

I'm Back!

Well, Christmas cookies are done and delivered (Whew!).  Time to focus on the Christmas....emergencies.  Every three or so years, they come streaming out of the woodwork.  The last time that happened, we had a husband threatening to drive through a picture window and plotting to kill his wife, and a little chest butting at a Christmas concert.  It was so crazy, I nearly threw out the holiday gifts I was wrapping.  This year is slightly less crazy (thank goodness for my gift recipients!), but between now and Christmas, I have two emergency hearings, one truly ridiculous custody trial, and another potential emergency.  Makes my shoulder hurt just thinking about it.  All except one of this year's emergencies are nothing but power plays about parental control.  In each case, there are clear court orders setting forth what the holiday access is supposed to be, and those court orders were by agreement between the parents, and not forced on them by a judge.  It's cases like these that make me despair for humankind, because the only conclusion I can draw from them is that the other parent made an agreement never intending to honor it.  Who suffers for that?  The children.  It's always the children,  but parents like these don't care.  It breaks my heart, but keeps us in business - here in the Trenches.

Christmas Cookie Weekends, Again

Sorry for the lack of posting recently.  Between totaling my car and Erin leaving, there have been a major bunch of custody emergencies.  Add to that the almost 300 dozen cookies I make between my two Christmas cookie weekends, and something's got to give.  It's the blog.  See you all next week.

TGIF (Not Really)

After 7 years....

Erin Rode Away

To a New Job at the Courthouse

Already

The Rules Always Apply...

Except when they don't.  What is it with selective enforcement of rules?  My parents' trainer's car was broken into.  The window was smashed, but nothing was taken.  The police refused to take a report because "they'll never catch anyone."  My motion to dismiss a modification of custody was denied because "they'd just amend the pleadings and refile."  A former husband files an emergency motion in a closed case, doesn't get a summons issued, doesn't personally serve the former wife.  The court ignores the lack of jurisdiction and grants the motion.  Really?  Is playing by the rules no longer in fashion?  Maybe we just get to selectively determine which rules and laws get enforced.   The crazy making part of this is that on a different day, in a different court, or maybe before a different judge, the result would have been totally opposite.  I feel like a rat in a Skinner box.  You remember that experiment:  B.F. Skinner created a box in which rats pushed a lever and food came out every time.  Then he changed the experiment so that when they pushed the lever, they received an electric shock.  A third time, the rats were placed in the box and when they pushed the lever, sometimes food came out and sometimes they received an electric shock.  What did Skinner find?  Behavior that was reinforced by intermittent reinforcement was more resistant to extinction than behavior reinforced by positive or negative reinforcement alone.  What that means is that when the rules and laws aren't enforced uniformly, then not only do those people who abide by the rules continue to do so, but also those people who don't abide by the rules will continue to do that as well in the hope that they will continue to get away with it.  For those of us here in the Trenches, who try always to abide by the rules, it's frustrating, just like it is for our clients when their spouses don't play by the rules.  It's especially frustrating to know that unless the rules are enforced consistently, that behavior will probably never change.  I guess we need to look at all this as an opportunity to practice our coping skills.