The Devil You Don’t Know
In The Devil You Don’t Know, Lindsay, Cleveland, and their guests discuss personal growth and development by taking chances and getting out of your comfort zone. Topics range from whimsical to serious and everything in between but are always relevant to growth and development.
The Devil You Don’t Know
The Divorce You Don’t Regret: Mediation, Money & Moving On a Conversation with Mediation Expert Joe Dillon
Joe Dillon, co-founder of Equitable Mediation Services, shares how couples can navigate divorce with clarity, compassion, and collaboration rather than through costly, emotionally destructive litigation.
• Divorce doesn't have to be a disaster or train wreck if couples choose to move forward amicably
• Mediation promotes "win-win" scenarios instead of the "win-lose" or "lose-lose" outcomes common in litigation
• "Interest-based negotiation" focuses on finding alternatives that satisfy both parties' underlying needs rather than rigid positions
• The financial cost of attorney-driven divorces can reach $200,000 – equivalent to paying for a four-year college education
• Putting children first requires parents to see beyond their conflicts and consider how their behavior impacts their kids
• A skilled mediator creates a balanced environment where both parties feel heard and respected
• Personal experience as a child of divorce drives Joe's commitment to helping families avoid similar trauma
• Many couples now continue living together post-divorce due to economic pressures, requiring specialized "roommate agreements"
• The future of divorce includes more non-attorney options and alternatives to traditional litigation
• "Don't do the deciding before the discovery" – making decisions before understanding all financial aspects leads to unfair agreements
Visit equitablemediation.com for resources, free video courses, blogs, and to schedule a consultation.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Cleveland.
Speaker 2:And this is Lindsay.
Speaker 1:And this is another episode of the Devil you Don't Know. Today we have a guest and we're sitting down with Joe Dillon, who is the co-founder of Equitable Mediation Services, and in today's episode, we want to explore how couples can navigate the emotional and financial complexities of divorce with clarity, compassion and collaboration. Now, joe, if there's anything here I say wrong, please correct me. Lindsay will. That's what she does, she likes this she is the mistress of feedback.
Speaker 2:And that is why we don't need the mediation services.
Speaker 3:Yet, wow.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I got Joe's number in case, stuff happens at the end of the show. With over 17 years of experience and a personal connection to the impact of divorce, joe shares with us today why mediation, not litigation, can lead to better outcomes for families. We're going to discuss the high emotional and financial toll of courtroom divorces, how to prioritize children's needs during separation and why clarity is a powerful tool when it comes to untangling finances. Whether you're going through divorce or, like many of you in the audience, are probably just thinking about one or supporting someone who is, this is a conversation that will offer some practical advice, encouragement and, hopefully, a path forward. So, joe, take it away. I did that big intro for you. What's going on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that guy sounds fantastic, so let's talk to that guy, Right? You know why not, right? I want to meet this guy. So, yeah, thanks for the welcome and thanks for having me. You know, well, we'll right.
Speaker 3:There's a lot to talk about when it comes to a divorce. You know, a lot of times people think divorce has to be a disaster or a train wreck. Anyone who's been through one or known someone, we all have that friend or family member that has had that litigious, including myself as a child of divorce. But I can tell you from experience that if you choose and that's the operative word, right, we all have to be adults and behave ourselves. If you choose to move forward in a amicable, peaceful way, it doesn't have to be that way. So let's definitely explore that. I think a lot of people are under the misguided impression. They need to lawyer up and, you know, drop the gloves. I'm a former ice hockey player, so I use that reference a lot and say, hey, let's go. You know, tête-à-tête here and it really doesn't have to be that way. So looking forward to talking more about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, both of us are divorced. I was going to say formally divorced, currently married. But, lindsay, you were going to say something.
Speaker 2:Well and I'm particularly interested in this, Joe, because my ex-husband and I tried to go through our divorce- using a mediator, and it was unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. So I'm interested in you know, hearing more about what you have to say today and what are some of the things that make it difficult and how we can also navigate, you know, some of those complexities so that it can be, more you know, more smooth for couples.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, one of the things that Dr Covey talks about in his book the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People is this idea of win-win. You know, win-lose and lose-win. And I think, when it comes to divorce and I'll give you an example, and then I'll definitely give you back the floor is when I think, when it comes to divorce, um and I'll give you an example and I'll, and then I'll definitely give you back, the floor is, um, when I think, when it comes to divorce, is people don't realize that it can be a win-win scenario. And I think folks look at it as either lose, win, win, lose or even lose, lose. And I'll give you an example of somebody I used to work with many years ago.
Speaker 1:I used to work at federal express and I won't say this gentleman's name because you probably Google him, you can find him. But there was a guy that he was a new driver, maybe the year was like 1999. And this guy comes in and he looked familiar to a bunch of people and then somebody asked him like hey, man, weren't you on the Detroit Lions? And he's like yeah, I was. And they were like what the hell are you doing here? Well, I got a divorce and I decided my wife was going to get half of nothing. So I rather he said, rather than her, have the house, the car and everything. He was like I quit the NFL and was like I'm going to come back to Brooklyn and I'm just going to give her nothing. And Dr Covey actually uses that in the book the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People about people who've gone through divorces and have looked at it that way that if I have to share assets with somebody, hey, I'd rather share half of nothing. So let's start there with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's right. That's the nuclear option, right. And when, in mediation, we call that expanding the pie, meaning, well, there's something that you probably want that I don't really care about, and vice versa, right. And so look at us being adults and giving each other things, and we're able to negotiate a settlement that both of us are happy with and neither of us gave up something that we really cared about.
Speaker 3:I had a boss way, way back in my corporate days. He would refer to it as giving someone the sleeves off your vest. So when you think about it, sleeves off your vest. Okay, what the heck is that, john? You're confusing me, man. But the reality is when we think about divorce as a zero sum game, that's when we get in these lose, lose, win lose situations. But there are lots of ways to understand that and what you're touching on. But this, cleveland and Lindsay, you, you get into what we call interest based negotiation versus positional based negotiation. Positional I want a donut, you know, I want to eat the last donut. I want to eat the last donut, right? It's a zero-sum game. One of us eats the donut, the other one doesn't get the donut, right.
Speaker 1:It sounds like the kids around here, right, Lynn?
Speaker 3:Exactly. If you touch my donuts I will hunt you down. But what if you said, hey, you know what, you can have the donut, but I'm going to eat the Danish. That's in the box, right? So you're looking for some alternative to it, and I must be hungry. You know it's later in the afternoon here, and so when we think about it that way, I think that's where we get away from. If I win, somebody has to lose and a good mediator is going to be able to expand that pie and show people that there are paths forward and alternatives where you can give some, you can give. You can get, you can get. And everybody walks away. You know, reasonably happy, right, it's a divorce, but reasonably happy.
Speaker 2:That's actually the opposite experience that I had with mediation. So I like that you clarified that when I went into mediation we had done a few meetings and I had been a stay at home mom for a period of time and had given up my career to raise the children, which was what my ex-husband had wanted, and I enjoyed being home. But at the end of the day I was pretty much left with not having any way to support myself and we had gone to mediation. And I remember one day I excused myself, went into the bathroom at the mediator's office, cried and cried and cried and then came out and said I've reached my emotional capacity, I cannot do any more of this today, and I left and I hired an attorney.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that happens a lot when you have people don't understand each other. What I would say to that, lindsay, is you worked inside the home and sending those messages, right, as a mediator, sending those subtle messages to whoever's listening, right? Because, remember, I work for both parties. I'm in the room at the same time with two people, so when I say it out loud to one, the other one is definitely hearing it and we're trying to change the arc of their narrative. Instead of it being well, I went to work and you stayed home. What did you think I was doing all day? Right? So my mom worked inside the home. I'm an only child, you know. We could all say it in Cleveland. You can definitely agree on this.
Speaker 3:You know, boys are hellions right, we just we, our whole goal is to light something on fire. It's to break something, to pull the toaster apart and see why it works that way. I don't know if it changes.
Speaker 1:I don't even know if it changes once we're adults.
Speaker 3:I don't think so, really, really ask my wife? It really doesn't. And at the end of the day, we have to create that narrative where both parties are now on equal footing and it sounds like for you that wasn't the case. Your ex-husband didn't recognize that role you played, the sacrifices you made, and the mediator does need to step in in that regard. It's not that they're taking sides, they're just stating facts. You worked inside, you worked outside. You both performed valuable services that allowed, for example, in your case, lindsay, if your ex-husband was working in a job, who is bringing those kids to school or who's picking them up when the nurse calls and says they're sick? He's not, you are, and he wouldn't be able to earn the income that he did if you weren't doing that. So that's one kind of small example of how an experienced mediator is going to. You know, drop those breadcrumbs out onto the table and let the birds peck at them and see how that conversation unfolds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely agree. I felt very bullied during the experience.
Speaker 3:Makes sense, right? You know it's like wait a minute, I'm busting my butt over here. You clean up the vomit, right, and I and I, really I.
Speaker 2:I actually resigned from working for the Department of Education because I couldn't take any kind of per diem work or anything. If I, you know, was employed, you know, even on a leave from the department of education in.
Speaker 1:New York so.
Speaker 2:I gave up my career to raise the children, and so I did. I felt very bullied and it was the same way I had actually felt when we went to couples therapy and I was like I just can't do this anymore. I don't want to.
Speaker 3:That's a good point. It's a choice and we all know right in relationships, whether you've been married a long time or you've been divorced, we're adults, we have choices in how we behave. We have choices in how we treat others. And somewhere along the line I say this to clients sometimes and, as you guys are learning about me, I'm a pretty straight shooter, you know. I think it's that New York thing and sometimes with, say, for example, california clients who aren't nearly as confrontational as I am, sometimes I say to them I'm sorry, were you raised by wolves? And they look at you like what did you just say I'm like?
Speaker 3:Well, obviously you were not raised properly, because someone in their right mind would not say that to the person who is the parent of their children and or the person that at some point in the past they professed that they would undyingly love for the rest of their natural born lives. We need to get people in a place where they take that emotional temperature down. That's the only time you can really start getting to agreement and really start making connections, when you clear the clutter and as professionals you both know this. We have to heal the past, we have to move on, we have to put the past to bed before we can talk about the present or the future, right so?
Speaker 1:yeah, 100 percent agree on that. What are you going to say? You know one of a question that I have for you under this topic the real cost of divorce. It's interesting, right, because we both, we both work with couples and you come across, when you, in our work with couples, you come across some really interesting scenarios. With couples, you come across some really interesting scenarios, and I won't name any because if any of my clients listen to the show then they'll know he's talking about me. I shouldn't even have done the accent because then that person is going to be on Monday.
Speaker 1:I know you were talking about me, but one, one of the scenario that I've seen frequently are folks that hate each other but are can't afford a divorce. Probably don't know about mediation, but I've run into numerous incidents and this happened to me a long time ago at FedEx and I was surprised People that still lived in the same house but did not want to get a divorce and are choosing to live for five or six or seven years in the same house, like I. We even know somebody recently, who, who, who, who was doing, who was divorced and still living in the same house because they didn't feel like they they could afford it. But for those couples that are like, hey man, you know we don't like each other, but we can't afford a divorce and we're going to still try to reside with each other. You know why would mediation be a good option for them? For those people that are thinking that they can't afford a divorce, Well, before I answer that, I'm going to blow your mind.
Speaker 3:So we've been blogging for 17 years and we've had a million visitors to our website. Currently, our number one most popular blog post is drumroll, please. Can living together after divorce work? Yes, here's how. Now I write about divorce, I'm a divorce mediator, I write about alimony and child support and how does mediation work. But after a while, those topics are so evergreen, right, there's not a lot to say anymore about child support. So I thought, well, it's a weird time in the economy right now housing prices, mortgage, interest rates, you know, tariffs, whatever and so I thought let's write something about a guide for people who could possibly live together, and that has become our number one most popular article.
Speaker 3:So, to answer your question, it's in mediation, as you go through the divorce, I always ask up front, right, if you, are you going to get divorced and separate households? Are you going to live together? Are you going to nest right when, if you have kids, you're going to rotate in and out of the house? So one of you is in the house, the other one's at the friend's couch, vice versa, and you're each keeping an eye on the children. What we do is we create what I call a roommate agreement as part of our divorce process, and it sounds crazy, but think about for your listeners even if some of the folks who who have been living with people before one of your podcasts I was listening to you were talking about I think it was your kids who had lived with somebody about doing the dishes, right. This kind of stuff is important. It's the stuff that makes you nuts. It's probably part of the reason these folks are getting divorced. So we have a roommate agreement that says who's the parent on duty. So I know we're living together. But if we have a parenting plan and it's Monday, if that kid needs dinner or help with homework or has to get driven to soccer, you or me, who's in the kitchen? Who's cooking the meals? Who's doing the cleaning, those kinds of things? How are we managing the household finances? Now we're divorced, we have separate checking accounts. How do we pay for things? All of these things get put into. At least the way I draft agreements Now I tend to do. I tend to go over the top. My agreements tend to be. You know, maybe this is part of my you know, italian heritage of being a worrier, and so I go and I think about all the things that could go horribly wrong and I try to explore those in my head and I try to draft into solutions, into the agreements. Because, guess what, let's say you are divorced and you're living together Sorry, listeners, but we're all adults here Somebody starts dating someone new.
Speaker 3:How the heck does that work? What do you leave? A handkerchief on the doorknob. Like college, right, like college. You know. It's like hey, could you go out and get a couple of beers and not come home till 4am? There's a nice club down in Soho that you might want to check out. So that's the stuff that you have to really be realistic with folks. I think a lot of it has to do with putting it out on the table. These folks probably haven't been communicating for a long time being open, being honest, putting it out on the table and then, you know, pointing out the thousand pound elephant in the corner of the room and saying, listen, we need to address that thing. How are we going to do that? So that's, that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot of that. I'd say about three quarters of our clients now are not selling houses and most likely cohabitating for at least a year or two post-divorce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's an interesting scenario that I, you know, didn't even know. You know, I I grew up watching. Know, you know, I grew up watching. I know I look youthful, I'm lying, but I grew up on Kramer versus Kramer and so I just always thought that this divorce is this final acrimonious thing. And then when I grew up and got older and I started encountering couples in the 90s and this is the Halcyon Bill Clinton days, when we actually had money, could not afford to break up. And now you can imagine, nearly 30 years later, you have folks that definitely can't afford.
Speaker 1:Um uh, there's a podcast I listened to. Um uh called kind of funny, and the host, Greg Miller, used to work at IGN and he talked many years ago openly about his first divorce and how and exactly what you said. Him and his wife didn't have kids together at the time, but they were young, they had only been married for like two years or so and like, think the San Francisco area. And when they decided to split up San Francisco, they couldn't. They couldn't even afford. They couldn't afford. And that's exactly the scenario that you're talking about is the scenario that happened is that she started dating again and started bringing people home, while he was there and he's like oh this, I didn't think we thought this through when we first got divorced, so so that is like a definite scenario.
Speaker 1:How can you put kids first when we're building out these agreements? Right Cause I think in in as as as therapists and, lindsay, you definitely can speak to that too. A lot of the trouble that we've had that we find that couples have is they can't agree on agreeing about the kids, and so how can you build these agreements in a way that actually supports the children's long-term well-being?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when we talk through parenting plans, people, I use parenting, I use time sharing. I try to stay away from words like custody. Like you, cleveland, I am a Kramer versus Kramer person, so you know that's one of the things that you try to remind people of, that things can go sideways ways that I do that is well. There's a couple of ways. One, it depends on how deep it is.
Speaker 3:One is I say okay, if your kids were sitting in this room right now with the two of you, what would they think of you? Most parents want to be superheroes, right, they want to be heroes to their kids. They want to look good in front of them and sometimes part of the reason they bad mouth the other parent is so that they look better in front of the kids. We get into the conversation and we say look, if they were sitting here right now and they saw the way the two of you were acting, something tells me that you would probably be yelling at them if they were behaving this way. You're fighting with your sister, so let's try to change that narrative. That's one.
Speaker 3:Number two is sometimes I'll ask them if they have a picture of their kids. So that's dirty, I know that's a very dirty pool, but bring out your kid, put, show it and you know, I would do a lot of zoom and hold it up to the camera. Oh, wow, what a handsome kid, what a good looking kid, right? Oh, look at the soccer uniform, whatever it is. And then we get talking about the kid and soccer and dance and whatever it is, and now the conflict is kind of taking backseat because there's the warm fuzzies right. We've kind of thought about oh yeah, this is, we have to put these kids first. But also recognizing and we all know this from our line of work is that Kids at different ages need different kinds of parenting, different kinds of parenting plans, different frequency of interaction, if you will. That's also a main driver of how we get parents in this space. We try to get them to recognize that I'm not a mental health professional like the two of you are.
Speaker 1:But in a way you are because you got to help people through.
Speaker 3:Yeah Right, so you know that's part of it, so I have to be able to at least speak to it. So I explained to them that very thing I got.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. I often ask when I work with couples or people that are in difficult relationships. If I'm seeing an individual like when I ask couples is if your child were in this situation, what would you, what would you advise them to do? Or if I see an individual, I would say why don't you ask your partner how you want your son to be or your daughter to be as an adult?
Speaker 3:So trying to get them out of their own space and get them to put the kids first. That can sometimes be challenging when you play it out, and I think a lot of the thought process that adults have is what's best for them. They're busy, they're stressed, they're getting a divorce, they're going to become single parents, so I'll play it out. For example, I had a client they this is we all know the New York area, right, I'm currently living in California. Same rules apply. Traffic is insane, public transit doesn't work All the same nonsense. So here you've got a client who works in New York City and lives in Princeton, new Jersey, and they are absolutely convinced that they're going to be able to come home by 3 pm every day and pick their kid up from school. Okay, let's play this out.
Speaker 3:Now Johnny is standing out in front of the kindergarten waiting for mom or dad to come off. The New Jersey Transit Northeast corridor line, which is usually every other one, is canceled or delayed by at least an hour. And you tell me that you work in investment banking. Ok, talk to me. What's your schedule look like? Let's humor me.
Speaker 3:And when you start, instead of telling people what they can or can't, do you get them to talk. And then they start saying, yeah, we usually have a staff meeting at 5 PM. Okay, sure, and where's Johnny now? Is he sitting on the curb? Is he eating a sandwich? Has he been kidnapped by a stranger? Where are we in this scenario? So that's what we try to do, right? Yeah, you know, and now that I say it out loud, joe, maybe not a great idea, so that's part of it too. Right, getting people, as I like to say, right, it's not that you're trying to trap them, you're just trying to get them to recognize the absurdity of the situation. And when they say it out loud, if they're rational, of course and most people, I do believe, are rational unless you're clinically right, which we were talking about, you're clinically deficient in mental capacity, that's, you're not mediating. But in those cases, with people who have the skills they do, the light bulb goes on. It's like, yeah, maybe this is not.
Speaker 1:On that idea of putting kids first Right idea of putting kids first right. And I want to stay on this for a little bit because part of another thing that I've encountered and I think we've both encountered is people who think that they need to stay together for the kids right. And, using my own example, that was for my first wife. That was a big impetus for me. If I'm saying the word right, uh, I might be making, I might be making it up, I don't know. I go to the Cleveland dictionary, but that was a big motive for me for staying in the marriage until um at the time, my my, he was 16 at the time. He's now 28.
Speaker 1:Um, he lives in Florida now, but I call him the, the black Republican, and he, he, he has always talked since he was one years old, like he smoked like five packs of cigarettes comes to me and is like you know what, dad, and this is at 16, I need to tell you something, and this was a guy who was giving me a hard time. You know why I act like an asshole? Because you can't tell her what to do. So therefore, you can't tell me what to do and she needs to go, and and that's in that moment, joe, I realized that I was like that emotional.
Speaker 1:So a lot of times people are saying I'm going to stay with the kids because the emotional cost will be too great. But kids often see what the hell is actually going on in the house. And I've I've worked with people and I work with somebody right now whose parents are going through a hard time and they're in their 20s and they're like I wish these people would break up, you know. So speak to that a little bit. And for parents who might be reluctant because they think they're going to break up the family, Well, you are also talking to a child of divorce who was in that exact same situation.
Speaker 1:So this is a great segue, because I was also asking how you got into it so give us your backstory and then also answer that question. So go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so backstory is my parents, mom's Italian, dad's Irish. So two very calm people right, two very, you know, mellow personalities.
Speaker 1:You mean that sarcastically?
Speaker 3:don't you? Oh, laid back, like you know, it looks like they. Just, you know they've been high all day, right, yeah, good luck. So in that dynamic, kerosene meets match and every conversation seemed to lead to some kind of argument, until my mom was trying to pacify my father. After a while the pacification didn't work and the arguments just escalated, and before long, the argument that had them going to neutral corners to watch TV at 8 o'clock at night, watching Sanford and Son and Archie Bunker, all growing up in the 70s, those classic sitcoms, bunker, you know all I grew on up in the seventies, those classic sitcoms, right. Then those one day of silence turned into a week, which turned into a month, which turned into three months, and as a little kid you noticed this and it was.
Speaker 3:It started, you know, when I was young so I was probably, you know, seven, eight, nine years old where the arguments would be. Then, as I got a little older, the arguments would last longer. Then the screaming really escalated and my dad had a bit of a temper. Now, you know, in full disclosure, dad never hit me, never hit my mom, none of that. But my dad liked to throw things, so perhaps he was a frustrated pitcher for the New York Mets. I don't know, but he would throw shoes, he would throw lamps. My favorite was he threw the crisper drawer from the fridge. So think that through he had to open the fridge. You know how you have to pull the drawer out.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of steps to it.
Speaker 3:Empty it A lot of steps to get the drawer out right, empty the fruit out of it and then haul it up the stairs. So as a kid growing up, I saw the scuff marks in the hallway, all the broken refrigerator door, whatever it was. So I took to hiding in the closet in my bedroom. Well, this is fun. So a kid took my stuffed animal, took my flashlight, took my book and just hid because I didn't want to be in the blast zone. After a while it just got to be so bad. I would just get on my bike, I'd leave. Never was.
Speaker 3:And and that's really my experience of divorce as my parents staying together. So I remember as clear as day. Uh, again, in a bitter, ironic twist of fate, my dad moved out on St Patrick's day. So I thought that was a perfect F? You to my mom. And so, here being you know as Irish as the day is long. So he driving away in the driveway, my mom is in hysterics in our house, apologizing, apologizing, apologizing. I think I'm 14, probably at this point when he moves out and I just remember as clear as day saying to her I'm like what are you sorry for? Thank God this is over. And she looks at me and she's like what I'm like? What do you think I'm stupid? I mean, I'm a kid, but kids gather. You, you, you know whose parents are throwing fricking CRISPR drawers up the stairs right, mine, that's yeah.
Speaker 2:Mine too, but mine never mine. My parents are still together and I I talk very openly about this now and um, and I I always say my dad actually now, as he's, you know, aging is very apologetic for his behavior when we were younger Um, but it's interesting because even Cleve now always says I'm not staying at their house, I'm going to get, I'm going to get in trouble if I leave, like something out, and I'm like we're 50 years old here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good luck still. No, you're still the kid, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Always the kid, but Bob's a good guy now.
Speaker 2:He's a good guy and he recognizes it.
Speaker 3:But second half right, there's always time for second chances.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it was their lifestyle and I think that you know, I think about my mom and I think she couldn't fully be there for us because she had to walk around on eggshells and I wonder if you felt like that with your mom as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my mom. In a way, I'm an only child, but in a way, what I think happened is my mom was so hyper-focused on me that my dad felt neglected. My parents I'll think this through my parents were in their mid to late 30s when they had me in the 60s. So if you do that math now these days somebody has a kid at 45, 50 year old You're like, well, ok, that's interesting. But a woman in her 30s and having a kid in 1968, I was like whoa, what's going on?
Speaker 1:That's some scarlet letter stuff right there Almost back yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and she was. They were married 10 years, so before they had me. So I think it was like, really, she was really hyper-focused on me and that obviously created a lot of friction and therefore that my dad also I really do truly believe emotionally resented me, and so when my parents got divorced, the last time I saw him was in the hallway of a courtroom when I was like 16 and they were arguing over who was going to pay for me to go to college. So after that, when he moved out, I got a letter or two from him, and I think one of them was he was getting remarried. That was about it. Then, in 2019, I got a letter that said he died Wow.
Speaker 3:That was my, that was it. So 35 years of no interaction with this man, no high school graduation, no wedding, no, whatever and at the end of the day, that's really what drives me. So, when you've talked before about putting kids first and child focused divorces yeah, there's a lot of platitudes, right? You read these, these things online. I'll take a moment in a mediation when things are getting heated, and I'll ask people to just look at me and say to them guess what? You think this can't happen to you. Look at this face. This happened to me.
Speaker 3:I'm not here to make you feel bad for me. It's not boohoo. I've done the work on myself, I've healed, I've recovered, I have a wonderful wife, all good. However, comma, we want to make sure that this doesn't happen to you, because guess what it can? And you're heading on that path. So tell me how that graduation is going to go, or how when you're at the wedding and dad wants to walk the daughter down the aisle but mom won't let him because she doesn't want to see him, because she's sitting in the front row, and how's your kid going to feel about that? So let's, let's explore that. That tends to get a lot of attention. And calm the calm the crisis, if you will and helps them refocus on doing what's right for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was something that was helpful. In my divorce my ex was having some heated words with me and text messages and I said to him here's the thing. We can do it one way.
Speaker 2:Where you behave like this and you need a favor because you have somewhere to go and I'm not available to help you, I said or we can do this in a way where you can be respectful and we can be respectful with each other and we can co-parent and you have something for work and you can't take the kids and I say, ok, we can swap weekends. And you know, for him that was and you know that's kind of the counselor in me, but that was enough for him to be, oh, all right. And you know, we and we ended up. You know, now we actually all get along quite well. We call him our ex-husband.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do Our ex-husband Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 2:He calls us both, I think, equally. But you know that was a pivotal moment for us because we then we've had issues since then where you know he would try to reduce child support and things and you know it never worked in his favor because at the end of the day, we constantly had to use a lawyer. At the end of the day, we constantly had to use a lawyer. But you know it would have been great if we could have done something along the lines of, like mediating it in a more cost effective way with someone who could have helped us.
Speaker 3:When you bring it up. Yeah, I'm sorry, cleveland. I just want to say, as you guys know, my my background. I have an MBA in finance and I focus on the kids first and money second. But make no mistake, we were talking about this before with living together and how it's expensive now and how even it was expensive 30 years ago. Truth be told, if you can sit down with folks and say, listen, the cost of an attorney-driven divorce, if this goes sideways, you're looking at $200,000. That's the cost of a four-year state university these days.
Speaker 2:Yes, Maybe even more.
Speaker 3:So do you want to put your kid through college or do you want to put your attorney's kid through college? And people don't think of it that way. You bring up the numbers and one of the things, Lindsay, you had said before about mediation is that I am very data-driven. I'm very reality-based. So when people are just yes, yes, yesing, or thinking this can't happen to them or this is unfair or whatever it is, I'll use things like budgets and balance sheets and cashflow analysis and tax returns and just lay it all out for them in a numbers perspective and say, okay, if you all don't want to get along on an emotional level or you're not mature enough to recognize that you're both being crazy people, let's talk about finances. Here's your credit card debt. Here's your mortgage payment. Here's your car payment. Here's your dot dot, dot dot. If you spend one dime on an attorney, you won't be able to make your mortgage this month.
Speaker 3:Will you want to be homeless? Do you want to be in default? What do you want? And yeah, they grumble and rah, rah, rah, but hey, but hey. At the end of the day, if I can keep them, I keep them in the arena, that's all I care. I will drag them over the finish line.
Speaker 2:well, it's interesting that you say that, because that was something you know, that came up for us and I think it ended up probably benefiting me more than it benefited him to go to court, because, since I was a stay-at-home mom for so years, the minute we went to family court and my ex-husband was in banking, so he did very, very well.
Speaker 1:Lots of bonuses.
Speaker 2:We had a nice home, and so I think it ended up working much more in my favor. Because he wanted to be so difficult, I got a great amount of alimony child support, you know, a huge extracurricular budget, and the first day we went to court he said, oh, I can't afford all these things. And the family court judge took one look at his income and said I disagree. And I think that honestly, I was better off with him with the children than he was living on his own.
Speaker 3:And we see that and that's part of the process, right, depending on how your parenting plan is. A lot of times people are surprised and they say you know, I've seen settlements where the parent what we call the parent of primary residence okay, in our little parlance, ppr that person has about 60% of the total net income of the family, the detached family unit, and people can bitch and moan about that, but as a teenage former, you know recovering teenage boy and you can relate to this. I think I still am. Yeah, exactly Like our grocery bills are obscene, we're just eating y'all out of house at home right.
Speaker 3:So that's what happens. So my mom has me. She had me full time. I'm drinking a gallon of milk a day, I'm eating a dozen eggs, and that's why you need that support. It's not because I'm going on vacation or get my nails done. These kids are going to soccer and wants a dirt bike and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually I want to say something quickly too, because there was a time that I think Cleve remembers this, speaking of going on vacation that my ex-husband said I need to reduce the child support, and he filed a petition in the County he lived in not where I lived and so I work for myself and I, if I don't work, I can't get paid, and so I had to hire the attorney all over again, and then it's like the intelligence of it was lacking, because my ex-husband is saying I can't afford this and files a petition, and then his Instagram is full of pictures of him traveling around the world, all of which I sent to my attorney, who brought them to court, and then they immediately my ex-husband dismissed it, and now I no longer can see his Instagram.
Speaker 3:Of course Right. Well, at least the judge got a good laugh.
Speaker 2:We want to make them happy.
Speaker 3:They put up with enough crap.
Speaker 1:We should try to put a smile on their face On that, though the only thing I was going to say I wanted to go back for one second, Speaking about the cost of kids is, we had to remind the 21 year old here the other day who has a job, who called me while we were in the in the British Virgin Islands to complain that his brother ate all the eggs. I'm like, dude, you have a job, and then I had to come home and remind him of the fact that we do not get child support for you anymore. Okay, and you have to do your part here in the house. But to bring it back to where what both of you guys were talking about, you know, um, as we get close to the end here, what are some step-by-step insights that you can give couples in how they because it goes back to this whole lose-lose scenario, or the person that I told you, that people, especially in the case of of, of Lindsay's ex-husband, and I've encountered it with with more Well, for me it was win and he lose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that.
Speaker 1:they screw that they end up that they end up like screwing them, they end up like screwing themselves over because of emotions. And so how can you give couples like a step-by-step insight to reach an equitable solution that makes everybody feel fair, that leaves everybody feeling like they want?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. So I will say this, and this is my mantra I will bang this drum all day and it says don't do the deciding before the discovery. Yes, if it sounds well practiced, it is because it is well practiced. I've been saying this to people for decades and here's why we go into negotiations where this is my most and least favorite client. I get on a call, we're exploring, working together, we're talking, hey, it's going well. And they say you know what, joe, I have some great news for you. We have it all figured out. This is going to be the easiest case you've ever had. Ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Speaker 3:I unfold my red flag, I attach it to the flagpole, I foisted up there and I salute it, because I know this is going to be one of the most difficult cases I ever had. And the reason is someone. I will not name names, but someone has decided how things are going to be, and the other person, who is either disadvantaged in the sense that perhaps they're not the financial household manager, maybe educationally, career wise disadvantage, is like well, okay, that sounds good. All you need is somebody like me who starts asking questions to get the other person to go. Hey, you know, that is a good question, how am I going to afford that? Or hey, why do I have to be the one that moves out? Right, dot, dot dot. And so those folks have usually made decisions before they put all the finances on the table.
Speaker 3:So that, to me is is wraps up a lot of questions you've asked me. It's like how do you keep things on track? How do you get to fair agreements? How do you? You know, in our case, we have a great success rate with mediation. How do you get to fair agreements? How do you? You know, in our case, we have a great success rate with mediation. How do you do that? It's because facts, you know.
Speaker 3:I'd like to say, in this day and age, I'm apolitical, remember, neutral third party. But you know, I don't believe in alternative facts. I am a person who says here are the facts, here is your tax return, here are your pay stubs, here are your pay stubs, here are your bank balances. Talk to me, how are we going to work within the confines of what you have, what you own and what you owe? That, to me, is the number one way to keep people on track. Get them to something fair, because it's really hard to argue. If you're looking at the bank account that has $10,000 in it and someone says I'm going to keep it all, and you look at them, well, you put them in one place, right.
Speaker 3:Usually people talk about the house and the 401k. Those are the only two things they usually talk about on their own. But if you start adding up everything else and you then you sum, total it and you say here's the total net share of your marital assets and liabilities, your estate, here's your total net share, and it's 90, 10. Like, okay, guys, help me understand how this is fair. Then that's when the conversations start happening. The whispering, the bickering say okay, no problem, you guys have stepped in the same trap everyone else has. Let's reset, let's refresh and let's go back at it. So that's really that answers pretty much any question. When you talk about fairness, staying on track, getting an equitable result, it's starting with the discovery, information gathering, putting it all out on the table and then going from there. Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 1:You got? You got any any before we move on to the next? No, you got any other questions?
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:So, as we wrap this up, I want to come to this last segment, which is the future of divorce, the. You know, I, I, I, I imagine star trek, I, I, I've watched, I've been a fan of star trek for many years and one of the fascinating characters. I don't know if you watch, if you're a star trek guy at all I've watched.
Speaker 3:I've watched a fair amount of but yeah, I wouldn't call it like a super fan, but I've definitely seen a fair amount of I used to be a super fan and as I got older, um and and life took me away from it.
Speaker 1:I don't remember it as much. My friend laurie will take me to a star trek convention. It always amazes me. The the amount of adults there reminds me of the old william shatner snl clip where he was. When is the last time you even touched a woman?
Speaker 1:Um, but it's like these guys like remember stuff inside and out, but when I think about the, as I ramble, Dr McCoy was, uh, famously, if you, if you know anything about the, the trivia in the show was a divorced character, um, but being at the sixties and Gene Roddenberry actually wanted to write an episode about his daughter, uh, the episode is going to be called Joanna, about his daughter and his divorce and what the future of divorce looked like. But then you know, the 60s being the 60s, you know it was like no, we can't talk about that. We can't ever talk about that topic. People don't get divorced.
Speaker 1:So, as we are literally in the future, what are some changes that you think will come? You know virtual divorces, virtual mediation. You know what are some of the things that we can look forward, or future trends that we can look forward, or some, or even some tools that people can use. Right, one of the biggest things that I found and I even work with clients who don't even know where to start looking for a divorce or how can they go online and what are some resources. So, being here in the future, my long winded preamble, how Lindsay's I think Lindsay was doing the wrap it up on the on the other side, cause I just like to talk Um, but what is the future of divorce and what tools out there and resources, and also tell us folks how we can find you.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think the future of divorce is the courts are starting to recognize that not everybody needs an attorney. Now, lindsay sounds like you did, some folks do. There are people that they come to us. We have an initial meeting and I say listen, you're not mediation friendly. I want you to get the best result in your unique situation, but it's not going to be with us, and I'll be very honest about that, because mediation requires a level of maturity, transparency, respect. However, the good news is there are a lot of alternatives for folks who don't need to get a lawyer, like, for example, with us. We don't require people to retain attorneys. It used to be that mediators would also want you to have a lawyer, so at the end of the day, somebody's like well, why am I going to hire one mediator and we each have a lawyer and all of a sudden now paying three professionals instead of one, how does that work? So we've gotten to the point where, for example, with our with us equitable mediation, we weiation, we can handle all of the things that they need us to handle. Plus, I do hope this isn't always the case.
Speaker 3:One of the flashbacks of the pandemic was a lot of people left the court system, a lot of the employees. So back in the day, places like New York, new Jersey, they had clerks where you could go in and say, can you help me complete these forms, this paperwork? Unfortunately, a lot of those folks have gone, they've left. They never came back. But there are now more non-attorney options. For example, here in California there are people known as legal document assistants. So when they mediate they don't need a lawyer. They can have this individual do all the court paperwork for them, draft all the funny stuff that needs to happen. Now we can do this too, but in in california you can do that, and these kinds of non-attorney professionals are starting to become more acceptable alternatives.
Speaker 3:Right, the courts used to be like well, where's your lawyer, where's your lawyer? Where's your lawyer? Now, some states like illinois is still like that. We practice in Illinois and they're still a little old school. They still want to sometimes see a lawyer. But states like New York, new Jersey, pennsylvania they're definitely become more friendly to mediation and alternative dispute resolution. So I think that's where it's really heading, is non-attorney alternatives, whether that's online, whether that's mediation. That's where I'm seeing it and that's a good thing. Right, there's going to always be somebody who needs a lawyer, no question. And then there's always going to be somebody who's been married six months with no kids. They don't own a house, they don't need to work with me, I'm just I'm too much right. So we're starting to see a proliferation of alternatives to meet people where they are, and I think that's that's a good direction that we're all headed in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for me, when I got divorced maybe it was about um, how many years ago was it? I don't remember, I'm 52. I'm losing it. It was probably about 10 years, 10 years ago I did my divorce myself, um, but I waited. I actually went to an attorney and the attorney was like listen guy, you know, uh, she doesn't have anything. You know, she's going to owe you child, she. I think here in New York the rule was like 25%.
Speaker 3:So for two kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we had four, and it was like, dude, even if she's on welfare, she's going to fight you tooth and nail. He's like you're better off waiting until the youngest turns 18 and just just file it yourself, which is what I did, and it was. It was. It was pretty well, I'm a smart guy. Well, maybe, depending on depends on who you talk. Oh, I wasn't expecting that Depends on who you talk to, but I figured it out. I figured it out by myself, but there are a lot of people who really can't. And one of the things that James Sexton, who's a pot, who's a famous New York attorney, said he here says it's crazy how easy it is to get married Like there are no classes.
Speaker 3:There's no marriage.
Speaker 1:Right. It's like and he was like it should be the reverse. It should be very hard to get married and very easy to get divorced. Yet we have these draconian systems that keep people together that literally want to be very far from one another, and I would like to hope in the future that it becomes a lot easier, that you could just go online or you could just see an expert or you know somebody who doesn't, somebody like you, who doesn't break the bank. That helps us just get what we mutually want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think I was wondering too, like if I perhaps had a better mediator, if we could have gone through mediation, because you know, I think that I think the struggle was for me that I wasn't feeling supported at all in the room.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the key, right, I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but, as I like to say to my clients, I don't represent either of you, but I advocate for both of you and your kids. That's my job. When I see things are tipping in one direction, it's my job to pull things back into the middle. And if somebody's steamrolling, that's not cool, that's that is my job. Some, some mediators, are so facilitative and so afraid of conflict that they can let the process get out of hand. And even as neutrals and even as warm, facilitating, emotionally intelligent people, we are also smart enough to recognize that conflict is destructive and we need to get people back into the middle of the arena. That's the key. And, as you said, lindsay, I do believe if you had a better mediator, you would have at least. Maybe you didn't finish, but you might've at least gotten a lot closer to finishing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do agree with that. I really think that we could have. I think it just, I think it wasn't navigated well and, like I said, I felt very bullied and attacked and, you know, like I was not supported at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. That's. That stinks, right, you want to you. You just you're, you're just. I'm just out here. Man, just help me out, just let's get this done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's exactly what I do when I see couples too, right, even if I have a couple who, where there's been infidelity on one person's behalf, I say to them you know, this is not about attacking you or making accusations or figuring out what you did wrong. It's about how can we come together now and and move past and what led up to it, so it doesn't happen again. I always, you know, stress that if it's an individual, I don't know the other person, and if it's a couple, I'm here to help the both of you either work it out or not work it out, but together Right, exactly, I'm not here to decide for you.
Speaker 3:I'm here to give you that environment in which you, as adults, will be able to make your own decision. Yeah, a lot in common in that regard.
Speaker 1:I think that about, I think we've it's. We're almost at forty nine minutes here, so, and I think that pretty much sums up the entirety of this, and we would love to have you, you know, hopefully, if this episode gets a really good response, you know, we would like to have you come back on. I really enjoyed our conversation here today. Oh, thank you. And I think what people don't understand and you know, and I'll let you definitely get the last word on this as we wrap I think what people don't understand is like mediation right. It means like in the middle right, and we're so caught, especially when we look at the all the toxicity. Joe, I was looking at the news the other day and I'm looking at how dysfunctional our government is, Right, and it brought me back to the scripture in the, in the Bible, and I'm not uh, you know I'm, I'm, I. I quote the Bible a lot, even though I curse like a sailor most days.
Speaker 1:Um, especially as I'm dealing with clients, I curse like a sailor, but I quote the Bible a lot, even though I'm spiritual but I'm not religious. But then the Bible it says a house divided against itself cannot stand. And it's like we have a government right now that needs a mediator.
Speaker 1:It's like you guys like an example that I gave a couple once and I use this couple frequently with my couples about why it's important to meet in the middle as such as media right. Meet in the middle is as like hey, imagine you're on the plane and you get on the plane, you know you're flying out to Curacao or wherever you're going and it's you know you're going over the Atlantic for quite some time with no place to land, and you hear the pilot and the co-pilot arguing and not only do you hear them like not a little argument, but like a huge, you know vitriolic argument. Is you as the passenger in that plane? How's that going to make you feel it's like, oh man, I'm getting the hell out, but you can't. So when you are like that and there are kids involved and there's other people involved, you are literally trapping people on that journey with you, this madness journey with you, and you need to come and you need to meet in the middle.
Speaker 1:And I think I think mediation, I think people think divorce, they think Kramer versus Kramer, they think we can't be friends again, they think you can never talk. You can never talk and say maybe there are some cases like that. But if you realize that you can meet in the middle Right and that what a negotiation is. You lose a little, I lose a little, but in the end we both win. That, I think, would be helpful. But like I said, linz, before, I give it to Joe, do you?
Speaker 1:No, I think this is really really really great and very insightful and informative for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah oh, wait, wait, informative for you. No, just because of my own experience. No, that's okay, don't worry I have.
Speaker 3:I have you on my calendar for tuesday, so just don't tell, please, okay so I think it gave me so much information because I did.
Speaker 2:I felt so attacked when I was, and I actually did go to the bathroom and sit there and cry and then come, I was like I can't.
Speaker 1:I'm done.
Speaker 2:I'm done of course.
Speaker 1:And then why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:and my ex is yelling at me and the mediator's just sitting there and I just said I've reached my emotional capacity yeah, well, shame on that mediator.
Speaker 3:That's that and that's unfortunate because that, to me as a professional, that really bugs me. Because this is such an important profession, we need to up our game. As professionals, we need to do better and I think that is part of the challenge. Who don't have the training and experience?
Speaker 3:All it takes is a 40-hour class that you can take at the Holiday Inn over the course of five days and you are now a mediator. People don't go to school for this. They don't train, they don't belong to any societies like I do. That's what really bugs me. I've done this formally. I've done this in academic institutions like Harvard, northwestern in Chicago. I've done coursework and worked with some of the best people. I worked with the guys at Harvard who wrote the book Getting to. Yes, I was trained by them. So, yeah, I take this seriously and unfortunately, not a lot of mediators do. So. That's a warning message to those listening is that make sure you do your research on who you're hiring Because, as Lindsay said, the right mediator makes all the difference.
Speaker 1:And where can we find the right media? I want to do, we're going to do this commercial. And where can we find the right mediator? Joe.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm glad you asked so when anybody listening, please go to our website. It's equitablemediationcom, Just like our name. Make sure not to spell it meditation. That's a yoga studio, so you'll be in a time you know I'm an avid meditator.
Speaker 3:There you go. So we do get a lot of spam for us. We should open up a yoga studio, or do you need instructors? I wish it was that it's not. But Equitable Mediation dot com. We do practice in six states of Washington, california, illinois and, of course, the tri-state area, new York, new Jersey, pa and that's a whole wealth of information. We have a resource center, free video courses, podcasts, blogs. We always believe an educated client is a good client for us and that's what we were just talking about. Cleveland is we try to educate people so that they can enter this scary black box of a divorce process with a little bit of knowledge, so they enter with a little bit of calm and they can have rational conversations, productive negotiations. And you know, if you want to talk to us, there's a button that literally says talk to us right in the upper corner, so click it schedule a call. You'll talk to my wife, who is our divorce coach, my wife Cheryl. I'll schedule a free call with her and we'll see if we can help. We'd love to help.
Speaker 2:Okay, that sounds good. That's a great resource for us to have, also as clinicians.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, I will. You, you might get some if you get a call from. I'm making up this name. If you get a call from Shaquanda Harris, I want you to. Or Daquan, or Daquan Davis I think I got those from Cleveland. It's probably a good chance that you did. Or Lindsay Oaks.
Speaker 1:Or Lindsay Oaks, who's on the schedule for Tuesday at 10 am, that's right exactly, don't be late, but this has been a, this has been a good one, and so this has been Cleveland and Evelyn and Lindsay and Joe, joe, and thank you for listening to another episode of the devil. You don't know,
