Collaborative Divorce Washington

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Alexis Squier

Kids are Kids When it Comes to Divorce

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When my parents split up, my world was rocked. First, I completely blamed myself. I could have behaved differently, then my parents would have stayed together. Then I blamed my mom, because she was the one who left the marriage. I tried to please each of my parents, so I listened when they told me their side. But I was stuck in the middle, often trying to be the mediator between them. I regressed, acted out towards my mom, in particular. Had tantrums, apocalyptic dreams, the whole thing. I was 37.

At that point, I had been a divorce attorney for nearly 10 years. I was well-aware of the impacts of an acrimonious divorce on children. My parents were not even that acrimonious, just hurt and hurtful. 

It threw me for a loop when I began experiencing the same responses to my parents’ separation as a 10-year-old might, especially since I had just given birth to my first child and really needed my adult self to step up. What made it a little more of a challenge is that I had the credentials and experience to know how their estate should be divided up — and they were doing it differently.

I will give my parents credit for their approach – to keep lawyers out of it and do their own thing. It worked for them; they did not have much property to fight about. But for the nearly 16 years after my parents split until my dad died at age 83, I carried resentment and tiptoed around discussions involving the other parent. I endured one parent’s little digging comments about the other and attempts to align me. I grieved the loss of my idealized early motherhood in which I envisioned my parents sitting together in our back yard looking over their granddaughter together — building a well-bonded extended family for our children.

In my profession, I have grown used to and even supported people’s decisions to split from their partners in order to have a better shot at a happier (sometimes safer) and more fulfilling life.  We have one life. So, what would have made a difference for me in my own parents’ split, even as an adult knowing what I know about divorce? My parents’ confidence that this was the right decision for them, even if one was in acquiescence. My parents’ ability to recognize the impact on their only child, regardless of the fact that she was old enough to understand and reflect. My parents’ keeping me out of their relationship challenges in a way that they could each say to me, “We will figure this out and don’t want you to worry. We both love you and want you to have a strong and healthy relationship with each of us.” My parents’ ability to speak well of the other, genuinely, in my presence, so I did not question the years we seemed to be a happy family. My parents’ ability to be in the same room together with respect. 

The list is longer, of course, but I think you get the gist. When partners wait until their kids are grown before splitting up, their kids are still kids and need many of the same considerations we think about for younger children. After divorce, there is great opportunity for each parent to build on the relationship they had with their grown children when the marriage was intact. When the focus is on how everyone in the family can feel loved and supported, everyone in the family has a better opportunity to adapt well to the change.

To schedule a consultation or for more information please visit: Alexis Squier Law

Why Collaborative Divorce?

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The Collaborative Law approach to divorce and separation aligns with our natural instincts as human beings. We want to belong, we need community, we need to feel supported. All of those concepts become threatened when we separate or divorce from our primary relationship. In our traditional dispute resolution models for divorce, “shuttle” mediations, or at worst, trials, capitalize on that sense of threat by encouraging the parties to take positions and look out for their own interests. The idea is that parties have attorneys who are champions for their cause, to fight for their clients in a system built around the concept of retribution rather than repair.

Collaborative Divorce

But retribution is really about living in our lizard brains, the fight or flight part of our brains. It is not the part of our brain that works toward inclusion, builds community, and creates a system of support. It is not the part of our brain that makes good, well-reasoned decisions. It is not the part of our brain that thinks about others’ needs – the needs of our children or the other parent to those children. It is not the part of our brain that considers our own values and plans actions consistent with those values. The lizard brain does not make decisions based upon how we want to feel in the future about our actions in the past. On a more practical level, the lizard brain does not even consider the financial toll of decisions we make based on revenge or “me first” approaches.

In the Collaborative process, instead of taking advantage of the feelings of fear and anxiety that often come with the deterioration of our primary relationship, a team of professionals works with both parties to reflect upon their values, express their interests, and recognize the interests of the other party. The focus is on restructuring the relationship, not on destruction. A mental health coach can help the parties explore those areas where the highest emotions reside and build support around the parties to express their needs and find common ground that can ease fears and calm feelings of threat. Lawyers are advocates for each party, but also for a process that holds the whole family in its sights, and helps maintain a sense of community and belonging, but in a different structure.

Collaborative divorce provides this support. We as human beings thrive when we work together toward a common goal. We thrive when we have a safe sense of community and look out for each other. Why would we choose anything different when we divorce?

Alexis Squier

Law Office of Alexis Squier PLLC

Alexis Squier Law

Collaborative Process: Fear In Divorce

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Fear in divorce may be the number one cause of a poor outcome.  Fear can manifest through our clients in many forms: victimized, aggressive, impatient, controlling, disorganized, overly organized, or detailed, cold, and uncaring, non-committal, just a hot mess, several of the above, all of the above. Especially where personality disorders reside, fear certainly can inflame and embolden bad behavior.  But like  a child’s belief in a monster under the bed, the fear is real, it just may be out of proportion or based on fantasy.

Fear in divorce

When fear takes over, executive functions disengage. Clients in fear stall in decision-making or make decisions based on fabrications. Distrust piles on the fabrications; unreasonable expectations pile on the distrust; entitlement piles on the unreasonable expectations, and reasoned resolution has little chance.

When fear becomes the biggest body in the room, other participants may minimize the underlying issues, reject the fear as unreasonable or overcompensate, all in an effort to remove fear from the room.  But fear is natural in a time of upending and monumental change.  Divorce is monumental change.  Ignoring, minimizing, or placating it simply feeds the beast.

To reduce the burden of fear in the Collaborative process, professionals are trained to see beyond the external behavior in order to name the conduct, ask key questions, and deconstruct behaviors that pose barriers to productive executive function.  In the Collaborative process, the team works together to ensure that the clients are supported in framing their interests, given thorough data, and provided good information to help provide real answers.  Attorneys work with their clients to hear and speak to the issues at the heart of the genuine fears of the other party, while clearly expressing their own. When both clients and their attorneys are working together with neutral professionals to deconstruct the fears head-on with respect and understanding, fabrications have little room to dwell.

In the Collaborative divorce process, we have the tools to separate the real objects of fear from the imaginary ones, to help our clients embrace the truth of the fear then provide solid information and direct communication to build scaffolding of support for our clients in the process. We cannot promise to remove the fear entirely, but in Collaboration, unreasonable fear has much less room to reside.

For more information visit Alexis Squier Law or to schedule a consultation call (206) 330-0673. The Law Office of Alexis Squier, PLLC is located at 7010 35th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98115.