In today's episode, they talk to Tim about his experience of the long custody battle for his daughter and his experience as a single dad raising a multiracial daughter.

Tim shares that in his experience we live in a society where mothers are often given preference when it comes to custody and how he had to overcome that stigma to win custody in the court system.

After going to court regularly over the past 6 years Tim now has full custody. We talk candidly about how that extended process has impacted the life of his daughter.

Tim shares advice on how to handle it when the other parenting party is saying negative things about you to your child and how in that situation you need to take on a more empathetic role. You should not talk negatively about your spouse in front of your child as it can lead to choosing sides or pitting the child against the other parent.

What's the best advice Tim can give to anyone who is going to court after a divorce to fight for custody?  It's the importance of having a strong support system, having the right kind of relationship with your attorney, and presenting a clear, consistent, and case with details and facts.

He goes into even more depth about the cultural bias that is surrounded by single dads and how he has navigated through that and also some of the interactions he has had with other parents. 

In his closing remarks, Tim shares how in his experience you need to ascertain when to go to court and when to let it go. Often times things that seem like big issues can be worked out with the spouse instead of lengthy and expensive court sessions. This can be particularly difficult when the other parent is challenging but you need to choose your battles. 

In this episode of the Exit Strategy, we are joined in the studio by the hosts of the Girls That Do Stuff podcast, Sarah Madras and Jenny Midgley.  

Elizebeth and Sarah talk about how they don't necessarily want or push people to get a divorce, their job is to come to the best solution to everyone's problems. Although many people who have gotten as far as consulting a divorce attorney already have their mind made up.

Sarah talks about how she keeps her wedding dress on a mannequin outside of her room because "why not display something that you spent so much money on." She is setting the stage for walking down the hall to their bedroom to remind them of their wedding vows.

Jenny talks about her wedding day and the issues that happened leading up to her big day.

We discuss and debunk the stereotypical roles of husband and wife and talk about how they have evolved. 

We talk about the importance of flexibility when choosing a partner and discuss the "red flags" that you need to look for in your partner before you decide to get married. 

Sarah talks about how John Gottman the marriage researcher and his retreat helped her marriage. It gave them tools for communication that revolutionized their relationship.
 
Sarah and Jenny talk about navigating friendships with people outside of your marriage and their opinions about getting professional help.

We talk candidly about the seasons of marriage, what they are and how to navigate through them in a healthy way that can make your relationship stronger. 

If you'd like to hear some advice from people who have worked hard on their marriage about what worked for them, how it's not always the honeymoon phase, and how it takes work to make it work, then this episode is for you. 

You have to choose your "hard." Staying in a marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. The choice is up to you.

Dr. Ludlam has her Master’s degree in Early Childhood Risk and Prevention from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Alliant International University in Clinical Psychology. Her research and clinical interests have centered around the topic of trauma and trauma-related disorders.

We also spend some time talking about parental evaluations. She is primarily responsible for doing evaluations both for diagnostic purposes and for court cases.

We talk through what often leads up to the court order for psychological evaluations. They can be very beneficial for the court and often therapeutic for the person being evaluated.

There are a couple of types of evaluations. One is where every party, husband, wife, new boyfriend, new girlfriend, and kids are processed. Those are often long and can be expensive.

They also do parental capacity evaluations. Although there is no test for what makes someone a good parent so they look at multiple things like personality traits, are there disorders, do collateral interviews with people who could observe the person parenting, look at health records, mental health records. They are multi-modal and multi-source. It's only after weighing all the elements that they can make recommendations.

Cases are often not clear-cut in favor of single custody. The goal is two healthy parents and giving them the tools to get there.

The first step is an interview. Your side of the story. Start to finish. Then we do psychological testing.

Judges really depend on the expertise of the evaluators because they have no dog in the fight as a non-biased third-party source.

There are some cases where children in a divorce case are interviewed. We talk about parental alienation. What is it? Why is it brought up so much in divorce cases? It's pretty complex. It's not just one thing. It involves things like communication, how they talk about the other parent, are they sharing information, are they restricting access. Many parents don't realize they are doing even doing it.

You can find out more about Dr. Ludlam and her firm KKJ Forensic & Psychological Services on their website.

You're going to get a court date and have the opportunity to state your case before a judge, but it can be a long road. It can be for two months. It may be six months. You can ask your spouse to pay child support or your bills during this time, but it is not guaranteed. This is the reason many divorce attorneys and counselors suggest prenup agreements.

The custody is often decided in an hour in court. Most judges default to 50/50 custody unless there are obvious situations.

So how do you prepare for court? Your attorney will prep you for your testimony and get comfortable telling your story. Your attorney will prep you to know the dates in your story. Your attorney cannot lead you through. You need to rehearse and be prepared.

Often the best advice would be to go to mediation and settle and avoid going to court. But from the beginning of the process, you need to be honest with your attorney for them to best help you. 

Never make up an answer. You can say I don't remember or ask to see the message if asked about a text message.

We walk you through a typical four-hour trial. What you can expect, and how you can be prepared.  This unique behind-the-scenes tour of a traditional divorce case may open your eyes, but you will learn a lot about how to conduct yourself in court, what to do, what not to do, and how to best prepare for your opportunity tell your story to the judge.    

When he’s not sketching random thoughts, he’s running a podcast about the NJ Punk Scene from the late 90s to early 2000s. He also owns an animation company. We chat about creating his comic @dailyBred and how he wrote his first book and, later, his most recent book, The Couple's Checklist.

Every day he wakes up and draws his comic and posts it to his Instagram. The character is basically him and his thoughts.

After a year or so of drawing the character, Mike put together a book of a collection of his comic. He created "How to get Divorced." In writing the book, he discovered he was sharing his divorce story. 

Mike candidly shares the story of his divorce and the emotions he went through you during the divorce process and eventually forgiving his ex. 

From his perspective, it felt like they went from very loving one day, the relationship ended. Part of dealing with the loss of his marriage, Mike sold all his possessions and hit the road to Austin, Texas, with plans to travel up to Seattle as well. He gave up drinking for five months. Nothing seems to help. He heard of LandMark and attended the seminar, which some people think is a cult. Someone at the seminar said, "I just realized he was just not into me," and it clicked for him.

He felt like he needed to forgive his wife and the person for who she left him. He felt like he regained control of his life. But that didn't magically fix everything. He still had issues with relationships and personal growth to accomplish. He had to learn to let go of not wanting to date. 

We highly recommend you check out Kate's podcast, The Divorce Survival Guide. She is also a certified divorce coach and we talk about what that means.

"Should I stay or should I go?" is an area that she coaches people on, she also has an online course of the same name.

Kate shares her story about how she got into divorce and discernment coaching.

After her successful career in acting (including Grey's Anatomy) and successful divorce. She learned it's not simple, or cut and dry. Her and her ex have spent a lot of time doing therapy, recovery, and putting in the work.  
 
I help women heal from emotional abuse and work through the process of discerning that throughout their divorce. ~ Kate Anthony

You can find a large community of people on the Should I Stay or Should I go her Facebook page. It's heavily moderated and a strong community for people looking for support.

“No matter what stage of the process you’re at, there is always someone whose life parallels yours and who you can take comfort in. As alone as I’ve felt at times, I realize that I am far from alone in this group.” ~Kate Anthony.

50% percent of first-time marriages, 67% of second marriages, and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. 

One of the things that Kate has learned and in doing this for as long as she has is that most women who come to her if you're up in the middle of the night Googling, should I stay or should I go? And you land on my page and you call her, or you join her Facebook group you're not in a really healthy, happy relationship. Women don't know that they get to choose. We spend so much time waiting. We wait for men to ask us on dates. We wait for men to ask us to dance. We wait for them to ask us to marry them. We wait. And so we spend most of our lives, not an active choice about the relationships that we're in, but you do have the ability to choose.

It's a common misconception that you have to file certain paperwork when you want to separate, but this is not the case. We talk about one of the first steps to getting a separation which is a separation agreement. 

A separation document is a contract to agree on how you want to go about things like child support and how you want to handle your finances.

We talk about a few things that people without separation agreements do and how much of a mess they have made for both parties. 

One of the downsides of a separation agreement is the other party can decide not to sign it or not take it very seriously. If this should happen, we recommend that you go up to your ex-spouse and have an open-ended conversation about important matters with them. 

So you want to start your separation agreement, but you don't know where to start? It would be best if you started by gathering all of your important financial documents to fully inform your legal team to give you the best legal advice that we can offer.  

What do you put into your separation agreement? You put in who will have custody and the details of that custody agreement in there and how you want to handle your finances from here.  We advise you don't put too much in there, but you can really put whatever you feel is necessary to have a successful separation. 

When you or your partner does not abide by your agreement, we will try to negotiate without going to court, but if one party does not hold up their end of the deal, it will be taken to court, and it is a liable contract.  

If you want to change your agreement, if both parties agree, then you can come into the office and get whatever you want to change, whether it is a new custody agreement or if it is a new amount of child support, it can be changed. 

Overall, the benefits of a separation agreement are that it is legally binding and that your partner cannot back out if they sign it. It is also helpful because it can save you money by spending less time in court, and it will just be a lot less stress on everyone.   

We talk about how we are excited to be getting vaccines and people are starting to come back into the office.

Will McGlone is a good friend of Jen's and is the guest on the show. We talk a little about college-years and how Jen and Will became friends at ECU.

We are excited to talk to Will about his experience and remembrance of his parent's divorce during his childhood now that he is grown up and has a wife and children of his own. Will's parents got divorced when he was five years old.  

Many people think that the kids don't know what going on when mom and dad are fighting all the time, but we believe the kids know.

Will talks about how his parents told him they were going to get a separation and we share the stories of when our parent's told us as well.

Custody can be one of the hardest things to understand as a child and is often misunderstood from the child's perspective. It is difficult when one of the parents moves states away and it changes the dynamic of the relationship.

One thing that seems to be a unifier in stories of divorce is the desire for the children of divorce to raise their kids in a different kind of environment. 

With the benefit of age and hindsight, we discuss whether or not we wish our parents would have stayed together. Also, we share advice for the parents going through a divorce about important things kids need to hear during separation and divorce. 

We know it may feel difficult or impossible right now but kids are resilient and they will be okay in the long run.