Divorce and Mediation: Respect vs Nurturing - Mac Pierre-Louis || Don’t Pick the Scab Podcast #039 || David M. Webb

[00:00:15] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast with the premise of connecting man over 40 with the tools and community To thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during or after a divorce

[00:00:28] Check it out. Welcome everybody out there to Don't Pick the Scab Podcast, a podcast that has some of the best media to start or continue Divorce recovery for man over 40. Welcome Mac Arthur Pierre-Louis to the show. He's an attorney who specializes in mediation

[00:00:45] He has a podcast about resolving conflicts the lawyers and mediators mediators international show and podcasts We were just talking how you ended up in mediation laws. Go ahead and finish that Yes, yes, so basically I've been a lawyer for 2009 and

[00:01:04] During that time my guess has been three big phases phase one was the attorney general child support division working for the state Representing the state's interests and helping protect children's interests in receiving child support

[00:01:17] But in that role I was neutral and I was representing the a neutral entity the government Trying to help the two parents go through the process then after that I left the AG's office and I started my own law practice in 2014 and

[00:01:31] Since I've been doing that I've been a partisan working for a mom or a dad and usually in a divorce or a custody setting And with that hat I'm trying to fight for somebody But like I said before over time I discovered or realized that

[00:01:47] It wasn't bringing me much joy trying to fight for somebody in order to tear somebody else down just to win I found more joy and what I discovered in mediation

[00:01:59] I had to take my clients to mediation because it was required before you go see the judge for a contested hearing but By 2017 I decided to just jump in it myself

[00:02:09] And I started doing it because I saw a lot of good things coming out of helping two people try to resolve their differences And hopefully transform their lives so that they know, you know, they have the skills to be able to in the future

[00:02:21] Not keep fighting but learn to make peace so that they can move on especially when there's kids involved So yeah, that's what I do now is Still mainly law because that's kind of where the business is however

[00:02:34] My passion my personal goal is to be a full-time mediator to help people resolve the differences What are some of the most common challenges men over 40 have during divorce issues with Co-parenting let's let's go a dive in the co-parenting. That's a that's a big one in mediation

[00:02:53] How do you mean handle that sometimes or some of the changes they have? Yeah, so typically you have a Unis typical situation is you know where a father If he's not a father then it's gonna be something that can be wrapped up pretty quickly

[00:03:09] Because there's a separation this property involved and they move on when there's a kid involved now You two are stuck together at the hip until the child emancipate and Realistically until you die because your child is always going to be connecting you

[00:03:25] And so I think helping people one make peace with the fact that the relationship is over to helping you now Go into this new world of learning how to co-parent because like I always say there's no book out there that actually helps people

[00:03:40] Just learn automatically how to co-parent and and there's no new world It's people imagine that you will split up and then it's you have your household And the other person at their household

[00:03:52] However, how do you deal with conflict when it comes up over a child like nobody ever teaches you this? No, when you get married There's no preparation for when it might end and so most people are kind of thrown into it And so as a man, you know

[00:04:06] He will feel like his world's falling apart he might feel overwhelmed by all the challenges that I just don't into his lap and He may have some you know societal feel some societal pressures because again There's a lot of expectations on men

[00:04:23] You'll be called a dead be dead real quick because you miss one child's board payment, you know So there's all these challenges that people are not Trained or prepared to face and then all of a sudden they face all of them

[00:04:37] One time and they have to quickly learn and I and I've seen some people learn very quickly and they adapt and they You know talk to the right support system and they kind of move forward

[00:04:46] But I've also seen people kind of crumble, you know, they start making bad life choices and they may start You know thinking drugs or alcohol to cope and so it all depends on who the individual is

[00:04:57] But the more information that's out there and like this conversation for example Hopefully someone's gonna find it and see what they get some tips from it You know, we were talking in the pre-interview quickly we were talking about

[00:05:12] How you're not a therapist but sometimes you walk in that fine line with your clients because you're trying to help them through a difficult time So Hopefully one day I might become a you know LPC. You like some professional counselor

[00:05:27] I think when you do this kind of work and you see the patterns that go on and on every single day between two parents or two Expouses you start seeing Patterns in the business and you start learning about a lot about human nature

[00:05:43] And you start hearing the same kind of things from that men say the same kind of things that women say and With experience over time because you get to be to have a front row seat at the same kind of

[00:06:00] Conflicts that keep recurring. I do start feeling to a degree Like a counselor because I'm telling people look here's what I've seen obviously, it's not counseling advice. It's not therapeutic advice but People trust your experience, you know when you when you've gone through what you've seen at all

[00:06:18] And I think it makes me a good mediator because I'm able to help the mom in front of me kind of identify You know the her trigger points and Why this guy saying this and the father, you know, who's listening my

[00:06:31] You know in the mediation when he's talking to me one-on-one I want to help educate him to kind of see hey, you know, look you might have blinders on you might Be seeing this from a mother's from your own perspective. But here's another way to look at it

[00:06:45] So I think that's the good thing is helping people You know see where they might be at fault where they have some responsibility and where the other side is coming from So I think therapists and counselors do that. So it's very similar

[00:07:01] This is a perfect segue because you were talking about having helping other people look at the situation How do you take the emotional component? Because that's that's that's probably the big blinders that everybody has with

[00:07:13] mediation, you know the high volatile emotions. How do you speak to that? How do you try to handle that? correct so I'm actually going through a book right now called High dealing with high conflict personalities and it's giving me lots of good pointers

[00:07:32] I like reading these kind of things because it helps my job when I go in to work with people More all the emotional creatures, right? But it's an aspect from and so

[00:07:40] What we have to do as mediators is to learn. Okay, here's how the human mind works on the brain works How our brain operates? Here's what happens when your pre frontal cortex, which is supposed to be dealing with your rational thoughts gets Basically just shoved over

[00:07:59] Because you're amygdala, you know your reptilian brain takes over Which controls your emotions takes over and it starts making you react and sometimes it's very strong especially when there is strong emotions connected to it like this is a betrayal or

[00:08:15] Like there's been there's an injury to a child, you know anything involving fight-of-flight Anything involving fear of the future and not knowing how you're gonna meet ends meet or The states on take half your money and how are you gonna survive?

[00:08:29] So these things are going to of course bring out strong reactions And so I think the first thing is we mediators we start off by understanding it Why do human beings react this way and so what the person's doing is something completely normal?

[00:08:41] It's just that when the person is in the thick of it. They don't see that Right, they are glitter control by their emotions And so a lot of mediation is us kind of sitting there helping people

[00:08:53] Validating their experiences because one of the things this is this is a book called how to calm an angry person down 90 seconds or less. It's called deescalate and one of the things it says is What a person wants when they

[00:09:09] Feel angry or they have a strong reaction is validation What a person's ultimately looking for is to be heard and so if a person comes at you and They are angry and they are angry at you because they feel that you've done them wrong

[00:09:26] They come to mediation and they are out of control What we start off with is not by telling them hey calm down all that's gonna do is make make it worse Right what we start off with is

[00:09:38] Listen very carefully not to their words because that doesn't really matter but to their emotions and We point it out and we bring to their attention. Oh, that's how you feel you feel this way So the person is really angry. I'll give you some examples

[00:09:53] Let's say you and I are fighting over. I don't know my cat who's sitting over there And you kick my cat by accident. You didn't see the cat

[00:10:02] But it was an accident. I think it first of all because I love my cat and I'm like hey you kick my cat You turn to me you could handle it one or two different ways, right? You could turn to me like no, I didn't okay

[00:10:13] that's going to cause an escalation because I'm gonna feel you calling me a liar But if you turn around to me and you say oh, you're angry all the sudden That validation causes me to feel like wow he's listening. He's

[00:10:30] Validating what I've said. He's not calling me a liar to my face. He's not challenging me And so that's kind of how we do it when we start validating people's emotions Not necessarily not that they're right not to say that you're correct and truthful

[00:10:44] But their emotions are valid when we start doing that it starts creating a repressuric Prosthety and human beings then want to acknowledge. Yeah, I am angry and you feel that I hurt your cat

[00:10:56] Yeah, how did you know that's how I feel all the sudden all you've done all you've done is validate Their feelings and now you've brought them down to a place where they're where their frontal cortex can start taking over And let's rash be rational and helping

[00:11:13] Resolve the conflict that we might have between the two of us But if you challenge them forget it especially with men and men are big on respect when a man feels disrespected He's going to want to prove to you, you know how he's been wrong

[00:11:27] And so that's a whole another thing but uh, but basically that's kind of how we handle the emotional aspect of it Let me take it one step further We're going to discuss the inward narcissism Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow this is a difficult I show No, yeah, but I

[00:11:52] think that word is a loaded term and I actually did a recording you know years back with with with former partner of mine on this exact topic and we were talking about it because It's one of the more popular terms we hear in every kind of consultation

[00:12:12] somebody comes to our office they sit down and we say and how can I help you and When you hear the list of grievances How that person has been wronged you will know inevitably will hear a few buzzwords one of them is narcissism

[00:12:29] The other one I think I've noticed more recently is the word karma actually that all they're gonna Yeah, they're gonna get karma. You know, I've even karma colors come as gonna get to them

[00:12:39] But the thing but real quick on that one the thing about karma is it seems as person who's saying it is always starting With karma from the present going forward the person never goes back in time

[00:12:50] And maybe admit that maybe the reason they're going through difficulties because the karma is from the past Onto the present so I've just noticed that there's an inconsistency there But people love to use karma now the other side But anyway back to narcissism on the other word

[00:13:05] I think that it's no surprise that people would be tempted to raise the one buzzword of our time that seems to be able to put everything at the feet of their opponent there's a temptation there naturally if

[00:13:26] Especially if you feel hurt and so I'm not a betting man, but I just cannot imagine that Any relationship breaking up Could be the fault of just one individual all of it. It doesn't make any sense to me

[00:13:42] It's gonna take two to tango the course is going to take two but Whenever you hear the word narcissism it It's being said usually by somebody who is pointing it out as

[00:13:54] The indication of the root of all the problems of the relationship from that one individual to me I just don't think that's reasonable approach. I think that our system is going to be an aspect

[00:14:04] I'm again not a doctor on this but as far as an aspect from I think to a degree We're all going to care really strongly about ourselves, but I think what the person's really saying is not That the person only cares about themselves

[00:14:17] I think what the person why the person raises that is that this individual Doesn't seem to Care about who they hurt. They will be so self-concerned that to them

[00:14:31] It doesn't see it doesn't matter who they heard and so if her mom or wife comes to me and says I'm husband's a narcissist Then I think what she's really saying is that

[00:14:42] He doesn't give any kind of validation to my feelings how I feel and how I it ends up infecting me or the children He only cares about himself And so to a degree sure that is probably happening that might happen that can happen however

[00:15:00] Does the person take any kind of responsibility for the possibility that? We all know the triggers in the other person Sometimes the only person who could hurt you deeply is a person who knows you really well Okay, it's like they should do this effect

[00:15:17] And so I just think that we have to take a step back not use such a loaded term as if it's absolutely true If the person is clinically narcissists will let a doctor assess them, but when you're the one doing it

[00:15:30] It seems to me that it might just have powerful pitfalls of Of non truths because you're seeing out of anger But anyway, I just think it's to summarize in a nutshell. I think the word is overused

[00:15:44] But it does exist. I just wish that we would have the professionals Diagnosis not the person who you're triggered by It's almost like you're pointing one finger out and then three fingers are pointing back. Yeah

[00:15:57] That's a thing it takes two and so I just think that it's not necessarily fair For the Diagnoser to also be the person who has an incentive to diagnose It doesn't make sense. Yep You you have to get a neutral objective person to do it

[00:16:17] and I think if The person is willing to go to therapy or they're willing to get diagnosed and they're willing to go talk to a psychologist And there's an assessment that's made okay fine, then I think we can use the word, you know more openly, but

[00:16:30] I've never seen a word more used In a family in family law than that word So it is recently Yes, especially so it becomes a trend you could literally put not just as them and the word trend into Google

[00:16:47] And you're going to see people talk about this this way. So it's not a surprise. I noticed it I noticed it but then I'm like a lot of people noticing it as well It's not a surprise

[00:16:57] So it's just a you know, there's a self-serving in it and when you go around Finger-pointing especially if you're a relative or loved one or family member Well, of course, you would think that you know them best but at the same time

[00:17:12] You're the one who probably stood to be hurt the most and so there's no Surprised and why you'd be a one to label them. Are there any unique legal or financial

[00:17:23] Challenges that men over 40 face during a divorce in mediation compared to younger men or even women of the same age You know, they're kind of like a

[00:17:33] Like I said before the kind of like us like a super niche and so are some of things that they go through that others don't Yes, I think one of them is retirement and the thought of it because when you're over 40 you start thinking about

[00:17:47] you know taking care of yourself here when you get older and many ways divorce is going to Got your finances Right because you're usually going from a two-person household two-person income household into one and you may now have the added responsibility of

[00:18:05] having to support, you know, whether that's child support or alimony potentially for years and many people No one planned to do that when they get into the relationship And so just imagine in a way feeling like you're starting all over and

[00:18:22] How that and how you might feel that you've lost 10 15 20 years That if you had known this what's gonna happen, you would have probably be You know saving things a little differently doing different decisions but when you have one set of plans with your life partner and

[00:18:42] You discover sooner or later that all of a sudden you have to start over I think that's something that men over 40 are going to face that young people won't Because they have more time, right? With with interests and every cover. Yeah, exactly. It's

[00:18:59] So so that's the thing so with that phrase cheaper to keep her I mean it starts having a whole lot more meaning when you are older because you have to wonder do yourself

[00:19:08] I mean, do I really want to come please all over or am I going to just do what I gotta do to make my marriage work? You know, so but that's a financial thing and so I'm sure there are other other

[00:19:21] Unique things as far as relationships go. I think you know by the time you're you've crossed the 40 line You start kind of be accepting your ways and so you're you may be less likely in my opinion to get remarried

[00:19:33] You may be less likely to want to go take that risk again You may have already had children more likely than not But if you're younger well skies count the limit and you might imagine

[00:19:47] You may not have a child already. Yeah, and so yeah, yeah, but emotional financial. There's some differences So what kind of advice would you give to men? They're getting ready to head into a mediation or even have a mediation coming up in In in the near future

[00:20:04] What kind of advice could you give them as they go into it because I wanted to mediation I was scared as hell. Yeah, because I had no clue what to expect. Yep, you know, I yeah and it didn't go well

[00:20:18] Because we couldn't agree on anything. Yeah, but my my divorce was very contentious But what kind of advice can you give to my minimal 40? Sure. So one thing I always tell people when you come to mediation I understand that

[00:20:35] Human beings will only accept something when they think it's to their best interest. All right, and actually This is a type of mediation. We call it interest based mediation instead of positional mediations where Traditional route people might have a position and you're defending your position

[00:20:56] But now we're starting to discuss. Well, how does a mediator help people? see things from the perspective of their own interests and The classic example is you know, the Orange that people to people are fighting over one person might want the juice of the orange

[00:21:14] The other person might want the orange skin in order to make a cake And so they both have an interest and so the magic is how do we get the parties to the point where they can split the Orange where they both mutually benefit

[00:21:28] He easier said than done. Right? So there's some things I would tell people one of them is listen Just like you feel you have certain interests you want to defend know that the other person does as well So to this fiction

[00:21:41] Fictitious man man who's gonna be going through the mediation. I'll tell him let's say he's gonna be going through a divorce I'll tell him don't Corner your wife If you corner her you're going to give her no incentive

[00:21:56] to work out a deal with you if you go with demands and And without a rash without rationales because that's gonna be another tip You gotta get rationales for everything people will tend to agree with you

[00:22:08] If you give them a reason as to why you have a position But if you just go with a demand and say this is what I want Well, then they're going to reject it because they're gonna

[00:22:17] Assume in the first and dent on your part. So you have to give rationales but back to the cornering when you Corner somebody you create in them an incentive to fight back to lash out right like a cage animal or cornered animal

[00:22:31] And so the goal should be to get them to see that it's To their interest to settle with you on this term Then to take a risk and from the court in front of a judge

[00:22:46] Because neither of us knows what the judge might do some lawyers might be able to guesstimate is specific in front of that lawyer about that judge however If if the trick is to help the person not feel That they have to defend themselves

[00:23:02] You want to coax them out of their corner and so We there's an acronym for this bat now. It's basically best alternative to negotiate a settlement Meaning when I'm talking to somebody I'm the mediator and I'm talking to this person and

[00:23:17] Let's bring up a simple example child support and and wife and her caucus room says she wants $1,000 in multi child support based on what she believes is his earnings but

[00:23:31] Let's say to him he can only afford a maximum of 750 okay per month. Otherwise, he thinks he's gonna that's gonna break him and so If I go to him or if I go to her I would say listen if you corner your husband

[00:23:46] Okay, if you corner the other side with 1000 you say that's my red line I'm not bending if it's any less than a thousand I'm going to be like you're gonna corner him to have an incentive

[00:23:59] Who just go to court because he might as well take a chance if he thinks that he might get 750 from the judge So the person is being given two sharp options either Take a thousand accept defeat or go to 750 By agreement

[00:24:16] But if you like it's not gonna happen who just take a chance to go to the judge and so robot ice Yeah, exactly because they might as well. You don't want him there You want to incentivize his performance to go to something lower?

[00:24:30] So when you know that red line everyone has one alright when you've taken them there and That's the final offer that's being made That's when you might know okay that where you've pushed far enough

[00:24:44] Maybe then since you don't know what the judge might do either you don't take the risk for a thousand But you incentivize him to maybe say 900 when you take 900 and now he has to start thinking okay Is it worth the risk now?

[00:24:59] Okay, now that I've been cornered should I just accept partial defeat or is it still worth the risk because I might not get the 900 from You know I might not get sent from the judge

[00:25:11] But if she's offering 900 let me go ahead and take that but at least I'm saving something But if I go to court and I get a thousand that I'm have how might have regrets that I didn't

[00:25:21] And so that's the kind of thing we play I guess it's it's it's Trying to help people see their best case worst case Eventually in court and why they should settle on Something and so I can give you many different examples, but in a nutshell the tip is

[00:25:37] Don't corner the other side And if you feel cornered of you when you have a good counter offer make sure you give a rationale for it If people are more likely to accept it

[00:25:48] instead of feeling that you're just trying to jerk your chain and you know cheek them man Let's talk about coping mechanisms That could be part of a of a mediation, but that probably happens afterwards So do you employ any coping mechanisms during mediation? Do you have a style?

[00:26:09] You know you just talked about that that one style. Do you have a flow? There you go Of the mediation when you start the mediation flow. Yeah, so Typically you want to build trust A person is not going to want to settle if they can't trust the mediator

[00:26:28] They think the mediators and others other size pocket and to fix that by the way I always tell the person who's inviting the other side to the mediation table give the other side three choices and mediators and let them choose one

[00:26:40] That way they will not feel that they are Being cheated by mediator who's biased or is in your back pocket So that's one touch next tip Don't offer Nobody should be paying a hundred percent of the mediation fee

[00:26:58] Because if the person who doesn't have any skin in the game who doesn't pay any kind of money towards the mediation process Has an incentive to walk away more more often because they haven't lost anything except time and so You know, we'll typically see the example

[00:27:15] Let's say let's say a dad wants to go to mediation to resolve his issues out of court He thinks mom's gonna go for it But mom does one up mom says what if we're gonna mediation found I'll go but I'm not paying for it

[00:27:28] So he's like fine. I'll pay for it. Okay, let's say it's gonna be $500 for four hours to do the mediation He says he's gonna be a thousand for both sides well Right there the mistake is he's incentivized her or she's incentivized to

[00:27:43] Not settle because of the fact that she has she won't lose anything So that's not that I think if anything he may want to offer to partially pay for her fee Maybe pay half, you know, okay So he'll pay 750 and she'll pay the other 250 that remains so that

[00:28:00] Both of them have some skin in the game because when they don't then people are more likely to take it to two serious Because they don't lose anything if they just walk away um

[00:28:10] As far as other like a tricks of the trade when you're going through the process Hmm, I think a lot of it it does depend on gender. Okay, I would say um Both parties want and need respect. Okay, I think talking to a man as a man

[00:28:31] There's a certain way I'll talk to a man where I kind of Raisy empty when it comes to his self-respect You can get you can motivate a man to do anything if it's honorable to him okay, and

[00:28:47] This is like a dirty secret, but I think if the opposite sex realize that more they might get a whole lot more what they wanted But when a man starts feeling torn down when a man starts he'll be defined on purpose

[00:29:02] It's like it's in his nature. Okay as men we want to stand up for ourselves We don't want to be dishonored and it's an honor code, you know, there's a book out there famous book by Dr. Egrics called love and respect, you know how men are basically

[00:29:19] Wanting to be respected that women to basically want to be loved of course we all want to be loved Of course, we don't be respected but Generally broadly speaking of that's what a man is looking for is respect And so when the marriage relationships ending co-parenting is ensuing

[00:29:37] He's going through the process whether it's an mediation table or in a courtroom Respect can still go a whole whole long way when you're dealing with a man and

[00:29:46] And so anyway, I just I've just discovered that the like the book said there's that men operate by honor code You might find the worst kind of man, you know a man who is out of control

[00:29:58] And whose mouth is just horrible and no one will be willing to put up with him but That man still wants and craves respect When you treat people honorably you're going to give that reciprocity back and and it's again, it's human nature. I think

[00:30:16] To a woman, I think you know, she needs respect of course It's just not the same way it's different And I think nurture and nurturing is a big factor of course and so you know when you get into the whole

[00:30:33] Children and in a mom who is in my opinion what I've seen is sometimes the worst thing to a mom okay, especially in the court system is The possibility that she might be publicly Characterized as a bad mother like that

[00:30:55] What I discovered is one of the things that a woman or most moms cannot tolerate The the idea that well, what do people think of me? Even if you didn't want to be a mom or it doesn't matter

[00:31:10] What will people think of me? I'm kind of a mother in my alright, and I've always said to You know Women clients of mine. Hey don't think that a female judge is necessarily going to be

[00:31:24] You know the best thing in your case because some moms automatically think that they think of course It's a woman judge of course. She's gonna go along with me But no don't think that because that woman judge is the only one who could ask the question

[00:31:38] What kind of mother are you a man judge never gonna ask you that a woman judge can? Because she might be a mother too women can speak to women a certain way but but I Caution some of my women, you know clients to not think that Mom judge

[00:31:56] Judge who's a woman is going to necessarily be on her side Especially because a lot of these women judges get accused all the time of being biased against men and Sometimes these female judges are just waiting for a really really good father to come before them

[00:32:14] So that she can that female judge can disprove That myth this through that stereotype air on other side. Yeah, exactly It can backfire big time So don't put all your eggs in one basket and just think that the genders are gonna be necessary to be on your side

[00:32:29] But I've seen I've heard a lot. Wow, man. This is awesome So you have an opportunity to talk to my men and give them your most three important points What would they be? Yeah, yeah, so I think self help is

[00:32:48] Very very important. Okay, I never tell people to divorce ever. Okay, it's personal to me But I do tell you what to separate Because sometimes you need your time alone so you can focus on yourself and get healthy get a therapy you need okay, and so

[00:33:11] Getting that time in private we can work on yourself We can get your support system intact is probably a good thing and I think too many men Because of societal pressure and other reasons we might work ourselves to death and

[00:33:26] Do many things that are not healthy for us And sometimes that's probably to blame as to why relationships, you know going downhill is because there's no time for the relationship and And so taking time Pausing it all and just helping yourself heal is

[00:33:46] Necessary the next thing is connected. I guess it's therapy There's you know, we talked about the n-word not just as on my this the other word is the t-word therapy is a word that men Unfortunately still think is is for the week They think

[00:34:06] Yeah, they think if I have to go through that then I'm going to admit that I'm weak because men want to be strong, right? We're caretakers. We're defenders and if we

[00:34:18] Want if we admit that we might be fragile in a certain place and we need some help there Especially on the inside of what people cannot see We think that that's beneath us and so unfortunately then it's rest I think amongst black men

[00:34:34] You're not going to see the tendency to want to just you know admit look I need some help and I want to go and talk to somebody and Learn how to cope and learn the tricks of the trade that I need to put into my life

[00:34:46] How I got like I think differently how maybe my mouth in my tongue is causing a whole lot of these problems how I'm Cobbable as well for the demise relationship. It's not just her and so Because of blinders on when I able to see this

[00:35:04] but if you go to therapy and You work on yourself and you are forced to kind of look in the mirror from a different perspective Then that might go a whole long way The final thing is you know, I Think it's gonna be the next generation dealing with

[00:35:26] Not perpetuating a cycle case I guess this goes along with therapy as well. Basically is this I've seen You know, you've heard that for a generational curse, right? It's like take my word for it. I refer it like you see this every single day in family courts the

[00:35:47] Angry man who is out of control emotionally Was latching out who's defensive to find whatever And who's triggered by his, you know partner when we've done discovery and we kind of get to the bottom of it we Discover and we see that

[00:36:14] He never wanted to be this way, but it was a result of what was modeled for him And there's a kid involved in this case and We realize the school records are showing that this little child is repeating the exact same thing So I've seen it three generations

[00:36:33] And and I've seen enough cases where I'm getting a client who's a dad Going through divorce or whatever and I put his name into the system to the Harris County system for this public record

[00:36:45] And I find his name, but I'm like wait a minute. That says 1980. Oh, that's my father Okay, and so you see the pattern and so this happened multiple times So so my point is Don't be surprised when somebody says hey listen there might be something intergenerational here

[00:37:07] It's not your fault. You're the product of it. So what do you have a kid in it now? What can we do to break the cycle once and for all? Maybe we need to involve therapy because the last generation never had it. Maybe we need to

[00:37:25] Bring in more self-help last generation there was a value of it Maybe your son your child needs to see How a man copes differently so that he can yes become more attached to these feelings Yes to say that way

[00:37:41] But it's not to turn him up the madness exactly It's a sub-cycle that's inevitably going to be repeating itself over and over and over and I've just seen David So many instances where that's happened and people don't realize it when they're in the loop

[00:38:00] When you're in the loop, you can't see it All right for Those are excellent three points. This has been fun. It's been very enlightening this I myself I have to admit, you know when I say the word mediation

[00:38:14] I'm thinking like yawn boring but not even close. No, absolutely so we appreciate you get on the podcast with us and Want to tell people where to find you yes on the internet? So I try to keep things simple I'm at Mac Peerlevy on everything so at m-a-c-p-i-e

[00:38:32] R-r-e-l-o-u-i-s no hyphen and If you just put at Mac Peerlevy, you're gonna get there Mac period our cons my website everything is just Mac Peerlevy and Of course the LMI podcast lawyers meteors international where we talk law and conflict resolution topics like mediation issues and

[00:38:53] lately my big thing has been Technology and mediation artificial intelligence AI. I'm fascinated by that stuff So definitely people who are interested in knowledge and family law could check it out, too Well, well, thank you Ken Mac We're gonna close it out and I will have your

[00:39:12] Contact information at the bottom of show notes But thank you very much for hanging out with us and we'll close it out and just stay on the line here. All right