Stay Married, Do the Work, Water Your Grass! - Paula Waterman, Mediator - Castle Rock Mediation || Don't Pick the Scab Podcast #158

[00:00:00] Today's guest is someone who believes that divorce doesn't have to destroy families. It can be navigated with dignity, clarity, and even hope. Paula Waterman is the driving force behind Castle Rock Mediation, a Colorado-based practice dedicated helping couples resolve divorce and family disputes outside the courtroom. With a focus on mediation services, Paula guides clients through some of their life's most emotionally charged transitions. Property division, parenting plans, and co-parenting arrangements, which you're going to concentrate on co-parenting

[00:00:29] of course, without the financial and emotional devastation of litigation. Her approach is especially powerful for men over 40 who are rebuilding their lives and want a fair, respectful path forward. Paula brings not only professional expertise, but genuine compassion for people facing one of the hardest chapters of their lives. Whether you're contemplating divorce in the middle of one or picking up the pieces afterwards, today's conversation is for you. Please welcome Paula Waterman. Welcome Paula to the show. Paula Waterman, Welcome Paula to the show. Paula Waterman,

[00:00:59] Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you so tell me about your journey a little bit and I got some questions for you. Yeah, I was divorced after 24 years of marriage. My first husband was unfaithful. He served me divorce papers while I worked at a church which was devastating to me. I was completely blindsided. I never saw it coming. He was a pilot and lived a very successful double life. I'll put it that way. Eventually I got divorced in 2012. After trying to delay it, not understanding the divorce process, but I was completely blindsided. He was a pilot and lived a very successful double life. Eventually I got divorced in 2012 after trying to delay it, not understanding the divorce process

[00:01:29] in Colorado having no clue didn't have a friend who'd gone through this kind of a divorce so I didn't understand anything about it my kids my boys didn't talk to him for ten years it was very high conflict I decided that I wanted to get into mediation so I could help other people especially like myself who are going through an unwanted divorce they didn't want to have a divorce but you and I both know that it only takes one person to get it for two people to be married but one person to get divorced man I have a lot of questions here in

[00:01:59] they just went away from the screen okay for someone who's never heard the term how would you explain what mediation actually is so mediation is what we refer to as alternative dispute resolution process it's a very long phrase for basically meaning you meet with a neutral third party so as a mediator I'm a neutral third party and I help the two disputing parties the husband and wife or whoever it is come to a settlement that they can both live with that we that they

[00:02:28] then submit to the court and they avoid hopefully using lawyers and or going to court and having the court decide important decisions for themselves so was interesting about El Paso County here in in Carl Springs they use mediation a lot in the oh yeah so mediation you gotta go nation for us yes you can't see a court you cannot see a judge or a courtroom until you do mediation even if you get lawyers so if you get lawyers or you do a divorce on your own and just use a

[00:02:55] mediator you always have to show that you've tried mediation before the the courts will even hear you litigate in front of them and if you choose to litigate you're gonna drag out your divorce by at least a year man mine took a year and a half yeah mine too cuz I didn't know what I was doing yeah what are some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about the mediation process I think some people don't realize that as a third party neutral the mediator can't direct

[00:03:25] anything I can't advise people on on their legal options because that's not my job right so sometimes what's hard is if in a relationship one person has been very dominant over the other person who's more passive sometimes they'll steamroll right over that person in mediation and I'll try to mitigate that a little bit but I always tell people you have to be willing to be an advocate for yourself and and

[00:03:53] negotiate strongly for yourself in mediation if you can't do that for some reason you're scared of the other party you're passive whatever then that's a good time to get a lawyer and have a lawyer do the talking for you so what about emotions man emotions are huge how do you navigate that minefield that minefield well deep and dirty yeah the emotions I find that are the hardest are again when one person is

[00:04:23] used to calling the shots I'm not gonna say it's the man or the woman but a lot of times it's the person who controls the money in the relationship they tend to want to just tell the other person what's gonna happen and they can get really angry when I tell them they can't act that way I tell people you're not gonna swear you're not gonna swear in here you're not gonna use the f-word if you're gonna raise your voice and scream you need to remove yourself and there's been times where I told people I'm done you swore one too many times I'm done this mediation is

[00:04:52] over and I I find more that I have to control tempers than I do helping people some people are really emotional and I'll give space for that like brief wise but a lot of times people bring their anger to the table right and they want to impose a solution on the other person that the other person doesn't want and they and I as a when I am working independently not with lawyers I'll be like

[00:05:21] that's not happening in this room you need to find a way to collaborate on a solution if you cannot collaborate then this mediation is not gonna for you you talked about before that sometimes one spouse has control of all the finances what do you do in that situation Colorado law says that you have to share your financial statements with each other so each party has to fill out a financial statement and they have to disclose to the other party all of the marital assets whatever anybody knows they have

[00:05:50] to disclose when we go to do a mediation and I'm working on a separation agreement we use those sworn financials to put together the separation agreement that's that's where most people need a lot of help in figuring out how would the courts handle maybe these kinds of assets and I have to tell people all the time I say listen in Colorado it's an it's called equitable distribution meaning

[00:06:16] it has to be quote-unquote fair but it's almost always 50 50 even though we call it equitable it's almost always 50 50. I've had a few people come to me and they're like I want to keep 70 percent of the marital estate and that person gets 30 because they didn't contribute anything and that's when I have to say no that's not going to fly in court you need to do something way closer to what the court would order because when you even if you take your separation agreement and you stand before the judge and

[00:06:43] say I want you to prove this the judge will say why are you taking 70 and that person's taking 30. You have to defend your reasoning to the judge so I help them understand that when they want to be very controlling and unfair. What kind of role can therapists and or counselors play alongside the mediation process? I was telling you earlier the hardest thing for me when I was going through my divorce I mediated six times because I could not emotionally get myself together to do the business

[00:07:11] side of the divorce it was only till the sixth mediation I could settle down and just do the business of it and it and we only got through the parenting plan and it took eight hours that's how contentious it was. I think a therapist can really help a person do the emotional work of the divorce so that when they come to mediation they can do the business work of the divorce. That's the number one thing I try to help my clients with is we're going to do a business

[00:07:37] meeting here so we're going to try to keep our emotions in check both both grief and betrayal and all that and then anger and whatever we've got to do the work of this so you can move on with your life but counselors and therapists need to help people process what they're going through. How do you handle a high conflict situations or a spouse who refuses to negotiate in good faith?

[00:08:03] Yeah that's you can't really you can't really mediate with people like that that's called good faith mediation right the whole point of mediation when a judge orders people to mediation they expect them to mediate in good faith and if either the party or their lawyer will not mediate in good faith I'll just end the mediation I'll say we're not successful I'm not going to do this for you because you are not even attempting to mediate in good faith especially if someone is trying to control

[00:08:27] the whole process and they will not even do any kind of compromise or collaboration at all they're completely what's the word when you you won't participate at all not a stalemate but there's another word for it yeah I can't think it's got one of Gottman's four things is contempt criticism one of those four it is Friday no Thursday I'm sorry I'll think of it in a minute I'll be able to say it

[00:08:57] yeah so let's say the mediation doesn't go well and it's high conflict and you make notes is the judge privy to those notes no never mediation is always confidential I can't ever be called to be a witness if you guys don't know sometimes we work with lawyers we might work six hours and the way lawyers tend to work is they want an all or none agreement right so we might you're gonna laugh

[00:09:22] but I had a mediation fall apart because they could decide to do what to do with their 14 year old cat they had a 14 year old cat and they would not agree on who'd get to who gets to keep the cat so the whole mediation falls apart you can't even keep part of it and then negotiate the cat later the whole thing fell apart and and so what happens is rather they did come back to me and we had a second mediation and we figured out the cat but mediation is all or none you either come to an agreement

[00:09:52] for the most part with everything or you have to go to the courts you have to have the judge decide and then I cannot be called to be a witness I don't even I don't even keep notes interesting yeah wow so is so when is mediation legally binding and how do agreements become enforceable okay mediation is legally binding once you sign your say you're doing a separation agreement and you guys decide on spousal support and who's going to keep the house and who's going to keep the cars and all kind of stuff and you both sign it and you turn it in that's going to be pretty binding but the

[00:10:22] minute that it's been stamped by the court and your 91 days is up that is a binding contract enforceable by the courts and you can't you cannot change your mind once the court signs off on it it's binding so you're in a you're in mediation and like it's not going well or maybe it's going well but one parent is kind of getting screwed can you say anything or do you have to be quiet and let the

[00:10:48] mediation go and the results are results I'm a third party neutral so I can't be an advocate for the person getting screwed gotcha that's why I tell people and that's what's hard for me because I know what people should be getting and for one person to be so passive and kind of lay down and let the other person run the show I don't like that but I'm not legally even as my description as a media I'm not allowed to interfere with that man but I do tell people you need to show up strong for yourself

[00:11:17] so what are some of the things that people can do before going into mediation what can they do to prepare for a mediation if they're amicable and if they can talk to each other they need to talk about parenting they need to talk about hey do we want to do 50 50 what's best for the kids where are we going to both live how are we going to do this how are we going to even exercise parenting time they need to have a conversation about that if they can holidays

[00:11:43] things like that before they come to see me it'll cost them less because then I don't then I just mostly braid it up and kind of just tighten up everything the problem is a lot of people don't agree on parenting right so they have to come to mediation and then I have to say what are we going to do what works and help them I'm kind of like a brainstormer help them to brainstorm what's going to work a lot of times people will come and see me I charge 200 an hour for a two hour minimum they

[00:12:09] have to I only do I do two hours a time and they have to come and see me and experience everything that needs to happen all the paperwork all the things that need to happen then they need to take a break go process everything and then come back and we can finish up the mediation but a lot of people are overwhelmed they're like where are we going to live what are we gonna do the house a lot of people have three percent interest rates and they don't want to refinance or whatever how are they going to

[00:12:38] handle all those things that's very overwhelming to people going through the worst time of their life how do you help two people who can barely stand to be in the same room work together you just have to be you have to take control of the environment you can't allow their emotions to run the room so a lot of times I just have to say hey I'm the person in charge here I want I don't want you to interrupt each other so that one person's going to tell their position and you're going to hold

[00:13:03] your tongue until it's time for you to talk I've had to tell both men and women they have to stop sniping with each other I've had people just say they dig and snipe and I'm like you can't do that you have to stop doing that I would tell them that have you had people just come to you without going to lawyers that's the majority of my work yeah oh that's cool save a bunch of cash if they're amicable

[00:13:32] if they can sit together and do the work we can do it in two to three sessions under a thousand so that's so that's a typical mediation process look from start to finish three four or five six hours if it's it was amicable yeah I would say the average is four to six hours wow and a thousand bucks oh man that's a lot less than a that's why I say that's why the courts want you to try mediation

[00:13:59] first right and a lot of unless here's the thing you can mediate with people who aren't liar if you're if you're a liar you can't mediate because that's not good faith right if someone refuses to if someone is so dialed up emotion like me I mediated five times and I couldn't come to any kind of agreement

[00:14:22] because I was so dialed up emotionally so you have to come to mediation with the right mindset if you want to if you want to not waste money definitely how has divorce mediation evolved over your career and do you notice any trends the trend is definitely to 50 50 parenting it wasn't like that when I first started

[00:14:44] when I first started it was more I would say usually I would just say usually the primary caretaker if it was the mother would have the majority of parenting and the dad might do every other weekend or you know what I call that you know what I call that what Kramer versus Kramer yeah remember that movie yeah I totally that was a long time ago but I remember that now it's very pro-dad in the sense that the courts really

[00:15:11] like 50 50 parenting and I have my private opinions on that it depends to me it I've seen it both ways I've seen the husband be the primary money maker breadwinner but I've seen the woman be the primary breadwinner and the husband stay at home I like to I don't mind 50 50 if that if each parents are genuinely involved in their kids life if one parent is striving for 50 50 just to change the child support

[00:15:35] number that's not good for the kid do you know what I've seen that yeah yeah what's the one question you wish every client would ask you but never does oh wow that's a good one yeah I wish they would ask I wish they would ask me more about what do the courts normally order what's what are the courts order because everyone comes in with their own opinion of what they think is fair or whatever but they

[00:16:04] I would like them to say what do you see the courts order in this situation and then I'm free to tell them right because I they've asked me are you there yeah I'm here okay okay sorry I didn't know you were done thank God for editing can you share a success story anonymously of course that really stuck with you over the years I've had so many actually really good divorce is not a success story I'm not going to

[00:16:31] say that helping people get divorced is what I would call successful but I've had people that I've been able to get for example a lot of divorces happen when their one party is really involved in alcohol or substance abuse or something like that and it's just gotten to where they need to protect themselves financially because they're being ruined do you know what I mean and and that that spouse I've seen

[00:17:01] spouses go on an alcohol binge and just drop off the planet for six weeks and they don't you don't know where they are do you know what I mean and so being able to help people navigate process they don't want to navigate they don't want to get divorced from their spouse they love this spouse but they cannot live with them like this anymore does that make sense so it's almost better like if they lived in

[00:17:25] two separate places and didn't dissipate all the marital assets when one spouse here's an example I just helped a friend of mine fill out her divorce paperwork with her spouse is a raging alcoholic raging where he would disappear for for days and days you don't know where he is and he'd come home and he put his fist

[00:17:49] through the wall and call her names and be abusive to the kids and I was able to help her navigate a super difficult time of her life and get free from that man am I pro divorce I'm not pro divorce but I am pro peace yeah yeah that's a that that's a big piece so with with all your dealings with mediation how do you relax how do you not take it home how do you do your thing that can be really hard

[00:18:18] sometimes especially if I'm working with lawyers because lawyers have to utilize the mediation process as well and they're way more adversarial lawyers are advocates for their clients so they're going to be a lot more adversarial and they're we're doing it on zoom like what we're doing right now so it slows the process down because I'm going back and forth between zoom rooms and it can get so contentious and so emotional I'm sometimes I say to myself do I want a glass of wine do I want a xanax what am I

[00:18:47] going to do to get this off of me and thankfully I've chosen to go on a three three mile hike but it tears up my body sometimes it's negative it can tear me up yeah so after a covid did you just after covid relax did you see an up uptick in mediations no covid was my busiest time ever was actually covid yeah because people were locked down with each other and couldn't stand each other

[00:19:14] covid really picked up for me yeah isn't that funny and you know what the that's you know the busiest time of the year is you know what that is christmas christmas january right after christmas right after christmas why people like keep it together for the kids during christmas so they'll play a game during the holidays because they don't want to like wreck the holidays and then they decide to file in january so january february march are the highest filings for divorces in the year wow

[00:19:43] so your personal opinion and this is something different than mediation should people stay together for the kids i would normally say yes but if it's not if it's not infidelity i don't know i don't know yeah that's a tough one i don't what would you say i say no because it shows them how to stay in a dysfunctional relationship yeah i see that just give and go there like i'm on both sides of the fence

[00:20:11] yeah but it's tough it depends on why people are divorcing some people divorce for really trivial reasons in my opinion what are some of the trivial reasons like what they just i don't want to be with him anymore i don't like her even money even like we've got too much debt i'm like that's to me addiction problems repeated infidelity infidelity that's serial infidelity those are

[00:20:36] biggies those are the ones that you can't really recover from but some people just are like i don't want to do this anymore i want to be divorced and i'm like it's not good enough that's not good it's almost like they don't put the work in yeah they want to just realize it moves the stuff yeah let's just change partners and i there is a time for divorce abuse i don't want kids to see abuse

[00:21:00] but some people just divorce too easily they don't here's the thing we were we saying before the grass is greener where you water it yeah people don't want to water their grass yeah have you seen an uptake uptick that that is in young divorce no no because for a while there are men young people were just throwing the towel in they said nope i'm here i'm done here's what i see an uptick in people that have

[00:21:27] cohabitated together want to now separate their stuff and they've bought a home together they've commingled their money they have kids together and they can't decide if they're common law married or not see common law marriage is a really big deal in colorado because big time yeah colorado is one of the few states that still has a common law marriage and apparently it might be going away but there's

[00:21:51] three criteria for common law live together hold yourself out as married be on each other's insurance or file your taxes together and co-mingle your money if you meet those three criteria you could maybe be considered common law married and then if you decide to divorce you're protected by the divorce laws in colorado if you cohabitate and you don't you keep your money separate and you don't file tax

[00:22:19] together and you don't say you're married now when you have kids together and you bought a house together it's way messier way way you're not protected by divorce laws there is no equitable division oh it usually hurts whoever makes less money because they don't necessarily get half of the equity of the home or anything like that so it's different huh wow interesting a lot of people are just not getting married that's what i see the uptick a lot of people are just living together

[00:22:46] they're not getting married even here's the other thing i see uptick i see people come in that are even married for the first time and they don't co-mingle their money at all they all have separate accounts everything is separate it's kind of like they're preparing for an eventual divorce kind of thing they're thinking ahead and here's my other pet peeve if you have time for it oh yeah

[00:23:13] most of the states now have what's called no-fault divorce meaning that anyone can get divorced for any reason and you can't now colorado just integrated into their parenting stuff if you are a victim of domestic violence or if you're a perpetrator of domestic violence it'll really impact your parenting time so that's kind of good but my point is a lot of people are now getting prenups

[00:23:38] so they're getting prenups before they get married so that there is a consequence if they get divorced which is like bringing back a fault divorce because the state took away fault you know what i mean so there was like if you like for example in north carolina my my ex-husband had an affair in north carolina they still have what's called fault divorce i could have sued the affair partner for alienation

[00:24:02] of affection and it could have impacted my marital portion what i got is my marital portion based on his misconduct not very many states that have that anymore the only way to enforce that is to put into a prenup interesting so a prenup puts the teeth back into a divorce so when i think a prenup i think of kelsey and what's her name you know that had to be a heck of a prenup oh my gosh yes um taylor

[00:24:31] yeah that must have been a hell of a prenup oh my gosh i didn't used to believe in them and now i kind of do do just because interesting yeah just because of no fault they're getting to now in florida where they want to do away with spousal support all together and i'm like yeah but here's what a prenup can do let's say you get married and you decide that you're going to pursue one the man let's just say the man is going to pursue his career and the wife's they agree the wife will stay home and take

[00:25:00] care of the kids let's just say that she doesn't most of her career building years are taking care of the kids right and then 20 years later they decide to get a divorce he's built his career he's making whatever he's making she has to start over right because she has all those years were given to take care of the kids mutually they mutually agreed on that in a prenup you can take that into account you can say

[00:25:24] hey because we mutually agreed that the wife would stay home and take care of the kids this is what's going to be her part of the marital estate or whatever because i'm going to compensate for that for her lack of being able to go out and get a similar career so it my point is in florida they want to do away with alimony so having a prenup would fix that yeah definitely all right paula this was

[00:25:49] interesting man you didn't know all that yeah you really kicked the can down the curb i'm sorry i learned a lot no that's fine let the people know where to find you on the internet it's castrock mediation.com i'm located here in castle rock colorado okay and any parting words because you got some words come on give me some words stay married do the work water the grass water your grass marriages

[00:26:14] are worth keeping and having them for your whole life and your kids you can't do anything more to bless your kids than to work on your marriage yeah so let's put paula out of business but it's never going to happen no unfortunately no all right paula we appreciate your time hey thanks for hanging out with me for thursday night