Monday, July 27, 2015

"Maybe it's time to stop making fun of 'conscious uncoupling'" Time magazine, August 3, 2015

Dear Reader - 

I like to post articles or essays related to the field of divorce mediation, trends, changes in the law, etc., for those either currently involved in a divorce or for those contemplating it.

"The View" section of the August 3, 2015, issue of Time magazine, features an article entitled "The Rise of the Good Divorce" by Susannah Schrobsdorff.

In her article, Ms. Schrobsdorff discusses the growing trend of people seeking the "optimal divorce," the "Good Divorce." Referred to as "conscious uncoupling" or "collaborative divorce," more use is being made of mediators and coaches today than ever before to assist couples as they navigate through the choppy waters of separation and divorce.

Approaching divorce in an amicable, civil fashion, no matter what name you use for it, benefits all involved -- parents, and especially children.  Parents who are committed to a Good Divorce have demonstrated their concern for their children and have decided to work hard through sometimes extremely stressful circumstances (it's tough to be nice sometimes) for the kids' sake.

Hopefully, this trend will continue and more people will elect an alternative to litigating their divorce in court, a process that takes its toll on the parties, their children and their resources.

If you have any questions about divorce mediation, please contact me.  I will be happy to answer your questions.

Kim Werner
Program Manager
Divorce Mediation Group
kwerner@ncrconline.com


Monday, July 20, 2015

Protecting Against a "Surge" of High-Conflict Behaviors

Please read this article by one of Divorce Mediation Group's mediators, Bill Eddy, about managing emotions in relationships, and specifically in a mediation setting.
 
Civility and the Surge Protector
by Bill Eddy, Esq., LCSW

Do you have a surge protector for your computer? I’ll bet you do! Otherwise, you could burn out your computer during a power surge from a storm, after a power outage or other cause.

But do you have a surge protector for your relationships? If you feel a power surge of anger or resentment or blame, do you give your closest friends, family and co-workers the full force of your emotions? Or do you regulate them down several notches before you explain why you are upset and what you want?

Conflict Skills for Relationships

Conflict skills for relationships are different from conflict skills in an adversarial setting – where relationships don’t matter. In relationships, people have to manage their emotions so that they don’t burn out the relationship. Conflict resolution skills in relationships need to operate in the moderate range. We get help from each other by raising our voices, by crying, walking around agitated or other attention-getting behavior. But as soon as we get the full attention we need, we calm down and communicate why we’re upset and what we want in order to solve the problem. We automatically stop ourselves when our emotional responses become too intense and risk causing lasting harm to the relationship.

In wolf packs, when there’s a fight for dominance, at some point the losing wolf bares his or her neck to the winner and that’s a sign to stop the fight. The pack can’t afford to kill off any members, so they go about their business working together as if nothing happened. They can’t waste energy carrying a grudge or continuing to snipe at each other. The same thing happens for baboons (one of our closest social-behavior cousins): they fight until there’s a winner, and then the loser runs off, and then re-joins the group. That’s that. The relationships remain intact, even if the decision-making structure has changed a bit.

Civility in Relationships

It seems that civility is the form this emotion regulation takes for humans. There are clear social rules about acceptable behavior with family, friends and at work that everyone learns growing up. You can swear around your friends, but not around your parents or at work. You can insult your siblings, so long as you make up in a reasonable period of time. You can yell at your spouse briefly, so long as you share problem-solving before the day is over. You can privately tell a worker or colleague that they are doing a bad job, but you can’t do this publically without sacrificing your working relationship. “Public praise and private criticism” is the rule that many managers are taught (or should be).

But the Times They are a-Changing

We now live in a world where these social rules are not so clear and where different cultures bring different styles of civility. These cultures are clashing today. For example, in some cultures today you are allowed to scream at each other and wave your arms threateningly in the air just inches from the face of the person you are talking to – but you are not allowed to get divorced or have an affair. In other cultures, you’re not supposed to raise your voice too much, but you can get divorced rather easily without even needing a good reason – just irreconcilable differences.

Television shows about workplace behavior emphasize people being extremely self-centered, insulting each other, maybe even screaming at each other on a regular basis – yet there are no consequences. In real life, they would be fired quite quickly. Yet in real life, in some workplace settings, such behavior is increasingly tolerated far beyond normal expectations – and the social rules start to reinforce high-conflict behavior instead of civility.

Our Bystander Entertainment Culture

Our culture appears to be increasingly tolerant of incivility – especially as it permeates all forms of entertainment. As human beings, extreme social behavior grabs our attention. It triggers our amygdalas, warning us of danger and shutting down our higher thinking, as it puts us into a fight or flight mode. However, when we observe extreme social behavior that is not going to be personally threatening to us, we become fascinated as bystanders. This appears to be a survival mechanism, as we watch other people fight in order to learn techniques from them for our own future fights – and also to learn how these specific people fight, so that we can protect ourselves from them if or when they fight with us.

But this natural bystander process has become distorted with today’s entertainment media, as we are constantly exposed to intense emotions and incivility in dramas, in politics and in the daily news. The entertainment media wants to grab your attention with constant images of people who don’t use surge protectors, as these media outlets compete for market share. While this is entertaining to most people, it teaches or reinforces the use of unmanaged emotions and extreme behavior in people’s daily lives – power surges which are burning out more and more personal and work relationships.

Do We Really Need Relationships Anymore?

With our technological toys, we have become much more able to survive and thrive as individuals. As I mention in my book "It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything," we have become a Society of Individuals. We can live alone, feed ourselves alone, work alone and even have sex alone (it’s the biggest business on the Internet).

So maybe we don’t need relationships anymore. Maybe we can say and do anything we want with other people – in other words incivility has no cost and is easier than putting a surge protector on ourselves. In fact, it can even feel like fun to treat others uncivilly: “I sure showed him!!” As on TV, we have become trained to enjoy the feeling of making a dramatic insult and then walking away. Watch any sitcom and you will see how to do that.

While that all seems like good fun, it appears to be contributing to workplace and family dissolutions. In my divorce mediations and workplace consultations, I see more and more people who simply don’t have the skills to manage their own emotions and to regulate what they say to each other. We especially see this in the emails that people send – sometimes even managers and business owners! With role models like these, it’s no wonder that incivility is growing in many settings.

Reverse Expectations

An additional contributor to this problem is today’s changes in child-rearing. In just a couple generations, the norm has shifted from children being “seen but not heard” to children becoming the center of the family universe – and of marketing. We’ve gone from “If you have nothing good to say, then don’t say it” to “Express yourself!” and “Just do it!” Parents feel incredible pressure to tolerate their children criticizing them, behaving any way they like, and even making family decisions.

Growing up this way, children learn that they don’t need surge protectors. They can blast their parents without restraint and then ask for more spending money – and get it! They can attack their friends publically on Facebook and then unfriend them with no sense of remorse.

We are seeing the lack of surge protectors in the increase in school bullying (and more related suicides) and workplace bullying. If families no longer raise children with surge protectors, if social media trains children to let go of the few restraints their parents provided, and if marketing aimed at children rewards them for being self-centered and provocative without restraint – is it any surprise that we’re seeing more incivility in the workplace, in politics and in the news?

The Future

A functioning society needs relationship surge protectors. If more and more individuals are being raised to feel free to use all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions and extreme behavior in relationships, there will be no more relationships. Yet I believe that we can have a Society of Individuals with all our toys and independence that also includes relationships – satisfying relationships. We just have to regain our balance by making a stronger commitment to managing our own emotions and moderating our own behavior – as individuals and as a society. We used to be able to take these civility skills for granted, but now we need to teach them. Perhaps the concept of relationship surge protectors is a good place to start. What do you think?

_________________________________

Bill Eddy is a lawyer, mediator and therapist, and the author of several books on managing high conflict people. He is also the developer of the New Ways for Families method for family courts in the United States and Canada, and New Ways for Work for managing potentially high-conflict employees. His High Conflict Institute provides training, books and consultations regarding High Conflict People (HCPs) for professionals dealing with legal, workplace, healthcare and educational disputes.  www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

FASCINATING DIVORCE STATISTICS


The Huffington Post has published some fascinating statistics related to the effects and causes of divorce. Click on Divorce Findings from the Last 5 Years to view the slide show. Each statistic is linked to a supporting article.  


These statistics include:


  1. The Number of Divorced Women is on the Rise
  2. Couples with Different Drinking Habits are More Likely to Divorce
  3. Your Yearbook Photo May Predict the Likelihood of Divorce
  4. Divorce Can Have Serious Impact on Men's Health
  5. Couples with Longer Commutes are More Likely to Divorce
  6. Fear of Being Alone Keeps People in Bad Relationships
  7. Using Facebook Excessively Leads to More Relationship Problems
  8. Younger Children Feel Lasting Effects of Divorce
  9. There's an Upside to Experiencing Hardship Like Divorce
  10. Couple Who Share Housework are More Likely to Divorce
  11. Divorce Could be in a Woman's Genes
  12. A Close Relationship with Your In-laws May Change Your Divorce Odds
  13. Men are More Likely than Women to Turn to Drinking After a Split
  14. Cold Feet Warn of Marital Trouble Ahead
  15. Men Who Cheat are More Likely to Have Heart Attacks
  16. Moving in Before Marriage No Longer Predicts Divorce
  17. Divorce is Too Expensive for the Poorest Americans
  18. Divorce Hurts Health More at Earlier Ages
  19. Women Close to Divorcing Tend to Work More Hours

Submitted by Kim Werner, Program Manager
Divorce Mediation Group
kwerner@ncrconline.com

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Ben & Jen Split: Hear NCRC’s Take on Their Choice to Use a Divorce Mediator – KOGO AM 600


Divorce Mediation Group's own mediator, Elisa Kisselburg, CLS-F, speaks with KOGO AM 600's LaDona Harvey about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's choice to mediate their impending divorce.  Please listen here


RACIAL ALIENATION - BILL EDDY'S 3-PART SERIES (PART 1)


Please see "This week's Blog: Thoughts On Ending Racial Alienation - Part 1 " Bill Eddy's 3-Part series on racial alienation.

We are proud to include Bill as a divorce mediator on Divorce Mediation Group's panel. Bill, as well as several of our other mediators, are trained to work with high-conflict parties to help mediate the most challenging divorces.

For information on setting an appointment with any of our mediators, please call me at 619-238-2400 x 223.

Thank you.

Kim Werner
Program Manager
kwerner@ncrconline.com