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CDSOC

Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County

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(949) 266-0660

  • The Collaborative Process
    • Overview
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    • FAQs
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    • Divorce Professionals
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Divorce Philosophy

Out of every ending, there is a new beginning

September 16, 2020 By CDSOC

Intro: The sixth phase of grief for couples and families after divorce bring meaning and renewal.

By Hiram Rivera-Toro & Karen Shipley

Entering autumn is a time of goodbyes.  Of saying farewell to summer and all the special memories the season brings:  family get togethers, backyard Bar B Q’s, beach outings, and long road trips.  September 22, 2020, however, marks the passage of a summer that never was:  cancelled proms and graduation ceremonies, June weddings rescheduled, and sheltering at home instead of hanging out.  COVID has rendered our lives unrecognizable as we come to realize there’s no going back to the way it was.  The past is lost, and the future is uncertain.

Parents facing divorce is much like facing Autumn in the time of COVID.  It produces “anticipatory anxiety”, that feeling of dread that accompanies unwelcome change.  It is part of a painful divorce experience that, in many ways resembles the type of grief associated with tremendous trauma and loss.  Professionals trained in the behavioral sciences identify this as the Grief Cycle (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD),  which include five distinct emotions and thoughts: denial, anger, depression, bargaining (often experienced as wishful thinking, what if’s, and “only If I had . . .”), and acceptance.  These five stages do not arrange themselves linearly.  Any one stage can be revisited, or even cause an escapable trap.  Ideally, however, a grieving person moves through the five stages until arriving at a sense of acceptance, strong enough to prompt moving on.  However, individuals overwhelmed by the experience find themselves awash in negativity, with emotions endlessly cycling through all five stages of grief without resolution.

In truth there is little about divorce that can be described as anything but easy, but it does not have to be traumatic.  It may be devastating, but it does not have to be destructive.  It reshapes the family system, but it does not have to annihilate it.  Exchanging the ideal of what was supposed to be for the reality of what is does not have to be perceived as a loss of dreams, an endless loop of grief and loss, but as an opportunity for a new beginning.  David Kessler, grief expert and colleague of Dr. Kubler-Ross, understood grief as a six stage process, wherein the last step  lifts us up and out of the grieving cycle to a place of resolution and inner peace, which he terms as “finding meaning” (Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, 2019). In turn, Tedeschi and Calhoun, in their book Trauma and Transformation (1995), took another look at Post Traumatic Stress as an opportunity for Post Traumatic Growth – a process by which individuals emerge from trauma stronger, better, built up rather than beaten down.

Navigating this process requires a focus that constructively steers the family toward a positive outcome.  Your collaborative team draws from a bedrock principle grounded in the child’s perspective: Mom and Dad are, have been, and always will be Mom and Dad, and the role of parent, unlike the role of spouse, cannot be dissolved by a legal document.  Even as the marriage you once had is drawing to a close your children’s development continues forward. As our colleagues, Bruce Fredenburg and Carol Hughes, say in their recently published book, “Home Will Never Be The Same Again”, 2020, this holds true at any age, and adults may be as affected by parents’ divorce as their younger counterparts.

The collaborative team works from the standpoint that parenting is really coparenting – it is a shared endeavor that joins two individuals in a common goal of raising secure, confident, and productive individuals.  Even in the most ideal situation, where the external shape of the family unit remains relatively unchanged, coparenting is a challenge.  But when the ideal is no more, and the family finds itself torn apart, effective coparenting is more necessary than ever. In the storm of uncertainty, it is the one immutable factor that children, as well as parents and extended family members can hold on to.  In the spirit of this philosophy, the team assures that visitation schedules, financial agreements, residential arrangements take place in an environment of mutual respect rather than acrimony.  And, as actions unfold on the principle of respect, you and your children will once again experience mother and father interacting as a team.

This is possible because the collaborative process teaches the importance of communicating to be understood, and hearing to understand the other parent.  It teaches resolution in a peaceful manner.  It teaches us that we don’t have to become entrenched in the negatives of divorce, but to focus on the positivity of new beginnings. So, we end with the title of this blog, “Out of every ending, there is a new beginning.”

Filed Under: Co-Parenting, COVID-19, Divorce and Emotions, General Divorce Tagged With: Divorce and Anger, Divorce and Grief, Divorce and Trauma, Divorce Philosophy

“I Just Need to Win”… How Collaborative Professionals Can Help Shift the Paradigm

February 24, 2020 By CDSOC

By Paula J. Swensen, Esq.

Those of us of a certain age remember the immortal words of a successful football coach after whom the Super Bowl trophy was long ago named.

Vince Lombardi famously opined, “Winning isn’t everything… it’s the only thing.”  That’s a pithy and fitting philosophy for a coach to use to inspire his or her team to attain greater and greater success on the football field, but we collaborative divorce professionals know that it is not so useful when it is applied in the context of a divorcing couple.

It goes without saying that everybody wants to win.  No one wants to lose, regardless of the undertaking or the endeavor in which one is engaged.  We know intuitively from a very young age that winning is “good,” and that losing is “bad”.  We all want our team to win, and we become frustrated and sometimes angry, when our team loses.  We all know from following sports that when there is a winner, there is also a corresponding loser.

This concept of “winning” is ingrained in our being from an early age, and it has now saturated our culture.  We want winners, not losers when we choose employees, spouses, friends and professionals such as doctors and lawyers.

As a certified family law specialist who has litigated, and also mediated many divorces, it never ceases to amaze me when a spouse will say, “I just need to win.  You have to help me WIN!”

At such times I am compelled to ask, “What do you mean by “win” your divorce?” “What is a win?” “What does a win look like to you?”

Those of us who have dedicated our practice to helping couples finalize their divorces in a more peaceful manner, know that we can bring a much-needed paradigm shift at the beginning of their divorce process to better assist a family transitioning from one household into two separate households.

Our first challenge is often to help spouses understand at the outset that a divorce is not a zero-sum game in which there is one “winner” and one “loser”.  Given the near-automatic reflex to think in those terms, it can take some work to dispel that ill-fitting notion.  Yet, helping to shift the focus from that initial mindset of needing to “win” to one where a spouse can appreciate the benefit of achieving an outcome that is, instead, in the best interest of the family as a whole, cannot be overstated.

As we are well-trained to do, focusing on concerns that each may have rather than focusing on positions is likely to obtain a better outcome for the divorcing couple and their family.  We, as collaborative professionals can assist spouses to think slightly differently about this whole concept of “winning,” and to broaden their outlook to include the well-being of their entire family.

How do we help a couple create a “win/win” mindset based on a balanced outcome?

What if a “win” meant using the funds that would have been spent on contentious litigation to instead put toward the children’s education?

What if a “win” meant the ability to stay in the marital home for a period of time so that the children would not be displaced from their school and their friends?

What if a “win” meant that both parents could attend a child’s milestone events: recital, birthday, holidays, special occasion party, graduation or wedding without the child being forced to choose one parent’s attendance over the other?

What if a “win” meant that each spouse was able to move beyond the divorce with a positive outlook for his or her future?

The collaborative professionals have a unique opportunity to assist the transitioning couple to discard the mindset of divorce as a zero-sum game, and to embrace the concept of finding resolutions that are in the best interest of the whole family.

Mr. Lombardi’s familiar adage should rightfully be relegated to the football field, as it serves no useful purpose in helping couples to achieve a peaceful divorce that best meets the needs of their family.

Filed Under: Child Support, Children's Mental Health, Collaborative Practice, Divorce and Emotions, Divorce and Money, Family Issues, Financial, Mental Health, Spousal Support Tagged With: Divorce Philosophy

How You Can Benefit from the Collaborative Practice Philosophy

April 9, 2016 By CDSOC

by Brian Don Levy, Esq., Collaborative Practice Attorney & Mediator

Social science research including the United States Census routinely reports that roughly fifty percent or more of all marriages end in divorce. Co-habitating relationships fail at similar rates. We expect same sex marriages to follow the same pattern statistically once enough time passes to gather the data over the next decade as well. Psychology Today reports that in 1990, fewer than one in 10 persons who got divorced was over the age of 50, while today one in four people getting divorced is 50 or older.

Since a certain amount of divorce is statistically inevitable, it is imperative we find better ways to facilitate the legal, financial, and emotional processing of a human experience through our civil systems. The emotional devastation that often occurs with the breakup of a relationship shouldn’t be a given. This is where Collaborative Practice lives.

Despite the jokes and eye-rolling over the term “conscious uncoupling,” actress Gwenyth Paltrow put her finger on a healthy modern attitude embodied within Collaborative Practice. Collaborative Practice is the process that provides a more respectful alternative to the destructive divorces we see too often when parties use the court system to end their marriage. Collaborative Practice is designed specifically around ways to minimize the hurt, the loss of self-esteem, the anger and the alienation that occurs in many traditional litigated divorces. It is also designed to support families in transition to take advantage of all of their healthy options and opportunities while building a better tomorrow.

The Collaborative Law approach is grounded upon making human dignity and respect a priority. Individuals may cease being partners, but they don’t cease being good people who deserve consideration. Nor do they cease being parents and part of a family unit after a divorce. Collaborative Practice has a firm grasp on this reality – When a divorce goes into a courtroom, the “winner take all” mentality inflicts damage and leaves pain in its wake, which takes a long time to heal at best, and may never heal at all at its worst. All of this ugliness takes place in a public forum, on the record and for all to see.

Every part of Collaborative Practice is intended to foster the respectful resolution of family problems. These intentions include open communication, interest based negotiations, solution focused negotiation, out-of-court settlement and no court divorce. When respect is given and received, self-esteem is likely to be preserved, making discussions more productive and a healthy and viable agreement more easily reached.

Collaborative Divorce allows the parties involved to find creative solutions that work for their unique situation, in a private and respectful setting. The parties are supported by a team who will help them learn the skills and techniques to work through problems and conflicts in a productive way. The future of the family is not determined by a judge who is a complete stranger to their circumstances.

The end of a marriage or relationship can be tragic in and of itself. Collaborative Practice believes that the process of divorcing shouldn’t cause or add to the pain and suffering, but rather should guide and support the clients and their children in achieving a respectful resolution of their issues, leading to a hopeful, healthy future.

Filed Under: Collaborative Divorce, Collaborative Practice, Divorce and Emotions, Divorce and Money, Divorce and The Law, Family Issues Tagged With: Brian Don Levy, Divorce Alternatives, Divorce and Self-Esteem, Divorce Litigation, Divorce Philosophy, Divorce Settlement, Settlement Agreement

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