Erin Schaden, Family Law Attorney, Returns to the Podcast - Do Not Miss This Episode

Last time on the podcast she became a viral sensation because of some of her remarks. Erin Schaden, a family law attorney, divorce coach, and mediator, is back on the podcast and she's not holding back.  Great interview where we discuss various topics related to divorce and custody battles. Erin shares her insights on how unfortunately custody can be used as a weapon to hurt the other parent, the impact of false allegations in obtaining protective orders, and the manipulation of child support. We also discuss the importance of focusing on the best interests of the children and the need for maturity and accountability in divorce proceedings. We also explore the various aspects of domestic violence, gender bias in restraining orders, the impact of domestic violence on men, the perception of men and women in divorce, the role of emotional immaturity in divorce, the flaws in the divorce process, the potential negative impact of AI in divorce, and the importance of taking responsibility and creating safe spaces. 

• Custody battles can often become a tool for one parent to hurt the other, leading to negative consequences for the children involved.
• False allegations in obtaining protective orders can be used as a strategy to gain an advantage in custody disputes.
• Child support guidelines may not always be fair, and lower-income individuals can struggle to meet their financial obligations while maintaining a relationship with their children.
• It is crucial for parents to prioritize the well-being of their children and avoid using them as pawns in divorce proceedings. Domestic violence is a serious issue that affects both men and women.
• Gender bias can exist in the process of obtaining restraining orders.
• Men can also be victims of domestic violence and face challenges in seeking help.
• Emotional immaturity can contribute to the breakdown of relationships.
• The divorce process can be flawed and lead to unnecessary conflict.
• Advancements in AI may not necessarily improve the divorce process.
• Creating safe spaces and promoting understanding can help improve relationships and prevent divorce.

This is an episode you do not want to miss!!

Transcript

Robert (00:00)
Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Dad the Dads podcast. And today I have a familiar face on a lady who almost broke the internet. She became a viral sensation and is by far my most downloaded episode. Welcome back to the show. Erin Schaden. Welcome back.

Erin Schaden (00:21)
Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if I deserve all of that. But yeah, I earned it. I'm not sure it was earned. I think it was just bestowed upon me the infamy, right? But yes, thank you so much for having me, Robert. It's always a pleasure.

Robert (00:26)
You earned it.

There you go. Yeah. Well look, um, before we go into the past episode a little bit, I would give quick background on you. 28 years in family law practice. Correct? Still a practicing attorney. You also are a divorce coach, as well as a mediator. Anything I miss?

Erin Schaden (00:47)
Yep.

That's correct.

Nope, that's about it. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. Although we are getting way too much rain.

Robert (00:57)
Living in sunny California, right?

That's great.

Well, here we're dealing with the, the pollen So my apologies for my voice, but so Erin look, look at this. Um, I have questions that I've had that I want to ask you. And these were all, these have all come from comments from two of our posts. One of our posts, men versus women in divorce that we put up towards the end of last year, collectively, we have 2.7 million views and I alone have had. 25.

Erin Schaden (01:07)
Yeah.

Okay.

Robert (01:32)
thousand comments. It's crazy. Another one, uh, number one thing that happens, uh, are I'm sorry, the number one thing that harms children and children in divorce, half a million views. And that's just from mine alone. I don't know what you had. I mean, it's crazy, but you obviously said some things that a lot of people could relate to. And you also upset quite a few too.

Erin Schaden (01:35)
It is crazy.

lot.

Yeah. Yes, I did. I'm a great disruptor. I've been doing that since birth, right? Pissing people off. Yeah, it's crazy.

Robert (02:06)
But you know, I just kind of went through and I was reading, I didn't read all the comments, my goodness. I know. But I went through, you know, as I was scrolling through some of the ones that kept coming up and I thought this would be great to have Erin back on to talk about these. And one of the things that I heard, it seems like time and time again, is Custody being used as a weapon to hurt the other parent.

Erin Schaden (02:11)
Good. You need to have a life.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Robert (02:35)
Do you see that? How prevalent is that? Cause it seems like, and let me say this, it seems from the guys and these were all men that they felt that was something that was real prevalent, common.

Erin Schaden (02:47)
Um, it probably, I mean, I think it is. I think that, I don't, there are the people that definitely do it intentionally. I think a lot of times it ends up as a default position. I was talking with one of my clients this morning and, you know, he was in, you know, just a very complicated case, but it basically, through some fault of his and through some fault of the other sides and through some just like random happenstance life circumstances, the kids are alienated and aligned with mom. And

that's, it just kind of ended up that way. I think that if you're in litigation, right, if you're successful in keeping it out of court, right, I kind of started retooling my practice. Like I talk to people now and I'm like, all right, it's a retainer for litigation that's this, a retainer for negotiation that's this, and it's a retainer for consultation for this. And I try to steer everybody to the middle path, right? That there's less risk, we're not, you know, creating all the court deadlines that you have to adhere to and, you know, all the fictitious, you know, we're not so fictitious pressure.

And so, and then if we end up in a litigation manner, but I think that there's just, there's so many friction points and flex points and pain points with custody. And there's so many different perspectives that it ends up being an inadvertent at times tool and everybody's trying to gain ground, right? And I think in states, especially like more on the East coast where the 50-50, isn't kind of the gold standard,

there's just so much more to fight about. I mean, people are like, well, no, I don't want you to have 50-50 custody or how do I keep that away from him? And what do I have to allege? And what do I have to allege against her and threatening each other with it? And then oftentimes, it's the elephant in the room. They're arguing about custody, but it's really like in Maryland, if you're a...

you know, if you're the non-custodial parent, you gotta have 92 more overnights in order to get on the shared custody child support guidelines, right? So once you get over that, then your money goes way down. So a lot of times, you know, women are saying to me, like, he doesn't really want the custody, look at what things have been done, but now that we're in court, now he's just saying that he wants more custody, and as soon as he gets more custody and gets the reduction in child support, I'm gonna end up with the kids all the time and I'm not gonna be getting any money, which happens.

Right? And then there's also those times that the guys are like, no, I just want to be an equal parent. Right? And the child, the reduction in child support is only fair if I'm raising my kids half the time, even though I make more money than you, why should I be paying more for you? Right? Like that doesn't, that's not fair. So.

Robert (05:19)
So what's the answer?

Cause it, cause it's, I mean, it's case by case. The court can't handle that. I mean, the attorneys can't handle that. You know, the third parties, the guardian ad litem. I mean, honestly, I don't think a lot of them get the training to be able to, you know, the custody evaluators. No.

Erin Schaden (05:37)
Well, the custody evaluation process, I mean, to me, just, I mean, I know I'm gonna probably piss more people off with this, but I just kind of think it's a joke. You know, I mean, not that the job that they're doing is not important, but...

But it's the way that it's, when it's ordered, it's way too late. The problems have been persistent and have really messed up the case by the time a custody evaluator gets in. I don't know exactly the way to fix that, right? Because the court isn't, you know, we don't want the court ordering custody evaluations every single time somebody walks in and says they have a custody issue, but by the time it gets around to it and the person actually gets going, I mean, like right now I have a case which we settled custody.

But we had a custody evaluation ordered and we still haven't done anything. And that was three months ago, right? So it hasn't even started yet. So what are these people been, assuming I wasn't able to negotiate an agreement, an interim agreement, like what would they have been doing in this time? When mom's like, dad's insane, dad's crazy, dad's dangerous. And dad's like, no, I'm not. And I'm dealing with all my stuff. Yeah, I've got some stuff, but I'm dealing with it. Like if we hadn't been able to work in agreement, what's happening with those kids in the interim? Are they seeing dad?

Robert (06:21)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (06:45)
How often are they seeing dad? And mom is controlling all of it, right? So I don't know what the answer is. The answer is that the custody evaluations are, in my opinion, entered or ordered too late in the process to effectuate any meaningful change. I think too much deference is given to the status quo, especially in cases where the case is kind of languished. And so it's just kind of become this de facto, right? Like,

You go in with a domestic violence order, the court gives temporary orders and then that becomes the status quo. Well, what if two months later, you have a trial on domestic violence issues and it's all thrown out and the restraining order isn't granted. Well, then they got custody and now it's de facto, but it was all BS. So that's not right. And if you go in, then it goes to the best interest of the child. Well, this is what the kids are now used to. Yeah, but the kids are now used to a fictitious schedule that was based on lies.

Robert (07:21)
Right, right.

Right.

Erin Schaden (07:39)
So like now you've given this person and you're rewarded them, right? So what are they gonna tell their friends to do? Well, here's what you do. You just say, you shoved you at a custody exchange and then you get a temporary order and then you can negotiate and then that becomes a status quo and you win custody without ever seeing a courtroom, right? Except other than to get the protective order. So I don't know what you do about it.

Robert (08:00)
And who suffers during all of this? The children. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (08:02)
Everybody, I mean everybody suffers to some degree. The kids.

Robert (08:06)
I mean, it's no wonder there's so many people upset by our, you know, last posts. I mean, there's no wonder.

Erin Schaden (08:12)
Absolutely. I mean, men get screwed, women get screwed. Like everybody, families are decimated in the process.

Robert (08:20)
You know, my question about being used as a weapon and part of the reason why I asked this too was I was talking to somebody the other day and a divorce was sprung on her. Like she had no idea. And her comment to me was, oh, he'll be lucky if he sees his children. Just you wait. He's a good now. He's a pretty good dad.

Erin Schaden (08:27)
Mm-hmm.

Robert (08:43)
But she was using custody, using those children as a weapon, basically, wanting to make him pay. And we had a discussion about that. And of course me, I had to, well, you know, they need their dad. Dad's are very important. You've got two daughters and you've got a son and giving the benefits and she's just stewing Nope. He's not going to see them. I'm going to do everything I can to limit the amount of time I'm like, you know, hers wasn't driven by financial. It was just driven by spite

Erin Schaden (09:12)
Right. Yeah.

Robert (09:12)
by just anger.

Erin Schaden (09:15)
is like, I don't think that people in today's world...

Robert (09:19)
And that's how she hired her attorney too, so sorry. Yeah. Yep.

Erin Schaden (09:21)
Absolutely, she went after the biggest, baddest, most conflict-laden possible pit bull or whatever they're calling us these days. It's sad, but to me, that's endemic of the society at large because, okay, you hurt me, I'm gonna hurt you. It's an eye for an eye mentality, right? Okay, I'm gonna get you before you can get me. And if you get me before I get you, I'm gonna make you pay. And it's like...

Do you realize that the currency with which you're spending is your children and their emotional and physical wellbeing? Like, do you realize that? I mean, you know, and I think it's just kind of like this great pervasive immaturity of human beings, right? Like, you know, I don't know, you know, this idea that somehow moms are more valuable than dads. You know, the truth of the matter is, for whatever reason,

we're still both required, right? We have not been able to, women have not been able to reproduce all by ourselves. We need you guys, right? And it turns out that you're more important than the sperm that you donate, right? Like that the kids fundamental development is that they need two, they benefit from two loving parents. It doesn't matter if there's two women or two men or whatever, like whatever the family dynamic composition of whatever spectrum of gender we're dealing with at this point in time.

Robert (10:15)
Right.

Erin Schaden (10:40)
Children benefit from two, right? Because then one person doesn't have to be the heavy all the time. You're a single dad, but you know, it sucks. When you have your period of responsibility and you have to tell the kids no and do your homework and know you can't go to that party and know you can't go to do this. And you know, it gets, it's hard to always be the person that has to say no, right? Or to always be the person that, you know, has to do all the heavy lifting, right? So I think that, I don't know, I think that people just need to grow up.

and see that the currency that you're spending is your children's emotional wellbeing, right? I mean, and to have your kids, but we live in this kind of narcissist fueled society where everybody's out for themselves. And I mean, if I had a nickel for every time somebody called somebody else in a divorce case, a narcissist, I'd have a lot of fricking nickels and I wouldn't need to practice the law anymore, right? Like I would have so many nickels, right? And it's like, and I don't think that really

there are really as many personality disorders, true narcissist, I think alcoholism and drug addiction, like those people are extremely narcissistic, but if they find recovery, the selfishness and self-centeredness is mediated, right? And they're given some spiritual tools and a program to kind of follow so that they're not just selfish jerks anymore. But the true personality disorder people are really driving,

Robert (11:49)
Right.

Erin Schaden (12:00)
kind of what's happening and the people that do not have severe personality disorders are settling their matters out of court. Right now, like my opinion is, is that every case that's litigated in court, there's a personality disorder on one or both sides. Because you can't negotiate with them. And there's no reason what they feel, what they think, what they want is the only thing that matters. Only thing that matters. They don't care. They're not capable of stepping outside themselves and going,

What's the bigger picture here? Like in your example, that woman is not capable of going, okay, so I'm injured, I'm wounded, I'm hurt. That's my pain, right? So my responsibility as a mother and a human being is to go over here and figure out and handle my stuff, right? To not cause my children to be the price that's paid, right? Yeah, I'm really mad at him, right? But that is a personal problem, right? That is not a custody problem, right?

If he's a good dad, he's not, you know, watching porn 24 seven, he's not, you know, bringing hookers to the house, he's not doing meth on the dining room table. Like he goes to work, he parents his kids, maybe he does it a little differently than you do. Like, why is that an issue? That's not a custody issue, that's a personal problem, right, to believe that that's how you should handle it. And the same is true, like, just cause I got such a bad rap for like dissing on women,

Robert (13:01)
That's your problem with the other parent.

Erin Schaden (13:27)
The same thing is true of men, right? Like, you know, women, you know, if you're hurt by your spouse's exit of the marriage, that is incumbent upon you to deal with that, right? Independent as an adult, like bright line, bright wide line between personal life and parenting life, right? In my opinion, right? And as an adult, mature adult,

Robert (13:29)
Yeah, sure it is.

Erin Schaden (13:53)
Like it's your job to figure out your stuff and not make your kids pay for it, right? Cause you're unwilling to deal with, you know, your ego being bruised or, you know, and I don't mean to make it seem like, you know, when your spouse comes and blindsides you and says, we're done, I wanna divorce, no conversation, no therapy, we're finished. That is a hard thing to do. I'm not trying to say that like, oh, it's easy. You should just deal with your stuff and it's so easy. It's not, right? But like,

I think it brings an opportunity for you to go, okay, what was my part? What did I do to contribute to this? Because everybody has a part. I've been doing this 28 years. Even if your part was 1%, and that's the best news ever. Because if you're completely the victim of another person and you had no responsibility for the demise of your marriage whatsoever, you're screwed. Because you can't do anything about that other person. If it's 100% the other person's fault, what are you gonna do differently? Nothing, because you were perfect. Nobody was perfect.

Robert (14:28)
Right, right.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Right.

Erin Schaden (14:51)
And I'll tell you from my own experience, like the further I get out from my marriage, the more I realize how much of it was my fault.

Robert (14:58)
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Erin Schaden (15:00)
You know? So, I don't know.

Robert (15:02)
Absolutely. How you could have handled something different, whatever it might have been. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You kind of touched on it, but custody used to manipulate child support, whether that's to receive more or pay less.

Erin Schaden (15:06)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Mmm.

Both sides do it, it's ugly, it's stupid. You know? I mean, you know, the truth of the matter is that child support doesn't begin to support the child. You know what I mean? I'll just use my own example. I mean, my ex-husband has paid his child support religiously without fail. We've always negotiated when there's needed to be a deviation, if we needed to go up or whatever. And I will tell you that what he pays me doesn't begin to cover.

Robert (15:20)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (15:47)
even a quarter of what it cost me to raise these kids all by myself, right? Even when he was paying half of the nanny, even when all of the things like, it didn't even cover half of my housing expenses, right? So it's like, it's not, most of the time, it's not even fair when you've got like a more sole custody situation. Like it's not even fair, you know? You're doing all...

Robert (16:10)
But that's also, that's also you, Erin. I mean, don't you think there's cases when, and you probably negotiated that. So, but, and you probably were very fair, um, just kind of knowing you, but don't you think there are several cases out there? I mean, I've heard it from lots of people where they'll say, you know, they're paying them $10,000 a month, $20,000 a month for two kids, three kids. And, you know, and they're complaining, they're wanting more. I mean,

$20,000 a month for three kids? Yeah, you should be able to.

Erin Schaden (16:41)
Yeah, yeah, well, it depends. I mean, when you get above like the regular custody guidelines and you get into the high income earners and everything else, it kind of becomes, I think that those kinds of cases are kind of throw away. If you're able to pay $20,000 a month in support, like you're not really worried about the support. Like you're putting, you're living your life to probably just fine. I think where people get squeezed badly is when you're right, you know,

lower income and lower middle income is where you get squeezed because the guidelines, if you make this much money, the state says this is how much money you've gotta pay. And if you are in a situation where it's a more traditional kind of custody thing where you're a dad and you're getting every other weekend and a midweek visit on the off week, like then, yeah, I mean, it becomes, I was talking to somebody the other day, I mean, a guy that I know, and he makes $3,200 a month.

after taxes and his child support is $2,000. He's like, how am I supposed to live on $1,200 a month in California? He can't. And he doesn't get to see his kids. Why doesn't he get to see his kids? Because guess what? He can't afford housing. So he's living in a kind of a less than stellar situation. So mom won't let the kids go, which like, I get it. I mean, I understand why she says that, but it's like, he just can't get out from under it.

right? And there's just kind of no relief. I mean, he doesn't have the money to hire a lawyer. He doesn't have the money to go to court. He can't negotiate with her because she's holding all the cards and she's like, you know what, you cheated on me and I hate you and I'm gonna like, we're not dealing. I'm just not dealing with you, you know? And so, you know, it just has become this situation that started off badly, right? But the price that he's being asked to pay for the alleged crime that was committed is just, it's not fair.

It's not right, right? It's like, those kids are suffering because they're not getting a full good relationship with their parents, right? So, I don't know what the solution is. I wish that I could sit here and be like, okay, what we need to do is, I think it's incumbent upon every person that finds themselves.

Robert (18:44)
Right.

Erin Schaden (18:54)
in a divorce situation to get the information and the shoring up that they need to not allow their kind of reactive emotional responses to dictate what happens to their children, right? Like, you know, it's kind of like, if you have a drinking problem, it's kind of your responsibility to deal with it, right? I mean, maybe you have a drinking problem because of, you know, childhood trauma, maybe you have a drinking problem, whatever, like, but you crossed the magical line and now you're an alcoholic or an addict or whatever. Like, it's your problem.

So it becomes your problem to fix. And I think when you find yourself in a divorce, it becomes your problem to solve. And you have to be able to kind of take an honest look at the stuff that you're bringing to the table and the stuff that you're not bringing to the table. And if you know emotionally, I'm completely destroyed, like, and I wanna retaliate, to be able to recognize in some level that that's not normal. Like that's not, you know, and that who's gonna suffer? Everyone.

and you're participating in the suffering. Maybe you've got somebody on the other side that's hell bent on making you miserable. Okay, that doesn't mean that you have to respond in kind. Right? You know, and in fact, in my experience, the times that work most effectively in those high conflict situations is where you remove the reactivity. Stop. You know, it doesn't have to be point, counterpoint.

Robert (20:12)
Do you, do you, go ahead. Do you think 50 is best? Is the best place to start? I know you, it, yeah, I did too.

Erin Schaden (20:21)
Yeah, I do. In most situations, I mean, given like, given, I mean, taking into consideration crazy, insane work schedules, taking into consideration addiction of all kinds and personality disorders, right? I think honestly, whoever is the parent that's going to most foster a good continual relationship with the other parent should have the most custody. If both parents are willing to work there,

it should be 50-50. But if you've got one person who's divisive and undermining and, oh no, you can't have them on Tuesday because of this and they schedule all the play dates and birthday parties during the other parent's time and stuff like that, then I think the other parent should have more custody. Because they're more willing to foster the, you know, it's gonna, and that's what the court should be doing, but sometimes the attorneys do a really bad job of presenting that, sometimes it languishes, we have the status quo problem that we spoke about earlier, you know, I think it just ends up being.

a very difficult situation.

Robert (21:20)
Well, I am in a little bit, I am going to get into it about the attorneys being behind this of driving some of this conflict. I do want to ask your opinion on that. But one thing that, gosh, it came up way too much, Erin, was and I wanted to ask you how often, you see this was a spouse using a protective order to gain the upper hand.

When false allegations and it just, I cannot tell you Erin, how many times I heard this from different guys and, um, you know, domestic violence, just different things, and then it was proven. Not true. You know, I mean, I even had a guest on here, Paul Summers, who is an author of a book that, uh, just came out and, um, he, you know, he experienced as well, but

Erin Schaden (21:49)
the effective strategy there is.

Robert (22:14)
I promise you, I probably received...

20 to 30 just DMs? And that's not even what's in the comments.

Erin Schaden (22:20)
Mm-hmm. Right. No, I mean, I don't wanna make it seem like it's bigger than what it is, but everybody knows that the most effective way to get immediate control is to file a temporary restraining order. And the problem is, is that once you file a temporary restraining order, the probable cause is so low. Like all I have to say, you know, if like Robert pushed me,

I'm gonna get it. I'm afraid of him and he pushed me. I'm gonna get it, right? And honestly, if you make it there first, you're gonna get it. Erin pushed me and I'm afraid of her, she's crazy. You're gonna get it. So it's kind of like whoever makes it to the courthouse first is gonna get the order. Now, supposedly they're supposed to tie it. This just happened in one of my cases, where there was an issue with the custody exchange. Dad...

Robert (22:50)
Yeah, I'm afraid of them. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (23:15)
with no notice went down to the court and got a temporary order giving him complete custody of the kid. Even though the kid wasn't other than being present at this alleged thing, it wasn't even a thing. So then we had all of that to deal with, right? So mom had been the primary custodian. She was trying to give dad more custody. And anyway, that case has a whole other, there was a restraining order, a valid restraining order against dad from mom.

from him slapping her and things like that, which had expired. But anyway, it's one of these situations where it is the most effective tool to get control of the case. And in some cases, I will say it is utilized well. There have been cases that I've been involved in where.

there were grounds, we're not making them up, these are not lies, they were factual grounds for the restraining order, we got it, we got the temporary, and then we were able to negotiate some interim agreement based on that, because so much is at stake if you go through with the actual protective order hearing, right? Like you're not going to be able to have guns, you're going to be on a national registry, you know, there's lots of things, like you have a government job, security clearances, all that kind of stuff come into play if the actual protective order gets entered against you, right, the Clutz orders. So

Robert (24:08)
Right.

Erin Schaden (24:35)
But sometimes they are super effective in getting an interim agreement. Whereas if you didn't have that, the parties are just, you know, one person's taking the kid and then the other person's taking the, I mean, it just is crazy town, right? And then you end up in emergency motions and who knows what the court considers emergencies. I mean, some judges on the bench are like, if the kid's not bleeding or dying, don't come to me, right? Now, meanwhile, the kid is being jerked back and forth and the police are being called every single day, which is definitely not good for the kids. So yeah, does it happen?

Yes, do people make stuff up? Yes, do I spend a lot of time in almost every initial consultation that I see any like tiny tinge of their, like even if the parties are just living in the same house, they're getting along, there's never been any allegations, they seem to have a decent marriage, it's just over. I always counsel, like, hey, look, you gotta be really careful. I would not have, I would not be alone. I had a client recently who,

You know, there was no indication that she was gonna, the wife was gonna do any of those things, but you know, he had a police officer friend that lived across the hall. And when he told her, like, I need you to leave, you cheated, I found out, like, I want you to go, he had his police officer buddy just over having a beer, like hanging out, you know, just to keep the peace. And I said, don't be alone with her, don't have phone calls with her, right? Because we don't know. And the only way that you can, and the thing is, is that they can say, anybody can say whatever they want.

Anybody can say whatever they want. Like I can completely make stuff up. And if I go down to the court, nine times out of 10 on a temporary order, they're gonna grant it because the judge doesn't know. What if it's true? Right? And then the judge doesn't wanna be in the headlines of some major newspaper. Judge denies protective order, woman dead, man dead, like children dead, like they don't want that.

Robert (26:13)
All right. Yeah.

But I think the problem too, when there are these false allegations, and look, let's go back.

Or are they a necessary tool at times? Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, and I think it's very powerful and very much needed, uh, at times, but it's when there are these false allegations. And then do you see very rarely from what I, from what, and I'm just going on people that have written in and people I've talked to, I have maybe 5% of the time have ever heard that there's any blowback on the person that made those false allegations.

Erin Schaden (26:58)
No, there isn't. There's almost no accountability. There's a case I was involved in down in LA a long time ago and husband and wife got into a scuffle and she ran down and got a protective order on her own, restraining order, a temporary. And then she went and hired one of the biggest, baddest divorce firms in LA and I don't know whether they just didn't read her petition.

for the original protective order, but then they augmented it and it didn't match up. The facts did not match up. He threw me to the bed and onto the floor. And in her petition, it was like, we struggled over the phone. I mean, they were completely divergent. And so when the attorneys went down and were litigating that matter, the judge called the attorneys up to the bench and they looked at the wife's counsel and said, you gonna put your client on the stand? And he's like, of course. And he's like,

What are you gonna do about her credibility problem that she's got here? And they're like, what do you mean? And she's like, have you read all the pleadings in this matter? And they're like, well, yeah. And they're like, I'd read them again if I were you. And they went back and read them and then they dropped it. Because they knew they were gonna lose. And it was all posturing. And that case was the attorneys. They took what wife had done probably badly.

to begin with and not very ethically, but then they augmented it, like big time, to make it way bigger than it was, and they got caught. The attorneys did, yeah. And it went away, but our client spent an evening in the jail, our client didn't get to see his kids for Christmas, our client, and it was a horrible, it was a horrible case, they're still together by the way.

Robert (28:27)
The attorneys did.

Erin Schaden (28:47)
They reconciled. But anyway, that's another story. And I issue no judgment on that. You gotta do whatever you think is best at the end of the day. Everybody's got their reasons. But yeah.

Robert (29:02)
I had heard about this, about the false allegations prior to us speaking and prior to different ones reaching out, but not that frequently. So I kind of went down a rabbit hole and started doing internet research.

Erin Schaden (29:11)
Okay.

Robert (29:12)
And so part of my research, of course, I went to Instagram and YouTube and even Reddit and it's like tips for guys that are thinking about getting a divorce. A lot of that had to do with finances and, you know, protecting, but it wasn't as, and again, this is just me reading it and what I saw, it wasn't as vengeful. Um, and then I went.

And it's, and it went for, I went from a female's point of view, looking at divorce, the tips for divorcing my husband. Um, and that was crazy. Now, maybe we don't have, maybe people looking out for guys or they're wanting to help guys don't have the presence, but these allegations of domestic violence. That was common, very common, especially on Reddit when you had different people

You know, well, my attorney told me that, you know, to, is there, you know, told me I could file a domestic violence, uh, accuser and I accusation, but order. Um, it was crazy. And it was, I mean, so much of it was on getting the money, getting the money, getting the money and how best to get the money. And if you can prove this, if you can get that and all you need to do is get the custody and then you'll get more money. You'll get alimony. And it's just like, Oh my gosh.

That's sick.

Erin Schaden (30:37)
Well, okay, so here's the thing. To me, there are two types of domestic violence, right? There is the systemic burning bed abuse, right? Where the person is isolated, controlled, sexually dominated, financially dominated. Every movement that they do is controlled. How much they eat, what they wear, where they go, who they're friends with, all of that kind of stuff. That is like the systemic.

domestic violence, right? There is any means, use any means necessary to completely control and dominate this other person, right? So like there's that, right? Which is, there's way too many of them, you know? However, those, and those cases are actually the hardest. Like when you really have that kind of domestic abuse, it is actually really hard to prove in court oftentimes, unless there are broken bones, unless there are emergency room visits, unless the police have been called.

And oftentimes the police are called multiple, multiple times and the woman will say, you know, no, he didn't hit me. I walked into the door, you know? And that's why the police departments in many jurisdictions have to must arrest. Like if there's a mark, you got to arrest. If you see a bruise on the woman's face, you got to arrest the guy, sorry. Sometimes women beat themselves up, you know? We had a case one time where the woman stabbed herself. Stabbed herself.

And luckily the guy could afford really good counsel and they were able to prove that it was self-inflicted, and he didn't go to jail and he didn't lose custody of the kids. He got custody of the kids. I mean, the level of crazy that goes on. But I think it's interesting that the women, like from what everybody has said and what my research has shown, that women do file more frequently than men do.

And maybe that's why there's so much more information out there. But then there's the other type of domestic violence, which I think is situational, right? You have two people who are not getting along, things get heated, usually alcohol is involved, you know, somebody says something, somebody throws something, somebody, and today in our society, like, I mean, it goes back, I mean, it's like this across the board. I mean, when we were growing up, two kids would get in a fight after school, usually boys, right? And what would happen?

The parents would get called, you'd have to go over and apologize, whatever. Maybe if there was really damage done, the other family would say, well, we'll pay the medical bills and whatever. And it was handled, right? There were no restraining orders. The police weren't involved. Nobody was filing civil actions in court or anything like that, right? But today that's not the way it is. And today, I've had clients that are, I'm like, well, did you shove him? And they're like, well, yeah, but he's like six four. And I'm...

you know, five two. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. You can't put your hands on the other person, like period. You can't throw phones at them. Like that is domestic violence. And so what's happened is, is that you have people that are inebriated, emotionally compromised, have a personality disorder, are not very mature, whatever, you know, are emotionally distraught and they react and they do something stupid.

And it's like, it just takes one act, you know?

Robert (33:42)
But I do, I have heard from several that it's a lot harder for men to get a restraining order on a female. That the judges tend not to believe the men as often.

Erin Schaden (33:53)
I don't know that that's, I think that really is jurisdictionally dependent, right? I think it also depends on what kind of lawyer you've got, right, or whether you don't have one. And it depends on the circumstances. But like, I mean, I just had this a couple of weeks ago. We were in the middle of negotiating this whole custody case and there was this custody exchange problem and he went down and got a restraining order giving him a hundred percent custody. Like he got it. Now, I think that part of the differences is that, I think that men and women are pretty equal in getting the temporary.

Robert (33:56)
Probably so.

Probably, yeah.

Erin Schaden (34:21)
because the threshold for proof is so low and the judge is like, I don't know, if this guy's really telling me the truth, I need to enter this order and keep the peace until I can figure out what's going on. I think once you get to the place where you actually have to put on actual proof, maybe that's where things kind of fall apart, right? You know.

Robert (34:38)
could be. And it could be it could be in a guy's presentation too. Right?

but it was, it was interesting hearing these comments.

Erin Schaden (34:48)
I think absolutely. Do women abuse the process? Yes. Do men get screwed because of that? Yes, absolutely happens. Far too often. And I'm a huge proponent against it because like for every woman that abuses the process and uses the domestic violence restraining order improperly to gain advantage in the custody case, you hurt every woman that is actually being abused. You completely water down the process so that the women that absolutely, or the men.

You know, I did work at a domestic violence shelter when I was in law school and I started a hotel program. And the hotel program was like, so that local hotels when the shelter was full or like in that town, if you had a son that was 13 years old or older, you couldn't go to the shelter. Like you couldn't take a boy to the shelter. So if you had a teenage boy, you had to stay in this abusive relationship. So we started a hotel program where like, whenever we'd have somebody that for whatever reason wouldn't fit in.

And one of the first calls I got was from a gay man that was being horribly abused by his lover, right? And there was no shelter for him. There wasn't a men's shelter for domestic violence. There was only a women's shelter. He was a grown man. And so we started this hotel program. So like anybody can abuse the system, right? Anybody can abuse the system and everybody's hurt by the system. And the people that desperately need the protection, men and women are not protected. And that's wrong.

Robert (36:05)
Right, right. And you know, and who gets hurt the most? The children. I mean, that's the thing. Hey, all right. Let's jump to some of the comments.

Erin Schaden (36:09)
Absolutely.

Okay. I just, I want everybody to know like my Botox is not bad because I didn't get it. So like, I don't have any bad Botox that you guys can comment on. You're gonna have to find some other flaw of mine to comment on and call me out on, which, you know.

Robert (36:20)
Hahaha

Erin, you can say that, but I had so many comments and messages. Who is she? She's hot. Oh, we need to protect this woman at all costs. Who, who is this? Oh gosh. It was, I should, I should have gone through and written them down. Who is this wise and fine lady and all this stuff. It's like, Oh my gosh, it's so funny. So.

Erin Schaden (36:50)
Aw, thank you. I didn't get so many of those. I got, you know, hey, you need to talk to your Botox person because you've got a line at the top of your forehead and whatever, so.

Robert (36:55)
Oh, I had-

I had plenty and it was, I had to tell them sometimes to settle down because I didn't want this going too far. I wanted them to stick on the subject.

Erin Schaden (37:09)
Pay attention to the subject matter. But anyway, yeah.

Robert (37:11)
Yeah, but you know, two of them stirred it up, uh, the, the number one thing that harms children in a divorce, uh, the most. And, but the main one was women versus men in divorce. And you basically said, tell me if I'm wrong. You basically said that men come in and they're like, you know what? We want 50 50, you know, here's hers. I'll, you know, want to provide for. And.

That's that where women come in there and, you know, they want to retaliate. They are more vengeful. Is that a pretty fair assessment?

And that's your experience, right? You're not...

Erin Schaden (37:49)
That's my experience. I'm not saying that all women are retaliatory and vengeful and all men are vengeful. Right. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that in my experience, usually when I get a call from a guy, it's like, look, you know, I just want to be fair. I had a call with a guy the other day and he's like, I said, well, it looks like that, you know, you'd be entitled to X, Y or Z. And he's like,

Robert (37:54)
Or that all men want to give up 50-50 either.

Erin Schaden (38:14)
need X or Y. I mean, if I just get Z, it's fine. And I said, are you, I'm like, how old are you? And he's like, 65. And I'm like, okay, so this is like a huge important financial transaction. You can't really afford to just roll over and give her everything at this point in time. Like, what are you gonna do with your life, right? And I think that, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that, and I know I got called out a lot, and I hate women, and I'm a misogynist, and all this kind of stuff. I'm just talking to you about my...

I have a lot of women that are super fair, that come in and are like, look, he's a good dad, I don't like him very much, but I want him out of my life, but he's a good dad, he should, I have lots of women that say that too. I'm saying that generally speaking, in a gross generalization, that when you bleed it down the gender lines, men come in and have a tendency to go, what can we do that's fair? What can we do that's fair? I wanna see my kids, I don't want this to go on forever.

I don't wanna litigate with her, I don't wanna, whatever. And then on the other side of things, women are like, well, I don't want him to have custody. I don't want him to have this, I don't want him to have that. He cheated, I'm gonna make him pay. Now, it goes both ways, but generally speaking, and everybody was kinda, and I started thinking about, why would that be? Women have been disenfranchised for a really long time. Maybe they're just pissed, maybe this is just a blowback. Maybe they'll come back more to the center after a period of time, but...

Maybe we've had to fight harder to get our needs heard or whatever. I don't know exactly what it is. I'm just saying in my experience, if there's going to be a person that is super retaliatory in a divorce, it is usually on the female side of things, not the man side.

Robert (39:53)
You're saying the majority of the time, majority of the time can be 60%. It doesn't mean that 99% of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also it's your experience. It doesn't mean it's everybody else's.

Erin Schaden (39:57)
be 52% of the time. It's still the majority, right? Like, you know, hopefully. Right, it doesn't mean it's everybody's experience. I mean, but I think that I deal with men and women equally. So I feel like I have a pretty good sampling across the board. I'd say over the time I've represented and worked with just as many women as I have men, you know? It, you know, it just, it's just, it's just my experience, right? So take it.

Robert (40:23)
What were some of the feelings when you, I doubt you read all the comments that came up, but you know, we've talked a few times since and, um, you know, some of the feelings I saw were, and we've talked about it already, but this vengeance, this anger, this hatred, this hurt. What, what, what did

Erin Schaden (40:28)
No. Yeah.

Well, women did a really good job of proving my point in the comments. I mean, you know, like, you know, there was a lot of retaliatory nastiness. The thing, I guess the overreaching thing for me that was most difficult about the whole deal was that men have some very valid points about shit that women do that is wrong, bad and damaging, right? And women have some very valid points about stuff that men do that is wrong, bad.

and damaging, right? And the fact of the matter is, is that in most of the comments that I saw, nobody listened to the other side. Women weren't listening to what the men were saying. They were just rejecting it, name calling, and so were the men. You're a gold diggin' bitch. You're a misogynistic asshole. Like, okay, great, okay, so now we still have the same problem, but now we have a lot of hurt feelings that go along with it. What progress did we make? None. None progress. You know?

Robert (41:14)
Right.

None. There's so many people out there now that are like, I'm never going to get married again. I never want another woman again. Or I can live without a man. I don't need men in my life. Wow, there's going to be a lot. There's a lot of single people out there now and that will continue to be. It's sad, really. It is.

Erin Schaden (41:45)
No!

Well, and it's missing the point. The point is, like, and this, I'm gonna say, this is the absolute, I believe this with every fiber of my being. The reason that people get divorced is because the lies we tell ourselves, either about ourselves or about the person that we're marrying, right? We get caught up in the societal pressures, we get caught up with wanting to start a family, we get caught up with, you know, infatuation.

Robert (42:11)
there again. Yep.

Erin Schaden (42:22)
and we failed to heed the red flags that are there. I had a client that I actually got from our podcast and he was telling me his divorce story and I stopped him like 10 minutes in and said, of course you're getting a divorce. Here's the three red flags that I saw before you guys ever, before things ever, you ever knew that things were wrong. And I went boom, boom. And he's like, oh my God, you're totally right.

And I go, this woman was giving you strong indications. I mean, one of the things was like, she didn't want him to tell anybody that they were engaged. What? Like that's supposed to be a joyous occasion. It's not something you keep all the down low, right? Like, I'm like, and then I asked him, why did you agree to that? Why did you agree to marry a woman who didn't want to anybody else to know that you were getting married? What is that about, right? So it was a lie told himself.

Robert (42:54)
What?

Yeah.

Erin Schaden (43:12)
This is gonna be different. This is, we excuse away the behavior of both ourselves or whatever. We marry somebody that maybe is ideally what we want, but isn't actually what we want, right? So it's a setup from the very beginning. Like...

I think it requires a level of acceptance. And people do change, absolutely they do change. And they change at different rates.

Robert (43:27)
And people change. People change and you have to conform. You have to change. Yeah. Everybody changes.

Erin Schaden (43:34)
Everybody changes, but it's the lies that we tell ourselves about who we're marrying and who we're engaged with and what we're capable of, right? I think that nobody really looks at their capacity or their spouse's capacity, right? At the very beginning. And if I think people started doing that, you wouldn't have men saying, I'm never getting married. They're all gold digging whore, you know, terrible people, you know, like, and women wouldn't be saying they're all assholes that are completely, you know, cheating jerks, you know, like lying, cheating jerks. Like, I think that, you know,

That person was more than likely giving you strong indications of who they were when you were dating them. And you went ahead and married them anyway, right? So that's on you, not on the other person, right? Like, you know, I can't tell you how many men and women that I have said this to. Okay, yeah, but that's who they are. They've always been, you know, I had one woman that's like, he's always, you know, he's underemployed and hasn't been employed. And I'm like, but he's been underemployed or getting fired the entirety of your relationship.

Like how are you holding him accountable to this now? He was doing that before you got married. The fact that he continued to do it through the marriage, you were on notice. It's not like he was like, I'm working at a 4,500 company, I'm bringing in $16 million a year, and now he marries you and now he's unemployable. That's not the situation, right? Like he's always been erratic and unemployable, right? And now you're mad about it. Well, whose fault is that? He told you who he was, you didn't believe him.

Robert (44:40)
Yeah, yeah, you're aware.

Erin Schaden (44:59)
Whose fault is that? Not his, he's just being the same person he's always been.

Robert (45:01)
No, that's a good point.

So.

A lot of the comments too were around the process, the divorce process, the custody process.

Erin Schaden (45:08)
Mm.

Robert (45:11)
what are your thoughts on that? And I'm going to give you mine first. You might not like it. Um, I think, I think the whole system has a lot to do with this. I think from the judges, the, even the attorneys, I, and. You know, I think at times you would know better than me, and a lot of them said this,

Erin Schaden (45:15)
Okay.

Robert (45:31)
You know, they felt that the attorney was milking the client, let's say, and trying to get more out of it and trying to stir the flames up to prolong it and make, you know, and in turn made it worse. But who's getting paid the attorneys. Agree. Disagree.

Erin Schaden (45:46)
Oh yeah. I think there are definitely attorneys out there that do that. You know, I also.

Robert (45:51)
Yeah, and I'm not saying every, I am not saying every family law attorney. I know there's some really good ones out there.

Erin Schaden (45:57)
No, I think it's a confluence of events. I think there are clients that come in that take very hard positions and back the attorney into a corner where the only legal remedies that they've got is to go to court. And the attorney's like back behind the scenes going, you don't want to do this, you don't want to do this. But to achieve the client's objectives, that's all the attorney's got. He's only got like, you know, this is the only path, right?

There are definitely those people that are known to just stir stuff up and that's why you hired them because you want to create a shit show dumpster fire. But I don't, in my experience in dealing with opposing councils and everything else, most of us, litigation is hard.

It's hard on the parties, it's hard on the judges, it's hard on us as attorneys, like it is difficult, right? You managing a client's emotional and financial realities while you're going through the litigation process is not fun, it's not fun at all, right? It costs way more, you're constantly explaining yourself, your client comes back on you, you get a good settlement on an interim issue and then later on they're mad at you because of some other part of it, like it's just an ugly process.

So I think that, yes, there are those people that fan the flames, but if you guys wanna stop it, stop hiring those attorneys, stop hiring them. They'll go find some other area of law to practice. But as long as they're still getting business, we're still gonna have that problem, right? So go for the people that, right now in my practice, I really, unless it's already in court, I am steering everybody to, hey, let's not file anything.

Let's just look at things. And a lot of that's driven by the way Maryland processes divorce, right? In California, it was like kind of completely different because you can file in California and then the court, unless you do something, the court's not really going to do anything until you push them to do something, unless you just let it sit there for too long. But in Maryland, like as soon as you file, the process is going and the court now takes control of it and they're setting deadlines and they're sending merits, hearing dates and all of that. So like in Maryland, it seems like it's in everybody's best interest to kind of go, hold on.

Let's not get the court involved yet. Let's give this a good faith attempt to try to work it out, right? Either through counsel, through mediation, through some process, and like, let's see if we can't get this, and then we can file an uncontested divorce. Let's get the deal done, and then we can file the uncontested divorce. Simple, 10 minute divorce hearing. You've just saved a ton of money, right? But some of those cases are not in that posture, you know?

Robert (48:23)
Would you agree though that some of the inefficiencies of the court system and the court when I say from, you know, from the judge all the way, the attorneys is part of the, you know, probably has a big hand in a lot of this, a lot of these negative, negative emotions.

Erin Schaden (48:36)
Absolutely. It's so hard to get people to understand that, the process, like we have laid this family system over this artificial adversarial process, right? And there are all these technical things. And in family law, I mean, I get very frustrated because like I'm a very rule-driven person. And so like, if you didn't give me your discovery on the date, like I...

you're done. You should not be able to introduce any evidence. Like it should be a hard and fast rule. But the court's like, well, they're pro-prose and you know, maybe and no, like the system would work so much better if there were really severe consequences for not doing it. However, losing your kids forever because you didn't, you know, because you got your stuff in on the second day instead of the third day, like, or the third day instead of the second day seems like unfair, which is why the court does it. But it just becomes the process.

There are so many places for people who don't like each other and can't get along to abuse each other, right? And the court system doesn't move swiftly. There's not like there's just have a, like in California, they do private judging, which I think is brilliant. You have to have the resources to do that. But like, you know, the judge, you have a disagreement. Hey, we need 15 minutes of your time on Friday. Okay, great. The judge makes a decision and you're done. You don't have, you know.

Robert (49:40)
Yeah, I did too.

Erin Schaden (49:54)
$30,000 worth of paperwork filed with the court and court appearances and witnesses and all that kind of stuff, you know? It's just the process sucks, but it's...

Robert (50:03)
So do you think technology, advancements in technology and AI specifically will alleviate some of that and improve it? You don't?

Erin Schaden (50:11)
No, I think it's gonna make it worse. I think it's gonna make it worse because think of it this way. Right now, if I want to, like let's say I wanna file a motion to modify custody, right? I gotta get in there, I gotta talk with the client, I gotta find out all the facts, I gotta get all my exhibits together, I gotta do all this stuff, it's a lengthy process. It's gonna take me a week or two to get all that stuff together, right? With AI, like I can just throw in some basic facts and I can generate out, boom, in super quick order.

emotion, right? So something that used to take me two weeks to necessarily get done and give opportunity for things to maybe get resolved, now I can spit it out super quickly, right? So now I can rapid fire the other side, boom, right? I don't know, I think that's gonna be abused and I think it's gonna make it worse, not better. the more ability we have to churn out paperwork faster, right?

without the ability to end it for it's reactionary, right? And I can't tell you how many times in the time that I've been drafting something and getting it together and getting all the exhibits together and everything else, it goes away or it gets resolved or whatever. But if the person calls me on Monday at two and they say, I wanna file this and because of AI, I can have everything ready by Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. We've got one day to solve something.

Robert (51:19)
It's yeah, it's worked out. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (51:33)
And if I'm busy doing all of that, when do I have the time to try to negotiate a settlement? I believe that it's incumbent upon every family law attorney to make a good faith effort at every stage to try to resolve it. Hey, can we do this? Can we do this? And sometimes, the times where I tell clients, we gotta go to court is when they're just, if you spend too long over negotiating land, they just bleed your client out a different way.

the other side's just playing around. It's like you do an agreement and they send it over and they send back changes and then you send it over and then they change it again. And you've gone, that's been going on for a month. So I'm finally like, okay, we're not getting anywhere. Let's not do this anymore. Let's just file, like, let's just go to court. And then usually the threat of court makes people say, okay, wait a minute, okay, I was being unreasonable. All right, they're not gonna admit that to you, but and you get a settlement, right?

Sometimes a little thought of litigation is what you have to have in order to move it forward. Or the actual litigation, you know. Well, we're gonna go if you're not gonna be reasonable. And then people usually are reasonable. Because once they start getting your litigation bills, they're like, oh my God, no. You know, because it's true. The only people that benefit from litigation is the attorneys. It's just a fact. It really is.

Robert (52:51)
That is so true.

Erin Schaden (52:54)
You know, and I don't ever pull any punches about that. You know, I mean, our best case scenario is to litigate every single case that walks through our doors. Absolutely. Perfect. Now, I would not want to ever do that, personally, because the toll that it would take on me personally is exorbitant. It's unethical, right? The toll that it takes on the client, and the financial wherewithal that most clients have to litigate a case is not there. Nobody has like a divorce war chest.

Most people are living paycheck to paycheck. Regardless of whether you're making seven figures a year or five figures a year. Like most people are living...

Robert (53:25)
especially now.

Erin Schaden (53:31)
paycheck to paycheck, because we all live way beyond our means, right?

Robert (53:34)
I think a lot of it, you said it earlier, goes back to this emotional immaturity.

Erin Schaden (53:38)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Robert (53:40)
I think that's a lot of it, that drives this. What else, before we wrap up, what else in the comments did you want to bring up? Anything else that you saw that kind of underlying?

Erin Schaden (53:49)
Um, I guess, you know, we're both the problem. The men and the women are the problem. And that's the best news ever because then we're both the solution, right? So like, you know, stop using the inflammatory language, stop using the swear words, stop calling each other out and name calling and everything and get to what's underneath it. The truth of the matter is we're all afraid. Women are afraid, men are afraid, right? And we're gonna pay dearly with the things that are most important to us. Our security.

our children, our ability to function in daily life. That's what we're all afraid of, right? So let's talk about that. Let's have a conversation about that. Instead of men are dogs and women are gold diggers and all this stuff, we're missing the point, right? How do we, to me, somebody said this to me and it revolutionized the way I think about everything. They said, when you love somebody, you make them feel safe. You make your behavior safe for them, right? And I will tell you that in divorce, nobody's making anybody feel safe.

and the marriage is crumbling because nobody made anybody feel safe. It wasn't even a goal, right? It wasn't a goal to make anybody feel safe. So like, if you want things to change, become a safe person, right? Do what you say you're gonna do, right? Have your actions and your words match, right? Endeavor to make the other person not feel financially insecure. Women do that to men all the time. They're like, well, I'm gonna get you and take you for everything you're worth. And then men go, I'm gonna take your kids away from you. And then both sides are completely freaking out, right? Stop it.

You, I swear to God in all of the time, like I have never seen anybody get a better divorce settlement through intimidation. Sometimes it works, but it not generally speaking, it doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't make things better for people. It makes things worse. Scared people do stupid things, right? So like, let's talk about the fear that everybody's got that's driving all of this. People are like, I'm never gonna get married now. I'm never gonna do this. I'm never gonna do that. Like, really?

That's your solution to just opt out of the game completely. I'm not gonna love, I'm not gonna commit, I'm not gonna do anything.

Robert (55:49)
I'm not going to love. I'm not going to be loved. I mean, that's sad. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (55:52)
not gonna reproduce, like, you know, those are some of the finest things in life that we have to experience, you know, loving, being loved, being cared for. Like, I think we're missing the point, you know? The point is, is that the whole reason that we committed to begin with, because we loved this person and we wanted to build a life with this person, and somewhere along the way, it went horribly awry, and we are all at fault.

Robert (56:15)
Yeah, what do they say that divorce is the end of a dream? You know, but at the same time, I mean, it doesn't, yeah, but it doesn't mean not to have another dream,

Erin Schaden (56:19)
Yeah. And the beginning of a nightmare.

Right. No, and look, you know, I think that using the yardstick of longevity to say that that's a successful marriage, I think is the wrong yardstick. I think that my marriage was a very successful marriage. It did not have staying power to go on for the rest of my life. But I don't think that my relationship with my ex-husband was a failure. I mean, yeah, we did, it ended, right? It had an expiration date, it ended. But it doesn't mean that it was a horrible relationship.

I grew, I changed, I learned some things about him, about myself, about commitment, about how I do it, how I don't do it well. I learned some things about him. But generally speaking, I know lots of people that have been married for 40 years and are super unhappy, right? I think that we're using the wrong yardstick to, it should be about what is being given, what is being taken, what is being offered. And I really do think that

Robert (57:05)
Oh yeah.

Erin Schaden (57:17)
this whole idea of safety, right, is super important. And I think you can use it to your advantage. I mean, everybody's out there for themselves, so they want to gain their advantage. If you really wanna gain an advantage in a divorce, make the other side feel safe. Make the other side feel safe.

Robert (57:32)
Erin, you're wonderful. And that's so much. Appreciate you being on so much. Appreciate you being on. All right. How can people find you? Do not give yourself number because I don't want you getting calls and texts and, and pics and everything else at all hours of the night. But how can people find you?

Erin Schaden (57:35)
Oh, thank you, so are you!

Hahaha

You can go to my Instagram or any social media, which is Erin E Schaden at Erin E Schaden. Let's see, I've got my website, which is ErinShaden.com. Yeah, that's, you know, you can also find me at my law firm, which is Faiton DeLima out of Rockville, Maryland. Although we're revising our website, so we're in a branding changeover, so I don't think I'm on the website right now, but you can still get a hold of me there if you need to. So.

Robert (58:16)
that is with whether it's family, family law matters, divorce coaching, whatever.

Erin Schaden (58:22)
Yeah, if you're in the greater DC area, anything related to family law, so it's fdfamilylaw.com. Yeah. Thank you so much, Robert. Always a pleasure. Thank you for braving

Robert (58:30)
Erin, thank you so much. Really? Seriously. Thank you for coming on and I enjoyed it. I appreciate it. And, um, maybe you'll be another, you'll go viral again. I mean, you made me where I had to look up. What is viral? What does viral mean? I had no idea.

Erin Schaden (58:43)
Whoa!

I know, I know. I didn't, I didn't either. What's really funny is, is that some, one of the things that somebody said, which is actually the thing that hurt the most out of all the comments that I read that were kind of hurtful, was that I didn't turn off the comments because I just wanted to create more controversy. And I was like, you can turn off the comments? I didn't even know what that was for a second. I didn't know that I had that power. I didn't even know.

You know, so it's like oh you're such a bad person because you're just feeding the controversy I'm like I didn't even know you can turn off the comments you know Geez, sorry. I'm not internet. I'm not as internet savvy as I might appear

Robert (59:23)
Oh, it's so funny.

Well, you know, you know, I'm not, I mean, we've, I've already shared that with you. You know, I'm not so, but Erin, thank you. Yeah, here we are. So Erin, thank you again. And look, Hey, thank you all for listening to dad to dads podcast. You can find us on Spotify or Apple podcasts as well as on YouTube or Instagram. And do not forget to hit that like and subscribe button. So you don't miss any future episodes and we'll see you all next time.

Erin Schaden (59:31)
And yet here we are, and here we are, doing, trying to help people. All right.