Navigating the Challenges of Divorcing a Narcissist - Interview with Erin Schaden

Robert welcomes back Erin Schaden, Divorce Coach & Family Law Attorney. In this episode, Robert and Erin discuss divorcing a narcissist. They talk about the prevalence of narcissism in divorce cases and the importance of working with an attorney and divorce coach who have experience dealing with high-conflict divorces. Erin emphasizes the need for strategic planning and preparation when divorcing a narcissist, including understanding the different personality disorders involved and how to approach them. They also discuss the challenges of custody battles with a narcissist and the importance of documentation and having a strong support system. When dealing with a narcissistic ex-spouse in a custody battle, it's important to understand projection and alienation. The narcissist often accuses the other parent of what they are guilty of themselves, and they may manipulate the child to align with them through psychological abuse. It can be difficult to prove alienation because the child may align with the alienating parent out of fear and a lack of alternatives. Children tend to align with the parent they feel safest with, so judges should consider who the child feels safest with when making custody decisions. It's crucial to document everything, even seemingly minor incidents, as they may be useful in court. Communication apps like Our Family Wizard can be helpful in managing communication and reducing conflict. It's important to trust your instincts, be intentional with your words and actions, and avoid badmouthing the other parent to your children. Addressing your own childhood wounds and seeking help from professionals can also be beneficial.

Takeaways

• Divorcing a narcissist can be extremely challenging and requires strategic planning and preparation.
• Working with an attorney and divorce coach who have experience dealing with high-conflict divorces is crucial.
• Understanding the different personality disorders involved and how to approach them is important.
• Documentation is key in custody battles with a narcissist.
• Having a strong support system and expanding your frustration tolerance are essential for navigating the divorce process with a narcissist. The narcissist often accuses the other parent of what they are guilty of themselves.
• Children may align with the alienating parent out of fear and a lack of alternatives.
• Judges should consider who the child feels safest with when making custody decisions.
• Document everything, even seemingly minor incidents, as they may be useful in court.
• Communication apps like Our Family Wizard can help manage communication and reduce conflict.
• Avoid badmouthing the other parent to your children.
• Address your own childhood wounds and seek help from professionals.

Transcript

Robert (00:00)
Hey everyone and welcome back to the dad to dad's podcast. So today's topic is divorcing a narcissist. And honestly, I don't think I could think of anything much worse than that. So yeah. So, I decided with a subject like that, I decided to bring in an expert probably without a doubt.

Erin Schaden (00:12)
True story.

Robert (00:24)
probably my favorite guest I've had on the podcast before a couple of times before. And you all might know her as a viral sensation as well with 28 plus years of family law, family law experience, also a mediator and a divorce coach, Erin Schaden, Erin, welcome back.

Erin Schaden (00:32)
Yeah.

Thanks, Robert. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Always my favorite podcast to be on.

Robert (00:49)
thank you. Thank you. You probably said all of them, but I do appreciate that. And I thank you for coming on. So, all right. So let's talk about it. Roughly 50 % of all of all marriages end in divorce, right? For first marriages. All right. So if you were to do a sampling of those that got divorced, I bet you the vast majority would say,

Erin Schaden (00:55)
I do not.

too, for first marriages.

Robert (01:18)
that their ex was a narcissist. Is that true? You think is that what you hear?

Erin Schaden (01:23)
I don't think it would be that high. I don't think it would be... So here's the thing. The results are always gonna be skewed, right? Because the higher... The personality disorder goes with the high conflict, right? So that's where attorneys and divorce coaches and mediators, I mean, get involved to some degree, right? Trying to resolve the conflict, right? So the people who are not divorcing narcissists...

Never. I never see those people, right? Cause they like sit down with reasonable people and they sit down, they go out to dinner. mean, it's how I did my divorce. My ex -husband and I went out to Panera. We sat down, you know, like, okay, what do you want? What do you need? What do you want? All right, here we go. You know, we wrote it up on a napkin and that was our, that was our agreement. You know what I mean? Like that's what normal people that don't have personality disorders do. Right? Like, but when you're forced to situation, I would say a hundred percent of all high conflict cases have a personality disorder.

Robert (01:52)
Yeah, okay.

Erin Schaden (02:19)
on one or both sides. And narcissist is, you know, the personality disorder du jour, right? Like that's the one that everybody's got today. And so I would say that in most of the cases that I see, there's some sort of mental health thing going on, substance abuse or mental health going on that is fanning the flames of, you know, the divorce and the marital dysfunction and the reason that they're getting a divorce.

Robert (02:48)
That makes sense. That makes sense. So in 28 years, what's it been the last five, 10 years you think you've seen more narcissism used or not used, but that terminology being used.

Erin Schaden (03:02)
yeah, mean, it's the topic of the day. I I don't think it's changed. I think that the personalities that I started off divorcing 29 years ago, like are still the same personalities that I'm divorcing today. We just have terminology that we didn't have.

Robert (03:05)
Yeah.

Right. Terminology. More people are aware of it. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (03:19)
We didn't have gaslighting, we didn't have edging, we didn't have narcissism, right? We didn't have covert, malignant. We didn't have all of those terms. I mean, they existed in psychology, right? Like they were things that we, you know, the professionals used to describe them, but it wasn't, it wasn't layman's terms. Like it hadn't become accessible and readily usable by the populace.

Robert (03:40)
That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, let's jump in. All right, let's say that you're preparing to divorce someone who's a narcissist. I know there's probably tons of things to do, tons of things to prepare for. You're basically preparing for hell. I mean, you are. But what, in your experience, what do you recommend when you have somebody that comes in and they...

Erin Schaden (03:44)
Okay, let's dive in. Let's go.

Alright, yeah.

Robert (04:07)
show you and you're like, yeah, he probably is a narcissist or she is probably a narcissist. What do you, what do you, what do you recommend?

Erin Schaden (04:15)
Well, ideally to work with a coach or an attorney beforehand, before the cat is ever out of the bag, because there are so many things to do. you know, at my firm and in my own practice, like I'm always like diagnosing people. I don't have a license to do that. And it's not, it's not to be used in a court of law or anything like that. It's informational only, right? Like if I see this person and I can, I can identify that they have, you know,

several strong narcissistic tendencies, then that's gonna alter how I approach that person, right? There is going to be a different way that I engage with that person, right? And certain ways that I absolutely don't engage with that person. So if I can teach my client how to begin that kind of conflict management style, right? From the get go, right? Then we, think,

lower the costs, emotional, financial.

know, familial immediately, right? So the first thing I would do is coach them and educate them on how the narcissistic personality or, mean, and we're not just, mean, I think narcissists, like, you they're the big shiny things, but like, you know, we have paranoids, you know, we've got paranoids and they are difficult to deal with. We have people who are histrionic. We have the borderlines. Those are really, I mean, I often, people will be like, that's a narcissist. I'm like, no, that's a borderline. Like that's not, you know, and again, I'm not saying that I'm right psychologically.

speaking and that they should the person should be treated for the personality disorder that I think that they have. But it does help me in being able to discern how to like approach this person best and how not to approach them and then to coach my client to be able to deploy some of those same tactics to keep the you know to keep it from going off the rails. That's the first thing right.

Robert (06:05)
Yeah, that's important. So, you you mentioned a couple of things there that really that I made a point of. One is an attorney and I think you need to make sure what you have an attorney that has experience dealing with high conflict divorces, dealing with narcissisms, very narcissism is very well versed in dealing with those cases. Correct.

Erin Schaden (06:29)
What?

But you need to do your due diligence as far as that because like every family law attorney now divorce, know, specializing in like, but that doesn't mean that they actually have the expertise, right? Like I have a degree in psychology. Like I have done a lot of extra stuff in dealing with it. I've taken classes, I've taken seminars and everything. So it's like, it's one thing to be like, yeah, I know all about that. Right. But it's another thing to be able to take that like educational academic knowledge and place it into practical application to serve the client best. Right.

like you need to vet the attorney. Like, is it just a buzzword that they're trying to get business on? Like narcissistic divorce from an expert. Well, are they like, you know, a good question would be like, how do you, what strategies do you deploy in being able to help manage the conflict? And they're going to, if they're just using it as a marketing tool, they're going to go, I don't know what you're talking about. And if they do, they're going to say, you know,

Yeah, let's talk about that. Let me lay it out for you. So I think that vetting your attorney, not all attorneys are created equal, right? Like some, I mean, we have the bad rap and the bad name that we have for good reason. Like it just is a fact. But also having the specialty, like my firm and in my own practice, I'm always looking at clients like...

How do I help this damaged, wounded individual, right, extricate themselves from this hell that they are currently finding themselves in as quickly, as efficiently, and as economically feasible as possible, right?

How do I do that, right? So that I'm taking this somewhat broken, damaged person and through the process, I'm using the things that are happening to them to help bolster and build them and reclaim their lives, right? So that when we get to the end of the divorce, right? I'm not like, sorry, thanks for all the cash. Like, you know, you're broken and you're even worse now.

Right? Like sometimes that happens, but hopefully if I've done my job well, then I've got like a whole person that I'm delivering to the other side of their divorce and they've learned some things. They know what not to do. They know kind of what to do. And they also kind of know that the hell that they that they're in for, right? But they've learned some things in the process about how to manage that better. Right.

Robert (08:20)
Yeah.

That's good. That's good. And you you mentioned divorce coach early on. think that would be extremely, I know that's what you do. One of the things you do, but I think that would be extremely helpful. So you're not running up the attorney's fees near as much that along with the therapist too, right? Personal therapist.

Erin Schaden (08:57)
Well, yeah, mean, think, you know, yeah, well, I think the personal therapist is going to help you manage your, I want to kill them. I want to kill myself. I don't, I'm terrified. I'm not sleeping. have, you know, astronomical anxiety. That's the therapist purview, right? Like the coach's purview is to say things like, okay.

Robert (09:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (09:20)
let me educate you about what it is that you're actually dealing with, right? And that's the attorney's job too, to some degree, right? Like the problem for coaches and attorneys similarly is that you end up in this place where the person doesn't want to hear what you have to tell them.

You know, I can't tell you how many times I've told somebody the truth in an initial consultation and then they don't hire me because they're, they wanted rainbows and unicorns and sunshine. So they go hire the attorney that's going to give them rainbows. And you know, I just, I just appeared in court for a woman that, that interviewed me, I don't know, like two months ago, right? This other firm, she hired them, not going well at all. And she called me back and she's like, okay, you told me the truth. I just didn't want to hear it. And I'm like, yeah.

Robert (09:46)
Yeah, yeah.

Erin Schaden (10:06)
I get it, why would you want to? But that's not my job. My job is not to make you like it. My job is just to tell you what the truth is. So I think whether you're coaching somebody, but it's, they call it discernment counseling now at this point, or discernment coaching and trying to help people figure out like, should I stay or should I go now? Right? Like it's a Ramon song, like is now the right time? And then if I, if the answer is yes, now is, I guess I want the divorce when...

Now is a good time for that to happen for the variety of the ages of the kids where you are in the school year, all of those kinds of things that you're considering. And then, you know, how best to extricate that, right? How best to like extract yourself from it, right? And when to blow it up, right? There's good ways and bad ways. And like with all of my clients, the first thing I do with them is a strategy and planning meeting where my job is to like lay out door number one, door number two, door number three, door number 27. I don't know how many doors like anybody's case is gonna have, but they give them the pros and cons.

and then to say based on my years of experience and all the different seats that I've occupied at this table, I think you should pick door number five, right? And then the client now has all the information that I have and we're able to talk similar language, right? I've educated them and now they can go, okay, I understand that your recommendation is five, but five scares me.

and could we try four first and then go to five? Is that possible? Yeah. Or they're able to go, yes, I completely agree with you. Let's do five. You know what I mean? So I think that that's kind of the coaching. A good family law attorney, I was doing coaching long before I had the certification, right? But like that's a good family law attorney is going to coach you on.

when to leave, how to leave, why you're leaving, if you should leave, you know, and prepare you so that the person is not caught blindsided. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten to kind of like, not even the middle of a divorce, but like the first quarter of it. And the person looks at me and they're like, I wish I never would have done this. I should have just stayed. I should have just stayed. This is awful. My kids only have, you know, year and a half at home. Why did I do this? You know?

Robert (12:11)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (12:12)
Well, you know because you didn't listen or the attorney that you hired before didn't tell you the hell that you were in for right so

Robert (12:19)
Yeah. I mean, it's purely hell.

Erin Schaden (12:23)
It really is. It really is. mean, and that's the other thing that I think that my job is at the very beginning at the outset is to lay out the hell as I see it. And I lose clients that way, you know? It'd be a lot better for like, yeah, don't worry, we're gonna handle this. We're gonna go into mediation, it's all gonna get resolved, it's all gonna be fine. And one thing that I do is I set expectations super early and I tell people like, look, if your husband wife...

really is a personality disordered person, narcissist, you know, being the term of the day, you're going to spend more money. It's going to take more time. And the emotional currency is like the meter, the electrical meter in the summertime, right? Like it's the South, like it's just going to spin, right? Like, and there's really no way.

to avoid it. It's kind of like, I don't know, I'm not a nautical person, but like, I think about like, how do you take on big waves? Right? You take them head on. You don't allow yourself to get sideways because what happens? You get swamped, right? And that's exactly like how it is divorcing a narcissist, right? Like you got to take it head on. And so what I tell my clients is like, yeah, look, we can go over here and dick around mediation and do all this stuff. And you can give them all of your points and they are going to weaponize them and now use them against you.

Robert (13:18)
Right.

Erin Schaden (13:38)
We can just go strong and just like, no, we're just going for, no, we're going to court. Nope, we're going to court. And then usually we're able to kind of shave off some of the daggers that they've got, whittle those down. We're able to kind of more hone our spears for litigation. And then we're able to be in a better, you know, posture to kind of force a settlement, right? And settlements do still happen with personality disorder people. They just happen after people have spent exponential amounts of money to get there.

Robert (14:07)
Because it's not about a fair and equitable division there, right? I mean, it's about winning for the narcissist. Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (14:11)
It's about punishment. It's about winning and punishment. Yeah. Yeah. How dare you leave me or how dare you think that you're worthy of me, right? And I'm going to make you pay. I'm going to make you pay.

Robert (14:27)
No matter what it is. And then it involves the smear campaigns, the lies, all of that stuff as well. Yep.

Erin Schaden (14:33)
alienating behavior. I that's probably my least favorite and my most difficult that makes me, that makes kind of my blood boil is that like, look, you can hate your spouse all you want. You can wish that they were dead. can like, I mean, all the things, but don't drag the kids into it. Just don't. Like you're literally damning and hurting your kids. You know? And it just...

Robert (14:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

But they don't care. mean, they use them as pawns. about the X.

Erin Schaden (15:01)
They don't care. It's not even that they don't care. It's that they're not capable of caring, right? They're not capable of seeing. Everything is such an egocentric way. It's like, you know, the kid is just a reflection of them. And it's like, well, you well, you shouldn't feel that way. I don't feel that way. And that's the end of the conversation with a narcissist. That your point of view is ridiculous. You that's not how I see it. And it's the end of the story right there. There's no further conversation.

And they're gonna treat everybody that way, not just the person that they're divorcing, right?

Robert (15:35)
So you brought it up, custody, preparing, and I want to go into post divorce of a narcissist, but when there's kids involved, are there things someone can do to prepare?

Erin Schaden (15:47)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that I explore with my clients at the very, very beginning is do we want a custody evaluation, right? Because that's a crap shoot. It all depends on the luck of the draw. And sometimes you have more control in a case about who gets selected and sometimes you really don't, but you're really kind of outsourcing, you know, the judicial decision -making fact, you know, when you get this custody evaluator involved. And so, you know, we'd want to look at like,

how glib and superficially charming is your narcissist, right? Are you the only one, you and your therapist, are you guys the only one that think he's a narcissist or she's a narcissist? Like, is everybody else just think that they're like, you know, the best thing ever? You know, then we wanna look at that, kind of how they operate in their world currently and what other collateral people would say, like, are they gonna support your narrative? Are they gonna support?

Robert (16:27)
Right, right.

Erin Schaden (16:45)
the other person's narrative, because that's helpful in making a decision about whether or not you want to get involved in a custody evaluator, because in most places, what the custody evaluator is beyond reproach. It doesn't mean that it can't ever be attacked and it can't ever be found. I I've had cases at firms that I've worked for that the custody evaluator was found to be completely biased and the whole thing was thrown out, but I'm telling you that's like 1%.

Most of the time the judge is like, good, I don't have to hear this. Rubber stamp. Rubber stamp. There you go.

Robert (17:15)
Yeah. And unfortunately, there's a lot of them that aren't well educated in the subject of personality disorders and the effect it has. Yeah. Yeah, true.

Erin Schaden (17:24)
Well, they're jaded. They're jaded, right? Because people come in and they're a narcissist and then they're like, and they just get there, you they've been doing it for 20 years and they're sick of hearing it. And so their eyes just kind of roll back in their head and they just go and they do this thing, which I get why they do it, but it's, it's wholly a disservice to the people that they're serving, which is like, both of them are crazy. Well, maybe, but like, you know, I've had cases before where I've had like a paranoid, right?

Robert (17:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (17:53)
and probably schizophrenic, probably off their meds, right? And we started doing some investigative work and one of the associates in my office was like, are we just bilking her? Like, are we doing this? And I said, just because she's paranoid doesn't mean that her husband isn't out to get her. You know what I mean? Like, I have to do my due diligence to make sure that maybe it is just paranoid delusion that she's suffering from, right? But maybe not, right?

Robert (18:18)
And maybe it's reactive to what she's been through.

Erin Schaden (18:22)
Exactly. Maybe it's PTSD masquerading. We don't know and it's not my job to actually find it out, but it is my job as an attorney to make sure that I'm not harming my client, right? And so before I'm going to go and file this divorce case, I want to talk to her therapist and psychiatrist. Like I want to talk to people, you know, I want to talk to different people in cases where I am worried about the tenderness of my client's mental state, right? Because the last thing I would want to do is be like, yeah, let's go.

And then you get this tidal wave from the other side and you find out that your client is just very incapacitated. And you're like, okay, now what do I do? I just, I just kicked the hornet's nest, right? And now I've got this vulnerable person that's not really capable of participating in their own defense, right? Because of their mental health issues or their substance abuse issues. And now we're, throwing him into major, I mean, it's just, yeah, I'm throwing him into the deep end. No lifeguards, no nothing. And they don't know how to swim, you know?

It's bad.

Robert (19:22)
Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else you can think of with custody like that parents can do to prepare? mean, I know keep the kids out of it. Always keep the kids out of everything. Personal therapists, maybe for the kids. I mean, what

Erin Schaden (19:32)
Mm

Yeah, I mean, that gets a little wonky too because the narcissist is gonna say, they don't need a therapist, they're fine. And you're gonna be like, my God, the narcissist is doing such damage to these kids and that's a battle. I think that in the custody case, I think you need to be very strategic and very thoughtful about why you're doing whatever it is that you're doing, right? People in general go through divorce with their emotions driving the divorce. I feel this.

Robert (19:38)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (20:04)
I direct the attorney to do X, right? I feel this, direct the attorney to do Y. And that's bad. And if you're good attorney, you're like, okay, you're gonna sit on that for 24 hours before we're gonna do anything about it. And if you don't like it, you can fire me and go get somebody else that's gonna go in and start breaking, bull in the China shop. But I'm not going to do that because I think if you have a little bit of time to process this, I think there's a better way to achieve your result. I mean, I think that coming up with a clear strategy,

you that you've thought through all the things and come up with a clear strategy at the very beginning, right? You can always tweak it, right? Like no case goes like, you know, usually like this, that, that, you know, but going through it so that you are very intentional about what it is you're doing and why it is that you're doing it. And as far as custody case, so like making early on determinations whether you would want like,

They're called different things in different states, but basically like a privilege attorney. Like sometimes attorneys are engaged just to decide whether the child's therapeutic privilege is going to be waived or asserted. That's a strategic, very important decision. And depending upon the narcissist and their level of compliance and engagement might be something you want to deploy early. It might be something that you want to save for later on. Same thing about getting an attorney, you know, like in California, they're called Minors Council. In Maryland, they're called best interest attorneys.

you know, in some states are called guardian ad litems, an attorney specifically for the kids that is a voice for the kids independent of, know, whether or not child protective services needs to be engaged and called in a case. Those are all things that when you're divorcing somebody with a personality disorder to include narcissists that you want to be thinking about from the word go. And it may be like maybe at the very beginning of your case, you're like, not yet.

Not yet, but it should be a conversation where you know, what the people are, you know what their roles are, you know what their potential cost is, and you know what bang you could get for that buck, right? Like, what are they gonna do for you, and what can they do to you?

Robert (22:06)
So when you're going into court and you're trying to lay out, you're trying to, basically expose that the other person is a narcissist or has a personality disorder. I know you don't go in there and you say, Hey, she's a narcissist or he's a narcissist. I mean, you're trying to show patterns of this, right? And let the, let the judicial system, let the judge, whoever it may be come up with their opinion. That person is, is that correct?

Erin Schaden (22:34)
Well, there's things that you can do. I mean, if the person's personality disorder is really causing problems, usually it's when they also then have a substance use or abuse disorder as well, or gambling or sex or one of, there's some addiction component in addition to the mental health issue. And when you have that,

You can ask for a mental status exam. You could ask for an evaluation, right? You know, the court, and that depends on the jurisdiction about whether they grant those. I've been in places where they get them all the time. And then I've been in places where it's like, got to like give up a kidney to get one. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, I think you want to be very careful. I think that. I think that my strategy is usually I don't use the words.

I don't use the words narcissist because everybody's using the words narcissist and I lose my judge the moment I say it because either they go I get it which is what I want or they're like god another one you know and I've lost them already so I prefer like what I like to do is create like I tell my clients all right let's start with like the four most egregious things that have happened in your custody case you know failure to supervise

failure to co -parent, actual physical danger and neglect, right? Like, so give me three concrete examples of each one of those things, right? That you can testify about. And if you can't testify about it, you gotta tell me who it is, right? Is it the teacher? Is it the physician? Is it, you know, your next door neighbor? Is it the friend's parents? Because like, the problem is, is that everybody wants to go into their custody case and go, I've got all this evidence. You know, well, no, you have facts, right?

And everybody doesn't understand that like as an attorney, I have to look at every piece of paper or witness that you bring to me. And then I got to figure out how I'm going to get that information in front of that judge, right? In mediation, carte blanche, everything comes in. I can get the mediator to look at anything, but the mediator isn't a final decider, right? They don't have any power.

They can beat up on you to try to get you to resolve it, but they don't have the power. But the judge, it's like there's this huge screen in front of the judge and only certain things get through the screen, right? And so if I'm only capable, I said, okay, three things, four categories, I've got 12 things. Well, if I can only make two of those stick, what kind of case do I have, right? I don't have a good case, right? So it's more important to describe the conduct than it is to give it a label.

Robert (25:07)
Yeah, true.

Erin Schaden (25:15)
You can call it narcissism all you want, that's great. But when you're in court, I think it's much easier for judges to grab ahold of the idea that like, we've got the neglect, we've got failure to care, we've got failure to supervise, we've got actual abuse. Like, here are the things that have happened in this case, and this is why you, Judge, need to make these orders that I'm asking you to, right?

Robert (25:36)
So really documentation on your client's part would be huge.

Erin Schaden (25:41)
documentation, also like intelligent documentation. What I tell all my clients is I tell them to get this app and it lets you voice record. lets you video. You can download pictures into it. Like you can create different journals and I tell them, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to reveal my big secrets here, but like the first thing I tell them is to create the journal and say for litigation purposes only. That's what the journal is called. Okay. Because then it's attorney client work product.

Robert (25:45)
Yeah, yeah.

Erin Schaden (26:10)
and it can't be discoverable by the other side. Okay, now could a judge rule differently? Maybe, but if you're just keeping journals over here, the other side can subpoena those and I mean, they're gonna get it in discovery, right? And so I don't like to do that. I tell all my clients, you write at the top of your journal that you're starting right now for litigation purposes only, now it's protected under attorney -client work product, pretty much.

But generally speaking, it's not coming in. And then that's where we do all of our documentation. And then that's where we create our charts. And that's where we create our exhibits. And that's where we create all of our stuff. And then, but I got to have a person, right? That's like, that can testify. Yeah. You know, they were late in the last 30 days. They were late 27 times. How late they were every

out of those 27 times, they were more than an hour and a half late 27 times. Those are persuasive pieces of information, right? And then my job as the litigator, right, is to weave that into a narrative, right? Your honor, like this is not a he said, she said situation. This is a documented case of where this other parent will not co -parent with.

this parent and it is hurting the children in the following ways. Let me lay it out for you. Right. And I got the judge, right. The judge is like, she's going to make this simple. Right. Okay. Here's what she wants me to do. Here's the reasons that she wants me to do it. And she's going to make it in bullet point form. I love her. Right. I love her. Right. Whoever makes it most simple wins. Right. Generally speaking. And that's, and that's what you should be looking for in a lit in somebody litigating your, your any

any custody matter, but most especially if personality disordered people are litigating.

Robert (27:58)
No, that's good. You know, you talked about the app and I kind of, guess we can, well, before we move forward, cause I want to talk to you about the different apps you can use. What else with preparing for or during the divorce with a narcissist, what else do you recommend?

Erin Schaden (28:13)
I think you have to do a fair amount of work on yourself as a person to expand your frustration tolerance, right? Like I think you have to understand that you are now dealing with a very technical, very almost surgical environment for human relationships, right? And feeling is the buzzword of the day.

but there's really no way to litigate feeling, okay? That is productive, right? It's just not productive. And so I think that, you know, knowing from the outset and being able to kind of go and having that honest dialogue with your counsel and be like, I don't like what you're saying to me at all. I hear you, I understand. I wouldn't want to hear what I'm saying either. But being able to kind of, if you can't swallow it all in one bite,

being able to go, I'm gonna put this over here and I'm gonna think about that a little bit more and a little later. So that's what I'm gonna do, right? But I think that with expanding your own frustration tolerance for delay, for cost, for emotional exasperation, for all of those things is gonna serve you a lot in the long run, right? Because it's not a sprint, right? It's a...

Robert (29:31)
Do you ever recommend group therapy for people? Yeah.

Erin Schaden (29:34)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Although, you know...

You know, others are, I think, just as much helpful as they are hurtful a lot of the time, you know? And that's why I tell people all the time, you I was like, you need to know why you're leaving dollars on the table. And I said, and here's why you need to know exactly why and how much dollars you've left on the table. I go, cause you're going to be out to dinner with your girlfriends or you're going to be out to dinner with your boys, right? And they're going to say to you, why are you paying that? Why did they get the house? And you're going to go.

Robert (29:43)
Sure, sure.

Erin Schaden (30:06)
Cause my lawyer said so. And then they're going to be like, you got screwed. And then you might've gotten the best divorce settlement ever in the history of divorce settlements. But now your perception is you got screwed. Why? Because you didn't know why you got what you got. Right? So you get the, how to know why did you get what you got? Right? That's super important.

Robert (30:16)
Yep, yep.

Yeah, I think it goes back to picking your friends wisely and maybe even reevaluating your friends and having a very small, trustworthy group within that. Yeah, maybe some that have been through it. I will say this, when I went through my divorce, I didn't let go of any friends, but I really thought and prayed about, I knew I needed a tight group. I didn't want yes men.

Erin Schaden (30:33)
Who's your inner circle?

Robert (30:52)
I wanted people that would tell me the truth. And I knew that would be a very small group. And it was amazing. The more I, you know, I'm not trying to get all spiritual with, but the more I prayed about it, the more those people came into my life or revealed themselves to me, which was pretty powerful. And the fact that, you know, I could go to them when I felt I was getting beat up or whatever it may be and be able to bounce things off of them. And

them, you they could give me the truth of, hey, you need to do this more, you know, that's, that's fine. Just what's, what's the use? That's fair enough. You know, that's as good as it's going to get. That could give me some honest, true opinions. I think, you know, that is extremely valuable.

Erin Schaden (31:39)
it is really, really valuable. And I think that, you know, also having somebody that's knowledgeable about the process, because like, you know, your friends and your family, you know, are knowledgeable.

to some degree, some more than others, right? About what the process entails and what it looks like and all of that kind of stuff. But then there's other people that just think that they know a lot about the process and it's all just made up. It's just, my mom calls it mush, made up shit. You like you just make it up, you know? And I think you need to consider your inner sanctum really carefully. And I think you're right. You shrink that. You shrink that circle down because otherwise, you know, I tell all my clients, like, you're

Robert (31:52)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (32:21)
posting stuff on Facebook anymore. No, we're done with that. You can pick that up when the divorce is over, right? And we've won custody and everything's, know, hunky -dory. But, and then we're still not going to post nasty stuff about the other side because you are ultimately going to be accountable. so I think that...

having people that are knowledgeable that can educate you and your friends and family about like, are we doing this?

Robert (32:47)
That's a point. That's a point. You you talked about parent alienation I just had a guy on Charlie McCready. He's excellent. He's out of the UK and he's basically a coach. I imagine when there is a narcissist involved, more than likely when there's children, I imagine perinatalianation is going to come into the mix.

Erin Schaden (33:08)
Yeah, and it's kind of the worst kind of alienation because it's hybrid. So the hybrid alienation deals with the fact that you as a parent are not a perfect person and you make mistakes and then the narcissist capitalizes on those mistakes, right? Yeah, I was talking with a client recently and you know, the other side's videotaping her, disciplining or videotaping her doing this, that or the other thing, right? And it's like, okay, so first of all, what is that signal to the kids?

Robert (33:13)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (33:37)
Your mom needs to be videotaped like and the thing is is it's kind of like you can't unring the bell, right? And so you need to have a methodology to try to put a stop to that kind of stuff like immediately Right so that you know It's it's not because what ends up happening in my experience with any type of alienation is that by the time anybody is calling it alienation It's too late

Robert (34:02)
too late. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (34:03)
the damage has been done and you're not gonna right it or the amount of money and energy that you would need to spend to right it. If you could get orders to right it, which is the other problem, right? Judges are like, it's fine. The kid will be fine. Like, and the kid's not gonna be fine, but the judge just doesn't have the bandwidth or the calendar to be able to address the very deep and complex problems of this family system that is broken and breaking further in the courtroom, right? So I think that, you know,

it's really really difficult to figure out how to get that across to the court early on, you know? It's very hard to prove. It's very hard to prove because you know, I mean, what is one of the hallmarks of narcissists? Liar! And what do do? Like this is, this is, this is, this is like the, the, I don't know, kind of perverse magic, right?

Robert (34:43)
Yeah, it's hard to prove, right? Yeah.

Erin Schaden (35:00)
They're cheating, but they accuse you of cheating, right? They're lying and hiding money, but they accuse you of lying. Yeah, you know, and so like, it's like, it's, and so you're always on the defense, right? And so like for me, I don't like being on the defense. I like being on the offense. Like the best defense is a good offense in my opinion. And so like, I like to get ahead of that and try to get in front of that right away. And there's lots of different strategies that you can deploy. Like I tell my clients all the time, look, there's always a remedy.

Robert (35:04)
Yep, their projections, yeah.

Erin Schaden (35:29)
usually more than one. It's not guaranteed to give us what we want, but we have options, right? But the more intelligent and knowing we engage those options sooner in the process, the more bang for our buck we're gonna get out of those remedies.

Robert (35:45)
Yeah. You know, one thing you say going back to it with the projection is I had heard a long time ago that whatever the narcissist is accusing you of is usually what they're guilty of. It's the projection. Yeah. And that's it. That's, that's definitely it. You know, yeah, exactly. Exactly. you know, and the other thing too, when you're talking about alienation is when you have that kid, the, our, the alienating parent, the one who's guilty of it.

Erin Schaden (35:55)
Absolutely, that's exactly what they're doing. You're cheating on me. That means they're Newsflash.

Robert (36:14)
Usually they will have a child that is aligned with them and you know, that could be through psychological abuse, whatever it may be. And so to go get it, that's why I'm, what I'm getting at is why it's so hard to prove that because then if the kids are evaluated by somebody, who are they going to align with? You know, they're, they're more than likely going to align with the person who's doing or not more than likely.

Erin Schaden (36:38)
takes.

Robert (36:41)
But there's a chance they're going to lie with the person who's doing the alienating because they've been abused and they know of no other way.

Erin Schaden (36:49)
It's even more pervasive than that. Children tend to align with the person that they're most worried is going to leave. They attack and go after the person that they know is never leaving.

They move towards the unsafe person in an attempt to get safety and they move away from the safe person because they know they're always going to be safe, right? So to me, if I were a judge, and I don't ever want to be a judge, but if I were, would, this is totally not constitutional and it wouldn't be able to be done, but what I would love to do is talk to the kid and be like, who do you feel more safe in front of? Who makes you feel the safest? I'm not asking.

Robert (37:27)
Who can you be yourself with?

Erin Schaden (37:29)
I wouldn't say mom or dad, just who is it that makes you feel most safe? And who is it in the world that makes you feel least safe? And right there, I would be able to tell you whether there was alienation going on. Because what a normal, healthy kid should say is like...

You know, my mom's great and I feel safe with her. She's got her problems, but yeah, she's good. And dad, I feel really safe with him too. He's got his problems too, but he's good too. You what I really don't feel safe with is that fifth period teacher. You know what I mean? Or whatever. Or my coach or that person's dad or whatever. But like the kid who's coming from like a well -balanced, like non -personality disordered family life is gonna be able to look and be able to say, I see my parents, like not the young kids, but like teenagers, I see my parents for who they are for the most part.

Robert (37:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (38:15)
And I feel safe in both of their company, right? And then you know, like, okay, like this is, this is, this is a stable, relatively workable family unit, right? Even though it's falling apart, it's still really, but when you've got a kid that comes in and it's like, I'm terrified of dad. And you're like, why? And the kid's like, dad's really unsafe. And I'm like, why is dad really unsafe? Because, you know, he, he drives drunk. How do you know he's driven drunk?

Well, my mom told me. Well, how does your mom know that? Well, he used to drive drunk when they were together all the time. I go, so your mom willingly got into a car and was driving drunk with your dad? Like, doesn't, does that make sense to you? Because it doesn't really make sense to me. Like, and wouldn't that have been something that she would have addressed with him, like, a long time ago? But kids don't have that unless they have their attorney that's engaging the dynamic in that way, right?

Robert (39:01)
Right.

No, that's that's that's a great point. That's a great point. And yes, I can hear that I can hear your cat. I definitely can.

Erin Schaden (39:08)
Can you hear the cat? Can you?

Sorry, he would like to come in. He's not going to come in because he's a Hellion and will Rey have it. But he apparently would like to be a part of this podcast.

Robert (39:23)
so moving on, divorce and let's keep on the whole custody. What do you, gosh, I imagine if you're divorcing, if you've divorced a narcissist, there's kids involved, you're gonna be in court again. Whether there's, yeah, whether it's some sort of, whether they're pulling you in or whether they're in violation of the parenting agreement, you're probably going to be in court.

Erin Schaden (39:37)
Yep, probably every year.

So I've got a couple cases like this now. It's post -judgment and I'm working with the clients about the accumulation of documentation, what they're documenting, how they're documenting. Some people I meet with weekly, like, we spend the first 15 minutes, like how'd this last week go? All right, this is what you, okay, what do I need to do with this? Well, you should definitely take that to your attorney, send these notes to your attorney, whatever, directing them back to counsel who can actually effectuate some sort of meaningful result with that.

And then how to go forward, how to resolve some conflicts as they're going on. I do a lot of conversational coaching. You're a bitch does not require a response. Doesn't, it doesn't. Is there a question pending? I think I've said that before on this podcast. Everybody thinks if I don't respond, then it looks bad. No.

It also looks bad when they say they attack and then you defend, then they attack and you defend. You know, the judge doesn't like that either. know, so like having being trained by somebody that's a professional on what to respond if you respond when you respond is super important. So I think that engaging a coach to help you kind of somebody that's going to be fluent and knows, you know, if you're getting divorced and your kids are four, you got 14 years of this, you know, you're not going to have to meet with that person every single week. You're going to be picking up skills. You know, my experience

usually in post -judgment cases, I spend two months probably on weekly calls and then we go to every other and then pretty soon it's on a monthly and then pretty soon it's on an as -needed basis because hopefully if I've done my job correctly I've taught them

how to do it. And so it's only when things get really sticky that they're like, Hey, Erin, don't this, I've been managing it really great. Listen to what I've done. that's awesome. You're doing so great. You know, if I'm successful, they don't need me anymore. Right. But in, in personality disorder, narcissists, divorce and custody matters, like you're there, there's going to be something like there's going to be some

Robert (41:51)
I love what you said. I love what you said too is you don't have to respond to every email. I mean, cause a lot of times with the narcissist, mean, they're going, they're going to send an email because you're their supply that whether it's good attention or bad attention, they want attention and you don't have to, and you don't have to respond right then it can be 24 hours, 48 72. It can be two weeks and just sticking to the points and you know, bullet.

Erin Schaden (41:57)
cool.

Robert (42:20)
bullet pointing the response.

Erin Schaden (42:21)
learning when it's a 24, 48, 72 or two weeks. Because see people, like in my experience, people get it wrong. Like I'm like, wait, why didn't you respond to that? Like that needs a response. And they're like, I didn't think I needed to respond to that. And then this thing over here that they were like super fast Twitch on, I'm like, you didn't need to respond to that. And so I think like giving yourself some time to become educated in the new environment that you're finding yourself in will do a lot to minimize post judgment custody matters because you are trained.

Robert (42:24)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Erin Schaden (42:51)
Like, okay, that is a 48 hour response thing. And the other thing is that people are way too wordy. Like, I'm wordy. I talk a lot. Like, I'm super, my kids will just roll their eyes. my God, she's talking again. You know, but.

Robert (43:00)
Yes.

Erin Schaden (43:07)
In my communications, I try to be super succinct. Every email I write, I read it three times. Not particularly efficient. I don't bill the client for that time, but I read it three times. One, to make sure it makes sense, because I have ADD and I get distracted, number one. Number two, I want to make sure that I'm clear and concise. And three, I want to use as least amount of words possible. Why? Because I don't somebody want to come back to me in court and serve me a stack of errands words that I have to be accountable for. I'd much rather have them come back and be like, what about this machine?

and I'm like, yeah, much rather defend or have to talk about that and not this dissertation, right? We just, the other side is always gonna have the gun. We don't have to give them the bullets. And that's what the ongoing communication back and forth is. Like, it should be.

Robert (43:51)
What, do you suggest when there's false allegations in an email at post divorce? Is there a response even warranted at times? I mean, I'm sure that that depends that that depends, right? Like, like them saying that what if it's, I don't know, you're putting the kids in the middle. You're

Erin Schaden (44:00)
Like, what's the allegation about? Give me a high five now.

Robert (44:10)
putting the kids in the middle of a situation when you know you're not, but it's this record that continues to come up. What do you suggest then?

Erin Schaden (44:19)
would say, how do you see me doing that?

Robert (44:22)
Yeah, provide facts.

Erin Schaden (44:24)
And then, the other day when you said blah, blah, blah, and then, you know, if you're represented by counsel, you know, before you fire back a response, I would take it to your, I'd write the response and then let your counsel edit it for you, right, or your coach and like, have, and then before you send it back to the other side.

Robert (44:43)
Cause I think a lot of times too, the narcissist is doing those things just whether it's a harmful to the children, whatever it is, putting the kids in the middle, whatever it may be, they're just using that to try to build something. They might not have any facts whatsoever. Again, they're trying to agitate you, get under your skin and you know, provoke some sort of response.

Erin Schaden (45:02)
Well, most of the most of the time the narcissist can't provide you with concrete examples. They're just like, you're being harmful to the kids. How do you seem to be harmful to the kids? Well, you were five minutes late for pickup. So you believe it's harmful to the kids if I'm five minutes late for pickup one time in their entire lives. Okay, duly noted, move on, right? You didn't pack the kids the appropriate snack. They had &Ms in their lunchbox.

Robert (45:07)
Nah, nah, nah.

How? Please provide facts.

Erin Schaden (45:30)
And how was that harmful? What else did they have in their lunchbox? Well, I don't know. It was empty. okay. So you're admitting then that you know that there could have been other things in there besides &Ms. And do you know where those &Ms came from? Can you prove that they came from my house? Like, I mean, you know, it's just the point of ridiculousness, right?

Robert (45:47)
Yeah, it just goes back. mean, they want some sort of supply, right? They want something from you. They want a response. They want to provoke something. What about these apps like Family Wizard? Do you recommend those or do you?

Erin Schaden (45:55)
Yep, absolutely.

love Family Wizard. I like Family Wizard. mean, I'm not getting paid by our Family Wizard to say this. There are a lot of them.

Robert (46:04)
Right. But you can pay us and sponsor our sponsor the podcast. If you want to we would love for you all run a banner across the podcast. I'll wear a shirt family wizard.

Erin Schaden (46:08)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, you could. Yeah. Both of us, our family. I'll wear a hat. I'll get a sweatshirt. I'll be all swagged out. No, but talking parents is really good too. There's other ones out there. What I love about our family wizard and how they won kind of my business early on was that they will come to your law firm and train your staff.

on how to utilize their technology for your custody case, right? And the other thing that I love about it is that they will provide you somebody to go to court to testify.

Robert (46:50)
for people that don't know, explain what it is. mean, it's basically a communication app that that is where all communication is supposed to go through. Correct? Right.

Erin Schaden (46:57)
Regarding the kids, yeah, regarding the kids and you can give your attorney access so your attorney can supervise the indications. So you don't have to say, me screenshot that for you. Attorney, can you please engage? You can just say, look at look at OFW today. I'd go over, I'd look at it. I'd be like, that does not require a response. Okay, perfect. And on you go, right? Instead of a 15 minute meeting with your attorney, it's like a 0 .1. Like you just saved yourself 0 .2, you know?

Robert (47:25)
And I would think that narcissists would push back even using an app like that.

Erin Schaden (47:31)
Unless they're pretty delusional and then they think that they've got this amazing case and they want to use it because I'm going to get the documentation. I mean, I think that the other thing that all of these apps have in common is that there's science behind it and the way that the system is designed is to de -escalate.

Conflict right and like I know our family wizard when I first found out about this at the law firm I was always joking I was like I wonder if they could give me that technology on my text messages and emails because it has a tone meter right and you have to pay extra it's like 10 extra bucks a year or whatever so you're like your your ex says something to you and you're like my god, know, and then all of a sudden this little bubble will pop up in that and it will say warning this is an inflammatory word warning this is an aggressive word warning this is so that you

Like in your haste and in your emotional tirade that you're about ready to go back, you get these little like things that are like pause, hey, wait, let's think this through, hey, wait, you know? And I was like, I always used to joke, I was like, I need that. I need that in my personal life. I need a tone meter, you know? I've learned in communication with the Generation Z, you have to use emoticons, like you have to use emojis. They don't know what you mean. Like I'll say hi and my daughter will be like, why are you being so hostile?

Robert (48:37)
No, that's great.

Erin Schaden (48:49)
because I didn't include a smiley face and I'm like, I just said hi, how is that not possibly considered passive aggressive or hostile? And she's like, you didn't use an emoji. And I'm like, I'm like, I didn't have time to use the stupid emoji, you know?

Robert (49:03)
My gosh, I'm so happy my boys don't do that to me I am yeah, we're not emoji people or at least they're not with me So I'm so thankful. What else do you recommend? I imagine documenting everything right like whenever there's contempt or any sort of by again violation of the what they perceive as violation of the parenting agreement

Erin Schaden (49:10)
That's good, that's good. They're defining.

What I tell people is you write it all down. They were three minutes late. Write it down. I don't know, it may never be important, right? You go, if somebody came to me and like, they were three minutes late, I want you to file for change of custody. I'm gonna be like, yeah, that's not happening. Right, that's not gonna happen. But if they come to me and they're like, they are consistently late. And I, started off, see right here, they were three minutes late and I didn't say anything and I let it slide and I was being a, you know.

a flexible person and now it's five and then it was 10 and now it's two hours and now I don't know where my kids are, right? Like, and then I can use that to show the progression. See, your honor, they're being good, they're being good. But then look, it took advantage, took advantage, took advantage, took advantage, took advantage, here you go, right? So you never know what's going to be useful in a court of law. So I just say, document it all, right? And then I tell people, cause like there's lots of people out there that are like hanging in the balance, like,

Robert (50:08)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (50:19)
I just had a conference last week with a client who, a former client, and she's like, you know, here's all of the stuff that's happened over the last year. And she had it broken out in categories. And then she's like, do you think I have enough to go back and do a motion for change of custody? And I said, no, I don't. I don't think you got it yet. Right? I said, keep documenting, you know, keep documenting. And there were some other things in her case that, you know, were strategic as far as that's concerned, but like really she didn't have enough yet.

Even though she had like, I don't know, I think it was like five printed typewritten pieces of paper of stuff, right? But none of it or the pattern of it was enough to create that threshold burden that everybody's gotta get over pretty much in every state in the material changes circumstances, right?

Robert (51:06)
So even creating a spreadsheet in Google where you can access it anywhere, including the date and then what happened would be highly helpful.

Erin Schaden (51:13)
Yeah, yeah, I'm anti -spreadsheet just because I don't know how to use that very well. So I'll admit my... I get that. I get that about you, Robert. I get that. Well, you can become my spreadsheet expert. can't, I did a mediation and I created this whole fancy spreadsheet about like being able to divide up the assets and it didn't fricking work. And I just felt like such an idiot. I was like, I don't know why this is working.

Robert (51:19)
And I'm a very big spreadsheet person on every on everything.

Erin Schaden (51:40)
I'm an Excel dummy. I said I'm so sorry. I thought I was being so clever. You know, I didn't charge you for the time to create the spreadsheet.

Robert (51:47)
I am so bad about spreadsheets. doesn't matter if it's whatever it may be. It can be purchasing something and comparing this, comparing that and the different categories and being able to look at them.

So let me ask you this co -parenting coaches. Did they even work with a narcissist because there's so much parallel, you know, parallel parenting or even counter parenting.

Erin Schaden (51:58)
for you, right?

Robert (52:11)
I don't even see how a co -parenting coach would be beneficial.

Erin Schaden (52:14)
But that's what they're teaching you. They're teaching you how to parallel parent and how to counter parent. That's what they're teaching you.

Robert (52:18)
So you're not gonna get both of them go in there. It'd probably just be one parent going, probably not both.

Erin Schaden (52:24)
yeah, I mean, don't necessarily, mean, co -parenting coaching, mean, you you can try it. I mean, the problem is, that pretty much the narcissist is going to foil every attempt that you, every creative attempt that anybody comes up with to mitigate and change the dynamic, right? And, but hopefully you get skills and then you, and then you know, you become much more clear about what it is that you're going to fight about.

if you're in that situation. If you're in a counter parent situation all the time, you're going to do a lot of different things. Yeah.

Robert (52:59)
I think the big thing too is just continue being the parents you are. Be a good parent, stay within the parenting agreement. Try just to enjoy the kids, enjoy the time you have with them and be the no, no, And be the safe. Yeah. And be the safe parent because they, they need it. I think as kids get older, they recognize, they recognize the situation with the two parents and they understand the safe parent Look,

Erin Schaden (53:08)
And don't use your kids as your therapist. they are not, it's hard. Things slip out.

Robert (53:27)
I we've talked about, think what you and I've talked about this for, I mean, kids see through everything. I mean, they do. They might. And a lot earlier than we give them credit for. I mean, they do. And, and, yeah. And I think being there for them, being that safe parent, being the bigger parent, not putting down the other parent, not bringing them in, not again, not talking bad about, about the other parent. I think it's.

Erin Schaden (53:33)
They do, for sure.

absolutely.

Robert (53:54)
appreciated by the kids as well, you know, and

Erin Schaden (53:56)
yeah, I see. Well, and you know, it's like the old rule of school. Like, you know, your friend comes up and talks to you and talks a whole bunch of trash about John. Like, what do you think when the person walks away? You're like, I wonder how they talk about me when I'm not there. And then your kids are having the exact same experience, you know? I think that, you know, be the safe person, be real, be authentic, you know, take your personal problems and your personal issues. You know, if you've got infidelity, that's a hard one to overcome. A lot of bad

Robert (54:04)
Yeah. Walks away. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (54:24)
parenting occurs out of wounds, right? Like it's just, they're just wounded, right? And, and for some, and they're just desperate for anybody to give them any validation that they were so wronged, right? And your kids are not the right people for that, right? They're not the right people to give you the validation, right? They're kids. They're not supposed to be doing that. Like go to a therapist, go to a coach, go to your friend, go to your family, your pastor, whoever it might be, just not your kids, you know, even if they're adults. I tell people, like, well, I was talking to my daughter and I'm like, how old's your daughter? They're like, 25. I go, why are you talking to your daughter about your divorce?

Robert (54:47)
Yeah, I leave.

Erin Schaden (54:54)
They're like, well, she knows everything. And I'm like, that's inappropriate. Why? Well, she wanted to. So like, you're still, are you not still the parent? Right. But they're an adult. You're in litigation against this person's other parent.

Robert (55:01)
So.

Erin Schaden (55:13)
Right? Everything you say to them is going to alter and change their opinion of the other parent. And look, none of us, have I never, have I been perfect in this regard? No, I haven't. Have things slip? And sometimes it's an eye roll. Sometimes it's like, I start to see something that I don't. Right? Like there's all kinds of tells. Your kids know exactly how you feel about the other parent. You don't have to say a word. You don't have to say a word, but you know.

Robert (55:34)
yeah. Yeah.

Erin Schaden (55:39)
If you do say the words, then you're ultimately accountable for the words. And I promise you that your kid will come back later and be like, you know, I'm in therapy because you bad mouth dad, or you you bad mouth mom, you know, like, it's all going to come back to roost eventually. So just don't do it. It gives them less fodder.

Robert (55:54)
Totally agree Totally agree. So Erin what else do you recommend or what other tips do you recommend if you're going through a divorce or? Have been through a divorce with a narcissist

Erin Schaden (56:05)
get help early. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Get educated. You basically kind of like landed on a new planet, divorce planet, custody planet, and you don't know the rules, you don't know the laws, you don't know the lay of the land, they speak a different language. Like you need somebody to educate you on that, right? And the sooner you get educated, even if you already think you know everything, like the sooner you get educated by somebody that knows it, the easier it's gonna be on you. Trust your instinct.

you know, my

Robert (56:35)
Have you ever have you looked at the book splitting? you know what? I think we've talked about that. It's phenomenal book. Do you like it?

Erin Schaden (56:37)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great book. It's a great book. Yeah, I do. I like it a lot. It's a really good book. And you know, the thing that I tell people all the time is like, your head liar, your heart liar.

You've got to get past the war that goes on between these two and drop down into where your intuition lives, which is gut, because it's never wrong. It's never wrong. I will, I am, you know, I know I live in California and woo woo and everything else, but I have told clients in Maryland, like, okay.

That's your head talking, that's your heart talking, go away, be still and allow all of that to percolate down to your gut and call me tomorrow and tell me what you really think. And I've had innumerable people say to me, I'm so glad you made me do that. I was pissed at you initially because I just wanted you to give me an answer. And I'm like, I don't like being forced to give fast -fetched answers. I make mistakes. I don't want to make mistakes, right? So you go think about it, I go think about it. I'm allowed to let all of your insanity percolate down into my filter.

and then I can come back with a much more intelligent response. I think the biggest mistake that people make besides picking the wrong person to marry in the first place, which could be a whole nother podcast that we could talk about, I'm kind of writing a book about that right there. time is not as urgent as you think it is. And you can, I think it's like a Shakespeare thing, like,

I'm going to screw it up, but it's something like, you you know, a fool remains silent. Otherwise they speak and remove all doubt. You know what I mean? Like, and that's kind of how it is. Of course, you know, like, just like, look, you can't unring the bell. You can't take back the words, right? You can't. So once they're out there, like be intentional about what it is that you're putting out there in the world, right? Like be intentional about.

Robert (58:14)
Right, right, I love that.

Erin Schaden (58:30)
how you're doing things, why you're doing things, and what it is that you're saying, because someday, somebody with a black robe is gonna be looking over everything that you say, right? And you, know, quick, like, final thing. There was a client that had written a very bad word for his ex -wife, right? And put that bad word on his phone. So every time ex -wife called, this very bad word came up on the phone, and the 11 -year -old

child saw that and saw that dad was calling mom that inadvertently. like the guy was not a bad guy. He wasn't a bad guy. He was a really nice guy and he loved his kid. He was not trying. He was frustrated. Right? He was done. He was angry. He was hurt. He was pissed. Right? And that's why he did it. Right? We didn't know. Right? The attorneys would have been like, don't do that. Right? And, and,

Robert (59:00)
gosh.

Yeah.

Erin Schaden (59:28)
I don't know that that's the reason that he lost his custody case, but I know it was a huge factor because when the court looked at him as an equal co -parent, they looked at him as immature, right? And incapable of mediating his own emotions, right? And so I don't know why the court decided the way that they did. However, I know that that was part of it, right?

Robert (59:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So just everything you do, look at everything you do, write, say, look at as if it's about being evaluated by a judge. So did you just drop something a minute ago, a little hint? Are you writing a book? Wonderful, because I have in my notes, I was, when you were talking earlier, I wrote down she should write a book. so tell us, tell us real quick.

Erin Schaden (59:53)
Yep, yep, absolutely.

Yeah.

Hahaha!

Well, yeah, it's, it's a work in progress, but it's all about how childhood wounds dictate what we pick, right? That's what, that what is familiar is what is picked over and over again. And so like, I'm kind of like writing it to kind of put myself out of, because like, we'll do these things or address their childhood wounds. Like, cause every person on the planet has a childhood wound and some of us have more than one, but it's, and the wounds are the same across the board. Too much.

not enough, right? That's it, right? There's also awful trauma and all that kind of stuff, but generally those also can be categorized in too much or not enough, right? And so like everybody addressing those things and understanding because like there's this great book, James Hollis, it's called The Eden Project. Anyway, it's this magical book which has kind of spurned all of this for me, but it's like what ends up happening is that...

We believe, and as a culture, absolutely believe that there's the perfect person, our soulmate, our true love. And once we find that person, it's all gonna be great, but it's not, right? Because it's our stuff that we've gotta deal with, right? And for those people, myself included, that pick narcissists, why did I pick them? Why? That's a me problem. I'm never gonna fix the narcissist. That is a hard personality disorder to get over or to...

Robert (1:01:18)
Yeah.

Erin Schaden (1:01:35)
ameliorate anyway, but I can address why that was an attractive partner.

Robert (1:01:41)
it's your codependency issues, your empathy, whatever it may be. Right. Right. yeah.

Erin Schaden (1:01:43)
but it all goes back to the beginning, right? Where was, what was too much, what was too little and how did that play out in my life, right? So that.

Robert (1:01:51)
You know, Erin, one day our kids might be on a podcast talking to each other, bitching about how we parented them. Who knows? They will be at all. It all goes back to the parenting or lack of. So how can people find you? Cause I know people are going to to.

Erin Schaden (1:01:56)
They're gonna be in therapy over something, you know?

Exactly, it does.

I could go to ErinShaden .com. That's my website. Faiton DeLima is my law firm out of Rockville, Maryland. I'm on Instagram, Erin Shaden. I think it's Erin E. Shaden, Facebook. I'm in all the places. So thank you.

Robert (1:02:23)
And I'll put links up as well. Erin, I can't thank you enough. Really. I do. I always enjoy having you on. I really do. And, I just appreciate it. And I hopefully you'll come on again in the future as well. You are, you are the one I reach out to for any of this and I appreciate you always being there. So thank you. Well, no, I really do. I appreciate it. All right. Hey, and thank you all for listening to the dad to dads podcast.

Erin Schaden (1:02:27)
can't think you enough, you're so hot! Me too!

Anytime you ask, I'd be honored.

No problem. Thank you for always asking and thank you.

Robert (1:02:51)
You can find us on most platforms Spotify, Apple, et cetera, as well as on YouTube and Instagram. And don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button as well as leave a comment. I read every comment. I enjoy those and appreciate the feedback that you guys provide. Hey, thank you all again and look forward to next time.

Erin Schaden (1:03:11)
Bye.