This week The Three Wisemen of Divorce sit down with forensic psychologist and family consultant in complex family law cases, Robert A. Simon, Ph.D. If you are involved in a divorce with kids, especially litigation, you may have to endure a forensic custody evaluation. Dr. Simon provides his thoughts and insights about how to prepare for and navigate the forensic custody evaluation and how adversarial family law litigation often causes unintentional and unnecessary damage to kids.
The Three Wisemen of Divorce are divorce experts Mark C. Hill, CFP®, CDFA®, Financial Divorce Consultant; Peter Roussos, MA, MFT, CST, psychotherapist; and Shawn Weber, CLS-F*, Family Law Mediator and Divorce Attorney.
© 2024 Weber Dispute Resolution. All rights reserved.
This week The Three Wisemen of Divorce sit down with forensic psychologist and family consultant in complex family law cases, Robert A. Simon, Ph.D. If you are involved in a divorce with kids, especially litigation, you may have to endure a forensic custody evaluation. Dr. Simon provides his thoughts and insights about how to prepare for and navigate the forensic custody evaluation and how adversarial family law litigation often causes unintentional and unnecessary damage to kids.
The Three Wisemen of Divorce are divorce experts Mark C. Hill, CFP®, CDFA®, Financial Divorce Consultant; Peter Roussos, MA, MFT, CST, psychotherapist; and Shawn Weber, CLS-F*, Family Law Mediator and Divorce Attorney.
© 2024 Weber Dispute Resolution. All rights reserved.
Okay, so it's time to it's time to stop cussing.
Shawn Weber:No, it's okay because we've learned that irreverence is good for our audience. Although we are we don't aren't we don't have an explicit rating so I'd have to beep you. But
Robert Simon, Ph.D:on any given day that might actually be fun.
Shawn Weber:Welcome to the three Wiseman of divorce, money, Psych and law podcast, sit down with the California divorce experts, financial divorce consultant, Mark Hill, marriage and family therapist, Pete Rousseau's and attorney Shawn Weber, for a frank and casual conversation about divorce, separation, co parenting and the difficult decisions, real people like you face during these tough times. We know that if you are looking at divorce or separation, it can be scary and overwhelming. With combined experience of over 60 years of divorce and conflict management, we are here for you and look forward to help by sharing our unique ideas, thoughts and perspectives on divorce, separation, and co parenting. All right, gentlemen, it We're here again for another year. And we have a guest with us today. A good friend of mine, and I know of yours as well, Mark and Pete. Dr. Robert Simon. Robert, it's good to have you.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Thank you. It's good to be here. And good to be with three of you.
Shawn Weber:So how long have we known each other? Robert? I think it all the way back to 2003. I want to say has it been that long? Has it been 20 years?
Robert Simon, Ph.D:I think probably close to
Shawn Weber:Yeah,
Robert Simon, Ph.D:you were newly out of newly out of law school. And very fresh and quite, you know, enthusiastic and getting ready to begin your career and do good things. And look what happened?
Shawn Weber:And look what happened? Well, you know, but you're you're you're a forensic psychologist and a family law consultant in complex family law cases. And
Robert Simon, Ph.D:right,
Shawn Weber:you've become well known in this regard. With the national international reputation, you've I've been impressed just kind of watching your career as you've shared your knowledge with others. And, and you and I worked closely together when I used to back in a previous life when I used to litigate you actually helped me win cases. Yeah, we did. We did some good and probably destructive work together. Well, you know, it's interesting, that last case that we were on, I think you might remember it was a move away, and you sat second chair. That was one of the cases we won. But then the outcome was not good for the family. When it was all said and done. What was that winning the battle and losing the war? Yeah, if the war if the war was the well being of the family and the people in the family? Yeah, it was one of those cases, it made me think, you know, I don't want to litigate anymore, because I noticed the destruction that it causes. Yeah.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Right.
Shawn Weber:And, but But you have done a good job over the years of I always think you do a good job of keeping forensic psychologists honest. You hear they follow the procedures and follow the rules.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:You know, Shawn, I think a lot of the work I do and litigation, which I do with some ambivalence, because I think litigation can be so toxic to families think it will look up the litigation. Yeah, I think when it's going to be done, it needs to be done as cleanly. And as, as civilized away as it can. And I think that when experts come in, people like me, come in and advise the court about what they believe is in the best interest of children, I think it's really important that the court gets the kind of input. That's high quality input. And so a lot of what I do when I consult on cases, and when I do get involved in litigation in the here and now is to make sure or try to make sure that the case plan is as Child and Family centric as it can be that it does no unnecessary damage. And that if the court has say appointed a child custody evaluator or an expert to advise the court, that the work of that person is presented to the court in a fashion that makes it clear what's good about the work and what's unique about the work.
Shawn Weber:So what should people expect? I mean, we've got a lot of people in our audience that are that might be facing a forensic psychological custody evaluation or something to that effect. What should they expect? What should they be prepared for?
Peter Roussos:Can I can I tweak the question a little bit? Please? Maybe even more Ella mentally? What is a custody evaluation? Why do they happen? Why are they
Robert Simon, Ph.D:necessary? Excellent, excellent question. Sometimes the simple basic questions really need to be asked and they need to be asked a lot. So accustomed it's a custody evaluation is a psychological assessment process of a whole family. It's a, what we call it forensically informed process. The evaluator is not doing clinical work. They're not a therapist, they're not there to actively help the family solve problems. They're actually to gather information about the family about the children about the parents formulate a sense of a parenting plan, a child sharing plan, and any and ciliary auxiliary services that the family may need that support the best interest of the children and present that to the court. That's what a custody evaluation essentially is. And it is used in cases where the court needs more information, more complex information, more detailed information, more nuanced information, than it can readily get through testimony, and things like that. The courts have limited time, judges are not mental health experts, they often feel they sometimes feel that they need the input of a competent, specifically specially trained type of mental health professional. And so we do these evaluations in California. The rules for these evaluations are are spelled out in our rules of court and our family code. There are various guidelines promulgated by professional organizations that advise how these should be done, and things like that. Now, they're a custody evaluation. Thankfully, it's not needed in every child custody case, where they're needed is in cases where the nature of the conflict between the parents is such that the court feels it needs more complex information, often of its psychological nature, psychological functioning of the party's parents understanding of children's needs of their ability to meet those needs. Sometimes there are concerns about mental health issues and parents or drug and alcohol abuse and parents or abusive, neglectful kinds of parenting practices, or what I see a lot of is where the real problem may not necessarily be with mom or dad and our dad, but with the relationship between them. Where the parents are involved in such a toxic dynamic with one another, that they wouldn't be able to agree with each other, for example, that today is Tuesday. And by the way, we're recording this on a Tuesday. So and it's situations like that the courts will sometimes use an evaluation now, in my experience, it can happen fairly often that the courts will decide to use a custody evaluation when they've exhausted other methods, or when the judge just feels frustrated, and be wrapped and doesn't quite know what the heck else to do. And so they kick it over to someone like me, and they say, you advise me about what I should do. Now, what the evaluator does is to make recommendations. We don't make the judge still does that. answer your question?
Peter Roussos:It does. Robert, as you were talking, I found myself I had this thought that he that most people I think think of a child custody evaluation is being an adversarial process. Do you see it that way?
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Yes, yes, it is. It's very much an adversarial process in that mom tries to tell us all the things about dad that's not good. Dad tries to tell us all the things about mom. That's not good. The ways in which their CO parent is being hard to get along with is making mistakes with the children is using court judgment in their own lives is drinking too much. Smoking too much weed whatever it happens to be So it becomes very adversarial. And let's remember that a custody evaluation this ordered in the context of usually a hotly litigated child custody case, which is, by definition, highly adversarial. Because I've had the opportunity to be involved in divorces on a wider basis, in other words, be a part of helping the parties negotiate, for example, the property, which was I will tell you that there's nothing as divisive as litigating about children, literally about money or property or things can be can't say and difficult. But it is child's blessing. And forgive the metaphor compared to the details about custody, that it's a Bloodsport for the plan become a blood sport for parents. And I want to say something that might be controversial. But I believe it's true. And that is that often the level of conflict between the parents is checked up by the people advising them, who are those people, their friends, their family, and their attorneys. That is
Shawn Weber:so true. I've seen a lot of folks, you know, I used to litigate, people would say, oh, I want to get a psychological evaluation, because it's going to show that my ex spouse, these got this wrong with him, or she's got that run with her. And I used to tell people, you know, you got to be careful about that. Because you know, you might get what you want, you might get a forensic evaluation, and then that's a double edged sword. And sometimes,
Robert Simon, Ph.D:well, you think about it this way, you know, I mean, Mother Teresa, doesn't usually marry it till the hunt that we've all order. One of my friends says ones don't marry 10s and 10s. Don't marry ones. So if if mom thinks that dad is all of this? Oh, I mean, the chances are that mom's got a little about two. Here's the deal. You, in general, I will tell you after doing this work for nearly 40 years, and having been involved in literally 1000s of cases, either as a consultant or as an evaluator, the really the greatest risk to children, when their parents split up is the conflict between the parents, aside from abuse, neglect, and really, really bad parenting, right? The greatest risk to children is conflict between the parents about children and to which they're drawn. That's the bullseye. And in a child custody case that gets a an evaluation, it's more likely than not that they're at the bullseye. So the issue is not the issue as our friend Bill, it says, there really is no women. Because what happens is, it's a dad win. So that is to say, the evaluator sees things more through dad's lens and mom's lens or believes the dad should have the majority of custody time or whatever dad should be able to move with the kids, whatever it happens to be, in these high conflict relationships with the moms and dads, now that mom's been beaten, it's time to even the score. So round one almost always gives way to round two, which gives way to round three until the kids age out or tell both their parents to pound sand. So I'm not telling you that there's no place for child custody evaluations there. I've been lucky enough to do cases over the years, where there are certain non negotiable issues like for example, a couple divorces, let's say dad is in the military. And they've been living in our hometown of San Diego, but dad now as a Marine, or a navy person, because that's what we have in San Diego, gets a billet and has to move to another location. You know, that can be an unresolvable dilemma, that doesn't necessarily only take place in the context of a couple that's at high conflict. It's a circumstance that comes about and has to be resolved, and they may not be able to resolve it and an evaluation can be in that sense, helpful. And not highly, highly divisive. If in the run up to the evaluation, the peanut gallery, friends, family attorneys, keep it civilized. But for the most part custody evaluations aren't that way. They are evaluations done on the minority of families that again, as I said before, we're the parents won't agree that today's Tuesday
Mark Hill:Wondering occurred to me, as I've been listening to Robert, is that, you know, I'm the financial guy. So I'm trying to put a financial slant on this as we go through it. And the one thing that occurs to me is that the issue sometimes comes down because the amount of time with a parent has an impact on child support, you can. And we've talked many times when we've tried to go to alternative dispute resolution about the problems with buying and selling children in negotiations in divorce. How often is it a financial motivation that you've seen driving this because I don't, I remember a case I did two years ago, where the dad wanted 5050. But the minute he got the kids, he would hire a babysitter and go out with his girlfriend. So again, that was a financial motivation.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:From my perspective, from my vantage point, let me say, I rarely know whether there's a financial motive, because let me put you this way, Mark. It, if, if mom says to me, I want to go from 6040 to 7030, because I need a couple extra 1000 bucks a month. She's just on herself. And right. Now, I know that her motive is not exactly what you might want to call child centered. And it's unlikely things go well for her. And most people have the common sense not to tell us that and their attorneys to tell them that. And we as about valuators, don't deal with the money. So I don't often know that for certain. I can smell it sometimes. Right? I can sniff it. But I in advising the court, if it gets there, I can't tell them that I think that's what's going on. Because I am not going to be collecting data about that. If somebody tells me that, and it comes to me, I can use it. But I'm not going to say to a parent, how much of your motivation is financial. Understood. But I think I think the financial motivation is in the background. For me in my in my experience is in the background in a minority of cases, but a substantial minority. What's more in the foreground, our desires to vanquish the other parent. I'm right, you're wrong. And here's what happens. So you know what I mean, even when when parents are married, even when parents are successfully married, they will disagree about parenting when somebody says it's okay for the kids to see this kind of a movie, the other parent says I'm not comfortable with it. Or these are friends I'm not okay with the I'm okay with those friends are a few of these things like that. So parents, because they're successfully married don't necessarily agree about therapy. Anyway, when they separate, those differences become exaggerated. And what begins to happen as the adversarial mindset between the parents develops is that they will view the differences between them through a negative lens, versus we're just different. Okay, I like to tell the parents, if you look at a normal bell shaped curve, that plus or minus two standard deviations from the mean isn't normal parenting, okay. And if you know the bell shaped curve, the plus or minus that third standard deviation is a very small percentage. So if I've got a parent at plus two standard deviations, and I've got one minus two standard deviations, they are both still in the normal range, but they're, they're separate. Subjectively, they're very, very far apart. And what they tend to do them this is take a very negative view of what the other person's doing, or what we see a lot. And I know all of you do, too. If an event happens, say in the home of a parent, and the other parent doesn't have complete information about it, they will assume the worse. And the assumption morphs into a fact. And then the level of conflict, the nature of weapons that are used in this war escalates. So this is part of what I've learned over my many years of doing this work. And more recently in my career as I've gotten older and perhaps certainly don't have the taste for the battle, but also have become much more alert to the negative consequences of the family. I tried to Instead of using my skills in a manner that divides a family, I try to use my skills in a manner that it least tries to establish even small areas of common ground where we can we can grow that.
Mark Hill:So Robert, I've heard so many clients say to me, I'd be better off in front of the judge as soon as they hear the terrible things he slashed, see, did I know I'm gonna get everything I want? Well, how would you respond to a client that speaks in those terms?
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Well, puking. And, by the way, if we weren't being recorded, I would put it more more, we can BLEEP you. And let me tell you why I say that. It's not because I don't think judges are earnest, sincere, compassionate men and women, I believe that a vast majority of our judicial officers deeply care. But there's a number of things going on here, let me start with the biggest one. The judge doesn't know these children, the judge doesn't love the children. Okay. But Judge cares about the children in an abstract way, the same way that any of us do. But if the train comes, and we're all on the railroad track, I'll push my kid out of the way, but I ain't pushing your kid out of the line, I'm running to save my own backside right. So the judges a stranger in a black robe, doing the best he or she can with very limited information to make the kinds of decisions that parents with lot more information struggle with. Also, let's remember, our court system is underfunded, desperately underfunded, and under resource. They do not have the time, the knowledge, the personnel, the bandwidth, to deeply consider the nature of what's going on, that is involved in these decisions. And then finally, is this one, this is really what tipped me over, in terms of my becoming much more committed to that this peacemaking model that I'm using now is that when we give to others, we have the ability to make the decisions that are properly ours to make. When we ask a judge to essentially make parenting decisions. We give up our efficacy. We give up our power, we give up our sense of can do. And to a system, a system, which is a an important, you know, is a thing. It's not a it's not even an organism that's alive, it's a thing. It's a governmental entity, we give up our sense of efficacy, we give up our sense of personal power, we give up our sense of being able to make the kinds of choices that parents want to be able to make about their kids, to assist them. And the more we do that the more we believe in our powerlessness, the more frustrated we become more likely that frustration spills over into conflict. It's a self perpetuating cycle.
Shawn Weber:It's so true, what you're saying, you know, I've served as a privately compensated temporary judge before on a few custody cases. And I found that what happens is I I get if it's not clear what the facts are, you get frustrated, and then you get angry with the parties. Yeah, it's just a normal human reaction. And I found myself being very angry at people. You know, which, which I think is what happens to these judges when they get these cases. And the facts aren't clear. It's a He Said, She Said kind of a thing and the initial reaction is pox on both of your houses.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Or, or let me just split the difference. Sure. A little over here, a little over there. Yeah, the four of us. I know that the four of us are all fathers, we're all parents. Some of us are actively raising children. Now some of us are retired from actively raising children. Me being actively raising children mark. Yes. The way I like to say it is the kids are on their own and the Bank of dad is closed, at least mostly closed
Mark Hill:by Father said children grow up but they don't always grow away.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:They're young. And, you know, if you think about when when you're raising your own children, how certain decisions that need to be made decisions have to have some gravity to that are really hard to make. And you have a lot more information and a lot more knowledge about who your child is and what's going on in their lives. Do you hope the judge has a, a grain of sand on the beach amount of knowledge compared to what you have in his having to make these decisions about somebody else's child. Okay, and let's remember this too, about the judge, the judge is human. So the judge is not perfect. Yep. And the judge may not feel well, that day, that judge may have had an argument with his or her spouse that morning, or may be having some other personal issues that week that are affecting their presence there, their attention, their their mindset, their even their, their sense of how happy they are to be doing their job. Right. And so, when you when somebody says, I'm just gonna go take a chance with the judge, I remember growing up and thinking that judges somehow were these omniscient, more perfect people than we are. I've gotten to know as we all have many, many judges over the year. They are every bit as flawed as everybody else. They just happened to be given a title called judge. But omniscience is not a part of their job description, any more than it is for any of us as a custody evaluator, in some ways people see me as the quasi judge, I'm going to be advising the judge. Right? And what I tell them is you're going to have an imperfect person, do an imperfect evaluation and present it to an imperfect judge. Okay, that's 123 strikes, how many does it take to be out? So when people want to do when families want to do a custody evaluation, I'm always careful to try to educate them about the realities of it, so that their expectations are realistic. It's another method to getting to an outcome, but it is by no means magical, perfect. And we psychologists that do them are only human beings. And none of us have absolutely flawless skill sets. We all make mistakes every time. Every case.
Peter Roussos:Robert, it sounds like the the model that you've developed. One of your goals is to create a more collaborative child custody process is what it sounds like. So I wondered if you could speak to what does it take for a child evaluation, custody evaluation process to be more collaborative, and I'm thinking about how that gets incorporated into the work that, that Shawn and Mark and I are doing visa vie, non adversarial family law? Settlement, you know, disputes.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Yeah, yeah. And so the way that the model that I've, I want to say I've developed but I am developing, and I say I am developing, because it's a work in process I'm learning. And other folks who are using this model are learning with each new case. And we're sharing what we learned and the mistakes that we're making, right and the successes we're having, but mostly we learn from our mistakes. And it incorporates a consensual dispute resolution process into the evaluation. So the parties stipulate, agreed going in, that after the evaluator has collected the data, and formulated that analysis of what they think is likely a best interest set of recommendations that the evaluator will sit down with parents and their lawyers share that and assist them in negotiating an outcome to the best of their ability. I call the consensual dispute resolution rather than mediation. And I'm a big I'm a big believer in mediation. Because in the law, mediation has a very specific meaning. And it includes that nothing that takes place in mediation is everything's confidential. Whereas during the consensual dispute resolution process, if I'm seeing a particular parent behave in a certain way towards their CO parent, or, or certain kinds of information come to light in that process, and I think, maybe important to include in my database, should I have to make recommendations that I use that information, so it also keeps the party smartest, they know that they can't go in there and behave poorly, and not have that reflect on them potentially down the line. It also means that from the very beginning, the kinds of things I'm trying to learn about include not only this the standard typical stuff that we Learn in custody evaluation. But I'm trying to learn about how the parents see each other much more carefully how they make decisions or don't make decisions together. And where there is common interest common ground and some overlap, albeit, maybe, maybe there's overlap that they don't see that they have, because they have got a different spin or color on it. And my job is to make it more mutual. So but you have to pick your your cases very carefully. There are certain issues that this kind of process is not suitable for. And there are certain lawyers who are not going to buy in, because they want to go to court and litigate. That's what they're trained to do. That's what they believe is the path. And in some cases, that the relationship between the two attorneys is so poor, that part of what goes on. And folks, I want you to know that this does happen, that sometimes the conflict between the parents gets jacked up, because the attorneys are trying to beat each other, as opposed to really, truly represent their client.
Peter Roussos:And the story that comes to mind for me is I had a case this is years ago, when I was still taking court ordered therapy cases was I had a, I was seeing a mother, the mother in a case. And at what point I asked her, you know, how long had there been process been going and what did it cost them? Her legal bills at that point in time, were half a million dollars. They didn't have a light at the end of the tunnel. And it was a situation where the the parties hated each other, and the attorneys hated each other. That's right. And it was this perfect storm?
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Well, Peter, you know, when I hear you describe that kind of a situation, I just feel a combination of deep, deep sadness and rage, and rage. Because we the professionals shouldn't be a part of the problem, we should always try to be a part of the solution. And if look, I've been involved in cases as immediate, where it's really clear that the mix isn't good. I'm not the right person for the job, I gotta get out, because my presence is likely to make things worse, not better. Right. So I'm not either I'm not getting along with one of the attorneys or I don't like one of the attorneys or one of the parents is rubbing, neither you kind of get out. Because it's not our job to make things worse. What we want to do is be the kind of people when we go camping that always leave the campground cleaner than when we found it. I talked about it as being very, very aware of a footprint relieve on the family, the image I like to give people is the family is protonated on the ground on their stomachs. And we're just walking on their backs, you know, and, you know, maybe even wearing boots, you know, and leaving these and if and if it's if you weren't stiletto heels, you might be leaving that real impression. And we're walking on the backs of the family leaving footprints all over them. We don't often see ourselves as a part of the system, but we are when we act on a family, we change the family and we own a part of the change. I think that's such
Shawn Weber:a key point, Robert, because, you know, there's a certain level of emotional intelligence that you have to have when you're doing this work, to be able to not become part of the problem, have that self awareness to be able to see, okay, I'm being triggered personally, I am becoming part of the problem, I am too enmeshed. And there's some attorneys out there and some psychologists frankly, and some financial people that don't have that gene, if you will, to be able to be self aware.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:We're all people, right? We have egos. Some of us operate more from ego than others. And we, we we like to see ourselves as trying to benefit people. So it's hard for us to wrestle with the fact that sometimes what we're doing is actually harming right. But the other thing is to recognize that no matter how skilled we are, we're never more powerful than the family ever, ever, ever, ever. And so it's our job to always remind the family that we're here to facilitate In the process, assist them in reaching their goals, but not take ownership of the outcome, and not insist that it look a certain way. It's their decision. And at the end of the day, we can't make it for them, we have to bail, they'll ask us to what should I do? What should I do? Tell me what to do. And I'll do it, then it's my decision. And these are your kids. No, thank you. So, so, you know, having done this work now for nearly 40 years, and really feeling free, very grateful, deeply, deeply grateful for the career that I've had, and the work that I've been blessed with by this universe to do because I think that working with families and trying to impact the lives of children is calling. And it's a privilege, it's a privilege, we have to be mindful of our footprint on the family. And we have to be mindful that the tools we have are very few. And they're blunt tools. They're blunt tools. I mean, if somebody needs it, if I'm a forensic psychologist, and I'm writing a parenting plan, and what the family needs is to have a splinter very carefully pulled out, all I really have is a rusty knife. Okay. And so we have to be careful about recognizing that our tools are few, the crude, and that at the end of the day, if we can empower the family. Now we've really done great work.
Peter Roussos:Can I ask Shawn and, Robert, you referenced the case that you worked, where you said you won the battle but lost the war. And I'm I'd like to hear more about how you're thinking about that.
Shawn Weber:It was one of those cases where you know, you feel really good as an attorney, when you hear the judge quoting your trial brief in their statement of decision, and we I literally, with with Roberts help, frankly, we won every issue. We overturned an evaluation that didn't go our clients way. And I remember there was a moment, Robert, when you and I were preparing for this and we're reading the evaluators work, and we're like, you know, I wonder if they were right about this. They didn't have any there wasn't sound forensic ly what they done. It was mostly hunches and things like that, that we got pretty good at attacking when they showed up at court when you have a forensic show up at court with hunches, that's pretty easy to skew Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Right. Right. And so this case, they were right. You know, and what happened was, I don't want to say too much because I might divulge the identity of the person but we won. But that what ended up happening in the family dynamic was not good for this child in the long run. You know,
Robert Simon, Ph.D:I have? I have a case that is pretty well known because it actually went up on appeal and made public law where the question was, should the child relocate to Northern California with one of her parents that rebated Southern California with the other parent. And I, without going into a lot of the detail, I recommend child stay in California in Southern California with one of her parents because the other parent was truly wholly unsupportive of her relationship. The parent that wanted to relocate was completely unsupportive of the child's relationship with a parent that was staying here and had a history of this kind of what we call alienation with older children in the same family. So I made the recommendations I made. The kid remained in Southern California, what I missed completely, was the fact that so the war was the battle was won. The dad in this case won the battle. But the kid could not adjust to life in Southern California with her father. Because, as I understand it, mother kept tracking her up and agitating her and wouldn't let her settle in. Okay, and she had to Therefore go and live with her mother, in order to be able to kind of settle in and begin to live our life again, even though the way that the mother had handled the child's relationship with the father was problematic in my view. So that's an example of it. Yeah. The technical but technically right outcome, but the holistically wrong outcome. This this case, sometimes that I just got a ruling on a case today where I was an expert witness were in Another state where the father had perpetrated all kinds of domestic violence and alienation against the mother involving two teenage boys. We proved all that up at trial of the judge had absolutely right but leaving the kid with their father, because they'll never settle in with their mother. Another example of winning the winning the battle and losing the war. Yeah. Sorry, good. Ice. And by the way, these stories are not unique to our four practices, right? This, unfortunately, is an existential reality of families and divorce. And what I find is, a lot of us that do this work, and we do it with our hearts, have real trouble getting our heads around the fact that those outcomes have to be left to be what they are. We didn't break it. And we just don't have the tools to fix it. It's to come. We don't know how to fix we don't.
Mark Hill:Years ago, I had an attorney back when I was routinely doing the collaborative divorce trainings, I had an attorney say that she got our invitation right after Christmas, and it saved her career. She said just before Christmas, she had a court, her client one everything. She was elated. This was my greatest victory. She looked over at the husband who was not her client, his hands are down in his face, he is crying, she looks to her client thinking she's gonna see joy because they've won. And she's got the same result head in hands crying, and she sees one of the adult children. Obviously not involved in the custody dispute, but she sees one of them crying in the audience, one of the adults, and she's like, I have just heard this fantasy winning my biggest victory. And when she got the invitation to the collaborative training, she said that was a light and a way out.
Shawn Weber:Yeah, that happens a lot. You know, there was that marvelous film, marriage story. Have you guys seen that with Adam Drescher? Yeah. And pattern with a one of the attorneys is patterned after one of our friends in LA. But
Robert Simon, Ph.D:to it was to
Shawn Weber:La attorneys it was patterned after really was that the other one was pattern two. Okay, the male and the female. Yeah, interesting. But there's this the courtroom scene I think is so powerful. Where you see these two parties sitting, you know, it's Scarlett Johansson and Adam, driver of the parents and the, the attorneys are going at it, and you don't even see the judge? Hardly. You just hear these attorneys kind of going at it with each other. And you see, it's marvelously portrayed, how the parents are just becoming part of the furniture. They're not really, they've lost all their power, they're totally disempowered. And then there's a later scene where you see the two of them after the psychological evaluation has happened. Where you see the the father played by Adam Driver just completely melt down. And it's because these people completely lost their control their power. I always tell people stay in charge, you know, if you believe my office from from a mediation, and you have to go to a stranger in black robes, you're now no longer in charge.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Well, you lose your sense of personhood. Yes. Really? Do you feel like a? And I've been through it. And I mean, I, as you all know, I've been divorced and you know, the happy ending my kids mother night, our very close friends. And, you know, it's, it's and my kids are in their 30s. And it's good for them still. But, you know, I look, I don't want to say that. All court based on divorce litigation, custody, litigation is bad, that it's that it's a bad thing. Always, always, always, it's not always a bad thing. There are cases where the parents simply can't agree. And you've got to get somebody to call the balls and strikes. You've got to get to an outcome. Also, particularly in cases where there is a lot of psychological violence, something that we call coercive control, where a parent has essentially lost their sense of effect effectiveness in the world and efficacy. Getting a very strong advocate to present their case in a court of law can be very empowering and healing for that parent. So as is the case in almost everything on this earth, there are no absolutes.
Shawn Weber:That's
Robert Simon, Ph.D:for most parents, for most people, divorcing It is harder in some ways. Try to do it in a businesslike way. Because it requires you to quash and take some of the hurt and the anger and that dynamic and process that elsewhere. You know, I think about it this way, sometimes, even when divorce feels like what you need or want, it's still a tearing and a refund. It's a terrible, devastating loss. And often in order to withstand the loss and go through what it takes to trial, travel through that loss and get to the other side, what it what buoys you and keeps you from feeling. completely crushed is your rage and your anger. It can it can make you feel a little bit more alive, a little more powerful, a little more animated. And so that anger is part and parcel of divorce. Because anger is a part of coping with us. And our job is family law professionals is to help people process that in a healthier way. But always remember, at the end of the day, that the they are the clients are more powerful than we are and are bound and determined to make a mess of it. They're going to
Shawn Weber:Okay, well, let's leave it there. That's That's some good, good stuff. You know, I think the moral of story is there's no absolutes absolutely endorse that statement. You, you lose control. If you go into court, sometimes you have to. But if you can do it outside of court, that sounds like a better option. And it sounds like you know, when you're going into a situation where you're working with a forensic psychologist, what would you what would you say is the last word for that, Robert?
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Make sure that the forensic psychologist that you choose to have involved in your case, recognizes the pluses and minuses of the legal system and their own limitations and approaches it approaches it. From my very human perspective. First in a technical perspective, second.
Shawn Weber:Well said, Well, Robert, if somebody needed to get a hold of you, what should they do? If they wanted to hire you?
Robert Simon, Ph.D:They they can email me and they can call me. And I don't know how you guys handle that information in your podcast, but I'm certainly glad to provide that
Shawn Weber:we'll definitely put a link to your website on our podcast description. Your website is Dr. Hyphen simon.com. That's Dr. Dash simon.com. Correct? That is correct. Okay, great. And then Mark, if somebody needs to get a hold of you to work on a financial issue, what should they do?
Mark Hill:Go to my website, act divorce.com EAC, di V O RC in.com.
Shawn Weber:And Pete, if they were to want to work with you licensed in marriage and family therapist, as they're working through their divorce, what should they do?
Peter Roussos:And also through my website, which is Peter Russo's dot com P e t e r o u s s o s.com.
Shawn Weber:And if folks have a dispute that they need resolving I'm the guy they should call it's Weber dispute resolution.com Weber with one B dispute like we had a fight resolution like we solved it.com Good.
Robert Simon, Ph.D:Gentlemen, thank you for including me in the in the podcast and the discussion today. I've really enjoyed just kind of, you know, joining the three Wiseman
Shawn Weber:today, we're glad to have you along as a fourth way.
Peter Roussos:Thank you guys. Take care. Bye bye.
Shawn Weber:Thanks for listening to another episode of the three Wiseman of divorce, money, Psych, and law. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe. Leave us a review and share with others who may be in a similar place. Until next time, stay safe, healthy and focused on a positive bright future. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Every family law case is unique. So no legal, financial or mental health advice is intended during this podcast. If you need help with your specific situation, feel free to schedule a time to speak with one of us for a personal consultation.