Introduction (: 00:06

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Divorce Podcast, where we flip the script on divorce and show you how to have a more amicable divorce resolution. I'm your host, Tania Leichliter a divorce coach, a certified life coach, and the mastermind behind the Better Than Bitter five-step game plan course, where I help individuals build a pathway towards a more amicable divorce resolution.

Each week, I'll bring you uplifting stories from people who've successfully experienced amicable separations, proving that divorce doesn't have to be a battleground. Whether you're overwhelmed with grief, struggling with custody and co-parenting, or just dealing with a high conflict individual, this podcast is here to guide you towards reclaiming your life and being what I know is possible, better than bitter.

Tania Leichliter (: 01:09

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter podcast, episode number 42, how to communicate to get what you want in divorce. This podcast is being pulled from a webinar workshop that I did in my support group membership. I encourage all of you to check out the Better Than Bitter support group membership. It is a great resource to meet individuals who are going through divorce or who have already gone through divorce.

but also to give you an access pass to an incredible library of resources, webinars, articles, mini courses, workshops, special offers from divorce professionals, all in our membership. So again, welcome to our podcast, and this is going to be pulled from the workshop that we did in membership. So I hope that you find it useful, how to communicate to get what you want in divorce.

Tania Leichliter (: 02:04

today we're going to be talking about how to communicate to get what you want in divorce. this was actually built off of the Gottman repair checklist. And that is something that Gottman's are about building strong relationships. And I believe that you need to build a strong relationship with your soon to be ex or your ex in order to be able to not just get through mediation or through any kind of legal negotiation.

but how to co-parent and how to function with this human moving forward, right? Because they're never going to be out of your life if you have children. So learning about this repair checklist is going to be important. For those of you who are new to this and don't know me, I'm Tanya Licklider, and I'm a divorce success coach. I not only work with individuals in the divorce process, but I really do work with individuals from a transformation perspective beyond.

So really transforming lives, knowing that you are starting a new chapter and doing that from a place of empowerment, from a place of courage and making you the best version of yourself. I am a life coach. I have a degree in human development. I actually have a master's in kinesiology, which is like a health and wellness master's degree. So I've been coaching people throughout my career and happy to.

bring this communication toolbox to all of you. And I love this quote. To be a badass, you don't have to be an asshole. You can't control the other person. That person might be an asshole, but you can control yourself in terms of how you react and how you move forward.

To be honest, to be a badass is to not be an asshole and to be able to find better ways to communicate. So you will get what you want because trust me, being an asshole is going to get you nowhere. So this communication checklist that we're going to talk about, it's a really an evolution of what the Gottman's created for repairing relationships. They've just

created a series of techniques that really will help you move through this conflict towards a more amicable resolution. I'm not telling you that divorce negotiation is going to feel warm and fuzzy. That is not what amicability means. Having an amicable resolution means that you can move through this from a place of a business negotiation, not from a place of emotion.

to get you to a place where you can function as co-parents and you can function as two people that were married at one time, but you just evolved into different people and you're not together anymore. And yes, there could have been different consequences of things that had happened along the way that might've created a lot of pain, whether it's infidelity or just some sort of emotional abuse. You could be dealing with...

somebody who's super high conflict, people throw around the word narcissism a lot. But again, learning how to function and deal with high conflict individuals is just going to put you in a better, more powerful place to negotiate. So attacks and threats are only going to get you attacks and threats. And if there's one thing that you can learn from me today, it's that specific statement.

Each time you come out there with an attack and a threat, just know that what is going to come right back to you is the same thing. So moving forward, we're going to talk about these six different communication techniques. And these are things to reduce that conflict. Number one, be vulnerable. I know that's not the thing that you're thinking about as number one, but trust me, being able to be vulnerable in this process will pay off.

Two is be compassionate, not only compassionate for the other individual, but you have to have self-compassion as well. You need to be able to talk to yourself in a way that you will talk to your friends. Be understanding, really being able to understand where that other person is coming from. Because the most important thing is that you are doing a little bit more of a deep dive.

to really get an understanding of what do you want and what do they want? And they might come out and say things like, I want the house. But there's a deeper underlying meaning to that statement. I want the house. So trying to dig deeper and get a better understanding of why people are asking for what they're asking for or why they're showing up the way they're showing up.

The why is a really important question. The next one is being mindful. Being mindful is going to be important for yourself, mindfulness, but it's also just being mindful of others. again, everybody here who's going to be working with you, whether it's your soon-to-be ex, your children, your family, your friends, your colleagues,

They are all human beings and you can't control all of these human beings in your life. So learning about mindfulness and learning how you can be more mindful of each person that actually is being brought into this process is going to help you along the way. The next thing is being assertive. We'll talk a lot about what that actually means. And the last one is being appreciative. And we're going to talk a lot about how appreciation

will really get you very, very far in this process. So we're gonna start with being vulnerable. So using the words I feel, and I know when you've got your defense mechanisms up, the last thing you wanna do is bring those barriers down. But what I'm telling you is that allowing for yourself to be vulnerable in this process is healthy, okay?

I'm feeling scared. It is okay to say that. It is okay to say like, I'm really feeling scared. No matter what the breakdown of your marriage is, it's still okay to be vulnerable to what you're feeling. I'm feeling sad. You know, that individual that you're divorcing, you know, they could have been really horrible to you, but it doesn't mean that you're not sad. And you're just sad that it's the end of a chapter and that's

part of the grieving process and being attuned and meeting yourself where you are and voicing where you are in that grieving process also kind of just puts the halt on being able to be ready for that legal negotiation. So processing your emotions is going to be very important and being able to express those emotions in the process is important to get what you want. You can say things like, you know what, that was just super hurtful.

did you mean to be hurtful? Like, because bottom line is things are going to come flying out of your mouth. They're going to become flying out of your soon to be access mouth and being able to do a double back to be like, Hey, like, you know, you can also say like, I didn't need to be hurtful. That just came out wrong. You know, I'm really feeling scared right now. And my defense mechanism around that is to maybe try to inflict pain. really don't want to inflict pain. And I, and I,

I'm really sorry. And when you say things like that, when you're vulnerable to that, that's what you're going to get on the other side. So some of the ideas about the vulnerability with when you do begin to get into some of your negotiations is okay to plus pause. I feel tapped out. My tank is completely empty. I am emotionally exhausted.

Can we just shelf this for today and just come back to it? just have some, I just have to regroup, okay? Because you're not, if you are emotionally charged, it is not going to help you be able to move forward from a rational, logical perspective. The next one is that I feel the need to be strong, but I don't feel strong right now. And just like letting loose and letting them know like,

I know I need to be coming forward with this place of strength, but like today's just not a good day. And five other things could have happened today. You could be having to get up to go to work. Your boss could have laid a stack of paper on your desk or maybe, you your kid got called home from sick and you had to leave the office or your kid got, you know, called home from sick and it was puking all of the bathroom because I had the stomach bug and you had an appointment with the mediator that afternoon. It's okay for you to be like,

my God, my bucket is so full. just cannot take another drip in my bucket. Okay. Be vulnerable. Allow for the other person to understand where you are. The other thing is sometimes you're just going to be blurting stuff out and you need to catch yourself and you can just say things like, I feel frustrated. I'm not blaming you. I know this isn't your fault. I'm just frustrated. And that's okay. Okay.

But definitely make sure that it doesn't all come out as if you are this victim and you're blaming the other person for how you're feeling because when you blame somebody else for how you feel You are giving them all of the power over your emotions Okay, they are in a power position when you blame somebody for how you're feeling So in order to take back that power you need to take accountability and responsibility for your own feelings Nobody can make you feel

certain way. Nobody can make you feel a certain way. It's how you are thinking about what is happening in your life that's making you feel. So just remember that. Stop the blame game and be able to acknowledge and take accountability for those emotions that you are feeling at the time and be vulnerable to that.

make sure that they know, I'm not blaming you for this. Like, I'm dealing with my own frustration, I'm dealing with my own overwhelm, but I'm not blaming you.

Alright, so the next one is be compassionate using the words I sense. This is really about the act of listening. You know, tell me what you hear me saying, like because somebody might be hearing you differently than what you actually mean, because you want to make sure that the interpretation of what is being heard is actually what you meant. So you want to use words like what I hear you saying is X.

Is that what you meant? Is that what you meant by that? But you say it in a way of checking for understanding, not in a tone that says, wait, are you serious? Did you really mean that? That's not how you communicate. You can just use the words. What I hear you saying is that you want to have the kids

on Mondays, Tuesdays, and every other weekend. Is that what you meant? Is that what we're talking about here? That's all you need to say, okay? It doesn't have to be an escalated, angry, resentful tone to things that you say because you are, again, coming from a place of compassion. Acknowledging your part in whatever is happening in the moment. Acknowledging your part.

in the past, it's coming to the table, if there was some infidelity and that there was something that you contributed to some a breakdown, you just need to take some accountability around that and see that you were part of the problem in terms of this irreconcilable difference. And it will feel really good when you get really

honest with yourself about it and you create that self-compassion and you talk to yourself in a way that you're going to say like, I need to learn how to forgive myself. Okay. so that is really about the idea about being compassionate. Okay. Being understanding. So how do I get to yes, that is the negotiation tool we're all trying to get to getting to yes. For those of you who got to hear Diane got a yes this week.

She got a yes to her agreement. We want all of you to get to yes in your mediation agreement. I'm hoping that every single person on this call who is going to go through mediation can get to a yes. But you know what? You might only get to 90 % of yes, and you might need some help with lawyers to do that last 10%, but it doesn't mean that you don't want to move forward with mediation because you're in fear of the 10%. Get to 90%.

get to that yes, but you need to be understanding in order to do that. So the way that you get to those yeses and move that mediation process forward is that you say things like, okay, well, I agree to part of what you're saying. Okay, but I value X, Y, and Z. And so there's a few things that I'm not...

going to be able to agree with, but I'm willing to compromise. Okay. The other things you can say are things like, appreciate you hearing me out because you need to set some rules for how this mediation is going to take place. You don't want to talk over each other. You want to take turns. Maybe you do some caucus mediation, meaning that you're going one to one with your mediator and allowing her to re iterate.

to each of you what the other person said by drawing some meaning if you feel that your boundaries are not being listened to. But coming up with the rules of engagement, if negotiation, and writing down those rules of engagement are really important. It's no different than going into a business meeting. I mean, there's so many business meetings that they say like, okay, this is the way the meeting's going to be run. I want to make sure that nobody

We're going to have so-and-so present today. Let's wait to ask our questions at the very end. At the very end, we'll make sure we go around the circle and everybody will be able to ask their questions appropriately. That's a meeting, right? Well, guess what? You're about to engage in a meeting with a mediator or maybe it's with your lawyer. So you need to sit down and make sure that you have set the rules for how you are going to move this discussion forward.

The idea is you also need to be understanding. I appreciate your perspective. Can we explore some options and the outcomes that we might achieve by them, right? Can we agree to include both of our views in creating solutions? What you want to make sure is that you're focused on the solution and not on the problem.

If you can't get off the problem hamster wheel, if the problems are where you keep going around and around and around, I want you to press pause and I want you to regroup and I want you to be able to say, you know what? I think we're really stuck here on the problem, but we need to be thinking about solutions. I hear your perspective.

And this is mine. Let's just kind of write them both down and get a deeper understanding of maybe why each of us are having these perspectives. Like I gave that example. I want the house. Well, why do you want the house? Well, I want the kids to have a secure, stable environment. Okay. Well, can we create a secure and stable environment for our children without you staying in the house?

Is that even possible? And let's explore it. So again, I want you to stay very open minded and be very solutions oriented and getting an understanding for what is happening beneath the request. Okay, because if you dive deeper, I bet you will recognize and see some potential pinholes.

that you can begin to open up a little bit more to get some light through those or something that you thought was the end all be all might have alternative solutions. Okay, so please check for understanding. Make sure that you're listening and that you're not always talking and that you can understand each other's perspectives. Okay, be mindful. You have to be mindful of your emotions. Okay, your emotions.

are going to be running rampant during this process. And you have to understand that you need to find ways to calm yourself down. Now you cannot control your soon to be X. Okay, you absolutely cannot control them. The only person you can control is yourself. Okay, I need to hit the pause button. I am feeling overwhelmed. Okay, that is okay. Can we come back to this later?

I really do want to come back to this and I know it's really important, but the fact the fact that I'm super emotional right now is not going to get us to a decision. Again, these are just words that you can use. I know this is important. I want to address. I'm not feeling in control right now. Can we just allow some space for me to regroup and maybe we could just change subjects or just move forward to the next line item?

And then we can either come back to this today or maybe we just wait till our next session. The biggest one is the drops in the bucket. And I said that before, but recognize when you step into mediation, what your day has been like, what your week has been like, what are you balancing in your life? And if you have too many drops in your bucket, that one little thing is just gonna set you off. You might wanna reschedule that mediation, okay? Because...

The drops in the bucket are real, okay? Like if you got a flat tire on your way to work and you got to work and you missed your meeting and then because you missed your meeting, you had to reschedule for the end of the day, which made you late for picking up your kid from school. Again, these are all things that potentially are unavoidable, but what is avoidable is that you step into a mediation session.

at a time where you can't focus properly and that you can't manage your emotions. So recognize where you are. Okay, being assertive. So I talked about being able to say pause, but sometimes you might have to, they might keep going, right? And they might keep going and they're not like listening.

to the fact that you're like, I really need to hit the pause button. So sometimes you need to use language that might be a little bit stronger. Take a deep breath. You're like, you know what, let's just take a break. My emotions are too high right now. I just need to get some water. Okay, get up, go get some water. Sometimes whether you're doing your mediation on Zoom or you're doing it in person, some of the other words is, okay, you know what, I've totally hear you and we've just...

We are not really focused on the solution right now that's going to work for both of us. So if we can just agree to disagree for right now and then try to allow for us some more space so we can come back when we potentially have had some time to think about some alternative solutions, that is, again, a little stronger. Let's agree to disagree for now, but we know we need to come back to this.

The other one is sometimes you're going to start to get off track. A lot of times you're going to like get off track. Trust me, you're going to start talking about this and hopefully the mediator will catch you and try to bring you back to what you're supposed to be focused on. But if they don't, again, if you notice it, you can just, you know, you know, just kind of put your hand up and be like, you know, I think we're getting off track. Do you think we can regroup on what we were just talking about and

just write down this next subject so we can move forward and talk about that. But I think we need to finish up what we were just talking about. Again, emotions can be starting to run high, and you could start getting into emotional discussions, which you do not want to do. These need to be factual discussions you're having from a legal perspective. And if once you begin to hear some emotion in your voice or the other one, again, that is called getting off track. It doesn't matter.

you know, why you're getting divorced when you're moving into your legal negotiation because you just need to get through the process of coming to an agreement. And the emotional stuff that's, you know, used for therapy for yourself or for coaching, we can help you process your emotions, but it doesn't happen in the legal process. And this one's my favorite one.

because I have to say that this has been my secret weapon throughout the entire divorce process, recognizing the good. I even did it today to my ex-husband. We have two kids, they both have cars. The cars have been, this thing has gone wrong, that thing has gone wrong.

And it's created stress for the family because this kid has to be there and this kid has to be there and they both work. And my ex has made a real effort to make sure that these cars are running for these kids. So it doesn't put stress on me, it doesn't put stress on him that we can continue to function our own lives and that they have safe wheels to do. And he's been rebuilding cars and getting parts and I...

just really appreciate the fact that he's doing that and that he's saving money by doing a lot of the work himself. And I just let him know today. I just said, thank you. I just want to let you know, I am so appreciative that you've put so much time and so much effort into rebuilding these cars and making sure our kids have a safe place, a safe ride to drive on. And he's like, thanks, that means a lot. Okay, that's what he said. Thanks, that means a lot. And again, people just want to feel appreciated. You want to feel appreciated too.

the more you dish it, the more you're going to get it back. But you can't have the expectation that you're going to get it back, but it definitely will calm the waters. Don't focus on what they didn't feed your kids, how they dress them. Maybe they didn't brush their hair. Maybe they didn't set up a play date or they set up a play date with the wrong kid, or maybe they took them to the wrong birthday party.

you know what, if they took them to the wrong birthday party, make sure you're like, you know what, I'm really appreciative that you took Sally today to the birthday party. I think it's super funny that you went to the wrong party, but I really do want you to know that I'm so appreciative that you actually were able to get her there today and just laugh. Okay. You know, if your kids eat peanut butter and jelly, you're soon to be exes and, you know, don't make it a big deal. If, if the kids are having a big, a hard time with it.

and be supportive in terms of, Hey, you know what, Sally, really likes this mac and cheese recipe. I'm just going to send it to you and maybe it's something that you guys could cook together. You know, I really appreciate you making this effort to cook. know it's not something that comes naturally to you. so let me, you know, so again, be appreciative of them trying to do new things. and you know,

Anytime someone's flexible, you want them to be flexible because you're going to need flexibility in your own life. And as soon as you put the brakes on not being flexible, guess what? They're not going to be flexible for you. So being able to say, hey, if you're ever like in the need, make sure I have like first right or refusal. I'd love to be able to support you when I can. And, you know, don't have the expectation that they're going to do it. But again, if you show flexibility, they're hopefully going to show some flexibility.

so really just going out of the way to notice the good and not super safe, super focused on all the bad. and that will definitely go a long way. So I have, some breakout stuff. So, I want to give you this scenario. This one's all written out. and it looks like I have, about eight people. So we're going to do breakout rooms of two.

I know that some of you haven't shown your face and maybe you're just active listeners. So I'll try to stay on top of... If you could just put in the chat if you don't want to do these exercises or if you're not in a place to do them, and I will make sure that I don't put you into a breakout room.

But I want to have you do some real life scenarios. So this is the written out scenario. And the next one is things you'll work on with a partner. So the one is the conflict scenario is the conflict is like, who is going to keep the house? Speaker one, one person is, I want to keep the house because I believe it's the best for the kids stability. And partner number two is like wants to sell the house. Okay. So they can split the equity and just move on.

Okay, this is the conflict that you're dealing with. So how you practice these communication techniques when you are dealing with something very specific like this. So how do you use these communication techniques? An example, be vulnerable. To be honest, I'm scared that if we sell, the kids are gonna lose their home, right? And everything's gonna be changing for them all at once, okay?

That is the way to communicate about vulnerability. Be compassionate. I wanna understand how you're feeling about all this. So what do you think would be your biggest concern if I hold onto the house? The understanding is I can see why selling would feel like a clean slate for you financially, okay?

So being understanding to the partner that wants to sell. Hey, listen, I get it. Selling just feels clean. Like we both split the equity. That is being understanding. Being mindful. I'm feeling super overwhelmed right now. Can we take a short break? Right? Because you're hyperventilating in that moment. You're recognizing that you're going to get really emotional. And that is a time we just want to take a break. Being assertive.

I need to take a step away for right now and just come back to this with a clear head. Can we agree to just shelf this very important topic and maybe talk about it either in our next session or maybe we can have a conversation just the two of us again tomorrow. Be appreciative. I appreciate you being willing to even have this conversation right now. I know the house is like our biggest

difference in terms of what we want to do with it. But I want to really appreciate the fact that you're willing to talk about it today because I know it's been a real emotional thing for you. Again, that's really kind of setting the standards. So this is practice B. You need to reflect back and then you want to offer some compassion, right? So moving that up a little bit so I can see this.

Reflecting back, what I hear you saying is that the house feels like a safety net for the kids. Is that right? Is that kind of how you're thinking about it? Offer a compassion piece to it. That makes a lot of sense. I really hadn't thought about it from the kids stability perspective. Okay, so offer some compassion when you hear what they're saying, they're giving you some underlying information that might, you know,

trigger some compassion for you. So these are just the techniques that I want you to use in the breakout. So I want everybody to take a photograph of this one with their phones. And I'm going to say it out loud and then I'm going to break you up into breakout rooms. So the vacation time and holiday schedules, person one.

The speaker, I'd like to take the kids for the entire week at Christmas to visit my family at a state. Person number two, feels very strongly about keeping the holiday tradition and seeing their extended family locally. Okay. So one person is like, I want to take the kids out for Christmas. And the other person is like, I want to keep our tradition here. I want to make sure that our kids continue to go and visit the family.

the way that they always have. Whether, you know, you're alternating, we alternating years, I still share holidays with my ex. So everybody has different kinds of things that they're going to be, they're going to be thinking about. But if a conflict did arise, how would you practice vulnerability, compassion, understanding, mindfulness, assertiveness, and appreciation, or being appreciative? And then how do you show active listening?

What I hear you saying is how do you offer up empathy and maybe solutions and an offer? Like what is the offer, the solution, the empathetic solution to that other person?

Tania Leichliter (: 29:59

So thank you for joining us today for the Better Than Bitter podcast, episode number 42. We hope that you have enjoyed the information about how to communicate to get what you want in divorce. For more information and resources like today's podcast, you can visit us at betterthanbitter.coach. in our platform, you can locate our support group membership plus. Not only do we have a support group that meets

weekly, but we also have this incredible library of resources, articles, webinars, workshops, mini courses, special offers from divorce professionals, all for one membership price.

bringing together a community of people who are going through similar divorce tumultuous experiences only can make you have more courage in how you're gonna move forward in your life. we look forward to meeting and greeting each one of you into our support group membership and tune back in for more resources like today's podcast.

Tania Leichliter (: 30:57

Thanks for tuning in to Better Than Bitter, navigating an amicable divorce. Whether you are at the beginning of your divorce journey, midway through, or even done, we want the stories from our guests to give you hope that an amicable resolution is possible. If you'd like to dive deeper into today's episode, check out our show notes for a full transcript, reflections, and links to learn more about Better Than Bitter's coaching courses,

and how to connect with our fabulous guests. If you're ready for more support, you can head over to betterthanbitter.coach. Daily, you'll find details and additional information on our five-step game plan multimedia course, our one-to-one Zoom coaching, group coaching, monthly memberships, events and retreats, and a whole lot more. Plus, we've got a ton of free resources, like our monthly newsletter,

our private Facebook group, Instagram channel, and a library of articles and free webinars to help you along the way. When you go to our website, you'll be able to schedule a free 45 minute breakthrough call. Remember, we're here to help you reach an amicable resolution. Find your courage and believe in your brighter future because you know what? It is possible.

At Better Than Bitter, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.