How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:00)

If your ex is still controlling you and you keep reacting, explaining, or trying to keep the peace, then there's a good chance that you're actively hurting your legal case without even realizing it. Because, just because your marriage is over, it does not mean that the control has magically

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:23)

If you're going through a divorce or you're thinking about going through a divorce, then this is the podcast that you've been waiting for. Hosted by Morgan Stogsdill, the head of family law at the largest family law firm in the country, and comedian Andrea Rappaport, we are gonna help you avoid the biggest divorce mistakes So let's go.

This is How Not to Suck at Divorce.

Morgan Stogsdill (00:50)

So as you know, I came back from a girls trip last weekend. if you know me and Andrea from the last many episodes we've done, you know that I love girl trips and Andrea can't stand them. So I know that she's already thinking and cringing over there, but stick with me. I want to tell you what happened there. Are you ready, Andrea?

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:10)

No, but okay, here we go. Girls Trip, take one.

Morgan Stogsdill (01:14)

All right, take one. So we went to one of those spa places where like you're in a robe for three days, you get a lot of spa things and you know what happens at those spa places.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:25)

They touch you in special places.

Morgan Stogsdill (01:27)

No,

they do they do things that I can't stand and you can't stand. There's a lot of woo woo. Help me out.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:36)

⁓

yeah, like sound baths and like talking about your feelings and how the mind body is connected, that kind of stuff.

Morgan Stogsdill (01:45)

Totally, and you know we can't stand that. And especially

me, who's just so, I feel like I live my life like logical and all these things. So anyway, long story short, besides the spying, and I won't even name where we went, because they don't even be hate mail, but besides the spying, my girlfriend signed us up for a class. And I had to go, because all the girls were going. And the name of the class was Embracing Your Happiness, right? So I'm like, okay, how bad could this be?

Well, within the first three minutes, I'm sitting in a semicircle in the dark with a fire going and I have a tambourine in my hand. Exactly, tambourine in my hand, music on, and he's encouraging all of us to get up and dance with random strangers, right? I know.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (02:19)

Welcome to my hell.

my God, I wish

I was there. I'm so mad that I wasn't there to watch this.

Morgan Stogsdill (02:34)

I know, and I was like, what would Andrea do? And so I was like, you would just get up and stop being a loser and dance. So I have this tambourine, I'm dancing. I'm like, I'm just doing it, okay? Because this is awkward and I'm doing it. But then the class kept going, kept getting better because he thought he was like the master of all sayings, right? He thought he was so genius with his sayings throughout his happiness class.

And they were so bad that it was so good that I had to write some down and share it with you on our podcast. Are you ready for some of these sayings? Okay, I'm going to give you three and I am going to ask that you do not comment until after the third one. Are you ready? Number one, every stone in your life is a stepping stone and the last one is a tombstone. Do not say a word. Number two, life is a privilege.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (03:03)

I cannot wait.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hello.

Morgan Stogsdill (03:26)

Take care of yourself first or you'll end up in a hearse. Okay, one more. One more. And the final one, be a power couple, not a sour couple. I mean, literally, like, I, do you have something to say to this? I was like dying because they were so bad. You know what it is? It's a testament that you can sell anything and you can be

How Not To Suck At Divorce (03:31)

Hey!

It is this quack who what?

Morgan Stogsdill (03:55)

Anything you want. This is what this guy sells.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (03:58)

Jesus fuck and though it's scary is that this motherfucker probably has a podcast too and people are probably going and listening to this person It's like the dr. Seuss of life advice I mean I would not could not in a car and I would not could not in a hearse what? Herce's the curse

Morgan Stogsdill (04:17)

I know, in a happiness class,

he kept talking about death in the happiness class and I'm like, good God, what are we doing here? But it reminded me of our podcast and besides these ridiculous sayings that he's probably making money on somewhere, it reminded me what we say to people is an unpopular opinion, but it's basically like, you don't need the quack online who has no credentials that's telling you because they got a divorce and a certification from the internet.

that now they are your coach for your divorce. Like, nope, nope, nope.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (04:49)

I have to remind you though, speaking of quacks and things that quack, when you and I took our little girls trip, which was one night, which I feel like was a very good first step for me, like talk about stepping stones.

The baby step of me getting into a girl's trip is one overnight with you downtown. When we saw, my God, I can't remember her name. The fortune teller, the psychic woman, the mind reader, the body reader, you know what I'm talking

The woman with the beads and the shit. And she said that you need to get in touch more with yourself and like explore your like happiness and what brings you joy. So I think this woman saw it coming. I really do.

Morgan Stogsdill (05:20)

yes, I do.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (05:34)

Blame her.

Morgan Stogsdill (05:35)

I did. Yeah, I did. went and explored my happiness and now all I'm thinking about is a hearse or my tombstone.

when your divorcing spouse is still trying to control you. Maybe you can use some of these sayings that I just gave you to get out of that control.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (05:49)

Maybe you want them in a hearse, but they still have you in their curse.

I mean, come on, who's Dr. Seuss now?

So in this episode of How Not to Suck at Divorce,

this is what you're going to get, okay? You're gonna get some illustration of the behavior because it's important that you all hear us describe what's going on so that you don't feel crazy. We're gonna explain to you why it happens. We're gonna

Morgan Stogsdill (06:27)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (06:38)

tell you why it's really dangerous to not address it. And then we're gonna give you concrete ways to shut this shit down, both legally and emotionally.

Morgan Stogsdill (06:49)

And remember this control in divorce cases from your spouse doesn't always look loud. It's not in your face at all times. Sometimes it looks polite. So some ways that we see this happening specifically are financial controls. Somebody saying, I'll pay this when I feel like it, or I know you have a huge outstanding credit card bill, but I don't know if I'm gonna pay it this month.

you know, moving the goalposts of what you have decided or agreed upon, micromanaging parenting decisions. You know what else is a big one that I see a lot? Weaponized silence or delayed responses. Is there anything more frustrated than that?

How Not To Suck At Divorce (07:30)

Well, we just talked about that a few episodes ago and we were talking about how do people move a case forward when the soon to be X is intentionally delaying it. That's a power play move.

Morgan Stogsdill (07:41)

Exactly, or another one, needing approval for things that don't require it. You you've lived in this hell for so long with this controlling spouse. And so now you're in the divorce case and you're trying to take back your life and you're worried or they're saying, need my approval before you agree to this or move forward with this. And in reality, it's just old bad behavior and control coming back into the divorce process.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (08:07)

You know, what you said at the very beginning, you said, it's not always loud. It can sometimes be more coercive and polite, which I mean, my God, we gotta get that needle pointed on a pillow. But it makes me think of a divorced couple I know where everybody loves the husband because outwardly he's like Mr. Nice guy. Like he's like, hey, how you doing? Hey, you lost weight, Bob, you look good.

No one sees what's really happening and that this guy is a fucking monster. And it could be the other way around, guys. Don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on the men. There can be women who people are like, she's so charming. She's the head of the PTO. She does this. She's that. Yeah, but you don't see the fucking psychopath that he's living with. it does. And even to the person you're divorcing, it might not be you.

Morgan Stogsdill (08:41)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (09:05)

dumb

bitch, you blah blah blah. It can be well, they could be saying the right things and the best interest of the children. I think this, this and this, but it's not really about the best interest of the children. It's still about control. And that's what's really important is to help discern between the two.

Morgan Stogsdill (09:27)

long time ago I had a couple and let's just say if you listen to our podcast we talk about Chad and Brenda they are our fake couple and At this point in this case, I represented Brenda and they were an older couple so they had many many years behind them of different behavior and Similar to what you were just talking about Andrea from the outside. They look like this sweet elderly couple

But the husband behind closed doors, Chad, was not so sweet, super controlling about everything Brenda did. And when we got into the divorce, one of the things that I want you to know is that divorcing, if you draw that line in the sand and you go through the divorce process, it doesn't just automatically cure controlling behavior. It sometimes exposes that behavior. And it takes a little bit of time for lawyers to kind of perk up and be like, ooh, something weird is going on.

Basically, representing Brenda and we would have these great phone conversations like this is the strategy, this is what we're gonna do, is everything okay in the house? They were living together at this point because didn't make financial sense to kind of split them up until the divorce. And would say, is everything good? Yeah, yeah. Is everything good in the house? yeah, it's fine. Get on the same page, everyone's happy we end the call. And then I'd get like a nonsensical email. I don't want you to do what we just talked about.

don't subpoena this, don't do this. And I'm thinking to myself, what? And actually after a few of those, I would talk to her on the phone. And then she finally sent me an email. It took a bunch of those emails. And she finally sent me an email and said, listen, I have to be honest, Chad is like over my shoulder at every point. And that's why I write you these emails. And that's why I do a 180. And so when you're talking to me, I don't feel safe. I feel good where we are. But when I have to end the conversation,

How Not To Suck At Divorce (10:56)

Thank

Morgan Stogsdill (11:20)

I've got Chad in the room demanding I send you a different email.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (11:25)

That is, I'm so glad you gave that example. And that is a very, that is a very exaggerated example of like control, right? Like it doesn't get much worse than that. It's almost like having somebody put a gun to your head, right? And saying, this or else. Control though can also look really quiet. Like not at all. Like it could be,

simple little things that they say like, wow, it's really a shame that you're deciding to move through with this divorce because it's really going to devastate the children. You know, I understand that that's what you want and you're not happy, but gosh, ⁓ here's another line that's used all the time. It's really a shame that you feel the need to do this and spend all of the money that could have been used on the kids college fund. And what a pity that you're choosing to do this.

Why does this happen? Why are they still doing this? You decided to exit the marriage. Let's just say that you were the one who decided. There's an automatic loss of control there. That loss of control, that rattles them.

That's destabilizing. So naturally, if you're playing a game of tug of war and somebody really yanks that rope in their direction, well, naturally, you're going to pull back harder in yours. The reason why I'm saying this right now is I want you to anticipate this. If you are planning on exiting a marriage where the person you're currently married to likes the control, then I want you to anticipate what we're telling you.

Morgan Stogsdill (12:56)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (13:05)

going to pull back harder. This control will often escalate after a separation. Divorce doesn't cure the controlling behavior. actually just exposes

Morgan Stogsdill (13:08)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (13:21)

some access to what they have, but it doesn't remove the way the neuropathways in their brain that they're entitled

to do these things. So again, it could be as big as what Morgan just described, like literally Chad standing over Brenda's shoulder saying, you're gonna delete that. You're not gonna say this. This is what you're gonna say to her. Or it could be Brenda saying to Chad, I can't believe you're doing this after everything that I've given you, after everything I've done.

I sacrificed my life to put you through med school. I did this. I did that. And now you're saying that you're not happy. Brenda might be

Morgan Stogsdill (14:06)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (14:11)

right, but the reason why she's saying that is to manipulate and control what Chad does.

Morgan Stogsdill (14:18)

one of the most dangerous things in a divorce case when there's control issues going on that I see is at times this control from your spouse can almost split you from your attorney. And we're not talking, this is an actual thing that happens, it's called splitting. And we're not talking about that today, but it's a really unique thing to think about. And basically what it is is,

Your spouse's control is driving a wedge between you and your attorney. So you effectively are being controlled and you don't know who to believe. Even though your attorney is supposed to be your trusted confidant, they are the one that takes you through the process. The control is effectively making you either not give them all the details, not use them when necessary.

or you ask yourself during really important times like does my attorney have my best interests in mind? In general that should that should be yes a resounding yes but if you have someone in your ear who you've been used to being forever that's saying your attorney's the worst your attorney's running up the bill your attorney's making really stupid allegations like over and over again at some point you might be doubting your attorney.

And so that's called splitting. So that's a really tough thing that could happen in your divorce if you are being controlled by your ex-spouse.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (15:41)

That is so terrifying Like that's bothering me and I'm not even going through a divorce right now because what a waste of time and money and what a stupid amount of extra stress that somebody doesn't need. what does somebody do? if your attorney is starting to sense that

someone is being influenced by even they're like the person they're divorcing, what are the action steps that you can do to stop this so that you're not hemorrhaging cash and wasting time and driving yourself deeper into a hole?

Morgan Stogsdill (16:16)

Yeah, so, you know, first of all, you have to have that conversation with your attorney or the attorney has to identify something else is going on, what's going on.

Is there a way that we can help you, et cetera? On the flip side, there are some action steps that you can do if you are being controlled. Number one, for parenting issues. Use our family wizard to reduce the stress, reduce access to you, create records, create a reactive communication timeline. That's one way. Another way, if you're being controlled, you wanna think about specific court orders that you might put in place.

Vague agreements do not hold up. Vague agreements, the person who's controlling you loves to walk through those and see what other control they can get. They don't follow vague agreements.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (17:04)

Give me an example of a vague agreement versus a very specific, well thought out agreement.

Morgan Stogsdill (17:12)

A vague agreement. Brenda and Chad should have reasonable communication regarding their son, Johnny. What the hell's reasonable mean? is like, forget it. I don't care. Everything's reasonable in my mind. So I'm gonna harass the shit out of Chad. That's what I'm gonna do.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (17:29)

so basically it's not leaving shit up to interpretation.

Morgan Stogsdill (17:33)

Right, are times that I don't want to say never use the word reasonable because there are times that that makes sense. It's like, you know, a judge can interpret what a reasonable person would do. I mean, they know that a reasonable person, if you're Brenda, you wouldn't be texting Chad 100 times in one day. That's not reasonable. But these really kind of like fluffy language agreements, especially with somebody who is really controlling, they just don't work. So you want to think about what you can do to try to stop that.

Another thing I've seen it happen, I think it's really, it's in those cases where it's just so difficult. The cases are so high conflict. At times, instead of co-parenting, you might have to parallel parent. You just might have to do that.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (18:16)

And here's something that I'll say about parallel parenting. It doesn't have to be forever and ever. You can go from a parallel parenting situation and once the divorce is over and the dust has settled, you might be able to co-parent again. Parallel parenting just means that you're doing your thing, they're doing their thing. You're not bouncing things off of each other.

Is it the healthiest thing for children? No, but we already know that. And guess what? Sometimes the healthiest thing for kids is not available. That kind of goes out the window and that sucks, but that's what it is. And this is about survival. Your kids will be okay. They need one strong and healthy parent. That is all you need. In line

Morgan Stogsdill (18:51)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (19:05)

with parallel parenting, I wanna talk to you about something that you can control.

that we don't need your soon to be exes agreement or buy in on at all. And this will help stop that control. It's the way you're communicating. I want you to stop what they call jading. Jading, it's an acronym. It stands for stop justifying, stop arguing, stop defending, stop explaining. Stop getting into the weeds with them.

Morgan Stogsdill (19:12)

you

Thank

How Not To Suck At Divorce (19:39)

Use less words. The more words you use, the more power you're giving them. Fewer words equals more power for you. Just don't. And it doesn't have to be like people love to use the term like gray rock. I'm gonna gray rock them. I'm gonna gray rock. Okay, no, that's a very kind of old antiquated vision that people use. And I don't think you need to go total stone cold on them.

Morgan Stogsdill (19:44)

you

How Not To Suck At Divorce (20:08)

Just give them a little less. Don't give it so much oxygen. Not engaging is not the same as not agreeing. So be mindful with what you're doing. So,

When you get a message from somebody, that really inflammatory text message, take a minute before you respond and then think, do I even need to respond to this? Is this a text message that warrants a response? Morgan just mentioned our family wizard before. If this is something regarding children and there's a lot of control regarding kids, then you likely do need to be.

on the parenting app where this stuff can be monitored. And also if you are on an app, then they, you can then set up in the settings feature that you only get messages once a day from your co-parent. And then you can decide what you're responding to and whatnot. But let's say it's not about the kids. It's just about something else divorce related. Just because they text you and say, I need a response in the next hour. No, they don't. They're not your boss.

Morgan Stogsdill (20:57)

you

No, they don't.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (21:17)

They're not God. They can wait. Take a breath. They don't need anything in that moment. Also, they know how to push your buttons. They know how to push your buttons better than anybody else. So keep that in mind. Take a minute before you respond. The last thing, so we just gave you the Jade acronym, which is stop justifying, stop arguing, stop defending, stop explaining.

Morgan Stogsdill (21:40)

you

How Not To Suck At Divorce (21:45)

I want to remind you, and Morgan will get into it, of the most helpful acronym that you can use when you do need to answer their questions and you want to make sure that you are not giving more oxygen to the control. That acronym is BIF.

Morgan Stogsdill (22:04)

if you haven't heard of BIF, I know it sounds ridiculous. We're giving you a bunch of acronyms, but BIF was invented by our dear friend, Bill Eddy. Bill Eddy has wonderful books that are out on Amazon that you can look up. And BIF is very helpful when you're co-parenting with somebody in a high conflict situation or just being married, trying to divorce somebody who is a controlling person.

So what BIF stands for, it's when you're responding to an email or a text message, it stands for brief, informative, firm, and friendly. And it basically, if you want more information, and I highly suggest you do, go look up the BIF books on Amazon, but it helps you actually respond in a way that doesn't invite more argument. It doesn't lay out your entire case. You respond, you give them information, you are firm, and

Ultimately, you're friendly so you don't look like a complete lunatic if you're in front of the court. One of the things that Andrea was talking about is you don't always have to respond. I want to talk to you about being baited by somebody who is controlling. It's pretty standard that somebody who's controlling is going to try to bait you. And what I tell my clients all the time is if you are not talking about children, there is no reason in a divorce process that you should be talking about financials or anything related to the divorce process because

That is when you have a controlling person. That's when they're baiting you. They're trying to get you to engage so that they can keep their control over you. So if you do get a message about something other than children, maybe it's about financials or maybe it's about the court case coming up, you need to ask yourself, why are they messaging me? Is this some sort of control?

there are issues of control all the way through potentially a divorce case, but there are times where it really kind of passes over that line where we're like as lawyers, you know what, this is getting inappropriate. So control at some point, if it just continues on, it can turn into harassment.

And there are remedies in most jurisdictions for harassment and how to stop that harassment. So you need to know with your lawyer, what I suggest that you do is if you feel like you're being controlled or you're feeling guilty about doing simple things, control can take so many forms. It could be even going to the grocery store that you're worried that you're gonna spend more than $50 because you're gonna get a text ⁓ message from your ex. I had a client once that was every time,

that he went and spent some money on the credit card, the wife had a notice coming to her phone. And so he would get a text message every time he made a purchase. Why are you purchasing this? Why are you at the grocery store? Why are you at Nordstrom? Wherever he was, that is control. So those are issues that you want to get in front of with your lawyer. You want to talk to your lawyer about it and you want to loop them in so that you know.

When am I being just emotional and reacting or when is this controlling behavior? When does it cross that line that we should go to court and do something about it?

How Not To Suck At Divorce (25:11)

How do judges view control? How is it, you we say all the time, like, the judge doesn't really care if you're being emotionally abused. I'm really sorry, but that's really hard to prove.

Morgan Stogsdill (25:21)

Well, it looks at different ways for court remedies. So for instance, if it's financial control, let's talk about Chad going to the grocery store and he's getting texts all the time from Brenda, why are you spending this? The remedy might be there that you talk to your lawyer and the lawyer goes into court and gets some kind of an order for temporary support for that person. So then they're not being monitored with every dollar they're spending. That's just one remedy to kind of reduce that control. Another thing for my old client,

who had her Chad breathing down her neck at all times that she was sending emails to me. One way might be talking to your lawyer about seeing whether it rises to the highest kind of extent where we could go into court and ask the court to effectively make Chad go find a different place to live. Those are ways that we could take control out of the

How Not To Suck At Divorce (26:12)

Are you ready for my very unpopular opinion that's going to make everybody wait?

Morgan Stogsdill (26:17)

I... If they're gonna hate you, let's do it.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (26:20)

Yeah, right. Control only works if you let it. You can't. It's on you, the minute that you stop letting the control work, they no longer have the control. Control is a two-way street. What happens if you're playing a game of tug of war and you just let go of the fucking rope? You let go of the rope, guess who falls down? Not you, them. Fall down, let go.

You know what, go for it Brenda. You wanna do all these things, wear yourself out. Cause I am taking myself out of this game. Because I'm not in this divorce to argue with you. I'm in this divorce to get out of this divorce, to get to the other side of the road or the rainbow if you're dancing in a tambourine cave with Morgan. But you know, I'm here to move on with my life. The longer that you in...

gauge, the longer that you are in that victim place of, he's controlling me, she's controlling me, it's a dangerous mindset and it's going to be really hard to get you out of it. So step aside, get off the roller coaster. What is it? What is it that they really have?

Morgan Stogsdill (27:39)

Mm-hmm. ⁓

How Not To Suck At Divorce (27:39)

If you don't do this, I'm going to what? Is there really a gun

behind your head? Let's go back to your client. Let's go back to your client who actually had her ex-husband physically standing behind her. What was the real fear? Had she not done what he said, what would have happened?

Morgan Stogsdill (27:59)

I, you know, I don't know, because it didn't happen, but I can guess he'd probably get very angry, yelling, screaming. I don't think he physically would have hurt her, but I think it would be just a temper tantrum, a big, big temper tantrum, which she was trying to avoid. And one of the things I want to say about control, which Andrea makes a good point, if you don't engage, the control kind of goes away.

when you are engaging in that control consistently, I call this squirrels during divorces, because it's like, you are on this path to a divorce. squirrel. It's like one of those things that takes your mind off of the real thing that you're there to do. It's like, squirrel, that's another issue. It's a control issue. She said this today. She did this today. She sent this message today. And it's like,

Okay, yeah, but like we are trying to get you to the finish line here. So we want less squirrels in your case. We want the clear path to

How Not To Suck At Divorce (28:57)

And I'm not saying that the fear isn't real. And temper tantrums, even though it's just a temper tantrum, when an adult has one, it is scary. I lived through that. I know. I am coming here and I'm telling you right now, don't let the control get to you, blah, blah, blah. I totally let the control get to me for a long time. So please don't think...

that I'm coming at you at a place of like, I'm smarter and wiser and I would never. No, no, no. I am not smarter or wiser. I made these mistakes and if I could go back again, I would have said, my God, you dummy. Why? Why did I do this? Why did I let this person have so much power over me?

Morgan Stogsdill (29:24)

you

How Not To Suck At Divorce (29:47)

We just explained why they do it, but what we're telling you is if you continue to let them control and dictate what goes on in your divorce, then are you really having an authentic role in this? Are you really agreeing to terms that are the best for you and your life and your children? Or are you just scared because they're continuing to tell you how much of the family money you're wasting?

Is it driving a wedge between you and your attorney? And guys, you will know when you're being controlled. It's when something inside your body has that little gut punch of like, ⁓ something doesn't feel right.

When you get that text message from them and your stomach drops or you feel slightly nauseous, a little ⁓ bit of a sensation that makes you feel a little uncomfortable all over. That's your nervous system saying, buyer beware. So in that moment, what do we want you to do?

Morgan Stogsdill (30:46)

Right.

I've got four clear concrete takeaways for you. When that is happening, the first thing I want you to do is talk to your lawyer about tightening up the structure, whether it's legal or logistical. That's number one. Number two, I want you to reduce access to yourself. OK, that's a hard

How Not To Suck At Divorce (31:08)

What?

Morgan Stogsdill (31:09)

So I want you to basically reduce the ability for the opposing party to be contacting you or harassing

I want you to stop over explaining. You don't have to respond to everything they say. And one thing I will give you there, especially if they make ridiculous, insane allegations, you might just simply say,

I absolutely disagree with what you just said. And that's enough. Do not engage in that explanation. And the fourth one, if it's related to parenting, I want you to get support outside of the co-parenting dynamic, whether it be a therapist, our family wizard, those kinds of things, that starts to reduce the control structure that you're

How Not To Suck At Divorce (31:52)

Here's what you do to make this stop. And if you feel like this is happening, don't be a baby. Tell your attorney. Tell your attorney.

I am so embarrassed to admit this because I am a 44-year-old woman, but I'm still letting him or her call the shots. Help me not do this. Morgan, something else that I want to make sure everybody understands. You mentioned before about how people can really get a tangible grasp on BIF and some other tools that they can use when they're communicating with a high-conflict individual.

Go to our website and grab the guide, you guys. It is a $20 guide and it literally holds your hand and helps you with communicating in the most effective way with somebody who's trying to grasp control.

Morgan Stogsdill (32:29)

you

That's right. If you need more, go to our private community. It is totally free to join online on Facebook. Everyone's very excited in there. They're sharing their stories. You feel like you have community. We answer every DM that comes to us. And if you need more, go to our episode there's an episode on there that you're dealing with right now and it will make you feel better. But what I want to leave you with is this.

control fades when access fades. Think about that.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (33:15)

Yes,

Our goal is to get you in that dark, weird cave with Morgan dancing with a goddamn tambourine. We know you're not gonna be doing that today. Today you're in the thick of it. Okay, fine. Say it, say where you are, admit where you are. I'm in the thick of it right now and I'm still feeling controlled by Chad or Brenda. Okay, name it, name it.

Once we name it, once we tell what's going on, we're giving it less power, less oxygen. Use these action steps. You're not gonna be able to squash the fire your first go, but every little baby step forward, every little stepping stone, if you will, is one step closer to the grave, or whatever that quack said. we're tombstone, God bless America. We don't want you in a tombstone. We just want

Morgan Stogsdill (33:44)

you

Tombstone.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (34:10)

What is it there, Hearst, to not be your curse? my God, we got to end these analogies, but listen, you're going to get there. Divorce is a marathon. It is not a sprint, but that is why we have this podcast. We are getting you the right information. We don't want you wasting thousands of dollars or thousands of hours listening to dribble-drabble that doesn't actually help move the needle for you.

Morgan Stogsdill (34:36)

That's right, because remember this, you are the boss of your life and you are the boss of your peace, even when you are in the divorce

How Not To Suck At Divorce (34:44)

And you know what will be the other bosses of you. On the days when you feel like you can't do this, we are going to remind you that you can. You are in fact in this moment doing it. The fact that you're even listening to this podcast right now shows yourself that you are taking an action step to being healthier and happier for yourself, for your children, for your family. You will get there.

I know your arms are tired from doggy paddling, but just keep swimming. I promise you're going to get to the other side.

Morgan Stogsdill (35:16)

and in the thick of it, remember this, you have got

How Not To Suck At Divorce (35:19)

and we my friends have got you.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (35:24)

The How Not to Suck a Divorce podcast shall not be copied or rebroadcast without consent. This podcast does not contain legal advice. The information heard on this show shall not and should not be used as legal advice.