Fall: Roots, Wings, Adventures and Tears

Fall transitions; putting kids on the bus for the first day of school, packing away the summer things, and for some, closing up the cabin. For us, this year meant sending our youngest child, Katie, off to college.
Like most parents we like to talk about how we give our children “roots and wings”. We say it with a smile during the early root-giving years, mention it with some sadness when we put them on that bus for the first day of school. As they approach high school graduation, we bring it up only if we see a box of Kleenex nearby.
While I suppose there are many “wing events” along the journey, for me, none can equal that moment when you give our children a goodbye hug in a college campus parking lot and wave to the out the window as we drive down the freeway heading for home. After that moment, things are never quite the same. Their bedroom, while still filled with their childhood treasures, starts to feel more like a quaint museum.
Yet, for all of the sadness that can come at this time; ushering children through their college years and beyond, has been, for me, the most rewarding years of parenting. It feels like a time when we can open up that package that has been sitting under our tree for 18 years, and observe the person that we are turning turned loose on the world.
We begin to have real conversations with our children, sometimes lasting for hours, and we realize that they have ideas, opinions and personality traits that are uniquely their own. After awhile, it becomes easier to focus on the dreams and adventures that lie ahead for them and it begins to rekindle a feeling of rebirth in us, almost as if we get to be young again ourselves.
In working with divorce clients, we talk a lot about new beginnings and of the challenge of grieving the past to make room for the next adventure. I admire people who can absorb the pain of loss with dignity and courage and prepare themselves for the next great chapter.

Labor Day weekend feels like a brief pause that gives us just a moment to reflect on things that just happened, before we gear up for the next chapter. Hope your fall is filled with memories, peace and anticipation.

Father Knows Best: Or Not.

I know we often miss the good old days, but we also fail to notice the ways that things are better today. Like the role of Dads, for example. I am grateful to have been born into an era where a Dad was expected to be more than just a stoic provider. I am glad that today's Dads are expected to be more involved in the lives of their children but are allowed to just be themselves.
In my earlier parenting years I tried, without success, to be a perfect Dad. It was a great revelation for me when I realized that was not only impossible, but unhelpfu.From watching Dads daily in my divorce practice, as well as being a father to my own children, I have come to believe that the best gift a father (or any parent) can give to their children is to express your love for them by simply Showing Up in a genuine way.
Looking back over the years, I am grateful that I was generally able to show up to be a regular part of their lives. Sometimes that meant coaching them in sports or attending school events.Sometimes that meant simply making sure I was home for dinner every night or simply sitting in the next room while they worked on their homework. And sometimes that just meant being a real human being: laughing, crying, making mistakes, showing weakness and letting them know that no one has to be perfect.
When I was growing up, there was a popular TV show called Father Knows Best. Like many shows of that era it starred a flawless Father. That was not me. I did not always know best. Sometimes I did not have a clue. But somehow, I helped raise three amazing children, so maybe showing up and loving them was all I was required to do. Who knew?

A word of caution about being too careful.

From the time we are born, we are told to be careful; by our parents, then our teachers, our doctors, our lawyers and just about anyone who wants us to avoid certain risks. It has often made me wonder whether we are more at risk of being “too careful” in our lives. As Thoreau once warned, we may be running an even greater risk of “carrying our songs to the grave.”

It seems to me that every act of caution carries with it some hidden risks and, unless we look at the risks on both sides of the equation, (the risk from inaction as well as action), we are lacking true balance in our lives. For example:

When a parent tries to avoid the risk of harm to their child or their lawn by refusing to let the child play in the park or run in the yard, they may be creating a greater risk of stifling the child’s social development.

When we avoid asking someone about their lives to avoid awkwardness, we may create a greater risk of appearing not to care.

When doctors hold back information to reduce the risk of being sued, they may seem to lack authenticity and create a risk that we will distrust them.

When lawyers tell us to put disclaimers on everything, they may appear to be putting their needs ahead of the clients.

When we avoid doing frivolous things so that we can work long hours to make a living, we run the risk that we will not live as long, or that we may not enjoy our lives quite as much.

When we avoid saying what we really think, in order to avoid being misunderstood, we create a greater risk that we may never truly be understood.

I heard Robert Gates say recently, that the only way to avoid making mistakes is to “say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”

I am not saying we need to throw caution to the wind; but it might be okay to at least crack open a window to let it catch a little breeze.

So, all you who read this blog, this is your day, to go out and take those risks, make those mistakes, seize the day.

Caution: The content of this blog is for information purposes only. Please consult your doctor, lawyer, clergy and parents before doing anything out of the ordinary. The blogger is not responsible for any damage caused by the reckless behavior that may result from this advice. (However, if all goes well, I am hoping you will give me full credit.)

Letting Go of Our Plans to Make Room for What Really Happens

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

- E. M. Forester


I first heard this quote from one of my favorite divorce clients. She was clearly still in pain about the divorce; deeply saddened by a divorce she did not want. This quote helped her move ahead. The faith that somehow there was a better life waiting for her gave her the strength she needed to move ahead and helped her make healthy decisions during this critical juncture in her life.

That was many years ago. I talked to her this past year and she was happier than she had ever been; maybe happier than she ever thought she would be. Hearing about happy endings is the greatest reward my job offers.

It doesn’t always happen this easily. But I wonder if she could have found so much happiness if she had not summoned up the courage to let go of her old beliefs about what her life needed to be. I have watched divorcing people hang onto their resentments like grim death and I have wondered whether they will ever be able to let go of the anger and the hurt.

I cannot judge them either way. I have not been divorced but I know how hard it can be to let go of things. There is a part of me that wants to hold on stubbornly to my way of looking at things and my expectations of the way are supposed to happen. I have always believed in new beginnings. It has been only recently that I have started to understand how new beginnings must be preceded by burying cherished old plans.

For many, the ability to let go of the need to completely control our destiny is a matter of faith. For others, it may be simply the triumph of experience over delusion. In either case, coming to acceptance of this reality seems to bring a sense of peace.

Do Arguments Work? It’s Debatable.

I went to law school because I was good at arguing and, like most people, I thought that was what lawyers were supposed to do. Today, I spend most of my time helping my clients understand how little can be accomplished through arguments.

Arguments by lawyers are generally no more successful than the arguments most of us have in our homes. Yet, somehow they are hard to resist. It has taken me many years to accept that fact. During the first 20 years of my legal career I spent a lot of time impressing clients with my skills in argument. Clients would come to me and describe some wrong that their spouse had committed and ask me to “do something”. I often responded by writing great argumentative letters and my clients loved it. They did not realize they had just paid me $250.00 per hour to do something that was actually going to make it harder for them to achieve their goals.

Helping my clients achieve their goals usually means helping them convince their spouse to agree with them on many key issues. (More than 95% of all cases settle, so it generally comes down to persuading the other party.) The letters I sent, (and most letters sent by attorneys in these situations), failed to change anyone’s mind. To the contrary, the best arguments simply caused the other spouse to become more entrenched in their r positions and resulted in the other attorney writing a similar letter “arguing their case”. These return letters, of course, always caused my client to become even more entrenched in their positions as well, driving both parties farther away from achieving their goals.

When I reflect on the impact of my arguments in my personal life, the results are
about the same; (at best harmless, at worst damaging to my ultimate goals.) So, what does this mean? Should we abandon our efforts to advocate for ourselves and should I, as an attorney neglect my obligation to advocate for my clients? Of course not. The problem is that we have all come to equate arguments with advocacy so we fail to notice that most arguments are actually very weak tools for standing up for ourselves or others.

The subject of just want constitutes effective advocacy, (or standing up for ourselves), is a subject for another day. For now, I will simply fall back on the old adage that we “catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” When I recently reminded a friend of this old saying, he was quick to point out that “in fact, you can catch even more flies with manure.” Can’t argue with that.

Too Easy to Get Divorced? (Or too Easy to Get Married?)

People often ask me if it is too easy to get divorced. I usually reply that I think it is really quite difficult to get divorced. But, I know what they mean. They wonder if more people would stay married if divorce was more difficult to obtain.

I doubt that creating legal barriers to divorce would keep couples to stay together and, even if it did, I don't think many of us would be happy with results. Couples who stayed together long after the relationship has failed do not necessarily do themselves, or their children, any favors.

Unless we can find better ways to make longterm relationships work, forcing people to stay married will only be window dressing. I am not wise enough to hold the secret to preventing the deterioration of relationships but I am convinced that helping people strengthen these bonds is truly worthy of our attention.

I also think that the success of these efforts will depend, in large part, on our ability to address these problems as early as possible. Too often couples find that at least one spouse has reached a point of no return long before any serious effort has been made to rehabilitate the relationship. When I hear these stories from my clients I often wonder if they might have had a chance to save the relationship if there has been some type of constructive early intervention.

How early should couples confront the challenges of divorce? I suppose we could all stand to learn a bit more about relationships from the time we first start yelling "mine" in the sandbox. But since my focus has been primarily on learning how to sustain longterm relationships, I am wondering more about how we can help people when they are considering making a true commitment. It seems there is much there is more we could be doing to help couples prior to marriage. Couples who enter marriage understanding that even the best marriages will be difficult and who prepare themselve to confront these challenges will likely have a better chance to avoid the pain uncoupling that I witness each day.

Does that mean we should make it harder to get married? I doubt that creating legal barriers to marriage would will have any positive effect. However, I do think that we are capable of developing a culture that focuses on helping our friends, neighbors and family members think about marriage,(and child bearing) differently. Maybe if we can, at minimum, create a collective "speed bump" that helps people slow down and reflect on the depth of their commitment before they put that big deposit down for their wedding bash.

Letting Go and the Peril of Southeast Monkeys.

I am convinced that most of our happiness, and our peace of mind, comes from learning to let go. Most of our life difficulties are not related to things we lack but by our attachments.
In the classic book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig talks about the lessons learned from the Southeast Asian monkey trap.
In Southeast Asia, monkeys are sometimes such a nuisance that they need to be trapped and moved farther out from the cities. The natives have come up with a clever way of capturing them through a homemade monkey trap.

“The Monkey Trap consists of a hollowed out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through the small hole. The hole is big enough so the monkey’s hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice to come out. When the monkey reaches in, he is trapped — by nothing more than his own rigidity. He can’t revalue the rice. He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it.”

— Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

As ridiculous as it seems to imagine a monkey who cannot get free because he simply refuses to let go of rice, I know that I am constantly clinging to things that are just as certain to keep me trapped. Letting go is frightening and unfamiliar but generally brings peace.