Hello and welcome to Revolutionize your love life. Do you

want to know more about love relationships? What makes them

work? How to create the one of your best dreams?

Do you want to be in a really healthy juicy

love relationship? In these podcasts, we will give ideas and

practical advice to light your way. Whether you're looking for

a love partner already in a relationship, you wish could

be better or leaving one that has run its course.

There will be something to inspire empower and support you.

Revolutionize your love life is a fortnightly podcast where you

will access the knowledge and wisdom of love experts and

relationship coaches from across the world to help you find

true fulfillment in love. I am your host, Heather Garbett.

Welcome. I'm here again with Brandon Rourke cares who is

a licensed clinical mental health therapist in the US. She's

worked in the mental health field for over 22 years

in supporting now Children, adolescents, parents and families in her

clinical practice. Over 85% of her practice is focused on

supporting Children and adolescents who have come from two homes

who live in two homes and the co parents navigating

parenting from two home structures. She's an exponent and trained

collaborative divorce, therapist, and mediator and co-founder of the wonderful

organization, parent team. Welcome, Brandon. Thank you so much. Thank

you for having me Heather. You're so welcome. It's lovely

to see you. So today we're going to talk about

co parenting cycles touching on how the negative marital cycles

continue through co parenting and the importance of creating a

new healthy relationship. So the parenting can be different too.

How would you like to begin that? We could just

dive right in, I think. Yeah. And in, you know,

in, in a lot of different parts of my work.

So I work with as a therapist as a clinical

mental health therapist for Children and teens um and families

as a whole system. But then I'm also a mediator

and and work to do collaborative divorce work. So it's

outside of the courts and outside of litigation and I

help parents write parenting plans. So I guide them, um

give them a lot of education about mental health development,

right? We don't, we, we write a very different parenting

plan for a two year old versus a 12 year

old versus a 16 year old. And in that work,

I'm able to see them from day one. So sometimes

contemplative time of divorce. So they're just contemplating, maybe they've

come to talk with me. I do divorce option sessions.

So just talk them through kitchen table divorce, mediation, collaborative

litigation, all the different, you know, here in the US,

those are our terms but I think they're similar, right?

Is what, what are some of those different options? So

that's like day one they're just contemplating and I see

the right away. Right. I can see some of the

relationship cycles and the dynamics that are going on. Maybe

you have someone who shuts down, maybe you have someone

who is holding a lot of angry space in the

room. Um Maybe you have someone who has, has more

of a passive aggressive way of communicating. Maybe you have

someone who's bringing up the past a lot and struggles

to ask for what they need or make requests for

the future. So I'm seeing these dynamics through, through these

um you know, divorce options and then if they do

collaborative remediation, their whole parenting plan pro and just the

whole process of divorce. And then I also see with

co parents of the kids that I work with. So

just kind of a lot of scope and a lot

of you with the families that I work with. And

what I noticed is that even some of the kids

I work with whose parents were divorced six years ago,

seven years ago, eight years ago, if they didn't have

helpful intervention tools and strategies from day one, they are

continuing their negative marital cycle throughout the last six years.

Seven years, eight years. So nothing has changed for them

and, and what's devastating and what I see is that

oftentimes they make a decision, the best decision that they

could to divorce. Right. And have two homes hoping and

thinking that it will be better. Right. Because that's the

hope is that especially for the person who initiates it,

if you're the person who was left that feels very

different, but sometimes there's even a spark of hope and

transformation that, OK, I'm gonna set up my home, how

I want. I'm going to, you know, do the best

I can do with parenting. I'm gonna get a different

job than I always have. I'm gonna engage in things

I once loved. So sometimes there is this transformation but

then you've got this continued cycle that of communication cycle,

emotional cycle, attachments like all of these different pieces that

just continues over here into their co parenting. So these

parents are getting, they're not getting any transformational change. They're,

they're just continuing this marital piece and they're exhausted their

mental health and well being is completely taxed and they're

not enjoying parenting their child because they're fighting so much

with their co parent and their child desperately needs them

to be present. But there's so much noise in their

life over here with their co parent. So when I

get to be in those early moments with families, in

those early moments, if I'm the their mediator or their

collaborative divorce practitioner, I really try and help intervene right

away. Maybe that's they take our, we have an online

course and a workbook. But in my office, I'm, I

have like a big white board and my marker and

I'm drawing what I see and I'm saying, correct me

if I'm wrong. But can I have your permission to

kind of draw what I'm seeing going on in my

office right now? And this is similar right when people

do eft so that emotional focus therapy and really kind

of looking at what are some, where are we going?

Are we stepping back into that cycle? Well, we're not

in marriage therapy when I'm working in their divorce. But

I find parents are so appreciative because they're like, yep,

that's exactly what we do or sometimes they correct, you

know, like no, actually over here, I'm feeling this way,

but this comes up and he always does this, she

always does this, she always does that. So we're drawing

that cycle. What's the negative part of the cycle? You

guys, where do we get stuck? OK. So when we

identify that, then that allows me and I ask their

permission, can I give you some ideas and suggestions and

some resources to work on your stuff in here because

they are no longer each other's person, right? They're not

doing this work together anymore because they're not in marriage

therapy. But if I can then have them go to

a transformative, more generative, you know, do the work for

themselves, like conscious uncoupling, if they're even willing just to

read the book or they're willing to get a coach

and do the five step process and do that work

and understand what am I bringing into this cycle? Then

we come together. And I say, OK, well, here's our

path over here. How can we create a new generative

transformative co parenting cycle? A new cycle that's healthy and

transformative, that's for your kids. Your kids are in the

middle of that and then let's generate this way www,

right? And we just almost think of it as like

the wheel starts turning a different way. So when they're

both willing to engage in a different way, we see

that healthy cycle start to come out and I truly

see it in my office. And what's so neat when

you have a co parenting coach is that when they

start to go back over here and they get into

that negative cycle, I early on ask them permission to

interrupt them and to point it out and I say

we're getting back into that. We're gonna, what do we,

you know, we're gonna go back over here into this

more generative transformative co parenting cycle. That's healthy, so beautiful,

so beautiful, it can make such a difference. I think

of it like turning an oil tanker. I mean, I

don't work with parents with kids specifically, but I do

work in conscious and coupling and you see, you know,

if, if you keep going that way, you're gonna end

up in the Antarctic, if you could just nudge a

little bit, you could end up in the Caribbean. Where

would you prefer to go for warmth and comfort? Absolutely.

Yeah. And I think it's, it's a whole beautiful process

because it brings so much into consciousness. It brings the

childhood patterns and the understanding of emotional relating that we've

learned from our childhood. It brings it out into the

fall so we can look and see if we want

to behave like that. Again, we can see how we've

continued to live that in our adult relationships and where

that's taken us. And then we can move from that

sort of place that really triggered place when people are

divorcing and they're, they're back to their most raw selves,

their childhood selves, their regressed selves. If you want to

say that you can bring them out of that and

they can think in a much more mature and generous

way towards the other person from a place of mutual

understanding and forgiveness even and making amends to each other,

which gives so much more resources, love, whatever you wanna

call it so much attention to the care for each

other. Even though the boundaries are different, they're no longer

each other's person. But in a co parenting way, how

they can support each other to co parent well, and

then most especially for their Children who they can co

parent. Well. Yeah, absolutely. And even, you know, when I

was working and conscious and coupling with our practical client

and noticing that sometimes, you know, when you get to

that sort of step, step four and instead, like when

things start to get really real and we are talking

about making amends and I've had, you know, had clients

say I'm, I'm not ready. Like I, I can't do

that. I can't, I can't do the soul to soul

practice and, and you know, talk about what I did

what they, you know, kind of working through that and

healing and transforming and, and when we take a moment

to pause and talk about the freedom and the transformation

that happens within this is not for the other person,

this is for yourself. So you're not carrying because when

they carry, you know, whether it's the anger, the rage,

the hurt, pain that, you know, all of those really,

all emotions are meant to be experienced in this life,

but some emotions are so incredibly intolerable for us, right?

They're so uncomfortable and so hearty and I see that

so much in divorce and, and when we're carrying that,

like it is the the vessel, right? What is that

saying? Like he erodes the container which it's in and

so it it can, it can be eroding for us

and when they can see that like when you can

release that and find some of that generative and transformative,

you know, energy and space in their life, which I

truly believe we all find, we have to have a

really good coach to help us find it and transform.

Like there's this lightness in people. There's this, ah, I

mean, I felt inexperienced. I'm wonderful friends with my first

husband. Like, I mean, it's just like we're, we're generous,

we're kind, it wasn't always that way. But when you

can find that is such a different space and place

to walk in life, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. And

I liked what you said about the self and the

self forgiveness that the self understanding. That's why I behave

that way. Oh, goodness me, I could see why I

was needing to protect myself and I can see the

effect of that on the other person and on my

Children and I make a promise to myself. I'm never

gonna do that to me again. And the concomitant it

won't happen to them or them. Right. Yes. Absolutely. Mhm.

So if you got sort of fundamental prevention and intervention,

things that you can put a spanner in the works

early on, how can we spin it? So they start

the ship starts turning that way. Yeah. Well, in our,

you know, Jen and I, when we created parent team,

you know, we had done collaborative divorce together. That's how

we had met, we were mediators and had done a

lot of this work and she's um she's a financial

professional. But I, she's always like, I think I was

meant to be a therapist. So she's kind of, you

know, not a trained therapist but incredible with people. And

we just noticed there, the resources that were out there

for co parents, a lot of the feedback we got

from, from parents was that they felt shame, they felt

shame after they were doing some of these interventions or

um you know, workshops are different, their classes and things

like that. So we're like, oh no, this is the

last thing you need, right? I mean, I went through

a divorce and I had people in my life who

shamed me and family members. Who should I was like

that. What do we, we hold people with care when

they go through loss, when they move someone through death

and our brains experience very similar neural patterns when we

go through divorce. But what do we do? People pick

sides? They, they just get, you know, those layers of

support around us, sometimes humble. So we just really wanted

to wrap around them and you know, through working with

hundreds of different families, we put together sort of these

six modules, right? In our workbook. And our course of

first starting with, what's that, that support for the individual,

right? So the support for that individual which can be

conscious and coupling and then we have some layers of

different tools to care for themselves. Talking about, you know,

wise mind and making decisions with your best mind and

just some different intervention tools there. And then, you know,

we have a module that's really talks about how to

talk with your Children. And even if you got divorced

two years ago and you have the conversation with your

kids, maybe it was when you were driving to swim

practice or something like that and you just blurted it

out in the car that you know, your other parent

and I are getting a divorce and it wasn't done

how you wanted it to be done. The beautiful thing

about Children and teenagers and the developing adolescent brain is

that we do have the capacity for resiliency, the ability

to spring back to rebound when we have intervention, support

and help. So if parents sit down and say we're

gonna have a redo of that family conversation we never

had or we know it was really hard when we

were fighting in the kitchen and you overheard your parents

and I about getting a divorce and we never addressed

that. We kind of just stepped into the whole process

and yada yada and now or two years later, let's

have a conversation. We wanna hear how that was for

you. And we want to say that we're sorry as

parents that we weren't able to take the time right

then to do that, to have that important conversation. So

we coach parents through that piece and then some of

the really big ones are creating a communication roadmap. So,

really tangibly like, what do you need in communication? Because

oftentimes in my co parents that I work with and

I love this because I always point it out for

them. It's, you have one co parent who wants all

of the information. OK, let's say they have shared parenting

time and like one parent wants every detail. How did

this go? How did the da da da da da

that right? They want everything and the other co parents.

Like, I'm good. I just want a parent in my

own home. I'll give you the updates. Like the really

important ones like medical academics, you know, some of the

big stuff, but I'm good. Like I, I don't need

the four page email and I don't wanna write the

four page email. So you often get parrots just like

we often have two very different parents in households. We

have more of a authoritarian parent, right? Like do it

because I said so lots of limits and boundaries, not

a lot of warmth. And then we have a more

of a permissive parent. We all fall on the spectrum

somewhere, right? But a permissive parent, tons of warmth, lots

of, you know, but not a lot of limits and

boundaries. So we get these setups and it's helpful when

I just validate that for parents, you're so different. You

grew up in different homes, you're different people. But here's

the deal. If I'm your kid and my curfew in

your house over here is 10 p.m. and I don't

have a curfew in your house over here. Like, what

time I need to be home at night? That's too

hard for me. And I'm gonna find my way as

a teenager to get real slick in there. Right. I'm

gonna find my way to, to be sneak. So if

I'm your kid, what I need from my lens and

that's why I always tell parents, you know, I'm gonna

listen to your side, hear your side and try as

hard as I can to understand your side, but I

am not gonna take your side. I'm gonna take your

kids side because that's why I'm here is to help

you see through your child's lens. So those are a

lot of the intervening tools which is through the child's

lens. What does this feel like for me if I'm

allowed to go to, you know, soccer practice or football

practice over here in this household? But this household doesn't

take me or let me go. What? That's like, what's

that like for me as a kid? Right? And so

there's so many different layers like that when the two

households are so incredibly different. So a lot of my

work is to bring them, you don't have to do

things the same, you're two different people. But can we

bring more to center based off what your kid feels

in this. Not because you two don't want to do

it like the other parent or because you don't know.

Right. If, if someone was raised in a really authoritarian

home and that's all they know and they wanna wash

and repeat because that's what they know. Then we just

need some parent coaching or you have a permissive parent

who doesn't set any limits or boundaries and this parent

over here is going like, well, you gotta set. So,

you know, they just need some parent coaching to help

understand what that's like through their child. But and that's

just wonderful because that will give the the child some

security if there can be some sort of harmony between

the parents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I want you to

say some more about your book because I, I've seen

it and it's just amazing. So tell me more because

that is a, a really fundamental piece. I know you've

got interventions when you're in the room. And now I'm

thinking, well, what about this wonderful resource? Tell them more

about that. Yeah. Thank you. So parent team, we have

a workbook that's called keeping your kids out of the

middle. Um And there's also an online video component to

it as well. So if people are more, they wanna

listen. Um and it's six modules. So it's six steps

and it walks parents through those pieces of taking care

of yourself first, talking with your kids about divorce, creating

a co parenting communication, road map. And then also a

lot of just tools and strategies around. How do we

set up two homes? How do we talk about extracurriculars?

Because ok, we just decide kiddo can do this. But

did we talk about what's the exit plan if they

hate it? Right. If they don't want to do the

activity anymore, we've got to have a plan because one

parent might say, ok, cool, you're done. You don't have

to do it. And the other parents like no, we

committed and paid for it. And now you have parental

conflict which in two homes it can be exacerbated. So

we have all of these and then each module because

I'm, you know, a therapist and more of the mental

health side and the parenting and developmental needs of kids.

I talk about parenting components. Jen has a component that's

a financial component for co parents. So she helps co

parents set up, you know, what, what are some of

those things where that you're buying double of? And it's

just too expensive. Parents can't afford this. So she really

helps organize. What are the things that are in one

home, the other home? What goes back and forth? How

does it go back and forth? How do we not

have kids going back and forth and walking back and

forth if they live really close to their other home?

So there's always a financial component and then a parenting

component in our workbook. Um, and the neat thing too

in the United States is that there's a exit quiz

at the end and then they have a certificate of

completion which satisfies a lot of, it's different in every

county, but like in our county, it satisfies the co

parenting class that many co parents need to take, um,

if they're within the court system. So that's kind of

a neat piece. Um, but it's really meant to be

an intervention tool from early on. Right. So if lawyers

have these in their law offices, we had, uh, last

month we had a law firm reach out and order

just a ton like boxes of the workbooks because they

wanna have them and give this as a gift to

their clients early on to help make an impact for

their families, which then inevitably makes the lawyer's job a

little bit easier too because if there's less conflict and

they can kind of do their job advising them of

the law and helping them with agreements. Right. Then many

lawyers appreciate that as well. Yes, because part of the

education process is already done for them. Right. Ah, that's

wonderful. Is there anything else you would like people to

know that we haven't covered in our two podcasts? Um,

I think just, yeah, the, the work, I think people

understanding and knowing and hearing more about collaborative divorce and

what is that is important. I've talked a little bit

about it. But collaborative divorce is a divorce process that's

really based in dignity and transparency and privacy. So it's

a private process that is legally binding. It's practiced in

every state in the United States. It's practiced in Canada

and it's also practiced in 24 countries around the around

the world. But a lot of people don't know about

it or there might be like fragments of it or

pieces of it. But collaborative divorce is where you have,

it's an interdisciplinary team or multidisciplinary team. So you have

legal, right? So the legal components that need to be

cared for, but those lawyers are trained and practicing in

collaborative divorce, which is very different than litigation. Um in

litigation. It's about negotiating and fighting and winning, right? And

they're very good litigators are really good, they're good at

arguing, they're good at building a case, they're good at

that. However, in my lens with working with families for

over 20 years, the impact on the little people, the

impact on Children, the little ones that are, have no

power in this process have no control is, is really

astounding. And so when you have collaboratively trained lawyers, they

really look at this work with that family system, they

still advocate for their client and, and they still talk

with their client about the laws and ultimately their client

and the other client are the ones who make the

decisions in the agreements with a lot of support and

a lot of creativity, it's not a judge, it's not,

you know, lawyers making those decisions. So it's, it's empowering

the two individuals. So through that they learn how to

communicate, we model how to communicate as professionals. It's a

ton of support. So they each have a legal advocate

or lawyer. And then within collaborative, there's these two beautiful

roles of neutral professionals. So Jen, my partner, she is

a neutral financial professional. So she deals with the numbers

for the family and I deal with the mental health

components, the communication, like a communication coach and also help

parents and guide them through their parenting plans. There's one

other professional who's called a child specialist and her role

or his role is beautiful because it's the voice of

the child. And we always say Children have a voice

in this process. They do not have a vote. We

don't put Children in a position to make adult decisions

about their parenting time, but we absolutely listen to them

and what they need. So she meets with the Children

and then we all come together and we meet together

and we help them and I think some of them,

the misconceptions out there is that people have to get

along to be able to do collaborative and that's not

true. I've had very difficult cases where they did not

get along at all. Um some really intense cases and

even cases with mental health components um substance abuse, independency,

domestic violence. But because of the amount of support and

control we have over the process as a team, we're

able to help navigate that. And it's the team that

collaborates, it's the team that's collaborative. I always say we're

collaborating for you behind your backs. We as professionals, right?

When we're in our wise minds, because we're professionals, not

that we don't get triggered. But, you know, we're, we're

there advocating and looking out for their family system. So

we're really collaborating, sort of holding space and containing for

all that's there. And you know, it's practiced in 24

countries. So the International Association of Collaborative Professionals I AC

P is um you know, sort of a um association

that houses a lot of the professionals all over the

world. And you know, some people are part of that,

but some people are just practicing too. They don't have

to be part of I AC P. But that's one

area of people like, oh I wanna learn more about

this. They can learn more, they can also find me

and ask me questions. I'm a trainer for collaborative. So

I train all over the place um and train profe

lawyers, financial professionals and mental health professionals, how to do

this work because it's just I feel like there is

a new current coming, right where families do wanna do

things different, they do want new tools, they do want

support and intervention versus a fight because that the weight

on people is just too much when it's such high

conflict. There's that horrible word acrimonious. There's the contrast, acrimonious

or amicable. It's like there's nothing else in between and

you can have a collaborative which can be and encapsulating

of acrimonious and encapsulating of amicable. But actually, there's some

sort of agreement that's held and validated by both sides

without a sense of failure or shame or blame. This

is just the best for you and the best for

your Children. And that just feels like such a gift

to the future. Yes, I mean Jen and I talk

about our, our lofty goal, right? With our dream is

that divorce is not an ace anymore. That in, in

two generations, in three generations, the way and the impact

and the intervention that we can support families, there will

always be divorce and that's ok because that's the best

decision for some I've been through a divorce. There's no

shame. But the way that we walk through divorce can

be changed and divorce doesn't have to be an ace

anymore. We can create, right? We can just like all

the other household factor, a household dysfunction factors on that.

Ace ace questionnaire, we can do things different and that's

our dream. That's our hope. That's why we're doing this

work is that in two generations and three generations, can

it not be an ace anymore? An adverse childhood experience?

Mm Beautiful. And how can people get in contact with

you if they want to work with you or get

information. Yeah. Or just, um, our workbooks on Amazon. So

if they find, you know, um, keeping kids out of

the middle and then if they wanna contact me, they

can just go to our website, which is www dot

parent and then Team te am.com and, um, and they

can just email us hello at Parent, team.com. But there's

two TSP epa rent and then Te am.com an important

distinction. Thank you so much, Brandon. It's been wonderful speaking

with you. You too, Heather. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of

Revolutionize Your Love life. I'd like to know what has

been your biggest takeaway from this conversation. Do take a

minute and share this with us and visit us on

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my email at Heather at Heather garber.com. If you can

think of someone who will benefit from listening to this

podcast, please do share it with them. If you have

any feedback on how I can improve it, please do

reach out to me as I'm always keen to learn

more. Thank you so much again for listening and we'll

meet again on the next episode of Revolutionize Your Love

life.