All right.

In a previous episode we talked about right of first refusal and

how I don't recommend including it inside of your parenting plan.

So today we're gonna talk about why, in more specific detail, why I believe

right of first refusal clauses.

They sound really good until they wreck your life.

Now, what is writer first refusal?

Well, first and foremost, it's the example of, let's say I got invited to a wedding

on a Saturday that said No children.

My children were not included on the wedding.

In Invite.

Now estimated I'm gonna go to the wedding and the reception because it's

a dear friend of mine, a coworker, hell, even a distant relative, right?

And it says, no kids.

But it's my weekend with my children.

So write a first refusal if it is written into your parenting plan.

Suggests that you are required to call your ex and say, would you like the kids?

I have to go do something.

And I am required to ask you if you'd like time with the

kids while I have to step away.

Now, here's where everybody goes south on this fricking deal.

First off, we overshare.

What the hell we're doing?

We say, Hey, I got invited to a wedding and I can't take the kids.

Oh, you're going to that wedding.

And now we're having a dialogue about the fucking wedding.

No, we're not here for that.

I'm not doing that with a high conflict X We're not talking about my plans.

Right.

But you do, you overshare because that's what we all do because we think we're

still friends, or we think we should, or we think we have to justify why

we're asking them to watch the kids.

But essentially, let's get, let's get back to it.

I now say I have plans.

I need to step away.

Can you pick the kids up?

Let's say four o'clock and just keep them overnight because it'll

be, it'll be late when I get done.

Oh, well what are you doing?

It'll be late when I get done.

So just, do you want the kids or not?

Boom.

They say, yes, I'll take those kids.

I would love extra time with my kids.

And you're like, oh, okay.

Well, I don't, I don't feel like that's that bad.

Like, okay, cool, this worked out.

I get to go to the wedding.

They're gonna spend extra time like it works.

But then I go pick up the kids the next day, and then as they're walking out the

door back to me, their heads are down.

And I'm like, Hey, what's going on?

What's going on?

And they're like, oh, in this hypothetical situation.

This role playing situation.

Dad said that you picked partying over us.

Dad said you'd rather spend time with your friends than be with us.

Dad said you'd rather have alcohol than spend time with us.

That's why we had to spend the night here.

Wait a second.

What did you just say?

Yeah, dad said, dad said, and as dad approaches the door, and this

hypothetical really didn't happen story, he states something like, I'm

gonna use this against you in court.

You'd rather go out and party all night than watch these kids.

Now backtrack.

Fucking 12 hours ago, you were a cat meow on a yes.

You wanted extra time with your kids.

Now it's being used against you.

And this is just one hypothetical example that I could come up with, but

there's lots of occasions where as a single parent, you need to step away.

And everybody has this fucking like, whole idea that they're like, oh no, Sam,

I want my kids every second of the day.

And, and I, want my kids and I want my kids, and I'm not gonna

do anything while I have my kids.

I don't wanna play in anything while I have my kids.

You can't predict that Stacey.

I love that for you, but that's not how your life will turn up because there

might be a school function where literally parent teacher conferences, they put on

the invite and say, you may come but do not bring any of the younger siblings.

And you're like, well, fuck.

As a single parent, what am I gonna do?

What am I gonna do?

There's plenty of places that say, don't bring your children.

What if you need to travel for your job once a year even?

What do you do?

What if, God forbid.

The man of your dreams is on a dating app and says, Hey, can you

go out for pizza on a Tuesday?

And you're like, Ew, I got my kids.

Now.

Granted, I'm gonna recommend do a date when you don't have your kids.

But things happen, right?

Things pop off.

What about an emergency?

I don't know.

You got diarrhea for three days.

You got COVID 95, you were in a car accident, you got chicken pox.

Shit happens all the time.

What about just last minute faux PAs of the schedule?

Like, oh shit.

I schedule something I totally forgot, like I have to pick up

the kids early from school today.

Can you just have them and I'll pick them up later?

Things like that.

Play dates, sleepovers, camps.

There's anything that can pop off that you need to take your kids do that.

Maybe you can't take all the kids or things that you need

to do that the kids can't come.

So there's reasons for you may have to step away.

Stace, you get invited to a, a bridal shower and it says

right on there, no kids.

Right of first refusal means you can't use babysitters.

Hell, you can't even use grandparents because it says in vague detail.

Probably you must give your ex the right of first refusal.

Now, in my masterclass I go into, if you absolutely are dying on this hill that

you want this fucking clause included, I'll talk about the do's and don'ts.

In general, I'm just gonna rattle your cage a little bit.

Think about this.

You're going through a divorce.

You're gonna end up at worst case scenario, 50 50 on time.

Let's just say 50% of your time, your kids are with somebody else

and they're only with you 50%.

You know who else only now gets to see your kids 50% of the time.

Grandparents, aunts and uncles, first cousins, best friends.

So now in your divorce, your kids went from access to all of those people

all of the time to 50% of the time.

And if you include write a first refusal, those people can't

ever help you with the kids.

They don't get to go spend the night at grandma's and have seven

up in crackers late at night.

They don't get to go to a friend's house and spend the night because

you have right of first refusal.

That's how petty those high conflict people get.

They won't even let your kids spend the night at a friend's

house because you're not with them.

So when you wanna get into the specifics, and I know people are gonna

say, well, just put a time limit on it, Sam, here's the other half of

this that you're not figuring out.

High conflict people will never, ever end their life.

Follow these rules of time.

Associated with write a first refusal.

If you've got a 24 hour rule, meaning you can use whoever you want for 24 hours.

Yeah, you're following that rule.

Stacy, you know who's not Steve?

Steve's gonna be gone for 72 hours and have his mom watch the kids, but never

fucking tell you or offer you because he didn't plan on being gone for 72 hours.

He didn't plan on it.

He did.

But he is gonna lie to you and say he didn't.

So while you're over here being the fucking perfect little rule follower

that you are, 'cause you hate contempt and you hate confrontation,

you hate just breaking the rules.

Steve is going to break every fucking rule known to man

around right of first refusal.

And we'll have girlfriends or boyfriends watching your kids.

We'll have grandparents.

We'll have the brother, fuck.

We'll have a neighbor lady watching your kids before they will ever follow

the rules of right of first refusal.

That's the truth.

That is the ugly truth about it.

And then you'll catch them in a lie.

You'll catch them in the act and you'll be mortified of like, I can't believe

you're not following the rules of this.

I should have the kids right now.

They'll make up some poor, pitiful woe is me fucking excuse

as to why they didn't remember.

They forgot.

They tried asking you but you didn't respond.

And it gets really messy really fast because you're a rule

follower and they are not.

Have they been a rule follower so far?

Have they been following the stuff?

No.

What makes you think that they're gonna follow these rules?

They're not going to Do you know how many girlfriends and boyfriends

I know are watching kids and they have write a first refusal in their

parenting plan and they're like, eh, it was only for like a half a night.

Eh, it was only for a couple days.

I'm not gonna bother the other side with that.

They don't need to know.

no thank you.

No thank you.

So if you're in need of care, being the good parent, being the primary

parent, being the parent, that's rational, reasonable, and a rule

follower, your ex will always say yes.

Oh my gosh.

I would love extra time with those kids.

Absolutely.

But on the flip side of that, they're gonna rub it in your

face, use it against you in court.

And tell the kids that you think other things are more

important over your own children.

How do I know this?

Here's a clear example.

In my own divorce, shout out to my ex, Jared and I, my husband

now went on a lot of scuba trips.

When we got together, we would go off and go for a week and go scuba diving.

Once you get certified in scuba diving, you're like, this is amazing.

We went twice a year for a couple years.

Well.

I gave him Right.

A first refusal because I was gone.

He could keep the kids right.

And when we offered it was so generous.

Oh yeah.

I'll keep 'em.

Love it.

Absolutely.

Go have fun.

Oh, send us pictures.

Yeah.

Go, go, go.

Okay.

Seems sketch, but Okay.

We went, had a good time, had a blast.

Kids were taken care of.

They were with your dad.

So is b. Going to court?

Well, I think child support should change because I had the kids of 14

extra days last year over the standard, equation that we had because she chose

to go on two trips with her hus or boyfriend at the time on a personal trip.

So I had the kids more than her.

Now wait a second.

Was this about having the kids more and just following the right of first

refusal or was this about, you guessed it.

Money.

Money.

It's always about money.

It's always about money.

I've seen cases that I've coached where a woman or a man has left

and said, Hey, I got writer of first refusal drops the kids off.

They've received receipts for pizza.

Well, I had to watch the kids for you, so you gotta pay me back for this pizza.

I had to feed them while you were gone.

you said guess to write a first refusal?

You could have said no.

Yeah, but.

I had to feed them.

And it's not my night.

It's really your night.

I'm babysitting for you.

Oh,

that's what this is.

Fucking babysitting.

Cool.

Glad to know that you think you want Right.

A first refusal For this reason, I don't want anybody watching my kids.

I don't want no girlfriend watching my kids.

I don't want new boyfriends watching my kids Absolutely not.

Get closer and listen up real quick.

You will never stop that you lost control over who watches your kids

during the other parent's parenting time when you said, or you received the

news that you were getting divorced.

You lost all rights to that when you got divorced.

here's just the ongoing of this, while I'm just really pissing you off.

You can't stop a girlfriend or boyfriend from watching your kids.

'cause once it's happened, it's happened.

By the time you go to court, they've stopped doing it and they're just

gonna get their fingers shaken at them.

Watch other episodes.

As we talk about that, you're never going to stop it.

Instead, I want you to change your perspective, and here's the perspective

I want you to have, even if this is.

Grandma, you know your old mother-in-law that you can't fucking stand.

You can't stand this bitch.

You couldn't stand her when you were married to her.

Now you really can't fucking stand her.

She hates your guts.

You hate her guts.

It's common sense.

Everybody in town knows it.

But now she's watching your fucking kids all the time, right?

And you're pissed.

You're like, I wish I had to write a first refusal.

No, you don't.

Because here's the perspective I want you to have from here on out, moving

forward, knowing that you are in a high conflict divorce slash co-parenting

journey, I want you to change your perspective and go, oh my gosh, my kids

are gonna be around X, Y, and Z person.

I don't like these people.

They're evil.

They hate me.

They're gonna talk shit about me.

They're gonna talk shit about you.

Whether you're there, they're there by themselves or dad or mom is with them.

That's happening regardless.

They'll do that at fucking Thanksgiving in front of everybody.

Don't think they need to be isolated with your children to do it.

They will do it publicly.

They will do it in front of the children.

They will do it in front of your, your ex. There's no qualm about that.

They're pieces of shit.

But here's the deal.

The perspective I'm gonna take is can't stop it, can't control it.

Take it off my list.

But you know who else is gonna figure out that they're a piece of shit?

Probably pretty quick if they're always getting left with them all the time.

Your kids, your kids are gonna figure out, gee, why does mom

always leave me with grandma?

Like Mom is never here.

She leaves us with grandma all the time.

Why do we even have to go to mom?

She doesn't even watch us.

We're with grandma all the fucking time.

Gosh, when we go to dad's house, like we see him at bedtime,

we're always with his girlfriend.

Why do we even go there?

We're never with him.

He only shows up when it's time for us to go to bed.

Your kids are losing their time with their parent because their parent is dumping

them off with people that you don't like.

So is it really hurting you to not have right a first refusal?

Or is it helping because your kids are getting a fast-paced glance into the

reality of who is in their life and why, who is in their life, and why that parent

is placing them at grandparents' house?

That parent is placing them with girlfriends and boyfriends.

Your kids at a certain age will go, yeah, it's fun for a while.

Cool for a while, but every time, this is getting ridiculous.

This is getting ridiculous.

But if you think you're going to file contempt, which happens maybe now in

January, you're not getting contempt court date until March, if you're lucky.

And by the time January to March happens, they're gonna be squeaky clean

and be like, uh, it was just one time.

I'm sorry, I won't do it again.

What?

You left our kids for a week with the neighbor.

What?

Yeah.

But I asked you and you didn't answer the phone.

What?

There's no proof of that.

Again, a court's not gonna get in there and referee these

write a first refusal disputes.

They don't have the time or the capacity.

So I'm telling you now, as a veteran, someone trained,

someone certified an expert.

They say, don't put, write a first refusal in there.

And again, in the masterclass I walk you through if you are, here

are the rules, here are the rules.

But don't put this in there.

You will have huge regret.

There's no proof that they were available or unavailable.

And I'm gonna tell you what high conflict people, they don't respond.

You could be like, okay, I need to know I'm leaving Thursday.

It's fucking Tuesday.

They're gonna tell you Thursday at noon, whether you can or not,

and you've already made plan.

You already had your mom watching them because they never responded back.

But at the last minute.

Now they're available.

And now you're like, well fuck, I gotta cancel my mom

because now they're available.

And now my mom's gonna be mad 'cause she took off work to watch them.

But now the high conflict X at the last minute is fucking available.

They will fuck your life up with this.

They are not going to follow the rules.

This is who they are.

Believe me when I tell you.

But at least when they show you take up on the first time, that this is what they're

gonna do to you every fucking time.

And don't be a slow bus learner like I was.

I was on the slowest bus of figuring out this is what I was dealing with.

I thought, there's no way.

There's no way.

And I was on the slowest moving bus of like, Sam, warning sign,

warning sign, warning sign.

Here I am on the bus going, Nope, don't see it.

I don't see it.

There's no way.

There's no way.

There's no way.

It was right in front of me what I was dealing with.

I'm like, there's no way somebody would do this.

There's no way.

That day I went to court about something else.

God knows what it was fucking for, and he said that I looked right at him again.

We're in open court and I was like, you enjoyed that extra time with him and

now you're using it against me And the judge clear as day, heard every word I

said, and told me, told me to absolutely.

It's like, sit down and shut up.

But in the court proceeding, she said, sir, we don't change calculations

on special circumstances like a vacation here and there, because

those can't be guaranteed every year.

He was like, oh, she's done it two years in a row.

Okay.

It's not a substantial continuing behavior.

Right?

We all gotta do that in another episode on vague wording.

But she said, sir, just enjoy the extra time.

Just enjoy the extra time with your kids.

'cause that's what it's about.

And you've heard me say this in this episode, in other episodes.

Time is all you got with your kids.

So do I recommend, you know, dumping your kids with family and relatives

and being gone all the time?

No.

But are there certain situations that you need to step away?

Yeah.

Do you wanna go do a morning workout class and have a neighbor

lady come watch your kids?

'cause that's the only time you have Sure.

If you're gone an hour, they're watching their iPads anyways.

Is it okay to run out and drop off a gift somewhere and stay for an hour?

Sure.

Is there opportunity for you to need to work a second job and have grandma

watch them one night out of the weekend?

Yep.

Because in this economy we need to pay some fucking bills.

So I'm gonna have to bartend.

I'm gonna have to wait tables, I'm gonna have to sling some

stuff to fucking pay some bills.

You putting right.

A first refusal in your parenting plan will only fuck you later.

That's it.

And I know you want it.

'cause you don't want your kids left with strangers.

You don't have control over that.

They're not gonna follow the rules.

You'll be the only one following the rules.

And then you're gonna feel dumb that you put it in there for yourself because you

would've followed the rule without it.

So don't include write a first refusal.

Do not let Larry, the lawyer, say it's standard has to be included.

Don't want it.

And when you bring it up to your ex that you don't want it,

explain how it'll benefit them.

Hey, your mom.

Yes, I know the bitch that I don't like.

She can watch the kids, but if you put that in there, she can't watch the kids.

Boom.

They'll be okay with not putting it in.

You gotta show your ex how everything you're asking for benefits them, not you,

not the kids, even how it benefits them.