I know in a very early episode, I think really early, like the opening

episode, we talked about clauses that can be inside of parenting

plans that'll really trip you up.

In today's episode, I'm gonna talk about three specifically that are just

little prepositional phrases that really can, you wanna explode with just rage

when you're trying to make do with your high conflict X and the first one is.

Act in good faith.

Okay, act in good faith.

Who's in who's good?

Faith in God's good?

Faith in my good faith.

In your good faith.

In the kid's.

Good faith in normal moral compass.

Code good faith.

Who's good faith?

Are we acting like in good faith?

That is not a measurable phrase to put inside a parenting plan that needed to

be created because two people couldn't get along, so you had to put it on

paper on how to conduct themselves.

And you wanna put a flat line sentence that says, act in good faith.

What does that mean now?

I mean, I have my interpretation of what acting good faith is.

When nobody's watching, do what's good, do the right thing.

But again, if my moral compass is different than my ex's moral compass

and our background and how we were raised, or how we believe certain

things, again, I don't know how we marry people that have different

beliefs, but it happens every single day because they end up getting divorced.

Who's good faith are we acting in?

I have couples all the time that they tell me, you know, one of us is a

Republican, one of us is a Democrat.

I'm like, how did you get married?

How, like, how did it not end sooner?

Right?

I have one, a couple that was, a Christian and the other one was an atheist.

What are we doing there?

Right?

So if we're starting out with a far moral compass, if you think

divorce is gonna come, bring you together, you're full of shit.

If you think that those two starting points being so polar opposite is

not gonna polarize you even further, yes, that's what will happen.

But to act in good faith, what does that mean?

I'm not signing something that says, act in good faith.

I'm not, and I don't recommend you sign something that says act in good faith,

because it doesn't give any measure.

The other one.

Reasonable notice.

Hmm.

Makes my skin crawl.

Just reading it for the 100000th time because I've read parenting plans

galore from attorneys and lawyers, judges, and court systems that say this

reasonable, the fuck does reasonable mean?

And I get so upset because there's no enforcement with reasonable,

there's no measure with reasonable.

My reasonable would be eight o'clock bedtime.

They're reasonable would be keep 'em up till midnight, make them be the

favorite parent, be loved and liked, and feed 'em full of all kinds of sugar.

And the kids love that and they get super excited.

We get to stay up late with that parent.

We get to eat ice cream with that parent.

That's reasonable to that parent because the kids like them now.

They love their house now.

And then I'm the asshole because I don't let 'em stay up till eight o'clock,

but reasonable is eight o'clock.

To me, that's reasonable.

Reasonable to call you back, I don't know, during like normal hours, not

three o'clock in the morning, or 6:00 AM you'll get me during my business

hours, which are my co-parenting hours from eight to four, and once

I have the children, I'm off limits because I'm gonna enjoy my children.

So this whole concept that we are going to do reasonable is bullshit.

That does not happen.

Reasonable is not measurable, therefore, we cannot do it.

So this gets used a lot in holiday schedules.

Well, each party will have a reasonable amount of time with the children.

What does that mean?

How much time is reasonable?

To me, reasonable would be, we have 16 hours of awake time.

You get eight.

I get eight.

I don't even know if that's true.

Right.

16 hours wait time.

now that I think about it is a long time, so, you know what I'm saying?

Like you would have to sit down and go, okay, reasonable means

this to me, but I don't know what that means to the other person.

So why are we putting it in a parenting plan?

I mean, is your ex right now during this divorce process or co-parenting,

during being any type of reasonable.

No, they're making a big deal out of everything, or they're

not handling anything and they're ignoring you or they're doing

the complete opposite of you.

And it's just one of those things about having to go to your lawyer and

say, okay, but what is reasonable?

Now, your attorney may give you an actual, this is reasonable, Sam.

Okay, but is that what my ex is going to say?

No.

So I just paid to talk to my attorney about the definition of what reasonable

would be and he'll say things like, well, it's typical that most parents

do this and it's typical that co-parenting you decide this and this

is what other parents do, is this.

That's great.

Hunky dory, awesome for Larry to tell me that, but I don't know what my

ex is going to say or agree to that.

So it's kind of a mute point that I even talked to my attorney about

what reasonable was because I could take all of that reasonable logic.

Sounds great.

Between Larry and I.

Lawyer, but then when I go apply it to Steve over here,

Steve's like, no, I disagree.

No, absolutely not.

That's not reasonable.

So then what do I have to do?

I have to call my attorney back and say, well, he said no to that reasonable thing.

What do I do now?

Well, maybe you try this, and then I, now I paid for Larry again

and I have to go back to Steve.

And Steve's like, no, that's not reasonable for me either.

How many times am I going back and forth to get reasonable defined?

If I know anything about high conflict people, it'll never be defined.

And even if we defined it in the even year, in the odd year, he's gonna

change his fucking mind anyways because that's what high conflict people do.

And in this scenario, Steve could be like, yeah, I agree to

that now 'cause it benefits me.

But the next year when it doesn't, I'm gonna say no to it because

we wrote the word reasonable.

Instead of just saying, this is what you get and this is what I get,

and we call her done spade a spade.

No, no, no.

We're gonna put reasonable.

Now I get it.

And I know I'm like doomsday when I talk about courts and lawyers and all

that stuff, but you know, it is my job.

But the thing is, is if all these things would slowly get fixed, like

with the rules and policies that I put in my parenting plans that I

bill for people, there would be less problems if we could really get a

hold of taking these phrases out.

Everybody's putting them in thinking that people will step up and

do what's right for their kids.

Yeah, I would do that too, if at all.

It was reciprocated or valued by the other parent, but it's not, and it's

bullshit that I'm gonna step up and rise up to the occasion only to be

beat down, only to be told I'm dumb, only to be ridiculed in front of my

own children for being reasonable.

So stop putting shit like that in a pairing plan because

it's not going to work.

People that have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a

divorce are not magically going to just poof, start getting along.

Nobody wants to spend that hundred thousand dollars on a divorce.

Nobody does.

And so if we're spending that kind of money, you better bet

that we don't have sucky phrases like this in our parenting plan.

We can't because reasonable means I'm gonna spend more money talking

to Larry some more to figure out what the fuck is reasonable, when we should

have just put what the actual measure was inside of the parenting plan.

Like how much time each one of us should be getting.

The last one, and the one that I've kind of already alluded to, which is my least

favorite, is best interest of child.

Best interest of child.

Okay, let's dive into this.

We're gonna throw that in there sporadically.

when we talk about joint decision making, right, we're gonna say parents will

jointly agree on all medical decisions and what's the best interest of the child.

Okay?

Sounds great, Larry.

But if we morally think different about vaccinations.

I think morally against, they think morally for how the fuck are we

to polarizing ideas going to come together to write that one down.

Best interest of the child would be no vax best interest of

the child for this parent vax.

How are we gonna do that, Larry?

And it could be something as simple as ear piercing, and we don't have to talk

extremes like vaccinations, but that is a heavy subject that a lot of people need

to figure out in their parenting plan.

But what about ear piercings?

I think it's in the best interest of the child to get their ear pierced.

Well, I think it's not okay.

I think it's the best interest of the child that they get to

spend the night with friends.

I don't, I don't want them having sleepovers.

So when we throw people into this joint parenting agreement and we tag it

with the phrase, in the best interest of the child, all you're doing is

putting more money back in your pocket.

I see what you're doing, Larry.

You're making me have to call you again.

Figure out, and I'm gonna ask you, Larry, what's the best interest

of the child for this situation?

Well, Sam, you know, this is what past clients have done.

This is what other couples do.

This is how co-parenting, how it could fall.

That's great, Larry.

Those are great ideas, but how do I get my ex to know that that's

the best interest of the child?

Because they morally and ethically, or just in their own

brain, think differently than me.

How can I get that person who hates my guts?

To really hone in on this is the best interest for said child

because last time I checked, if I say it, they go against it.

So why not just build a parenting plan that lists out all the best

interests of the child and make all of those fucking decisions right

now so that we don't have to keep having the same rhetoric conversation

over and over again everywhere it's listed in my parenting plan to do

the best interests of the child.

Let's just make the decisions now at.

Starting point so we can stop with this bullshit of calling Larry back 17 fucking

times a year to ask the question that should have been dealt with from the

beginning inside of that parenting plan.

How do I know all this?

Let's just recap real quick.

Number one, I've been you.

I've lived this life.

I've lived this life of a shitty parenting plan.

Who said these exact fucking phrase?

It would make my blood boil thinking that, oh, yeah, my ex

will think the same thing as me, or I'll think the same thing as him.

False.

False.

And the only way to get anything done between two divorced people is to call

the expensive people back into play.

My ex-husband and I couldn't have sat down at a fucking Starbucks and figured

this shit out there in a fucking way.

The police would've had to been there within 30 fucking minutes.

So our only choice was to call the expensive people again.

And to me, they should have just done their job of realizing, man, these

people didn't do very well in mediation.

Man, these people didn't do very Well, going back and forth and trying to

discuss this between even attorneys, man, these people spent eight days in

court spending an ass load of money with a bunch of fucking witnesses.

Maybe we should just write down all the decisions for them so they

can just stop fucking crazy idea.

So to them that sounds crazy to problem solve problems.

Instead, we're just gonna put these vague phrases like in the best interest

and reasonable, and act in good faith in there just to make it look like

we're trying to get them to work.

Somebody could have held us down and said, if you don't start

getting along, I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna burn your house down.

I would've been living in a tent.

There was no getting us to get along.

Now people, I'm just gonna tell you right now if you're new here, I was

high conflict, so was my ex. I thought co-parenting was the way to go, which

created me to be a high conflict parent.

'cause I was pushing the narrative of co-parenting while he was

pushing the narrative of hate Sam.

Okay.

And that's fine.

He's entitled to do that.

I was just resistant, you know, I, I really wanted to like, get along with him.

It just didn't work for us.

I think you have to realize that some of you are just never going to get

along, and that's nobody's fault.

It's just the way it is.

But attorneys need to get on board with that and instead of giving you

these phrases that make you feel taken care of when you first read

it, when you actually go to apply it and use it, it doesn't fucking work.

Well, you're supposed to be doing this in the best interest of the child, Steve.

He's like, uh, and I think this, this is the best interest of the child.

Me keeping them till eight o'clock on a Sunday, because it doesn't

say what time I have to bring them back on my visitation on Sunday.

It just says Sunday, so I'm gonna bring 'em back at eight o'clock.

And no, they haven't been bathed and no, they don't have their homework done

and no, I'm gonna forget four things.

That was in their book bag on Friday, and they'll, I don't have their lunchbox.

Yeah.

That's in the best interest.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Cool.

They don't get it.

High conflict, people won't do what is in the best interest because it

would be in their mind, helping you.

I wish this for you.

I wish you would get on the train that I so bad resisted.

I let it blow past me.

Every time it went by, whew, I'd let it go.

I never got on the train for the first eight years.

I never got on the train of realizing it doesn't matter.

That it's for the best interest of the kids.

It doesn't matter that the kids need something.

It doesn't matter that the kids are struggling without it.

It doesn't matter that the kids would be thriving if they had it.

It doesn't matter about the kids to these type of people.

What matters is if you think it's a good idea, it's bad.

If you bring it up, it's a no.

If you want it, it's never gonna happen.

And that's how their brain works.

That's the only thing they see.

They don't even see that it could have an ill effect on the kid.

They don't care.

They don't care.

They're oblivious to the domino effect of their nose or their

withholding or their, truancy, or they're going against something.

They don't care that it affects the kids.

They see it bothering you and they're like, yes, more gas on the fire.

Let's go.

They love that for them.

Because they know it bothers you.

They don't even see, you guys, I'm telling you right now, they don't

hit pause long enough on their own thoughts to go, Hmm, damn, that

might have an effect on the kid.

Shit, God, I hate that bitch.

I hate that asshole, but I don't want the kids to feel this.

So yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say

yes to this, even though I hate.

She's the one that brought it up.

But the kids really need this.

The kids absolutely need this tutoring.

Yeah.

They've been struggling.

I don't want them to be struggling anymore.

I don't want them to be going without, I don't want them

feeling less than I'm gonna Yeah.

Yeah.

They need tutoring.

You're right.

They need tutoring.

Yeah.

Sign 'em up.

Nope.

You brought it up.

It's a No.

I talked about it longer than they've ever thought about it.

A day in their life.

They don't stop to think about the children.

They think, how can I fuck Sam?

' cause that's their moral compass.

And again, I didn't get on that train for a long time.

I thought, if I just do this, just do this.

Just do this.

Just, just do a little dance.

They'll stop.

Nope.

This is who some of them are to their core.

To their core.

There's nothing that can shake or rattle them into seeing the

best interest of the child.

They see hatred in their heart and their hatred for you is more

than the love of their children.

That is true for a lot of your listeners, a lot of you listening,

that is true and it's sad.

And then you gotta self-reflect and go, why did I pick such a piece of shit?

But you did.

And we gotta get over it and we gotta move on.

We gotta forgive ourselves.

And it was supposed to happen the way it was supposed to happen and you're

gonna do something magical with it and your kids are gonna be amazing.

But these phrases, I'm bothered, I'm worried.

I would not advise you to sign.

I'm not your lawyer.

I can't give you legal advice, but I hope I've shined some light a little

bit on why they're problematic.