All right.
Your ex just refuses to respond.
No matter what you do, there's just no response.
It is one of the most frustrating parts of co-parenting.
You send a message, nothing comes back.
No response, no decision, a literal hold on your life or your child's
life because they just can't lower themselves to hit reply or respond.
Sound familiar?
Well, these are some tips and tricks that are gonna help you establish a
better boundary around communication.
First and foremost, ground rule from the get- go.
We only communicate in writing.
And this is where I see so many of you.
First time divorcees, you're fresh at it, you think everything's gonna
be amicable and you're texting.
Hell, I've seen some people snapping each other and using all of these
WhatsApp and all these things.
I'm telling you right now, that's gonna spiral out of control quicker
than you can get ahold of it.
So please stop talking on the phone, stop talking face to face.
And even if you do, I just want you to recap it in writing.
Okay?
All of this, verbal communication, it needs to be documented and recorded.
I'm not saying go record it because please attention to your state rules on third
party recording, party to party recording.
Know your state rules and regulations around recording yourself and
your ex. You've been warned.
But the thing with communication is, you know, I used to pull into my ex's house
to drop my kids off and I'd be like, "Hey, da, da, da, da, da, about vacation, you
know, this or changing this or whatever." He'd be like, "Hey, I hear you, but can
you follow that up with an email?" Sure.
And we would put it on an email because that's how old we are that parenting
apps did not exist when we got divorced.
But yes, I think that's respectful.
I shouldn't expect him to remember in the driveway when he's excited to see the
children to go all the way back in and then be able to write down what I said.
It's my responsibility to communicate that.
So that's first and foremost.
But practical steps when they won't respond is first and foremost,
end with a clear question.
I know you might have sent a dialogue of information to them and the question
was early on, but they're simple folk.
Let's be real, okay?
So let's not send a vague, like, " Do you think he understood
there was a question there?
Do you think she'll get back to me?
" Specifically, put the question in bold at the end.
" Please confirm that you agree that summer camp is June 10th through the 14th.
" You have to end with a question if you want a response, because here's
the thing, if your ex is following me, I'm gonna tell them this.
Never respond unless there's a question.
That's just banter.
That's just information.
If you don't end with a question, you're just stating facts and I'm
just reading and I don't even have to send back an okay because I can read.
I absorbed and you got the receipt that I got it because we're talking in an
app or we're talking an email and you know that I opened it, so it's done.
So if you don't clearly put a question and don't put like,
" What do you think about camp?
"Put a specific question like this one gives right here. " Can you
confirm that you agree about summer camp June 10th through the 14th?"
That is very clear and precise, okay?
Number two, always include a deadline.
Now, this isn't you being a bitch or controlling or too detail oriented.
This is business.
We're in a business deal.
Give a reasonable timeframe.
If you could, please respond back by Friday at 5:00 PM.
Especially if this is what your parenting plan says that
they're supposed to be doing.
And this is stuff that we put inside of our parenting plan because we
want consistency with communication.
And so we will put, both parents have to check their parenting app, blah,
blah, blah, blah, and a response is due back within so much time.
Or what's allotted in the request, which is by Friday at 5:00.
Put a deadline.
state what happens if they don't respond.
So here's what I teach my clients, is I'm gonna ask my ex something and
I'm gonna say, "Hey, please cordially respond by Friday at five, but if I don't
hear back from you by then, I will go ahead and enroll them." Now, what this
does is most attorneys will say, "Sam, that's you making you literal decision."
No, it's not, Larry.
I freaking asked him a week ago about it.
He didn't respond.
I asked him again with putting it a deadline and he didn't respond.
So then I said, "Hey, if you don't respond by Friday at five, here's what I am
doing." Now, he's had three opportunities to respond to me about this summer camp.
If he chooses to ignore all three and not, he knew what I was gonna do.
I was gonna enroll him.
Notice my first email didn't say, " I'm enrolling the kids in
summer camp June 10th through the 14th." I didn't make a statement.
That would be me making a unilateral decision.
But I've asked him three times and he's a co-parent allegedly who checks
his email and is a court ordered to by his parenting plan allegedly.
So that's measurable because those are the details we should be putting in
parenting plans, only things that are measurable that I can enforce, not this
vague stuff like check your parenting app, that's not specific enough.
So we're not putting that.
We're putting something more specific.
And this right here says, "Here's what's gonna happen if you don't."
But here's the deal, you guys, you gotta follow through.
You can't bluff.
You have to say what you're gonna say.
So if you say that you're gonna go ahead and enroll them Friday at five,
if you don't hear anything, do it.
If they didn't respond, move on.
You gave them notice, you gave them time, you gave them opportunity,
now it's time to make a decision.
And all of that is documented.
You'll be able to say, "I reached out a week ago.
I reached out on Monday.
I reached out on Wednesday and I didn't hear from him by Friday at 5:00.
So I went ahead because here's the deal that, again, judges and
attorneys, when they write these parenting plans, they don't understand.
Kids shit happens fast, right?
Monday, we get this freaking invite for a camp and we have to have
it turned in three days from now.
And so we're like, Hey, can we the kid in camp, blah, blah, blah, blah?
Why am I just now hearing about this?
'Cause I fucking just got the piece of paper in the book bag today.
I'm telling you as fast as I found out.
Again, I'd love to go to schools and coaches and all the extracurricular places
and be like, look, divorcee, families need a little bit more extra time.
Could we put a little bit more cushion on this, please?
But again, I think this is where practical use.
Judge, there was a three-day turnaround.
I had to make a choice.
I didn't want our kid to miss out.
Worst case, I paid for it.
He wants to bitch and moan about it so much, fine.
Our kid won't do it, but I didn't want to lose the opportunity to do it.
All right?
Again, if your ex is not responding, document the no response.
It seems to me you did not meet the deadline of Friday by five, therefore
I went ahead and enrolled the children.
That's it.
I'm not gonna ask for feedback because we're past the point of feedback now.
But I'm gonna keep record, I'm gonna document it, and I'm gonna track the
pattern of, oh, look, every time I ask a question about summer, never responds.
Never responds about kids, never responds when there's a deadline.
The other thing I want you to always remember when communicating with
your ex is to use the Bif method.
Brief, informative, friendly, but firm.
Again, this is a business deal.
And so you are sending an email and communication to someone
that you are in business with.
Co-parenting is a business that we have to keep that mindset.
How you act at your work is how you act with your ex. You're not
gonna go, "Well, I hope you don't.
I hope you don't go to somebody at work and just start cussing
them out at their cubicle.
I hope you just don't go light somebody up on fire with, cuss words at work, right?
So we don't do that to our ex.
We're not emotional.
We're not giving long explanations and we're not arguing because we're at work.
All right?
And we got an HR department that would be honest like stink on shit
if we did and we'd lose our job.
Well, the same thing is true here.
You act like a fool, there's a chance you could lose your co-parenting situation.
So don't act a fool.
Don't be the one that gives in and starts going all ham in the inbox and sending
the messages and being a fool, because I'm gonna tell you, when you have to sit
on the stand and read your own words out loud when you are emotional and responding
back, you're gonna be pretty humiliated.
And you're gonna have some regret and you're gonna have some hindsight
that you wish you would've been more business-like and more professional.
Just because someone comes for you in an inbox and a message or
an OFW message doesn't mean you have to respond back to that.
So keep it business friendly always.
Always.
Okay?
The last parts of this, keep living your life.
A lot of you in the messages to me, you get so consumed when
someone doesn't message you back.
All right?
And I get it.
you're like, " Yeah, but Sam, I, like, everything's
paused until I hit a response.
" No, it's not.
And I'm gonna tell you a little something here.
When you're divorced and you have all the piles of, things going on,
you have four corners that you have to take care of every single day.
Corner one is you.
Hygiene, you, making sure you function, gratitude, sleep, food, pooping,
all the things, you, your function.
Number two, your kid.
Your kid at your house.
That's it.
You, your kid.
Their function, they're eating, they're pooping, all the things, you're in charge.
Box number three is your job.
Your job still has to happen.
Now, if that job is stay at home mom or stay at home dad, then do that job well.
Take care of the home.
Take care of the things.
Take care of your job.
' Cause without job, a lot of the other rooms are gonna be affected.
A lot of the other corners will be affected.
But take care of that job.
Work at your job when you are at your job.
Now, the fourth corner is the shit storm.
Is the journey.
That is one corner of the room.
And it can be the messiest corner.
It can be the corner that has all the dirty clothes, that has all the
old food, it has wrappers, it has just probably ants crawling on it.
But the other three corners of this room are fucking spotless.
Okay?
'Cause I take care of myself.
And I take care of my child really well.
And I got a really good job that I, I might not like it, but I
fucking make some decent money and I work hard when I'm there.
But you don't pause your life because this one corner of and
your ex is fucking up some things.
That's gonna be the place where you just kind of maybe, like, put a chair in
front of it and hide it for a little bit.
Then when you get home, you gotta move the chair and you gotta
tackle that corner a little bit.
But we can't keep letting the communication or lack
thereof control everything.
And here's what I mean by that.
And hear me so clearly and take some self-reflection moments here.
Just because your ex doesn't respond back to you in a lickety split, timely
managed moment, because that's your expectations of what you would do
because you're Johnny on the fucking spot and you respond back in 30 seconds
or three minutes or less every time they respond back to you and you're
like, why can't they respond back to me?
Because that's not who they are.
That's not who they are.
That's who you are.
But here's what you end up doing when they don't respond back to you.
You spiral, man.
You get tense.
You get bitchy.
You start, like, cutting off people.
You're angry in traffic.
You're sharp with your kids.
You're miserable to be around.
All because you can't figure out why your ex isn't communicating back to you.
And I'm gonna tell you from somebody that did that for close to a decade,
you are gonna kick yourself so bad later when you come out of that
spiral that you will let that one corner disrupt the whole fucking room.
And when you wake up and realize that was just a corner of your life
and you let it sabotage yourself, your kids and your job, whew.
Major regret, major, huge.
You'll wanna fight yourself, your former self.
You'll be like, "Bitch, what were you thinking?" But you get all in
your feels and emotions because old boy won't respond back to you.
Old girl had you on red for like four days.
Let that be them.
You know your plan.
Ask a question, give a deadline, here's what happens if you don't.
And move the fuck on with grace and knowing.
I got it documented.
I've asked you three times.
You haven't responded.
I moved on.
Life is moving.
You can't keep letting this chaos of one corner fuck you up.
And a lot of you, me included, me included, guys, I'm right here with you.
Was, past tense, not anymore.
You get all dysregulated.
You get all angry and sharp.
And when I say sharp, let's just call it what it is.
You're bitching and yelling at your kids for no damn good reason.
Because your ex won't respond.
And you lose your shit over the smallest things with your
kids because you're on edge.
Keep life moving.
That's one corner.
You got other three corners to worry about and worry about them well.
Last one.
Keep your attorney in the loop.
Now, I'm not saying give them billable hours.
But what I'm saying is once a month, if your divorce is over,
you don't have to do this.
But biweekly or once a month, here is a clear list, not long-winded, bulleted.
Here's a clear list of misresponses, ignored decisions
and patterns of behavior.
That's it.
And I put at the bottom of my email to my attorney, no reason to respond.
This is for documentation purposes only.
Means file that shit.
Don't bill me.
Don't bill me a response.
Don't no, don't need your response.
Just hold this in case something more comes.
That way, if his attorney calls you or her attorney calls you, you can already
look, "Oh, no, she asked you this, a month ago. You didn't respond." Right?
So the thing is, is no response is a form of control.
They're trying to control you.
They're hoping that you wait, get frustrated, give up, or the
best one that I just got done talking about, you overreact.
You overreact.
You lash out, you send the message, or God forbid, you say something in front of
your children that they find out about.
Again, you guys can't cross the street wrong without getting in trouble.
And then you lash out.
You might as well just give up your kids now because they're gonna come for you.
But that's part of the control game, is they're trying to
throw you off by not responding.
Know what you're gonna do when they don't.
That should be on your bingo card.
And if you're new here, we can talk about bingo cards in
a whole episode if you wish.
But we're not gonna lose our minds.
We're not gonna overdo it.
We're gonna stay structured and focused.
All right?
You don't need their cooperation to move forward.
You follow your parenting plan first and foremost, which should have a
clear communication paragraph telling you that there are deadlines and
that you will move forward if you haven't heard from the other parent.
And then you document and you just show up consistently, right?
You just show up on the spot, ready to go all the time.
You follow through when you're supposed to respond.
If it's a 24-hour rule, 48 hours, 72 hour, once a week, whatever
your parenting plan says.
You do right, you're not in contempt, but you have no control over the other side.
But what we can't do is go to court every time somebody doesn't respond back to us
because we don't have that kind of money.
What we will do is put it in the way we ask the question, we give a
deadline and we say, "Hey, you don't respond back." Because here's the deal.
If they want to take you to court and say, "You can't do that.
You made a decision without me.
You got three emails and you chose not to respond.
And you also got told what will happen if you didn't, and you still didn't
respond until weeks later with a contempt.
If you were this upset, you should have responded back because
you knew what I was gonna do.
" And that's what I would tell a judge, "Look, judge, things are coming to
me left and right from this school, from these sporting places, and
all they keep doing is ignoring me.
pattern here shows that I should start making legal decision making
because they don't wanna participate.
They think silence is the golden rule.
I'm gonna show that pattern.
I'm not gonna say I'm better than them.
I'm gonna say, look at the pattern that I can show you of ignoring me,
ignoring me, ignoring me, not even acknowledging they got a message.
Look at this pattern and you think we can co-parent?
We can't be on equal playing fields of decision making because
this is who I'm dealing with.
Somebody that has ignored my messages at a 73 in the last
seven months, they've ignored 71.
And I hate to tell you, but that is a true statistic from one of my clients.
Because he thought by saying no, or not responding, that then that paralyzed
her from being able to do anything.
She went on and made decisions because I was coaching her.
And when it went to contempt and she showed that pattern, a judge was like,
" Were you even trying to work with her?
What was she supposed to do?
Not put the kids in anything forever because you wanted to ignore her for
seven months because you were butt hurt about something else?" I mean, those
aren't the true words the judge said, but essentially that's what happened
because she showed a pattern. She didn't just walk in and say, "He ignores me.
she said, "Here's a pattern of how he ignores me and what it's about.
When it's him reaching out to me about something, I respond and he has no problem
communicating, but if I reach out to him, he ignores, here's the pattern.
That speaks louder than just claiming somebody to be mean
or belligerent with something.
Show the pattern and it'll work further.
But follow these simple tips with communication.
First and foremost, get it in writing.
Get it in writing.
Stop verbally talking, but if you do, follow it up.
"Hey, we just had a conversation on May 2nd at 2:00 PM in the driveway.
Here are the three things that I heard we discussed and agreed on.
Please confirm back to me if you heard something different.
" I ended with a question.