Episode 162: A Lawyer Discusses Coercive Control Laws (Interview with Sandra Fava ESQ)

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Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lugeric's disease, Myasthenia Gravis, or Lambert Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botchalinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxCronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. All right, everybody. Welcome back into a brand new episode of Diving the Gaslight. My name is Ajahn. I'm Phil. And welcome into the newest episode. So hi, guys. It's been a couple of weeks since we've been here. I think it's like three or four weeks, but we take a little, a much-needed break. Phil, I'm not blaming you, but you've been on vacation much more than I am. So it's good to be back. Okay. I feel like when you say, "I'm not blaming you, but. " But I feel like you're falling. "Blood, I'm blaming you." It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It is what it is. You know, yeah, I'll take the blame. I can own it. I'll carry that burden. I mean, I was in, you know, I went to New Mexico. I was in New Mexico for eight days before that. The week before that, I had a little mini vacay up to Syracuse for a couple days. And then after New Mexico, I had like two days off. And then I went to New York for, you know, what was it? A Sunday through, I came in on a Sunday and I left on a Friday. So it was four days in New York. But, you know, two days of pretty much like New York, mainly driving. Yeah, we got to see each other. Our little annual rendezvous. Our annual rendezvous commenced. Yes, it was, it was a lot of fun. But, you know, we talked about it a little bit more on the Patreon side of things about, you know, the Cummings and Goings of what's going on. But I figure we should probably let all the listeners know what's up. So yeah, well, we're making, I mean, honestly, we're making a little more time for Patreon than we are for the public podcast. Because our stories are happening like they're ever evolving. And we do our best to record some of the interviews for the public podcast. But, you know, Patreon is where we're still telling our stories. So, you know, I feel like we save this every week. But, come on over to Patreon, guys. It's a fun time. Good time, for sure. Yeah, it's a little bit more, you know, you can let your hair down and relax, you know, do whatever you do. Yeah. Like you and I, we can drink our water. But, you know, you could smoke a J, you could do whatever. I just, I just drink my water. We are not smoking any J's on the fucking Patreon, you know, come for me. No, I'm not saying you and I, I'm saying if you're a listener and you just want to let, you know, listen to us, let our hair down. It's like a little coffee shop or hanging out at a bar. Grab a drink, smoke a J. We aren't, but you can. That's fine. I don't care what you do. Don't do that, please. Well, it says the guy from New Mexico. Anyway, yeah, in the spirit of that, like we like to do, I want to read off all the Patreon names. So Ethan, Jordan, Sean, Brightside, which Brightside, if you're listening, I'm going to always say this. We're on to you. You're a mole. Brett Christian, Rebecca, Doug, Sarah, Laurie, Olivia, and Liz, Nate, Derek, Amber, Jay, Cody, Jenna, Dawn, Annabelle, Taylor, Carolyn, Shannon, Darlene, Joy, Amanda, another Shannon, Christina, Jess, Amy, Jack, DTG, Ashley, and Taylor. So thank you guys for subscribing to Patreon. I hope you guys are enjoying it. And thanks for supporting specifically me through, through a tough time that I'm going through right now on Patreon. So if you guys want to hear about it, come on over to Patreon and hang out with us. But this week, is it just me, every time you say mole, I just think of awesome powers. And what was his name? The kid from the, what was he in the wonder years? What was his name? I don't remember to have it to have it. I wanted to say Fred Schneider, but that was the singer for the B-52s. Fred Savage. I just think of that mole scene. He's like moley, moley, moley, moley, moley. By the way, so we have a cool guest this week. You know, we've interviewed lawyers before, but never with this topic. A topic, especially that's near and dear to both Phil and my's heart, is coercive control. And there are some laws, especially in New Jersey, that are getting passed. So we wanted to bring on a lawyer to kind of set the record straight and tell us what's coming down the pike when it comes to coercive control. So I think you guys are going to like this episode and check it out. Welcome back into dimming the gas light. My name is Mack and I'm Phil and welcome into the newest episode. So this is going to be a cool one. We've interviewed lawyers before. But we're going to just kind of take a different approach to this episode. We are joined today by Sandra Faba, who is the founding member of Faba Law in Morristown, New Jersey. So she's close to my heart because she's a New Jersey woman. So she is an award-winning family law attorney who is a certified mediator. She has recognized New Jersey among the top 50 women's attorneys. She's built her career helping clients through some of life's most difficult moments, like divorce and custody battles and DB cases. She uses strategic expertise and genuine compassion. And her reputation is for fiercely advocating for her clients. So Sandra, we are very, very happy to have you here with us. Say hello to everybody. Hello, everybody. I'm excited to be here. Very, very cool. Thank you for joining us. So listen, we've done, you know, we've interviewed some lawyers before. But I know something that's sort of near and dear to your heart. And also our audience is the topic of coercive control. So we wanted to get a little bit into that today if you're willing. But before we dive right in, how does narcissism align in terms of your expertise with family law? So narcissism is one of those legal buzzwords when it comes to the family law practice. And I think that their overtime has grown and overuse of the word. If you talk to people, everyone is a narcissist. Of course. And I think that there's a misunderstanding among the public and judges and lawyers about the different types of narcissists that there are. And kind of the spectrum as I call it, of narcissism. In its core definition, we're all somewhat narcissistic. We all have self-motivation to do certain things or not do certain things. When we talk about narcissism in the family law context, we talk about it as somebody who cannot see outside themselves and no one else matters and everyone else becomes a pawn in getting what they want or filling their needs, their needs, their desires, their wants come before everyone else's. And sometimes that's situational and sometimes that's pervasive in every aspect of their life. And it varies by individual and by circumstances for sure. But it's very common you find that when you have a situation where there is either domestic violence or there is just high conflict that the personality trait is somewhat on the narcissistic spectrum generally, on the more severe side, the moderate to severe because again, somebody who's got average narcissism may flare up for a period of time but can usually be talked down and walked back and at some point find reasonableness and cooperate and compromise. Yeah. In my personal experience, I've dealt very much with covert narcissism. So to your point, yes, there's flare ups and then it's always worse behind closed doors. So let's talk about coercive control. How do we define coercive control as it relates to family law? So, coercive control is such an interesting psychiatric psychological issue because it is a pattern of behavior that it's not something that happens in an instant. It is somebody who develops consciously or subconsciously a pattern of behavior that exerts control, often via fear, over another person. And it ends up in fear, but it usually starts with a slower build to the fear, so it will start with a minimizing of their self-esteem or their self-worth. It'll then it'll turn into an isolation where that person doesn't have other people that can kind of tell them, "This is crazy, this is not normal, this should not be happening, you should not be accepting of this." And then it escalates often to fear, and it happens with adults, and it often happens in the domestic violence situations, which is really why it became so passionate about it, is how it impacts children, and how it impacts them in the moment, and how it impacts them for the rest of their lives. Yes, all right, so let's talk a little bit about that since that's the point you're touching on. Obviously, the younger you are, the more susceptible you are to this, especially when you're looking at mom and/or dad, this person has to have my best interest in mind. But I know in my personal experience, what my children don't see is, I tend to believe for example, one of the coerce of control tactics that my next use is, sort of like munchausums by proxy, and what my kids think that they're sick. I'll give you an example, like they're allergic to dogs, okay? My kid, we have this thing where my daughter and I, we go to Hoboken, and she wants to set a world record for how many dogs she can pet in a day. So we've gotten up to 26, and we're very, very proud of that. No hives, no sickness, no anything like that. But then my next will say, she's allergic to dogs. And I look at my daughter and I'll be like, hey, you didn't break out, nothing like that. But like she wants them to think that they're sick. And I think that she does that in order for them to believe that like she's, they're sick and she's the healer. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, you know, that's a, that's a version of coercive control, you know? Well, they're sick and she's maybe not the healer, but she's the caregiver. Right. And she's the one that's paying attention. She's the one that knows best. She's the one that'll always be there for them. And, you know, and she's more, she notices these things more than dad does. Dad's just willing, really, he doesn't care. He doesn't pay attention. Right. Didn't even do that. Exactly. He's putting you in harm's way, letting you touch all those dogs, don't you know, you know, that bad, that type of thing. Yeah. So sometimes it's a little more like if you've ever thought about getting a dog, you know, and it's like something your kids really want, but you know, your next doesn't want that. She knows that the kids are going to be so happy if you have one and perhaps want to spend more time with you. It's like, okay, let's just cut that off like anything that would make dad or other parents more attractive to a child. We're going to make sure those kids think that that's not safe for them. Right. Right. Well, like, isn't it just like, isn't it, isn't coercive control kind of like grooming, but for adults? Yes. It's literally just grooming for adults. It's very, it's very akin to grooming. I think grooming by definition, you end up with sexual, um, okay, okay. Oh, yeah. I think that's the word for that. Definitely, for sure, no, but it's a version of that I think that I think there's parallels for sure for sure. Yeah. So let me ask you this, how does, uh, like, coercive control? How does that differ from more like visible forms of domestic violence? Well, that's not different from domestic violence, you know what I'm trying to say? And why is it harder to prove in court? Well, yeah, great question. So getting New Jersey admitted there, a domestic violence statute to include coercive control. So that is now a grounds for domestic violence. Yeah, that's me. A lot. We are, it is huge. It's a huge step. Um, took a lot of work from a lot of different people, um, and I think that it's absolutely overdue and every state should have it, um, where we're struggling in getting the legal system and some lawyers even to understand what that looks like and how you prove it. Now, what's interesting is that a lot of the narcissists who, who will use coercive control as their form of domestic violence, will often put things in writing or in play that you can use to help demonstrate this pattern. So for example, I had a case, I had a client, and I worked with for many years. And in that situation, the spouse would not speak to my client. So everything was done over either an email or text message. And my client, for example, did not work, was to stay at home parent and had to provide the grocery receipts in an email. The other spouse would then criticize the receipt and send a response akin to, how are you this fucking dumb that you didn't realize that the cantaloupe was on sale at kings and you paid 99 cents more for it at shop, right? Something of that nature. It's a simple fact that they couldn't speak to one another. There was a refusal, you know, like a message was sent saying like, can we just talk about this? It's really difficult to text email about this particular issue. No, I've told you before everything must be in writing. This is in what's supposed to be like a normal functioning marriage, right? So sometimes you get lucky and you get things like that. It's the cantaloupe crisis. But other times you have to go back and look at records. And no, it's a true store, I mean, totally true store. Another complaint that this spouse had was that my client in the evenings after, you know, everything was said and done like time to relax in your home would be in the bedroom and read the Bible and their children would, she just liked to read the Bible. She was religious, their children would just hang out in the bedroom whether it be on the floor or next to her doing homework or watching television or whatever. And this was like completely unacceptable to this spouse that she, that, you know, like this is, this was the reason to call her lazy and useless times you have something that's as good enough as evidence as things like that that you can then present to an expert or to a court if you don't have an expert. Other times you have to go back and kind of look historically at things. So there was a lot of issues with that case. There was some child abuse that was actually pretty bad, real, real and, and, and part of the situation so that when the division got involved, he was removed from the home. So would she, would she refuse to talk to him in person even though they lived in the same house together or would she record the conversations or she was, so at the point where we started working together she was scared so she would not speak to him and not report. She was real and this is somebody who was highly educated, advanced degree, not an idiot and was literally like a terrified to do anything. And very few friends was moved far away from her family and her work life and her connections. I mean, it was like the classic textbook case, of course, of control and, you know, other sorts of abuse issues. But of course, his, the response to that is parental alienation. Yeah. Right? That none of this is real. You're trying to alienate me as a parent. And so that's, you know, that's where these cases become very difficult because there's a lot that gets thrown up against the wall and unless you have, I, in my opinion, unless we have an attorney who has experience with it and knows how to navigate and if possible can get an expert who can come in and evaluate this because people who live in those types of circumstances, they have PTSD and you can demonstrate that, you know, as battered spouse syndrome, PTSD arising from that, you know, forensic psychology and interviews, those can help flesh out those issues in a very real way. Yeah. But, you know, I believe at least here in New Jersey that there still remains this bias that course of control is not really a real thing or that once you separate people, that's not going to happen anymore. So like, what do you want me to do about it? Why do you think that is? Do you think people just think it's like pop psychology? I think part of it is that people. think it's pop psychology. I think that judges are put in a very difficult position where they have to make determinations about children and their parents. And, you know, we all have basic constitutional rights. We have a right to parent our children. There's an argument in science that says, you know, that I think judges who have been on the bench and family for a while kind of are not as up to speed with the advances in the psychology of some of these issues, but there, you know, for a time, there was a belief that, like, if an abuser only abused parent, that there was no evidence that that abuser was going to abuse children, then children were safe with the abuser. And we have learned, unfortunately, under terrible circumstances that that is so untrue. When you have a real situation, oftentimes the abuse continues of the other parent and/or the child or children become the target because that is a way to get to that person who left you. And children are left defenseless and then subject to this type of grooming or abuse outright. And it's really difficult to show that, you know, when you have a child who presents always being ill before they have to go to another parent's house, you know, grades slipping, you know, isolating themselves. And then the children are fearful and children in better circumstances are fearful to say something negative about a parent because children, and I learned this as a law clerk 20 years ago, when I sat my judge started the pilot program for family drug court was one of, we were one of the counties. And we would have children that would come in and be interviewed. And these children were subjected to horrendous circumstances by their own parents, for example, being sold like as almost like sexual favors in order to get money for parents to buy drugs. Heroin being one of the biggest issues, fighting sexual little children, little girls. And they would come into court and all they wanted was to see their parents because kids innately love their parents and want to be with them. And it takes them really, and they'll justify behaviors and they're taught to justify behaviors like, oh, that only happened at one time or oh, it's because, you know, daddy was sick or mommy was, you know, had a long day and this is what happened. And so, and then they become conditioned to be fearful to say anything because when they do say something, they see that there's a consequence not to then per se, but to their parent. And when that parent still has access to the child, they will, and I had it all the time, say, if you say, if you say something bad about mommy, mommy's not going to be able to see you anymore. Is that what you want? Yeah, there are recordings of things like that. And you'll see that judges will say, well, that's because it was a high stress situation. And, you know, there are monitored child. It really in some circumstances takes a whole lot of vigilant, continuous evidence gathering and expert analysis and litigation, frankly, and people either can't afford it or they get exhausted. They feel beaten down by the system and they just don't know what to do. And so it's like a catch 22 that we find ourselves in. So like, I say, yay New Jersey because they added it to the statute, but I don't know how much help it's going to be on a realistic day-to-day basis because we still in New Jersey, we still have parents who are, you know, doing murder homicides, you know, post-divorce, post-restraining orders, you know, litigation post-judgment goes on and on and on because like, you may experience or some of your listeners may experience for the narcissist, that's their feed, right, that they can continue to drag you into this litigation and continue to make you engage with them and interact with them and they'll continue to beat you down. Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches and adults with chronic migraine. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection side pain, fatigue, and headache. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia-gravis, or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. Yep. Yeah. Let me ask you this. What do you wish? Well, what do you wish they would recognize? What do you wish the court would recognize when it comes to the treatment of children or the coercive control issues that happen within a home? What do you wish the court would recognize when it comes to that? So I wish that the court would recognize that if you find that there is a person is a victim of domestic violence, whether it be harassment, whether it be coercive control, whether it be physical abuse, that there is a more serious heightened awareness of the risk to the child or children involved in that family dynamic. Yes, absolutely. That there isn't to me the risk of harm versus to a child versus some lost or restrained parenting time to a parent who has done some pretty bad things even if it's just to another parent. The risk of harm to the child outweighs that parent might be having sub-supervised parenting time or maybe not having contact or having limited contact for a period of time until somebody can get in there and really do the work that they are educated and experienced and licensed to do to give us an answer. And Judges don't want to do that. They have a hard time with that. I think Greg always says they just want your name off the docket. That's his face. So it's a really sad state of affairs. I can speak in New Jersey, you know, again, 21 years have been practicing and I would say that right now I feel throughout the state of New Jersey and I practice pretty much in every county up and down since the pandemic and things are virtual. It's allowed that much more that we have a pretty either fresh set of judges sitting in family or a pretty disappointing lot of judges. Judges who maybe have been there while but they're on their way to retirement and the problem for judges in New Jersey is you don't get appointed as a judge and then sit in the in the area where you practice as a lawyer. Most new judges are placed in family court and if you talk to most lawyers like if I go to a networking function for the state bar association of New Jersey and I'm talking to other non-family lawyers 99.9% of the time they will say to me I don't know how you do what you do. I could never do that. I would never want to do that. I would never want to touch that. So take that into a microcosm of people who are appointed to the bench. Most of them not having prior family law experience. They don't want it. They didn't want to do it when they were practicing and getting paid. They certainly don't want to do it now. And they're hoping to get out of that assignment as quickly as possible and some of them come because we're all human. We come with our own personal experiences right from having done through a nasty divorce themselves and they don't they don't want to have to go back and relive that. Some of it's traumatic for them and to roll up your sleeves and kind of sit down and actually say okay what happened here? What happened to this dynamic? Ask the questions. You're opening as a judge and I understand this. You do open a Pandora's box right because people, their story can change over time but the flip side of that is as the person who is tasked with making decisions, ultimate final decisions that are going to affect people and children for the rest of their lives. Don't you kind of have to do a little bit of that? Yes. Yeah. That's exactly my point. This is your fucking job. That's kind of the way. If you don't want the job, don't do the fucking job. You're an elected official. You're a public servant, right? Like literally your job. Some negative connotation, but you are a public servant and that is your job to get to the bottom of the issue. But meanwhile, they just want to see our names off the docket. And again, like to your point, you're making decisions that are going to influence and affect my and my children's lives for multiple people lives, even beyond that. Yes. Yes, but I feel like there's just one size fits all that like unless the kid shows up with bruises or they're malnourished. or something, they just push you out the door. - I agree, and I'll tell you, you're a upper class, upper middle class, middle class, white people for dead, nobody, you know, it's like you have resources outside of this process, go spend your money on therapists and do that, don't bother me with that. They don't lock, you know, they don't, they look at those types of litigants as people who can afford to do better than what the system should be doing for them. So make it that other person's problem. Like, let's punt it to somebody else, you know? - Why? Why are we passing the clock? - Yeah, why? - It's very frustrating. - Because, you know, and it's a whole system that I think needs a revamping, you know, there's being counters as they're called in Trenton where the administrative office of the courts are, you know, part of their job is to make sure cases are moving through the system and things are getting resolved and people are sitting in limbo and that's a great, that's an important task, right? You don't want your case to go on for a decade where I think we could do better is when we're training judges, new judges and sitting judges, especially in the family court. Bringing in the right professionals who are going to really give them a real, not just like a three days before we throw you on the bench in a practice area where you've never been, you know, weeks and then continuing like twice a year where we're really bringing in people who are rolling up their sleeves and sitting down and explaining to you the science of it and the impacts and what the national studies show and what other states are doing and how we could do better and really making them understand those things. And as far as I know, that has yet to happen. - You are speaking my language right now. You are speaking my language, you are pulling on my heartstrings. - Me too. - Maybe there's people out there who are listening to this who don't know how this sort of situation typically goes. Maybe they're just like leaving their narcissistic relationship and maybe they're heading towards divorce or whatever it may be. Can we talk a little bit about how these typically do go in court? - Yeah, to the sense that I can give you a typical, I will try. - Well, I mean, it is because again, I feel like there is this one-size-fits-all type of attitude that we all get approached with. - Yeah, if you're litigating in a courthouse, if you're using the court process, then absolutely. And oftentimes, what happens in these cases, course of control or abuse or narcissistic person who's really that moderate to severe on that spectrum there, is that their behaviors actually allow them to better manipulate the system. So that it goes on for a really long time, much longer than it needs to. It becomes much more expensive than it would ever need to be. And then you get to the point where the judge is finally actually paying attention because your case has reached a certain number of days old. And the judge says, go on the hallway and figure this out. Don't come back here until you have a resolution. If not, I'm going to put you on trial. We have had a hard time scheduling trials in New Jersey since the pandemic. Like most counties for a new filing, you're at least two years waiting for a trial date. And a judge will tell you, I'm going to give you a trial date. And then they'll send you home. They're yelling out lawyers because we're supposed to have some sort of magic wand to make people all of a sudden become reasonable. Yeah, they don't sit with the litigants. They'll only meet with the lawyers. So then you walk out from a lawyer perspective, and I have to say in my plan, the judge said X, Y, and Z. And then they go home. And sometimes they still have communication with that, that soon to be X, right? And what that person will do is your lawyer, such an idiot. My lawyer said that your lawyer did this or didn't do this or didn't do that. Then they put, they'll continue with this doubt in your mind, this doubt in your mind. And then the person who you need to be on board with and kind of in sync with, you're now doubting everything that they do. But now their job becomes a thousand times harder. You're giving me flashbacks. You know, isn't that the most frustrating part when like clearly we're not on the same page? Has it been going on forever? Now they're like, go on the hallway. Like mediation didn't fucking work. That's why we're here. Do you think we're supposed to mediate this? Like there's no mediation. Like do your job. Like make a judgment. Like let's go. Like I don't know. That's what the-- That's true, right? But again, this is what I talk about when I say like, when you're in that relationship and you're leaving and you're going to do this, having the right attorney is so important. Because there are good mediators who understand what this is. They will be able to help. But if you just willy-nilly pick somebody because it's your lawyer's friend or something like that, you've run the risk of wasting a lot of time in money getting nowhere. OK, so that's maybe a good segue. And people always say, all the time, you always hear, make sure you get yourself a good lawyer. Like I can tell you, how many people say, make sure you get yourself a good lawyer. And then like, you know, I was good. Like you said, two years down one, like you're not fucking divorced yet. Like, what do you mean you're not divorced yet? And like, so let's talk about what does that mean? What does that mean? You get yourself a good lawyer. How do you do it? Yeah. So I think for most people who this is probably their first real interaction with the legal system, right? Where there might be an adverse thing. For a lot of people, that's the case, right? They don't know what that means exactly. So the first thing I tell people is do some introspection. If you come to me and you tell me, my spouse doesn't let me view anything. Things that they're the smartest person in every room. The little thing at all costs. I have no access to information, et cetera. Don't expect. Then say to me, but I want to go to mediation. Is that a good idea? Can we go to mediation before we do anything? You literally just told me that this person is the biggest asshole, the way you've described them, that I've ever known. And now you want them to go to a collaborative, cooperative process where-- Yeah, that's confidential. I'll be realistic with who you're dealing with when you, before you go to a lawyer. You need to do a self-assessment. You need it. The asshole was sitting there telling them that they need to go to mediation. So the asshole was sitting there going, well, let's try mediation first. Let's try mediation first. Mediation fucked my life up so bad. I've got-- you want to hear something crazy? I got divorced on an MOU. There's no MSA. And the MOU is so archaic. It is so antiquated. It is wild. Yeah. And I'm sure you're also supposed to divorce litigation, trying to figure shit out, because it doesn't make sense. And it makes sense. You're going to start reaching on. Find out what happened. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] So that's one of the things. The other things is look at that lawyer's credentials. Don't worry about Google reviews. Yeah, those things were helpful sometimes. But this is a pretty adversarial process. So there's always going to be somebody who's pissed. You don't know who puts up those reviews. Look at their actual credentials. How long have they practiced? What counties do they practice in? When you interview lawyers, ask them, do you go to court? Do you try cases? How many cases have you tried in this county? How many cases have you settled in a mediation? A good attorney who's going to be a fit for you is not going to have any problem answering those questions. But then will the opposition try and position you as the one who's stringing it along if you don't settle? Well, no. So you may hear that, but when I say to people, you can't deny facts. So if we-- and this is what I tell people, you know, I can only control. And I use that word very loosely, my side of the case. That means that you trust me. You're going to tell me things that you wouldn't tell anybody else, because you have to. Because if you keep things secret, and it pops up later, what do you want me to do for you? Right? You trust me. And we're working as a team. You're responsive. And I'm doing what needs to be done. So one of the things I do is I make sure I'm on top of things. I make sure I'm on top of deadlines. I make sure that my client does what they're supposed to do. If we can't heart together, I have to let you go. Because it's only hurting your case. And I know at the end of the day, you're going to turn around and point fingers at me. And that's just the reality. I also, if somebody is in a really bad situation, leaving a really bad situation, I have a requirement that you must be in therapy in order to work with me. I like that. You must be, because I can't be your therapist, and you're going to spend your retainer in three seconds, because you're going to call me every five minutes. And you've got to be in the right therapy, right? So I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you find somebody who's in your network. We'll figure out a way. There's a lot of services that are out there. But you need to have somebody who can do that piece for you. And you need to do the work. Because otherwise, you are just going to spiral things get worse under the best circumstances before they get better for most people. And when you're coming out of a really toxic relationship, it's really hard to kind of see where the lines are. Everything gets blurred. You're doubting everything. Everyone, yourself, your parents, like your whole life is a question mark, basically. Yeah, yeah. And a therapist can actually help with a diagnosis, too, like because a lot of times an narcissist will be like, they're crazy. They're crazy. I want a court man to take mandated blah, blah, blah. But you can be like, listen, here's what she's got. Here it is. He or whatever, you know, right. Absolutely. It can work to your favor. Absolutely. And there's no, you know, the stigma that used to be like, well, if I go to therapy, that's going to fill that's going to be what exactly what they say. No, this is a hard thing to go through. This is you being proactive and taking care of your shit. And that's the way I'm going to present that to the court, right? Now, because what you don't want is where you then like you have a nervous breakdown because you didn't get your resources and your tools together and you end up having a nervous breakdown getting hospitalized. Now I have a bigger problem. Yeah. Right now it's now it looks a little bit different than if you were just being proactive. I know, but where are you? And forgive me. I don't mean to put you on the spot. What's your opinion of DCP MP? Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. That's all we wanted to hear. DCP MP is just a, it's a travesty. It needs to literally be torn down and rebuilt. It is, it is just. It's a joke. Ruins people's lives. I can't live to be honest with you. I wish, I wish you could get a standing ovation right now. Thank you. It is a fucking joke. It is not in it for the kids. It is knives seen DCP MP. Rowan families, it is a fucking joke and I, you know, the DCP, if you're listening, go fuck yourselves. Yeah. Let me ask you, let me ask you a question. How does coercive control. Influence like custody determinations and my. How do the courts weigh that evidence? Yeah. So again, it varies by judge. It varies by their experience and their understanding of what these things that we're talking about. These are, you know, these are fine level things concepts that we're talking about. I got a really shitty parts. I don't know if you got the memo. And so if you have the right expert and again, this is all about like finding the right lawyer, finding the right lawyer who's going to do the things that who understands what needs to be done, who's going to know who the right experts are, what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. You know, you may have like a blank check to write, but doesn't mean you should be writing it to all sorts of different people. And just like any other professional or area, there are lawyers out there who will just say, Oh, great. I have zero experience in this. But your parents are paying in your dress, one kid. Perfect $50,000 retainer. We're going to hire this person, this person, this person, and that ends up making you look worse. Fuck, I would have to know is a Nepo baby so bad. Well, don't we all have to know kind of that that's what's happening, right? And be willing to hear no, like I will tell clients like no, we're not going to do that. And no, I don't care that your friend in the support group did that. That's not what's going to be good for your case. And here's the reason why. And if I can explain the reason why to you, then that means you should trust me. I'm not willing, I'm not a person and a lawyer should not be somebody who's unwilling to listen to an idea or a new concept, right? We don't know everything, even the best of us. But and you have to understand, right? You have to understand kind of who the players are, what makes sense? What doesn't make sense, you know, and ultimately, that's what you're being paid for in addition to your knowledge of the laws is figuring out how you're going to best present these facts in this case, right? So we talk about the things that you can do, the things that you should do, the tools that you will need moving forward, right? Have you guys heard of Dr. Bill Eddie? I have not. Oh, my God. How could you have not heard 160 episodes in? You've never heard of Bill Eddie. I haven't. So when we're done, you're going to go and Google Bill Eddie. Okay. Maybe one time on. Yeah, you should. He's out in California, I think, but he's been known forever. He created what's called the Biff response. He is a doctor's belief in formative. Yes. And there's variations of it that other people use. But he's the person who has kind of really devoted his, his practice, his life to kind of dealing with high conflict personalities and how you can better respond to that, how you can position yourself, how you can be prepared to kind of have less impact on you with that person who's going to be trying to poke you at every stands. And now there's even two tools, sorry, that are AI based. I was listening to a podcast. There's an app called Amy. Okay. And that app helps you to write these responses to a high conflict spouse or a high conflict X and uses AI tools to do that. So it's very easy. It's not like chat GPT. It's like a higher time better because it focuses on high conflict people and things like that. So there's a whole bunch of tools that I, you know, I want people to be aware of and to be using. You know, they're used to be back in the day that a client would send me an email. Can I send this and it would be a draft of their, you know, response to their spouse? And it's like my super long. And you know, goes into all sorts of details. And if you can attach it, attach it, attach it in a file and things like that. Yeah, depend, depend, depend. Because there's all they're doing is attacking and defending. You know, and we live in a world. Oh, sorry. I just want to remember one thing. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah. We live in a world where people feel that like you're going to text. You have to respond. And I'm like, and I say to clients all the time, where's the law that says you have to respond to your text messages? Right. Yep. Yeah. Yep. You know, we like to, we like to keep it like old school Twitter. Remember when like Twitter first came out into the 140 characters. Yeah. You don't like that. Yeah. Like you don't have to. Like somebody says something that's just to poke you. That doesn't require a response. If you have, if you have an X or a spouse and you're co-parenting or doing some sort of parenting, whatever that looks like, and there's an issue about your child or your children, that's requires a response. Everything else. Can we? Yeah. And if you want to, you could just give an emoji thumbs up or a letter. Can you? People, I feel like this is the hardest thing for people to understand or to develop that tool. That that feeling like you don't have to respond right away. Yeah. You know, oh, yeah, we live in an instant gratification society. And and narcissists will definitely like they, they keep you living living in fear. You know, for sure. So you just made me realize I haven't checked all of W today. Oh, there you go. You don't have to respond right away, Mack. It's fine. You think your finger because you were going to interrupt me. And then I said, let me just finish my thought. Now I feel like I was the Twitter, it was the Twitter joke. Oh, yeah. Okay. So going back, though, I don't know. I don't know if we entirely talked about this, like, like custody determination. It's like, um, how do courts look at the evidence? Like what evidence are they looking for? Are they only looking for this kid was physically abused? Now, what are they looking for? So judges really, when it comes to issues of custody determinations, they really depend heavily on experts. And they should, frankly, right. There are each county has services where if you can't afford to go out and hire a private expert, there are services at the county level that can do, you know, evaluations. As I like to tell people, you get what you pay for. So if it's free, you're going to kind of get that level of a report. For some people, it works. I'm not going to say that it hasn't worked. But, you know, if you have a difficult case, it's going to be hard to expect that that program, even though it might be really appealing to you, is going to get you all the things that you feel like you need in order to move forward with this person post marriage, right. So they rely heavily on experts and an expert relies heavily on the evidence, the information that he's given to them by their either the attorney or the client that they see. So, you know, if you don't have an attorney and you're going to be working with an expert, you want to make sure that you are very organized and that you really are tracking things, whether it's a calendar about when parenting time was supposed to happen. And you know, last minute texts that they're not coming or changing things, you know, four times a week because that's what's fun for them, things like that, the communications and writing, you know, where there's gaslighting, like, here's a perfect example. Last week, you'll get a text. So next week, we have to sign Tommy up for baseball. We're going to split that. You get on, yes, okay, follow me just so you know, I signed Tommy up for baseball. I never agreed to that. And you're like, no, you did see above. No, that's not what I was saying yes to, right? They'll find a way to like manipulate that conversation. But yeah, you know, you have to make sure that you have that Presented so you can say here is one of here. There's an example, right? And it's not just one time here are the 20 other tons or something similar happened, right? You send a message kids have Checkups for school They're on Tuesday You go to the checkup now they get a message from the portal right the medical portal that there was a checkup Here's the after-summer visits. How come you didn't tell me when the one that thing was I wanted to come you know I wanted to come I come to all of the appointments And you're like, but I told you yeah, but you didn't tell me that you know what time it was right they want you to be their secretary They want you to be there you know like to remind them to do all these things and yeah, you know So being clear on what you provide them if you have recordings right making sure that the recordings are transferred And that they're they're there that you can say you know This is this was on the state. I remember clearly you're gonna be interviewed, right? I tell people sit down, you know create a timeline Study it you can't be expected under high-stress situations to remember everything. It's not possible, right? But if you put the work in you'll look prepared You'll be honest. I'm not telling people to make anything up. This is what really happened to you And what is mistaken in front of a judge or sometimes even with an expert is when people hesitate and they can't remember facts They don't really realize that that's because of their trauma or because of the stress that they're undergoing right? Yeah Let me ask you this though. So my personal experience is There is no discussion like for example And I've heard this from a lot of our listeners is that the expaus will sign the children up for sports During what's supposed to be the other parent person's parenting time meaning like me for example and I very limited parenting time to begin with and let's say Then the expaus signs them up for sports without asking and then demands repayment for stuff like that Yeah, well, that's not gonna fly. I mean, so There's been let your agreement has some sort of automatic payment provision or a grandfather clause I don't see it, you know, a judge ordering that because there has to be communication you can't just unilaterally spend somebody else's money I thought you were you were going is with the time that they signed them up and you're saying hey, that's my time What if the judge just says hey, it's in the best interest of the children to play sports You can say I have no up. They want to play the sport play the sport, but I wasn't asked and I'm like, you know, I'm not paying for that Right, there has to be conversation about certain things and and there's law that supports that by the way What's the law? Well, number one, there's the appendix to the child support guidelines So if you're paying child support under the guidelines here in New Jersey the guidelines appendix 9b They they cover certain expenses. So like for example, you play town baseball Those fees are covered by child support now certain equipment isn't and that's another thing people need to be well-versed And understand I gave it every client who's going to have a child support obligation a copy of that appendix and say refer to it Every time you're asked for something that you Wouldn't normally pay for is not a part of your agreement look at it and determine whether or not the child support pays for it So much cheaper to have that as a PDF on your computer or your phone then to email me or my office and ask Do I have to pay for this? Do you want to tell her? No Do I all right? Well, and sometimes if you're gonna tell me something about being ordered to pay things sometimes it's if a child has been doing something for a period of time I previously while they were building together. Yes, or you know even after they were Like the first year after divorce, but then they didn't do the next year We're now they're gonna come back and do it. You won't find that a judge will say you know this happened before this makes sense You guys should do it. You were on board with it before That's you could still be on board with it right Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think I mean, I can say it, but I mean she had him I mean she's had him signed up for multiple sports Simultaneously completely controlling like basically just stomping all over his ability to be a parent during his own time because he's just running him around a different sports And he didn't agree to any of it and so it took up his time and now his money He just went to court they sent he needs to pay for it. So now he's got it added to his arrears So that's is that is that does that summarize it pretty well? Yeah pretty much I mean the only thing I don't know is if what she's saying too is like did the judge take that into consideration as far as like he was doing it What you guys were together if he's doing it now the status quo existed while I was under a restraining So she was signing them up for these sports while I was under a restraining order So I didn't have any input because we couldn't discuss it and then and then you know that became the status quo And how long ago was that in relation to what was just ordered four years ago Wow I like pretty bad, but that's a tough for one. Yeah, I mean you were going in pro se as well Right now so you probably just got shoved on you because of that to be frank. Yeah, it's judging judges love to do that Of course, of course because they don't want to as a pro se litigant they feel like They don't want to have to explain the law to you Since you they feel like you should have came in prepared and they obviously rely on representation to Take you through it and they don't want to be the ones to take you through it. So I know that there's less likelihood that you're gonna File a motion for reconsideration or appeal them because you know, you're not as savvy with how the law works So, you know, it's like right And then and they also know that most judges won't you know overturn an appeal for a prior judge So it is what it is. Let me ask you this. What are some common mistakes that people make that like weaken their position Inquart So again, I go back to like hiring the first the right attorney, right when you are constantly switching attorneys and you may have very good reason Everybody in the courthouse thinks that you're crazy. I'm just gonna tell you that Especially when you're a man. I hate to say it. Especially when you're a man. I think it's I think it I think in fairness. I will say that that's something that that falls evenly on men and women And sometimes I think women are even especially if their spouse is saying that they're crazy or they're accessing that they're crazy crazy crazy You go through multiple attorneys because you were a vulnerable state or you didn't know what you were doing or you know For valed, nobody's calling you back so you didn't need to go to somebody else or whatever whatever You are just you are gonna be flagged by that judge. You're crazy. You're difficult and The other side will definitely expect like exploit that and trying to say that a thousand times over and over again Like oh, well, you know miss thought is now the fifth attorney and not that I would ever be that but the fifth attorney in this case You know how many more lawyers are we gonna go through judge? This is just them trying to delay the process install things and spend more money and they spend it all sorts of ways So I think that's a huge thing that people Do and it just goes back to what I said about like doing your homework interviewing attorneys asking the right question is you know and Making sure that you Also feel comfortable with who you're working with and on a personal level because like you're gonna be dealing with them a lot and And you want that I think that the other thing that people do is that they don't This is this becomes in a high especially high conflict It becomes a part-time job or a full-time job. It becomes it's a lot of work And it's if you're working full-time and caring for kids or caring for whatever elderly parents It's a lot. It's a lot to do and people don't put in the stuff to get the information to their attorney or to get it in on time and Then they're frustrated because they you know aren't getting the outcome and You know part of my job is to know what it is that you need to do to get to me to show me But I don't know the whole world or the whole universe of what's out there So you know being able to tell me well, these are the things that I have tell me if this is important Should I not worry about this should I you know worry about that? Everybody's like don't worry my mother's gonna come in and say what a wonderful parent I am. I mean Don't tell you and I'm like, yeah, I hear you you could put her down as a collateral reference, but like Nobody's really gonna beat you roll your eyes back. Do you roll your eyes at that? Yeah Come on yeah, yeah You'd have to do better than that right you have to and you know You have to be prepared to do that you have to be thinking about that, you know You have to know and I know When I'm talking to somebody who's a potential client and we're talking about you know potential custody battle and I say to them Okay, great, so how many sports do your kids play what size shoes does your kid wear and they can't answer basic questions I'm like listen. I'm gonna tell you the truth. You want to pay me to fight we can fight But at the end of the day you're going uphill and you're it's gonna be expensive and long So you know if you're being offered 50 50 you should probably take that at this point in time because You don't know basic things about your kid, so you have to do the homework, you have to get the doctor records, you have to talk to the coaches, you have to show up at the games, you have to be a part of it, and it's a lot, trust me, I understand, I have three kids of my own, and not being divorced, and just getting to that shit is a lot with two parents who like each other, like I could imagine how crazy it is to do it when that's not the situation. If you think it's hard handling your wife, imagine if it's your wife or husband, imagine if it's your ex-wife or husband, Christ. Right. So, you know, just understanding and knowing, you know, kind of like what is realistic in your life? What are you really doing? You know, I love the person who comes to me and says, I travel, I travel every week, at least two days a week, but I want 50/50 parent of time. How's it going to work? You're like, really? How are you going to do that? Well, I hire an Annie, so you think the judge is going to give you 50/50 time, so you could give it to somebody else, as opposed to being with the other parent. Right. You're like, think about this, right? Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, totally. Totally. Be realistic. You know, you'll save a lot of time, money, stress, aggravation, if you're just like knowing, knowing your life, knowing your situation, being prepared, getting the information, that's what makes people do well in custody, whether you have a trial or not, because you're going to be able, especially once you go through this, by the time if you get to a trial, you're going to be able to say these things like second nature, because you will have written them down, told your lawyer, told an expert, probably told another expert at that point. You'll be able to talk about them, and it's just going to be, okay, this is the reality, and you know, a lot of these cases, if you don't have like the evidence that we talked about, or if you don't have a ton of that, it's a credibility case, right? It's credibility. And the more you know about your own life, and the more time you put into that, the more credible you become. It's credibility and bring your mother in as a character when it's pretty low-hanging fruit. But everybody says that, like, you know, my sister, my, their family is their first thing, and I get it, right? You spend a lot of time with your family, most people, and so that's who's around you and your kids. But if that's the only people who can talk about what you've done and not done, then what have you really done? Right, exactly. Yeah, thank you for saying that. All right, well listen, Sandra, we're coming to the end of the hour, and we really, we're enjoying this conversation. It's fun. Before we let you go, we always ask people, what is your best advice for somebody who may be listening to this? Go ahead, Phil. No, continue that, but I want to add a caveat to it. Okay. What is your best advice for somebody who may be listening to this, who may be in a coercively abusive relationship, perhaps it's a domestically abusive relationship, they're thinking about getting out, they're trying to make a game plan. What would be your best advice to somebody who's listening to this, who is looking for a way up? Yeah, and I mean, I guess, I guess you did kind of say it pretty well, but I was going to say, what should they do to protect themselves if they're still in it with documentation? If you're in a state, you know, obviously look up your laws, look up your state laws and see if that's something that's going on where you live, but especially where there is coercive control laws, what can they do to protect themselves and and safely get out? Rush up. Yeah. I love how they gave you half credit there, Mac, but I'm going with it. You did say it pretty well. So I think the best advice that I'm going to give somebody who's trying is to, and you said it yourself, to come up with a plan with a strategy, you're going to have to, and it depends on your situation, right? If you have somebody, one person that you can trust, you're going to have to tell them what's going on. You're going to have to ask for help. You're going to have to tell them the things that you feel are probably so embarrassing that they're going to think terrible things of you. Doesn't matter. You have to find that person that you feel like you can trust and tell them that because that person should be able to help you with certain things. For example, I say to people, if you can get access to any sort of paper document, take a picture of it, take a picture of it, send it to that friend's email, delete it off your phone. If you're worried about them getting access to the phone, if you can remove it from the house and take a photo copy of it, do that, right? If you start keeping a calendar, if you're still together and you're not sure what's going on about travel dates and who was there and who did what? Who did bath time? Notes on notes. I don't like people to do things on their phone. I just feel like people are not always the tech-savviest. If you have a shared family cloud account, that gets uploaded every time you plug your phone in, then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, my stuff went missing." Maybe a little pen and paper and you keep that in a secure place, right? Getting even worse, because it's on a shared account. Yes. If you have an external drive and you can use something like that, as long as it's not a work computer for somebody, you can take, if it's a family computer that's been in the home, that doesn't matter from what account, the title doesn't matter here in New Jersey, get access to some of that information, because it'll help create the roadmap on some of the issues, whether that be financially or other ways, right? Start listening, educating yourself about coercive control, about what it looks like, what you can do to help yourself, but to help your children as well, right? You need to be able to not only regulate yourself, but often regulate your kids about the craziness that is happening, or has been happening around them. If you're able to get into therapy, there's free groups, in New Jersey we have the battered women's shelter, they offer services, there are other organizations that offer services for people who may need advice or counseling, leaving an unsafe environment, but have a safety plan, right? Telling people where you are, what you're going to be, if you're really worried, making sure that somebody knows, I'm worried that this person may actually hurt me, kill me, you know, I'm telling you this now, I'm going to send you a letter, you know, I'm going to give you a letter, you hold on to it, that talks about all the things that they did, just, you know, and it seems, I don't mean to seem like Hollywood crazy, like, is this real, but some people are in that situation. Some people are going to be stripped out of resources, so if you can open up a secret credit card where, you know, you can use that in case of an emergency, if you can get cash and put it away so that you have some funds in case of an emergency because, especially if there's a power dynamic, you know, money is certainly away, that that abuser will exert, they will cut you off from everything. Sure. And you'll be eating for a judge because, by the way, at least in New Jersey, having no access to funds, that's not considered an emergency situation. So we have these things that you can file, emergent applications, nine times out of 10, if you file that on a financial issue, they will convert it, either they'll deny it outright, make you file it out of motion, or convert it to a motion, which means you have about 30 days, if you're lucky, before it's hurt. So that could end up being two months, three months, eight months, depending on the county, depending on the judge, depending on all sorts of things. So, you know, figuring out, do you have resources? How would you pay for things? How can I get access to information? You know, do I even know just like where the accounts are? You know, you might not be able to get the statements. But like, I saw that there was a receipt, you know, I had somebody once who was like, I went in the car, I don't know, I had to borrow my spouse's car and went in there, I saw an ATM receipt for a bank that I didn't think we had any accounts that, right? I just kept the receipt or worked down the bank name so that I knew later on, we needed to look at that bank, right? If you have an accountant and a accountant files your tax returns, as for a copy of the tax returns, give it to that person, put it in a safe place, just so you have them try to get, you know, five years, three years, the more you can get, the better things look. The more information that your attorney has, because then we can see like our assets being moved, our assets being treated, you know, we're somebody divorced planning by the way that they were setting up certain things. Botox, on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches and adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month, it's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, Myastthenia Gravis, or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit Botox Chronic Migraine.com, or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. My thing is to try to have children in therapy. Sometimes at school, there will be divorce support groups. Some of the public schools, I know for sure, in my area have them that kids can go to. But obviously, that's more difficult. I think that if you're really planning on this, I would tell your child's teacher that things are not good at home and you're hoping to be a divorce that's coming on and you want them to know so that they can kind of be eyes and ears for the kids. Because if they notice something and they do something about it, it's way better than if you say it as a person. And by telling them that something's going on, they're going to be heightened to that, a good teacher. We'll be heightened to that. What's going on with that kid? They'll just be paying more attention. Otherwise, who knows, maybe just Tommy had a bad day or whatever it could be. I think that it's super important that kids hear constantly. Even if the other spouse is in front of them, if you're still living together saying awful things about you or them, that they are told constantly how much they are loved, how things are going to change. That all they have to do is tell the truth that you're going to do whatever you can to keep them safe, that they're great, that they're more positive things they can hear from one of you, even because if they're hearing all of this other garbage, it's going to affect them. They need somebody to be emotionally in tune to tell them how much they're loved, how great they are, how they're doing things good, how proud you are of them, how special they are to you, how much you mean to them. And not just in world, but-- Oh, I'm not there at all. Yeah, that's a big thing. It's not their fault. And there's a fine line with what you can say more about like kind of behavior. Older children generally understand-- obviously, they understand more than younger kids. It's a bit easier to say, you know, I don't know why your dad or your mom acts this way, but it's not OK, it's not acceptable. I'm working on doing something to change it, to change our situation. And I think that you have to tell them also that it's not for them to worry about, because they take on the worries of their parents, and it can really affect them physically. I mean, you see physical symptoms of kids who take on the worries like that. It's not always the easiest thing to do. There are a lot of kids who will ask a ton of questions-- eight-year-olds who will just badger the shit out of you. And you have to be the constant to say, you don't have to worry about this. I love you. Everything's going to be OK. This is not your fault. You have to stand firm on that, because the minute you say one thing that falls over the line, if that gets found out, if your kid innocently says to your spouse, your ex, a doctor, that's all that they're going to focus on. They're going to find a way to put like the high-being, shining his light on that. And then you're in a defensive mode, and nobody wants to be there. So it's much easier if you're just like the positive, loving, supportive, their parent present for them. And being present sometimes means you really have to be present. It's hard, but put the phone away, spend time, do the things that they want to do. Let them-- if they feel like they can't be free when they're with one parent, and when they're with you, they feel like it's not that way, whatever. They can run around in their underwear. I don't know what the thing is, right? But let them do it. Let them have that. Let them know that it's safe to do that with you until you get through this, because that's what they need when this is going on. They don't hear about how awful the other person is. They don't need to hear that. And you can't let your family or friends do that around them. You have to be the one to say like, we're not doing that. It's really hard to do, because you're like really hard, and you're upset, and the other person's acting like such an asshole, and you're like, how come they can do it? How come they can do it? But if you do this, I swear your kids will be so much better. Well, and not for nothing, we always, always hear. Kids figure it out down the line, right? 1,000%. They figure out who the problem was down the line. 1,000%. Yeah. Well, listen, before we let you go, let the listeners know where they can find you, social media, websites, all that kind of stuff. How can people get in touch with you should they want to? Yeah. So our website is fovelaunj.com. Father like the bean, Casey Newspelling. I have a LinkedIn profile. We have a LinkedIn profile for the firm. I have my social media, a father-law LLC. On Instagram, I also have a Facebook page just under my name, but it's professional. And I try to put out their tidbits about advice for parents, but advice for people going through the divorce. We do like a positive affirmation once a week. I try to put those out there to make people realize that they're not crazy, that this is going to get better at some point, focus on the future type of thing. Yeah, and all sorts of other things, like our podcasts and things that we've been on. Very cool. I would say just based on the fact that you were able to get a visceral reaction out of me at least two or three times, I would say this was a good episode. So thank you. Yeah, I did. Thank you, guys. Are you taking new clients and what's your retainer? [LAUGHTER] I am taking new clients. Retainer? Depend. OK. [LAUGHTER] I got a peanut gallery over here, talking to you. You keep looking. There. [LAUGHTER] You'll be over here. Well, listen, anyway, thank you so much for doing this. I think this is an episode that we've been wanting to do for a long time. Really, really stressing course and control in some of-- especially in New Jersey, some of the things that are coming down the pike. So we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. Yeah. And thanks for talking about it. I think the more we talk about it, the more people are going to know it and understand it. And the better we can do about it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, thank you so much. And thank you, guys, for listening. And until next time, everybody. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]