I first encountered this phenomenon with my own child. When he was little, my wife and I were struggling with potty training. My son was a bright boy and typically eager to work with us, but for some reason, he fought us on this issue. We tried everything. And I mean everything. Charts, reward systems, schedules, begging and pleading, bribery... you name it. We read books, we talked to parents, and we talked to his teachers at daycare.
Absolutely nothing seemed to work. We were at our wits' end.
Slightly more than a year into the process, my wife and I were at the pediatrician's office with my son. His pediatrician was tough, no-nonsense woman from Jamaica. When we described the potty training problem, she looked down at him and said, "Stop that! From how on, you need to use the bathroom like a big boy. You know how."
He said, "Ok!"
... and then he was potty-trained. It happened literally instantaneously. My wife and I were relieved, but we asked ourselves, "Why didn't we think to have the pediatrician talk to him sooner?!?"
The answer was that we did not yet understand this lesson: Sometimes communication has nothing to do with the content and everything to do with the messenger.
You can keep the content the same and fail to get through a thousand times. Change the messenger and suddenly the same data is received promptly and beautifully.
You might be asking yourself, "What in the world does this have to do with a divorce?"
Everything.
Frequently, couples have been fighting about issues and considering options for years. The problem is that when they talk to each other, there is so much additional emotional baggage that the actual value of the message can get quickly lost. I cannot tell you the number of times I wrote an opposing spouse a letter largely parroting what my client had been telling him / her for years, but something about getting it from someone else on a lawyer's letterhead let it get through.
In lots of instances in divorcing and co-parenting, there can be huge value in simply changing the messenger. If you feel "stuck" communicating with someone, and see if you can't recreate the magic my son's pediatrician worked all those years ago. I think you will be honestly surprised by how well this very simple strategy works.
Comments