Episode 4 - What A Divorce Lawyer Would Tell You About Communicating With Your Ex

The Do Divorce Right podcast is a new podcast dedicated to looking at the many different aspects of divorce,  interviews with women who have their own incredible divorce stories or those who can offer some great advice as you go through yours. Hosted by Becca Maxwell, a divorce coach and relational intelligence consultant, the focus here is to help you to find the strength and support to help you heal, feel lighter and in a better frame of mind to face the inevitable challenges of your divorce journey.

In this episode, Becca interviews the wonderful Maria Pentek who will assist you in minimizing the use of attorneys during your divorce.
After separating from her husband, she set up Elevation, which is her coaching business where she helps separating moms to communicate more effectively with their ex partners.
Maria is motivated to assist women communicate more successfully through separation since she has witnessed so much tension and ugly behaviour in the court system.

Check Out Maria's Programme:
https://mariapentek.samcart.com/products/elevation-group-coaching-program

Her socials:
www.facebook.com/elevationbymariapentek
www.instagram.com/elevationwithmariapentek

The link to the blog article mentioned in the interview:
http://mariaodonovanandco.blogspot.com/2018/11/top-5-tips-for-surviving-christmas.html

 

Audio Transcript

 

Becca

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you today to Maria Pentek.

Maria is a divorce lawyer who is practising, has her own practice, actually in West Cork in Ireland.

And she also consults with her clients on how to better communicate with your ex-husband or your ex-partner, in order to have the best possible resolution from exiting your marriage. So, Maria, thank you so much for making some time to chat with us today. I really appreciate it.

Maria

Not at all, thanks for having me. 

Becca

Of course! I wanted to share with our listeners a little bit about your story. I could use my words, but I'd much prefer to hear from you. Would you mind telling us a bit about your story?

Maria

Yes, sure. No problem. So yeah, I'm a, I'm a divorce lawyer. I help separating / divorcing couples, here in Ireland through the courts. I set up my own practice almost seven years ago. I qualified, I think 12 years ago now. And I've always really worked primarily in family law. And particularly since I set up my own firm, I'm specialising in that. 

I also, about a month after I set, I set up my law firm, I separated from my husband 

Becca

Unbelievable. 

Maria 

It was a busy year 2015. 

Maria

Look, it just happened the way these things do. So I suppose yeah, at the time, we had - well, we have - two children. At the time, they were early teens, possibly 11 and 13, thereabouts. They're now 18, and almost 21. 

They're young adults now making their own way in the world. Yeah, and I suppose through going through separation myself, and with my dealing with my family law clients every day, that really led me to set up Elevation, which is my, as you said, my coaching business where I help women to - I help separating moms - to communicate more effectively with their ex partners.

Becca 

I remember when we spoke, you told me that because of what you've seen through the courts, processes, and through your clients & their journey, that you had made a very specific decision not to make the same mistakes that you've seen others made. Do you want to tell me a little bit more about those mistakes? 

Maria

Yeah, I suppose the nature of the work that I do is, it's court based. So you're kind of starting off from an adversarial position. And then you bring in all of the emotions that go with separation. All of the hurts, the pain, the - what sometimes turns into resentment and bitterness - sometimes betrayal, all of those things. 

There's such strong, powerful emotions. 

Becca

Absolutely. 

Maria

And they really do. They're normal. They're human emotions, but they really do get in the way of going more easily through a separation. 

Becca

Yeah,

Maria 

I suppose that I had seen, I'd seen the court process I'd seen the good, the bad, the ugly, of separation and divorce. And yeah, I was pretty determined. I suppose I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know what way I could do it better. But I knew that I didn't want that.

Becca

Yeah. What was your specific decision then?

Maria

The one thing, I suppose, that I didn't quite know what I was doing at the time.. but looking back, it's the one thing that kept everything together, was that I kept at the very forefront of my mind all of the time that I wanted this to be amicable.

I wanted to be able to have a relationship with my ex partner after - during and after - separation. I didn't want my kids to see us arguing and fighting over stupid stuff or big stuff or any stuff.

Becca

That intention is so important, isn't it? what you set out to achieve, and reminding yourself “actually I'm trying to make this amicable”, it really can create a different path for you. And please, I believe it did, right, tell us you've got a happy ending?

Maria

I can yeah, like as I said, our kids now are 18 and 21. Um, My youngest son actually just moved about 30 minutes away to take up a job and live with some friends. So he's, for the last two weeks, he's moved out.

Becca

Wow. Still close, though. 

Maria

Oh, no. Yeah, very close.

I'm trying not to mama-bear him too much. 

Becca

Yeah I bet

Maria

But yeah, so our kids are older, they have less need of either of their parents. But yeah, I'm happy to report that myself and my ex are still really good friends. We went for lunch a couple of weeks ago, for no reason! Just to catch up and check in with each other. And we do check in, you know, to do anything to do with the kids. We're checking in all the time.

Becca

This is a personal question, but have either of you gone on to other relationships?

Maria

I have. I have. I've had two relationships in the last several years. My ex, I think has had one but maybe not so serious.

Becca

Okay. Okay. So backtracking a little bit, I'd love to know what made you decide to go into divorce law?

Maria

Wooo.. 

Becca

Yeah, I feel like that's it. I've spent a lot of time in the courts. And I feel I've spent a lot of time writing court documents. But I'm not sure I was ever attracted to doing that as a job. So I'd love to know what drew you to divorce law? 

Maria

I, I'm not sure.  It's a combination of something I kind of fell into, and something I think that was probably fated. I didn't, I didn't start studying law until kind of later in life. Well, I was, I was pregnant with my eldest daughter when I started working as a legal secretary. And the only reason I started that job was because I wanted a nine to five job. I'd been working in hotels, bars, restaurants up to that point. And I just fell in love with it. 

Becca

Wow. 

Maria

And I kind of started studying on my own pretty much straight away. Well, and the firm that I was working with at the time, and two of the lawyers that were working there, were doing a lot of family law. So I fell into it in that way. 

Becca

Got it,

Maria 

and realised that I was pretty good at it.

Becca 

Clearly! If you've been able to set up your own practice, that makes sense. You don't have to be shy about that or modest at all.

Just thinking about, you mentioned earlier, that you've seen the spectrum of the good, the bad, and the ugly, I think you said. So I'd like to talk about the good, because I really do want to focus on .. I think everybody can see the slippery slope and how easy it is to, you know, ex-bash, and, you know, blame and name and blame and shame, and all of those awful things. 

But it's really hard to keep that intention of “I want to have an amicable relationship with my ex husband”, which was your intention, my intention was very much “I need to protect myself and the children, whatever cost that is”. 

And unfortunately, I don't have an amicable relationship with my ex husband, I don't have a relationship at all. And that's a real sadness. But the children and I are safe and well. So that was the intention.

And so just thinking through what you've seen, can you tell us were there any common themes for couples who managed to navigate their divorces well? 

I know that you saw it through the court perspective, so maybe there were lots that didn't have to come through the family courts. But what were some of the common themes there?

Maria

I suppose if I look at my client base overall, the easier divorces are probably those where there are no children. First of all.

Becca

all, right. Yeah.

Maria

You know, I suppose it's the it's, it's the children require you in most cases - not all - to maintain a connection with your ex of some sort. Yeah, you can’t delete them from your life as much as that I think all of my clients if I could do that, I would Yeah. So I suppose that's the easy answer for those with children, and those with better divorces and separation. It's communication. And I'm talking about, I suppose I'm specifically not talking here about situations where there are domestic violence or coercive control or addiction issues. You know, that's a whole other subject and 

Becca

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of what I think - one of the wonderful things about the last maybe 10-20 years is the access to resources now for mental health, for domestic violence for, you know, we, we do have a lot of options to be able to get support in those spaces. And I love.. 

I don't know if you saw recently in the news in Australia, there was an article about the rise of coaches helping people through divorce. So this, this is an industry that is growing. And I think that's fantastic too. Not just because I'm a divorce coach, but because it means that there's so much more support for people as they go through, and different levels of support, of course, you know, your legal support is required. A therapist, if you are facing those really big issues, and then coaches to help navigate you through that journey.

Maria

Absolutely. And I think there's, it's, you know, it's, it's, I've heard it from this another coach that I know who she helps women to transition out of sporting careers. And a great question that she asked, and one that I've adopted is “who's on your team?” 

And I've, you know, I really, I put that question to my clients now. Because it's such a lonely place, going through separation. We all think that we're the only people who are experiencing these emotions and these particular set of circumstances, and that nobody could possibly really understand what we're going through. And of course, that's, that's not true, but it doesn't make it feel any less lonely. 

Becca

That's right. 

Maria

Having the right people on your team is just crucial. 

Becca

And, and you’ve lost team members along the way as well, right? You no longer have access to your partner who had previously been on your side. You no longer have access to the extended family or the mutual friends, so your support crew or your access to the support crew has has also minimised so 

Maria

It has, yes. Everything's changed and up in the air. So yeah, you're right.

Becca

Yeah, yeah. But there's a lot of empathy around. So yeah, bringing people together who are going through a similar journey, I think is really important, especially if you can set that tone, right. 

Becca 

You know, the Facebook groups where people start talking about their narcissist ex or whatever, it's not helpful.

Maria

It's not helpful. 

Becca

If you can find a space, that has the right tone, it makes such a big difference. 

So you've mentioned a couple of times about clear communication. And that's really the focus of your coaching as well. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Maybe you could bring it to how you and your ex-husband have been able to navigate. What did you do? Or what were some specific ways in which you've communicated that people can learn from? 

Maria

Yeah.

Well, as I was saying to you before, it definitely is just through my work as as a lawyer that I really noticed, that started noticing that communication or lack of communication was probably the number one thing that I could see that got in the way of parents being able to parent

Becca

Right

Maria

and people being able to separate amicably or just more peacefully. And I started, I think, when I started noticing this, I did a blog about it probably about five years ago. And I just wrote a little bit about my tips on communication as I could see it. 

And it was interesting, it was so interesting, because what happened was one of my clients that I had at the time, saw it and read it, the day that I posted it, and she rang me and she said, “Maria, I’ve just seen your blog, and it's really interesting”. And she was going through at the very early stages of a contested contentious divorce. And they had one child together. But she said “I've read your post and you know what, I think I'm going to try it, what do you think?” And I said, “What are you thinking of trying?” and she said ‘well we've been fighting about access’ and we had, I think, we had - myself and her ex’s solicitor - had exchanged quite heated correspondence about access and, and issues surrounding their daughter. 

So she said, “Maria, I'm gonna try it. I think I'm gonna kind of.. I'm gonna call him”.

It was Christmas time, said “he's asked for a, b and c over Christmas. I'm gonna give him a little bit more and see what happens”. And I was like, “you go for it”. And you know, “I think that's a really good idea. You go for it. Let me know how it goes”. 

And I think the message that I was trying to put out there was that, you know, if you can give a little bit - as hard as it is - because we want to hold on so tightly to everything because, we're in that scared, lonely place 

Becca

scarcity mindset as well. Yeah.

Maria 

So my, kind of, my overall message was, you know, give a little bit. See what happens. Take a chance. Yeah, so she gave. And her ex was blown away. Like he was not expecting this, because up to that point, there had been, yeah, nasty letters back and forth.

And from that point on, in their divorce, I won't say that it was plain sailing -there were still financial issues and different things to sort out - but not once did we ever have any more correspondence or court applications to do with their child!

Becca

Yeah. Amazing. Your blog post? You said you wrote it about five years ago? Is that something I could link in the show notes? 

Maria 

Yeah. 

Becca

I'll get that link from you and put it in the show notes. You were able to transform someone's life with that blog post - I want to read it! That sounds great. 

So just thinking through that scenario with your, your client, and thinking through lots of different scenarios.. When.. do you have any suggestions on when it's better to use lawyers to communicate, and when it's better to do it yourself? like finances notwithstanding. Nobody wants to pay lawyers just to write a letter that could be an email. But at what point would you make that suggestion; you know, definitely put this one through? Do you have any suggestions? Or am I being too broad with this question? 

Maria 

No, I think in general terms, from a legal point of view, I think the earlier that you can take advice, the better. I think it's important to get that advice straight up so that you can get all of the information that you need, and then make informed decisions going forward, whether you use your lawyer to do everything or to do a bit of the correspondence and understanding

Becca

Understanding your options is critical. Yeah, absolutely.

Maria

After that. It's, I think, I suppose this is why I've set up Elevation because I think, after that point, at the earliest stages of separation, and you know, later if it hasn't gone so great, if you can establish a basic foundational framework of good, effective communication, where you're not at each other's throats, and where you can have a conversation that doesn't turn into another argument or fall into whatever pattern you may have had with your ex during your relationship. 

That's going to cut down immediately on the need for lawyers to get involved over the nitty gritty bits. And it's kind of, again, I suppose, another one of the reasons that made me want to set up Elevation was because I was dealing with stuff in the courts. That was like killing my soul. 

Becca 

Yeah, I can imagine

Maria 

I'm, you know, getting letters from solicitors saying ‘Oh, my God, Tommy came home and they had dirty fingernails. And why did you, why didn't you wash his hands?

Becca

Or the school bag was dirty or.

Maria

Yeah, or the new T shirt that I bought her wasn't sent back. And how could you?’ and you know, it turns into a massive thing.

Becca

And into a very expensive argument, about not very much.

Maria

Very expensive. Yeah. Yeah. 

Becca

 

Okay, so now I'm thinking through, you know, there's arguments that happen about lunchboxes or t-shirts that weren't returned. I think all of us have been in positions where our, our ex-partner has behaved in a certain way that has made us feel quite explosive, right. 

We were triggered. We want to,

Maria 

we've all been there.

Becca

Yeah, exactly a thoughtless message, a call, a way in which they've responded to you, whatever it is, has really triggered something in you. Do you have any tips then to help someone when they find themselves in that position? I mean, I have oodles and I have quite a lot of that in my course. But I'd love to hear if you've got any key takeaways that they can use today.

Maria

For me, if I could, if I could sum it up as briefly as possible and what helped me. Just that kind of mantra that I repeat to myself is “Respond, don't react. Respond, don't react”. Act.

Becca 

Yeah, yeah.

Maria

And god out that is easier said than done!

Becca

100% Act don't react. 

One of the one of my mantras through all of this was “When they go low, we go high”. Like, it doesn't matter how terrible his behaviour is, it doesn't matter what is going on in that house, I don't have to participate. You know, and it was probably around the time of, you know, Barack Obama being in office and Michelle Obama, and that statement of “When they go low, we go high”, like, Yes! I needed that right here right now. That was one of my mantras.

Maria

Yes, that’s a good one. So it's like, yeah, it is so much easier said than done. And the way I describe it to a lot of my clients is, you know, when they're, they're coming in, they're saying, “Oh my God, he did this, or she did that”. I'd say to them, “Look, it's, you're in a game of tennis. 

It's, it's like the game of tennis. Your ex has just picked up his racket or her racket, and they have lobbed the ball over the net into your 

side of the court. What are you going to do? You have a choice. You pick up, you can pick up the ball, you can lob it back, and you can keep the game going for as long as you like. Or you can leave let the ball bounce put down your racket 

Becca

Walk off the court and spend some nice time with your children! Yeah, see yah. I’m not playing this game.  This is bullshit.

Maria

Yes, exactly. And it is a choice. But we often in the moment, we don't realise we have a choice. We just, it is instinctual. It's human nature, to want to defend yourself, or? 

Becca

Yeah, that’s true.

it's also very compelling in the moment to think “I have to respond to this, because the lawyers will need a record of what did I respond with”, or “the court will need to see that I behaved you know, that I did the right thing”. 

And often, it's just not true. It's just not true. You know, keeping that..  making that response, no matter how justified that you feel it is, it does just keep that game going.

Maria

I don't know, I don't know exactly what what the family law system is, like, in Australia, I have a little bit of knowledge of it, but not, you know, a full understanding. 

But certainly in Ireland, you know, I often have to say to people, when we get to trial if we get to trial, and by the way, 90% of my cases do not get to trial 

Becca

Which is a good thing, I assume? 

Maria

Yeah. Yeah, I get agreements in place before we have to go down that road. But, if and when we are standing in front of the judge, and we're asking the judge to make a decision, the judge does not give one hoot about who's behaved badly. Who's done what ?

Becca 

Right. 

Who has, you know, used swear words, when they were talking to you disrespectfully? That's not what they're there to decide. They're not there to micromanage your behaviour, you're adults. The judge is going to be concerned about who am I, you know, who are these people in front of me? How long have they been married? What assets do they have? And how am I going to divide them to make sure everybody is looked after? as best they can be?

 Becca

Yeah, yeah. It's funny that the way you just said that, I was like, Oh, that's my permission, I could have sworn and been horrible if they didn't care. Hahaha, no but you're right. 

That's not, that's not the job, the job of the judge. I'm not familiar with Australian law in any depth either, because my divorce happened in Singapore. So we were both expatriated at the time, which made it even messier still, you know, with properties in Amsterdam, and Australia, and living in Singapore. It was just a huge mess. And we went to court lots and lots and lots. 

But I hear you, I hear what you're saying, you know, the swearing, the way in which you behave to the other person doesn't necessarily draw - let's say it's the ex-husband, for example, in my case - doesn't necessarily draw a bad picture for them. It doesn't affect what they're going to get in the end. 

Maria

It really doesn’t. I mean, yeah, like, obviously, if there was, you know, bad behaviour in terms of, as we said the domestic violence issues or, 

Becca

Oh, that's a whole other ball game. 

Maria

But, yeah, you know, the judge doesn't care whether you can speak civilly to each other or not, they're going to deal with the case on their docket, and they're going to move on to the next case.

But it is so important, because you are the person who has to live with this afterwards. And you're the person who has to try and bring your children through it intact, as intact as they can possibly be.

 Becca

Yeah, that was a critical for me. Definitely just focusing on the children's experience of this. I do believe I don't need to see me behave in a terrible way. And I, again, you know, when they go low, we go high. 

Maria

100%, and then that's hard, Rebecca because you're trying to manage all of your own emotions, like, you're a human being, and you've been through an ordeal. And there are a lot of emotions, a lot of strong, powerful emotions that go with that, 

Becca

Indeed. 

Maria

But not only that, you're probably putting those on the back burner to a certain extent, because you're, you're trying to make sure your kids are okay. And you're trying to make sure there's food in the fridge to make school lunches. 

Becca

That’s right, the practicalities.

Maria 

Life goes on

Becca

Yeah, absolutely. 

Maria

And really you just want to get under the duvet and watch netflix and cry.

Becca 

I've gotten very, very good at acknowledging my emotions, but not necessarily reacting to them. 

Maria

Yeah. 

Becca

So you know what you're saying earlier, I call it ‘act don’t react’, and what was your phrase?

Maria,

Respond, don't react

 

Becca 

Respond, don't react? Yeah. 

I understand you have another intake for your programme Elevation coming up? Would you like to tell us a bit more about that? And how people can find you?

Maria

Yeah. So well, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, pretty much. They're the best places to find me. That's where I show up most 

Becca

I’ll definitely put the links in the show notes for sure. 

Maria

Thank you. So yeah, Elevation, my current offering; Elevation is a group coaching programme. I take in a maximum of 10 people at a time. It's a nice, small, intimate group of women, mothers who are going through, or have gone through, separation. 

And they just want to try and do this better, and learn better communication. 

So I have, at the moment, I have a six month programme. 

And the first six weeks are spent learning some really key foundational communication skills and tools. And then there's six months after that of ongoing weekly support in the group; there's a live call each week, there's a private Facebook group for daily support if needed. 

So you can make, you can practice the skills that you've learned, put them into practice, show up each week and grab a hot seat, one on one coaching with me in the group. See if you're, you know, what's working, what's not working and what might need to be tweaked a little bit.

Becca

Amazing. I love that. I feel like we were very complimentary, right? You're very much focused on their communication while mine is very much focused on emotional regulation and resilience and less so about, you know, the words to use or the way in which to frame an argument or … super complimentary. 

So just wrapping up. So is there any single piece of advice that you would give our listeners in order to Do Divorce Right, moving forward? 

Maria

I think it goes back to what I said before about that big picture, that setting the intention.

Becca

Yeah setting the intention? 

Maria

Yeah, if you don't.. if you don't know where you're going, you don't know how to get there. And, you know, it's like goal setting, you can't.. if you don't have a goal, you're not going to know what steps you need to take to get to where you want to be. So I would say try and figure out where you want to be, what you want it to look like. Specifically, 

Becca,

Who do you want to be?

Maria

Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up for yourself, for your kids for your ex? 

Well, specifically, things like, what's going to happen at your next kid's birthday? 

What's going to happen at Christmas? 

How do you want that to be? 

Do you want to be able to be in the same room as your ex partner and exchange the basic courteous civil, you know, greetings. That might be your goal, that's totally fine. Not everyone wants to end up friends with their ex. And that's totally fine too. 

Becca

But not everybody gets to choose too either. Because of course your intention has to be about yourself, you can't control another person.

So as much as you might have that intention of “I want us to both be there at the next birthday party and we'll have our partners along as well.” If your ex isn't on board with that same intention, that's not going to happen. You can't control them. 

But I love that, you know, setting an intention for who you are, how you want to behave. How you want to be seen is so lovely. 

I love that advice. Thank you Maria.

Maria

Yeah, Just.. just on that I suppose I would agree that you .. Yeah, I say this to people all the time. “We can only control ourselves ,our own behaviours, thoughts, emotions, all of those things. That's the only thing we have control over.”

But when we show up in a better way, in a more intentional way, it does have a knock on effect. And it might not immediately be with your ex. But when you start doing this kind of work and being intentional and communicating the way you want to communicate when you know when when you can figure out what that is and then go and do it. It does have a knock on effect.

Becca 

Yeah, absolutely. I feel that the universe responds that, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. 

I certainly feel that I was given a lot of reward for the way in which I behaved through my divorce, and I'd set that very clear intention of who I intended to be. And you know, I've been able to reap this beautiful life at the end of it. That at the time I could never have imagined. I could never have imagined. But here we are. It’s wonderful. 

Maria, thank you so much for your time. I can't wait to get this episode out to our listeners. I will put everything in the show notes, and I can't wait to connect again.

Maria

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Rebecca.