Good listening skills aren’t just important to relationships. They can also keep you out of jail.
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A client, I’ll call him “Ted,” swore to me that “everything was fine”, but then his wife slapped him with a restraining order. When he called to talk to her about it, Ted (unwittingly) violated the order and ended up under arrest—he was charged with a felony for violating a court order, as well as misdemeanor of aggravated harassment for the phone call.
“She didn’t have to do this,” he lamented. “If she wanted a divorce, she could have told me; we could have done this in a friendly way.”
I see it all the time: guys are dumbfounded that their wives take drastic measures to get their attention when they want a divorce. But it’s no surprise to me. Aside from being a woman and a divorce lawyer, I was also a “mean girl” in high school. I know how we operate. Here’s a few simple things to understand how your wife might also operate.
The most important thing: just listen.
When she says she’s fed up, she is. If she says she wants a divorce, she isn’t bluffing. And if she serves you with divorce papers or accuses you of a crime? Forget about reconciling. Male providers with stay-at-home-wives have some willful tendencies. The same will power that gets you ahead in the business world works against you in the marriage—and the divorce. Consider that there seems to be a ratio at play in many of these divorce cases: how poorly you listened to her coincides with the severity of her allegations.
Caveat: Domestic violence cases are an exception that I’m not addressing here. I’m talking about cases where he didn’t hear her when she said “we need to talk,” to the point where she felt the need to send him a message with a legal slap-down in order to be heard.
Don’t fall into the role-playing game.
Some role playing is useful, particularly in bed. But falling into the male provider/female homemaker dynamic can create a number of circular problems that lead to a dramatic divorce. When the kids came, she wanted to be valued for her childcare abilities and chided you for “doing it wrong.” But that just undermined your confidence with the kids and reinforced that she was “naturally” good at care-taking. Ironically, that makes her ability less valued. In fact, you start to feel like what she’s doing at home isn’t work at all – then you are less inclined to give her a break with the housework and the kids. Avoid these stereotypes by acknowledging each other as full people, no matter what role you play
Make the effort to connect.
She’s hurt when you plop in front of the television to unwind and don’t lend a hand for dinner and bedtime. You’ve been haggling with opponents and chatting with coworkers, while she’s been negotiating with a terrorist three-year-old and subjected to Barney sing-a-longs. Finally, after long, unappreciated hours with no intellectual stimulation and hardly any personal time (not even a few moments to use the toilet alone), she gets fed up. The fighting escalates because you don’t “hear” her. Maybe you think she’s over-reacting when she says she wants a divorce. She feels the need to get your attention with a dramatic message. And that message usually involves jail.
Enter Ted (and many other clients) who sit across from me and seem so caught off-guard. Eventually they got arrested and didn’t see it coming. The surprise can sometimes lead to settlements that comprise less-than-ideal access to the kids, and more-than equitable financial support.
Have you been in a legal battle with a “mean girl”? In retrospect, did you fail to hear her before the fight spiraled?
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Image Credit: Audrey AK/Flickr
Are women really that likely to abuse the law to “get back” at men
Anonguy, are you kidding me, or maybe you haven’t asked or paid enough attention to divorced men around whether you are related to them or otherwise, don’t take anybody’s word for it just take a look at stats ( divorce rates as dramatic & escalating as they are) , are only showing a part of reality nowadays, I am not saying it’s women’s fault necessarily, !!!, something is a mess anyway you look at it, the stats prove it & while you looking at these stats keep in mind these numbers are real people (men & women) & not just… Read more »
I actually like this article as much as it lacks in going into details about how diabolical is the divorce courts & the legal nightmarish drama around divorce in our societies here in the west are, number advice should had been ” DO NOT GET MARRIED NO MATTER WHAT IN THE FIRST PLACE ” & by the way common law crappy nightmares are not any better since ever increasingly the same rules of marriage applies to them, it’s a war literally , deal with here through lawyers or publicly through other services only, cover your own behind, you are the… Read more »
This had the potential to be a great piece. Too bad you totally phoned it in and didn’t bother to go into any detail apart from the cliched gender roles argument, then skipped straight to “Oh look, he’s in jail.” Lame.
Megan, What details exactly are you interested in hearing about? I tend to cut myself short sometimes because I could go on all day and no publisher wants that.
Not Buying it: I would never advise people not to get married. I fully believe that marriage can be a beautiful thing. That said, I encourage people to live intentional lives, particularly when it comes to lifestyle choices and how they conduct their marriage.
The only useful advice in this opinion piece is that men should take the divorce threat from their wives seriously and should never violate a court order.
Well this certainly comes off as hostile. Do you tend to assume the worst of all your clients? How about some tips on how to defend themselves and their children?
I don’t think it was hostile. That would have required a lot more interest on the part of the author.
At our relationship’s all time low (when my husband’s abusive friend was living in our house with his new wife), I felt like I was being utterly ignored….so I felt like throwing my cellphone in the bushes instead of answering it when my husband called…he would get mad and ask why I didn’t answer my phone…to avoid an argument, I did not bring up the number of times he has walked out of the room when I am speaking to him about something important…. Speed ahead a few years…we just text back and forth (he does not answer e-mails!)…and he… Read more »
I guess anything a woman does “in order to be heard” is just something guys should negotiate their way around?