“I have spent forty-plus years watching parents try to co-parent after the marriage ends, and the ones who make it are not the ones who feel friendly first. They are the ones who decide to treat the relationship like a business partnership with one product: the children.”
“I don't litigate anymore, and one reason is that fighting in court usually makes an uncooperative ex less cooperative, not more. I build parenting plans that assume friction: tight drop-off rules, decision deadlines, BIFF-only communication through an app, and parallel parenting when co-parenting isn't realistic.”
“I have seen the most entrenched co-parenting standoffs soften the moment both parents stop trying to win and start writing down exactly what in the kids’ best interest looks like on a Tuesday night. An uncooperative ex often isn’t the real problem; the problem is a parenting plan that leaves too much room for interpretation, so every text becomes a power struggle.”
“I had a client come back ten years after his first divorce and tell me the agreement we wrote was the only thing that kept him and his ex from tearing each other apart while raising their daughter. They still did not get along, but the document gave them a structure they could point to instead of fighting.”
“As a California-trained divorce mediator, I see the real work begin when parents stop trying to win the argument and start identifying their own triggers before a text or email escalates. I went through a difficult divorce myself, and I learned that the parent who can stay regulated first usually becomes the one the child trusts most.”
“I spent years mediating at Harvard and Middlesex Court, and what I learned is that an uncooperative ex is usually a person whose story about you has calcified. You cannot reason with that story until you stop feeding it. I would keep every exchange narrow, written, and focused on the child’s needs, not on fairness or the past.”
“I mediated a lot of divorces, and the ones that stayed stuck were never about the schedule. They were about one parent needing to be right more than they needed peace. My job was to listen, learn, and find smart compromise, but I couldn't do that until both people stopped treating every text like a scorecard. The parent who kept the child out of it, even when the other didn't, usually won in the ways that mattered.”
“I have mediated divorces where one parent came in ready to burn the other down, and the only way through was to stop talking about fault and start talking about the next holiday, the next school pickup, the next medical decision.”