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Men's ADHD Support Group
We are a nonprofit organization created to help men with ADHD find community and acceptance by raising awareness about Men's struggle with ADHD and mental health. We are here to provide access to experts, tools, and strategies so that men can learn how to thrive with ADHD. It's hosted by coach & speaker Marc Almodovar ( @wellnesswithmarc ), and Shane Thrapp, Life Coach and Business Consultant (Order_from_Ka0s), among other leaders of the Men's ADHD Support Organization; find out more information about us at www.mensadhdsupportgroup.org
Men's ADHD Support Group
ADHD, Dad’s and Divorce with David Pisarra Esq of Dad’s Law School
Shane Thrapp, Operations Director of the Men's ADHD Support Group, is joined by David Pisarra Esq., chief evangelist at Dad's Law School. In this episode we discuss the challenges and strategies for men, particularly those with ADHD, facing divorce and custody battles. David shares his extensive experience in family law and offers practical advice on navigating the legal system, the importance of therapy, and how to document parenting efforts. In this episode we work to emphasize the need for men to educate themselves, seek support, and improve their emotional regulation to achieve better outcomes for their families through these trying times that we may face.
Talking Parents App - https://talkingparents.com/home
Our Family Wizard App - https://www.ourfamilywizard.com/
00:00 Introduction to the Men's ADHD Support Group Podcast
00:09 Meet David Pisarra: Advocate for Fathers in Family Court
01:40 Challenges Men Face in Family Court
04:34 David's Mission: Educating and Supporting Fathers
06:21 Practical Advice for Fathers in Custody Battles
07:58 The Importance of Evidence and Documentation
17:23 Navigating Legal Rights and Custody Information
26:50 The Role of Therapy and Emotional Support
27:38 Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder
28:39 Impact of Childhood Trauma on Relationships
30:39 Differentiating ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder
32:26 Therapy's Role in Family Dynamics
33:33 Personal Experience with Therapy
35:28 Co-Parenting Strategies
38:50 Deciding Between Staying in a Marriage or Divorce
42:36 Emotional vs. Physical Abuse
45:23 Men's Emotional Abuse and ADHD
49:34 The Importance of Therapy for Men with ADHD
50:55 Introduction to Dad's Law School
53:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Hello everyone. Welcome to the Men's ADHD Support Group Podcast.
This is Shane Thrapp, operations director for the Men's ADHD Support Group nonprofit.
Meet David Pisarra: Advocate for Fathers in Family Court
And today I am joined by David Pisarra, the chief evangelist at the Dad's Law School. He has over 25 years experience practicing family law and specializing in representing fathers in custody and divorce cases. He's made it his mission to really help dads who are fighting for their children in family court to understand the process and find ways to move forward through this really trying process.
David, I really appreciate you making it today. How's everything going with you, man?
Thanks, Shane. It's great to be here. You know, I'm listening to you do my introduction and I'm looking at that logo of Creating Order From Chaos and it's just like, I should steal that because it's kind of like what I do is the chaos of family court.
I'm trying to make understandable to dads who don't have any real experience with it. As most people don't, you know, until you're in it, you're never going to really experience it.
Yeah, definitely, man. This is such a trying process as somebody who's gone through a really messy divorce and the chaos that comes from being overwhelmed, being frustrated, missing my children.
I really wanted to bring you on and have this conversation because I made a lot of mistakes. There's a lot of shame and guilt. And of course, people with ADHD deal with this a lot. You know, because it's just part of the emotional dysregulation aspect.
Challenges Men Face in Family Court
What are the things that you really want to focus on whenever you're working with men when it comes to divorce?
What's your process look like?
There's so many things for men, you know, it's just, we're so uneducated as a society, but the legal process in general, we may watch Boston legal or whatever suits or whatever this month's hottest show is. And that's just fiction. It's not even close to the reality of what people go through in court in general.
And then the family court system ramps that up by like a factor of a thousand because you've got all the emotions involved, the gray areas. You know, the shading, the, the way in which people like don't lie, but they certainly tilt things in their favor, you know, men in general tend to just put their heads down and be like, I know what my job is in life.
I have to show up at the wedding semi sober and say I do. I have to get a job. I have to bring home a paycheck and I have to mow the lawn. And then I'm a good dad and a good husband. And it's like, well, there might be a little bit more involved here, buddy. You know, we need to actually start fleshing out and filling out what our roles are.
I think we're at a real inflection point in our society because men are really starting to reevaluate their roles and what they're doing, as are women, you know, but part of that is, is now we have to educate people, right? The issue is, this is how to educate men, not only on what's expected of them, but what to expect going into court and how to operate in that court system.
So they can kind of have a much better reaction and a much better result for their families, which in the long run is the end goal for all of this really.
Yeah, that's one of the biggest missions of the Men's ADHD Support Group is really redefining that concept of masculinity and, you know, communication, understanding how to find the boundaries that you need with your partner, understanding when to like have conversations and recognize when they're doing things that may be abusive. Especially like we were talking about earlier, emotional dysregulation is such a factor for men with ADHD, but one of the things that we really need to change about the dynamic of men in our society, and it's one of our biggest passions is knowing when to ask for help. How do you help men with ADHD or men in general with the divorce process? And, and why do you do it?
Okay, so let me answer the second question first. Okay. Why do I do it?
David's Mission: Educating and Supporting Fathers
I've spent 25 years walking into a court and helping, I walk in with a client.
And I'll sit in the audience waiting for a case to be called. And I have seen thousands of men walk up, talk to the judge and be like, I'm a great dad. I want my 50 percent custody, get absolutely shredded by the other side and walk out of court going, the system is abusive. It's not fair. It's slanted towards women.
And I'm sitting there going, dude, if you had just said this, this and this, you would have had a much better result. So for me, it's been 25 years of watching. men just get decimated because no one is teaching them the very basics. And I just couldn't take it anymore. You know, I mean, the reality is most people can't afford lawyers long term in family, you know, at anywhere from 300 to a thousand dollars an hour, how many hours can anybody support you know, in your average salary?
Like that's just not realistic. So for me, it was, okay, how do I do something to help these men? And that's where My TikToks come along. That's where my YouTube videos, that's where the Facebook stuff comes to try and start educating men and get the message out. And I'm trying to help people at scale. I'm trying to help dads at scale change the system.
First way we change the system is we teach them how to show up. So the why was I see just men get destroyed. The result is I'm trying to help men understand the system better so that they can protect themselves and their relationship with their children. Now, how do I do that? How do I help dads in general with divorce?
Practical Advice for Fathers in Custody Battles
The first thing I tell them is breathe. This is a painful process. It's going to run its course and you've got to know how to show up. Then when I'm dealing with someone who has an ADHD diagnosis, I'm like, okay, you need to put in some place, some systems to help you knowing that there's issues. Knowing that, you know, your emotions may go up and down a lot more than someone who doesn't have ADHD.
As a consequence of that, it's maybe you're on meds, maybe you're not. Maybe you're seeing a therapist, maybe you're not. Maybe you're having a regular physical gym routine that helps you. Whatever it is, we need to take a look at that and maybe up it a little bit because we're going through a very dynamically challenging period.
Divorce and child custody cases are just You know, we talked about it as sort of like a war zone, and it kind of is, because you're in the fog of the emotions of where are my kids, how come I don't get to see them, why are these lies being told about me, I thought I was doing the right thing, and now we're, we're trying to play football, but by the rules of chess, And it doesn't work well.
So I'm trying to get guys like, reach out, get the support they need, whether it's through their, their therapist or their psychologist or their psychiatrist or their, their men's group. I mean, I recommend men's groups. And sometimes it even works. Sometimes guys will actually go to them.
Excellent. And it is really important to understand the value of that support system.
And it's one of the reasons why we do what we do.
The Importance of Evidence and Documentation
What are some of the most common mistakes that you've seen when men are going up there and are having that conversation? Like, what are some specific examples that you've seen that really resonated with where the struggle really comes from?
Most common problem men have when they go into family court, they don't know what they need to tell the judge.
They think they can just go in, be honest, tell their side of the story, and they're going to get a fair result. And that's simply not true. Because the reality is, if the mother or the wife in a divorce or child custody case wants to treat you fairly, you wouldn't be going to court. The fact that you're actually in front of a judge means you're in a battle.
80 percent of child custody cases and divorces, it's a filing, it's a filing by the other side, they come to an agreement, it gets recorded with the court. No one even ever makes a court appearance. But if you're actually going in front of a judge, you have to come up with, what are you going to tell that judge?
And the biggest mistake I see is guys walk in and they're like, hi, your honor. I'm here because I want my 50 percent child custody. I'm a great dad. She'll tell you. And it's like, yeah, not so much, dude. If she was going to tell him that, you wouldn't be there. She's going to tell him why you are negligent, unattentive, bad parenting skills, don't understand the children, don't know their doctors, don't know their schools, don't know their friends, don't know their food allergies, don't know how to discipline them properly, the kids are afraid of you, you're scary, you yell too much.
She's afraid you're going to do something dangerous with the children. She's afraid you're going to run away with them. It's all of the blah, blah, blah. And if you're just walking into court as so many men do, and I'm like, I'm a great dad, dude, if you're the judge, just think about that for a second. I'm a great dad versus all of these reasons why you're not a great dad.
And you're the judge who's, who's charged with protect the child. We would take the child's best interest. How are you going to come down? Like just cover your own butt like mom's giving me facts, figures, dates, times, receipts. Dad's like, I'm a great dad. That ain't gonna cut it. So what I'm trying to do is teach dads how to.
Not make that mistake. Go into court. You have to tell your story. You have to really express to the judge why you're a great dad. Show them how you know you're a great dad. Show them how you interact with the child. That's probably the biggest thing that I see that men can do to help themselves is just start telling the story, which we're not used to doing.
We, as men, it's like, dude, we're problem solvers. I got a problem. Give me three minutes. You got 30 seconds to fix it. I want to answer in five words or less and then go work that way. This is, this is all the fluffy, emotional stuff language and description that that's needed so that the judge can make a decent decision.
So how do men have that conversation or how do they build that understanding of how to express or communicate? How they are a good dad. Like what are some things that they need to make sure that they do know, right? Cause you listed out all the things that the mother often does know. And as a stay at home father, I have to know because I'm the one taking him to the doctor and things like that.
There's a lot of guys out there who are working 50, 60 hours a week, who are the breadwinners or providers, and their role as a father. Isn't so. In depth, as it often is with like stay at home mothers and things of that nature. So are you kind of expressing that there needs to be like a breakdown of what you've done as a father and why that matters for the child in a, like a.
evidentiary way, like where you're presenting the evidence.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because when you've got mom and dad living together and then they split and you've got that initial request for orders for child custody decision, mom's going into court with all of her lists of everything she knows about the kid.
And dad's going in with, I'm a great dad. It's at that point that he has to be able to counter all of those allegations. But he doesn't necessarily have all the information. He might know more than he thinks he knows, though, is the issue. Like, a lot of times, dads know answers. They just don't know they're supposed to share the answers.
So a lot of times, dads will know, like, where the kid goes to school, who the teacher is, who their friends are, food allergies, how to discipline. But if they don't know that they have to tell that to the judge, They're not going to say it. We're not naturally oversharing as a gender. We're generally more like, I know how to pick up my kid.
I know how to get into the doctor. I know how to do first aid. What more do you want from me?
Right.
We're used to having the information pulled out of us. Whereas those of the other gender tend to be a little bit more expressive and dump information on people. So one of the things that we do is normally when you file for child custody orders.
You file a response, mom's asked for orders, and you ask for, you have to file a response. And in that response we have a declaration that details out, here's what I know about the school, here's what I know about their medical records here, what I know about their friends. Here's what I know about.
How to discipline them. Here's how I discipline them. Here's the activities I engage in with them. And we teach dads how to actually create the evidence. Like, you're the stay at home dad. You probably have some form of a calendar to track everything that's got to happen, is my guess.
Right? Yeah, as somebody with ADHD, I definitely do.
It's, it's usually pretty great, but I'm an exception to the rule. And I got to be honest with you about this. A lot of what you're describing to me as a father, especially as a father who's gone through the system and, with the understanding I have of ADHD, you're describing things that often we don't know.
And like, it's not because we don't want to, it's just because there's a different issues. Short term memory is a problem for people with ADHD, attention to details, like those things are often a problem, especially when we're just asked to kind of come up with all these things on our own.
When we've been depending on somebody for 15, 20, 10 years to, take care of that for us. Like. These things that you're asking seem really complicated to bring together in my opinion, when it comes to, like, men with ADHD.
So I think it may be amplified with men with ADHD, but let me tell you, for 25 years, most dads have a problem coming up with a lot of it.
They have some of it, but they don't necessarily have a lot of it. So my solution to that is, take one of those desk calendars, those big desk calendars you get at, Staples for, like, 3. 3. And start stapling your receipts to them. Start stapling the things that you're doing with the kids to them, marking on them, like, this is the day on this Saturday, we went to the park this Sunday, we did, we made pizzas together.
It's that way of creating a record. Then you can use later in the custody hearing,
right?
Because you're going from that. It's a pivot point. So you're going from that long term relationship where you had somebody else acting as the database. And now we're like, okay, we're going into court and you've got to start coming up with stuff.
Well, from day one, if you just start tracking the receipts, the events, the things you did, the ways in which you handled the children, you're going to start creating a record of how you actually operate. And that's what we need. It doesn't have to be 15 years worth of history. It can be the last three months of here's what I know, and here's how I know it, because that's what a judge wants to know.
What do you know, and how do you know it?
So this kind of falls into almost like a journaling. Process where you're kind of breaking all of these different things down and you're kind of tracking what you're doing is there, you know, granted, you may be having a lot of issues. Obviously, this is a chaotic issue, you know, with the mom and everything.
But is there value to going to the mother and saying, hey, now that we're split up. I need to know these things so that I can make sure that I'm following through with it, you know, doctor's appointments, food allergies, teachers, like, is there value to that, you know, to going through that process with them?
Depending on your relationship with them, yes.
Navigating Legal Rights and Custody Information
And this is where we cross over into the world of, you know, what are legal custody rights, what are fiscal custody rights, and what information is supposed to be shared. So initially. A non married mother has sole legal and sole physical custody of the child.
What that means is she gets to make all the decisions. Because dad hasn't gotten court orders yet. Judge hasn't stepped in and said dad's the dad and now he has legal standing to know all this information. Once that happens, Now, mom has an obligation to share that information, and we use tools to make sure that that happens, whether it's an online solution like Talking Parents or Our Family Wizard, so that they can start sharing information, they can share receipts, they can, they can do their scheduling of what the custodial time is going to look like.
And as that information kind of gets built up, dad can start creating that record that he needs to know what's going on. So he can find out, okay, here's the pediatrician. Now I need to subpoena those records so that I understand what's really going on because I may have just been relying on mom to take care of everything.
Now it's time for me to be more engaged. Does that make sense?
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So what happens if the mom won't share this information natively beforehand? Should they keep a record of trying to get the information beforehand and so that they're able to present it?
Absolutely. And this is where those solutions like Talking Parents and Our Family Wizard, are crucial because those emails, if I send an email to my former spouse, once it's sent on those two platforms, it can't be changed. So I send an email over to mom, it is automatically archived. I can't make any edits to it.
When mom opens it up, it shows the date and time that she opened it up. And these systems are designed and recognized by the courts as valid evidence, which means that now I can show your honor, here's five times I requested the information from mom who's gatekeeping, who won't share the information with me, even though I have a legal right to it.
Now we're going into court and the judge is going to look at mom and be like, why aren't you sharing that? And she's going to come up with some reason, like I'm afraid he's going to harass the judge, the doctor, and oh, he's been abusive and all kinds of just clatter. But at the end of the day, when we've got that record of two, three, five times we've requested and it's provable, now we're showing who mom really is and the judge is going to look at you, dad.
So you may not know the information, but that may be because mom's gatekeeping. Okay. Now I'm not going to hold it against you, dad, that you don't know who the doctor is. Mom's not sharing.
Okay. And we're gonna put those tools in the show notes for anybody who's asking. We wanna make sure we're providing that kind of resource to everybody so that you're aware of it.
So, all right. I wanna kinda shift though, when you're talking about these cases going to court. That's the battleground. What can men do leading to prevent that? What can men do to encourage arbitration or mediation or something along those lines to prevent going to court?
So, so the, my smart ass answer is never have a kid with a woman. But that's the smartest answer. But there's an element of truth to it, because if a man really wanted to be a father, there are ways to like, with IVF and surrogacy, to have a kid without a woman, in a long term relationship. I realize that's not common for most people.
They're not going to do that.
Right.
For most dads, the way in which they avoid having to actually go to court is having an opportunity to get into mediation, which automatically happens in the courts once something is filed. Right. So you open up a case, I'm looking for paternity judgment, either that's mom or dad, then we ask for a court hearing to set in place some custodial time.
At that time that that hearing gets set, there's automatically a mediation arbitration, a mediation date set. So the parties can go and meet with a social worker or a retired judge or someone who's going to try and bring the parties together. And oftentimes that works. There are many, many cases where they'll come up with the schedule for the children, and it may not be exactly what dad wants, but he doesn't want to do the fight, he doesn't want to do the battle, he doesn't want to go to court, so he'll accept something, because now it's in writing, now we have something to live with.
The problem with that is, many times, dads are going into that, Not knowing what to ask for. They haven't talked to their friends, they haven't talked to a lawyer, they haven't met with the paralegal to know, oh, I should probably be making sure that I have these dates and these dates, and oh, we probably need to have this level of specificity because of our relationship.
So some couples, mom and dad, really basically get along. They're just. Doing a little bit of tussling over custody and they can figure out what time Bobby's going to get picked up on Saturday and dropped off on Sunday. So it doesn't really need to be in the court order. Other couples. If you're dealing with, let's say a borderline personality, which is generally what these women are when we get into high conflict cases, you have to have an excruciating level of detail and specificity.
Like, you're gonna look at me and think like, Pisarra, you're nuts. There's no way anybody needs to have that level of specificity. And trust me, when you're dealing with a borderline personality, there is no such thing as too much specificity. I need to be Bobby at the at the sheriff's office in 9 a. m.
wearing blue shoes with a green shirt. I mean, it is just unbelievable because what happens is this borderlines will find a way to weasel out of an agreement. Anyway possible, they'll use any loophole and they won't even tell the truth about it to weasel out of it. So you need to be able to have real specificity.
So it's important to kind of understand something here, and this is for the audience out there. People with ADHD often find themselves in relationships with people who fall along with certain personality framework. This is honestly, and this is just some force and background. You know, men with ADHD, especially when we first get into relationships, we are very hyper focused on the person that we're with.
And we are often very intense. And sometimes that intensity is a little bit too much for some people. That's fine, right? There's certain people out there who really enjoy it and will flow with it and kind of move along with you. Those are good matches. However, there's also a certain type of personality, people with narcissistic personality disorder or traits.
Or borderline traits or things of that nature where. They thrive on that intensity, that intense emotional connection that we often bring to a table that often goes away as we become more comfortable in the relationship, or if we become bored in the relationship, or, you know, things have just kind of, we've stopped masking and we became much more authentically who we are because we're comfortable in the relationship, and when that attention goes away, There's often some really negative reactions from the person that we are with.
And does this mean that they're immediately going to become abusive? No, but it does mean that the relationship dynamic is going to get charged with a lot of negativity. Right. And so that is really important. And if you stay in a relationship with somebody like that for a long period of time, you're It can start turning super negative, that, that toxicity can start building up, especially when you introduce the stress and frustration of having children, money issues, infidelity, different things of that nature.
That toxicity building up can cause people to really lash out in this kind of situation. So when we're talking about these different things, understand this is a lot of reasons why we see people who are angry and lashing out doing things that are super abusive, especially in the divorce process. So, so I want to kind of go from that into a different question though.
How important is therapy in this situation or, family therapy? Should fathers be really trying to go for that?
Oh, absolutely. One of the things that I always tell dads is you need to get into some level of therapy, right?
I'll right away. Even if it's just to deal with your own emotions during the breakup, like a normal healthy breakup, like healthy and air quotes breakup where people aren't being really abusive, it's still painful.
there's lessons to be learned from that relationship that can be brought out through therapy.
Now, if you're dealing with one of the more toxic types of personalities, generally men tend to fall along the narcissistic personality disorder line.
Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder
And women tend to fall along the borderline personality disorder. And the difference between those two is, is a borderline personality is generally created out of childhood abuse.
It's usually generated in some level of sexual childhood abuse that happened in the family. And as a consequence of that, borderlines tend to blow them on to people really tightly. There's that, that limerence, that love bombing, that, Oh my God, this is the most amazing relationship, it's so tight. The sex life is off the charts and it'll stay like that until a child comes along and then the child comes along and this severs.
And what ends up happening is mom then bonds with the child and no longer has a need for dad, actually sees dad as an obstacle, sees dad as interfering, trying to come between mom and child.
Impact of Childhood Trauma on Relationships
And the reason why that happens is when somebody has had childhood sexual trauma, they generally lose the sense of self.
So borderlines. And to not have a sense of self. They tend to create the sense of self through the person they're bonded with. That becomes their self image. And that's why it moves from dad to child. And that's why when it moves from dad to child, dad needs to be out of the picture. That's why so often in these cases of high conflict divorces or whether it's parental, like real parental alienation, a true parental alienation case, that person has a history of childhood sexual trauma.
And I can almost always spot it in the first two minutes of talking to a new client. And it's, they always look at me and they're like, how do you know that? I'm like, dude, I've been doing this 25 years. Like I've had hundreds of these cases. I know what these people are like. They're desperately unhappy people.
They're miserable in their own existence and they're just taking it out on everybody else around them. It's not that they're going to be great mothers to that child, by the way, just because they're bonded like this does not mean that they're the mother of the year. Frequently, they're not frequently.
They're just as abusive to the child, but they're so enmeshed that they don't know how to let go.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting that you mentioned that. Cause one of the things that we see a lot in the men's group are the things that you're describing. Often there's a correlation within misdiagnosis and different things like that of borderline personality disorder because of the crossover with so many of the different symptoms there versus ADHD symptoms, especially untreated, unmedicated.
Differentiating ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder
How does one differentiate between ADHD and borderline personality issues? Because what you're describing sounds very similar to ADHD trauma symptoms as well.
Well, you have to look at what the result is. You know, is the result of an ADHD trauma resulting in trying to eliminate the other parent?
Because if it is, maybe it's ADHD, maybe it's borderline, and then we have to look at what's the underlying history of that person to really know. And honestly, I'm not sure that at the end of the day, when we're in the battle, there's that much difference in terms of its effect upon the child, and in terms of how we have to argue it to the judge.
very much. Because whether the source is ADHD trauma, and that's why mom is trying to eliminate dad, or sexual trauma, which, by the way, there's a school of thought that ADHD is actually an outgrowth of childhood trauma. It's a result of it. So there may be an underlying link also that we haven't really, the psychologists haven't really figured out yet.
That's beyond my ability. I know how to like, okay, I've got this, this is my situation, now let's argue to the judge. So I'm looking at whether it's ADHD, whether it's borderline personality, the issue is this is the relationship between father and child being impacted. And if it is, that's what we need to deal with your honor, not necessarily the underlying cause, which neither one of us is qualified to do.
We can only deal with the behavior. That's right.
So bringing that it back to the question.
Therapy's Role in Family Dynamics
Is therapy going to help with the judge's decision if they know that the father is trying to work within a therapy system to get help for himself, the family as a dynamic,
absolutely, absolutely, because of a judge sees that a dad is being proactive. To be in therapy, to deal with the fallout of all of this chaos that's happening around them, if it gives dad better anger control, if it gives dad better emotional control, if it gives dad tools to help the child when they have their meltdowns because of the chaos that's surrounding all of this.
That's certainly something a judge is going to take into consideration and factor in that dad's doing more than he should to prove that he's an active engaged father.
Does therapy possibly help with like co parenting and moving forward with the healing process?
It certainly can help with the healing process because once you get clarity and what was going on there, now you can move on.
Personal Experience with Therapy
My own experience with this was I was in a long term relationship. It wasn't a great relationship. It wasn't abusive, but we were just not well suited for each other and my ex cheated on me and I had a lot of anger around that and then I was in therapy at the time going through all this stuff and we shared a dog Dudley, Dudley the dachshund and I would go pick up Dudley because he would take him away for two weeks at a time to go be with the new boyfriend.
As we're doing a breakup. And one Saturday I go to pick up my dog and I'm just trying to be civil. I'm trying to like, okay, like just how was your weekend? And my ex is super white skin, bright red hair, his new boyfriend, super white skin, bright red hair. They're in San Francisco. And he literally tells me, oh my God, it was so hot.
Chrissy field. We 15 minutes. And that's instructive because no one in the history of humanity has ever said San Francisco is so hot, start there. And I just realized in that moment, having grown up there, Oh my God, we are on two totally separate planes going in totally different directions. This relationship was never going to work.
And it was at that moment that literally all of my anger and heart dissipated. And it was primarily because I'd been working with a therapist. And that's one of the benefits of therapy is you get clarity on things and you can let the anger and the hurt go that much faster and move on with your life.
And we ended up spending about the next eight years co parenting our dog Dudley. And it's a dog, I get that, but, but the principle is the same, that if you can let go of the anger and the hurt, maybe you can have a better co parenting relationship going forward.
Co-Parenting Strategies
When it comes to co parenting, I believe co parenting are crucial for dads to take.
And a co parenting class is something that happens to help the relationship between mom and dad. It's how do you two communicate? That's what co parenting is. And sometimes it's co parenting and we're working together on a problem. And sometimes it's learning that co parenting means we're going to parallel parent.
I'm going to parent my way when Johnny is with me. Mom's going to parent the way mom parents when Johnny is with her. And then we're going to have to come to an acceptance that each of our homes have separate roles. And that's going to be the reality for this child. But co parenting is certainly an important factor.
And therapy can help with that, and the classes, which there's six hours to, 24 hours online. Sometimes you take them with the other parents, sometimes you do it by yourself. They're very beneficial, and they're very favorably looked upon by the courts. Judges like seeing that you're trying to do something.
So if you go take your course, you turn up and you bring your certificate and say, your honor, listen, I did my co parenting class. Where's hers? He's going to look in and be like, again, dad is building credibility. He's showing he's proactive. He's taking initiative. He's showing me that he's doing what he's supposed to be doing.
And that's important because when mom comes in and says, dad's not doing what he's supposed to do, he's negligent. He's careless. It starts to ring less true for the judge, and that's what I mean, you want is the judge start looking at like, okay, who's telling the truth? Who's who's just inflating things?
And who's actually out now lying, right? So all of that stuff combined helps to show what a dad needs. It helps. But that's credibility in front of the judge.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense and that's really good information, so just to kind of recap a lot of what I'm hearing, it's when you're first in that situation, therapy is amazing to get into, let's start developing that relationship and get a better understanding of ourselves how to communicate effectively, especially if you're a man with ADHD, and also start building that database of the things that you need to know.
That you do know and putting all this information in into some sort of journaling system or some sort of record keeping system, right, which, honestly, may be very difficult for us with ADHD. But in this situation, we really need to figure out some system to do that way. Right. And then really make sure that when we go to court, a first of all, remember court dates and mediation dates and put them on a calendar and really start to track those different things show up.
Preferably reasonably dressed, I assume would be great. And really try to focus on the evidence and really detail out those things that you're working on, even if you're not doing the greatest job, but you're at least trying. Right. Am I understanding that correctly?
Absolutely. Got it all.
So, I want to touch on something else that I see a lot of times in the group, and then we're going to have to wrap up here soon, but I think that this is going to be really important.
Deciding Between Staying in a Marriage or Divorce
I see a lot of guys in a group who say things like, I'm married to this woman, and it's not really working out, but I've got kids, and I don't want to put them through the trauma of a divorce. Compared to being in a broken marriage versus going through the trauma of divorce, is there any, like, is there any validity to that?
Or is one worse than the other?
Well, you have to take a look at the underlying relationship. You know, my parents had a horrible marriage. Alcoholism, domestic violence, By both parents. My mom was just as much a perpetrator as my dad, probably more so, particularly by today's definition.
That's one extreme, you know, where you've got actual physical violence happening. The other extreme is, okay, we're just, we get along, we manage to have mildly civil conversation at Thanksgiving. We get along in terms of like, when to pick up the kids and getting the laundry done. We're essentially roommates.
Which is where many relationships end up. And the question is, is that damaging to the child? Eh, it's not necessarily damaging. It's not necessarily setting a great example for what relationships are or should be. So that may be a lesser reason to get a divorce. Versus, there's physical violence, there's domestic violence, there's substance abuse issues.
That's a clear reason to get a divorce to separate because the reality is when children grow up in an environment where there's domestic violence happening, it rewires their brain. It increases their anxiety levels, which again, we're talking about ADHD and is there a connection between those two?
Haven't really figured that out yet. Early studies are showing that it's probably, there's probably some connection. There's a thing called the ACES score, the Adverse Childhood Experiences score. And it asks questions and I think it's 10 questions and depending on how you rate on that is your level of trauma.
So like I'm a six and questions are like was there domestic violence? Did somebody leave through divorce? You're going to prison? Were you ever left alone? That sort of question. As a six, I am. semi traumatized. I've got some PTSD I needed to deal with and I had to go to therapy to deal with that stuff because it impacts my relationship.
Had my parents gotten divorced earlier, would I only be a three or a two? Possibly. I don't know. It's probable that the more calm happens in a household, the better the result is for the child. So you have to look at that spectrum of. Domestic violence through to just we're just brother and sister at this point in our relationship to really answer that question.
So most men who are in abusive relationships where they're being abused. Often deal, and this is honestly from, you know, heterosexual, heteronormative relationships that I'm kind of coming to from this realm. A lot of men deal with emotional abuse by the spouse that they're with rather than necessarily physical abuse.
Would you say that emotional abuse is as damaging as physical abuse or is it less so? What would be your professional opinion in from the court side of things?
Emotional vs. Physical Abuse
So my professional and personal opinion is emotional abuse is probably 100 times more damaging than physical abuse. If you and I are in a relationship and we duke it out and you break my arm, that arm is going to be healed in eight weeks.
Maybe it's a bad break and it takes 12 weeks. If you spend three years telling me what a worthless, loser, coward, horrible human being I am, who can't provide for my family, you're horrible in bed, you're a terrible human being, those are termites that get into my self esteem, that run my brain. That level of trauma is so much more abusive.
It's so much harder to heal from because it takes effort. It takes going to therapy, joining a men's group, rebuilding your self esteem, and most importantly, getting away from someone who's pouring all that toxic BS into my brain. The first thing I've got to do is get away from it before I can actually then start healing from it.
So from my perspective, And whether it's mom doing it to children or husband doing it to wife or wife to husband, whatever, whatever the relationships are, that emotional abuse is way worse in my mind.
Ironically enough, you actually triggered a number of trauma responses for me just now. Because I knew that this, I knew that this was going to be a possibility whenever we had the first at this conversation, because a lot of the issues that I dealt with in my relationship with my ex were very, very along the lines of what you just described was a person who really, you know, took a lot of those things that I grown up as part of my trauma of growing up.
And kept digging into those same insecurities that I developed at a younger age and then kept using them against me because I had shared that pain I shared that frustration with them. And when she got mad at me, she would throw those same things at me to hurt me. And you know, my emotional regulation issues were very, very bad.
I was untreated, unmedicated, so I definitely did have a large number of different issues there. I was never physically violent towards her, but I did, respond in anger and frustration because those hurt. And, it definitely became a really toxic situation.
Men's Emotional Abuse and ADHD
And what I often see in the group Is men who do not recognize emotional abuse as abuse?
Oh yeah,
yeah. Like, at what point is emotional abuse, abuse, whenever it comes from, just from the general relationship? Like, what do men need to look out for when it comes to that kind of abuse to identify it? Especially if they have feelings. a lack of social awareness, self awareness that we often have with ADHD.
So there's kind of a two step, maybe three step thing for men. If you start being abusive to me, I'm probably going to shut down because as a man, my first reaction is when I'm being attacked is to start sizing up the opposition. Like, okay, I'm being attacked, Do I fight back? Do I overpower the other side?
Can I overpower the other side? And this comes from our training as kids with sports, with team sports. Comes from the way we interact with men. You know, you look like a pretty burly guy. If you and I were to go blows, I'm gonna get hurt. I know that. So I'm probably not going to go to the level of physicality with you because I don't want to risk that you're going to take me out because I know I don't think I can take you.
But the way in which I'm doing that is I'm shutting down while I'm analyzing the situation. Which is interpreted by most women as he just shuts down and won't talk to me, which is true. Then we get to the point of what they're saying about me. It's triggering anger, frustration, hurt. I want to fight back with my words.
I want to say, But you're not looking at this, and we haven't had sex in six months, and I'm paying for everything, and I'm working 40 hours a week, plus I got a second job for another 40 hours a week, I'm paying for all the bills, all you're doing is the dishes, you're staying home with the baby, you're watching, Oprah or whatever it is you're doing on the TV all day, how come I'm not getting my needs met?
And that then gets interpreted as, he's angry, he's terrorizing me, I'm afraid he's gonna get physically violent. Now we get to the third level where a man generally will look at that and say, I know I can't hit her. I know I've been raised from the time I was born, never hit a woman. What kind of man hits a woman?
Coward, a loser, a weak person. All things my mother would say to my father, by the way.
So then what happens? She gets frustrated. She hits him. Now he's got a choice. Do I stop the fight, in which I'm gonna run the risk of, you know, bruising her? Even if I just grab her wrists? She's gonna call the cops and say, he attacked me. Look at my wrists. I was abused, arrest him. So I don't want to do that.
She keeps beating up on me. Maybe I get a black eye, maybe I get some scratches. Now I've got to explain it. And people are like, dude, what the hell's wrong with you? You couldn't defend yourself against a woman. Wait a second. I was the victim. And now I'm being re victimized, being told that I'm not man enough to protect myself against a woman.
But if I protect myself against a woman, now I'm an abuser. And what kind of a man abuses a woman? Cause men don't hit women. Oh my God. This is crazy making. So the answer is, when you start recognizing that there's emotional abuse happening, you have to start addressing the issue of the way in which you're being spoken to, and if that doesn't work, you've got to get out of the relationship.
It's just going to escalate and get worse. There's no good way for a man to be in a relationship with someone who is abusive. It's just not possible.
And this is one of those reasons for everyone out there listening.
The Importance of Therapy for Men with ADHD
This is one of those reasons why men with ADHD need to be in therapy. Women do too, but it's, you know, especially whenever it comes to developing a better understanding of like social cues and better understanding of like self awareness and things of that nature, like having an objective.
Person who can look at a relationship that you're in and hear you talking about some of the things that are happening. This is where a lot of that value comes into play is having somebody who can go, Hey, look, you need to understand this is a boundary that you have. That's being crossed constantly. You, this is a person who's speaking to you in a way that's going to activate your trauma responses.
So. I just want everybody out there to understand, this is where the value of therapy comes into play and journaling and a lot of these different tools that we teach in the Men's ADHD Support Group about moving forward. Now, one of the other things that we also provide in the Men's ADHD Support Group is access to experts and people who understand these kinds of things.
And so David, you run a an entire group and an entire process and everything. Tell us about what you do and why and what's valuable about what you do as far as your teachings are concerned.
Thank you, Shane.
Introduction to Dad's Law School
Dad's Law School was designed by me to give men the tools they need to be able to go into court and represent themselves.
It's a three step process of learn what you need to know, learn how to get the information you need, and then how to use that information in court. So, men join the Dad's Law School monthly meetup group, and they get access to all of our video trainings, which are designed to be five to, I think our vlog, I think my longest video is maybe ten minutes.
Because men in general have short attention spans, right? I mean, we know that. So like keep the message short and tight. Okay. So we've got all of our videos are broken up into short pieces so that you can watch one and then be like, okay, I got that. Now I need to understand it and think about it. I'll come back to the next thing tomorrow or later after a piece of pizza, whatever your personal habits are with that comes monthly meetups.
And the monthly meetups are where men are getting together to share their experiences, ask me questions about what they've learned in the video courses, and most importantly, get some emotional support that most men don't have in their life. Most men don't have a strong social network because they've abdicated their friendships to her friends.
We started dating and I lost my best friend, my best buddy, my bowling buddy, my baseball team. All of that got wiped away because I needed to be with her and in her relationship. And so all of our socializing was with her friends. When this relationship ends, I'm now left with no one because all of our friends were her friends.
So with DAS Law School, what I do is I teach men how to gather the evidence they need, all those pieces of information, put them in a declaration to the judge, And then use that as evidence in a trial or a hearing so that they can prove to the judge that they are great dads. That's what Dad's Law School is about.
And there's online video courses. I've got podcasts. I've got TikToks. I've got Facebook. I've got YouTubes. I got Instagram. There's lots of information in there. If you go to any of those outlets and you just look for at Dad's Law School. You're going to find me and you're going to find lots of free information.
It's going to help you when you're trying to figure out what to do with family court to represent yourself.
Excellent.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
I greatly appreciate this, David. It has been a joy talking to you about this. There's been a few issues really that kind of dug into some of my soul right there. But it really kind of also shows me that I have truly healed that I'm able to hear those things and process it in the moment, not have a, a triggered response, which is.
Hopefully it's something we see after 12 years of therapy. Yeah. So, I really appreciate this time and, I just want to, again, thank you for this and, we would love to have you come in to some of our groups and, and have these kinds of discussions and some of our features support group meetups.
And so if you're willing to do that, let's have a discussion about that. And absolutely. And then let's just let's really provide men the support that they need here. That's what I'm all
about.
So excellent. All right. This has been a Men's ADHD Support Group podcast. I greatly appreciate all of you.
Thank you so much. And y'all have a good evening.
