The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Nesting After Divorce: Co-Parenting in the Family Home by Beth Behrendt

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Nesting After Divorce: Co-Parenting in the Family Home by Beth Behrendt In the spirit of Conscious Uncoupling comes a guide for a child-centered approach to parenting after divorce—known as nesting—that will change what it looks like to move forward as a family after a marriage ends. Research suggests when a couple separates, children suffer the most, as they’re typically shuttled back and forth between two different homes. When Beth Behrendt and her husband divorced, she found a better way: She gave her children custody of the home, while she and her husband moved around. After successfully implementing more than six years of what’s known as “nesting,” Behrendt has created a step-by-step guide for divorcing parents to introduce the practice in their own families. In Nesting After Divorce, Behrendt provides a coparenting program that can start when an unhappily married couple considers the pros and cons of a nesting divorce. She offers advice on deciding whether nesting is the right choice for a family and communicating the concept to a spouse, children, friends, and family. She outlines the steps for assembling a nesting “team” of legal, financial, and mental health professionals and even shows how, surprisingly, nesting is often a more affordable approach to divorce than the traditional two-home model. Behrendt’s divorce book expands upon her viral 2017 New York Times essay “After Divorce, Giving Our Kids Custody of the Home,” and is the perfect guide for anyone seeking a healthy, amicable divorce for their family.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Wait, am I the host? Wait, is it me? Is it me today? Oh my gosh. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, The Chris Voss Show. I've got a memo here that says that I'm supposed to be the host of the show.

So what do I do now? No, I'm just kidding. Jesus, I've been doing it for almost 14 years. Welcome to the show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you. The Chris Voss Show, the family that loves you but doesn't judge you. At least not as harsh as your mother-in-law. Anyway, guys, welcome to the show we're going to be talking about uh some different strategic ways i suppose strategic uh we'll find out from the brilliant author we have on the show uh but some ways to survive

divorce and co-parenting and all those things that are happening in today's world and give you some tools some tools to uh improve that quality of that experience so that your kids can be happy and everybody can hopefully be a little happier. It's not the most funnest thing to do in the world, but I think most everyone's done through it. I mean, judging by judging by everyone I meet and everybody I know in my age group, they've already got two or three under their belt. So, uh, I'm still working on getting my first divorce.

I'm saving up for it and then I'll get married and hit that, uh, hit the wheel. Um, but in the meantime, we're going to be talking to her about her book and her amazing insights. Uh, also, uh, as always the plugs go to youtube.com for chest, Chris Foss, goodreads.com for chest, Chris Foss, linkedin.com for chest, uh, for chest, Chris Foss and all the crazy places on the internet. She is the author of the newest book to come out April 11th, 2023. Beth Barrett is on the show with us today. Her newest book, Nesting After Divorce, Co-Parenting in the Home, Co-Parenting in the Home, is now out wherever fine books are sold. And we're going to be talking to her about her amazing book, her insights, and a lot of the research. And I believe she's done some other work on this as well. She is a freelance writer and divorced mother of three. She's written

articles about nesting for the New York Times and psychology today. She's a regular contributor to Divorce Magazine. Wait, there's a magazine for this? Well, it makes sense, actually. There's a magazine for everything. There should be a magazine for the Chris Foss Show. I need to get on that. She has been a guest blogger for Laura Wasser's It's Over Easy website. Is that about eggs? No, I'm just kidding.

Beth has shared her family-nesting story as a guest on multiple podcasts, including The Good Divorce, Divorce and Beyond, Divorcing Well, and Thank You, Heartbreak. Wow, there should be a magazine for all the podcasts on divorce. Beth and her ex-husband, Bill, are available for interviews, and you can see them in action on Good Morning America's segment that they were on as well. Welcome to the show, Beth. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. How are you today? I am good, as always, and thank you for coming on the show. Congratulations on the launch of your book. Those are always fun. Give us a.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. The best place to start is familynesting.org.

That has all the nesting-related content, but you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook If you just look for Beth Behrend There you go I guess I need to start a side divorce podcast or something This looks like a pretty popular sort of topic going on these days Well, as you said, it's a pretty popular, for lack of a better word, event In a lot of people's lives Definitely Now, is this your first book you've written on the topic?

Yeah, yeah. It is my first book on anything. There you go. Congratulations. This is always a fun crossover. You spend all that hellish time in editing and they tear apart your heart and your work and everything you do and just take a giant crap on it and then you go

rewrite everything. The editing process, I'll never forget writing a book so congratulations on getting through that uh most people don't so it's really hard uh give us a 30 000 foot overview the book and what it entails okay well first of all nesting for those who don't know nesting co-parenting means that after divorce the kids stay in the family home and it's the parents who take turns moving in and out to parent them rather than kids going between two houses. And so this book tells the story of my family, my ex and I, and our three children have been nesting for nine years, believe it or not. But I also tell the story of five other families from places like

Brooklyn, the DC suburbs, Toronto, just to give an overview of how people do it differently in different parts of the country. I obviously live in Indiana in the heart of the heartland. But I also talk to some attorneys and financial advisors, realtors, and of course, therapists to get their take on how to make a nesting arrangement work for your own family. Because each family is unique. So there's some common lessons, but there's a lot of different ways to do it. And did I describe it well in the intro that i was throwing out there uh it's kind of maybe a blueprint of a type uh where people can try and find a positive way to grow together as uh as uh it will not grow together but basically uh help their kids in a positive manner instead of you know some of the

ugliness and fighting that we see right i think what attracts most people to the idea of nesting is that it's a way to, you know, get out of an unhappy marriage, but not blow up your children's lives at the same time. Their lives stay really pretty consistent, except it's, you know, a different parent at a different time. Not that there aren't, you know, challenges to it, but that is kind of the driving force is to try and keep the kids' lives as consistent as possible. Whether it's just something you do temporarily as you figure out the next stage of, you know, if you want a two household divorce or some people like myself have been doing it for years and years. And in our case, we didn't, we planned to just do it for a year,

but we liked it so much that we have kept with it. And now our youngest still is going to be home for a few more years before college. So we'll get him off to college and then wrap it up. There you go. So, you know, not screwing up the kids by, you know, putting them through ugly divorces. I mean, where's the fun in that? I mean, I thought that was the whole point of parenting was to start your kids so they had something to spend the rest of their lives in psychology units for. Yeah, to start your children. Well, if that's your goal, then you probably don't want to read my book.

I don't know, man. Or do exactly the opposite of what I suggest you do. So what is the term nesting? What is that? Well, it comes from, it used to be more often called bird nesting. So it really is, you know, referencing the idea of the baby birds staying in the nest and how the mom and dad bird fly in and out to take care of them and bring them tasty worms and stuff. But it obviously applies to grownups and children and keeping the kids in the home while the parents take turns coming back and forth and feed them worms no i'm just kidding we just do no maybe

mcdonald's if they're being good worms might be more healthier uh i've seen that food i'm wearing some of that food um so uh now you you wrote an article uh the New York Times back in 2017, after divorce, giving our kids custody of the home. Give us a breakdown on what that means. Because, you know, my dad gave me custody of his home. He went out for milk when I was 10 and never came back. And I had to fend for myself. So there's that.

No, that's a gaming joke. I know that's not true. You're just saying. he did it when i was 13 it wasn't true well um i mean it's not like we didn't legally give them custody of the home yeah like that sounds like a bad thing i think that would be a bad idea it just meant that they got to stay in the home. And so there was no custody battle about who got which kids for how long. It was just something we worked out between the two of us. In our case, when we first divorced, and as I said, since we weren't sure we were going to stick with nesting, for us, the cheapest option seemed to be that we rented a small one-bedroom apartment near the house. And so, I mean, I use the word we shared the apartment.

We were never there at the same time, and we were never in the family home at the same time. We would pass each other like ships in the night down the driveway heading to the apartment or the house. So we did that because it was a pretty cheap way, and it was certainly cheaper than setting up two full-size households to support three kids right from the get-go. So that gave us a chance to sort of get our feet under us financially and also really just see how the kids were doing and how each of us was doing moving into this next stage of life. And obviously, we liked it because here we still are.

So I'm trying to understand the model here is, are the two parents still living in the same family home, but there's an apartment somewhere? Or are the two in two different homes they're living in, but somehow they raised the kids in the nest of the apartment? Well, you know, everybody seems to do it differently. In our case, in our home, we have a guest bedroom in the basement. And so I moved into that. My ex kept the master bedroom. So we, you know, moved our stuff into those separate places. But as I said, we were never in the house at the same time. So

he would go to the apartment and I would go, you know, into the house and stay in the basement suite. I mean, some people do continue to share the master bedroom and just like have the rules that you have to wash the sheets before the other person comes in. You know, they have separate closets and just keep it separate that way. Some people do both, you know, go to different apartments or perhaps one of them goes to live with a new significant other or lives with family or friends. And so there's all sorts of different ways that people make it work. But the main point is that the kids stay in the same home that they're used to. And they're not being shuttled between two different homes and that whole handoff.

You know, I mentioned before the show, I've been single all my life and I've, I've had to deal with, uh, with, you know, the fallouts of divorce. I I've had to sit down with birth fathers. I don't know what you call them, but basically the birth fathers, the dads who that's, you know, they're not, they're not the stepdads or anything. They're, they're the, you know, that is their child. And, you know, I've dealt with all of it. You know, I've, I've had to go into relationships sometimes where I've, I've been like, you know, realizing that I, you know, I'm, I'm buying into their failed marriage, and I have to deal with them, which is very hard to do, actually.

Most people don't realize how hard it is to come in that situation. But sometimes I've had to sit down with both of them and say, look, I don't have a vested interest in these children other than starting to enter a relationship, but you two need to get the fuck along because these kids are the ones that are going to get harmed the most. I've had to sit down with dads and go, Hey, I'm not, I'm not here to replace you. My job is not to compete with you or make you look bad in front of the eyes of your children. So it would really help if you wouldn't do things that make you look

bad in the eyes of your children. And I understand what you're going through, dude, but you know, we all got to move along here on the societal whatever you want to call it. So and so I've dealt with that situation of like, you know, Bob didn't send the coat back and Bob's holding on to all the clothes of the kids and mom's doing the same shit. And, you know, it's like a it's like a war going on of attrition of some type. And you're just like, look look you know what it's funny that you guys want to get away from each other so much and you really spend 100 of your time actively hating each other and trying to screw each other over and like you both need to move the hell on yeah so you know it's interesting because my ex who i um obviously we're divorced

so we had our issues but um we get along very well now. And I remember there was a point kind of after, you know, first couple of years of a fair amount of contention after the divorce. And we just sort of moved into this new stage. So this time had passed and we've been working really hard to have a better relationship for our kids. And he was like, you know, it is a lot easier to not hate someone than it is to hate them. Like that takes so much more energy. And so, yes, it's unbelievable the amount of energy that people put into hating each other instead of that could be energy going to better parent their children. It's a shame.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've seen love withdrawal games or, you know, pawn games where people play games with the children and use them as pawns and some sort of, you know, and I can get why people are upset. They put a lot of, they put their life into marriage. They believe that, you know, maybe it's going to last forever. They think that they're building something and, and to see it all come tumbling down and all the hopes and dreams and everything they put into it, it comes to an end. It's not fun. But you know, I think the important thing about books like yours and knowledge on this subject is sadly something we don't teach and they really should teach in college. I'm a big believer. And of course I've never been married and have kids. So what do I know? But I'm a big believer that people really need to be trained better to have better relationships, to work out,

go see psychiatrists and work out their issues before they get into relationships that bring children into the factor um they should go through at least two years of college before they're allowed to have kids but you know what do i know no one ever agrees with me on that it's just like hey let's uh let's go have some kids and see what kind of wreckage we can drag from our past in our lives and and ruin the next generation let's do that that sounds like fun well sadly i think a lot of people think oh having kids will fix the problems in our marriage this will make this will make him want to stick around and i've heard that before too yeah i had the third kid because i thought it would help our family it's like no

that's that's just like throwing more it's like throwing gasoline onto an already out of control fire so um how what's the best way to approach this let's say there's someone in the audience and they're they're thinking about divorce they're they're maybe going through divorce what's the best way to sit down and try and get a reset or a or or an agreement to say hey let's do something for the kids and not about us and let's try and refocus on them yeah um you know everybody can take their own creative approach but i do have a section in the book where i talk about the first conversations what you need to discuss if you're um either proposing nesting to your soon-to-be ex or maybe you both have the idea

of doing it and And, um, and of course, first is really just some really basic stuff. Like, are both of us willing to give this a try? Like genuinely willing to try. Um, it needs to be clear that you're not doing it to try and save the marriage. At this point, you're doing it because you are moving on and you want to do this for the kids. Um, I mean, of course, if you both are trying to save the marriage, but if there's just one of you thinking that nesting is going to save the marriage, that's not a good situation to get into. And then, of course, to talk about where else could we live or one of us live

or can we set up the house so that we have private space? And it's interesting the creative ways that people come up uh with doing this i have a facebook group um for people who nest and one woman recently was posting that she on her days when she's you know off duty out of the nest she gets in her airstream camper and goes out to the campsite and you know spend a few days out there and i was like wow that sounds really nice that's a great idea if you live in a nice enough you to do that. So people do all sorts of creative stuff. So those are the big things to figure out. Are we willing to do it?

How else could we live to make this work? And what can we afford to do in terms of this other non-nest space? You bring up a good point. One of the biggest problems, and especially a lot of men have, is they usually the home is turned over to the mother in divorce courts. And so they're required to go live somewhere. They've got to set up a whole separate unit. And then they've got usually child support and alimony that they're dealing with or most likely child support and it becomes very costly for them and sometimes they have a hard time maintaining the child support and the alimony or whatever they need to do you know there's there's lots of you know quote unquote dead deadbeat dads um and sometimes they just they just can't you know whether it's working or whatever the case is they they have trouble paying those bills. So maybe this was a better way to, you know, I mean, like I talked to you before the show, you know, I've had friends that I believe have done the nesting thing and I don't know if they

did it for finances or out of just trying to do what you were doing. But I know some people, they can't afford to get divorced. So maybe that can help that sort of situation where you can kind of ensure that there's resources that the father or mother can still bring to the kid without breaking the bank. Right, exactly. I think that that, I mean, I knew that was part of our reason for doing it, but it really, really drove that home. The more nesters I spoke to and the people I interviewed in the book that finances really were you know yes helping the kids is great but finances were really a big part of the equation for them as they as they looked at what their options are and some people even you know don't pursue the divorce process officially right away because of the cost but

they you know both agree that the marriage is over and so this is obviously some very evolved people who are willing to just you know say the marriage is done and we're each moving on um and when we have to officially get divorced we'll do it but for now we're separating our lives but keeping the kids lives consistent now how do people because you interviewed a few different people with the choose for models how do people because you interviewed a few different people with the choose for models how do people uh deal with dating though because then that kind of i mean you can't like bring your dates home or can you or have people yeah right um it is pretty it's one of the probably hottest topics that kind of in the second conversation a lot of people have once they've agreed to nest

that's the next thing is what are the rules about dates or other adults in the nest? Which really, I think every divorced parents should be having discussions about how are we going to introduce future people to our children? You know, you just don't want every person that you happen to be dating to meet your kids. You want to make sure it's serious. And so a lot of nesters do kind of write up a nesting agreement where, you know, for the first year or something like that, you know, first year, nobody else in the nest, nobody else meets the kids. In our case, Bill and I had agreed that we wouldn't introduce the kids to a significant other until he and I had spoken with each other and let each other know that we were thinking of doing that. And I also talked it through with my own therapist about how to do that appropriately. And my children were seeing a therapist after the divorce. So I was able to get her

help on how to do that. And so I outlined some of those guidelines from therapists about how to introduce your kids, which I think applies to to anybody whether they're nesting or not but you're right the nest creates a space that's um i think in a way it was actually good for dating because the nest was kind of this like sacred family space you know that neither of us wanted to bring the wrong person into so you we both felt pretty strongly about the people we were seeing by the time we thought it was okay to have them visit the nest and really i mean you could you if you had an apartment on the side like you mentioned yeah i did all the time then but you know and honestly as a guy who's dated all of his life um and i mean in the triple digits uh i've dated you know there's a point where i

dated women who hadn't been married and then you know once i hit like 28 something 30 then it just became divorce women and uh now it's like multiple divorce women and uh you know i don't date guys so i don't know what's going on over there but i imagine it's the same considering all my 50 year old uh buds or you know they've all been divorced multiple times i'm really behind i'm i'm still waiting to catch up i'm just gonna i'm gonna do like three or four divorces like within a week of each other and then marriage divorces so you try just try and catch up i'm gonna do it somewhere near the end of the game when i can't feel my legs you think you get some kind of prize at the end, a number of divorces? I don't know. Evidently there is because everyone's doing it, right?

Is there like an old gamification thing that I get? Because I feel left out at this point. But my point that I was rolling to was the one thing you learn in the dating game, and I learned this from other people when I was coming up, in the dating game coming up, what is it other people when I was coming up in the dating game coming up. What is it like a, uh, what is it? Pro series? I think it is at my level, um, is you do not date someone who's been divorced unless they've been divorced two years from the signing of the end of the divorce by the judge.

Um, and if it's been a long time, like 10, 15, 20 years, give it three to four, um, 20 years, I give it five. And, and, and the reason I bring this up is I tell people this all the time that get newly dated. Don't date. Don't go looking for somebody. You, you have a whole identity process. You're having a loss of identity process being married and going through, uh, you know,

you have to reestablish who you are. You have to become a new person because you are not married Joe to Jane anymore. And you have to become just Joe or Jane. And then you got to figure out who that person is. You've got to go through a grieving process because this is a death. It's a death of a dream. It's a death of your ideals,

all the hopes and whatever, blah, blah, blah. You put into it and retirement and all that fantasy thing that you put in your head about what it might be. It's the death of all that. And so you have to grief it. You got to go through the stages and all that stuff. Then you got to become a new person. And so I tell people, I'm like, don't be going out trying to get your freak on don't don't be trying to go get weird with all the thing go to a psychiatrist man shut down do the work

work through your process please see a psychiatrist because i'm sick of seeing on first dates please people um and uh work through it but you need you need to go through that two or three years of healing and people that go out and start dating right away you're just like taking this mentally broken down jalopy into just into a mess and so that's my psa for people yeah well especially looking to date seriously you know if you're just dating around whatever but if you're looking you know trying to get into a serious relationship right away it's it's way too soon um I will say what I really liked about nesting was that because I had this apartment space that I went to, you know, outside of the home, I really felt like I could pursue that new version of myself that I was becoming without the distractions of kids stuff. You know,

like if I'm in the house, I can't help but do laundry, grocery shop, whether the kids are there or not. There's just always kid stuff to do. And I loved that I could just leave the house and be in this completely kid-free space. And I could write, I could watch whatever I wanted to watch. I could go out with friends. And I loved having that separation as I was figuring out the next stage of my life. And that was you processing, you know, your, you know, the grief and the whole thing and who am I now? What am I about? And, you know, people, and then there's a little bit of experimentation where they go like, do I like woodworking or do you know, what sort of hobbies do I need to have? Because, you know, I mean, being married takes up a lot of your space.

You're dealing with another person. You kind of have to become somebody and you have to cleanse yourself. If you don't, you're just going to take that baggage into the next relationship. I've seen that movie! And so you've got to clean your house. And it's so important for the kids as well. You know, divorce is so hard on the children and they have the hardest time doing it. And being a guy who comes in, is dating the mother, you know, I've had to have so many conversations with the kids and go, hey.

And, you know, and they're looking at me as the voice of reason sometimes. You know, I've gone into relationships where both of them are alcoholics. The parents are alcoholics. They're calling each other constantly. I have to be the voice of reason and tell the kids, hey, listen, this is what's happening. It's not a fun process, but understand

your parents love you, or at least I think they do, and they're just behaving really badly right now. Yeah, that sucks that people can't put their kids, can't get their own stuff before they subject their kids to all that. Yeah, and so people just need to put their thing aside and just focus on the kids. But I like the idea of the nest because I've seen what that looks like when the kids just feel like they're shuttled back and forth.

You're like, did Bob send the coat back? Oh God, Bob kept the coat. Well, that's the thing. Not only is it stressful for the kids, like where's my favorite toy or where's the skirt I wanted to wear today? But it also is stressful for each of the other parents because they're like, why didn't you send that?

You know, he had basketball today or, you know, I've got to drive to school and drop this off. Cause you didn't know. I mean, the people I know who deal with that, like traditional contentious shuttling stuff back and forth,

the amount of energy they spend just with stuff. I've never had to, I've never had to do that except my own stuff. And you know, I'm a grownup and I don't have that much stuff. So yeah, it is hard. And I can imagine if you're nesting in the same place, uh, and you can get along, um, you know, it can be so much better. You know, the other big failure I've seen is, is people that go into divorce court and I've, I've had to go testify in family court, uh, friends and you know i've seen people blow through fifty thousand dollars a hundred thousand dollars each that could have

been put in a college for kids just to argue in divorce court for and end up with a resolution that was the same they originally offered right and and you're just like you do you understand you're really screwing over your children like for their ego it's just about yeah it's just an ego thing um you know it's not going to change anything but um we were fortunate that i mean this is credit to bill as well but we by time we we filed for divorce and it was done three months later like we just we knew we wanted this nesting we knew we wanted to get the divorce done as quickly as possible. And so, yeah, we were really happy not to drag that on and add to the expense.

And the other thing is people play a lot of parent alienation games. So the children become pawns. So, you know, we're not fulfilling the agreement of the visitation rights. And what the funny thing about, it's not really funny, but the funny thing about divorce courts and divorce law is there's no enforcement if a parent who has guardianship won't share the children. There's enforcement of child support and alimony because the state gets a gig on that. They get a cut of the action,

which is the reason they're financially invested and it's become like an institution. But the whole sharing the parent thing, all you can do is just go get the judge to yell at the wife or husband, whoever's the thing, and there really is no legal enforcement of it, which is very sad. And the most important thing that parents need to realize is this is damage to the children.

And I talk a lot about the importance of parents being in a child's life. Men and women are compatible or what is it? They are different, but they complement each other. And if you don't have one, you will cripple the child. And I was lucky that, you know, we were joking early in the green room about how my parents probably should have never gotten married. But they tried and they did their best. early in the green room about how my parents probably should have never got married. Um, but they tried and they, they, they did their best. And, uh, you know, sometimes that's just good enough in life. That's all I do is my best and it's never good enough. So, um, uh, that's probably why I've never been married. I don't have kids. I mean, we, that's what we do. We,

we stumbled through life, all of us. And I didn't get a manual. Maybe you did, but, uh, mine didn't come in the mail. Uh, yeah. Uh, it's that's because the post office is doing i'm just kidding i suppose well you know going back to your point about the parents involvement um my ex bill has said you know a number of times that what he liked about nesting that was challenging when it first started was that um it forced him to become more engaged with the kids because we'd had a kind of traditional breakdown of roles in the family. He was the primary breadwinner. I did all the house and kids stuff, but when we began nesting and I wasn't in the house, you know, he had to make sure their laundry was done, had to see what homework

had to be done the next day, had to make sure that, you know, they ate breakfast before they went to school. And, and it was challenging, but he became such a better dad because of that just involvement in the day-to-day life that a lot of dads, you know, I shouldn't generalize by sex, but that in many marriages that doesn't always happen. And so he's always said that he was grateful for the divorce and the nesting, that it made him a more engaged dad. There you go. And, you know, having parents, having, you know, a father does things in a relationship with his children that mothers don't do. And mothers bring something that's a compliment to the table that fathers can't do.

And they need that role. I remember I had a friend call me one time and she was newly divorced and a bitter divorce with her ex. And she was playing the pawn game with the kids and demonizing the father and alienating the father, not letting the father have access to the kids. And her daughter was like starting to want to go into modeling and maybe some other things that that goes when you're trying to seek the attention of men.

Um, and I'm like, you're, she's starting to go down a pathway of destruction that she wants. She's seeking the approval of men and she's seeking men because she can't get access to her father. You need to understand what this is about. And I've seen the fallout of this through all of my history of,

you know, when I go into a relationship or when I date someone who's divorced, I see, I see the kids messed up sometimes. You know, I see all the fallout and you just put it together and you're like, okay, these kids are fucked up because you guys didn't handle this divorce.

Right. And you guys are playing this game. And every day, I'm not laughing because it's funny it's it's terrible and it's a real shame and um i thought it was interesting when i was dating um i could all immediately tell sort of the tone of the divorce if the man i was speaking to would not say his ex-wife's name. He would just say her, she's got the kids, like could not even speak her name. And that was always the clue to me. Like, this seems like a bit more drama than I want to get into.

That's a real scars right there. Yeah. Keep an eye out for that when you're dating women. See if that's also, that's my little tip. I mean, usually I get the thing that every, the past three marriages, everyone was a narcissist and all the 10 boyfriends everybody else's problem that's the popular thing now everyone's using narcissists default i'm like you know there's only five percent of the population they're narcissists but somehow you found all of them

to date which is really weird like i don't know if you have that in your tinder profile or your search well like you said that's kind of you know one of the main things after divorce is you're figuring out your new self is you really do have to face what you did wrong in the marriage otherwise you're never going to move past it you know it if maybe in some cases it's totally the other person's fault but in most cases you know it's it's both people yeah you know it takes i i somehow i was lucky enough uh two or three generations of gen x to be born into the thing where when people got divorced they would just say it takes two to tango you know and we just we just go okay well y'all you're getting divorced okay well you know 50 50

you know you just you just didn't mix well. It's kind of like vodka and Mountain Dew. It doesn't mix well. And that's just what happens. I've had a million wonderful women in my life. Not a million, but I'm working on it. At this pace. Since I can't afford divorce,

and so I never get married. And I love get married. Um, but, uh, I, I, I've, and I love them all. I don't have any hatred or anger towards them because I feel that's healthy.

And I recognize that I tried the best that I could with whatever I had at the time. And I wasn't always perfect. And so did they. And that's what people do in life and dating. They try each other on, you see if you gel, maybe you gel for a while, maybe you grow apart.

It's just the way it works, you know, because you can't, you know, I own companies. That's what I'm married to. And the one thing I learned that I love about companies is I can, I can, you know, if things aren't working, I can try and fix them. And they're very fixable because they're just one dimensional basically. But with another human being, you you know they've got their glide path of life and you have yours and and stuff and so you just gotta you just gotta go hey man things didn't work out i probably did some stuff and i'm gonna own up to it and uh let's try not to drag them into my next relationship but it seems like a lot of people are like hey let's take the fun of

the last one in the next one see how this works right right and you know what i think actually a lot of people who are drawn to nesting kind of is the same thing that they experienced really bad divorces in their childhood several of the people i interviewed were like uh my parents had a terrible divorce and i was not going to do that to my kids and so yeah there's with any relationship you have to look at was what happened before good or bad and what made it that way. And you just own up to your end of it. And, uh, I mean, if I ever saw any of my girlfriends, uh, I don't, I don't usually, you know, what I, what's behind me is behind me, but you know, it's always been, my attitude has always been like, Hey, I hope you

found what you're looking for in life. And thanks for what I learned, uh, off of our lessons, uh, you being crazy. No, I'm just kidding. And, uh, and me being perfect that time you tried to stab me in the kitchen because I left my socks on the floor. Uh, yeah, I get it. I shouldn't have done that, but, uh, seriously, a knife. No, I'm just kidding. These are jokes, people. Uh, some of them, uh, of them. That'll be my forthcoming book. But no, maybe I should do a book on my life as a single guy

and my experience with divorces and how to be better divorces. But no, I believe... You know, that's an interesting perspective. I think that's a good idea. It would. And there's very few people that have it, so I'm kind of a unicorn in that. Like we joked about in the show, I'll have people that will say so i'm kind of a unicorn in that like i like we joked about the show like i'll have people that say to me on second or third date they'll be like

chris you know you don't have to hide your divorces and all your kids and i'm like no seriously i don't like i don't and i'm sorry i don't have a lot of baggage i don't i don't and what's funny is i have all my money and 50 both sides of 50 of all my shit so i like that too um but no i like this concept of what you're talking about because i'm a big believer from what i've seen and i think that's what i'm trying to communicate through the show is is parent children need both parents and if you're a parent who thinks that they only need one of you and whatever societal bullshit or some movement tells you it's bullshit.

They need the father and the mother in the relationship. And if, and I'm not talking, uh, you know, if you're, if you're an LGBTQ parent, there's usually a masculine and a feminine, and that's what they need. They need the masculine and the feminine in there because that's what builds it. A daughter will, a daughter's impact that she has with a father in her life will make all the difference in her life. He's the man who sets the tone for the type of man she looks for in life. Mother, same thing. I've seen what father abandonment looks like.

I've seen what mother abandonment looks like. I've had friends that own strip clubs that go if wasn't for bad parenting i wouldn't have anybody to work here and it's you know i think it comes back to kids feeling like their parents respect and value them and whatever that approach takes you know maybe it doesn't have to be nesting you can have a divorce that's um always is about respecting the kids as individuals yeah i'll set them up for success more than anything else. Yeah. I mean, I've seen kids that go, hey, why can't daddy tuck me in at night anymore?

Like he used to. And, you know, one of the other things we should bring up, and I don't know if you talk about this in your book, but there is a high risk to children when they don't have their father or their mother around. There's a protection element. In fact, the highest amount of sexual assaults happen with single parents. And I've seen that, the stories that I've heard from women I've dated that their mother was divorced and brought home a guy and yada, yada, yada. It's horrific. And this is why men get so angry about being separated from

their children because they know they can't do the provider protector role because we're protectors and that's usually what we're brought in to to do and so but a mom can be a protector she should be she can be i'm not gonna give her uh you know say that's okay because she's a woman that's um that is really bad parenting. I like what you're trying to do and create this better model. And I wish more parents would maybe be forced to go through this sort of education or courses. Maybe family courts need to say, hey, maybe you should buy your book or maybe some other things.

Yeah, think about it. Yeah, yeah. It's certainly worth thinking about. Anything more you want to tease out on the book and what you have in it and advice you give to people? or maybe some other things. Yeah. Yeah. It's certainly worth thinking about. Yeah. Anything more you want to tease out on the book and, and what you have in it and advice you give to people? Yeah, I think that it's just hopefully what would be helpful, helpful for it as well.

As I talk about ground rules about, you know, privacy and communication and communicating with the kids and, and as the situation evolves, how you handle things like new partners coming into the kids. And as the situation evolves, how you handle things like new partners coming into the picture. And so hopefully the book is helpful not only with setting up a nesting arrangement,

but helping you think ahead to what challenges might come your way as your kids keep getting older and you keep moving into your own life too. Because from what all I've seen, I totally agree with you. People need to realize that being a parent older and you keep you know moving into your own life too because from what all i've seen i i totally agree with you you know people need to realize that you know being a parent is a selfless thing of giving life to another person and all your money actually too uh what's the old joke about

about having kids is basically you just take all your money and throw it out a window but no it's i mean it's a noble effort. And, uh, if we all wouldn't be here, if parents didn't, uh, engage in having children, but there's a point that when you have children, you, you are giving your life to them, uh, over to them, uh, until they put you in a home course, uh, when you're 40, uh, the other reason I don't have kids. so uh uh but no i mean you're giving your life to them and i think it's important for people to have that aspect what's the most important we're getting divorced we're separating what is the number one most important thing that needs to happen here and it needs to be selfless just as you've engaged in in being selfless as a parent

give everything your child make your children number one. Don't spend $100,000 in divorce court. Put that in a college fund for hell's sakes. Have you seen what college costs nowadays? Yeah, I have two in college. I'm a little familiar with it. Yeah, that's a whole new divorce court in 20 feet in and of itself.

And I think I just want to make sure people understand too that I'm not talking about completely coddling your children and, you know, keeping them completely unexposed from the realities of life. There's going to be plenty of crap that gets thrown at them. Life is hard, but I think if you as a parent can do something to not add more difficulty to their lives, that's your job. And I can see how that would be a whole lot better i mean the shuttling back and forth i almost felt sorry for kids they're like hey we're back up the

bus and dad dropped us off and you know sometimes the dad or mom drops them off and dad's or mom's not home and you're just like the key you get this call and hey we're standing out front and you're just like holy crap and you know i like, holy crap. I've seen it all, man. I've seen it all. I can write a book about it. Yeah. I think that's a good idea.

Yeah. But no, I like, I like your concept and, uh, and I can totally agree from the fallout I've seen in my life. Make your kids the number one thing, heal your stuff,

heal your baggage. Right. Don't try, don't try monkey branching into new relationships and stuff not to see a psychiatrist please i'm a big i'm a big thing that everyone's needs a psychiatrist nowadays including myself yeah well what's that saying that everybody gets everybody who goes to therapy is going because of the people in their lives who do not go to therapy so it's helping me deal with all the people who should be there. There you go. I don't know. In my experience,

people should be going to therapy to fix their own shit. But if you want to go and complain about other people, yeah, sure. Well, sometimes that's helpful too. I use Facebook to complain about the people in my life. Oh,

that's healthy. Usually it's voters and political ideology. So this has been wonderful to have you on the show, Beth. And I can't. Thank you for the wonderful to have you on the show, Beth. Thank you for the opportunity. I can't highly recommend it enough, so hopefully I've given some endorsements to that. We need to build better kids in this world. We're seeing so many

fallouts, so many kids with so many problems, and then they grow up and I have to date them. So let's not do that anymore because I'm tired of it. Save Chris. Save Chris. No. But Chris, save Chris from the world. No, but seriously save the world. I, you know, the world is my children and, and, uh, ideas and concepts for my children and I want a better world.

And, you know, the divorce rate is out of control. You see, um, you see it going on right now and you see the fallout and then, you know, I see a fallout multiple times and, uh, we just need to build a better world and build better kids there you go uh so thank you very much much beth for coming on the show give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs yeah familynesting.org we'll get you at everything there you go uh order the book wherever fine books are sold nesting after divorce co-parenting the family home i it's got my endorsement on it uh let's build a better role for kids and uh divorce and if we can i don't know if we figure out you know to keep people from getting divorced like maybe take some classes on

how to build a healthy relationship and maybe work out your shit before you get married people that's my endorsement uh anyways thanks for tuning in Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss, LinkedIn, Fortress Chris Voss, and all those crazy places on the internet we are. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you next time.

And that should have us out.