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"Triggers"

 

In our last blog, we discussed the importance of acknowledging the ”elephant in the room”; emotional issues tied to a couples’ desire to separate or divorce. This blog takes that topic a step farther by identifying common "triggers" and dynamics that can derail a discussion between exs and turn it into a battle ground.

 

A Trigger can be any emotion-laden item, an object, a dynamic, a place, and a memory that sets off a pattern of destructive interactions between partners. Every couple has issues around which they most often clash.  Jokes are written based on predictable fights between couples over issues such as “the mother-in-law”.  Other triggers are unique to each couple.  In divorce mediation the process can be like a minefield, strewn with all sorts of triggers, which threaten to derail the process if they are not identified and worked with.   

 

Couples can fight about anything and everything in divorce mediation.  Most married couples know how to “trigger” their partner if they want to.  When angry, it’s hard to resist pulling the trigger. Stating the obvious, divorce brings out the worst in many couples and a divorce mediator often is called on to catch the bullets before they hit the target.  Mediators identify the issues that are likely to become triggers ahead of time and prepare a couple to address them.  In this way they are mapping the minefield.  And, mediators can also help de-escalate a situation.  Once triggers are identified, acknowledged and contained in mediation, couples feel safer to discuss important topics without fear of an explosion. 

 

Josh* and Maria* had been high school sweethearts, married for over sixteen years when they came to see me.  Maria, a stay at home mother/wife was adamant that she needed to have her own life and Josh finally accepted that fact.  After a lifetime together, however, they both knew how to easily “trigger” the other.

 

After a few sessions in which we discussed their parenting plan, I identified one particular trigger that appeared to repeatedly threaten to derail their process.   Josh believed that Maria babied their son, and put him down as a father when she told him what to do in front of their son.  Maria felt that she was more attuned to her son’s needs and she worried that Josh was too strict.  I noted that many of their worst disagreements happened because of 

these dynamics.  They agreed and discussed how they could avoid this going forward.  I commented that some parents made the decision that after divorce, dad's rules would apply when with Dad, and Mom's rules when with mom because the constant power struggle in the marriage was over who had the right to make decisions involving their son.

After we identified this tricky issue, the couple worked and reached a settlement with which they both were satisfied. Then, out of the blue, I got a call from Josh.  They were enraged and unable to speak to each other.  Josh wanted to know if there was such a thing as post divorce mediation because he and Maria wanted to discuss with me what happened over the weekend.  As they both explained, their old trigger caught them completely off guard. Their son got sick at Josh's apartment and asked for his mom.  Josh called Maria to visit.  Now they were in a catch-22 situation.   The minute Maria arrived and started to give Josh advice on how to care for their son, Josh became furious that she was breaking their agreement: "Dad's house, Dad's rules; mom's house, mom's rules". Things exploded.  They said they’d been together in Maria’s house and not gotten into an argument, so why this “meltdown”.  In Maria's house, Maria made the rules and didn't feel the need to advise Josh.

 

There was another key difference which is a major trigger for fights in many divorces.  The couple was in what had been their "marital home", now Josh's apartment.  This was the exact place that they had so often had this same fight, and it was a location loaded with emotion and meaning.

 

Triggers have the power to pull a couple back into a pattern of behavior that neither party wants to be locked into any more.  It didn’t work in the past and it won’t work for their future relationship, but ignoring those triggers and the pattern of behaviors they provoke won’t make them go away.  You have to respect the power triggers have to harm relationships and make “them” the enemy not your ex. 

 

 

Putting on the Safety

 

 

Triggers are powerful, but can be managed.  Here are three things you can do to  prepare for managing the situations when couples get “triggered”:

 

 

 

 

Keep your goal in mind and stay on course.  With your mediator’s guidance, you can mediate to a satisfactory resolution if you keep focused on the process.

 

* names changed  

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