A Primer for Persuading Your Spouse in Your Divorce
Once you hit conflict, you lose, so do everything you can to avoid conflict.
Battling through problems is expensive.
Even if you have the financial resources to hire an attorney to do your bidding, do you really have the budget (energy, emotion, and time) to spare on battling through every issue that comes up in your divorce? And will that really get you the outcome you want?
What if I told you that to increase your chances of prevailing in your divorce, you'll have to ease up on the combat tactics and learn to be more persuasive?
You may be thinking, how can I do that when my spouse draws a line in the sand, and it is their way or the highway!
But even when things seem deadlocked on the surface, the real action is happening underneath—and that's where persuasion does its work.
Here's a little secret about human psychology that unlocks the art of persuasion: No matter what people say they want, most of the time, what they actually want isn't the thing or concession itself. They want the feeling that it represents. So if you can dig deep to understand the need they're looking for (such as respect, consideration, freedom, peace), you can actually give them what they want—and make them feel as though they've won something important from you—without giving them what they asked for.
The feeling behind the request is everything. And you get to it by thinking about: what's the positive need my spouse is trying to get (or offer to our child) in this situation? You begin to see that:
When your spouse, during the pandemic, does not let your child go outside without a mask or gloves and only for a short amount of time each day, they're often looking for safety and independence.
When your spouse asks for an insane amount of maintenance or child support, they're often looking for security.
When your spouse, who took no interest in the child before the divorce, now wants equal or even primary custody, they're often looking for respect and equality.
You know this person well, and you're in an excellent position to see these deeper motivations. But you can't see clearly if you're browbeating, rage texting or firing off threats. You have to be calm to get a useful emotional reading of the situation. The problem is that in a divorce, you're highly susceptible to being emotionally hijacked because your spouse is pushing your buttons.
That makes it hard to execute effectively at the right time in the right moment. You can't detach and let persuasion work its magic when you are only focusing on your emotional reactions to the argument or negatively judging and criticizing your spouse, which just leads to more battles.
To put yourself in a position to be persuasive in pressurized moments, you first have to learn how to calm down in a way that accelerates the process.
If your way of getting calm is to wait for the fire to burn down after you've flamed out, it may take you years to start racking up wins with persuasion, and years are not what you have at the moment.
But the game plan below will help you learn how to become more persuasive in pressurized moments.
The three truths about persuasion
It's hard work to change old patterns, so as you're learning the art of persuasion, use these three truths to give yourself a head start in awareness and motivation.
Truth No. 1: You cannot make your spouse do anything they do not want to do.
It's a waste to spend your resources trying to convince your spouse of the merit of your position. Make a pivot and focus on seeing things from their perspective. This doesn't mean you're giving up or saying you're wrong. The goal is to gain greater insight into their motivations so you can give them the feeling they want in a way that's not as painful for you.
Truth No. 2: You will never get them to admit you are right when they are triggered.
Even if you are "right," your spouse will most likely not agree with you unless you first acknowledge their perspective. You can do this by using neutral words like, "it seems you feel strongly about this ...." Understanding doesn't imply agreement. It's a way of shifting into someone else's point of view. That tends to calm situations instead of inflaming them because it satisfies the universal human desire to feel understood. And that's an excellent starting point for persuasion.
Truth No. 3. You can't control much in your divorce, but you can control the universe in your head.
The world of things you cannot control in your divorce causes anxiety and stress for most people. But if you limit your focus to what you can control, you will find that anxiety will lessen, and you'll have a lot more options available to you—because you'll be able to see them.
The three-step action plan to prep for being persuasive
Step 1: Use the Hard Reset
When you are emotionally hijacked, the last place you want to be is in your head.
When your mind is spinning, your rational powers are offline, and just like your phone, sometimes you need a hard reset to get back to normal functioning.
The good news about the hard-reset technique is it's quick and easy to do.
The bad news is that you will feel uncomfortable while doing it.
But that is the point: you need to feel uncomfortable to snap out of your mind and into your body.
What do I mean by discomfort? Take a cold shower!
Seriously. It will change your state completely.
If you need to ease in, take a normal shower, and then during the last few minutes, gradually make the water colder and colder until it is uncomfortable. Try to stay for 15-30 seconds for the first time and build up from there. You can end your shower with hot water before you dry off.
If you do not need a hard reset, you can also do its younger sibling, the soft reset, which involves focusing all your attention on wiggling your toes, the part of your body that's farthest away from your head.
Or you can simply focus on your breathing. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, letting the breath flow in and out like the waves of the ocean. If you want some support for this, try something like The Breathing App, free for iOS and Android, which uses simple visuals and sounds to help tether you to your inhales and exhales.
Step 2: Remember, you only need to be 11% more persuasive.
Not even the best practitioners of persuasion are perfect. So give yourself permission to be imperfect at this tool.
To put this in perspective, realize that your spouse will most likely agree with 40% of the issues you are requesting, and you most likely agree with 40% of the issues that they are requesting.
So you are only seeking to be 11% more persuasive than you are now to gain an advantage.
Of course, this "last mile" of persuasion is not easy to do, but it is much easier to do than thinking you have to be perfect at persuading to be effective.
Step 3: Visualize the emotional experience for edge
Starting out, you'll probably feel very unsure about trying to change your tactics with your spouse and upending the way you relate to conflict. You may think there is no use; this person will always want to battle.
To give yourself confidence as you learn the art of persuasion, first visualize the status quo: Watch what happens to your emotions as you anticipate that your needs are not going to get met and your fear and anger rise. Replay how your spouse becomes provocative, and baits you, acts out, raises their voice, becomes disrespectful.
Visualize the negative emotional experience you have in this situation. This is what persuasion can change. Things don't have to stay this way.
Take a break to breathe. If you can't do this, now's a good time to get out your breathing app or try a breathing exercise, something as simple as breathing in to a count of four and out to a count of four. That helps disengage your "fight or flight response."
Now visualize a positive experience. See yourself during this stressful time facing the familiar baiting from your spouse, but this time tuning it out to focus on what you can control. Use the soft reset technique, focusing on the rhythm of your breathing.
What you are not doing as you breathe is falling into the trap of responding from default reactions. Instead, you are creating space for focusing on your strategy and how you are going to resolve conflict creatively.
Doing this will inoculate you to withstand better the emotional rollercoaster your partner will be on as he or she is hijacked by default conflict reactions.
Putting It All Together: How Ting Became Persuasive
Ting met Don when he was traveling abroad for work.
After several years of long-distance dating, they got married, and Ting moved to the U.S. to be with him. Soon after their marriage, they had a child, something they hadn't planned.
After Ting gave birth to their daughter, she felt something was off. Don wouldn't help her out with the baby. He wouldn't change a diaper or do a feeding in the middle of the night. He also expected Ting to cook for him and clean the home.
Ting started to feel more like a slave than a cherished spouse!
Ting and Don went to couples' therapy to try to resolve their differences, but Don dropped out after one session, and although Ting was hopeful things would change, they did not.
Soon afterward, she asked for a divorce and said she wanted to move back home to Taiwan to be with her family with their child. Don resisted, and a custody battle ensued.
Only a few months into their divorce, the COVID pandemic hit, isolating Ting and Don together in their small NYC apartment.
Immediately, Ting told the child to wear a mask anytime she went out, but Don refused to wear a mask or make the child wear one when he went out with her. Since the laws at the time did not require mask-wearing (which has recently changed in some parts of the country), she realized that the only way to get Don to wear a mask and put one on the child was to become more persuasive.
But Ting was so emotionally triggered by the events she was not in the right state of mind to do that. She was thinking negatively—about Don's "failure as a parent," his "indifference to the child's safety" and so on— and these negative thoughts were being linked together like a chain around her neck that cut off all rational thinking.
She realized she needed a hard reset, so she followed the steps one by one, first taking a cold shower, then giving herself permission to be imperfect as she tried out new persuasion techniques. Finally, she visualized her and Don's emotional reactions to these issues and thought about what was genuinely important to both parties. She saw that her emotional need was for carefulness, and his was for freedom and control.
Now, with her big brain—her reasoning power—back in charge, she came up with a game plan. She could create face masks on the kitchen table and make it an especially enjoyable experience for the child. Don would see what they were doing and also see how much fun their child was having putting together homemade masks.
She could also leave out the materials so Don could complete a mask himself. She might not say anything at that point except if he looked over, in which case she'd stick to, "Look how much fun we are having making these masks."
The next day, she could email Don and say, "We both want to protect the safety of our child and protect ourselves, and it seems other countries who have the lowest incidence of outbreaks are wearing masks, and the ones that are the most liberal in not using masks have the highest outbreaks. What do you think we can do to ensure we are doing everything possible to make sure our child is safe, knowing what is going on in the world?"
Even if she got a negative, nasty response to this question or Don ignored it, she'd stick firmly to the next step, which is to do nothing. Her primary goal was to offer Don a way to escape from his emotional hijack and (hopefully) use his brain big too.
The "escape route" worked. The child now was interested in the masks and asking to wear them, which shifted the picture for everyone. No one was being "forced," no negative words were being exchanged. Don could honor the child's freedom and feel free himself: he got the feeling he wanted. He might even put on a mask his daughter had made for him. It was easier to do now, his choice. No big deal.
That's persuasion at work.
Key Points
Battling through problems is expensive.
Even if you have the financial resources to hire an attorney to do your bidding, do you really have the budget (energy, emotion, and time) to spare on battling through every issue that comes up in your divorce?
What if I told you that to increase your chances of prevailing in your divorce, you'll have to ease up on the combat tactics and learn to be more persuasive?
Here's a little secret about human psychology that unlocks the art of persuasion: No matter what people say they want, most of the time, what they actually want isn't the thing or concession itself. They want the feeling that it represents.
It's hard work to change old patterns, so as you're learning the art of persuasion, use these three truths to give yourself a head start in awareness and motivation. You cannot make your spouse do anything they do not want to do. You will never get them to admit you are right when they are triggered. You can't control much in your divorce, but you can control the universe in your head.
Follow the three-step action plan to prep for being persuasive:
Step 1: Use the Hard Reset to get out of your mind.
Step 2: Remember, you only need to be 11% more persuasive then you are now.
Step 3: Visualize the emotional experience to prepare yourself for the emotional rollercoaster that awaits.
