The other side will try to trigger you. Often. High-conflict divorces are filled with emotional and legal attacks, many of which are designed to make you feel vulnerable and threatened. Your first impulse will probably be to either fight back or run for cover because you’re primed to do that—all humans are, with emotional wiring set up to spring us into action instantly when we believe our lives are at stake. While it’s unlikely that you’ll face physical danger in your divorce, your nervous system will make you feel as though you are. It produces the same physical sensations in response to both physical and emotional threats.

 

In the heat of the moment, you’ll feel driven to make a split-second decision and protect yourself right now—because your body is telling you that if you don’t, you might die.

 

In this high-alert state, you’ll see things in binary ways (safe/not safe; good/bad) and with limited information, you’re highly likely to make snap judgments and act on them without thought of long-term consequences and the impact on your divorce goals and strategy. But the judgments, decisions, and actions that feel so urgent and right in the moment of perceived threat are the ones that can easily derail you. This is what I call Stage 1 thinking—it’s primitive, and driven by survival instincts.

 

But from the outset, you can change the dynamic and gain control by consciously choosing not to fight or flee but instead to slow and de-escalate your response.

 

Here’s how it works:

 

Say your spouse tells you that although you’ve spoken only French to your child for the child’s whole life, he now wants you to speak only English when he is around. Or say the other person suddenly tells you that you are acting inappropriately when you take a shower naked with your two-year-old, even though showering naked was something you both used to agree on.

 

Both of these statements can land with an energizing, threatening punch that makes you want to fight back. In Stage 1 thinking, you would likely mirror the energy aimed at you right back to your spouse, with criticism or counterthreat. (“What do you mean you want me to quit showering naked with the baby! You’re out of your mind. What do you want me to do, go into the shower with my clothes on? Have her shower alone? What is your problem?!”)

 

Firing back like that seems logical and necessary because your body, then the brain, is telling you that you have only two options, fight or flight. But there’s a third and better way. Think of it as changing the DNA of the situation in three steps: Disarm, Neutralize, and Ask.

 

First, Disarm your spouse by agreeing with them. The immediate goal is to get both of you out of the “threat” zone that fires up reactiveness. A hyper-efficient way of doing this is by agreeing partially with their point of view or making a comment about the issue that they can agree with.

 

Any partial point of agreement or a simple statement of a fact that’s not in dispute makes the other person less reactive and calms the atmosphere so they can use their intellectual resources in communicating with you.

 

In the example above about showering with a toddler, you might say something as simple as: It seems that creating new boundaries for our child is important to you.

 

An observation like that quiets both of you. It doesn’t put either of you on the defensive, and it gives you both a chance to use your brains, and not just pure instinct, as you communicate with each other. You’re leading the other person, and yourself, to neutral ground.

 

You don’t have to come up with your response right away. In fact, it’s better if you give yourself time to THINK about it. I usually wait 24 hours before responding to things that trigger me, because I think best in the morning. I have learned that after a night’s sleep what I come with is usually 10 times better than the immediate retort I wanted to give.

 

Second, shift your mind into Neutral: In this quieter place, you can do Stage 2 thinking—looking for clues to the other person’s motives, needs, and wants. You can think long-term instead of being purely in the adrenaline-driven moment.

 

If the other person seems stuck in Stage 1 attack mode, even when you don’t take their bait, keep trying to lead them to a neutral mindset by looking for common ground and making statements that partially agree with them.

 

If they can’t de-escalate, take a break, and only resume contact when you feel ready to do so. Ideally, 24 hours will be enough, but in the early stages, you might want to take a break for one week, one month or more.

 

Third, find solutions by Asking clarifying questions:  When you are both in a neutral state—not name-calling, not yelling, not seething or sarcastic—you can use the tool that will probably be the most useful to you throughout your divorce: curiosity. Ask a question to clarify your understanding of the other person’s thinking. At best,  it will open up a dialogue. At worst, it will put you both in a détente.

 

Clarifying questions in the language example above could be:

 

* What’s the reason you want to make changes now to the language I speak with our daughter?

* What concerns do you have about my continuing to speak my native language to our child?

 

Questions like this let you move the conversation into specifics and provide you with insights into what’s really going on.

 

Use the understanding to express empathy, and then take the game-changing step of enlisting the other person in finding a solution. That might sound like this:

 

* You must be feeling isolated from our conversations because you don’t speak French. How can you feel more included in our conversations and also maintain our goal for a bilingual child?

 

This is a particularly effective approach because it draws on the emotional understanding you gained by looking under the surface of the objection: Maybe they feel left out. You probably used that kind of emotional radar a lot when you were on good terms with your spouse. Remembering how to do it now, how to see humans instead of the “enemy,” will serve you well throughout your divorce. And you can only do when you are calm—which is why this process always begins with stepping back to tame your reactiveness.  

 

Pro Tip:

 

You may have to return to or run through these steps multiple times with your spouse. Don’t feel discouraged by that. You’ll get better at your part as you go. Just focus on that.