Divorce Balance

Negotiation > Recovery > Enhancement

Friday, March 25, 2005
Making Your Ex Listen

• Dear Dell: How do I make my ex husband listen to me?

I'm not asking for me. This is for my daughter. She's been sick four times this school year and every time I've been the one to take her to the pediatrician. I tell him before the appointment in plenty of time for him to go if he wants to go. But he never comes.

If he doesn't care about my daughter that's his choice. But when I get her prescriptions, he's like totally dismissive if I try to tell him how much to give my daughter and the times. You have to understand that my daughter is with my ex husband for several days in a row and with Amoxicillin it's important to give it to her properly for her to get better.

I know he'll do it if he hears what to do.

But since he won't even listen to the doctor or me, I don't have the slightest response from him that he knows what's going on. A simple "I understand what you're telling me" would do. But he might as well be wearing headphones.

My daughter is only four, so please don't tell me that she could tell me if she got her medicine.

Any suggestions?

• Dear Muted: If I knew how to make former spouses listen to us after divorce, I'd probably be arrested for not using it to prevent most divorces in the first place.

Assuming this isn't a commercial for some new former-spouse-silencing headphone technology from Bose, I'd like to start with a question of my own.

Why do you suppose your former husband — or any dad, for that matter — would not want to hear such vitally important information about his own daughter?

I never judge people, but I did notice that you refer to "my daughter" five times; never "our daughter." Some might hear that as proprietary, if not alienating.

And if I noticed, I wouldn't be surprised if he notices.

Will such inclusive language magically open the door to your pediatrician's office? Even if it does, actually walking through that door with you is yet another matter. My own son and I once waited ninety minutes in an examination room for his physician to see him.

Ninety minutes. In a nine-by-nine room: You, your snuffling little cherub, and your former-former. For many divorced couples, not a prospect for the faint of heart.

Beyond this, divorce processes can lead to a healthy paranoia in such close quarters. "What might you accuse me of?"

Some divorce attorneys encourage their clients to surreptitiously tape record all interactions. Not you? Okay, have you further provided your former husband with a written agreement that waives your rights to call the doctor as a witness?

Ultimately are your kids better served by pediatricians as docs, or as chess pieces?

I've known a couple, Sandra and Carson, for years. Before, during and after divorce.

They had a daughter about the same age as yours. Carson used to complain that Sandra would talk to him as if she, Sandra, were the daughter. "Daddy wanna hear what I did with Mommy? I learned to swim all by myself and I wuved it!"

This irritated him to no end.

He also had a communication problem related to doctor visits.

Rather than fight Sandra to "make" her listen to him, I encouraged Carson to try Sandra's preferred form of communication himself. "Mommy wanna hear how fast I can chew up two Amoxicillin pills before I eat my Cheerios?"

"Tell me, Sweetie," Sandra replied engagingly when Carson actually tried this (albeit under protest). Sandra never looked at Carson, mind you. But the simple "I understand what you're telling me" came through with Bose Wave music system clarity.

So your former spouse got the QuietComfort 2 headphones in your divorce settlement instead. Technology perfected to block out trumpets and jackhammers.

All you can ever do is change yourself in ways most likely to motivate him to remove his own headphones.

If he chooses to.

—posted by Dell Deaton @9:01 PM EST 3/25/2005 [675]

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