Ted: What He Learned From Divorce, How He Handles Serious Conflict With His Partner

This is an AI-generated transcript, so consider it an approximation of the audio:

Michael Williams (00:04.142)
Welcome to DadPod. I'm Mike. And I'm Luke. We're friends here in Madison, and we both have kids. And at least for us, becoming a dad has been transformational. We talk to all sorts of dads in all sorts of situations to learn from their unique challenges, lessons, and evolutions. The goal is simple. Learn from each other to become better dads. If you dig it,

Please find us on Apple or Spotify and click follow. That single click helps put us in front of more dads, which Luke would really appreciate.

Michael Williams (00:39.886)
Welcome everybody to our most recent episode of the DadPod. I want to welcome all of our listeners. In today's episode, we're covering a number of big topics. We're going to talk about how to balance life as a startup founder, alongside being a father. We're going to talk about divorce and what it's like to be a dad going through a divorce. And finally, we're going to delve into the perspective on partnership, marriage, and fatherhood from the lens of a professional therapist and mediator.

As a reminder, no one here is pretending to be an expert. We're all here because we are curious, engaged, and just want to be better dads. I am super excited to introduce our guest today, Ted. Ted grew up here in Madison. He was good. No, he was pretty good playing soccer, refusing to be out hustled, but never to be out sweat. Today, he's one of the most loved men in Madison or most connected men in Madison.

He asked Ted perhaps the funniest man in Madison or at least the most handsome. Ted and I met while we were both Klindock implementers back at Epic. And I was immediately impressed with Ted's deep and broad understanding of respiratory therapist workflows. Ted left Epic and joined forces with a few other folks to start BlueTree, which he successfully led and supported to an exit.

And after his time at BlueTree, Ted decided to build his next career in couples mediation. Most importantly, and why we're so excited to talk to Ted today, he's a loving father of three incredible kids, a husband to a wonderful partner, and a lifelong learner bringing joy wherever he goes. Ted, thank you so much for joining us on today's DadPod. This is my pleasure. That was an amazing intro. It felt really genuine until the deep and broad knowledge of respiratory therapy.

part and then I figured can I trust can I trust any of this but it was really good.

Michael Williams (02:41.87)
I stand by that entire introduction. Before people understood what Klyndak meant. Yeah, exactly. No one's going to, right. I'm going to reach out to him about that. That's not going to happen. So we're good. We're safe. Deep cuts early. All right. Let's get started. How would you describe your overall dad strategy? What are kind of your top three to five priorities? What do you think about how you want to be a dad to your flock? I would say the number one would be to always stay on the same page as

wifey pants, because once you and your spouse are not connected, it doesn't mean, of course, we agree on everything, certainly not, and it doesn't mean we don't get on different pages, but to notice that and address it immediately, because that's the foundation. So once that starts to have cracks or get off track,

things can fall apart very easily. And when that's solid issues can be resolved pretty easily I've found. So I think that's the number one is the team, the parental team and being always aware of that. Number two, I remember taking, I did a, some kind of parent coaching training years ago and there was an exercise called a golden moment exercise. And it's, it's this, the gist of it was, you know, when your kid's basically driving you crazy is

you pause, I'm not going to go through it in detail, but you pause and you picture them in this moment of just, of this, this context where you just love them so much, right? Maybe it's they're just playing and being creative on their own and you tap into that love for them before you go up and approach them. And I think that I don't necessarily do that exercise, but I try to on a regular basis, ground myself in how much I love them and how they're just trying to do their best. They're just,

fledgling humans trying to figure it out. And when I do that, like my parenting game is fantastic. When I don't do that, it sucks, right? When I get drawn into like, why the hell aren't you obeying me? Or what am I doing wrong as a father that's leading you to be such a jerk or whatever? And I lose sight of, they're just this like amazing, beautiful being trying to figure shit out. Then, you know, that's a game changer.

Michael Williams (04:58.606)
So just reminding myself, wow, they're amazing, awesome kids doing their best. So let's see, beyond that, let's see, I would say dad's strategy would be just being present. I mean, being present is not easy for me. It's not easy for most of us probably who are trying to tackle professional endeavors that we're excited about and...

you know, personal endeavors and so forth. There's that ever present draw of the of the cell phone and the email that you want to get to. And you're crafting a response in your head about that. You know, how you are responding to the email as soon as the kids go to bed and they're like, well, maybe I'll just do a quick draft now. And while they're otherwise engaged and it's such a slippery slope and I fall into it like probably like a lot of dads. So, I mean, man, it's the other thing about parenting. I think it becomes so easy if you just like

I'm here with them now, I'm gonna sit down on the carpet with them and just start chatting with them about like unicorns or like what color blocks they're building. It's actually, we make it a lot harder than it is, I think, by being so in that kind of monkey mind bouncing around. So presence, I think, is huge. What are some ways in your relationship with your partner that drifting off the same page has played out? Because I love that.

concept and it certainly has, I've experienced the positive and negative of that particular concept. How do you notice it and then how do you pull it back to being on the same page in a way that's healthy and supportive? I think it's noticing it. It's either noticing it in my own reaction. Like let's say, you know, a common thing we used to conflict about is screen time.

and she would feel judged by me about her letting them watch shows and that sort of thing. And so first, I guess, is checking with myself and noticing, am I having an emotional reaction to something she's doing as a parent, a decision she's making as a parent? And then, okay, is this my issue and I need to reframe it to myself or let it go? Or is this something that needs to be addressed? The other end of the spectrum is

Michael Williams (07:23.694)
I can see she's reacting to me in a way where it's like, wow, you know, a common thing might be I'm less of a punishment oriented parent, I would say. And I think she grew up in a more, more, more rules, more punishment. And I think there's, there's balance and we could talk more about that, but I could see if she's clearly, I could sense some people are more, are more subtle than others. You know, usually she makes it pretty easy for me. But like, wow, you didn't follow through on.

on that or you didn't address that in a way I think we should have. And then we have a conversation. So I think it's just paying attention and then not letting anything go and addressing it. Do you address it in the moment or do you have a way to, hey, let's come back to this? Well, I think a good rule of thumb is if you can't be what I would call interpersonally effective, if you can't be in a state that is not

physiologically flooded like fight, flight, freeze, then it's a complete waste of time and detrimental to address it. You might in that say in that it might be valuable to say, I would like to, I can't talk about this now because it wouldn't be productive, but I would like to set a time to talk about this later. I'm going to bring this up with you later. So it doesn't feel like the other partner, your partner isn't blindsided, right? You're like letting it, letting them know. But

But I think in the moment is great if you can do it in an effective way where you're not triggered. Yeah, I've tried both. It's hard for me in the moment because I'm perhaps slower to get the body modulation back to a normal spot. But I've also found. I sometimes just never come back to it. You know what I mean? Like later on, you can come up with any. It's really easy to come up with an excuse to not revisit the thing.

And so finding that balance has been difficult, but I have personally found success flagging it, at least flagging it. At least then I know that it's not just inside me, you know, even if you don't come back like that little progress and then just trying to make incremental progress has been effective. Well, I think that makes sense too, the flagging approach, because you might find that after five minutes, 20 minutes, two hours,

Michael Williams (09:45.198)
it's not a big deal anymore and you see her perspective and you're not holding onto anything, right? Or you might find like, wow, we really need to talk about this. So space and I'm not good, like my, I'm a fiery temperament by nature. And so is Stephanie. So, you know, we've, we've gotten really good at not fighting that much, but our, you know, our disposition is to get the claws out, you know? So, so anyway, I think that that is a, that's a wise kind of middle ground is just flag it to yourself.

Cool. So let's keep going here. We always think it's an interesting question to kind of look back and then use that perspective as we look forward on our current, the current way we father. So the question is describe how you were brought up. How did your dad father you and what have you taken from that experience as your father to your, your current children? You know, it's really interesting. And I wonder if I'm relatively unique in this experience, but

my memories of my childhood and of my father -son interactions are minimal. And I don't know what that's about, but I can tell you, so it's, you know, I wish, especially my dad having died 10 years ago, I wish I could remember more and I try to remember more sometimes.

but it's hard to find those memories. But I can tell you kind of general themes that I remember clearly. And one was reliability. Like I could always count on my dad. He not only, I mean, he was a professor published like crazy, you know, hyper successful in his career as a therapist and a teacher. But I don't think he ever missed a swim meet or a soccer game. He always showed up.

He was always on time and always so enthusiastic about everything I did and super supportive. So that presence and that reliability was huge. He also, you know, I think I got a passion for effective communication written and oral from him as well. So, you know, he would take any amount of time to

Michael Williams (12:09.646)
mark up my papers and we'd nerd out about the best grammatical approach to different sentences and things like that. And even in college, even in grad school, I remember, you know, he would review my papers and I could still see his horrible handwriting in all the margins and like, what is that? But it's, I have so much, like there's such a warm feeling when I think about that, cause that was a way he expressed love, you know, was that attentiveness and that support. And you know, interestingly as a

you know, incredible from everything I've heard from patients and students of his incredible therapist for, you know, his own personal reasons with his, with his very difficult childhood, expressing emotion was really hard. And, and so on the one hand, it was interesting because my mom, my mom, and you see this a lot in relationships, very common where if one person doesn't have it, the other person, you know, you become kind of extreme versions.

and you've moved to those polls. And my mom was like, I knew too much about her emotional experience every step of the way. And I knew nothing about my dad. He was a kind of a black box to the point where on the one hand, I didn't feel burdened by his emotions, but I also felt insecure because I'm like, I don't know how my dad's doing and I care about how my dad's doing. And my parents fought a lot. So there's a lot of uncertainty. And now this feels like a therapy session. But I think coming back to the

to the big question, I think what I took from it is that presence, that being there, that reliability is so important. And I think what I didn't get from him, and so I always felt even though he wasn't kind of like mushy, I'm proud of you, here's a life lesson son type of thing, I always felt so loved and supported by him nonetheless. And as a father, it made it clear to me like, I want to, even though it's annoying sometimes, I wanna give the fatherly advice.

to my kids, right? I want to talk about girls and, you know, here's why you should do the hard thing sometimes. And, you know, I want to give those, those lectures and, and I want to be a sounding board too. Like I never talked to him about girl problems. I never talked to him about friend problems really until I was maybe, you know, 30 years old. And I already talked to my seventh, seventh grader about all that stuff. And you know, I don't push, there's a balance, but

Michael Williams (14:37.774)
So my relationship with my dad reinforced to me how important it is to not be stoic, to show emotion and to welcome emotion. And again, that's balance, right? I don't want to put my emotions on my kids and make them take care of me, but I want them to see that feeling emotions and processing emotions is in fact healthy and suppressing and pushing them down is in fact not healthy. To dig into that, I would love to hear how you became aware of that.

So I'm going to ask about that emotional aspect because I think this is something we've talked about with a number of different guests. And I think I know I've experienced, which is this realization at some point, it's like, holy shit, I've become emotionally numb either because of work or because of school or because of how I've been brought up. But I think it's a very common American male experience, right? We get rewarded for being stoic. So what was

How did you come to understand that about yourself? And then the second part of the question is, how have you practiced that? Because I've been burned, right? Like how do I, in a healthy way, show expression of my emotion versus in a burdensome way? You know what, one thing that stands out to me is, and I don't know if this is, it was sort of a light bulb moment for me. I was, I think 30.

My son was two and I was at my parents' house and I forgot what happened, but I just went off on my mom in sort of like a 15 -year -old, like grounded type of way. I snapped at her and I went home and I was thinking, what just happened? And then I went back and had like a meeting with my parents. And I remember saying to my dad, you know, it hit me that I just...

all of my emotional struggle, I just unload on my mom because I always know how she's, how she takes it because I see it, I hear it. And I never feel comfortable unloading anything on you because I don't know how you're, I never know how you're feeling. And so that was like in my 30s, but that really stands out to me as like a, I wish I'd gone about it differently, but that's a different story.

Michael Williams (17:03.918)
It stands out to me as kind of an aha moment of like, wow, that's a big gap. And I think just once I had my own kids, a light was shown on my experience of like, wow, no one ever talked to me about this stuff. And wow, like I don't think my dad, even though I didn't necessarily feel like I needed it at the time, I don't know if he ever said, I'm really proud of you. You know, I felt it.

there was just a certain amount of communication. And I think I just saw, I felt it, it wasn't a retrospective thing. I felt it in real time of like, man, I wish I knew what was going on for my dad. I feel disconnected from him. And he used to send me, he'd send me articles all week, like look at this, you know, soccer player's story and you know, whatever I was into, he'd send me an article about. And I remember, you know, I kind of regret this, but at one point I was like, dad, if you want to just talk to me and like meet up, just.

do that. And I criticized his way of connecting, but he was just trying to connect. And had I had a little more wisdom, I would have just enjoyed it and kind of relished in it. But I criticized it, which I think fed into his feeling, you know, lesser of a parent and just, you know, completely the wrong effect. But I always felt there was this kind of gap in connection and there are ways...

This probably happens to a lot of people when a parent dies suddenly or anybody dies suddenly. It's like, wow, all these different ways I wish I would have approached the relationship. And even though I always felt that love and support, I wish I had just been like, let's just talk. Let's talk about these things. And and I think he would have been open to it. But yeah. How do you think about now with your particular, particularly with your oldest, what you said is seventh grade, correct?

Yes. How do you think about the trying to reveal your emotional world to them now? You know, there's some stuff that there's a line somewhere where it can be too much to put on a child. But at the same time, this showing them that there is an emotional world for you. So how do you think about that? Yeah, that's a great question. I think that's kind of the second part of your your question, Luke. And I think it's tricky. I think what what I like to do is

Michael Williams (19:29.358)
show emotion, but also convey very clearly that I can take care of myself in addressing it. I don't need them to help me and I'm not I don't I'm fully kind of self reliant in that regard. So and then I also think it's for example, if there was a time when I went off on Benny my seventh seventh grader, maybe a year ago, totally lost it.

and screamed at him and stuff like that. And then I think later that day or the next morning, I was like, okay, can we talk about what happened? And I was like, you know, I'm really sorry for yelling at you. I completely lost control. And I thought about it and I realized in those moments, oftentimes what's happening for me is I'm scared. I'm not really mad at you. It comes off as anger, but I'm scared I'm not doing something right as your dad.

that's leading to the behavior that you're engaging in. And I kind of freak out because I don't know what to do. And I need to work on, and I will work on noticing that and doing it differently because I know when I just give you loving feedback, you're great about taking it. But I just want you to know that's not about you, that's just about in those moments, me being afraid that I'm not doing a good job as a dad. So something like that is a pretty good example.

Another would be, I guess, yeah, just in real time, like anger and frustration are always so easy to exhibit, you know, they're so accessible to us. And, you know, sometimes there's value to them, you know, to an immediate establishing an immediate boundary. I mean, that's really the adaptive value of anger is, is safety and establishing boundaries. But usually it's a lot more helpful to talk about the primary emotion and what's beneath that. And, and so, yeah, to, you know, usually it's something like

fear, sadness, loneliness, something like that. And so to talk about that, but not in a helpless, like, save me way. Here's how my emotional experience works. And then you're modeling, so you're modeling like, owning a mistake, you're modeling, thinking through it, like, this is how I reflected on what I did and what was really going on for me. And then here's how I wanna repair it, and here's how I wanna do it differently going forward.

Michael Williams (21:54.894)
So that's like kind of that emotional process that you're modeling. And I think that's what's helpful. What's not helpful is like, I don't bring him into anything about my relationship with my wife. You know, I don't, if I talk about something stressful about work, it's not like, well, I can't handle this. It's like, wow, this was frustrating. But I try to have an intention. You know, there's this guy, Kim John Payne, who's an amazing author.

about parenting and I recommend his work, but he has the weight method, why am I talking? And I love that. I think it's just great in general for life, but probably especially with your kids. It's like, why am I talking? Is there value to this? Is it building connection or fun? Or is it just kind of like taking up space? So I don't do a lot of talking about.

emotions other than I think probably processing our relationship or if he knows something's going on for me, right? Like let's say I'm trying to think if if anything big but even with current events, you know, he might say how do you feel about what's going on in Israel or something like that, right? And I'll that's when I'll be honest about it. But yeah, I think I just try to be really thoughtful about the emotions I process in front of him. One other question about that in, you know, I'm

approaching 40 and kind of like our generation, I think particularly, you know, a lot of, it's very common for our, I have found men of like my peers and their dads, they're not being a lot of emotion exchanged in there. I think it's particularly male. It's particularly American. I'm sure a lot of people.

have that in common. And then the emotions that we do connect with our anger and frustration and anything you can connect to kind of violence in particular. So how have you with a son who's approaching the early teenage years, kind of on his round in the corner to becoming like a little adult, if not being a little adult already, how do you...

Michael Williams (24:15.662)
Explore emotions beyond frustration and anger for him and expose him to the broader spectrum of what you can feel and the aspects of life that that taps into. I think one is I ask him regularly how he's feeling. So just making it a normal part of the conversation, not just like, hey, how's it going? But how do you feel about this? How are you feeling about that? Like specific questions, but not pushing.

I think a lot of probably a common mistake, especially with teens, especially teen boys, they go pretty internal and they don't want to share, you might even get a grunt like, how are you feeling? You know, that's pretty standard and doesn't necessarily mean anything's wrong. But I think two common mistakes would be one would be to keep pushing. Don't tell me how do you feel about it? And it's like, that's just going to make them retreat even more. And the other one is like, well, they don't want to talk to me. So I guess I

I'm just gonna give up. I think it's keep showing up and keep showing that you care about or that I keep showing that I care about how he's feeling and I wanna know how he's feeling and it matters to think about it and talk about it. So I think that's one. And then there are two, I think it comes back to what I was saying before, it's modeling. They're watching us everything we do. And I've seen it even when I, with the little siblings.

When I would get, I'd say there was a period, I don't know what it was about, but there was a period where I was having a lot of trouble tapping into that golden moment, or I forgot about that habit. And so I'd just get frustrated, you know, that my two -year -old son was just like always pushing buttons, right? So I get frustrated and he'd see it in my tone and my energy. And so I'd see very clearly when I'm doing dishes or whatever, I hear in the other room,

man, he sounds just like me at my worst with the little kids, right? So modeling is huge. And I don't think, you know, there's, if you can do nail those two things and then get a really good spot setting your kids up to be emotional beings. Yeah. Yeah. I think this area is going to be one of those interesting questions for our generation.

Michael Williams (26:33.934)
And I think what you, what you mentioned Ted about your father and probably how he was, how he was raised, how he dealt with that, pass it on to you. I think this will be a really interesting thread to pull on for many years as we see how it, how it plays out to keep moving. As mentioned, you were a co -founder of a very successful healthcare startup, BlueTree. What were the big lessons you took from that experience, from that experience as you balanced being a founder at a super high -pay startup?

with being a father to your then only child. You know, I think I don't know that this was specific to being in a busy startup. I think it was just the nature of my dynamic with my ex -wife, but it was fueled by the startup even more is that I was definitely really present when I was there and I was fun. Like we had we every Saturday I was with him all day or whatever. And so we

We had a lot of quality time and had a close relationship, but I really allowed myself to fall into the background with respect to that emotional labor, if you've heard that term, and just that day -to -day of who does he come to if he's hurt, if he's hungry, if he needs, who's implementing bedtime and toothbrush and.

who's doing those core things that give a kid structure and like a foundation. And I think I was really good at fun and playing, but I think I gave up those, that aspect of the fatherly role early. And I think I kind of paid the price for a little while because he would just always go to his, go to his mom and there was that imbalance for that, that kind of safety comfort foundation.

So, you know, and again, I think it was exacerbated by the busyness of the startup life. So, you know, I made a point with my new partner and children to really be a part of that and have that be a conversation. Are we feeling like emotional labor is in balance that we're owning? How we're owning these child -related tasks and home domestic tasks feels fair and reasonable. And, you know, we can both handle it.

Michael Williams (28:56.718)
So, you know, and I think I found that, yeah, I see a difference, right? Like my five -year -old daughter is like, there's still a mommy attachment thing for both of them. There still is very much for the three -year -old, but I think that's pretty common and probably makes sense, right? I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert, but probably makes sense biologically. But that investment in doing those little things day to day, I think has been

been a benefit to the relationship. Yeah. Having gone through my own startup journey, I always ask the question, how much did I use that as a shield or an excuse? Yeah. I love how you talked about it as kind of these foundational parts of their lives and thinking about how it gets built on top. I remember a very specific conversation I had with an investor and I remember this because I

I disagreed with it so strongly. He said, your kids will still be there when they're 15. I was like, I think you and I are coming from different places, my friend. And that was one of those moments where I was like, these worlds might not be compatible or compatible in an easy way. Absolutely. Yup. Ted, have you noticed any difference between, so between your first child and then your younger ones?

Your younger ones are like, they were born into a very different, your world is very different. You're kind of out of the, in a different business context. You're not in a, in kind of a startup, typical startup, high octane situation. Have you noticed a difference in how that impact, being able to be around for more of that little stuff, being, making it a point to be more involved in the day to day raising of the child and all that little stuff?

Do you think that that has changed your fathering experience or the early relationship, like your experience to the child? And I'm asking from the context of I was home for like 30 hours a week with my child for a year and just having to deal with

Michael Williams (31:16.078)
all the day to day and also being around to notice this little stuff changing and evolving and you know, this little person growing up. I was really thankful to go through that experience because I would not, I had no intuition about, you know, I had to learn a lot. It taught me what it feels like to be a dad and to feel the ownership and also to feel competent in that. So I'm just kind of curious if you've noticed differences in your experience due to

you know, making it a point to be to be try to be more involved in that. Yeah, I mean, there's so many different components of kind of what's different about my life now that all intersect and overlap. And I think that it's that part of it is that dad strategy, right? That foundation of my wife and I have a great, amazing relationship. We work together really well. We don't agree on everything, but we work through everything.

So that I think fundamentally changes my experience as a dad for sure and changes the kids experience significantly. There's like no, they witness almost no conflict in the sense of like some kind of witnessing conflict that's healthy is good, but they don't witness much of any unhealthy conflict. And then I think the other piece is

It just feels so much more rewarding to be part of all the things, right? Like I didn't put my older son to bed. I don't think I, I didn't put him to bed until he was three years old. And because again, it was like, I'm not going to blame my ex. It's a two way street. I should have insisted. Eventually I said, no, I need to put him to bed. Let me put him to bed. But I didn't take enough of a stand early on. And with these ones, you know, we still have a tricky thing where like my son, my little guy always.

wants mom to put into bed. So I put my daughter to bed, you know, tricky dynamics, but I've been part of the bedtime. Like I'm almost never gone at bedtime. And I love that. You know, I'm part of the process and it's just so rewarding to, to, to be, to be more in it than just like, just the fun, just fun dad mode, you know, to be in it for making breakfast. And, you know, when Stephanie wants to do a girl's night or something like that, it's like, great. Like I love,

Michael Williams (33:36.398)
time with just the kids. So yeah, it's a noticeable difference. And I think it's great for them. I mean, like having two really, I recognize I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky that I have schedule flexibility to be home when they get home from school and all of that to be able to be part of it. But Stephanie and I often talk, man, these kids are so lucky. They're gonna have hard stuff happen to them, but they're so well loved.

and they have such a great model of love and you know, in our house, it's like, we're setting it up for them to have a solid foundation of managing their own emotions of connectedness to other people. And I mean, it's amazing to see, and you know, I can't draw a causal relationship here, right? But like my five -year -old daughter, she'll get like, like yesterday, she got three marshmallows at school and she's like,

great. I'm going to save one for Benny and one for Leo. It's like, you're supposed to hold things. But she's always doing stuff like that. And that, you know, that there could be a lot of contributing factors to it. But I think a lot of it comes back to like this safe, the safe, loving environment with parents who are both really present and collaborative is huge. Cool. So we've touched on it a couple of times, but let's dive in. You went through a tough divorce.

And maybe to get started, what did you learn during that process that you wish you had known at the beginning?

First thing is, and I've heard this from other people going through divorce or expecting divorce, there's this feeling of shame that I felt of like, I'm the one getting divorced. At that point, none of my friends were divorced. Of course, now, you know, several are. But like, I'm the divorce guy. I'm the guy who couldn't make it work, who screwed up my kids, so to speak, with, you know, a broken home. And...

Michael Williams (35:41.198)
You know, with all the challenges that I've gone through since then, it's like that never comes to my mind. Like that is hilariously unimportant to me right now. So I would say to a divorcing dad, like, man, you'll, it's not a big deal. Like it doesn't matter. What matters is, you know, the wellbeing of you and your children and you know, hopefully you're

to eventual ex spouse. And if you can't make it work, then it's a good thing to, to let it go rather than have a toxic environment for your children. So, so that would be one thing. I think another would be just to trust my own ability and my son's ability to adapt. You know, I was really, you know, I think it's probably

there's probably very little that can stop you from being sad about the prospect of having not seeing your child half the time or whatever the percentages that you land on. But I also, you know, really then it made me conscious of how present I was during that time and that time that I did have him and I adapted to it. I mean, I've had my son full time now for almost five years and it's amazing and I love that.

But I think just trusting his ability and my ability to adapt at the same time, another big takeaway that I'm guessing I'm not alone in falling into was because I was so much wanting that time together to be special and to be meaningful, it was almost always exclusively the two of us. And I probably set about 10 % of the boundaries I should have because

I especially think about those times where I knew his mom was going to pick him up in 20 minutes and he's doing something he shouldn't be doing. I don't want to get in a fight or make him mad at me and then not see him for three days. But kids, ultimately, it's like, I think about like with my dad not remembering a lot of specifics, people remember feelings, kids remember feelings. And if you give them a feeling of, you know, like that you're a solid parent, that there are boundaries, there's loving boundaries.

Michael Williams (38:09.07)
That is an amazing thing to give to a kid. And I think if they're crying about their Xbox being taken away or something, that's totally fine. Like you don't have to be a jerk about it. And that's what I realized too when I give coming back to that golden moment type of thing, right? Well, I'm like, I can come down on my kids, but in a way that's loving, like I told you to do that. And so you're losing this right now. I know you're upset. I'm sorry. I don't have to yell. I don't have to be mean. I don't have to say I'm disappointed in you and things like that.

but I can establish that boundary. So anyway, coming back to that divorce experience, I think I was way too permissive and that was a disservice to him and to our relationship, the lack of boundaries and things like that. So I think those would be probably the big takeaways for me in retrospect. So, and you mentioned this, but maybe just to ask it directly, going through that, going through your divorce, how did that impact your relationship with your son? Well, I think

the way it impacted it and tell me if I'm not answering your question, but I think the impact was there was a big gap in he didn't get to see a healthy relationship and he saw on a very unhealthy relationship in a lot of ways. And that affected, certainly affected him. There was the way I overcompensated with lack of boundaries and too much one -on -one when they should have been having him branch out and play dates and things like that.

I'm sure that affected our relationship. But I think on the positive side, you know, I was always concerned about...

you know, let's just say other people saying negative things about me to him during that process. And it would stress me out. But I think ultimately, kids watch you and they see you and they see how you show up. And, you know, if you think by my consistently showing up in a loving, supportive way, it doesn't matter what anybody says, that's what they see, that's what they experience. And that's what's true for them. So

Michael Williams (40:13.134)
So in that sense, I don't think it affected, you know, any kind of negative statements or attempts to undermine my relationship were not, were not particularly impactful because I just stayed strong in how I was. And I also, and I tell this to everybody, you know, going through divorce, it's like you're doing your child a great disservice if you talk trash about their other parent and you are giving them a gift.

time you can do anything positive about toward that other parent. So even when we are at the peak of a conflict behind the scenes, you might come home with an art project from, I mean, like, mom is so good at art. That is so cool. She's so creative. That's awesome. And that's just a gift to him, you know? And so, so, so I tried to, you know, it wasn't always successful, right? But I always try to take the high road. And I think for my own peace of mind and to feel good about my integrity, but also for him.

as much as possible. I got so much respect for you, dude. That sounds so hard. Straight up. Thank you. Yeah, it was challenging. How much of the having been through the experience, I would guess, like people don't people land on divorce for a reason. You know, it's things like you don't know unwillingly arrives there. And so it's

And my takeaway from that is people who go through that are probably doing the right thing. You know, if they like, most people don't want to get divorced. So how much of the, your experience going through that was, and it looked like maybe you disagreed. So I'd like to come back to that. But how much of your experience was just getting on top of your emotions of, you know, of going through this it's.

This is probably the right thing for me to be doing. I need to be modeling good behavior for my son. But inside I'm, I don't see how anyone could go through a divorce. At least you got to get through the storm to get to the calm end. So walk me through that a little bit and then kind of just how you manage that.

Michael Williams (42:38.894)
I don't think I managed it well. You know, I think it consumed me, the uncertainty around my relationship with my son and placement and custody, as well as financial situation. It had a huge impact on my work for sure, distracted me significantly. I was stressed out. So I don't think I managed it particularly well. I also think I was, you know, partly by virtue of my childhood and some of the dynamics I've touched on.

I think I emotionally, I matured very late with respect to managing my emotions. So I was still very much in that maturation process during the divorce process. So it was very difficult. A big shift for me happened when I decided that I needed to let my ex feel however she felt about me. And I needed to act out of integrity and do what was right.

not try to make her like me or think I'm not a terrible person. And that was a really hard shift for me, but that was a game changer for me because then I didn't need to engage. I didn't need to fight. I needed to defend myself. If I made a mistake, I apologize, but I wouldn't get into any kind of who's right, who's better. I just dropped the, you know, think about tug of war. I just dropped the rope. Then I was pretty, pretty low key, right? And it takes two to have a war too. And if

You know, you're not in it like I you know, there's certain extent that's not true right? I had to defend myself legally a lot and things like that But I don't need to be in this kind of ongoing battle Which is really a battle for it's really an emotional battle It's about like I don't want you to I want you to see my worth I don't want you to think I want to feel good about myself By virtue of you not thinking I'm terrible and I let go of that so that was huge and I think a big part of the leading up to the divorce that decision to divorce which I think was part of your

question, I realized that I was very selfish. Like she ultimately was the one who said, I want to divorce. I did everything I could have to sabotage the relationship for the preceding like eight years, but I didn't have the guts and the awareness to like, Hey, do her a favor, like let her go. You're not in this relationship, you know, in the right way. You're not invested in it. And

Michael Williams (45:05.55)
And so a big light bulb moment for me was when I realized like the kindest thing you could do for her is to stop saying, let's work on it. Let's make it work and give her the divorce that I've been for the relationship I've been undermining and sabotaging myself for so many years. So that was a helpful moment of growth for me that didn't fix our co -parenting relationship by any means, but at least felt like I was finally doing the right thing.

instead of avoiding it and putting it on her to make all the hard decisions. And yeah, so that was kind of a, a moment of better emotional awareness and management as compared to the previous 30 years. There's something you mentioned in there about letting her feel how she was going to feel. And that is something that I've struggled with in less in my relationship with my child, which who's two and he was going to

It's like easier for me to conceptualize that. But in my adult relationships, I realized somewhere along the way recently that I'm reacting to how someone feels. I'm trying to, I disagree with how they feel. Meanwhile, I think how I feel is 110 % legitimate. Yep. And I'm not giving that to the other person.

And I wonder how much in the parenting collaboration, in the, you know, conflict that comes up in the, in these partnerships is because we're not letting the other person have full agency over their feelings. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a, in a, in an intimate relationship and a marriage as parents, the

We project all of our crap onto our spouse generally. And we look to them in a lot of ways for our perception of ourselves and how we value ourselves. They're the person who's closest to us. So if they think I'm a jerk, I must be a jerk, right? And we forget that they're just like us. They're having their own emotional experience. And I think a big...

Michael Williams (47:24.398)
part of my personal growth process and what I see in so many people is, it's not about you. It's about, generally, it's like your spouse has a sensitivity to XYZ, you have a sensitivity to ABC, and if you can be aware of those things and not poke those little spots on each other, you're probably gonna get along really well. And it's when you poke those spots and then you say, I'm right, then she says, I'm right.

then you get disconnected, you get resentment, you grow apart. So I think it's the ability to not take it as personally and to see it as like, let's support each other in successfully working with our sensitivities. Might be a way I would characterize it. And I think a part of what you're saying too is it's a validation, an emotional validation. So there's a big difference between like, you are mad at me and that totally makes sense because I totally screwed up.

is very different than like, I'm so sorry you're upset. Right? Like you're not saying you agree with them. You're just sorry they're upset just because you care about them and you don't want your partner to feel a negative emotion. Right? So that validation is huge and it's not something we know there. We generally don't go to classes where we learn about that. And that alone can destroy a relationship. Right? And so when I was like, disagreeing with you with my body language about

if they're deciding to get a divorce, they probably should. You know, in a lot of cases, I think you're probably right. I don't know what percentage because I think that connection has been so deeply eroded over so many years that there's either so much animosity or so much numbness that there's no coming back. And then it's like, yeah, let's get a divorce. You guys, there's no point in trying to do this. But there's also, especially I think about like, say a five year, say an eight year marriage.

The first five years I've had three kids, you know, they've had in the last five years, they've had three kids. First three years of their marriage is great. Then, what happened? We had three kids and now we don't touch each other and make eye contact or talk about anything. And I think that in a lot of those cases, you know, there's, let's learn about how to validate emotions. Let's learn about how to be aware of our own emotions and sensitivities and my partner's emotions and sensitivities.

Michael Williams (49:43.662)
about how to repair and reconnect when we disconnect or when there's, you know, some kind of violation, who knows what's possible, right? And so I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole, but I often say to people who are on the fence, like on a scale of one to 10, it was one being I would do anything to put in work to make this relationship work and 10 being I couldn't muster an ounce of energy to put into this relationship to try I'm done, where are you? And if both partners are say eight or above,

Like this is probably gonna be a waste of time to even try because you just don't have it in you. But if one is like five, six, seven, eight and the other is like one or two, like they have fight and they're willing to lead the charge, I think it's worth exploring. And I do this process called divorce discernment. It's a structured counseling process that I won't get into now, but to actually look at like, what do we actually wanna do here? And if we do want to make the relationship work, what are we each committing to working on? So I'm not totally pessimistic.

But it's usually pretty clear after a couple of conversations, like, yo, let's get divorced. Or we can actually, like, you've never worked on this stuff. So of course this is where you are. It's sad to me. To me, there should be a high school, I mean, there should be a course on relationships. What could be more important than that course? We're social beings or emotional beings. I think we're those two things more than anything else. But we don't learn about those two things almost at all.

Absolutely insane. Now I'm going out of soapbox. So I'll stop. One thing that I found useful in around the idea of creating a healthy environment for emotion between my partner and I. I found that when I practiced my own healthy expression of emotion, particularly around, hey, I need help or hey, I need support in this thing.

I just started with that. I just said, I did my internal message to myself was I need to say the words. I need help more often.

Michael Williams (51:50.638)
And one of the surprising results I found from that was it made me, A, it made me much less resentful about just emotional challenges because I'm being more transparent. I feel like there's a route to resolving my own stuff. And it made me more open to hearing those from my partner.

Yeah. Hearing the emotional challenges from my partner. And so in some way, by trying to practice, because I'm, I've lived so much of my life under the common male idea of emotion is weak. And by practicing my own expression and practicing my own expression, request for help, I found it actually made me much better when I'm on the other end of that request as well.

That's amazing. Yeah. It's interesting because I think, you know, maybe I've got this wrong, but part of what happens is we kind of blame our partner for not letting us express like it's if it's their fault that we don't express ourselves. So when they express a need, it's like, must be nice to be able to express yourself. And then you realize, I'm just choosing not to do this myself. And then when you do, you feel like seen, understood, you've got that out. And then it's so much easier to hear them. So that's amazing that you had that practice and that learning from it.

Yeah. You know, your mention of being like the emotional immaturity, I totally relate to as well. And I have had discussions with my partner with that were challenging for me. And I later find out are like pretty easy for her or like our conception. I was like, wow, that kind of got out of hand, you know, sorry, I like whatever. And she's just like, that's like normal. You know, just like I am.

so undeveloped in those worlds and which says, hey, there's a lot of enrichment to the relationship that can happen if I'm able to, you know, to nurture this. Totally. I mean, I think it's, you know, it's interesting to think about kind of to me, I never went to a therapist until the very end in my first marriage. With Stephanie, we actually, when we were still, we were like two months in a relationship, we're

Michael Williams (54:17.39)
distance, we're a long distance relationship. She came to Madison and we met, we got a therapist just to be proactive. Like that'd be fun to see if there's anything and he's like, why are you guys here? And we're like, we have no idea. We just thought it'd be cool. And so literally it's, I mean, it's like any time we hit, we get stuck in anything. We go to a therapist and I think, and that's where like it pains me when I get, especially like couples with like a one and a two year old or a one and a three year old come in for divorce mediation. It's like, man,

you know, if you had just, it's really hard to do on your own. It's hard to see yourself and it's hard for an untrained, very biased partner to see you and reflect that to you, right? But when you have a third party who's good and says like, here's what you do and here's what hurts you and here's what makes you resentful and disconnected and here's what you do and here's how you feed into each other and here are little tweaks each one of you can make.

I mean, it's a complete game changer, right? So yeah, I mean, I think you, you might describe yourself as kind of behind in those areas, but you're probably on par with the vast majority of people because none of us learn how to do this. And it's really hard to do just alone with one's partner. I think. Yeah, I love that idea of the proactive.

Whether it's therapy or relationship counseling, you know, whatever there's a bunch of different ways you could relationship coaching. You're the second person that I've recently heard mention that doing it proactively in their relationship. There was another, another guy, dad, father or husband. And he said, Hey, we have a therapist we go to and we just

meet like once a month and we have a list of things that, hey, we need to talk about this in session. And they just earmark stuff that they know they need the support of a professional. Because I think particularly in today where the wife is trying to be more actively involved in career in some cases,

Michael Williams (56:40.782)
And then on the husband's side, in a hetero situation, maybe trying to, you know, if you're trying to express more emotion, if you're trying to be more actively engaged, there's a lot more ways to have conflict. And when you're working full time and then if you have multiple kids and multiple years, that is an incredibly difficult landing to stick. I'll be the third.

My partner and I have gone through therapy proactively, I think three times at this point and very much in line with what you're talking about. Mike, you know, we, you know, when we feel we're ready for, we did it before we got married. We've done it once before kids and we've had a once post kids. One of the things that I wanted to add to this part of the conversation is I've actually been frustrated because there's been times.

we've literally been quote unquote graduated from a therapist because there's like, Hey, we're done working with you. You know, see you later. But we don't feel like we're done. And it's been really frustrating. And that's where we've actually found what was called us a couple's coach. And that's where I think in therapy, when I have a couple of therapies, we've done the work, like in that session.

What I've experienced in coaching is a little bit more meta where you actually get taught how to do the work, right? Where it's like, Hey, we're not just going to come here to solve problems in that moment. We're going to give you a set of tools so you can solve these problems on your own. And I draw that distinction because we've talked a couple of times about this, you know, Ted, you talked about the classes you wish people taught Mike. You talk about your own experience and feeling like you're a late emotional, a bloomer.

I think all this comes back to like, what's the literal tool set we have to deploy. Right. And I just, I put it out there for everybody listening where it's like, we have to go and find those in this context for the sake of our partners and for the sake of our kids. Right. Like I think that's the, that's the bigger point. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm glad you brought up that distinction between coaching and therapy. I think that's important. And I'm glad we're talking about this because it.

Michael Williams (58:58.35)
The quality of your fatherhood is directly related to your relationship as a father, is your relationship with your spouse if you have one. And I think the way I look at it is coaching is like a subset or a nested within therapy. So therapists are different, but a lot of therapists have those same tools.

Tools is the best way to describe it, I think. It's getting clarity through asking questions and it's saying, okay, practice, this is what's happening when you conflict or this is how you could get close. These are some things you could do to build more closeness or enhance your shared values or whatever. And so it's more concrete actions to take. And for some couples, that is where they are and that's perfect, right? And so maybe a coach or a therapist who has a more

inclination toward coaching is better and a better fit for the need. You know, if you're, if I would say to people, if they're doing that and they're stuck, they're with the wrong kind of person and they prob, they want somebody who gets at emotions because like I spoke to a couple recently, it's like, yeah, we went therapy. We love the therapist and you know, we learned about

you know, fight or flight and how to communicate effectively and you know, so they had a lot of the terminology down, reflective, listening, all this stuff. I'm like, those are great tools. If you don't understand your own emotional experience and your partner's emotional experience and what's happening below the surface, that's why you keep getting stuck here. Because, you know, it's because of its emotions. And so I think it kind of depends on the emotional awareness of the individual. So if you happen to have a couple,

Both people are really aware of their own emotions and tapped into their partner's emotions. The skill place might be a better place to work. But I think most people are carrying stuff oftentimes from their relationships with their parents. You know, my dad taught me that, you know, any kind of showing any kind of emotion is weak. So I'm not going to do that. And then I, you know, that shows up in my relationship. And that's a huge part of the problem with my wife right now. I'm not saying this for me. I'm just an example. So

Michael Williams (01:01:20.846)
that needs, that's not going to be fixed by learning some tools. So, so I think it's just an awareness. And then I think you got to shop around, you know, it's like a mechanic or a lawyer or anything else. Like some people are not going to be at all helpful to anybody or maybe just they're helpful to some people, but not you and other people are going to be like a magical. So you just got to find the right fit and give it a couple of tries. But if it's not the right fit, move on. Yeah. So let's speaking of moving on.

We've talked about some of this, but I did want to give you, you know, we kind of talked about your time as a startup founder. We talked about some of the experiences going through your divorce and raising your son after BlueTree. And, you know, after you've purchased your Tesla, you decided to become a therapist and couples mediator. And we've heard you talk about, you know,

bring to the table a lot of the things I think you deploy as part of that. How did you arrive at that decision that this was going to be your new career? Let's see. I would say the shortest possible answer, because that could be like an hour, would be when I was in undergrad, I wanted to go into psychology. And for various reasons, I didn't think it was practical, various contributing factors. I didn't.

And, but it was always like, wow, I wonder, I think it'd be really cool to be a therapist. People fascinate me. Their stories fascinate me. The ability to change fascinates me. So I went back to grad school in 2011, but then I started BlueTree at the same time, got too busy. So I was going to be a therapist in 2011, but then I dropped out of that program. And you know, after we built BlueTree up to be a, you know, a quality company, you know, I love the people, I love the startup process, but I'm like, wait a minute. I don't like health.

care that much doesn't really interest me, IT doesn't interest me, and I'm running a healthcare IT company, and I'm not that good at it either. Maybe I should do something else. So then I decided to go into coaching. I did life coaching for a few years. And I remember I worked with a couple one time, because I was thinking, I could probably do this. I'm like, wow, I'm so out of my range here. I have so much to learn about coaching a couple. So I went back and got my master's in marriage and family therapy.

Michael Williams (01:03:40.398)
I guess the shortest answer is it was always there, always something I wanted to do. And then I just happened to reconnect with my, my, one of my attorneys during my divorce, who I had a ton of respect for, who seemed like she stood out among kind of a, in a kind of cynical dark world. She was kind of a, a beacon of light and I really liked her and respected her a lot. And so we stayed in touch and ultimately I just, I reached out to her

and said, Hey, do you need some mediators? This looks really interesting. And partly because my divorce was so awful and I could see how the system, once you're in that system, that escalating dynamic with respect to the emotional and financial burden is appalling. And sometimes people do need an aggressive attorney. You know, I did at one point, I get that I'm glad they're out there, but most people can do it differently. And I had that feeling. And even though I didn't have exposure and mediation, so I reached out to Kim and

I got along so well with her and with the other partner that soon became a partner with Madison Divorce Mediation. And I just loved the opportunity to say, okay, this is a terrible experience. It's almost always terrible to some degree. Let's make it as not terrible as possible. And let's keep in mind, you're gonna be alive with a lot of couples here that have one year olds, right? Two year olds. You're gonna be co -parenting minor children for 16 years.

and children for the rest of your lives. So can we try to set a foundation that is solid or at least not terrible for the rest of your life? So it's very rewarding to be able to play a part in that. And then I also do therapy and I love them proactive. It's like, we're not there yet. Let's become more aware of ourselves and each other and figure out how to reconnect so that we don't go down that path. For folks who have never heard of

mediation or mediators, could you just briefly like, what is it specifically that you do? For sure. Yeah, we can all understand it. Yep. So like the classic, so to speak approach of like, you know, Kramer versus Kramer, that's probably like a movie that only people in their like 60s are at. Well, I'm in my 40s. But anyway, just this like two attorney model, right, is what people usually think about. And I think when someone says, okay, wow, it's time to get in crashers, wedding crashers. Yeah.

Michael Williams (01:06:04.238)
Yeah, when someone says it's time to get a divorce, it makes sense emotionally think I need somebody to represent me. I have no idea what I'm getting into. I don't know how any of this works. I've never done this before. It's really scary. I'm about to address make an agreement about perhaps the two most important things in my life, my kids and my financial, my livelihood, right? Like I should get an attorney. So it makes sense emotionally. However, having been through it personally, and you know,

and now quite a bit professionally, typically what happens is even if you have two great super competent, kind attorneys who are not looking for a fight, you have two zealous advocates pitted against each other whose job is to say, these are all the risks you're facing. He or she might go for ABC, watch out for that. And so the likelihood of escalation, the likelihood of unnecessary conflict and the likelihood of escalating cost is extremely high.

So you end up, in most cases, spending so much time and being further apart in your ability to co -parent or to have respect and kindness toward each other. What we do is mediation. And one of the things that sets apart our approach is we take an interdisciplinary team approach. So divorce is not just legal. It's financial and it's emotional. And if you're not covering those bases,

you're going to miss out an opportunity, either financial opportunities to make it as not as positive as possible. They're actually things you can take advantage of in the context of divorce from a financial standpoint. And you want to understand it, you know, and understand what you're agreeing to and what makes sense, what's fair. And so if you don't have that expertise and you don't have somebody on the pulse of the emotions, someone gets scared, someone gets angry addressing that deescalating rather than fueling the escalation.

you're on a bad path. So we have our team approaches an attorney neutral, a financial neutral, and a lead, what's called a lead mediator who typically has a counseling or therapy background like me. And so we know parties don't have representation. Sometimes people in our process choose to have what's called a consulting attorney. So somebody they might, let's say they're about to agree to something they say they go to their attorney and say, I'm about to agree to this. Is this a bad idea?

Michael Williams (01:08:21.166)
And so maybe they're spending a couple hundred bucks and it's outside our process and they get that peace of mind. So great. That's a great way to do it. If you want real representation, but we can do is we can say, we know the law, we know finance and we can manage the emotions. So let's just get in a room and let's work through all of this together. And it's incredible how, you know, you could have an issue that the lawyers aren't effective going back and forth resolving and the couple won't talk to each other. It's too fraught. And we just get in a room in 20 minutes, both parties feel heard.

We consider what we look at what's truly the concern underneath the request rather than just here's my position, here's my position. And then it's resolved. It's like, wow, that $10 ,000 in six months wasn't really necessary. We just needed 20 minutes. So it's a really magical process. It's not indicated in a few cases. One is if someone wants to use our process to punish the other person, they're not.

You can be resentful, you can be angry, you can be untrusting, but if you're showing up in bad faith, just to kind of mess with and needle the other person or to screw the other person over, don't come a -knockin'. But beyond that, it's like we can work with all of it and make it so much better than the alternative. So, as you can see, I'm really passionate about it. I think it's really great and not pro -divorce, but if you're gonna get divorced, man, this is the way to do it.

How has all this experience doing this, being a divorce mediator, impacted how you father your kids and ultimately partner with your wife? It's helped me realize on the one hand how easy it is for a relationship to fall apart. You know, the idea is entropy extends to relationships, right? Like we're always moving toward chaos. And if you don't do anything about that, couples who somehow manage to have a great relationship without putting work in, it's like,

unbelievable, like good for you. That's incredible. I think the likelihood is for things to fall apart and you have to, you have to address them. So it's made me even more consistent or accountable to myself to say, I have to address everything. I can't let anything build. I can't let any resentment build. We have to work through everything either. And if we can't do it ourselves, we go to a therapist right away. That's it.

Michael Williams (01:10:41.102)
Yeah, it's made me so grateful. I'm just so grateful for how the life we've been able to create thus far for our children, for the relationship I have. So I think those are the two biggest things I take to my personal life. Having helped a lot of couples now through mediation, through divorce, what do you see?

They had a conflict that got them there. And you have to improve their collaboration together to get them through, whether it's through mediation and back to a healthy relationship or through divorce and ideally in a healthy way. What do you see moving the needle to take a couple that's in deep conflict and bring them to more healthy collaboration?

I would say it's very different and this is one of the values of the divorce discernment process is like, what are we doing here? Let's get clear on it. Are we working on the relationship to repair it or are we working on divorcing well and having a good co -parent relationship? So clarity there is really important. If they're getting divorced, we're not going to fix the relationship. We're not going to heal the wounds in the context of divorce mediation. But what I want to try to...

impress upon them is if you will, a lot of people will continue their marital dynamic in the divorce and beyond. So if you have one person who, let's say partner A thinks their spouse is a total nag and partner B thinks that spouse is, you know, doesn't get anything done, right? That's like a really common dynamic shining light on that dynamic and say, Hey guys, you're not married anymore. You, you don't have to

fix each other, you don't have to worry about fixing each other. But if you treat each other in the same way and continue to perpetuate this dynamic between the two of you, it's going to make co -parenting so hard. So how do you push each other's buttons and how can you stop doing that? And how can you also let go? Like there's a way in which people don't want to let go. It's part of the, I think the grieving process is like, this relationship right now has become me talking about what a waste of space you are.

Michael Williams (01:13:03.214)
So that's what we're gonna keep doing in every context. It's like, no, you need to let this person go, let them be who they are. They need to let you be who you are and figure out how to have a different dynamic. And I think it partly is, I don't know how effective it is to be honest, but at least try to impress upon them. How you treat each other will affect your kids. If you truly care about your children, you need to learn a different way to talk to each other and to work together.

And then we get into the details of what that is, what's not working with the current approach. With a couple that's trying to work on it in short, it's to me, the way I see it, it's connection. If you feel connected, you have a great relationship generally. If you feel disconnected over time, that's what just, so, you know, it manifests as conflict, it manifests as numbness, it manifests in different ways. That's what destroys a relationship. So we're working on how do we build a connection? What disconnects us and what reconnects us?

that's a huge part of that process. Have you noticed any commonalities with men? So with the husband that common roots that have that way in these relationships that have gone down, you know, are going down a bad road. Is there any common things? And I'm asking from the standpoint of, of

Is there stuff that men, you know, is there common stuff that men should be looking for that they should flag to themselves and like, hey, I got it. I got it. I'm doing this or, you know, like, like what should I be looking for in my relationship? Yeah, I think you should. One thing broadly is to look for any kind of polarization, right? Like one person is doing all the anxiety for the couple and the other person is doing none of it. Or one person is doing all the emotion later. The other person is doing none of it. One person's

addressing all the conflict the other person running away from all of it. Look for these, look for where you're really becoming extreme versions. And that's a huge flag. The I would say I'd have to think about this, but probably off the top of my dome, the most common dynamic I see is the. So I'm pretty sure again, we're not trying to be experts in things, we're not experts in here, but I'm pretty sure research shows that right after birth, particularly for women.

Michael Williams (01:15:26.83)
or the primary caretaker, there's a significant uptick in amygdala activity, i .e. anxiety, fight, flight, freeze. And I think, and you know, and for whoever the primary parent is, and oftentimes that's the woman, particularly even if it's with just with the breastfeeding and the time off initially.

So oftentimes what I see is mom is taking care of all the emotional labor and feels like she's doing everything.

and that the husband isn't pulling his weight and she has to ride him to do everything. Husband's experience is, you're such a nag, you're so controlling, I'm just giving up because everything has to be your way. You won't let me parent how I want, you won't let me make the bed how I want to do it, so screw it, it's your show and they shut down or they retreat, which makes them wife even more frustrated and come out and more. And so that polarization is so common and that could destroy a relationship right there.

So being aware of that, and I think again, like using myself as an example, like I need to put my kid to bed. If that's a problem for you, let's go to therapy and talk about it. Or like I've noticed that you criticize the way I parent and it's really defeating for me. Let's talk about it or let's go to therapy and work through that. But I think men tend to shrink away from a woman's tendency to just be, it's rooted in concern for the kids, right? I wanna make sure.

we're supporting these kids in the best way possible. And oftentimes then it comes off as controlling critical judgmental and then the man retreats and it exacerbates. So that is the number one thing I would watch out for, particularly with young children. That reminded me of a, I don't remember where I heard this or read this, but it was basically, if you feel yourself about to say you always or you never. Yeah.

Michael Williams (01:17:28.174)
That in itself is sort of a flag that what you're about to say or what you think you're feeling is probably not constructive. You have probably taken it to an extreme and I, I, so, and I find myself in my mind, I'll be saying that or, you know, I'm about to, or, you know, whatever. And I've tried to, when I feel myself doing that, I've tried to flip it around to say, what am I experiencing?

and put it in the first person and like, how do I flip this around to express it as a first person thing that can be built upon rather than a, you know, just like throwing a little dagger, basically. And it's interesting that you mentioned, because the connection that I make here is the you always, you never is an extreme. Absolutely. And that idea of where in the relationship or the collaboration is the

Where are you pulling that line, the rubber band, tighter and tighter? Yep. As a signifier of where real problems could be developing, I think is a great little tool to assess your current emotional environment. I love that example and that awareness partly because it's often these little things, right? The word choice we use, the pausing before speaking that set the...

trajectory for our relationship. And so just to change your language, just to take away the absolute in that statement is a huge difference. And I love how you said like, okay, what is going on for me emotionally? To be, you're being aware of your own emotion and being aware of your language. You can completely change your relationship just by doing those two things. And that fits in what you were describing, it kind of reminds me of nonviolent communication, which is like,

That's where that comes from. I try to express it as something that I can take ownership of and that is, you know, kind of allows open reaction. I have found it particularly helpful. It also just makes me a better collaborator. Like, like you never appreciate when I do this. There's no way the other person is going to build on that productively, and I have set that course.

Michael Williams (01:19:54.67)
Right. But it feels so real in the moment, right? It really feels like never in the moment. And, you know, there's, it's great to be aware of your emotions. It's, it's a, it's risky to trust them as, you know, revealing of truth, you know, and that moment of pause. Yeah, I think, you know, taking the pause and taking the time to assess what am I, what is the thing that I'm experiencing and what is the

what is a tweak that I would want or what is a different action? And, you know, I'm feeling this, you know, what I took from the nonviolent thing is I own my emotion. No one else gives me emotion. My emotions are mine. So I'm feeling this, you know, could you change blank and just trying to, you know, reframe.

you know, reframing that has been, has made me a much better collaborator as, you know, rather than being guided as a, you know, by anger and frustration and like under appreciation, like classic stuff. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I love what you, one of the things you said Ted, that clicked for me is to be wary of the truth that emotions, you know, in the moment, speaking from that, that, that perspective or that point of view.

that is within any given emotion. And what it made me think is that the kind of opportunity there is to excavate what's underneath it. Right. But you can't really do that in real time, right? Which is why hearing you guys talk about the, you know, the breath, taking that pause, being really thoughtful about the, about our language. Right. Because it makes a ton of sense.

If you get like the, are you serious? You didn't take the garbage out. If you got that, I came home to that. Like I would probably my what's happening emotionally from under the surface is like, I'm not a value. I'm my are not seen as worth as worthy and meaningful. And it's like, and so I'll go down this quick little rabbit hole because I think it's helpful. Our therapist talked to us about

Michael Williams (01:22:13.23)
Like I, my tendency is to be passive aggressive. So I will instead of, because I'll avoid conflict. So I won't bring something up, but then I'll like undermine, right? Like, like with a parenting decision, let's say like, I'm like, I totally disagree with her, but then I won't enforce the thing because I disagree with it. That I was like, yeah, I guess that is passive aggressive. I didn't think about it that way. And her, and what he said to her was interpersonal effectiveness was what he called it. So like there's a huge.

And that helped her, it helped me understand what I do to piss her off. It helped me understand, it helped her understand like, hey, I noticed you didn't take the garbage out. Would you mind doing that? That is so motivating to me. I would love to be helpful. I'm like a little puppy, like scratching back my neck. I'll go run and do that. If I get the like, really, that's how you loaded the dishwasher? I'm like, guess what? I'm never doing dishes again, right? So it's like that, but it was this little tweak. And now, and again, this is to me, the part of the value of therapy.

Having those terms is so helpful because now she might say something and I just give her a sideways look and a little smile and she's like, that was very interversely ineffective. Let me try that again and we can laugh about it. And it becomes more about the things we're each individually working on than about something fundamentally like a core gap in who we are as humans. But yeah, it's crazy how we just go right to like, yeah, it's just so easy to get to chaos.

Well, in the more and on the positive side of that, though, having that common language in that and being both motivated about it and being able to make little jokes like that also would would seem to be a great sign that you're both bought into to supporting each other and making it better. Totally. You I think you have to be. I mean, I'm curious what you guys think. But to me, if you have if you get it in passing, your relationship in some regard and your partner isn't willing to

get help of some kind. What do you, to me that's like, I don't know, what are we doing here? That's the scenario where I'm like, yeah, you know, people come to me like, I don't know if I should get a divorce or not. Like, is your partner willing to work on any of this stuff with you? Both of you? No. Well, I don't know. I think both people have to be bought in. Or if you're not bought into that individual or that approach, great, try something else. But you have to be bought into growth as a couple and individual, otherwise you're, well.

Michael Williams (01:24:37.07)
I guess you can choose to live that way if you want, but that's not for me. Yeah. So we've covered an incredible amount of ground.

And what we like to ask as our last question is what advice do you have for future debt, for future dads or people getting ready to be a father? I would say invest heavily. This is going to sound like a broken record, but I think that's helpful because if you hear messages a bunch of times, you know, they might sink in. Invest heavily in your relationship with your spouse. That is number one, period.

Don't need to belabor that. Number two, pay attention to what you model. From my non -expert seat on this topic, I believe that's the number one way kids learn. They're watching you. So everything you model from what you eat, your sleep habits, your facial expressions, how you are with friends, everything, they're watching and they're learning.

So, and then, you don't have to read 50 books. You don't have to read any books. Collaborate with your partner and be present and just take stock regularly. What's going well? What's going poorly? What do I wanna work on and how do I wanna work on it? And just be easy on yourself.

This is a work I do and something I've been interested in for years. And it wasn't that long ago that I behaved badly as a dad, right? Like, it's like, I yelled at, you know, the time I mentioned when I flipped out of my son, like, I'm not proud of that. I felt awful, but you're going to make mistakes. It's okay. Just, you had to look at what happened very deeply. Awesome. Ted, thank you so much for joining us today.

Michael Williams (01:26:41.39)
covered a ton of ground. Thank you for going deep on some topics that I think many people wouldn't be willing to go deep on. Yeah, I learned a lot. Yeah, I think we learned a lot. I think anybody who listens to this is going to learn a lot. I know I have tons of notes that I'm going to be actively reflecting on, literal lessons and tactics. So thank you for that. No, thank you guys. It's really helpful to me to reflect on these things and talk through them and realize

things I should be paying more attention to or double down and that sort of thing. So super fun and love the conversation. Thanks guys. Cool. And as a reminder, this podcast is for anyone who is a dad or is considering being a dad, anyone who's interested in learning what it's like to be a dad. And finally, anyone who's interested in supporting somebody who is a dad. So with that, thank you everybody for listening and good luck. Okay. Thanks to Ted Gurman for coming on the episode today.

Couple highlights that I took away from that were the golden moment or what to do when you're mad at your kid, but you need to take action now. And his overall approach to modulating emotions and hot moments and modeling emotion, particularly for young boys, but kids in general. And then of course we moved on to what divorce taught him about being a better husband and being a better dad and how

anyone who has conflict in their own relationship that is deteriorating, how they can decide or think about divorce and mediation and other options that are available, including couples coaching. And finally, red flags that we men, husbands and fathers should be looking for if our own relationships may be deteriorating. It's a great episode. There's a lot for me to think about. Thanks again to Ted for coming on. Before you bounce, I have a quick favor.

please subscribe to the pod. Not only does Luke love juicing those numbers, but it really does help put this thing in front of more dads. And Mike, on the other hand, just loves juicing. We also now run a listener community on WhatsApp. To join, visit dadpod .fm and you'll see the delicious link at the top of the homepage. Come on in, baby. We'd love to have you.