High-Conflict Divorce, Legal Abuse & Protecting Your Children with Lisa Johnson

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Bent Not Broken. Heartbreak and trauma may feel like the end of your story, but here it's the beginning of a bold new chapter. I'm your host, Coach Deborah Griffiths, and this is the space where women rise, rebuild, and rediscover their purpose. Remember this truth. You are bet, not broken. Lisa Johnson is the co-founder of Ben There Got Out, a high-conflict divorce strategist and a certified domestic violence advocate. Her self-represented court case, published in the Connecticut Law Journal, is now used as legal precedent, and her testimony helped pass Jennifer's Law, expanding the definition of domestic violence to include coercive control. Alongside her partner Chris, Lisa helps people navigate toxic relationships, custody battles, and high conflict divorces. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me, Deborah. What are some of the earliest red flags that tell someone their divorce or separation is likely to become a high conflict case?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

At the beginning, it looks like high conflict for everyone because everybody's upset. People are burning through money sometimes, saying bad things about their ex to their children. High conflict is a whole different animal because the anger doesn't subside from your ex, even as time passes. That's not something you could see from the beginning. When I was getting my divorce, when I met with my divorce attorney for the first time, I was pretty astonished because within 20 minutes he said, yours is going to be one of the really bad ones. I always thought that my ex was a good person who had done some not so wonderful things. And my lawyer was spot on because the divorce took a year and ended up costing $100,000. And that was just year one of 10 years. So I later went back and said to my attorney, How did you know? Because I completely didn't expect it. And he said that one of the things that indicated to him that this was going to be difficult is that my ex had an active addiction and or personality disorder. So when you're dealing with someone who has some kind of mental illness, and if they are also an addict or just an addict who's not in active recovery, their judgment is impaired. So they're not even making decisions in their own best interest. They're often concerned about short-term wins, and they're not thinking about how much is this going to cost if I keep fighting? What's the impact it's going to have on money for our family and how are our kids going to be affected? So that's one big indicator of a high conflict divorce is someone who is dealing with a partner who has one of those issues. Another big one is someone who has committed something that's present in 99% of unhealthy relationships, and that's financial abuse. Everybody has to do things equally with money, but where one person controls the money, the other person is not allowed to have access. They might have to ask for an allowance. But where there's an imbalance in money, that's usually an indicator that something is off. And so people like that in divorce often come in with the notion that what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too. And that makes things very difficult as you move through the process because people like our exes feel like they deserve what's theirs. And because maybe they worked and you were an at-home parent, you don't deserve anything. So they can make the process of what's called discovery very difficult because they feel entitled to not share the information as it continues post-separation. During a divorce, a big chunk of that is financial, and you're supposed to financially undress and put everything on the table so that people can make informed decisions that are as fair as possible. Those are a couple of big indications that you could be heading for a high conflict divorce.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Understood. When you come to the point when to disclose all the financials, you know, your tax returns, your W-2s, any credit card balances, all of that. How often do you find that one of the spouses has actually been hiding it? And how do you find out about that?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

So in the cases that Chris and I deal with with been there got out because we only do high conflict, I would say 98, 99% there is that hiding of assets and not cooperating with the discovery process. So there's a variety of things you can do. From the very beginning, if you already sense that it's going to be difficult before you even exit the marital home, if you can have access to as many financial records as possible, because that's going to save you money from having to chase them down later. Just get copies or into computers where you can to get account numbers, because any information you know is going to make it easier for a lawyer and other professionals to have access, just to know that it exists. This comes up a lot with cryptocurrency now. I've interviewed people who say if you just know that there's a wallet, just to be able to say, I know it exists, can be helpful. If your ex doesn't comply, you have to get sometimes multiple court orders to compel them to produce the financials. Usually they play lots of games as do their attorneys where they'll say, We gave everything to you. You have to carefully go through your whole list and say, no, you actually didn't give me this amount, but you gave me three copies of the same March 2023 statement. So it involves lots of organizing and documenting and very difficult. And if you have to, you have you can file for subpoenas to get information from the bank, but that's even tricky. So it is not easy. Unfortunately, in my experience and with a lot of our clients, courts tend to bend over backwards to allow someone to comply with discovery. I remember in my own case, going back post-judgment, several months after the divorce was finalized, when I was going for a modification, I had nine different court appearances where the judge said, okay, sir, you need to produce this stuff. Okay, you have one week. And then we go back in a week. Nope, you have three weeks. And I'd say, Your Honor, he gets another chance. And it felt like nothing was actually going to be done. But then my ex decided to fire his attorney because he thought, nothing's gonna happen to me. This judge is isn't moving forward on these threats. And that was the day, because I was always ready. That was the day that the judge said, We are starting trial. We're starting trial, you've had enough chances, we're beginning. And he didn't have a lawyer. And like I said, I was ready. And that first day of trial, it just set the foundation for things to really go my way. But it was so frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

For someone dealing with an impossible or narcissistic ex, what are the most important questions they should ask when choosing a divorce attorney?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

I think the most important question is after you've spent some time in that first consult and know that many lawyers do charge for an initial consultation, is to say after you've given them some information, how would you handle a case like mine? This is multi-layered. Number one, you're checking to see how well they've listened to you. Number two, you're getting to see how caring they are about your situation. And these are the cases that are very different than what's called normal divorce. And number three, you're giving them the opportunity to show what kind of strategy they would use for a case like yours, which is not going to follow the normal cadence of divorce because you're dealing with someone who's illogical. So one of the red flags is a lawyer says, Oh, we handle all kinds of cases. Keep in mind that right now the word narcissist is a very popular word for marketing. And so many lawyers will say, We've got lots of experience with divorcing narcissists and all that. But you really need to talk to them to hear what their experience is and how they would handle it differently because you cannot approach these cases with that same logic brain, because it ends up making things a lot worse, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And that in and of itself can be a challenge so many times as we're coming out of these narcissistic relationships. Our self-esteem is in the tank. And we're constantly doubting ourselves and over-apologizing. How do we know to believe this guy? Maybe he's trying to pull a fast one on me like my ex has been doing for the last umpteen years. So it's really important to get a clear mind when you're meeting with the attorney to be able to ask these questions and listen for these answers.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

You just made me think of a really important point. And that's how many people coming out of these unhealthy, coercively controlling relationships where there's been over time a dynamic where you've given your authority to that other person. And many people coming out can't make a decision. They can't even order off a menu. The most brilliant, successful people who are still doing their jobs really well, their sense of self, they've lost it. They've lost their center. So we are a very vulnerable audience. And often we come out and say, I got to find a lawyer who's gonna, so I'm gonna pay this lawyer, whatever, $30,000 retainer, and they're gonna fix things and they're gonna take care of everything. It's really important to not repeat the same cycle that you did with your ex when you're choosing an attorney. Instead, we do a lot with our clients in terms of teaching what's called taking strategic oversight of your case and recognizing that this is an opportunity. You're choosing a professional to work with you who is not gonna save your life. The only person that's gonna have to live with the consequences of whatever the decisions are are you and your children. That's on you. So people sometimes will say, Well, I signed something, I thought my lawyer had it, and I didn't proofread it, and then they didn't realize that their lawyer forgot something or maybe put in terms that they didn't agree to, and there's no recourse because everyone assumes that you are staying on top of things. So understanding that when you have a lawyer, it's going to be an intimate relationship, but you don't want it to be where the lawyer makes the decisions and acts all proprietary without you knowing what's going on as well, because this is so important. So, one thing to also ask a lawyer, not at the very beginning of the consult, but as you move forward in the relationship, is if you don't understand something, or if you're not sure about whether to make a decision, you can say, help me understand your reasoning, why you think I should do this. What are my options? You need to learn to question. And I know people feel like, well, my lawyer's not gonna like me, and I'm supposed to just listen, and my lawyer knows the law. Your lawyer knows the law, hopefully. But again, this is your family. And once everybody leaves, you're the only one who has to live with these decisions. So you want to make sure that you do what's called informed consent. So you have to understand what you're doing and not just leave it up to someone else. Because again, that goes back to that same unhealthy relationship dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

You often speak about post-separation legal abuse. What does that look like in real life and in the courtroom?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Years into it, I didn't have the words. I didn't know what legal abuse was. I only found it years into my court battle after I interviewed this nonprofit in Washington called DV Leap. They pointed me to a judge's manual from 2015 in Washington State, which is across the country from where I live. I found the term legal abuse. Now it's widespread. Legal abuse is where you're dealing with a person who is using the legal system to wear you down and bleed you dry financially. They can do it in two different ways. One is what's called vexatious or frivolous litigation, where they will file motion after motion because that's how they maintain power and control, often threatening to leave you homeless, penniless, or childless. Stuff with the house, support for the kids or alimony, and filing things to change custody to make you feel like you're an unfit parent and they're going to take everything from you. And so you spend your time going back to court, probably paying attorneys thousands and thousands, if not more, just to try to protect or defend yourself from these frivolous claims that don't have any merit. And that isn't just expensive in terms of money, that affects your mental health, that affects your ability to parent, it affects your employment. Often you have to stop whatever you're doing, take time off. So it is really consuming. So that's vexatious frivolous litigation. The other side is what I was dealing with, where my ex did not comply with court orders and our agreement. The burden was on me to constantly take him back to court to try to enforce those orders. A lot of times judges want to give people the benefit of the doubt, or this, oh, you guys work it out, work it out, work it out. And so you end up spending years, time, and money, even though I saved well over a million dollars after I started representing myself for those seven and a half years. But it's exhausting. And especially when your ex and most of our exes hire lawyers to do this, they have a lawyer. The lawyer has nothing else to do except their job. So when they would file a motion, I would have to stop whatever I was doing, focus on that, get ready for a court date, deal with emails. And there's such this fear of like, because I'm not a lawyer, what if I'm not doing it right? And needing to reach out and get assistance and making sure that I was doing it right? It is really fatiguing.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Why don't abusive or controlling partners simply move on after separation? What's really driving their behavior?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

So unfortunately, we live with people like that, and the rest of us tend to be very logical. Everyone says, why don't they just move on? Part of it is because we're not dealing with that logical person. When you're dealing with someone with an active addiction or a personality disorder, when a relationship ends, even if they caused it, even if they were the ones who filed papers first, it triggers a deep sense of abandonment inside that often ties back to their childhood. Also, think about the feelings of failure associated with my marriage is over, my relationship is over. In their minds, usually appearances matter. And there was this appearance of this beautiful family and this wonderful home and successful life. And the end of the relationship, a divorce, makes them feel like they didn't do good enough, even though it doesn't matter who did it and why. Usually there's a combination of factors that lead to divorce, but they are incapable of seeing those nuances. It's so uncomfortable to deal with the sense of abandonment and feeling of failure that it turns into something you might have heard the term narcissist rage and anger. So anger often masks the more uncomfortable, vulnerable emotions. And so with this anger, they do something called splitting, which is they think of everything as like black or white thinking, where I'm the victim and you're the villain. And so they want to prove to the world how everyone should feel sorry for them and you're such a demon, even though it's generally the opposite. And so they will commit what's called smear campaigns to try to destroy your reputation in the community, in your place of worship, your kids' school, whatever, and make it like you're all bad and they're all good. And what's really hard for them is if you go on to lead a very happy life, that still triggers that sense of like, how can I be a good person if my ex, who's awful, is thriving in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

You alluded to this a little bit, but explain what going pro se means and in what situations could representing yourself in court actually be beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

All right. Pro se is also known as pro pur. In California, it's called pro pur, but in most other places called pro se. It's basically when you self-represent. It's called you can call yourself a self-represented litigant. There's a lot that goes into it. I would never encourage someone to do this during an initial divorce or custody battle when you don't have orders because none of us, you know, lawyers know the law and self-represented litigants don't. Even though we have AI, we still don't know the law and AI is not perfect. So it is really important to have a good lawyer to set the foundation of the case and get your orders or your agreement in place post-judgment, post-separation, post those orders. When your ex is violating those orders, then you have a more limited issue of what you can go back to court about. You already have the law, you have your agreement or the court, or it said this is what's supposed to happen, but makes it more narrow where when you go back to court, you can say, Your Honor, here's what our thing says, and here's what's happened, and this is what I'm asking you for, and here's why I'm entitled to it. So it's not just this general where you have no idea what your rights are. It's more like, I know what my rights are. It says right here, we both have a copy. That's the context of when you could go back representing yourself. But it is very difficult because being pro se your case is your life. It's very emotional, it's very personal. And when you're going up against an attorney who's been paid to aggressively litigate for their client, they will come after you, they will bully you, they will act like they personally hate you. It can be very difficult, especially for domestic violence victims who are already bullied and tortured in the relationship. So understanding how to not let that get under your skin, learning how to properly present your case in a persuasive way, deal with the bullying, having courtroom decorum, like understanding the rules of court in terms of body language and why you have to be respectful and who to be respectful to and what not to do and what to do properly is really important. Learning to pivot really quickly. There's a lot involved. So it's not like you can just go represent yourself. A lot of people end up harming themselves when they represent themselves without knowing everything that's involved. It is not easy and it takes training and practice.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

How can someone protect themselves financially when they're in a legal battle with a narcissist or someone with a personality disorder?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

So I think that the first thing is just understanding what you're dealing with and not comparing it to normal divorce. You're going to be burning through money trying to communicate and negotiate with that logical mindset. We always joke and say our clients belong to the my lawyer says this is the craziest case they've ever had, club, because it doesn't follow that normal rhythm of divorce. People are angry, they settle down, they they move forward and do what's fair and what's best for the kids. Knowing that yours is different and to approach it differently is very important. There's an awesome book out there called Splitting by Bill Eddy. He's the founder of the High Conflict Institute and the mental health professional turned lawyer. He also wrote the forward to our new book, and we love him. His whole thing is reducing the level of conflict. Conflict costs money. So starting or wherever you are in the process, you want to do whatever you can to keep this out of court. That's going to save tons of money, even though you think it's never going to work. There's usually things that you can still do. Keeping it out of court and communicating strategically with your ex to keep things as low conflict as possible. Because if you hire an attorney and you're dealing with one of those types, and the attorney comes in with blame and accusations and filing motions, someone like our exes are going to be like a scared animal. So they're going to become ferocious and fight back very, very hard. And especially when you have kids, all that conflict bleeds onto the kids. We want to make it like, what are the things we call universal agreements? What are the things that we both can agree on? I'm sure we can both agree that it's better for us to try to not pay our lawyers' children's college educations and save the money for our own kids' college education. Like we both want the kids to get through this as healthy and unscathed as possible. So how are we going to figure out ways to do that? We both don't want some stranger telling our family what to do. So how are we going to do that? It's not easy, but there's a lot of ways to approach it where you're not attacking the other person. After everything is over and done with, you still have to co parent. You still have to raise these kids and not just till they're 18. This is for the rest of their lives. That's why it's so important to think about mental health. Mental health usually costs a lot less. Than litigation. So figuring out proper therapy, ways to help the kids, ways to help yourself. One of the best investments is to make sure that you're okay. That's going to impact everything and save money.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Sounds good. One of the greatest fears for parents is alienation. How can you protect your children when an ex is actively trying to turn them against you?

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Oh, this is such a huge topic. Actually, I'm going to hold up. Our next book is called When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You. And it's all about how to deal with alienation in the legal system, how to litigate effectively, but especially outside of the legal system, because this happens to 22 million people, divorced parents in America and Canada alone. After the relationship ends, one person tries to make the kids be loyal to just them and discard the parent, often the parent who's been the target of some type of domestic violence, especially emotional abuse. Number one is to expect it to happen. And number two is to learn ways to deal with your own response to it. So again, what I had just said about making sure you're as okay as possible, learning to self-regulate, to have a plan for when your child comes back, and basically is parroting the terrible things that your ex says and to not get triggered by it and to learn that the truth sometimes isn't as important as validating your child's feelings in the moment, because they are stuck in a situation where they love both of you, usually. And even when a parent's been abusive, a child still loves both parents. And so we respect our parents in terms of we think of them as authorities and we think they're going to tell us the truth. And so when one person is saying terrible things and the child goes to the other parent, and the other parent says, no, that's completely false, the child, even an adult child, sometimes doesn't know who to believe. And when you do the same thing that your ex does, where the kid is saying, you know, mom says this about you, and then you say, no, mom's just this, you're doing the same behavior and you're not showing the child that you trust their own ability to figure out what's real and what's not. So I think just pausing and understanding the conflict that your child is going through and not being the one who's concerned about, no, no, no, I have to correct the record, but more of like, wow, you know, that sounds like a lot. Helping a child develop critical thinking skills is probably one of the most important things you can do for anyone in our society now, but also with children in situations where they're being told to believe something that they have to determine what's real and what's not. So that's that's where it really begins. And then there's all kinds of things you can do, which you should be doing anyway, is the time you have with your child to bond with them and make plans where you're focused completely on their needs. I often talk about the 10-minute rule that I learned from a psychiatrist, a child psychiatrist. She said, kids want more than anything control and attention. So if you can take 10 minutes to just say, you know what, you're so good at baking, I don't know what I'm doing. Can you teach me how to do something? Like show me what you're interested in, and I'm gonna come down to your level and completely pay attention to you. It doesn't matter if I hate video games. If you're into a video game, I'm gonna spend 10 minutes letting you talk about it because that's a way that a kid connects with you. So the more time passes, the kids will see the contrast between who you are and what they're dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I experienced some of that alienation myself, even with the visitations, hearing the kids come back and all of the stuff. It's really hard when you're coming out of these abusive relationships because you're still trying to heal and recover yourself, and then you understand what's being inflicted on your kids, and you have this sense of pain because you can't protect them.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And it is really hard to find that balance and let them verbalize what they can to pay, depends on their their age levels, get get it out, and then try to build their life with some semblance of order. I took my kids into therapy. We had family therapy just to try to help calm the situation. We all needed to heal. At the end of the day, we all needed to heal. So it's it's tough. And it's I I didn't realize it's that many parents are experiencing it. And my heart goes out to them.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah, and everyone dealing with it, if they don't know what it is, they think it's just them. Or they think it's normal. It's just, oh, this is just how it is. And then the relationship starts slipping away and they don't realize what they should be doing, or they'll say, Oh, I don't want to upset my kid. They don't want to be with me. I'm just gonna let them choose. That is not a good idea.

unknown 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

So talk to us a little bit about your book. And do you have any other books? Talk to us about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yeah. So the book that's coming out in March 2026 is called When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You. And then, and like I said, Bill Eddy wrote the foreword to that. I just found out I'm so excited. We're gonna be at a conference in London the day after the book comes out, and Bill Eddie's at the keynote speaker, and we're gonna do a whole like book together.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

I can't believe it. Thank you. The first book is called Been There Got Out, Toxic Relationships, High Conflict, Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances. That came out in 2023. I'm just so excited because that one dealt with legal abuse and how to deal with the court stuff and dealing with one of those in the court system. The idea for the second one actually came while we were touring with the first book. We went to this American Library Association conference in Chicago and we were driving back to the airport. Chris says he thought of this. Maybe he did, I don't remember. But one of us said we noticed that alienation was just baked into legal abuse. Almost every single client was dealing with it, whether it was happening to them or they were being falsely accused of it. I want to go more deeply into this. So we spent these last two and a half years interviewing all kinds of professionals about what to do in and out of court effectively to combat this. This has a huge impact on our society and our ability to manage conflict. We have to learn coping skills. We have to learn resilience. It's not like, oh, I don't like somebody, so I just cut them out or I'm being brainwashed against one of my primary attachment figures. We have to learn how to have conversations.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

At the end of the day, I prefer to have the conversations where it's more of a win-win situation where everybody gets something that they want and somewhat peacefully.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah. And also with kids, when they have an attachment, like one of those primary attachment figures severed because of somebody else's influence, not because of whatever naturally happened in the relationship. That affects their ability to attach to all kinds of people for the rest of their lives. That's going to affect their friendships, their future romantic relationships. So it's not just the parent thing. This is like a relational issue. So it really does need to be addressed. And I am really excited that the book is coming out. And we have a course on this topic, too, that's 20 plus hours. There's such a huge need. It's one of those silent shame things that people are dealing with. I'm glad we're all talking about it more.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

For listeners who feel defeated or overwhelmed or even scared right now, what message of hope or strength would you want to leave with them today?

SPEAKER_01 30:03

So I think anybody dealing with legal abuse is feeling, and andor alienation or both, because that's what's usually happening. They're they're feeling three main emotions, which is what I felt every day for most of those 10 years. Rage. Like, how can this be happening? I'm so angry. I know for me, I wasn't even as angry with my ex as I was with the system because I thought this is the system we're turning to for justice and it's making things worse. That deep sense of injustice, of like, why am I going to court and I'm being harmed by it? And then despair that it's never going to get better. It's been all these years. I've tried this many things and it hasn't worked. Just know that if things haven't worked, it's not because it's the end and I have to give up. There's probably things that you haven't tried yet. And you can learn different ways of approaching these things. We often say that our clients don't lose, they give up too soon because they get so fatigued. They feel like things are hopeless. That's why it's so important to connect to resources. We have a little hashtag, it's called FromPuddle to Ninja. A lot of people meet us, they've been out for eight years and they are so ashamed because they feel like this much time has passed, and I still am triggered every time I hear a ding that I get a message from my ex, like something's wrong with me. It's not that. It's that we have to deal with that PTSD more effectively. And there's ways to communicate that we see as the most important way to turn the power dynamic around. It doesn't matter that it's been eight years. It's just that you haven't found something that works properly. And because this is all Chris and I deal with exclusively, many of these things are predictable. And so we found things that really work. Even when we meet people going, well, my X is the worst one. It's like hundreds of people have told us the same thing. We can guess what they're like, the craziest stories, they still have similar patterns of behavior that are very predictable and easy for us to see what's coming. Just knowing that you're connected with people who know what's coming. We're going to hold your hand through the process. We have this weekly legal abuse support group, who we call our grizzled veterans, who have been through a lot of stuff already, who can guide our little babies along the way to say, like, it's going to be okay. Chris and I are living proof that it's going to be okay. I have that radical empathy because I was living it for so many years. So I really know what it feels like in the aftermath. I met the love of my life. I have found the best career ever. The kids are doing well. All these things that I was so terrified of ended up being way better in my life. Just know it's going to be okay. You have to get support. Many people in these situations are so used to taking care of everything themselves that they don't like to ask for help. They're like, I can do it. I can do it. So just understand now is the time to ask for help because the better you are, the better your kids are going to be.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Great advice. Lisa, this has been a fascinating discussion. How can the listeners purchase your book or learn more about you and your courses and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Super easy. Our website is bin there got out.com. We're on social media. Instagram's my home base, just at bin there got out. The book is called Bin There Got Out. We have a bin There Got Out Podcast, Been There Got Out YouTube channel. We have some courses. Just look up been there got out and you'll find us. If you write to us at Lisa at binThere got out.com or Chris at bin there got out.com, we it's the it's us. Like we'll answer you.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Perfect. And I'll have all of that information in the show notes as well. Lisa, again, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

My pleasure. Thanks so much, Deborah, for letting me talk about this stuff because a lot of people don't want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

I agree. Thank you for listening to today's episode of Bent Not Broken. I hope that this episode reminded you that even through life's toughest moments, you are bent not broken. If this message inspired you, please share, rate, review, and subscribe, as it helps us reach more women who are ready to rise and rebuild. And until next time, keep living bold and walking in your purpose.