More importantly,
what does that mean as far as how to have
a parenting relationship with an ex, especially,
if that person happens to be a narcissist,
how do you have a winning parenting plan and
still keep peace with your ex?
I'm breaking all of that down, right here,
in this video, so don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned.
I am Rebecca Zung.
I am an attorney, an author and a narcissist negotiation expert.
I help you shift the dynamic with narcissists in your life,
if you're ready to do that,
make sure you hit subscribe, and
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Let's talk about Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale first.
Then, I'm going to talk about what does
that mean as far as a parenting plan and
I'm going to actually break down for you
the things that you must have in a parenting plan and
the things that I think that you should have
like you might want to have in a parenting plan.
So, make sure you watch till the end,
so you can get all of the details that you need.
Let's talk about the real reason why
Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale divorced.
They divorced in 2015, after thirteen years of marriage,
they had gotten married in 2002, but before that,
they had dated for like six or seven years,
they had been together almost 20 years
at the time that they got divorced,
three sons together, but they had three sons
at the time of their divorce as well, and
I guess, she found out that he was
having an affair with the nanny,
so cliche, Gavin.
Anyway, she found out he's having an affair
with the nanny and apparently had been
going on for a while, she was in her 20s, and
I guess, the bright side is you didn't
have a baby with the nanny, like Arnold did.
But anyway, I digress.
She finds out that he was cheating and
that was the straw that broke the camel's back,
because apparently, she'd also kind of endured
several other things in their marriage.
First of all, she found out that he had had an affair
with Courtney Love, early on in the marriage and
she also found out a couple years into the marriage,
that he had had a child with someone else.
Now, I think that child had been conceived
like, before they got married
but still, it was like there's this child that
pops up, and it's a lot to handle, and swallow, and
she did it, she soldiered on, she kept going,
but here's the thing I talk about a lot,
which is, there are what I call
“Three deadly sins of marriage”.
The three A’s, which are abuse, addiction, and adultery.
For sure, they had one of them,
which is the adultery peace, and the reason why
I say that those are the three deadly sins of marriage
is that because those are the things that are
really like the foundation of a relationship.
You got to have a good foundation,
if you don't have a good foundation
then, the whole building falls down, right?
Same thing with a relationship,
you got to have a good foundation,
otherwise the whole thing comes crashing down.
So, she finds out that he's cheating,
he cheated several times before
now he's cheating with the 20-something
year old nanny, who's living in their house.
She finds out it had been going on,
pretty much, almost the whole time
the nanny had been working for them which
I think was like three years or something like that.
So, here's this person that she would not only,
trust in to have in her home but,
trusting to take care of her children and,
probably had her own relationship with and probably
thought that she had a good relationship with and
she finds out that, here she is,
having a relationship with her husband,
so not good, not good.
By the way, I do have a whole video on
the three deadly sins of marriage,
the 3 A’s abuse, addiction, adultery,
you can definetely check that out
if you want to know more about that.
Anyway, so he has this affair,
They come to this mutual decision
to end the marriage and then they go
their separate ways, they enter into
a parenting plan, then he comes back
a few years later and decides that
he wants to modify the parenting plan.
So, let's talk about modification of parenting plans.
Shall we?
In order to modify, it really depends on
the laws of your state, country or jurisdiction,
but most of the time, you got to show that
there's been a major change,
that there's been a substantial change
in circumstances that the current parenting plan is
really no longer in the children's best interests and
therefore a change should be made.
So, normally, it has to be something more
than just the kids got older or something
that was foreseeable, it's got to be something
usually that's unforeseeable.
That was involuntary, That's permanent.
Somebody maybe got injured,
they’re incapacitated in some way,
something happened.
Maybe somebody's moving away,
maybe somebody’s got a job that makes them
work very different hours than they worked before.
Anyway, he says he wants a different parenting plan and
she was opposing that because she really felt
that she was the one who was providing
more consistent plan and I guess, COVID changes things,
because he wasn't traveling as much,
so, he wanted to have more time with them.
She, of course, is also in a new relationship,
with Blake Shelton, so I guess things
have changed for her as well, because
not only does she still spend time in California,
but she also apparently spends time in Oklahoma,
which is where Blake also has a home.
So, I guess there's some
back and forth with that and
it can be challenging sometimes because,
especially when somebody has cheated,
you feel like you want to punish them or
that maybe they should be punished
in some way or that something
should happen to them because of that, and
a lot of times you see parents taking that out
on the other parent because they cheated.
So, therefore, they shouldn't have
as much time with the children.
Maybe, it's not even necessarily that
they cheated, maybe it’s something else.
I mean, you see that playing out with
Brad and Angelina, by the way and
I have a video on that as well,
if you want to check that out.
But, there's this extra layer of complexity now
with Gwen Stefani, because
she's engaged to somebody new.
But, let's talk about how to
have a winning parenting plan and
some things that I think that you must have and
some things that I think that you should have, okay?
So, let's talk about some must-haves first.
I definitely think that in order to have a parenting plan
where you're going to keep peace
with your ex and also keep peace with yourself,
you want to have it be as specific as possible.
None of those namby-pamby things.
Oh, “we're just gonna agree,
as much time as each party wants…”
No, no, no, no.
That won't work.
Especially if you're dealing with a narcissist,
but even if you're not, you know what,
even if you just put specific agreements
together and neither of you use it,
it's fine. There are no parenting plan fairies
that will come jumping out into your living room and
say, “hey, you guys aren't following the plan”
that doesn't happen,
of course, you can put the whole thing in a drawer
if you want to, and never even look at it again.
But, if there's a problem,
you want to be able to go back and say,
you know what, this isn't working for me.
Let's just use the plan.
Let's just go back to what it says.
Let's talk about the must-haves.
I believe that you must have a
specific schedule for weekdays,
a specific schedule for weekends,
a specific schedule for major holidays
or holidays that matter to you,
a specific schedule for school vacations and summer vacation.
I would also include in the must-haves,
their transportation, who's driving them,
where, for what time-sharing period,
I would also include a plan for emergencies and
addresses that you're going to keep
each other informed as to where you live.
I would also throw birthdays there.
so that I know, that you know
what you must have in a parenting plan.
All right, so must have.
Now, let's talk about what you might want to include,
what you may want to include are,
letting each other know about your travel plans,
your itineraries, what you're going to do about passports,
who's going to hold the passports after the trips,
you might want to include
any information about medications,
If you know one of your children maybe
has medications that they have to take,
for example, for ADHD, or for diabetes
or something like that.
You might want to include that
when the other parent has them,
they have to give them the medication.
Sometimes there's issues around that,
you might want to include something around diet,
if one of the children is, say gluten free or
has a shellfish allergy, or something like that,
sometimes those kinds of things are good to include,
sometimes it's good to also include guidelines
around introducing new romantic partners,
third parties,
also, FaceTime or phone schedule.
Also, I do recommend,
if you're not getting along, some kind of app,
court-approved app, like our Family Wizard,
or something like that, and also
a plan for what happens if you can't agree,
maybe a parenting coordinator or something.
So, those are what I think the must-haves are and
what you might want to include and also,
I think, that's the real reason that
Gwen and Gavin ended up to divorce,
the big, fat cheating with the nanny.
So, so unoriginal,
but it is what it is, right?
Anyway, thanks for joining me today.
If you haven't gotten my free
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I'm Rebecca Zung.
Remember, today is a great day to start negotiating your best life.
I will see you in the next video.