So the question, I just have two questions if there's time,
but the main question is his mother contacted me via text then voicemail over
a week ago, which was on the 30-day deadline to respond to being served.
Two days after my last call with my husband and said that he asked her to
communicate with me. I haven't spoken to her in 17 months,
except one birthday text a year ago. My question is,
is this an opportunity to minister to her by sharing my fate see if she can get
him to the workshop or just listen and keep that boundary up?
When you say boundary, what boundary are you talking about?
I have previously not spoken to his family.
I've just kept communication between him and over the last 21 months.
So, you didn't actually talk to her,
but you did hear her voice and you saw her text.
What kind of a tone of voice did you hear?
It was just, "Hi.
I spoke to him and he asked me to communicate with you",
and she put like an emoji prayer sign.
Did you have any idea what she wants to talk to you about, any clue?
I don't know. I really don't know.
I don't know if this is a good thing. My
first thought was that maybe of
course we can assume all day and analyze all day and I don't try to go down road
but I was first thinking,
well maybe he was thinking maybe if she talked to me that things would change.
Things would change.
In what way do you think he would think that things would change?
I know we're guessing, but what would you guess?
I know like,
maybe that I would just agree and sign the papers. I don't know.
Okay, so what do you have to lose? If you talk to her,
I realize you've made those boundaries,
but if you decided to respond and just say, "Okay,
I'm willing to listen." What risk would that be to you?
I don't know. I mean, I don't know that it would be. I
guess the risk for me,
I guess I'm thinking is that I know that it's healthier to communicate directly
with my husband and not third-party.
Absolutely. Now,
you know if that's what's most comfortable for you and you're absolutely right,
the best communication is face-to-face with the person. So,
if mama is being an inter-seeder of some kind, I can understand.
If you were to say, "Nope, not going to do it", I can endorse that and say,
"You know, it makes sense to me. I can see, Amanda,
why you would do that." On the other hand,
maybe you're different than I am here but I'd be curious. It's like,
"I'll give you one visit just so I can find out what it is",
because it may give you some insight into what he's thinking now.
It may not and even if you get the insight,
it might not tell you anything you don't already know. You might be like, "kay,
I get the insight, but I knew that already." If you don't want to do that,
Amanda, I think that's absolutely fine.
I don't think that you're doing anything wrong by avoiding that. If you do that,
it sounds to me like you're a strong person, aren't you?
Yes, yes.
Okay. So, it's not going to be like that.
She's not going to bully you into doing something.
She's not going to weep and cry and manipulate you into doing something. I mean,
I'm sure you're compassionate but you're not going to let her manipulate you.
So,
it might be worthwhile just to see if nothing else it may be kind of saying to
him, "I am willing to listen." I'm sure you've said that many other ways,
but it's kind of a demonstration of that. But one way or the other,
I think whatever you do is fine.
I don't know that it makes things better or worse either way you do it.
I'm just saying if it were I,
I'd be out of curiosity wanting to find out what's he told her to do,
but that's totally up to you. You said that you have two questions.
What was your other question?
So, once he received notification of my response,
he may or may not contact me or my attorney at this point,
he represents himself. So I'm sending the marriage counselor to my attorney,
so that if or when he speaks to my husband,
he can bring it up at the appropriate time as they cannot include the workshop
in the paperwork.
My attorney wants me to send it appropriate workshop information,
if not the entire website so he's familiar with it being more than just
counseling. My question is,
what specific information do you recommend sharing with my attorney so he's
equipped for a potential call with my husband?
That's actually a good question.
Have you been working with one of our client representatives by any chance?
If I may ask, who you're working with?
Amber has been awesome.
I started with Jim as a coach and I've been with the [inaudible] since the
beginning.
Okay. Yes. Both those people are awesome people. As a matter of fact,
I'm surrounded by awesome people here.
I'm the least talented guy in this whole bunch.
It's amazing to get to work with these good folks.
It might be worthwhile and of course,
I don't know what your attorney might charge you,
but it might be worthwhile to have your attorney call Amber.
Make arrangements with Amber where she says, "Okay,
I'll spend 15 minutes with him", but then again,
he may want to charge you for those 15 minutes. So,
you need to think that carefully through because you know attorneys can wind up
charging a lot of money. If you want just the short version is this,
it is not counseling or therapy.
It's an educational approach and in that educational approach,
we do not manipulate.
We do not put pressure of any kind whatsoever. It is primarily.
As a matter of fact, it's all together teaching some really good,
solid information from the social sciences about relationships,
to help people understand how they got to where they are and if they choose to
fix it how they can.
We have a pretty high success rate about
90%,
by the way of the people who come in are people with one spouse that
does not want the marriage to work. So,
one spouse does one spouse doesn't and yet over the years we've had a success
rate and which is just phenomenal to me as well.
We've had a 60% success rate over the years that 3 out of 4 couples actually
wind up saving their marriage,
but that's not from any pressure or manipulation or whatever.
Sometimes couples afterwards will work with a coach like Jim,
or sometimes will go to their own therapist, that kind of thing.
I think the emphasis to the attorney from you,
which would be short or from Amber,
if he wants to spend up to 15 minutes asking her questions would be it's
educational. It's not manipulation,
it's not pressure and in the educational process,
we've been doing this for 20 years.
This is the 20th year of that workshop and those 20 years,
we have learned about how to put all this information together and present it in
such a way that is comfortable that's even entertaining, believe it or not.
That's highly educational and that opens people's eyes
to how do we get to what we are,
what are the potential paths forward from here,
and if we choose to put it together,
how can we do that including things about how to forgive,
how to get past all those kinds of things, and that's the very short version.
Are you there?
Yes.
Okay. I just heard some kind of a ding. I don't know what that was.
I might've been our computer over here. Sorry about that.
I almost jumped out of my skin there.
Does that help Amanda or would you rather he talk to Amber for a few minutes?
Yes. That sounds good. Thank you so, so very much.
Okay, Amanda. I hope things go really well for you. By the way,
if you talk to the mother-in-law, I'd love to hear from you.
I'm really curious now. If you choose to do that.
Okay. Thank you.
[inaudible].