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What if someone pays the check and tips you with just one bill? How do waiters get that tip off of it?

What if someone pays the check and tips you with just one bill? How do waiters get that tip off of it?

As a family law attorney, I am in a unique position to give you the correct answer.

Before paying the bill:

  1. Calculate the tip.
  2. When paying the bill say, “Please give me X number of small bills with the change.”

After receiving change when you forgot to ask for small bills:

  1. Say, “I’m sorry. I forgot to ask for smaller bills. Could you please break this into X.”
  2. If you didn’t calculate the tip before you receive your change, just wing it and err on the side of giving a larger tip. At this point making your waiter wait for you to get your act together is just keeping him from attending other customers.

What does this have to do with Family Law?

Much of the reality that we “know” is built on deeply held beliefs, past experiences, and our own emotional quirks both filling in information gaps and hiding information from us. In this case, you have one piece of information that you are aware of – that you only received one large bill as change. You also have another piece of information that your brain hid from you – that you did not ask for smaller bills.

If you have had past bad experiences, such as being tricked out of money or your ex cheating on you, then your brain will filter your reality to match. In other words, your brain creates an information gap by making you ignore the fact that you didn’t ask for smaller bills. Then it fills the gap with made up stories about how the waiter wants to cheat you, is lazy, stupid, or has whatever other imagined flaws that you could not possibly know exist.

For example, if your child falls into the pool while your mom is watching him, it’s a typical childhood accident. If he falls in the pool while your ex’s girlfriend is watching him, “Holy Moses, that witch trying to murder my baby!” That’s not an exaggeration. Our emotions can make us a lot crazier. That doesn’t mean that your ex’s girlfriend isn’t trying to murder your baby. It just means the evidence you have isn’t going to get anyone else excited no matter how hard you try.

The solution is simple. Have your own set of rules that you decide on ahead of time and just live how you think you should without worrying about what is in somebody else’s head. Have a rule that you will always ask for smaller bills when paying your bill, and another that you will always apologize and ask for smaller bills when you forget.

Those rules will work in every situation whether the waiter is a scumbag or a hero, and they save you the trouble of having to pass judgment.

Good luck!

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How to Control People and Be an A**

How to Control People and Be an A**

If you want to control someone, it’s an easy process. People from earlier generations knew how to do it instinctively, but most of them were raised to be better than that. Today, I am worried that young people don’t completely understand how to manipulate others to get everything they want. Please allow me to point out ways to succeed in life at the expense of others. As long as you win, it doesn’t matter what happens to anyone else, right?

4 simple steps

The first step is to see or hear some slight and blow it completely out of proportion. If you are a man, it might be something along the lines of screaming at the top of your lungs when your girlfriend says something critical about your mother. If you are a woman, you might try having an emotional breakdown when your husband stops to chat with an attractive female coworker. The situation should be serious enough to warrant some reaction, but innocuous enough that you have plenty of room to overreact.

Condition your target to react negatively to everything a disapproved person says…

Second, gauge the reaction. You want your target to apologize, attempt to console you, and try to calm you down. If instead, your target blows you off or refuses to play the game, then you need to be patient and wait until he has more time and emotion invested in you. And, be on the lookout for a bigger mistake to which you can overreact even more! It will surely come if you look hard enough. Analyze and use every situation until you break your target down

Third, give a reward. Praise your target for any signs of submission, whether it is an apology or just an acknowledgment of your feelings. If your target is a romantic partner, add a physical reward such as a favorite meal or intimacy. You want to raise serotonin levels to reinforce the behavior.

marionette

‘Girl’ marionette

Fourth, isolate your target. Isolation should be both physical and emotional. To physically isolate your target, do things like prevent him from getting a job or forbid her family from visiting. To emotionally separate someone, destroy the character of anyone you don’t want them interacting with. Constantly insult the people you don’t approve of with horrible names. Condition your target to react negatively to everything a disapproved person says and blow up every time your target communicates with the unapproved person. Reward your target for telling you about anyone who says something negative about you or your relationship. Don’t forget to overreact!

Keep up the pressure

Finally, escalate and repeat. If your target is your romantic partner, never use violence more than once. That is enough to plant fear into their mind for life, but more than that can land you in jail. And after all, it is much harder to control people from jail. Make a bigger scene and react more extremely to smaller and smaller things. Embarrass him in public. Start making it harder to get a reward and increase the isolation. A fun thing to try at this stage is “gas-lighting”, where you start accusing your target of manipulating you and other ridiculous things. At some point, your target may move out. This is normal, and temporary if you did a good job with the fear and reward cycle.

A fun thing to try at this stage is “gas-lighting”…

Pretty soon, your target’s friends and family will no longer recognize him. No matter how hard they try, they will not be able to talk sense into him. The more logic your target hears, the more bizarre and outlandish excuses he will make for your behavior. Even better, knowing how crazy his reasons sound to everyone else, he will scream at and push away anyone who tries to help. Now you are on the right track. Complete dependence on you!

Don’t worry, this will work on anyone … housewives, engineers, and even doctors and lawyers. Intelligence does not matter. It is all brain chemistry. Try it, and let me know how it goes!

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Wrong, NY Post, Fathers Matter and Texas is a Great State

Wrong, NY Post, Fathers Matter and Texas is a Great State

Co-Parenting

This NY Post article1 is sad, but not for the reasons the NY Post thinks. Fathers matter, and mothers matter. Having a destructive attitude that you alone are raising your children is bad for you, it is bad for the kids, and it is expensive.

I won’t analyze the article in detail, but I will leave a few takeaways here:

  • Divorced parents are not forced to remain in Texas. You can always leave the children in the care of the other parent.
  • Leaving your children in the care of the other parent in Texas is not “losing them [altogether].” It is losing the right to designate their primary residence and collect child support.
  • Kidnapping is illegal in almost every state.2
  • “Bless your heart” is not always a complimentary expression in Texas.

The Poison

I don’t know the specifics of Kripke’s case, so I am speaking in general terms. Non-primary parents are Mothers and Fathers, not visiting relatives. The default is Joint Managing Conservatorship, which means that the children still have two parents. The parent who designates the primary residence often thinks that they are the boss of both households, which is not the case.

The problem is that parents with this wrong attitude often poison their children’s minds against the other parent. In the short term, this leads to expensive litigation, enforcements, parenting coordinators, psychological evaluations, etc. In the long term, it leads to the children having unhealthy relationships of their own.3

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When I lived in Texas, I hated Texas, and I said it out loud, even to my kids

This is not great co-parenting

The Cure

Unhealthy attitudes are common whether the primary parent is the mother or father. If you think you are the exception and the other parent in your case really is a spare, seek counseling for yourself and your children. Even if you are right, a professional family counselor can provide invaluable expert advice to give your children the best shot at growing up emotionally healthy. Your kids will love you all the more for it.


1 Archive: “I was forced to raise my kids in Texas for 14 years,” NY Post (archived 24 Dec 2017 11:14:29 UTC)

2 See: “How to File an Enforcement by Contempt”

3 See: Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing by Dr. Richard Warshak, William Morrow Paperbacks; Revised ed. edition (July 12, 2011), https://smile.amazon.com/Divorce-Poison-New-Updated-Bad-mouthing-ebook/dp/B00526ZLMY