Show Notes

In this episode we chat with mediator Joy Rosenthal about her role as an objective third party helping couples through contentious situations. She surmises that her goal is to keep the parties together as much as possible especially in a court judicial system that is not set up for people to voice their fears, and work through conflict. She discusses how the adversarial system built for business isn't what's best for the whole family.

 In this episode we cover:

• Litigation versus Mediation

• Social Justice vs. Zealous Advocacy

• The Process of Mediation

• Working With High Conflict Couples

• Second Parent Adoptions

• The Presumption of Parentage

Transcript

Rich Hackman [Producer] (00:01):

Hey, love me or leave me listeners. We'd love to hear from you. We understand that some of the topics we address on the show can be a lot to try and cover in such a short amount of time. So we'd love to hear your thoughts and your reactions to any and all of the conversations. Was there something that really spoke to you or did we miss something? What other issues would you like us to discuss? Send us an email at love me, or leave me podcast@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our website at love me, or leave me podcast.com.

Joy Rosenthal (00:37):

I took a playwriting class once where our teacher, Leslie Lee said our job is to see the good in evil characters and the evil and good characters and it really worked for people too.

Meredith Shirey (00:49):

I'm really done yet. We're not ever one thing, right? No one is ever all good or all bad, right? We're all, some flavor of a bunch of it.

Joy Rosenthal (00:56):

We're all complicated and the same person can be good and evil at different times.

Meredith Shirey (01:10):

Hey everyone, I'm Meredith Shirey, I'm a licensed psychotherapist specializing in relationship issues.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:18):

And I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney

Meredith Shirey (01:18):

This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves,

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:25):

and the impact that our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me or Leave Me

Meredith Shirey (01:38):

Today. We're going to be talking about mediation because that is one of the areas of divorce that it has become increasingly popular. And I think it's really important that we have a thorough conversation where we can understand the ins and outs of it because not every case is meant for mediation, but some cases actually benefit more from it. And we have a wonderful guest today. We're so excited about this.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:00):

Yeah. Um, and then speaking about mediation, actually today we have one of the preeminent mediators in matrimonial law in New York, joining us. Joy Rosenthal. Joy is somewhat of a celebrity. When in fact, when we first met, I was with my wife at a Stacy Francis event, of course, and I look over and who do I see? I see, uh, I see a name badge that says Joy Rosenthal. And I gasp, right. I gasp like, oh my God, that's Joy Rosenthal. So I go over and I'm like, are you the Joy Rosenthal? And she was! So joy is the owner of a legal practice called Rosenthal law and mediation. She practices in the area of mediation, adoption and divorce, and she's done so for about 35 years. What I love most about joy is that she's all about empowering you. She empowers her clients and the people that work with her to make very tough decisions. So with that said the Joy Rosenthal welcome to Love Me or Leave Me.

Joy Rosenthal (02:54):

I'm thrilled to be here. There are a couple of quick things that I feel that I must say. The part that you about us meeting is Stacy Francis, his party and you saying, are you the Joy Rosenthal is totally true. I want to make it clear. First of all, I've been practicing for 25 years, not 35 years, uh oh I'm old enough. And the other thing is the reason that people know me around the state particularly is because of what become known as the Joy Rosenthal calculator, my paralegal at the time Andrew [inaudible] created that calculator said joy. I think we should put this on the website. It might be helpful for people. And I really have nothing to do with it, except that it's on my websites. I'm famous for something that I didn't create, but I do support it. And it is a wonderful tool. And I use it all the time as well as everybody else.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (03:44):

Let me say to that effect Joy, thank you because you saved me many, many hours of math calculations because you know us attorneys are not great at math. So

Meredith Shirey (03:51):

I really want to hear more about how you got into law, how you got into mediation specifically. We just want to know a little more about your background.

Joy Rosenthal (03:58):

Well, when I was growing up, I was always really interested in families. We have a very close family and I was not thinking originally that I would become a lawyer. I went to three different graduate schools before I went to law school and I was working at NYU and I used to walk past NYU law school every day on my way to work and say, who would ever want to do that? That's got to be the most boring unspiritual thing you could possibly do in your life. And so of course, you're, I am. I got interested in law because I was tutoring kids on the lower east side, high school students who didn't know how to read. And they all ended up having it turned out, had legal problems. And I was shocked to find out that teenagers could have legal problems. So some of them had been arrested.

Joy Rosenthal (04:39):

Some of them were in foster care. Some of them were raising younger brothers and sisters. This was in the early nineties and I was really touched by them. And I thought, oh, this would be something that I could do. I was, I was actually in social work school at the time, but I decided that maybe I could make more of a difference as a lawyer. I'm not sure that's true. But I ended up going to CUNY law school, which is a wonderful place that's really dedicated to their mission is law in the service of human needs. And that was a great fit for me because I was always interested in social justice. My parents were very progressive. I knew that I wanted to do public interest kind of law when I got out and particularly to represent kids. And when I got out of law school, I was lucky enough to get a job at The Door, which provides all kinds of services to anyone between the ages of 13 and 21 in New York city.

Joy Rosenthal (05:32):

And it's a really an incredible place. And I also worked for legal information for families today, which provides information to parents using family court who are representing themselves, or don't have a lot of access to lawyers. And then I got a job at the legal aid society. Now it's called the juvenile rights practice. Then it was called the juvenile rights division. So this was in 1997 and I worked there until 2006. Mostly I took one year off representing parents at NYU law school, family defense clinic. But most of the time I was working at legal aid. I did a couple of years representing kids in delinquency cases, which is criminal cases for kids. But most of the time I was working with kids who were the subject of abuse and neglect petition. So these were kids who were in foster care or getting adopted.

Joy Rosenthal (06:22):

For a while I specialized in working with teenagers who were freed for adoption, but were never going to be adopted. So how ACS was preparing them for adulthood or not, and kind of just helping them through that whole situation and sometimes dealing with the trauma of being removed from their parents. And one of the things that I noticed is that kids were really loyal to their birth parents and to their foster parents. They weren't taking sides. Like the whole legal system is set up in a way that it's called an adversarial system. It was ACS versus the parents and the parents were presented as being these terrible people. But the kids really loved the parents. Some of the parents had problems there's no doubt about it, but did that mean that they deserve to have their children taken away and was anybody thinking about how terrible that is for the parents and the kids to be separated from each other?

Joy Rosenthal (07:15):

And now things have changed. Now I think ACS is much more inclined than the courts system is much more inclined to keep families together and work with them or provide services. But at that time they weren't. And of course this all has a racial component too, right? Because New York city is not 99% black and Latino, but the foster care system is. That was also very upsetting to me. And if you go into court, the way people were treated in family court, I could go on and on about this. But anyway, I really got very tired. The case loads were very high. So many situations were really heartbreaking. After about 10 years, I was just exhausted. I was getting very interested in mediation as a way to solve problems between people and to resolve conflicts. I ended up taking mediation classes and there was one particular incident with one particular judge that caused me to come home at night and say to my husband, that's it, I've had it.

Joy Rosenthal (08:09):

I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going out on my own. I've got your health insurance. We're going to figure something else out. And he was very supportive and very loving and said, yeah, okay, let's do it. So I gave myself a certain amount of time. And in the beginning, of course I didn't have any clients, but I was lucky enough at the time the family court had a very robust mediation panel for custody and visitation cases. And because I had been working in family court for so many years and was very familiar with it, they assigned me a lot of cases, which was great. Um, so that was sort of my apprenticeship in a way. I just took as many cases as I could get and the pay was low, but I didn't care. And I did a lot of custody and visitation cases. And that was really, and I got sorta got my chops going as a mediator, sort of built up some confidence. And then I started doing divorce mediation. So that was all in 2006 that I made the transition. So it's almost 15 years now.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (09:06):

That's amazing that you've been, you've been doing this for that long because you know, now mediation is really moving forward. But back then, I think it was probably a little, uh, less popular. You know, one of the things that I like to say, why am I a matrimonial attorney? Right? Cause people ask me that all the time, it is a very tough area of the law to be in is that you get to help people. So I was wondering, you said, you know, CUNY's model was law in service of human needs, do you think that mediation and family law and divorce situations in particular kind of helps fulfill that model?

Joy Rosenthal (09:36):

Oh, absolutely. There's no question about it. It, mediation is one of the things that's not only better for people, but it's cheaper. There are things that can happen in mediation. The courts are really not set up for. So for instance, people can apologize to each other, for things that have happened in the past, people can really hear each other in a way and really talk about stuff that happened and really voiced their fears and their concerns. The model that I use is something called understanding-based mediation. And the whole point of it is to keep the parties together as much as possible, and really explore with them why they're saying that what they're saying, what their priorities are and why those are their priorities so that the other person can hear it in another way. I mean, people getting engaged in conflict and the conflict kind of takes on a life of its own.

Joy Rosenthal (10:32):

And the adversarial system enhances this me versus you or us versus them system where mediation, we're really trying to figure out what's the best for the whole family. It's a very different model. Most often, particularly for people that have little kids, they're going to have to work together, going forward. So this adversarial system that was really created for businesses, I don't think works for families. These are people that are going to have to work together, going forward. They're going to have to cooperate with each other. And yes, there's been a break in trust. Yes, there's been a problem. There's a reason they're there. And I don't honestly even always know what it is, but they're going to have to work together going forward. And so this is a way of sort of teaching them to do problem solving. What I say to them is you're the ones that are solving the problem.

Joy Rosenthal (11:21):

My job is to guide you through this process and to help you with that. But you're the ones that are making the decisions I'm not, and these are really difficult conversations. They're in mediation because they haven't been able to work something out. But sometimes the presence of a third person can really help. And sometimes my questions will kind of guide them through so that they can really hear each other. Another thing that's really important is that dignity, because I find that when people treat the other person with dignity, they feel it more themselves. And they feel more confident feel that when people are mean to other people, they, they also feel not proud of themselves.

Meredith Shirey (11:59):

Right? It's like that saying hurt people, hurt people,

Joy Rosenthal (12:02):

Hurt people, hurt people. That's a wonderful saying. I've never heard it. That's great.

Meredith Shirey (12:05):

It's funny because as you're talking, it makes so much sense that you have this social justice background because it comes through in the way that you speak about this with so much empathy and compassion, care, and respect for the people that you work with. And I think it's just incredible to hear this because I think that's part of why I think some people really try to avoid litigation is because they are afraid of, of having someone look at it as a business decision. When for them, they're saying this isn't business, this is my life. This is my family. And I'm having to figure out how to shift the boundaries, my family, that I never thought I would have to. And so I need someone who's going to be warm and compassionate and actually asks me what's best for me, my family, rather than, okay, what's the best deal we can get. And how much can we get financially?

Joy Rosenthal (12:48):

You know, part of that is that the way we're taught, we're all taught to be zealous advocates for our clients. And that means to get as much as you can for yourself versus the other person. But if you see your ex as the enemy, then, you know, right. Whereas in mediation, we're trying to figure out what's best for everybody in the family. What's best for the three of you, the four of you, right? The two parents and the kids,

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:11):

You know, sometimes, you know, zealous advocacy can be getting the situation to a point where things can actually settle because you know, you can zealously advocate for your client, but if you never settle a case and you go to trial every time that could have disastrous effects for the client.

Joy Rosenthal (13:28):

It also is incredibly expensive. So I say, whose kids do you want to put through college, yours or mine?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:33):

Well, those are part of the disastrous effects, right?

Joy Rosenthal (13:38):

I'm sorry Isaiah, I'm not trying to take work away from you.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:42):

No, believe it or not. I'm very much in line with what you say. I mean, if we have to try a case, you try a case, right? You do it, you do what you have to do. Because at the end of the day, I like to tell people, it takes two people to settle the case. It takes one to litigate, right? So it's just one of you want to litigate, then that's pretty much the route you're going, but you know, at least in my practice, I know one yours as well. You know, the idea is to take kind of the drama out of things and kind of just get people to a point where they can get together. Because like you say, you know, if you have children one day, there's going to be weddings and graduations and grandchildren, and guess who's going to be at the grandkids birthday parties. I certainly agree with you on that regard. Let me ask you when you're going into, and you're strategizing about yang, it's a mediation because I get this question all the time. How does one start? Do you, does one person called a mediator. Is that on ethical? How does that work?

Joy Rosenthal (14:28):

I will have a short conversation with somebody about process, not, not at all about the content. And I'll explain what I mean in a second. And so then, then what I do is I ask them to email me and then I email them back. And with a lot of their questions answered about the mediation process and invite them to a free half an hour session with me with their spouse. So I try to do as much as possible with both people in the room. And the difference that I said between process and content is I might talk to them a little bit about the difference between mediation or collaborative law or going to a litigator. That's what I mean by process, because people will usually call me up and say, well, what about child support? What would I get for child support? And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're like, way ahead. Right? The first thing you have to figure out is how are you going to make the decisions that are going to go into your divorce? And so then I send them some information about what their process options are and say, like, if you want to mediate, then I'll talk to both of you together. If you're interested in collaborative, I'll talk to you alone. If you're interested in litigation, I'll refer you to somebody else. I'll refer you to Isaiah.

Meredith Shirey (15:39):

You know, Joel, your, your background in, um, social work comes through. And it's funny because I'm listening to you say this, and I hear so many parallels with the work that I do with couples, where you're really trying to help them to make repair attempts and to not see their partner as the enemy. And to remember that if you went through the trouble of marrying and having a child with this person that at some point you did not see him as the awful person you do now. And so it's almost so important to get them to organize again, around the, okay, we have something we can work together on because we're getting to have to, especially if we have children, if we don't want that to be awful for not only us, but also awful for our kids. Because as you were saying before, too, you know, when, when children have that, that split between, okay. You know, I want to be loyal to my parents. And then I also want to be loyal to this foster parents. It's so, so hard on them. And the thing I see people doing, making mistakes the most in divorce is putting their children in the middle and tearing them apart. So I love the, your approach to this because I think it helps people to take some of the fireworks out of it so that they actually can do that and be the best parent they can for their kids.

Joy Rosenthal (16:47):

Absolutely. I took a playwriting class once where our teacher, Leslie Lee said our job is to see the good in evil characters and the evil and good characters and it really worse for people too.

Meredith Shirey (17:00):

I really does. Yeah. We're not ever one thing, right? No one is ever all good or all bad. Right? We're all, some flavor of a bunch of it.

Joy Rosenthal (17:07):

We're all complicated and the same person can be good and evil at different times.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (17:13):

This is true. People are complex, right? And they always have reasons for what they're acting. I mean, for the most part, people are logical. So if you try to look at things from the other person's perspective, sometimes you can get some answers for yourselves. Now, one of the things I often hear or questions I often get, and I actually have helped people through mediation as well, not as the mediator, but as kind of representing them on the side is the question of whether or not they should retain counsel on going through a mediation. But what do you think about that Joy?

Joy Rosenthal (17:40):

I always suggest that people get a mediation friendly reviewing attorney before they sign anything for sure. And often people will to have a consulting attorney while they're going through the mediation that can either make things worse or better in the mediation, honestly, because if they're very adversarial and they have that, that mindset of why would you settle then that can make the mediation strange. If they can support the mediation process, it can be very helpful for the person to have some education and to come in to the session with real more realistic expectations. Family law is kind of very illogical. People expect that it's going to be black and white and it really isn't. There's a wide range of what people could agree to the case. Law is kind of all over the place. Sometimes I say, there's like, there's real life. And then there's the law and they're kind of separate. So it's helpful if they come in having spoken to a lawyer and get a sense of what to expect.

Meredith Shirey (18:36):

what are reasonable expectations for coming into mediation? And is there any kind of homework people should do? How can they prepare to make sure that they're using mediation effectively?

Joy Rosenthal (18:46):

Well, one thing they can do is really look at their budget and think about what is it that they're going to need to live on because when we're figuring out child support or spousal support, I want to make sure they both have enough money to live on and living, especially in New York city, the cost of living is so high compared to our incomes that the formulas like that calculator we were talking about were really designed mostly for people who don't live in New York city and like who live upstate. And when you're doing the budget, don't be super extravagant, but don't be too stingy with yourself either. Nobody's asking you to be a monk and to live with nothing. So that's one thing is to know the budget, make a list of your assets and your debts and make a list of your monthly expenses. And then I give my mediation clients information sheets about spousal support, dividing up the assets, the parenting plan and child support. And that's sort of how I explain it to people. Most of the things fit into those four areas. So that provides them some basic education. But a lot of times clients will come in and they'll be like, oh, well I Googled this. And you know, they'll, they'll, they'll do some research on their own.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:59):

Yeah. We've, we've talked about Dr. Google many times on this show. What I like to tell people is the bottom line is if you could go online and read the law and particularly in divorce and represent yourself, then there would be no need for attorneys. But that's the whole reason why this whole thing exists in this mediation is because it's not just what it says in black and white. But one of the things I wanted to talk about is these sessions. What are they like? Because I know when you talk to people, when people talk to me, when they think about divorces, they think about War of the Roses or Intolerable Cruelty. You know, when they think about mediation, they're thinking, oh, this is like Wedding Crashers. So are these sessions like super contentious or like, you know, how do you calm people down.

Joy Rosenthal (20:43):

Or like A Marriage Story. Which there was a terrible representation of mediation. And she got up and walked out. That's never happened, but, well, right now they're on. So, you know, usually I'll start by asking what's going on right now. I'm trying to get a sense of, are you still sharing money? Are you still living together? Like get a sense of how they've structured things then. And I have asked them already, like, how do you make decisions in your relationship? So I get a little bit of a sense of the dynamic between them and figuring out what are the pressure points for them then. If somebody's about to move out, have they told the kids, are they worried about telling the kids? Have they started looking for other jobs? If that's what they have to do? If one spouse, usually the mom or one of the moms has been home with the kids and is planning to go back to work, what needs to happen?

Joy Rosenthal (21:33):

The first thing is get a temperature rate, but I'm also getting a temperature read for the dynamic. And sometimes one of the mediation techniques I'm giving you the secret here, don't tell anybody is when somebody says something out, repeat it and check in with them to make sure I understood what they were saying. That's called looping. When you do that, then they tend to say, well, yes and I also meant this or no, it's good to know if you didn't understand what they were saying. Which sometimes what I'm doing is looping that dynamic and saying, this seems to be a really painful thing for you to talk about. Or you seem really at odds with each other about this. And I'm sort of normalizing it and quieting things down a little bit, but yeah, things can get very contentious, but they're not always, um, and even with people who are very high conflict, I kind of have ways of calming them down or I'll just talk with one and not the other.

Joy Rosenthal (22:29):

And they're interrupting each other all the time. And sometimes I'll say, okay, let's take a time out. Let's take a minute to breathe and I'll get up and leave for a few minutes. The more high conflict they are, the harder it is to get anywhere. Um, and the more expensive it is for them. So after each mediation, I send them my notes, which says, this is what we talked about. These are the decisions you made. Sometimes that section can be very small. Sometimes it's really big. So if they're too busy fighting with each other, then you know, I do my best to help guide them through that. But sometimes, sometimes they're more interested in the argument and staying involved in the argument.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (23:05):

With that said, are there things that should not be mediated?

Joy Rosenthal (23:08):

Well, relocation is a really hard thing to mediate because there's no common ground. You know, if somebody wants to take the kid and move far away, that is a very hard thing to mediate. The other time when mediation really isn't inappropriate, is if there's been a lot of domestic violence to the point where the person on the receiving end doesn't feel she, and I say that because of course that's a stereotype, but it's usually true. If she doesn't feel that she's safe to speak her mind, then mediation really is not inappropriate forum. That being said, there's a lot discussion within the domestic violence community and within the mediation community about how to make mediation appropriate. In other words, how to make it be a safe place, if there are supports that can be put in place. So every, every situation is different.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (24:02):

So now we know kind of what, you know, the ins and outs of mediation, how to do it, what goes on, you know, how it can end, but mediation is not all you do. Right? I understand you also do adoptions. Is that correct?

Joy Rosenthal (24:12):

Yes. And this really comes out of my work from working with kids in foster care. Mostly now I do either step parent adoptions or second parent adoption. So second parent adoption is when two moms want to have a kid or decide to have a child, whether or not they're married, the person who's not the gestational mother needs to adopt. Usually we would say birth mother. So the other mother needs to adopt the child. This was true until February of this year in New York and the case law on this and the law. And this has evolved tremendously since I've started practicing in the last 15 years. But you know, 15 years ago, we didn't have same sex marriage in New York. And then now we do, when a child is born. If the mother is married, there has been this long presumption that her spouse, which in the past was always a man is the parent of that child.

Joy Rosenthal (25:10):

It used to be called the presumption of legitimacy, which of course is a very old fashioned word. Now it's called the presumption of parentage. When same-sex marriage became legal in New York, that presumption carried over to the second mom. However, it's a presumption. And there is always the danger that the sperm donor could come forward and claim paternity, which is what happens sometimes. So even when the moms are married, it's important that that marriage creates a legal relationship between the adults, but it does not necessarily create a legal relationship between the non-biological mother and the child. Second parent adoptions were important before same-sex marriage became legal and remain important after for this reason. So it establishes a legal relationship between the non-biological mother and the child. The reason I use gestational mother, because with the advances of artificial reproduction, sometimes the non-gestational mother is actually the biological mother.

Joy Rosenthal (26:17):

So that's like a little much to wrap your head around. But I have had worked with clients who have had to adopt their own biological child when their, their egg was implanted in the womb of the woman who got pregnant, the family law bar got together and passed something called the child parent security act. And part of that has to do with this, where saying that instead of going through the whole adoption process. So you have where you have to adopt the child that you were involved in planning and conceiving and raising, and you went to all the prenatal appointments, and this is your kid. And you, you know, you're up in the middle of the night with this child, we can do a much simpler process called an order of parentage. And that's, what's been available since February of this year. It's very, very new.

Joy Rosenthal (27:04):

And the order of parentage establishes a legal relationship between the parent and child. And it's fabulous. It's much less expensive. It's much less invasive. The only problem is that it should be recognized in all states of the United States, but we don't know which way the Supreme Court is going to go. And we don't. I mean, there's a lot of white because of the political climate. A lot of things can change and we don't know if it will be honored in other jurisdictions, meaning in other countries. So for that reason, we do know that adoptions are universally recognized. So we still recommend second parent adoptions, but there are some couples who don't want to go to the expense. And the lack of privacy in order of parentage is a fantastic alternative.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (27:50):

And let me asked you, so if you let's say you have this order of parentage, or you did a second parent adoption either way, and you know, there's a break in the family because these things do happen. If you're that second parent or the parent that was part of the order of parentage. Do you have the same rights as you would otherwise, or are you actually considered like the quote unquote second parent.

Joy Rosenthal (28:10):

And now the adoption and the order of parentage, the judgment of parentage, give that person standing. And then once they have standing, the court is deciding what's in the best interest of the child. So they have equal footing with the biological parent.

Meredith Shirey (28:25):

Joy listen we could, we could talk to you for hours about this, and I still have so many questions, so maybe we can have you back cause I'd love to hear a little bit more of these nuanced details. Um, but for the time being, how can people contact you if they'd like to know more about your services or how they, how you could potentially help them, what's the best way to get ahold of you?

Joy Rosenthal (28:43):

www.joyrosenthal.com

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (28:52):

Well, Joy, thanks so much for coming on. It's like a Meredith says almost like having two therapists on the show was also almost like having two attorneys on the show. So it's great. And as you know, this is a podcast about relationships, right? And so I think we got some great advice here, whether, you know, when you're going into battle in a divorce or the mediation session, or you guys are in the relationship altogether to continue to see the good in each other, because now the other person is not evil, but also most importantly, to treat each other with that dignity, right? Cause when we treat each other with that dignity, we dignify ourselves,

Joy Rosenthal (29:23):

Absolutely

Rich Hackman [Producer] (29:33):

Love me or leave me as a podcast production of the board brand. This podcast is for informational purposes, only it not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnoses or treatment, always follow up with a licensed attorney or a healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.

Rich Hackman [Producer] (30:01):

Hey, love me or leave me listeners. We'd love to hear from you. We understand that some of the topics we address on the show can be a lot to try and cover in such a short amount of time. So we'd love to hear your thoughts and your reactions to any and all of the conversations. Was there something that really spoke to you or did we miss something? What other issues would you like us to discuss? Send us an email at lovemeorleavemepodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our website at lovemeorleavemepodcast.com.