Beneath the Divorce · the practical half

Tools from the book.
One move, with a date.

These are the practical half of a book. “Beneath the Divorce” (working title) is being written by Miroslav Ćurčić from inside a long custody dispute. Most of it is diagnosis: why the pattern runs the way it does. But several finished chapters are instruments, and those are reproduced here in full, free, with nothing to sign up for.

They share one conviction: small, dated, measurable actions over inspiration. Three minutes. Two numbers. One spoke. One move with a date.

None of them promises a cure or a victory. In this system you do not win; you hold a course. These are the instruments for holding it.

Understand where you are

Before you change how you behave, find out what kind of divorce you are actually in.

ch. 16Interactive

Is your divorce high-conflict? The seven markers

Seven markers, a threshold of three. Find out whether you need a protocol or a negotiation, because the wrong one does damage either way.

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Communicate

With the other parent, around the handover, and with a child who comes home carrying someone else’s words.

ch. 16

The BIFF response: reply to the logistics, not the bait

Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm. Four sentences, zero material, topic closed. Plus the thirty-minute rule and one written channel.

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ch. 16

Parallel parenting: two domains, minimal contact

When cooperative co-parenting is a fiction: two domains, short neutral handovers, rituals as anchors, and twenty to sixty minutes without questions.

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ch. 16 and 15

When your child comes home with sentences that aren’t theirs

Don’t defend, don’t attack, don’t interrogate. Receive, redirect, continue. The answer “here is peace” is not said in words.

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Document

The system does not hear a cry. It hears a record.

ch. 15Interactive

The five-column custody journal

Date and time, what happened, source, what you did, to whom it was sent. Plus anchors, the staircase of escalation and the lawyer test.

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Hold yourself

Three minutes, two numbers, one spoke, one move with a date.

ch. 12Interactive

Can you let it go? The eight questions

A three-minute exercise for Friday evenings and the night before a hearing. Then the Scale, the Balloon and one move with a date.

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ch. 13Interactive

The Father’s Wheel: six spokes, one move a month

Father, Law, People, Earnings, Body, Soul. Roundness before height. The lowest spoke is this month’s one move.

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What these tools are not

The tools are not legal advice, therapy or a safety plan. Real victims of violence deserve protection unconditionally. The pattern has no gender. And every tool here looks at a mechanism, never at a person.

From the book

Beneath the Divorce

Working title of a book by Miroslav Ćurčić. It is still being written. The chapters these tools come from are finished; the book is not.

About the book →
A mirror, not a sword

Do you recognise this?

The other half of the book is recognition: moments that parents in a long dispute describe in almost the same sentences. See which are yours.

Do you recognise this? →