A man goes to family court for a divorce, most likely filed by his wife and pained that his marriage is breaking up, but with the belief that a judge will be fair and impartial. Then it happens: The court gives almost total control of the situation to the woman.
She gets a restraining order based on lies. She gets the children almost all of the time. She gets the house. She gets the money. She gets sympathy from the judge.
You get almost no time with your children, and maybe even supervised visitation in some small room with florescent lights and indoor-outdoor carpet, and you pay for the privilege. You pay support and/or alimony, and live in some dank basement at your mother's house, because that is all you can afford. Your stuff is stolen by the ex or by the state. Your life is ruined.
This is not how it is supposed to be. You thought if you simply told the truth at court, the judge would see through it and at least be fair. You are a fit parent; Why can't the children be with you as well as her?
All good questions, to which the hideously biased system has one answer: "Men are evil, women are victims, the children are ours."
So, you get angry. Very angry. And, you seal your fate in court. You will surely lose, which is the whole thing your anger was meant to prevent. If you had known what the anger will get you, you would not do it, but you don't know. The anger will guarantee that the outcome in family court will be dreadful.
Worst of all, your children will react to it - because kids work on an emotional level - and they will say they want to be with mommy. You won't understand why, because you are a good dad. But it is because of the anger. The judge will react to it. The GAL will react to it. The clerks will react to it. Even your lawyer will react to it.
So, what should you do? Forgive your ex and lose the resentment. Forgive the judge and lose the resentment.
Oh, that is ridiculous, you say. What good will that do? I've lost everything, and you want me to just shut up and not say anything. How stupid. They punch you in the nose and don't expect me to react, but to just stand there and take it. I must defend my children from these child abusers who want to keep them away from their father. The judges don't begin to understand the frustration they cause, and don't even seem to care.
Yes, it appears wrong to not react, to not be angry, to not resist, to not tell the judge the truth. But, please hear me out. By doing all those things, you will make it even worse, and the judge will feel totally justified in nailing you.
I certainly understand the issue. I am not saying that justice is being done, or that you should not try to fight. Just don't do it that way, which is proven again and again to make things worse.
But you feel that your anger is righteous and proper, because the judge is hurting the kids and stealing your stuff. You have a right and duty to set this injustice straight. It is proper to be angry at evil and false allegations and unfairness. All true, but you cannot do it in family court, or you will lose your case and you will lose your children.
However, if you think that delivering a speech to the judge about what a biased jerk he or she is will make the judge sit up and pay attention, you are mistaken. They are in the grip of an agenda, and your anger feeds right into that expectation, and only affirms that the judge did the right thing by punishing you. The judge can justify keeping your kids from you and taking your stuff from you, and even feel good about it.
We are in a police state. Don't think otherwise. This is no longer the land of the free and home of the brave. When courts can kidnap children and steal everything a man owns, and slap a restraining order on you without due process and then throw you in jail if you don't pay, or contact the kids, it is a police state. So, why are you fighting as though all you have to do is lecture the judge, and he or she will see the light. There is no light. They know their role, and you will not tear them away from it.
All you can do by the anger is ensure that you will never re-gain what you lost, you will lose your kids, you will lose your soul, and you will even lose your friends. In other words, you may not regain what you lost in court, but anger will ensure you lose a lot more.
In some cases you can get what you lost back. Forget it, you say. I can't live with myself if I don't fight everything with every ounce of strength I have. Manly sounding, but ineffective. Why do things that will insure you lose? Why not try to at least realize what a police-state disaster you are in, and stop doing things that make it worse? Have you ever tried to cop and attitude with a cop? Be prepared to be charged with disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, even if the thing you were arguing about isn't even the real issue.
The men who learn this lesson can often come back from the unjust temporary situation and win the judge over at some point. The ones who succumb to anger will assuredly lose the main issue, which is the respect of their children. And they will lose the case as well.
Your ex may be the biggest psycho-chick on the planet, and the judge may be quick to judge you are a bad guy, and not be the least bit fair. In that situation, you may get a terrible order, but you then have a choice: You can become bitter and resentful, or you can forgive the judge and the ex, and can go about the process of winning the war through other means.
You are not ready to go to court until you learn to forgive. What are you, some kind of wimp, you say. No, I want to win, and angry men lose. In fact, those who show anger lose bigger than any other quality in family court.
But there is a bigger reason to lose the anger. Your children need a loving father, not an angry one. If you stay resentful, they will react against you, because they do not want someone criticizing and being angry at their mother. If you forgive, and teach them love and strength, in spite of the spiteful way you have been treated, you will give them a legacy of character that will stand them in good stead all their lives.
Because the courts are so terribly biased and unjust, and so quick to do harm to children by keeping them from their fathers, I have dealt with an endless stream of angry men in my law practice. Many of them will not relent, but are determined to make that judge see, and the ex see, just who is right and who is wrong here. It won't work. They have the power, and a direct assault on power almost always fails. Stonewall Jackson won because he always went around the enemy and attacked at a time and place no one was expecting.
Only the indirect method of winning over the children by your wisdom and character, and remaining steadfast and implacable in the eyes of the judge has a chance of success.
The alternative is dreadful: Most angry young men die angry old men, with their children estranged and bitter at them. Don't compound the family court's wrongdoing by adding anger to an already bad set of circumstances. You will be its prisoner until you see it and break out of it.
You can't replace something with nothing. You cannot merely stop being angry. You have to be something else instead. That "something else" is to be forgiving, loving, and peaceable.
How does that fix anything, you say. It may not fix it. Really, it may not. But it may, and it is the only chance of improving the situation. Whereas, being angry and asserting your rights and telling the judge off will guarantee - lead pipe certain - that you will lose. So, you can either lose big, or have a chance to redeem things and maybe restore your dignity and honor.
But I can't let them do this to my kids, you say. Well, they did. The police state owns them now, with the filing of a divorce. Your anger won't get them back, and will only make them even less able to endure the wrong which the court is putting them through.
How can one forgive in the face of an ex who mocks and steals and tries to turn your children against you? She goes into court and whines and cries, and acts pathetic, then walks out smirking and gives you the finger, when the judge gives her what she wants. You can't just let that go, can you? Yes, actually, painful as that is.
Jesus said, "Forgive your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." When one wants to learn peace instead of anger, I know of no other answer than to turn to the one who showed this by his whole life. In the Lord's Prayer, he said, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". We are not forgiven our own offenses unless we forgive others. To do that requires an inner transformation that can only come by submission to the one who came to replace our hearts of stone with a heart of flesh.
Otherwise, your fate is to die an angry old man.
