First, the Divorce Court Tip of the Day: The truth almost always loses in divorce court.
Divorce is a messy business and I have experienced that judges will often tune out the testimony and evidence to rule somewhere in the middle. This is an important point especially in divorce court where everyone is expected to lie. If you say “one” and the other side says “ten” the judges will often say “five”, regardless of the evidence. The problem is that if “one” is the truth and “ten” is a total lie, the truth loses when the judge says “five”. Because divorce attorneys all know this, they will often say “twenty” when you say “one” and the truth loses in a bigger way when the judge says “ten”.
I have often said that my honesty has hurt me because lying is standard fair. You have to deal with your own morality, and I have chosen the truth as my standard. You just need to understand you will pay for your honesty in divorce court.
Divorce Court Insanity Prevails
Since February we have been assigned to a new Judge in the divorce case. What I have witnessed in the courtroom since then is nothing less than bizarre. The Judge actually told me that I do not deserve any visitation with my children because I could only pay $2,700.00 a month in support. This goes against everything I have ever heard about visitation and support. In every instance I have been told they are not linked. If support is owed, you have to pay your support whether you get to see your kids or not. And the non custodial parent gets to see his/her kids no matter how much support is paid.
A comment such as this should disqualify any judge from sitting on the bench in divorce court, but this particular Judge has gone way beyond this. She asked what monies I had in bank accounts and answering honestly I told the Judge about money I had for taxes in one account and she called me a liar and said to opposing counsel; “I knew he had the money”. When I protested that this money was not technically mine, she made fun of me for not giving the money to my children instead of paying my, and my employees taxes.
The Judge further mocked me for repaying money owed to my father. Made fun of his cancer, which he recently died of, and my medical problems where she told me I did not have diabetes because I was able to use pills (Janumet) instead of insulin.
On our first time in front of this Judge, she lectured me for more than 10 minutes about all the things my children are doing without and missing out on WHEN THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE WORD OF TESTIMONY ABOUT MY CHILDREN BEYOND SUPPORT AND EXPENSES REQUESTED.
My children have been to Hawaii half a dozen times, the Disney parks at least ten times, and on more than a dozen luxury cruises. They have had some amount of time in many activities and are currently participating in an activity that literally takes all their spare time. All my children are missing out on is the time with their father specified in the parenting agreement. But no one cares about that in the current divorce environment. In divorce courts around the country, the non custodial parent is just a Turnip to squeeze every drop of blood possible from.
The Judge threatens me with jail every few minutes when I am before her but I would imagine that it would not look like the best interest of the children to toss their father in Cook County jail and deprive the children of the substantial support they now receive.
Good luck to you in this. We went through all of this same mess when my husband was trying to gain custody of his daughter from his ex in-laws. It was a nightmare. Her mother had left her with her parents and joined the fair. According to her mother, she was left at her house with one shoe, one shirt, and a dirty diaper. But keep on fighting, because we eventually got custody of her and in the end, I adopted her! It’s insane in the extreme but hang in there.
Just as a side note, we ended up having to change lawyers to end this cosmic nightmare. Never confuse justice with the law. In dealing with the law, you have to watch and see which lawyers your judge is ruling for and get that lawyer. It’s a special kind of stupid, but it actually works.
Thank you for the kind words and encouragement. Never said anything bad about the ex except for this last motion to have me jailed for criminal contempt for perjury. They are trying to have me tossed in jail for 6 months because of a technical snafu of a status change I was not aware of. The judge seems to be emotionally involved in seeing me broken down and I am pretty sure she will not allow a proper defense of my testimony.
My ex and her attorney bringing this charge have revealed to the world just what their motives are: They will deprive the children of a substantial amount of support just to see me in jail. And in this economy, there may not be much support even after I am released.
Can I use that idea about using the attorney the sitting judge likes in my book? That is a great idea.