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A First Visit To Family Court; A Dad’s Perspective

The Elations and Anxieties of a Failed Marriage-Part 2

By Aaron CoreyPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
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A First Visit To Family Court; A Dad’s Perspective
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

I’d never been to court. I’d never even anticipated going to court, because this was never part of the plan.

Even in the contingency plan for if this sort of thing happened (“this sort of thing” being the total annihilation of our marriage, the end of the life I/we had been building, and the utter dissolution of my sense of security and hope for the future) this wasn’t supposed to happen.

We’d agreed we were never going to drag the kids through court. We’d do a no fault, quickie divorce, with custody split 50/50. No child support beyond extraordinary expenses, no spousal because Sasha didn’t “expect any man to pay my way through life.” It was one of the things I’d appreciated about her; she presented as someone pragmatic and reasonable, if unfamiliar with the concept of honesty as a best practice.

But there I was, in family court, wearing a mask (because Covid) and, because I didn’t know this was an option, the only dad in the room that day that hadn’t elected to join the proceedings by Zoom or phone call.

If you can afford a lawyer, get one. I couldn’t afford one, so there were some things on this first visit that I didn’t know to expect. Like, I didn’t know what a bench hearing was, or that this was going to be that. I’d submitted my response and exhibits to the court, served Sasha (who was the applicant in this matter) with the same, and spent the next 10 days or so living as a sweaty mess with only one thought; I don’t want to lose my kids.

I love being a dad.

I’m a semi decent writer, a halfway brilliant tech, a middling photographer at best, a fair cyclist, and a lousy romantic partner for most women but…

I’m a really good dad.

I didn’t have kids because it was the thing to do, or because someone fell asleep at the switch at the birth control factory. I became a dad on purpose, because I thought “here is a thing I’d be great at”. Impart obscure knowledge on mini-mes? Love it. Read bedtime stories and help them read back to me? Bliss. Have them help me build lego sets because I’m terrible at all the blue jobs, even the ones aimed at 10 year olds? Sign me up. Tears, laughter, angst, bad smells, cut knees, first heart aches, awkward conversations…I wanted every moment of it. I’m the irritating guy that shares Facebook memories from a decade ago of his kid’s first drum set and the awfulness it caused. Every year.

And there was a possibility, now, that all that was going to be taken away from me. Sasha wasn’t just refusing to honour the spirit and terms of the deal we’d made outside a Walmart early in the relationship, when we were trying to figure out how to handle the fact that her daughter had started calling me dad; she was trying to take it all away. Full custody to her, all the important legal decisions, like where the kids live, medical decisions, where and if they go to church etc, to her.

This came as quite a surprise, considering both kids had just recently expressed a desire to live with me half the time just weeks before I was served this application.

Obviously I deserved that. I mean, no matter how much you hate your ex, you don’t want to deprive the kids of one of their parents unless there’s a realllllly good reason. Clearly I’d beaten them, or proposed tattooing swastikas on them, or taken them to a Nickelback concert or something truly awful.

Except…weirdly…there was no case made in the application for why she thought she deserved what she was asking for. No explanation, no evidence given, just the phrase “I am the biological mother and I have provided our children with a safe and stable home”.

As it turned out, the explanation was much simpler. Sasha was going to get less money if the kids lived with me half time, both kids had expressed an interest (once I’d moved closer to their schools) in living with me half time, and so now, out of nowhere, I was an unfit parent and had to be sued out of my parental rights.

Her “random” question in the middle of a friendly chat.

8 weeks after that conversation, there I was, sitting in court, for a bench hearing, whatever that was.

A bench hearing, it turns out (get a lawyer, get a lawyer, get a lawyer) is the meat market event of court appearances. You spend about 5 minutes in front of the judge, they quickly weigh what’s being asked for by both parties, and issue an interim order. Oh, and your place in the docket (that’s the list of matters going before the bench in that session) is arbitrary. Seriously. I think we were supposed to be number 6 or 7, and wound up in the high 20s because, it turns out, a bench hearing is basically a bunch of people waiting for their turn to yell “next”, the list be damned.

Had I known all that I might have been less stressed, because they’re not going to make final decisions about a case in five minutes. But then again, I might not have been.

I’d spoken to the duty counsel prior to court starting, and she was speaking on my behalf, which helped alleviate the tension a bit. For a little while I was actually super elated. I still didn’t know that you could opt to participate via Zoom so the fact that Sasha wasn’t there made me hope that she’d read my response to the court, layered with pages of exhibits showing she was barely fit to share custody let alone have it all, and had decided to just not show.

That elation was short lived though as it became apparent that people were able to both video in to court, and just be called when their matter came up. Weird that she didn’t show up for the application she’d submitted but…weird happens.

What also should have put me at ease but didn’t (because I was a sweaty hyperventilating mess over the possibility of losing my kids) was that almost every case was the same. Dad doesn’t pay child support, dad skipping visitation, dad failing to provide financials, oooh! one mom being a shit!, more dads with garbage behaviour.

When our turn came the judge actually commented in surprise that I wasn’t fighting or skirting child support. Guys. This is not a good look. You made that kid. Your ex may be awful; she might have cheated, or mentally abused you (more on that and how it gets mocked and swept under the rug in a later entry), or be running around town calling you every name under the sun and lying about you endlessly. It doesn’t matter. Your kid is your kid and you pay child support until they’re an adult. The fact that they exist isn’t their fault, it’s yours. Pay that damn bill.

Our turn went quick. I tried to bring up the obvious coaching that was going on at Sasha’s house. She tried to bring up special expenses. Judge didn’t care. Just kept the setup the way it currently was and ordered us back six weeks later. The whole time we were being heard I felt sick. And I felt angry. And I was shaking, I was so upset. Every time I heard Sasha’s voice I wanted to scream. This was a person who’d spent the past year and a half working to make me miserable every time I tried to stand up for myself and my rights as a parent, trying to paint herself as a victim. It made me sick.

But…

The whole thing was actually kind of underwhelming. Terrifying, but somewhat sterile and meh.

And, as a bonus, once the judge had determined that I’d actually been overpaying child support for both kids, he allowed me to claw back a bit of it.

That didn’t even feel like a relief. Everything just felt hazy, and surreal. My eyes couldn’t focus, heart was pounding; I felt like sweat was pouring off me. It’s like how they tell you a heart attack might feel except of course it isn‘t that, except in the emotional sense.

I can’t speak for every dad in this situation. Apparently, based on what I heard in that court room, I can’t even speak for most (seriously, if you’re the parent who makes more and doesn’t have primary custody of the kids, pay your freaking child support, I cannot emphasize this enough). But the whole thing was legitimately disorienting and terrifying to me.

You’ve got, on one side, the person who, not that long ago, you were building a life with and who’s now trying to peel yours like an onion and, on the other, you’ve got your own self image that doesn’t quite line up with the vitriol that other person is spewing. Standing between those two poles is this person who doesn’t know you, likely hasn’t read your matter at all before you walk up in front of them, and who’s heard 100 variations of your story that day. That person doesn’t care about you, doesn’t like you, isn’t even going to think about you five minutes after they potentially alter your life forever.

All the judge cares about is your kids. Which is this edition’s:

Silver Lining:

It’s 2021. Yes there are still garbage dad/mom-hating judges out there; I got one on my second hearing who refused to acknowledge that the children’s grandmother spewing anti-Semitic slurs at me in front of one of the children posed any kind of danger to them, or that Sasha’s lack of concern about that issue was at all worrisome. Lady straight up told me to grow up and stop talking (tip from not a lawyer, if you haven’t amended your response statement with, say, the police report from a recent extended family incident involving nazi hate speech being used in front of your kid, don’t try to introduce it in a hearing. If it isn’t in the file, it doesn’t count).

Yup. This is legitimately a thing that happened. Turns out our camera only caught the first 30 seconds of the exchange, so we lost the slur. Luckily Nazi Grandma came back while the police were taking our statement and fully admitted that she‘d said it, and that she‘d then driven back in front of the house to scream it again.
So 1. It’s hate speech, not a hate crime. Still enough that the police recommended we get an emergency protection order against Grandma Goebbels. 2. Sasha didn’t care at all that our son, who shares my biological Jew-ishness, was along for the ride for this touching display of cutesy fascism. So much so that she brought Grandma back for a ride along when she dropped off our son that Sunday evening.

But, most of the time, the judge in front of you doesn’t want to give one parent or the other full custody. Turns out that’s a garbage situation for everyone involved. They want to find a way to make sure the kids spend equal time with both of you. They don’t want things to have to go to a full hearing. They do want to wrap things up quickly so you can move on to the really brutal part; the divorce.

If you just go in looking for what’s fair, and you’re not a total knob, you’re going to be fine. I legitimately, that first day, heard the judge grant extra parenting time to a parent who hadn’t paid support in a year (seriously, fuck you people that don’t pay for your kids, I cannot emphasize that enough) and who’d driven drunk with the kids on multiple occasions. It takes a lot to get the average judge to disrupt the kids’ lives by reducing their time with you.

Breathe.

It’s going to be ok.

Love your kids. Try not to hate your ex (it’s not always possible, but try).

Don’t assume the court system wants to hide your kids from you in Peru with your ex and their new douchebag Tinder partner.

It’s going to be ok.

Most likely.

Next time

A letter to my daughter, M.

A note on why I’m doing this:

Beyond the desire to, in a therapeutic way, process all the things that have happened since my marriage imploded, and to share my side of a story that I’ve been fundamentally silent on with friends and family for the last year and a half, there is an ulterior motive to the writing I’m doing here.

This platform, Vocal.media, pays me a teeny bit of money each time someone reads these articles. Given that things are getting extremely intense on the court front, and given that I don’t qualify for legal aid, but also can’t afford an attorney, this is my way of generating the revenue I need to prevent Sasha from stealing my children from me, along with the better part of my adult life that she’s already used like bargain toilet paper.

If you like what you’ve read, or if you hate it, but empathize and want to help, share this story on your social media. If something I write helps you in some way, and you reallllly want to help, please make use of the tip button below and share it on your social media!

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About the Creator

Aaron Corey

Single dad, I.T. Tech, former fat guy, Hank Moody enthusiast. I'm a writer, even if I haven't written anything in a minute.

Come chat with me on Facebook

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