Made the wife look a little silly today...

[T_Man]

Today my case was one of the few I've seen or heard of where a judge actually didn't want to grant a restraining order.

Let me tell you though, my wife has a penchant for making up stories beyond even the norm for spouses described on this board.

The judge has looked at her ex parte she filed, and looks at her kind of puzzled, "Are you sure you still want this?" (I mean, her order looked written by a 10 year old, contained statements that were obviously untrue even if you didn't know us, and was filed against me 250 miles away after I had restarted our divorce.)

She goes, "Yes."

He turns to me and asks something or other, and the first thing I explain is that there is an ongoing divorce case and the county I'm in has custody jurisdiction. He turns to her, "Is this true?"

I'll be damned if she did not- honest to God- turn to the Judge (while standing there in sweatpants) and try to tell him she didn't know anything about a divorce. It's been going on for years now. Part of the reason she filed the ex parte was she said her "feelings were hurt" when she received notice of a trial setting. I mean, she does have a lawyer for Christ's sake.

He turns to me, and I go, "I have certified papers from the Circuit Clerk's office."

"You do? Let me see those."

Bailiff hands him 30 pages of various filings I had certified by the Circuit Clerk's office. He turns to her, "I can't address any custody issues here, that's off the table." In fact, he implied that she was in contempt for denying me visitation since there was a temporary order he says is still valid.

He didn't even address a SINGLE accusation she made, and asked her several times if she was sure she wanted to be doing this. Basically he ended up saying, "Well, I really think you should have addressed this through your lawyer and not here. He wasn't really served in the proper timeframe plus you're not ready to dismiss this, so why don't you guys go talk to your lawyers, we'll set a date for November to hear this again, but I'd like to see that you've worked this out before then."

She had various silly quips to statements he made, like when he told her I needed to be allowed phone contact with my kids she tried to pull off some story about me calling and being offered the chance to speak to my daughter but declining. She said it was her sister that supposedly had offered me several chances that I declined. (I actually had some taped conversations that show the opposite, but it never got that far.)

Of course, now that I think of it I had to take a day off work, make a 500 mile roundtrip, and sit in a courtroom, so I guess she got some of the revenge she wanted plus a 30 day extension on making up unbelievable stories, but still, by following the golden rules about documentation, appearance, and demeanor I was able to get some of the truth out right away. And it's very seldom that a judge actually defers any judgment on a permanent order to see if parties can work out an agreement outside of court (when we're talking a woman filing an ex parte against a man anyway.)

[MYSONSDAD]

I know first hand about false RO's. Your trip was well worth it.

Good to see when someone can expose them for what they are. You had a good day. And you are so right about the Judge, good call.

Here is something you might be interested in:

Thanks to the Atlanta Journal Constitution for
printing this! The AJC is increasingly taking on
controversial subjects they wouldn't in the past, now
they are looking into the suspicious number of
domestic violence filings in Gwinnett County Georgia.

Email these people with your own domestic violence
abuse story and/or thank them for addressing ANOTHER
government program that profits off the abuse of men
at taxpayer expense.

Email ;
Columnist [email protected]
Opinions Editor [email protected]


View this picture at;

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/opinion/warlick/1004/101304.html

"Children learn what they live"

[VeronicaGia]

I wonder if we somehow "know" each other.  Since the AJC went to a pay only format, I've not been on the forums, which was just this month.  I haven't posted there much, but I did for a while (former USA Today forum poster).

So can the story be seen without a subscription?

[MYSONSDAD]

I wrote the opinions editor and thanked them to looking into the abuse of using Restraining Orders in custody cases. I think the more positive replies will send a clear message and hopefully they will continue researching this.

When I have more time later, I will try and get further into this website. But it seemed, they wanted a lot of information just so you could view.

Felt a little uneasy about that.

"Children learn what they live"