Fair and Impartial???

[mcdk]

I am seeking assistance in my pursuit of what I know is best for my children.  I am emotionally and financially exhausted and still have no idea how to combat a judicial system that claims to be fair and impartial, and yet is so excessively one sided towards a mother and against a father in terms of child custody.
After a (still ongoing) 14-month ordeal, I have gone through over nine thousand dollars.  A court appointed child custody evaluator found me "more within normal limits" and my (soon to be ex) wife "scored very high on the Paranoid scale", "suffers from a high deal of hyper vigilance" and showed a pattern of "prominent hostility and paranoia of potential delusional precautions".  These are just a few examples but are indicative of the entire evaluation.  Having reached these conclusions the evaluator decided that the children should stay with their mother.
I just cannot understand this.  I scored normal while she "caused concern" and the custody evaluator concluded that he "would strongly recommend she seek some counseling".  My (soon to be ex) wife promised me two things, that she would drag this process out so it would cost me everything I have, and that no matter what was said there was no way she wouldn't get custody of our children.  Why was she so accurate with these predictions?  How is this justice?  How is this "in the best interest of the child"?
I am a good father and I know what is best for my children and this is not what is about to happen.  If there is anything you can do to assist me in this process I would be very interested.

[flewwellin]

everyone talks about these child custody evaluators and I've never heard of them.  yeah they are great to have, but what good are they if they can't even do their job and get the kids with the parent who is most fit?  Yeah I don't believe that the judicial system is fair and impartial.  They are biased towards the mother and really enjoy screwing the father.

[wendl]

Welcome.

Seem like you are going thru what many of these fathers do.

I found out in some states to be a gaurdian ad litem doesn't take much, pretty sad if you ask me.

If you go to trial you can have your attorney cross examine the evaluator and ask her why she feels moms house is the best placement fo the kids condisering in her report she states bla bla.

I don't think the system is fair towards both parents, they usually lean towards the mothers, scared to break the status quo so to speak.  


**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[skye]

we went through much of the same took 4 years and 50,000 but the kids are with us now.

[determined]

seven years and a lot more expensive, but there is nothing more worthwhile.

[mango]

For us, seven years 3 parenting plans (always end up 50/50) and still in court. Hate to think how much $$ wasted for the same outcome each time.

Here we are again, she is now 11 so mom says she wants to live with her 100%. Back in court....

It never ends. Mother never seems to get a clue either that it will always be a sharend parenting order in Ohio. she is still fighting for sole custody. She has a horrible track record of unemployment, moving, and instability, the psyche evaluation came out that the father was stellar, a good stable parent and mother had many issues that take a toll on her ability to function in society. Pages and pages of her dysfunctionability, and then the evaluator suggests a shared parenting order and the mothers school district. We were shocked!!  

She has kept school papers from us (homework info), and messed with things so bad. She was trying to make it so it looked like dad was slacking in the school department, when she was sabataging his effort to receive homework information. Yet the GAL doesn't even blink about that.

Completely uncooperative as a residentail parent.

But courts do slant towards mommy dearest.

Good luck to you. Read the custody laws of your state, do your homework, and use that as your strategy.

[wendl]

Ya and just think if the other parent was just willing, how much money everyone would have saved and could've been put away for the childs future (college fund etc)

**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[CustodyIQ]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear of your frustration.  I went through much of the same.

Family law is not about justice, nor about fairness.  It's about "Best interest of the child", which carries many presumptions among judges and evaluators.

Check out my website for quite a bit of background information to understand how family law works.  The more quickly you abandon the expectation for "justice" or "fairness" and instead learn how to more effectively approach your situation, the better promise you'll have at seeing some positive movement (albeit very slowly).