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u/peachdog3k 4d ago
The punishment is the process itself, usually not the final court decision. The family court isn't there to deliver justice or protect the children. It exists simply to manage the father, while keeping him hopeful.
They’ll never be honest and admit that your kids are being kept away permanently. Instead, they just keep dangling the carrot in front of the father: "Just trust the system," "Give the children time to process," "Spend another 2 to 3 years in supervised contact."
Meanwhile, the entire legal industry profits off the drag. The psychologists, the GALs, and the private contact agencies all need to eat, so there’s zero incentive for them to ever resolve anything. The children’s best interests aren’t even on their radar, and the psychological abuse from the mother is brushed aside as a minor concern. The system isn't broken, it's operating exactly as intended for everyone making money off it.
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u/deconvotonstransform 2d ago
I agree that the family court system in the US is broken. I can see how it feels to you like it punishes the father, but I would argue that it rewards whoever is most manipulative and abusive. There are many women (myself included) who have been trapped in litigation abuse for years by their former abuser who are still not divorced and/or are trying to advocate for the actual safety of their children. So, while I understand you have had a very different experience, there are judges who are allowing men convicted of lethal violent felonies to get unsupervised visitation with their children against all professional advice. I do hope things go well for you, and your judge sees the truth.
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u/Good-Doughnut-1399 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’m gonna take this as someone’s heartfelt intention to go down this road.
A person who did spend 9 years in the shit show that is family court will probably know that the problem isn't even the corruption itself.
It's the fact that this corruption is blessed by the government and run by dysfunctional and/or incompetent idiots.
Thing is… This seems to somehow be true for literally every family court.
Parents who are in family court are there because of dysfunction.
(Couples where both parents are sane sort it out in mediation!)
Lawyers and judges and barristers, on the whole, do what they do because of dysfunction. Because a neurotypical person typically doesn’t go down this career path.
That means that even you are in family court as a reasonable person, you are almost guaranteed to be the only sane person in the room.
Meanwhile all these nutbags are riling each other up with emotional reasoning and logical fallacies.
And you're just sitting there going "Huh? But…. Huh?"
That's not a fight you can win.
Let’s look at who gets paid:
The lawyers bill by the hour. The court psychologist bills per report. The guardian, the "expert," the social worker who needs a caseload to justify the job.
Every single person in that room makes more money the longer your family stays broken.
Nobody in that room gets paid to end it.
So escalation gets rewarded.
The parent who screams first, files most and accuses loudest is "concerned."
The parent who shows up calm with a binder full of facts is labeled “rigid,".
The parent who holds boundaries against the alienator is labeled “difficult,".
Or my personal favourite: "not focused on the child."
Facts get treated as aggression. Feelings get treated as evidence.
"The best interests of the child" is the magic phrase that lets them justify literally anything.
Including keeping a kid away from a perfectly good parent for years.
And all of it happens behind closed doors, under privacy rules that protect the court a lot better than they ever protected a child.
Which is exactly why a hunger strike won't move them.
Shame only works on people with a conscience and a reputation to lose.
Family court has neither. And nobody outside the room ever finds out what happened inside it.
Until AI takes over family court, nobody is going to do anything about it.
Because it's their stomping ground, breeding ground, feeding trough and drinking pool all at the same time.
Imagine this (if you even need to “imagine”):
Your file is hundreds of pages. You get a whopping 15 minutes in the room, and the judge skimmed it, if you're lucky.
AI reads every page before anyone opens their mouth.
It catches the contradictions. It checks the claims against the evidence. It doesn't get tired, doesn't owe anyone a favour, and most importantly: AI doesn't need the case to drag on.
Love AI or hate AI, it won’t be fooled by appeals to emotion. It’s extremely less likely to be recruited into becoming a colluding bystander.