March 17, 2025 • 53 mins
David Pissarro, attorney and founder of Union of Dads, shares powerful insights on navigating custody battles, challenging family court biases, and fighting for father's rights. Through his 26 years of legal experience and personal advocacy, David provides essential strategies for dads facing the often unfair family court system.
• Family courts often favor mothers despite laws being theoretically gender-neutral
• Mothers frequently enter court with extensive documentation while fathers are unprepared
• Court-appointed "experts" may be part of a cottage industry that lacks true impartiality
• High-conflict cases often involve personality disorders that judges aren't trained to identify
• Preparing for custody battles requires treating it like going to war with a strategic battle plan
• The presumption of 50/50 custody should be the starting point in all states
• Custody battles have generational impacts when children lose connections with their fathers
• Fathers must document everything and demonstrate specific involvement beyond saying "I'm a good dad"
• Domestic violence laws often used as weapons need significant reform
• Dad's Law School offers resources to help fathers represent themselves effectively in court
Check out DadsLawSchool.com to learn about upcoming Badass Boot Camps to prepare for court.
Mark Ludwig lobbying program is at www.stlmarkludwig.com
Join our Signal Channel: https://shorturl.at/8yqTb
Join The Divorce Dadvocate Membership Community - FULL Episodes - Live Meetings – FREE Workshops & Courses – Private Discussion Groups & MORE! - https://thedivorceddadvocate.com/membership-tiers/
How Are You Adjusting To Your Divorce? Find out in this quiz - http://www.thedivorceddadvocate.com/divorce-quiz.html
*FREE Dads Guide To Divorce* How to survive and thrive during and after divorce: http://www.dadsguidetodivorce.com
Don't suffer in silence! Get relief from the pain and confusion of your divorce and schedule your FREE, No Obligation Coaching Consultation - schedule a time directly into my schedule at www.TalkWithJude.com.
Join other divorced dads who have experienced or are experiencing divorce in this FREE Divorced Dads Online Meetup Group - https://www.meetup.com/Divorced-Dads-Meetup-Group/
Other Resources:
The Divorced Dadvocate Website - http://www.TheDivorcedDadvocate.com
The Divorced Dadvocate YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSwx-F8KK4&list=PLT4HyN5ishYJznK51205ESxGZ2d19YkBp
The Divorced Dadvocate Podcast - https://thedivorceddadvocate.buzzsprout.com/
Divorced Dads Online Meetup Group - https://www.meetup.com/Divorced-Dads-Meetup-Group/
The Divorced Dadvocate Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/thedivorceddadvocate/
Music credit: Akira the Don
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Today we are going to betalking about the realities of
custody battles, the emotionaltoll that it takes on us dads
and the legal strategies thatyou need to know.
You are a dad fighting for timewith your kiddos being
(00:23):
alienated, or just someoneinterested in legal reform, or
just passionate about fatherhood, like I know.
If you're listening in, thisconversation is going to be for
you, and I've just got atremendous guest today to talk
about that.
I'm just going to say tune outwhatever else you're doing, put
(00:44):
all the work down, just focus,because you're going to really
want to hear.
I mean, you always want to hearwhat I got to say, right, but
you're going to really want tohear what my guest today has to
say.
Before I introduce him, let mejust remind you to check out the
website atthedivorcedadvocatecom and we've
got all kinds of tools for you,from free to paid, that can
(01:06):
help you wherever you're at inthe process, including the
divorce quiz, which will helpyou determine, kind of where
you're at mentally, emotionally,in this process, compared to
tens of thousands of other dadsthat have gone through this.
So it's completely free, takesabout 10 minutes and it's a
great resource for you, so checkthat and other tools out at
(01:27):
thedivorcedadvocatecom.
Okay, my guest today is DavidPissarro.
He is an attorney, author andadvocate for father's rights and
, as the father of Union of Dads, he has dedicated his career to
helping fathers navigate theoften challenging world of
custody battles, co-parentingand family law.
(01:49):
With years of experience in thecourtroom and firsthand
knowledge of the struggles usdads face, david brings powerful
insights into how fathers canfight for their rights.
Stay connected with your kiddosand challenge the biases that
we all know about in the familycourt system.
David, welcome to the show, hey.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Jude, thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I have been following you kind of like one
of those internet lurkers rightfor a while.
Right, we just connected.
But I get your emails and I'vefollowed some of the work and
watched some of the videos thatyou've done and your work is
absolutely tremendous and Iappreciate it being another dad
in the system or has beenthrough the system and
(02:31):
unfortunately is in the systemstill sometimes apparently not.
But tell us a little bit aboutkind of how you got started with
this, your background and whatthe mission of Union of Dads is.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Sure.
So 26 years ago I came out oflaw school and my partner and I,
who met second day of lawschool, were going to start a
firm and I wanted to go dobusiness law.
I thought I was going to belike the next Gordon Gekko type
person to date myself and mypartner wanted to do family law.
He said it's a solid business,we serve people well and we're
(03:04):
always going to have clients.
And I thought, oh God, familylaw, like take it.
But my job was the marketer.
My job was to go out and beatthe bushes, get some clients in.
So I would go to the RotaryClub or the Chamber of Commerce,
I'd do my little dog and ponyshow and nobody wanted to talk
to me.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Nobody cared about me in business.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Nobody wanted to talk to me, nobody cared about me in
business.
But the minute I said mypartner does family law, it was
like this mad rush, can he lowermy child support?
I got to get out of thisdivorce.
You got to give me anadministrative order.
I got to get, and it was justlike, oh my God, this is insane.
He was right, it's a goodbusiness because people are
always fighting.
And so he got really busy withclients and then that spilled
into my calendar to the pointwhere, all of a sudden I was
(03:47):
doing a lot of family law and wewere doing that for about four
or five years and I got up tohere Like I was just burned out.
And you know, if you're dealingwith the toxicity of family law,
it's pretty easy to get burnedout.
You get a couple like reallycrazy cases and you get involved
(04:08):
emotionally and you're fightingfor the rights of the kids and
dads and justice.
But we had both men and women.
I made a list of clients Iliked and clients that I just
couldn't stand anymore and itwas like boys on the left and
girls on the right.
I'm like well, that's prettyinteresting.
And when I looked at it, what Isaw was when a woman comes into
a lawyer's office, she wants thekids, the house, the pensions
(04:28):
and she wants him destroyed.
She wants him out of work,emotionally broken, and she
wants him to pay for everythingand she's got no money.
He walks into my office.
He's like dude, we haven't beenintimate in six years.
Like I want out.
What's it going to cost me?
How long is it gonna take?
What do you need from me?
And I'm like give me fivethousand dollars, I'll call you
(04:50):
when I need you.
And they're like cool, we'reout and as a client, they're so
much easier to work with becausewhen she's in my office, it's I
need you to be my best friend,my therapist, my stylist.
Talk to me about the family law.
Give me 43 different options.
Uh, what could happen today?
If this goes that way, thenwhat about that dude?
it's exhausting okay it's like,okay, here's what we're gonna
(05:14):
end up with, here's how we fight, here's what we're most likely
gonna get at the end of the day.
And so I found like there areeasier clients and I could do
better work.
And over the what's that hashappened is it's gone from men's
family law, which is where westarted men's family law dot com
.
Now we're really focused ondad's law school, because what
was happening is there's fewerand fewer marriages.
(05:37):
So when there's fewer marriages, that also means there's gonna
be fewer divorces.
We're really dealing with thesedays is child custody be fewer
divorces.
What we're really dealing withthese days is child custody.
What we're really dealing withis a lot of people who are now
finding out like oh, I don'tactually have any rights to my
kids.
Oh, what do I do?
How do I get to see my kid?
And they don't have any realdeep resources.
(06:01):
They may be able to scrapetogether three or $5,000.
But when you've got a mom onthe other side who's being paid
by her mom to get a lawyer orher grandfather or the state
that says, guess what, mom, youget a lawyer, we're going to
make dad pay for it.
Dad's left living in his truck,probably going to lose his job,
(06:26):
emotionally destroyed anddoesn't have any rights.
So I started looking like howdo I help men at scale?
I still have clients on aday-to-day basis, but I need to
do something more, because whatI was seeing is dad's walking
into court and they would justget destroyed because they walk
into court and they're like I'ma great dad, I love my kids, I
want to be there for my kids,and the judge like that's great
(06:48):
sir.
I've heard that from every manthat's ever stood in front of me
.
What else?
Because she's saying you're adrug addict, alcoholic,
negligent, don't know anythingabout your kids, you never show
up, you don't know the doctors,you don't know the dentist, you
don't know the teachers, youdon't know the shoe size.
You don't know the teachers.
You don't know the shoe size.
I said, okay, here's how I canstart helping and I created
dad's law school out of that andit's a program designed to help
(07:11):
dads be able to walk into courtwith a plan and a declaration
that's been filed before theywalk into court that tells the
judge I've got my act together.
I know what I have to do.
I'm starting to do it.
I want time with my kids and sofrom the guy that started off
as like I want to be captain ofindustry, let's go like conquer
(07:34):
the world Turned into the guywho's like, let's go protect
dads and kids, because thatrelationship is really crucial.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Right, which is a blessing because you could make
a lot more money just taking onmore clients and using that time
and energy to do hourly.
You guys get paid by the hourand just doing by the hour
billing.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
If I was in for the money, it would be mom's law.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It would be the opinion of moms.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
it would be the biggest mom advocate.
All men are assholes.
I'm sorry, I don't mean toswear all men are horrible
losers deadbeats, not showing upenough, not paying enough it's
easy when you're representingmoms because they come in and
they generate all that stuff.
I was in court last week andliterally the filings were like
(08:28):
had to be an inch thick of allthe things dad's horrible about.
By the end of the morning wehadn't even talked to the judge.
But I've been able to negotiatea settlement to get dad more
time.
And he's looking at me going.
I don't understand.
The filings are saying I'm thishorrible human being he doesn't
know anything about, his kidsshouldn't be allowed near them.
(08:49):
And I'm walking out with almost50 percent custom that she's
agreed to like she's takingthese two opposite positions.
What is?
that about yeah, and it's aboutgenerating money and anger and
emotion for the lawyers in momto make more money.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Okay, well, let's talk about that a little bit.
And because family courts arecriticized for favoring mothers,
I'm taking it that you, fromyour perspective, that you agree
with that.
I would agree with thatstatement based upon my
experiences personally as well,the experiences that that I have
had with the thousands of dadsthat I have done what.
(09:28):
So you, you talked about a fewthings of what happens when they
go into court and why thathappens.
Can you talk about a little bitsome more reasons why that
happens?
But also, let's get into alittle bit about what dads can
do to level that playing fieldwhen going to court.
(09:50):
So I, I, I mostly agree withthat statement that there's a
bias.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
The law is, in theory , gender neutral in most states,
so so the law is one thing.
Then you've got the law asapplied by judges, who are
looking at these two peoplewalking into court and trying to
make a decision as to what'sbest for the child, and this is
where it gets off track.
(10:13):
This is where we've gotinternal biases of judges.
This is where we've gotinternal preferences, because
mom walks into court with aninch thick declaration of all
the ways dad's incompetent, lazy, negligent, doesn't know what
he's doing.
And another one, that's anotherinch thick, about what an
(10:34):
amazing mother she is, how sheknows everything about her
children.
She can tell them beforethey're going to breathe what
they're going to breathe.
She knows every little detailabout them and that's why she
should have primary custody.
So the dad pays the maximumamount of child support because
he doesn't know anything andhe's a bad dad.
And then we get into the loopof well, okay, why is he a bad
(10:54):
dad?
Cause he never spends any timewith the kids.
Okay, can he have more timewith the kids?
No, why?
Cause he's a bad dad.
And that becomes the loop andit's like wait a second, you
just stop, let's, let's get thisout of the way.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So do you think that?
So do you think I'm sorry, justlet me stop you real quick do
you think that then the basic,basically the, the traditional
gender roles, that that happen,when, I would say, the majority
of families right out there,where the dad's the brand winner
, the mother's taking care ofthe, the, the, the kiddos, or
has the primary responsibilityof that, and you know, those
(11:30):
things are discounted in the,the court's mind, and the court
has has failed to catch up withthe times and how things are
actually happening in the realworld, where dads are continuing
(11:50):
to do that but they don't haveas much responsibility that they
think that they should beinvolved, but they're not
involved, but they're actuallyout working.
What is the disconnect betweenthe courts and actually what's
happening with families?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So we've got two things we have to start with
there.
You have to remember that of100% of cases of families that
fall apart, probably 80% of themnever really get to court in
any significant way.
Like 80% of them, they just workit out.
And so what we're reallytalking about is 20% of families
(12:25):
that are breaking up have to goto court, and those are sort of
medium to high conflict cases.
So now we're in a differentworld.
We're in the world of okay,we've got somebody who probably
has a personality defect.
Right, if we look at it,usually there's one party who's
going to have some issue Pasttrauma, substance, substance
(12:52):
abuse, personality issues nowhave the courts caught up with?
That depends on the judge,because one of the problems in
family court is judges tend tocycle through pretty quickly.
So they're on the bench for two, three, three, maybe four years
and then they're off to go docivil cases.
They want to go on bankruptcywhere it's nice and quiet.
They want to go to probatewhere it's super quiet.
(13:14):
In family court you've gotjudges who don't necessarily
have any psychological training.
They don't have anysociological training.
They're told here's the law, goapply it.
Sociological training.
They're told here's the law, goapply it.
And now you've got one partywho's coming in, who's a
personality defect person, who'sjust arguing to argue who's
making this case for whether anawesome person while the other
(13:35):
one's not good and you've gotdad coming in going like I'm a
good dad, I just want time withmy kids.
And so, on the one hand, we'vegot an issue of what are the
gender roles and are bothparties working, and how are we
handling family finances and howare we handling child custody
based on the kid's schedule andthe practical logistics of
(13:58):
family life, which all of thathas to be dealt with by a person
who has no training in any ofit.
Judges get training on the lawand they get lots of training on
victimhood by domestic violencevictims.
Who is that?
Is that men or is that women?
(14:18):
Well, that's the femaledomestic violence lobby that's
pushing an agenda.
Well, that's the femaledomestic violence lobby that's
pushing an agenda.
No-transcript a lot of bigissues playing in here and then,
when we're talking about how dowe deal with what's best for
(14:39):
the kid, a judge is looking atall this information coming in
from this side and this littledribble from dad saying I'm a
great dad so unless he's cominginto court, you know, with a
plan, with a battle plan, withsomething idealized in terms of
custody, logistics,transportation, how our holiday
(15:01):
is going to operate.
he's already, of course, he'sgoing to be at a deficit.
He's got to start taking moreof an active role in this and
saying your honor, she has towork full-time.
I have to work full-time.
The kid's in daycare.
There's no reason why I can'thave daycare, why we can't split
the time for child support, whywe can't split the time for
child support, why we can'tsplit the time for child custody
(15:22):
.
And then the issue reallybecomes age appropriateness
right.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I want to point one thing out that that you touched
on was that they're not they arenot up to speed on personality
disorders, mental, emotionalissues, stuff like that, but
what they do count on is courtquote unquote court experts that
are, that is, a whole cottageindustry of people that know
(15:52):
each other, that work with eachother and these attorneys that
are recommended by theseattorneys and are not
necessarily the top of theirprofession, if you will, and
they automatically get thisbusiness from being in this
cottage industry and in thissystem that automatically gives
(16:13):
them business that there's nocheck or balance to the quality
of work that they're doing.
They spit this stuff out.
It's oftentimes an opinion thatthen the judge, who has no
background in this orunderstanding of this, takes as
fact, and then the dad orwhomever is stuck with this and
(16:36):
it's on a record, it is uh usedand and codified as your uh,
your divorce decree, and thenyou have to deal with this for
however long the duration of theco-parenting time with your
kids.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
This role is way out of out of line because and this
is where it comes back to what Iwas saying about the judges,
judges who are on the bench ajudge, at four years of being on
the bench, has a much betterunderstanding of the players
than the judge who's just comingon the bench, and partly it's
because he's been educated bythose experts.
(17:13):
So depending on the quality ofthose experts is going to depend
on the quality of those experts, is going to depend on the
quality of his education right.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
well, and I want to point this out because
oftentimes and this was my casetoo oftentimes we go into court
I was pollyanna, right, I'm, myattorney is going to be fighting
for me and he's going to be upat night thinking about my case,
which I know you can't rightbecause you've got a million
people, so you're focused on itwhen you're doing the work for
(17:45):
me at that time.
But it's not anall-encompassing thing, in that
the judge is going to see and befair and impartial and that,
most of all, these experts aregoing to be looking at this
stuff and they're going to say,yes, this is a problem and this
is not right and this needs toget fixed.
(18:05):
And this absolutely does nothappen because they're not going
to piss off anybody on one sideor the other so that they don't
ever get any work again.
They're going to play it to themiddle as much as they possibly
can.
These quote unquote courtexperts I've seen this so many
(18:26):
times.
They're not going to go way outon a limb unless it's egregious
.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I'm going to disagree with you on that one.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Really Okay why.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Like the retained experts.
When I retain an expert expert,I'm hiring them because I know
what their preference is.
I'm hiring somebody that I knowis going to be either really,
really honest and really comedown and say like this is what's
going on.
Mom's got some personalitydefects, dad's got some flaws.
(18:55):
Here's what has to happen.
I'm tending to hire people thatare really good.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Um okay, but you're not always, you don't always
have control oh I'm sorry market.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
There's 12 million people in la county.
I have an almost endless supplyof experts right.
So I'm unique and I realizethat so, but here, here's the
here's.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
the thing that I question, though, is you don't
always get to make that decisionas to who gets hired, so if the
courts if you're disagreeing onthat, you got to bring three
and then you got to.
If you can't agree on three, thecourt is going to pick one.
Court's going to pick one.
(19:40):
Typically, the three are goingto be in most, most parts, so
most parts aren't.
La County, with so many people,are going to have a handful of
people, and even here in a majormetropolis in Colorado, there's
the.
I see and hear the same namesfrom all the guys coming through
our, through our groups thatare doing the, that are doing
the PREs and that are doing theCFI investigations, that are
doing the doing the re the PREsand that are doing the CFI
investigations, that are doingthe doing the reintegration
(20:01):
therapy and whatnot.
And some of them are great,don't get me wrong, but a ton of
them are terrible.
Yeah, absolutely so.
I just want the guys to beaware of that.
That it's not.
They're not.
They're not there.
They still have to stay inbusiness.
They still have to feed theirfamilies.
They're not there.
They're not there advocatingfor you.
They're not there.
They still have to stay inbusiness.
They still have to feed theirfamilies.
They're not there advocatingfor you.
They're going to look at thisstuff from as much of an
(20:25):
impartial lens as possible, butthey're not going to really go
out and they're not fighting foryou is really, I guess, what
I'm getting to.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
They're fighting for the kid in theory, and that's
what they'm getting to Well, intheory.
They're fighting for the kid Intheory and that's what they
should be doing.
They should be balancing theroles of both mother and father
and pointing out her issues andhis issues and coming up with a
strategy and what's going towork best for the kid, which is
frequently frustrated bywhoever's got the personality
defect Right.
And usually in these cases,it's been my experience that
(20:58):
primarily, what we're dealingwith is a borderline mom.
Because, as I like to say, whyare you in family court fighting
?
Because of bad moms?
Because bad moms keep good dadsaway from kids.
It's not good moms that are theproblem here.
Good moms are in the 80, goodmoms are working out with dad
(21:18):
and we're not even seeing themin family court for the most
part.
Maybe one time, Come up with aplan, sign it.
We're done for 15 years, Right,exactly, Bad moms, that these
dads are fighting and they'vegot to understand that they're
dealing with a borderlinepersonality usually and that's
craziness.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
And they're very manipulative.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
They're very convincing.
I mean, think about why wereyou?
Why did you fall in love withthis person?
What was so attractive aboutthem?
They did something to seduceyou.
This is the classic seductionstory.
They're brilliant at that.
Well, if they're brilliant atit, good enough for you.
They're probably going to beable to play that with the judge
, a therapist, social worker,the, the bailiff.
They're going to play thevictim brilliantly, and so
(22:02):
you've got to be aware of thatgoing in.
So, yes, I'm not saying you'rewrong about the experts, but you
also have to look at the numberof borderline personalities
that are in these cases and mostmen.
In my experience, I have tospend somewhere between 20
minutes and two hours convincingthem that their ex is a bad mom
(22:22):
.
Yeah, I literally had thisphone conversation yesterday.
He spent 10 minutes telling mehow she's an alcoholic, abusive,
violating the children, abusingthe kids, horrible person, but
she's a good mom.
And I'm like dude, how do you,how do you recognize those two
(22:44):
things at the same time?
It makes no sense to me.
I don't get it right.
It took me 20 minutes or twohours to like, get him to like,
finally see, like.
Oh, I actually have to step upand and treat her no longer as
the mother of my children, butas the person I'm competing for
to protect my children.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, okay, that's a good point, and maybe that's.
I just wanted to make the pointabout the system and the
experts that myself and a lot ofus think that it's going to be
this, it's going to be fair,it's going to be, it's going to
work in your favor.
People are going to beadvocating for what's best and
it's just not the real world.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Oh yeah, that's 100%.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
There's people like you, there's people like me.
I mean, there's good people.
It's not to say that there'sbad people in this, it's just
you got to be aware that it's achallenge.
You're going into a challengelike you just described and
you've got to take this mindset.
That is a lot different,especially if you're in a high
conflict that you are, and Ithink you hit it on the head,
(23:48):
which is the same way I approachit.
You need to step up to protectyour children because, whether
you are in love with this personobviously you wanted to spend
your life with them there'semotions that go into it.
If that person has mental,emotional issues, then your
children are at risk and it isincumbent upon you, as a father,
(24:12):
to then step up and dosomething about.
That is emotionally difficultand challenging, as that is and
maybe that's what we can talkabout is the first step in
trying to start to level thatplaying field is like doing the
work on yourself and figuringout what you got to figure out.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
You've got to start changingyour mindset, because the
mindset has to be that I amprotecting my kids at all costs,
and that cost may be.
Oh, I have to change careers.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
In order for me to see my kids as much as I want, I
can't do the job I've beendoing for the last 10 years.
I had that case where the guyis like we're going into court
and he's like she's abusive.
Here are the videos, and thevideos are excruciating.
To watch the way she wastreating her children to the
point where the judge literallydirected me, ordered me, Mr
(25:06):
Pizarro, call child protectiveservices, turn her in.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I go into court.
I'm like your honor, we wantcustody change.
Okay, what do you want?
My guy doesn't want to takefull custody because it's going
to impact his job.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Dude, I don't care.
Take your kids, go do somethingdifferent.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you 100% and I think
there's a couple of things thattie into that.
One, guys derive much of theiridentity through what they do,
and so trying to have to changethat and do a full-scale career
(25:57):
change or make a pivot orwhatever it might be, is very
difficult.
The other is fear of what'sgoing to happen financially,
because it's just a math problemthat you're going to have two
households from one.
So that's already scary, but ifyou're changing jobs, you don't
know how much money.
But I want to emphasize thatthat's a huge point that you
make that when you had kids andyou became a father, that became
(26:20):
your number one priority inyour life.
And I know and I'm probablypreaching to the choir, the guys
that are listening on this show, but there's, but if I want to
make the point to, to, to workthrough that fear so that you
can do that because you, itwould be the same I make.
I make the same argument becauseoftentimes and maybe you can
touch on this a little bit we Iget some other quote unquote
(26:44):
experts that that talk about the, the, the mothers that are
alienating their kids and theysay well, you know, you don't
make it more adversarial, Don'tmake it more confrontational.
Just let things be and workaround the fringes and the edges
and then just be there andready, when the kids are ready,
to come back.
And I say to that if somebodywas physically abusing your kid
(27:09):
and you're standing outsidelooking at that, would you just
say, well, I'm just going towait till it's done and then I'm
going to help them heal all thephysical ailments from being
abused and beat up by somebody.
It's an insane proposition thatis out there.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
You're 100% right in that.
And there's another element tothis, and that is it's so easy
for a mom to alienate dad fromthe kids these days and the
allegations of narcissism anddomestic violence that have
(27:49):
become so prevalent in almostevery case that we're seeing in
family court, it's one or bothof those issues that's
alienating the kids from dadthat if it's not stopped right
away which is very difficult youare already down that path.
(28:12):
So much of that alienation thatwas a foregone conclusion by who
you picked to have kids withRight, and that's a hard thing
for men to hear, because thereality is when a woman walks
into court and she startstalking about how, how hard it
(28:33):
is to be a single mom and youdon't understand how abusive
he's been.
He's terrorizing me, I'm afraidof him and he's just destroying
us and he's terrorizing thekids and joey is afraid of his
father and it's sad.
I want him to have a reallygreat relationship with his dad,
but his dad's so bad and judgesjust fucking melted that stuff,
(28:56):
dude.
And it's horrible to watchbecause my guy generally does
not have the cojones to let mego after her full bore.
Let me attack her.
The judges don'tones to let mego after her full bore.
Let me attack her the judgesdon't want to let me attack her
Right.
She's got this, this sword ofvictimhood, right.
It just cuts through everything.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Right.
So, along our lines of how wecontinue to level the play field
and and mitigate this, what are?
What do you do with that?
What do you do to prepare,knowing that this is, this is
probably coming?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So, uh, one of the big things is you have to meet
with and come up with a battleplan.
You need to come up, you shouldmeet with a lawyer and say,
like here's the situation, whatdo I have to do?
And then willing to implementit.
Yesterday I'm on the phone witha guy and he's got.
You know, they're married 15years, they got two kids,
(29:52):
they've got the house.
There's a half a milliondollars of equity in the house
and she's a part-time stylistand he's a full-time union
electrician.
So I know exactly where this isgoing.
I tell him you are facing arestraining order that's going
to kick you out of your housebecause she wants the child
(30:13):
support, because she wants thealimony, because you make a lot
of money.
She's going to want to have thehouse given to her because
you're going to want to just getout, because she's going to
make it so excruciating for youthat you're going to walk away.
And he's like there's no way.
There's no way.
I'm like, dude, the thing foryou to do is plan your exit,
(30:33):
have an apartment, be ready todrop the hammer on.
Here's a divorce paperwork.
Here's my proposed settlement.
Here's how we're going to dealwith the house.
We're going to sell the house,liquid, liquidate the assets,
split the difference, becausethere's no way she's going to be
able to afford it.
So the action was there's noway I'm letting that happen.
I'm not leaving my house andI'm like, okay, you can do that.
(30:57):
And here's what's going tohappen.
There will come a day where youare going to come home, there's
going to be a sheriff, your bagsare going to be packed on the
front porch and you're going tobe told to leave and you don't
get to see your kids for aminimum of three weeks because
it's supervised visits, becauseyou're abusive and angry and
horrible person.
You know, like right, never dothat to me.
(31:18):
I'm like okay, well, you can dooption a, which is my plan, and
it's going to cost yousomewhere between ten and
fifteen000 and $15,000.
And you should come in and weshould get started on that, or
you can wait.
In two months from now you'regoing to call me up and be like
fix it.
I got kicked out of my house.
I got a restraining orderagainst me.
What do I do?
And I'm going to be like it'sgoing to be $40,000.
(31:49):
And you're going to get lessthan if you had actually done
what I told you to do in thefront place Right, and then it
muddies the whole system.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
You're fighting a civil case, you're fighting the
family law and you're doing it,so there, so you're describing
what I call is the playbook.
Right, there's this playbookwith, with, um, uh with people,
but we're talking uh with uh.
We're specifically with, uhwith women and and mothers that,
uh, that have a personal edgedor some mental, mental,
(32:17):
emotional issues that havethought.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
And here's the other thing point I want to make is
they've usually thought aboutthis for a long time before
things are happening years twoto three years, a woman usually
plans your divorce minimum twoyears, generally three and
oftentimes, as they're walkingdown the aisle, right, so okay
(32:41):
so so well, yeah, I mean there's.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
We can get into hypergamy and everything else,
but that's a different show.
But so my point to the guysthen is, like the guy you just
described, think of, if you plansomething for two to three
years, how much more of anadvantage that you have, having
thought through and planned thisand made preparations for this.
(33:07):
So you've got to be aware andbecause 70, whatever, 70, 80% of
women are the ones that filethat you are behind the eight
ball.
And what David just describedis you have got.
This has got to be the firstthing that you start doing.
This becomes the number onething in your life behind work,
(33:28):
social, everything else.
If you want to protect yourkids and make sure that you are
going to have a life afterdivorce because this is going to
impact you for if you've gotkids, maybe two more decades at
least, and so if you want tohave a life two more decades
from now, you've got to dropeverything.
This has got to become yourprimary focus.
(33:49):
Do what David just describedand you use some of the same
language I do, which Iappreciate.
Hearing is talking aboutbattling and wars and preparing
and all that stuff, and itsounds horrible, and I know the
guys that are very sensitivethat I talk to are like man, I
just am not comfortable withthat language.
But the reality is that's whatit is.
(34:11):
You are going into a war.
There's going to be these smallbattles you have got to prepare
because, just like any war orbattle that you go into, if
you're not, you're going to getabsolutely decimated.
And this decimation isn't goingto be for a short period of time
, gentlemen.
This is going to be for a very,very long time.
And so I know you get guys thatcome to you after the fact can
(34:33):
you fix this and can you fixthat?
And I get guys that are like oh, I haven't seen my kids in two
months or six months or a year,and how do I fit?
Like that's, I don't want tosay it's too late, but that's
when you're.
It's 10 times more difficult todo than making the career
change in the beginning or orfiguring out how to get full
(34:55):
custody in the beginning, orwhatever is, and making a plan
and fighting that battle at thetime that it is presented to you
100, 100%.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
These guys, they have to remember that the woman
they're divorcing is not thewoman they married.
Yeah right, the woman you'refighting for custody is not the
woman you slept with.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Many, many clients who are like.
We met at the nightclub and wehad a two-week fling and I'm
like great, guess what A reallycrazy borderline is completely
capable of masking for two weeksand what you saw is not who she
really was, like what?
You're seeing now is whatyou're really we're dealing with
all along, and I try andexplain to some guys, like, like
(35:43):
, like.
what you saw was this cute,fluffy little like kitten that
you thought was like fun to playwith, and what you're really
dealing with is a really mean,nasty ugly rattlesnake.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yes, right, that is now presenting itself, whether
that's two years or 20 years,right?
Or you're just recognizing,finally, whether it's two years
or 20 years, and you finallycome, or maybe slowly coming to
the understanding that this isnot healthy for you and for your
(36:19):
kids.
This is the big thing, right?
You've got to be protectingyour kiddos.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
You've got to be protecting your kiddos.
The impact on the kids it'sgoing to echo for generations,
because what you've got are kidswho are now being raised by
highly dysfunctional moms, beingtold how they should view moms
and how they should view dads,and that's going to impact their
relationships going forward,both when they're boys and girls
, of what their expectations are, of what their expectations are
(36:48):
.
And so now you've got, oncethat generation reaches the
dating age and the mating age.
Now they've got these old tapes, these old perspectives on
what's supposed to be and thoseare going to play out and, oh,
guess what?
It's not a very true sense ofreality.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah.
So I don't know how much morewe can emphasize this, because
we have, but this has, this hasgenerational impacts and I can
speak to that from my, my uhupbringing, uh, with uh, with a
mother that had significantmental, emotional issues, and
and what that does and how, inrepeating what you just
(37:24):
described, right, when you getto the dating, mating age,
they're going to repeat this Ifyou are not the person that is
helping to break this cycle orthis, these chains of events
that are continuing to happenbecause despite okay, like we
don't know what we we don't know, and and if we were raised in
an environment like this andthat became common and then we
(37:46):
found somebody that just did itwith us.
But once we are cognizant of itand we have a conscious
awareness and understanding ofit, it is incumbent upon us as
dads, to then start to fightthat battle, that go to war in
order to stop this, becauseotherwise this is going to
continue and if you love yourkids, you don't want them in
(38:07):
this same situation in whatever10, 20, 30 years with their
spouse or soon to be ex-spouse.
You want this to stop now andyou can do that and you can have
healthy relationship and youcan show them that this is not
normal right, that 80% that doesget through the court system
and has normal life.
(38:27):
This is a minority of people.
I tell my daughters this all thetime.
Your childhood is not the normof what has happened.
The high conflict, divorce, thefighting, all of this, all the
alienation, all of this stuff isnot the norm of what's going on
out there, and so I just wantyou to know that you can have
healthier relationships.
I'm going to help you.
I have not, you know, I screwedup in.
(38:48):
I screwed up in, you know,going through this process and
finding somebody that you know.
I just perpetuated what Ididn't know, and so I'm going to
help you through this processso that you don't go through
that too.
So this is an ongoing thing.
So I think we've sufficientlytold guys to make sure to pay
(39:11):
attention and that this is yourprimary responsibility and
battle in life going forward,and I think we've talked about
some of the first things of kindof what you need to do and how
you start to level the playingfield.
Let's pivot a little bit totalk about the court system and,
(39:32):
guys, I highly recommend tuningin and getting on David's
website, unidads.
He's got all kinds of resources, just like we do at the website
.
He's got all kinds of resourcesbecause he and I could probably
talk about this for the next 10hours and get on his website.
He's got all kinds of resourcesthat can help you to start
(39:57):
leveling this playing field, tostart preparing for what you
need to do in order to get intothis battle, and he can
definitely help you.
But what I want to spend therest of our time, David, talking
about is just a little bitabout the system and what you
think.
How can we, what legal reformscan start to happen?
(40:17):
Because I do have guys thathave been through this, that are
part of the group that they'redealing with stuff they want.
This is just like this hasbecome my life passion now.
It's become your life passion.
Now there's other guys thatwant to do something, and some
of them are focused on trying tofigure out how to fix the legal
system.
What do you see as somenecessary things or fair ways
(40:38):
that we can start going about tomake this change?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
So I think there's two big things we need to do.
One is we really need domesticviolence reform like the.
The train that left the stationis so far afield of what
domestic violence is supposed tobe.
It's absolutely absurd likelegislators have to come back
and dial it back, because it'sjust it's it's divorced by
(41:02):
ambush, it's child custody byambush, and you know, the
definition of domestic violenceis not physical anymore, it's
not even just emotional, it'scoercive control, financial
coercive control, like yeah likeI'm not going to have sex with
you tonight unless you do thedishes.
Like that's coercive control,giving you what you want to get
(41:23):
what I want, right.
So we've got.
Those issues of that needs tobe dealt with and the other
thing that needs to be happeningis 50-50 co-parenting.
That should be the presumptionout the gate.
There should be anage-appropriate division of
custody, because the way thatyou're going to divide custody
(41:43):
of a 2 or 3-year-old iscertainly different than what
you're going to do with a6-year-old or 12.
Those are differentdevelopmental levels.
They need different things.
But that doesn't mean that wecouldn't have 50-50 and that one
parent should have primarycustody and the other parent
should be relegated to everyother weekend and a Wednesday
night pizza dinner, becausethat's just not fair.
(42:04):
It's not fair to the kid, it'snot fair to the parent, it's not
good for anybody except the oneparent who usually ends up with
primary custody because thatimpacts their child support.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
That's what's good for them, right?
So baseline things need tostart at 50-50, but there's some
states that do that, butthere's a lot that don't Right.
And so you're sayinglegislation it needs to start to
happen, because I know thatthere's movement out there to
get that in all and statute ineach and every state is 50-50
(42:37):
baseline start and then fromthere, if there's issues or
special circumstances thatthings get that change, but
other than that it's flat 50-50.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Correct.
And the guy who's doing themost in that arena right now is
a man named Mark Ludwig.
He's out of Missouri.
Okay, he has a course where heteaches dads everybody how to be
more effective as lobbyists,how to talk to your politicians,
how to talk to yourrepresentatives so that they
(43:09):
hear you and so that youactually start making progress
and getting these laws changed.
His course, I think, is I don'tknow 200 bucks or something
somewhere around there to helpyou become more effective.
Because what often happens isthis an angry dad who's hurt and
had a lot of emotion, goes inand talks to their legislator
and says we have to change this.
An angry dad who's hurt and hada lot of emotion, goes in and
talks to their legislator andsays we have to change this.
(43:31):
It's just wrong, it's not fair,it's inappropriate.
You got to do something aboutthis.
And what ends up happening isit's such an onslaught of
emotion that the legislatorshuts down because you get
pegged as you're that crazy guy.
Because you get pegged as you'rethat crazy guy and with
lobbying you generally have tocome in and be very, very
(43:52):
surgical in what you say, howyou say it.
You want to come in with aclear set of objectives and a
clear benefit to the legislature.
So if you're just coming in andyou're just full of anger and
energy, it's like an octopus onan ice rink there's a lot of
motion but nothing gets done.
But if you come in very slowly,like a chameleon climbing up a
(44:15):
tree, and you just take one stepat a time, you're going to be
much more effective and that'swhy I highly recommend mark's
course and anything you can doto get in touch with mark and
his I think it's amer Americansfor Equal, shared Parenting is
his organization and they'vebeen very, very effective.
They helped in Florida, theyhelped in Kansas, they helped in
Missouri and I want to say Iowa, indiana, maybe One of the high
(44:38):
states, I think, but he'smaking great progress.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
We'll put that in the show notes.
I have a question.
We'll put that in the shownotes.
My question I have a question.
If there is such a highpercentage of attorneys or
former attorneys in thelegislature.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Why are they not doing anything about this?
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Jude basic rule of life, follow the money, okay.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Women have domestic violence, shelters, who get
federal grants, who get stategrants, who hire lobbyists Hmm,
what do men have?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
How hard is it for you to keep a man energized
about this more than a year?
Right, most men get in this.
They get destroyed financially,they get destroyed emotionally,
they get destroyed spiritually.
They're like we've got to dosomething to change this, we've
got to fix it.
And then they get custodyorders and then their life
(45:37):
settles back down and thenthey're like I'm moving on, I
don't, I don't know thebandwidth, I can't do it right,
and they're just barely tryingto survive right, right, that's
part of the problem that menhave like and we run into this.
Whether it's working with ncf,the national coalition for men,
who does great work for men'srights, whether we're talking
(45:59):
about what I'm trying to do toget people to go see Mark Ludwig
to make change, to get thingsdone, it's just keeping them
involved.
The father's rights movementseven years ago had half a
million members pretty active ontheir Facebook page.
I don't even know if they'vegot a 10th of that these days.
(46:20):
Really, the nature of theprocess is men cycle through
because they get burned out.
Then it's like okay, well, Ican't fight this battle anymore.
It's never going to change.
I just want to go enjoy whatlittle life I have left.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Right, which is it's terrible and it's brutal, yeah,
and it's, it's an awful thingfor our uh, for our little, our
sons, to see and for our kids tosee.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
And that's the hard part is is it's going unless?
Unless today's dads step up anddo something different,
tomorrow's grandfathers andfathers are going to have more
of the same.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Amaro's grandfathers and fathers are going to have
more of the same.
Yeah, it's awful man, it's sadand it's disconcerting, and so,
yeah, I hate ending it on kindof a negative note, but I think
that's just the reality of thesituation, of what we're in in
(47:17):
the battle Again we go back tosome of this language is we as
men, have abdicated some of this, this battle and this
responsibility in our, in oursociety, and it's incumbent upon
us to really turn this aroundand step up and have to do
something.
And that means, even if you aredemoralized, even if you are
(47:39):
struggling and barely hanging onthat you are doing something,
even if it is a little bit ofsomething, to to change the
course, maybe even just apercentage with, if it's just
your family, to to make somechange.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
And so there's two things that men can do about
that.
There's one you can take Mark'scourse and go learn how to talk
to legislatures and legislatorsand try and make change on a
societal level.
Absolutely, you can do ityourself.
You can like.
Go take dad's law school.
It's $97 a month and it's goingto teach you how to represent
(48:15):
yourself in family court, how towrite your declaration, how to
start arguing for yourself, howto prove to the judge that
you're a great dad, and the goalthere is you're educating the
judge on what good dads looklike.
Just like we said earlier, thejudges learn from all these
experts.
You come in at year one andthen at year four.
Hopefully, they've had goodexperts and learned to get
(48:36):
better.
If the judges are starting tosee more dads show up on a
regular basis with gooddeclarations showing what
they're doing, the judges'perceptions of men are going to
change.
Fighting for yourself isfighting for everyone else.
It's fighting for tomorrow'sdads.
It's fighting for yourgrandkids.
That's why they need to do this, and when they get into dad's
(49:00):
law school and they come to ourgroup and they come to our
meetups and they come to ourwhatsapp group and they start
sharing what they find is theemotional support that allows
them to do the battle to getmore time with their kids.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
that's the whole point of dad's law school well
said so, david, I know you'vegot a boot camp coming up.
Tell us a little bit about that.
I don't know if it's too latefor guys to get involved with
that, and then also where elsethat they can get involved with
you and reach you.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Sure, the Dad's Badass Boot Camp is a one-day
event where we're teaching dadshow to do exactly what I said
how to show up, gather yourevidence, argue to the court.
In one day I'm going to showyou the things you need to do so
that you can go in andrepresent yourself in a much
stronger position.
The best place to learn how todo that is at dadslawschoolcom.
Very top.
(49:48):
We've got a big red bar.
Just click on that.
Next bootcamp's coming up isMarch 22nd, and then we're
looking to do February, probablySeptember.
We're looking to do FloridaSeptember, october.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Okay, awesome.
So check that out, gentlemen.
Get connected with David.
Take the bootcamp, even ifyou've got an attorney and I
tell guys this all the timeyou've got to get up to speed on
the process, the system, thestatutes so that you can have
intelligent conversations withyour attorney, and not all
attorneys are as great as David.
Get up to speed on the process,the system, the statute so that
you can have intelligentconversations with your attorney
, and not all attorneys are asgreat as David.
(50:21):
It's just like any professionthat you need to know what's
going on, so you need to getyourself educated.
So even spending $97 just toknow and get prepared with all
of what David has will help youand help the attorney.
It's actually going to save youmoney in the long run because
you're not going to have Iguarantee you that you're not
(50:41):
going to have a third of an hourof questions for your attorney.
That will pay for the $97 thatit costs to be part of David's
group, and so it's money thatyou're going to get an infinite
like way more return oninvestment on that and it might
(51:02):
not seem like that, I knowthings might be tight, but I can
tell you that's going to helpyou immensely and it's going to
be a long-term thing, guys,because if you're, especially if
you're dealing with somebodythat is high conflict, you're
going to need to know, andthat's so.
I learned it all the hard wayright Over almost 12 years now
in being in court and doing thisand going, and seven different
(51:22):
attorneys and that stuff,because I didn't do something
like I'm describing right nowand there wasn't something like
what David had out there for me12 years ago to to learn.
So, absolutely positively, getinvolved and and and get up to
speed.
David, thank you so much forbeing here.
God bless you for the work thatyou're doing with the guys and
(51:43):
the dads and hopefully maybe wecan get together again soon and
maybe do this regularly withsome more advice, because you've
got so many pearls of wisdomfor us and we didn't even we're
almost an hour in and we didn'ttouch on like nearly enough.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
So thank you.
I appreciate you to come backanytime thank you take care
cheers.
Hello and welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Today we are going to betalking about the realities of
custody battles, the emotionaltoll that it takes on us dads
and the legal strategies thatyou need to know.
You are a dad fighting for timewith your kiddos being
(00:23):
alienated, or just someoneinterested in legal reform, or
just passionate about fatherhood, like I know.
If you're listening in, thisconversation is going to be for
you, and I've just got atremendous guest today to talk
about that.
I'm just going to say tune outwhatever else you're doing, put
(00:44):
all the work down, just focus,because you're going to really
want to hear.
I mean, you always want to hearwhat I got to say, right, but
you're going to really want tohear what my guest today has to
say.
Before I introduce him, let mejust remind you to check out the
website atthedivorcedadvocatecom and we've
got all kinds of tools for you,from free to paid, that can
(01:06):
help you wherever you're at inthe process, including the
divorce quiz, which will helpyou determine, kind of where
you're at mentally, emotionally,in this process, compared to
tens of thousands of other dadsthat have gone through this.
So it's completely free, takesabout 10 minutes and it's a
great resource for you, so checkthat and other tools out at
(01:27):
thedivorcedadvocatecom.
Okay, my guest today is DavidPissarro.
He is an attorney, author andadvocate for father's rights and
, as the father of Union of Dads, he has dedicated his career to
helping fathers navigate theoften challenging world of
custody battles, co-parentingand family law.
(01:49):
With years of experience in thecourtroom and firsthand
knowledge of the struggles usdads face, david brings powerful
insights into how fathers canfight for their rights.
Stay connected with your kiddosand challenge the biases that
we all know about in the familycourt system.
David, welcome to the show, hey.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Jude, thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I have been following you kind of like one
of those internet lurkers rightfor a while.
Right, we just connected.
But I get your emails and I'vefollowed some of the work and
watched some of the videos thatyou've done and your work is
absolutely tremendous and Iappreciate it being another dad
in the system or has beenthrough the system and
(02:31):
unfortunately is in the systemstill sometimes apparently not.
But tell us a little bit aboutkind of how you got started with
this, your background and whatthe mission of Union of Dads is.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Sure.
So 26 years ago I came out oflaw school and my partner and I,
who met second day of lawschool, were going to start a
firm and I wanted to go dobusiness law.
I thought I was going to belike the next Gordon Gekko type
person to date myself and mypartner wanted to do family law.
He said it's a solid business,we serve people well and we're
(03:04):
always going to have clients.
And I thought, oh God, familylaw, like take it.
But my job was the marketer.
My job was to go out and beatthe bushes, get some clients in.
So I would go to the RotaryClub or the Chamber of Commerce,
I'd do my little dog and ponyshow and nobody wanted to talk
to me.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Nobody cared about me in business.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Nobody wanted to talk to me, nobody cared about me in
business.
But the minute I said mypartner does family law, it was
like this mad rush, can he lowermy child support?
I got to get out of thisdivorce.
You got to give me anadministrative order.
I got to get, and it was justlike, oh my God, this is insane.
He was right, it's a goodbusiness because people are
always fighting.
And so he got really busy withclients and then that spilled
into my calendar to the pointwhere, all of a sudden I was
(03:47):
doing a lot of family law and wewere doing that for about four
or five years and I got up tohere Like I was just burned out.
And you know, if you're dealingwith the toxicity of family law,
it's pretty easy to get burnedout.
You get a couple like reallycrazy cases and you get involved
(04:08):
emotionally and you're fightingfor the rights of the kids and
dads and justice.
But we had both men and women.
I made a list of clients Iliked and clients that I just
couldn't stand anymore and itwas like boys on the left and
girls on the right.
I'm like well, that's prettyinteresting.
And when I looked at it, what Isaw was when a woman comes into
a lawyer's office, she wants thekids, the house, the pensions
(04:28):
and she wants him destroyed.
She wants him out of work,emotionally broken, and she
wants him to pay for everythingand she's got no money.
He walks into my office.
He's like dude, we haven't beenintimate in six years.
Like I want out.
What's it going to cost me?
How long is it gonna take?
What do you need from me?
And I'm like give me fivethousand dollars, I'll call you
(04:50):
when I need you.
And they're like cool, we'reout and as a client, they're so
much easier to work with becausewhen she's in my office, it's I
need you to be my best friend,my therapist, my stylist.
Talk to me about the family law.
Give me 43 different options.
Uh, what could happen today?
If this goes that way, thenwhat about that dude?
it's exhausting okay it's like,okay, here's what we're gonna
(05:14):
end up with, here's how we fight, here's what we're most likely
gonna get at the end of the day.
And so I found like there areeasier clients and I could do
better work.
And over the what's that hashappened is it's gone from men's
family law, which is where westarted men's family law dot com
.
Now we're really focused ondad's law school, because what
was happening is there's fewerand fewer marriages.
(05:37):
So when there's fewer marriages, that also means there's gonna
be fewer divorces.
We're really dealing with thesedays is child custody be fewer
divorces.
What we're really dealing withthese days is child custody.
What we're really dealing withis a lot of people who are now
finding out like oh, I don'tactually have any rights to my
kids.
Oh, what do I do?
How do I get to see my kid?
And they don't have any realdeep resources.
(06:01):
They may be able to scrapetogether three or $5,000.
But when you've got a mom onthe other side who's being paid
by her mom to get a lawyer orher grandfather or the state
that says, guess what, mom, youget a lawyer, we're going to
make dad pay for it.
Dad's left living in his truck,probably going to lose his job,
(06:26):
emotionally destroyed anddoesn't have any rights.
So I started looking like howdo I help men at scale?
I still have clients on aday-to-day basis, but I need to
do something more, because whatI was seeing is dad's walking
into court and they would justget destroyed because they walk
into court and they're like I'ma great dad, I love my kids, I
want to be there for my kids,and the judge like that's great
(06:48):
sir.
I've heard that from every manthat's ever stood in front of me
.
What else?
Because she's saying you're adrug addict, alcoholic,
negligent, don't know anythingabout your kids, you never show
up, you don't know the doctors,you don't know the dentist, you
don't know the teachers, youdon't know the shoe size.
You don't know the teachers.
You don't know the shoe size.
I said, okay, here's how I canstart helping and I created
dad's law school out of that andit's a program designed to help
(07:11):
dads be able to walk into courtwith a plan and a declaration
that's been filed before theywalk into court that tells the
judge I've got my act together.
I know what I have to do.
I'm starting to do it.
I want time with my kids and sofrom the guy that started off
as like I want to be captain ofindustry, let's go like conquer
(07:34):
the world Turned into the guywho's like, let's go protect
dads and kids, because thatrelationship is really crucial.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Right, which is a blessing because you could make
a lot more money just taking onmore clients and using that time
and energy to do hourly.
You guys get paid by the hourand just doing by the hour
billing.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
If I was in for the money, it would be mom's law.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It would be the opinion of moms.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
it would be the biggest mom advocate.
All men are assholes.
I'm sorry, I don't mean toswear all men are horrible
losers deadbeats, not showing upenough, not paying enough it's
easy when you're representingmoms because they come in and
they generate all that stuff.
I was in court last week andliterally the filings were like
(08:28):
had to be an inch thick of allthe things dad's horrible about.
By the end of the morning wehadn't even talked to the judge.
But I've been able to negotiatea settlement to get dad more
time.
And he's looking at me going.
I don't understand.
The filings are saying I'm thishorrible human being he doesn't
know anything about, his kidsshouldn't be allowed near them.
(08:49):
And I'm walking out with almost50 percent custom that she's
agreed to like she's takingthese two opposite positions.
What is?
that about yeah, and it's aboutgenerating money and anger and
emotion for the lawyers in momto make more money.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Okay, well, let's talk about that a little bit.
And because family courts arecriticized for favoring mothers,
I'm taking it that you, fromyour perspective, that you agree
with that.
I would agree with thatstatement based upon my
experiences personally as well,the experiences that that I have
had with the thousands of dadsthat I have done what.
(09:28):
So you, you talked about a fewthings of what happens when they
go into court and why thathappens.
Can you talk about a little bitsome more reasons why that
happens?
But also, let's get into alittle bit about what dads can
do to level that playing fieldwhen going to court.
(09:50):
So I, I, I mostly agree withthat statement that there's a
bias.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
The law is, in theory , gender neutral in most states,
so so the law is one thing.
Then you've got the law asapplied by judges, who are
looking at these two peoplewalking into court and trying to
make a decision as to what'sbest for the child, and this is
where it gets off track.
(10:13):
This is where we've gotinternal biases of judges.
This is where we've gotinternal preferences, because
mom walks into court with aninch thick declaration of all
the ways dad's incompetent, lazy, negligent, doesn't know what
he's doing.
And another one, that's anotherinch thick, about what an
(10:34):
amazing mother she is, how sheknows everything about her
children.
She can tell them beforethey're going to breathe what
they're going to breathe.
She knows every little detailabout them and that's why she
should have primary custody.
So the dad pays the maximumamount of child support because
he doesn't know anything andhe's a bad dad.
And then we get into the loopof well, okay, why is he a bad
(10:54):
dad?
Cause he never spends any timewith the kids.
Okay, can he have more timewith the kids?
No, why?
Cause he's a bad dad.
And that becomes the loop andit's like wait a second, you
just stop, let's, let's get thisout of the way.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So do you think that?
So do you think I'm sorry, justlet me stop you real quick do
you think that then the basic,basically the, the traditional
gender roles, that that happen,when, I would say, the majority
of families right out there,where the dad's the brand winner
, the mother's taking care ofthe, the, the, the kiddos, or
has the primary responsibilityof that, and you know, those
(11:30):
things are discounted in the,the court's mind, and the court
has has failed to catch up withthe times and how things are
actually happening in the realworld, where dads are continuing
(11:50):
to do that but they don't haveas much responsibility that they
think that they should beinvolved, but they're not
involved, but they're actuallyout working.
What is the disconnect betweenthe courts and actually what's
happening with families?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So we've got two things we have to start with
there.
You have to remember that of100% of cases of families that
fall apart, probably 80% of themnever really get to court in
any significant way.
Like 80% of them, they just workit out.
And so what we're reallytalking about is 20% of families
(12:25):
that are breaking up have to goto court, and those are sort of
medium to high conflict cases.
So now we're in a differentworld.
We're in the world of okay,we've got somebody who probably
has a personality defect.
Right, if we look at it,usually there's one party who's
going to have some issue Pasttrauma, substance, substance
(12:52):
abuse, personality issues nowhave the courts caught up with?
That depends on the judge,because one of the problems in
family court is judges tend tocycle through pretty quickly.
So they're on the bench for two, three, three, maybe four years
and then they're off to go docivil cases.
They want to go on bankruptcywhere it's nice and quiet.
They want to go to probatewhere it's super quiet.
(13:14):
In family court you've gotjudges who don't necessarily
have any psychological training.
They don't have anysociological training.
They're told here's the law, goapply it.
Sociological training.
They're told here's the law, goapply it.
And now you've got one partywho's coming in, who's a
personality defect person, who'sjust arguing to argue who's
making this case for whether anawesome person while the other
(13:35):
one's not good and you've gotdad coming in going like I'm a
good dad, I just want time withmy kids.
And so, on the one hand, we'vegot an issue of what are the
gender roles and are bothparties working, and how are we
handling family finances and howare we handling child custody
based on the kid's schedule andthe practical logistics of
(13:58):
family life, which all of thathas to be dealt with by a person
who has no training in any ofit.
Judges get training on the lawand they get lots of training on
victimhood by domestic violencevictims.
Who is that?
Is that men or is that women?
(14:18):
Well, that's the femaledomestic violence lobby that's
pushing an agenda.
Well, that's the femaledomestic violence lobby that's
pushing an agenda.
No-transcript a lot of bigissues playing in here and then,
when we're talking about how dowe deal with what's best for
(14:39):
the kid, a judge is looking atall this information coming in
from this side and this littledribble from dad saying I'm a
great dad so unless he's cominginto court, you know, with a
plan, with a battle plan, withsomething idealized in terms of
custody, logistics,transportation, how our holiday
(15:01):
is going to operate.
he's already, of course, he'sgoing to be at a deficit.
He's got to start taking moreof an active role in this and
saying your honor, she has towork full-time.
I have to work full-time.
The kid's in daycare.
There's no reason why I can'thave daycare, why we can't split
the time for child support, whywe can't split the time for
child support, why we can'tsplit the time for child custody
(15:22):
.
And then the issue reallybecomes age appropriateness
right.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I want to point one thing out that that you touched
on was that they're not they arenot up to speed on personality
disorders, mental, emotionalissues, stuff like that, but
what they do count on is courtquote unquote court experts that
are, that is, a whole cottageindustry of people that know
(15:52):
each other, that work with eachother and these attorneys that
are recommended by theseattorneys and are not
necessarily the top of theirprofession, if you will, and
they automatically get thisbusiness from being in this
cottage industry and in thissystem that automatically gives
(16:13):
them business that there's nocheck or balance to the quality
of work that they're doing.
They spit this stuff out.
It's oftentimes an opinion thatthen the judge, who has no
background in this orunderstanding of this, takes as
fact, and then the dad orwhomever is stuck with this and
(16:36):
it's on a record, it is uh usedand and codified as your uh,
your divorce decree, and thenyou have to deal with this for
however long the duration of theco-parenting time with your
kids.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
This role is way out of out of line because and this
is where it comes back to what Iwas saying about the judges,
judges who are on the bench ajudge, at four years of being on
the bench, has a much betterunderstanding of the players
than the judge who's just comingon the bench, and partly it's
because he's been educated bythose experts.
(17:13):
So depending on the quality ofthose experts is going to depend
on the quality of those experts, is going to depend on the
quality of his education right.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
well, and I want to point this out because
oftentimes and this was my casetoo oftentimes we go into court
I was pollyanna, right, I'm, myattorney is going to be fighting
for me and he's going to be upat night thinking about my case,
which I know you can't rightbecause you've got a million
people, so you're focused on itwhen you're doing the work for
(17:45):
me at that time.
But it's not anall-encompassing thing, in that
the judge is going to see and befair and impartial and that,
most of all, these experts aregoing to be looking at this
stuff and they're going to say,yes, this is a problem and this
is not right and this needs toget fixed.
(18:05):
And this absolutely does nothappen because they're not going
to piss off anybody on one sideor the other so that they don't
ever get any work again.
They're going to play it to themiddle as much as they possibly
can.
These quote unquote courtexperts I've seen this so many
(18:26):
times.
They're not going to go way outon a limb unless it's egregious
.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I'm going to disagree with you on that one.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Really Okay why.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Like the retained experts.
When I retain an expert expert,I'm hiring them because I know
what their preference is.
I'm hiring somebody that I knowis going to be either really,
really honest and really comedown and say like this is what's
going on.
Mom's got some personalitydefects, dad's got some flaws.
(18:55):
Here's what has to happen.
I'm tending to hire people thatare really good.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Um okay, but you're not always, you don't always
have control oh I'm sorry market.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
There's 12 million people in la county.
I have an almost endless supplyof experts right.
So I'm unique and I realizethat so, but here, here's the
here's.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
the thing that I question, though, is you don't
always get to make that decisionas to who gets hired, so if the
courts if you're disagreeing onthat, you got to bring three
and then you got to.
If you can't agree on three, thecourt is going to pick one.
Court's going to pick one.
(19:40):
Typically, the three are goingto be in most, most parts, so
most parts aren't.
La County, with so many people,are going to have a handful of
people, and even here in a majormetropolis in Colorado, there's
the.
I see and hear the same namesfrom all the guys coming through
our, through our groups thatare doing the, that are doing
the PREs and that are doing theCFI investigations, that are
doing the doing the re the PREsand that are doing the CFI
investigations, that are doingthe doing the reintegration
(20:01):
therapy and whatnot.
And some of them are great,don't get me wrong, but a ton of
them are terrible.
Yeah, absolutely so.
I just want the guys to beaware of that.
That it's not.
They're not.
They're not there.
They still have to stay inbusiness.
They still have to feed theirfamilies.
They're not there.
They're not there advocatingfor you.
They're not there.
They still have to stay inbusiness.
They still have to feed theirfamilies.
They're not there advocatingfor you.
They're going to look at thisstuff from as much of an
(20:25):
impartial lens as possible, butthey're not going to really go
out and they're not fighting foryou is really, I guess, what
I'm getting to.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
They're fighting for the kid in theory, and that's
what they'm getting to Well, intheory.
They're fighting for the kid Intheory and that's what they
should be doing.
They should be balancing theroles of both mother and father
and pointing out her issues andhis issues and coming up with a
strategy and what's going towork best for the kid, which is
frequently frustrated bywhoever's got the personality
defect Right.
And usually in these cases,it's been my experience that
(20:58):
primarily, what we're dealingwith is a borderline mom.
Because, as I like to say, whyare you in family court fighting
?
Because of bad moms?
Because bad moms keep good dadsaway from kids.
It's not good moms that are theproblem here.
Good moms are in the 80, goodmoms are working out with dad
(21:18):
and we're not even seeing themin family court for the most
part.
Maybe one time, Come up with aplan, sign it.
We're done for 15 years, Right,exactly, Bad moms, that these
dads are fighting and they'vegot to understand that they're
dealing with a borderlinepersonality usually and that's
craziness.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
And they're very manipulative.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
They're very convincing.
I mean, think about why wereyou?
Why did you fall in love withthis person?
What was so attractive aboutthem?
They did something to seduceyou.
This is the classic seductionstory.
They're brilliant at that.
Well, if they're brilliant atit, good enough for you.
They're probably going to beable to play that with the judge
, a therapist, social worker,the, the bailiff.
They're going to play thevictim brilliantly, and so
(22:02):
you've got to be aware of thatgoing in.
So, yes, I'm not saying you'rewrong about the experts, but you
also have to look at the numberof borderline personalities
that are in these cases and mostmen.
In my experience, I have tospend somewhere between 20
minutes and two hours convincingthem that their ex is a bad mom
(22:22):
.
Yeah, I literally had thisphone conversation yesterday.
He spent 10 minutes telling mehow she's an alcoholic, abusive,
violating the children, abusingthe kids, horrible person, but
she's a good mom.
And I'm like dude, how do you,how do you recognize those two
(22:44):
things at the same time?
It makes no sense to me.
I don't get it right.
It took me 20 minutes or twohours to like, get him to like,
finally see, like.
Oh, I actually have to step upand and treat her no longer as
the mother of my children, butas the person I'm competing for
to protect my children.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, okay, that's a good point, and maybe that's.
I just wanted to make the pointabout the system and the
experts that myself and a lot ofus think that it's going to be
this, it's going to be fair,it's going to be, it's going to
work in your favor.
People are going to beadvocating for what's best and
it's just not the real world.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Oh yeah, that's 100%.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
There's people like you, there's people like me.
I mean, there's good people.
It's not to say that there'sbad people in this, it's just
you got to be aware that it's achallenge.
You're going into a challengelike you just described and
you've got to take this mindset.
That is a lot different,especially if you're in a high
conflict that you are, and Ithink you hit it on the head,
(23:48):
which is the same way I approachit.
You need to step up to protectyour children because, whether
you are in love with this personobviously you wanted to spend
your life with them there'semotions that go into it.
If that person has mental,emotional issues, then your
children are at risk and it isincumbent upon you, as a father,
(24:12):
to then step up and dosomething about.
That is emotionally difficultand challenging, as that is and
maybe that's what we can talkabout is the first step in
trying to start to level thatplaying field is like doing the
work on yourself and figuringout what you got to figure out.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
You've got to start changingyour mindset, because the
mindset has to be that I amprotecting my kids at all costs,
and that cost may be.
Oh, I have to change careers.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
In order for me to see my kids as much as I want, I
can't do the job I've beendoing for the last 10 years.
I had that case where the guyis like we're going into court
and he's like she's abusive.
Here are the videos, and thevideos are excruciating.
To watch the way she wastreating her children to the
point where the judge literallydirected me, ordered me, Mr
(25:06):
Pizarro, call child protectiveservices, turn her in.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I go into court.
I'm like your honor, we wantcustody change.
Okay, what do you want?
My guy doesn't want to takefull custody because it's going
to impact his job.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Dude, I don't care.
Take your kids, go do somethingdifferent.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you 100% and I think
there's a couple of things thattie into that.
One, guys derive much of theiridentity through what they do,
and so trying to have to changethat and do a full-scale career
(25:57):
change or make a pivot orwhatever it might be, is very
difficult.
The other is fear of what'sgoing to happen financially,
because it's just a math problemthat you're going to have two
households from one.
So that's already scary, but ifyou're changing jobs, you don't
know how much money.
But I want to emphasize thatthat's a huge point that you
make that when you had kids andyou became a father, that became
(26:20):
your number one priority inyour life.
And I know and I'm probablypreaching to the choir, the guys
that are listening on this show, but there's, but if I want to
make the point to, to, to workthrough that fear so that you
can do that because you, itwould be the same I make.
I make the same argument becauseoftentimes and maybe you can
touch on this a little bit we Iget some other quote unquote
(26:44):
experts that that talk about the, the, the mothers that are
alienating their kids and theysay well, you know, you don't
make it more adversarial, Don'tmake it more confrontational.
Just let things be and workaround the fringes and the edges
and then just be there andready, when the kids are ready,
to come back.
And I say to that if somebodywas physically abusing your kid
(27:09):
and you're standing outsidelooking at that, would you just
say, well, I'm just going towait till it's done and then I'm
going to help them heal all thephysical ailments from being
abused and beat up by somebody.
It's an insane proposition thatis out there.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
You're 100% right in that.
And there's another element tothis, and that is it's so easy
for a mom to alienate dad fromthe kids these days and the
allegations of narcissism anddomestic violence that have
(27:49):
become so prevalent in almostevery case that we're seeing in
family court, it's one or bothof those issues that's
alienating the kids from dadthat if it's not stopped right
away which is very difficult youare already down that path.
(28:12):
So much of that alienation thatwas a foregone conclusion by who
you picked to have kids withRight, and that's a hard thing
for men to hear, because thereality is when a woman walks
into court and she startstalking about how, how hard it
(28:33):
is to be a single mom and youdon't understand how abusive
he's been.
He's terrorizing me, I'm afraidof him and he's just destroying
us and he's terrorizing thekids and joey is afraid of his
father and it's sad.
I want him to have a reallygreat relationship with his dad,
but his dad's so bad and judgesjust fucking melted that stuff,
(28:56):
dude.
And it's horrible to watchbecause my guy generally does
not have the cojones to let mego after her full bore.
Let me attack her.
The judges don'tones to let mego after her full bore.
Let me attack her the judgesdon't want to let me attack her
Right.
She's got this, this sword ofvictimhood, right.
It just cuts through everything.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Right.
So, along our lines of how wecontinue to level the play field
and and mitigate this, what are?
What do you do with that?
What do you do to prepare,knowing that this is, this is
probably coming?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So, uh, one of the big things is you have to meet
with and come up with a battleplan.
You need to come up, you shouldmeet with a lawyer and say,
like here's the situation, whatdo I have to do?
And then willing to implementit.
Yesterday I'm on the phone witha guy and he's got.
You know, they're married 15years, they got two kids,
(29:52):
they've got the house.
There's a half a milliondollars of equity in the house
and she's a part-time stylistand he's a full-time union
electrician.
So I know exactly where this isgoing.
I tell him you are facing arestraining order that's going
to kick you out of your housebecause she wants the child
(30:13):
support, because she wants thealimony, because you make a lot
of money.
She's going to want to have thehouse given to her because
you're going to want to just getout, because she's going to
make it so excruciating for youthat you're going to walk away.
And he's like there's no way.
There's no way.
I'm like, dude, the thing foryou to do is plan your exit,
(30:33):
have an apartment, be ready todrop the hammer on.
Here's a divorce paperwork.
Here's my proposed settlement.
Here's how we're going to dealwith the house.
We're going to sell the house,liquid, liquidate the assets,
split the difference, becausethere's no way she's going to be
able to afford it.
So the action was there's noway I'm letting that happen.
I'm not leaving my house andI'm like, okay, you can do that.
(30:57):
And here's what's going tohappen.
There will come a day where youare going to come home, there's
going to be a sheriff, your bagsare going to be packed on the
front porch and you're going tobe told to leave and you don't
get to see your kids for aminimum of three weeks because
it's supervised visits, becauseyou're abusive and angry and
horrible person.
You know, like right, never dothat to me.
(31:18):
I'm like okay, well, you can dooption a, which is my plan, and
it's going to cost yousomewhere between ten and
fifteen000 and $15,000.
And you should come in and weshould get started on that, or
you can wait.
In two months from now you'regoing to call me up and be like
fix it.
I got kicked out of my house.
I got a restraining orderagainst me.
What do I do?
And I'm going to be like it'sgoing to be $40,000.
(31:49):
And you're going to get lessthan if you had actually done
what I told you to do in thefront place Right, and then it
muddies the whole system.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
You're fighting a civil case, you're fighting the
family law and you're doing it,so there, so you're describing
what I call is the playbook.
Right, there's this playbookwith, with, um, uh with people,
but we're talking uh with uh.
We're specifically with, uhwith women and and mothers that,
uh, that have a personal edgedor some mental, mental,
(32:17):
emotional issues that havethought.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
And here's the other thing point I want to make is
they've usually thought aboutthis for a long time before
things are happening years twoto three years, a woman usually
plans your divorce minimum twoyears, generally three and
oftentimes, as they're walkingdown the aisle, right, so okay
(32:41):
so so well, yeah, I mean there's.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
We can get into hypergamy and everything else,
but that's a different show.
But so my point to the guysthen is, like the guy you just
described, think of, if you plansomething for two to three
years, how much more of anadvantage that you have, having
thought through and planned thisand made preparations for this.
(33:07):
So you've got to be aware andbecause 70, whatever, 70, 80% of
women are the ones that filethat you are behind the eight
ball.
And what David just describedis you have got.
This has got to be the firstthing that you start doing.
This becomes the number onething in your life behind work,
(33:28):
social, everything else.
If you want to protect yourkids and make sure that you are
going to have a life afterdivorce because this is going to
impact you for if you've gotkids, maybe two more decades at
least, and so if you want tohave a life two more decades
from now, you've got to dropeverything.
This has got to become yourprimary focus.
(33:49):
Do what David just describedand you use some of the same
language I do, which Iappreciate.
Hearing is talking aboutbattling and wars and preparing
and all that stuff, and itsounds horrible, and I know the
guys that are very sensitivethat I talk to are like man, I
just am not comfortable withthat language.
But the reality is that's whatit is.
(34:11):
You are going into a war.
There's going to be these smallbattles you have got to prepare
because, just like any war orbattle that you go into, if
you're not, you're going to getabsolutely decimated.
And this decimation isn't goingto be for a short period of time
, gentlemen.
This is going to be for a very,very long time.
And so I know you get guys thatcome to you after the fact can
(34:33):
you fix this and can you fixthat?
And I get guys that are like oh, I haven't seen my kids in two
months or six months or a year,and how do I fit?
Like that's, I don't want tosay it's too late, but that's
when you're.
It's 10 times more difficult todo than making the career
change in the beginning or orfiguring out how to get full
(34:55):
custody in the beginning, orwhatever is, and making a plan
and fighting that battle at thetime that it is presented to you
100, 100%.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
These guys, they have to remember that the woman
they're divorcing is not thewoman they married.
Yeah right, the woman you'refighting for custody is not the
woman you slept with.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Many, many clients who are like.
We met at the nightclub and wehad a two-week fling and I'm
like great, guess what A reallycrazy borderline is completely
capable of masking for two weeksand what you saw is not who she
really was, like what?
You're seeing now is whatyou're really we're dealing with
all along, and I try andexplain to some guys, like, like
(35:43):
, like.
what you saw was this cute,fluffy little like kitten that
you thought was like fun to playwith, and what you're really
dealing with is a really mean,nasty ugly rattlesnake.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yes, right, that is now presenting itself, whether
that's two years or 20 years,right?
Or you're just recognizing,finally, whether it's two years
or 20 years, and you finallycome, or maybe slowly coming to
the understanding that this isnot healthy for you and for your
(36:19):
kids.
This is the big thing, right?
You've got to be protectingyour kiddos.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
You've got to be protecting your kiddos.
The impact on the kids it'sgoing to echo for generations,
because what you've got are kidswho are now being raised by
highly dysfunctional moms, beingtold how they should view moms
and how they should view dads,and that's going to impact their
relationships going forward,both when they're boys and girls
, of what their expectations are, of what their expectations are
(36:48):
.
And so now you've got, oncethat generation reaches the
dating age and the mating age.
Now they've got these old tapes, these old perspectives on
what's supposed to be and thoseare going to play out and, oh,
guess what?
It's not a very true sense ofreality.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah.
So I don't know how much morewe can emphasize this, because
we have, but this has, this hasgenerational impacts and I can
speak to that from my, my uhupbringing, uh, with uh, with a
mother that had significantmental, emotional issues, and
and what that does and how, inrepeating what you just
(37:24):
described, right, when you getto the dating, mating age,
they're going to repeat this Ifyou are not the person that is
helping to break this cycle orthis, these chains of events
that are continuing to happenbecause despite okay, like we
don't know what we we don't know, and and if we were raised in
an environment like this andthat became common and then we
(37:46):
found somebody that just did itwith us.
But once we are cognizant of itand we have a conscious
awareness and understanding ofit, it is incumbent upon us as
dads, to then start to fightthat battle, that go to war in
order to stop this, becauseotherwise this is going to
continue and if you love yourkids, you don't want them in
(38:07):
this same situation in whatever10, 20, 30 years with their
spouse or soon to be ex-spouse.
You want this to stop now andyou can do that and you can have
healthy relationship and youcan show them that this is not
normal right, that 80% that doesget through the court system
and has normal life.
(38:27):
This is a minority of people.
I tell my daughters this all thetime.
Your childhood is not the normof what has happened.
The high conflict, divorce, thefighting, all of this, all the
alienation, all of this stuff isnot the norm of what's going on
out there, and so I just wantyou to know that you can have
healthier relationships.
I'm going to help you.
I have not, you know, I screwedup in.
(38:48):
I screwed up in, you know,going through this process and
finding somebody that you know.
I just perpetuated what Ididn't know, and so I'm going to
help you through this processso that you don't go through
that too.
So this is an ongoing thing.
So I think we've sufficientlytold guys to make sure to pay
(39:11):
attention and that this is yourprimary responsibility and
battle in life going forward,and I think we've talked about
some of the first things of kindof what you need to do and how
you start to level the playingfield.
Let's pivot a little bit totalk about the court system and,
(39:32):
guys, I highly recommend tuningin and getting on David's
website, unidads.
He's got all kinds of resources, just like we do at the website
.
He's got all kinds of resourcesbecause he and I could probably
talk about this for the next 10hours and get on his website.
He's got all kinds of resourcesthat can help you to start
(39:57):
leveling this playing field, tostart preparing for what you
need to do in order to get intothis battle, and he can
definitely help you.
But what I want to spend therest of our time, David, talking
about is just a little bitabout the system and what you
think.
How can we, what legal reformscan start to happen?
(40:17):
Because I do have guys thathave been through this, that are
part of the group that they'redealing with stuff they want.
This is just like this hasbecome my life passion now.
It's become your life passion.
Now there's other guys thatwant to do something, and some
of them are focused on trying tofigure out how to fix the legal
system.
What do you see as somenecessary things or fair ways
(40:38):
that we can start going about tomake this change?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
So I think there's two big things we need to do.
One is we really need domesticviolence reform like the.
The train that left the stationis so far afield of what
domestic violence is supposed tobe.
It's absolutely absurd likelegislators have to come back
and dial it back, because it'sjust it's it's divorced by
(41:02):
ambush, it's child custody byambush, and you know, the
definition of domestic violenceis not physical anymore, it's
not even just emotional, it'scoercive control, financial
coercive control, like yeah likeI'm not going to have sex with
you tonight unless you do thedishes.
Like that's coercive control,giving you what you want to get
(41:23):
what I want, right.
So we've got.
Those issues of that needs tobe dealt with and the other
thing that needs to be happeningis 50-50 co-parenting.
That should be the presumptionout the gate.
There should be anage-appropriate division of
custody, because the way thatyou're going to divide custody
(41:43):
of a 2 or 3-year-old iscertainly different than what
you're going to do with a6-year-old or 12.
Those are differentdevelopmental levels.
They need different things.
But that doesn't mean that wecouldn't have 50-50 and that one
parent should have primarycustody and the other parent
should be relegated to everyother weekend and a Wednesday
night pizza dinner, becausethat's just not fair.
(42:04):
It's not fair to the kid, it'snot fair to the parent, it's not
good for anybody except the oneparent who usually ends up with
primary custody because thatimpacts their child support.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
That's what's good for them, right?
So baseline things need tostart at 50-50, but there's some
states that do that, butthere's a lot that don't Right.
And so you're sayinglegislation it needs to start to
happen, because I know thatthere's movement out there to
get that in all and statute ineach and every state is 50-50
(42:37):
baseline start and then fromthere, if there's issues or
special circumstances thatthings get that change, but
other than that it's flat 50-50.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Correct.
And the guy who's doing themost in that arena right now is
a man named Mark Ludwig.
He's out of Missouri.
Okay, he has a course where heteaches dads everybody how to be
more effective as lobbyists,how to talk to your politicians,
how to talk to yourrepresentatives so that they
(43:09):
hear you and so that youactually start making progress
and getting these laws changed.
His course, I think, is I don'tknow 200 bucks or something
somewhere around there to helpyou become more effective.
Because what often happens isthis an angry dad who's hurt and
had a lot of emotion, goes inand talks to their legislator
and says we have to change this.
An angry dad who's hurt and hada lot of emotion, goes in and
talks to their legislator andsays we have to change this.
(43:31):
It's just wrong, it's not fair,it's inappropriate.
You got to do something aboutthis.
And what ends up happening isit's such an onslaught of
emotion that the legislatorshuts down because you get
pegged as you're that crazy guy.
Because you get pegged as you'rethat crazy guy and with
lobbying you generally have tocome in and be very, very
(43:52):
surgical in what you say, howyou say it.
You want to come in with aclear set of objectives and a
clear benefit to the legislature.
So if you're just coming in andyou're just full of anger and
energy, it's like an octopus onan ice rink there's a lot of
motion but nothing gets done.
But if you come in very slowly,like a chameleon climbing up a
(44:15):
tree, and you just take one stepat a time, you're going to be
much more effective and that'swhy I highly recommend mark's
course and anything you can doto get in touch with mark and
his I think it's amer Americansfor Equal, shared Parenting is
his organization and they'vebeen very, very effective.
They helped in Florida, theyhelped in Kansas, they helped in
Missouri and I want to say Iowa, indiana, maybe One of the high
(44:38):
states, I think, but he'smaking great progress.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
We'll put that in the show notes.
I have a question.
We'll put that in the shownotes.
My question I have a question.
If there is such a highpercentage of attorneys or
former attorneys in thelegislature.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Why are they not doing anything about this?
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Jude basic rule of life, follow the money, okay.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Women have domestic violence, shelters, who get
federal grants, who get stategrants, who hire lobbyists Hmm,
what do men have?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
How hard is it for you to keep a man energized
about this more than a year?
Right, most men get in this.
They get destroyed financially,they get destroyed emotionally,
they get destroyed spiritually.
They're like we've got to dosomething to change this, we've
got to fix it.
And then they get custodyorders and then their life
(45:37):
settles back down and thenthey're like I'm moving on, I
don't, I don't know thebandwidth, I can't do it right,
and they're just barely tryingto survive right, right, that's
part of the problem that menhave like and we run into this.
Whether it's working with ncf,the national coalition for men,
who does great work for men'srights, whether we're talking
(45:59):
about what I'm trying to do toget people to go see Mark Ludwig
to make change, to get thingsdone, it's just keeping them
involved.
The father's rights movementseven years ago had half a
million members pretty active ontheir Facebook page.
I don't even know if they'vegot a 10th of that these days.
(46:20):
Really, the nature of theprocess is men cycle through
because they get burned out.
Then it's like okay, well, Ican't fight this battle anymore.
It's never going to change.
I just want to go enjoy whatlittle life I have left.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Right, which is it's terrible and it's brutal, yeah,
and it's, it's an awful thingfor our uh, for our little, our
sons, to see and for our kids tosee.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
And that's the hard part is is it's going unless?
Unless today's dads step up anddo something different,
tomorrow's grandfathers andfathers are going to have more
of the same.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Amaro's grandfathers and fathers are going to have
more of the same.
Yeah, it's awful man, it's sadand it's disconcerting, and so,
yeah, I hate ending it on kindof a negative note, but I think
that's just the reality of thesituation, of what we're in in
(47:17):
the battle Again we go back tosome of this language is we as
men, have abdicated some of this, this battle and this
responsibility in our, in oursociety, and it's incumbent upon
us to really turn this aroundand step up and have to do
something.
And that means, even if you aredemoralized, even if you are
(47:39):
struggling and barely hanging onthat you are doing something,
even if it is a little bit ofsomething, to to change the
course, maybe even just apercentage with, if it's just
your family, to to make somechange.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
And so there's two things that men can do about
that.
There's one you can take Mark'scourse and go learn how to talk
to legislatures and legislatorsand try and make change on a
societal level.
Absolutely, you can do ityourself.
You can like.
Go take dad's law school.
It's $97 a month and it's goingto teach you how to represent
(48:15):
yourself in family court, how towrite your declaration, how to
start arguing for yourself, howto prove to the judge that
you're a great dad, and the goalthere is you're educating the
judge on what good dads looklike.
Just like we said earlier, thejudges learn from all these
experts.
You come in at year one andthen at year four.
Hopefully, they've had goodexperts and learned to get
(48:36):
better.
If the judges are starting tosee more dads show up on a
regular basis with gooddeclarations showing what
they're doing, the judges'perceptions of men are going to
change.
Fighting for yourself isfighting for everyone else.
It's fighting for tomorrow'sdads.
It's fighting for yourgrandkids.
That's why they need to do this, and when they get into dad's
(49:00):
law school and they come to ourgroup and they come to our
meetups and they come to ourwhatsapp group and they start
sharing what they find is theemotional support that allows
them to do the battle to getmore time with their kids.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
that's the whole point of dad's law school well
said so, david, I know you'vegot a boot camp coming up.
Tell us a little bit about that.
I don't know if it's too latefor guys to get involved with
that, and then also where elsethat they can get involved with
you and reach you.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Sure, the Dad's Badass Boot Camp is a one-day
event where we're teaching dadshow to do exactly what I said
how to show up, gather yourevidence, argue to the court.
In one day I'm going to showyou the things you need to do so
that you can go in andrepresent yourself in a much
stronger position.
The best place to learn how todo that is at dadslawschoolcom.
Very top.
(49:48):
We've got a big red bar.
Just click on that.
Next bootcamp's coming up isMarch 22nd, and then we're
looking to do February, probablySeptember.
We're looking to do FloridaSeptember, october.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Okay, awesome.
So check that out, gentlemen.
Get connected with David.
Take the bootcamp, even ifyou've got an attorney and I
tell guys this all the timeyou've got to get up to speed on
the process, the system, thestatutes so that you can have
intelligent conversations withyour attorney, and not all
attorneys are as great as David.
Get up to speed on the process,the system, the statute so that
you can have intelligentconversations with your attorney
, and not all attorneys are asgreat as David.
(50:21):
It's just like any professionthat you need to know what's
going on, so you need to getyourself educated.
So even spending $97 just toknow and get prepared with all
of what David has will help youand help the attorney.
It's actually going to save youmoney in the long run because
you're not going to have Iguarantee you that you're not
(50:41):
going to have a third of an hourof questions for your attorney.
That will pay for the $97 thatit costs to be part of David's
group, and so it's money thatyou're going to get an infinite
like way more return oninvestment on that and it might
(51:02):
not seem like that, I knowthings might be tight, but I can
tell you that's going to helpyou immensely and it's going to
be a long-term thing, guys,because if you're, especially if
you're dealing with somebodythat is high conflict, you're
going to need to know, andthat's so.
I learned it all the hard wayright Over almost 12 years now
in being in court and doing thisand going, and seven different
(51:22):
attorneys and that stuff,because I didn't do something
like I'm describing right nowand there wasn't something like
what David had out there for me12 years ago to to learn.
So, absolutely positively, getinvolved and and and get up to
speed.
David, thank you so much forbeing here.
God bless you for the work thatyou're doing with the guys and
(51:43):
the dads and hopefully maybe wecan get together again soon and
maybe do this regularly withsome more advice, because you've
got so many pearls of wisdomfor us and we didn't even we're
almost an hour in and we didn'ttouch on like nearly enough.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
So thank you.
I appreciate you to come backanytime thank you take care
cheers.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com