Don’t Lose By Being Too Nice! – Dacorsi Placencio P.C.

There is an old saying that “nice guys finish last”.  I can’t entirely agree with that statement. Nice guys are wonderful husbands, and fathers and friends. They are the first to help you in need and will come to bail you out at 2:00 am.  They coach their kids’ baseball teams, go to the father/daughter dances and secretly go get you Starbucks in the morning before you get out of bed.  However, being “nice” in court, especially in divorce court, doesn’t always work.  Being “nice” in the litigation process is often viewed as “weak”. And once an opposing party or attorney sees you as being weak, they up the ante in terms of their settlement demands.
Suddenly, the support you were paying, without a court order becomes insufficient, or the parenting time you gave up for a special weekend event becomes a regular demand. It is better for everyone involved if BOTH parties engage in a give-and-take, but usually, when one party loses in divorce court, it’s because they were too nice for too long and it backfired.
For example, let’s take a father who doesn’t demand equal parenting time when his kids are old enough for such a schedule. He feels that the children need time to acclimate to two households and that his wife will give him the time in three to six months when the kids are “ready”. Well guess what, that three to six months, according to the wife has now become the status quo and when the father DOES finally seek equal parenting time, he is likely to lose in Court because the kids are now “settled into a routine” and mom claims “they are functioning just fine on the reduced parenting time schedule”.  Father loses for being nice, and the kids lose for father being nice. Being “nice” when it comes to your first custody order is not the correct time. You can be nice AFTER you have the 50-50 parenting order. You can be nice once your rights and responsibilities are established.
People are going to read this article and think it is too negative and promotive of acrimony and litigation. That is not true. Anyone can agree to a 50-50 custody order the day after a case gets filed. Why not everyone “be nice” and enter into such an order from day one? The reason is self-evident.
For more information on your custody case, call SuperLawyer of the Year and Ultimate Female Attorney award winner Denise Lite, Esq., at 877-317-8080. Your divorce and your children deserve the very best.