299 - If You Accept Less Parenting Time Today You May Keep It Forever

“Temporary” sounds like a pause button, but in family court it can be the moment your entire custody future gets decided. We unpack why early temporary custody orders and emergency motions matter so much for dads, especially when the other parent is gatekeeping or pushing a high-conflict divorce strategy that slowly erases your parenting time. If you have been thinking, “I’ll accept less time now and fix it at trial,” this conversation is your wake-up call.

We walk through the decision gap, that long stretch between filing and final orders, where judges often default to efficiency and protect the status quo. That means whatever schedule is happening can become the “stable” pattern the court is reluctant to disrupt later. We explain how filing quickly can stop the drift, create an enforceable framework, and set a 50-50 custody precedent that experts and judges are more likely to adopt.

We also get direct about false allegations: how the system flips into protection mode, how slow investigations can trap you in limbo, and why an expedited hearing can bring facts into the light. We cover the preponderance of evidence standard, the practical “51% rule,” and why requesting a neutral evaluator early can keep claims from hardening into the court’s story. You will leave with a tactical script to use with your attorney to pursue a 50-50 status quo and clear communication boundaries.

If you want more grounded, actionable guidance for navigating family court as a father, subscribe, share this with a dad who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Word Temporary

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Hello, and welcome back to the show. I sincerely appreciate you being here today. And, dads, we are going to talk about a word that is probably the most understood and for sure the most dangerous word in the entire family court vocabulary. That word is temporary. Most dads I talk to think that a temporary order is just a placeholder. They often will describe to me, oh, I'm just agreeing to this every other weekend schedule for now, just to lower the temperature, be amicable, and then we'll fight for 50-50 during the negotiations or at mediations or at our final hearing in 6 or 12 or whatever time frame it might be from now. And let me tell you right now, that mindset is exactly how great dads lose parenting times, how great how great dads lose parenting time and end up with limited to no parenting time. In this system, temporary is the blueprint for permanent. Temporary is the blueprint for permanent. If you're dealing with a high conflict X, or even worse, someone who is weaponizing false allegations, you can't afford to wait until the end. You can't afford to wait until a final hearing or final trial. You need to establish a pattern on day number one. So what we're gonna do today is I'm gonna unpack why you must pursue emergency orders or temporary orders immediately and how to use them as a shield against the chaos. Now, you've heard me talk about the decision gap recently. That is this critical stretch, the critical stretch of time between when you file and when you finally stand in front of a judge for your final orders. And this gap can last six months, most best case scenario, but can even last a year or even longer, 18 months. I've heard guys two or three years in their divorce process, depending on what jurisdiction you're in. And here's what I need you to understand is the court system is built for efficiency. The court system is not built for nuanced justice. And judges are looking for the path of least resistance. And what is their favorite tool? It is called something, it is it's something called status quo. So I'm caught I'm calling this what it what I describe as the efficiency default. So if you go six months without any formalized orders, and say your ex has been gatekeeping the kids, meaning you only see them when she desires it or when she says so, the court is going to look at that pattern and say, well, the kids have been living this way for half a year, they're stable, why should we disrupt this now? And what a temporary order does is it stops this drift, it creates a legal framework that prevents the other side from unilaterally deciding when you get to be a father. And without it, you're at the mercy of someone who may be trying to erase your role. So pursuing a temporary order within the first 45 to 60 days can set a precedent. And if that precedent works, the court is highly inclined to just copy and paste that or adopt that into the final orders. And even if they have experts, experts are more inclined to recommend that for their final recommendation, which then leads to the judge utilizing those experts' opinions in making that final offer. So don't wait for the trial or wait for the for the very end to find your footing. You need to establish the ground you intend to keep right now. Now, let's talk about the nightmare scenario, false allegations. And unfortunately, we get a ton of guys in the community on calls, on calls, emailing me most every single day about these false allegations. This is a playbook and it's kind of it's textbook at this point that I'm able to see this. But abuse, neglect, substance misuse, the scorched earth tactics are designed to get you sidelined, to get you sidelined immediately. It's to throw you off the game. When an allegation is made, the system is going to automatically default to protection modes. So what does this mean? It means that it's going to restrict your access until things are quote unquote investigated. And when I say investigated in quotes, that is a loose, loose term. I just before I got on this podcast, got a text from a client with a letter of closing the investigation on the uh on the uh the child protection services, and they found they found no instances or or nothing wrong with with the insane crazy case that that he's got going on. It's just it's literally the twilight zone. So if you just sit back and wait for CPS or local department to clear your name, you are entering an absolute black hole of administrative rot. Remember, these agencies run like the post office. I don't know if you've been to the post office lately or you've tried to send stuff through mail, they lose files, they miss signs, and they are perpetually overwhelmed. So what is the counteroffensive to this? This is where the emergency motions or temporary orders, if you need to go to that extent, becomes your primary defense. If your access is restricted based on a lie, you don't just wait it out. You need to file an expedited hearing. Again, that can be an emergency motion, that can be a temporary hearing. In many jurisdictions, if there is an emergency motion to restrict parenting time, the court is required to hold an evidentiary hearing within 14 days. Here in Colorado, it's 21 days, uh, depending on your jurisdiction. This is your chance to bring the truth into the light. At this emergency hearing or temporary hearing, the burden is usually a preponderance of evidence. You've heard me talking about that recently also. That's the 51% rule I talk about. It's not that you need clear and convincing evidence to get your time back. It's that you just need to show the judge that your version of events is more likely than her narrative. Use this window to request a neutral evaluator. And we're still talking in the context of if false allegations are happening, right? Getting a professional involved during this phase can provide an unbiased assessment that refutes claims before they have time to calcify in the judge's mind. Again, the playbook around this, because it is a standard of preponderance of uh a standard of a preponderance of evidence, is they're throwing this stuff at you, not only to distract you and put you off your game, but also to create just that little bit, shred of a doubt or or concern in a judge's mind. And that's why guys get waylaid all of the time in this process when somebody uses this scorched earth, this scorched earth way in which conduct they conduct themselves in the divorce process. So high conflict situations, this in this, what I'm just describing, is when things thrive. They thrive in this decision gap because there's no there are no rules in this. You are guilty until you're proven innocent. And without an order, your ex can cancel a visit at the last minute, can change the pickup spot, refuse to answer your calls. There's virtually no consequences. So that is why you need to get the emergency motion or the temporary orders in place because you're in a state of limbo. And not only is that terrible for you because you don't get to see your kids, it's terrible for your kids. They're using something that is absolutely false and they're keeping them from you, which is a terrible, terrible thing. So it is incumbent upon you. You've got to take action. You excuse me. And so what you need to do is you need to create the referee. So, in and the way I describe it is you you need to utilize something as an instrument to get what you need done. And that instrument is the court. A temporary order or an emergency motion orders or that order will turn the judge into a referee. And once that order is signed, those suggestions about your parenting time become law. And if she violates the schedule, it's contempt of court. If she continues to make false reports after an order is in place, she's the one who loses credibility and in some jurisdictions can end up going to jail criminally because it's a felony to do that. So just know you need to codify this stuff as quickly as pro as quickly as possible. The system rewards the parent who respects the process. And by securing a temporary order or getting a ruling on an emergency motion, you're forcing the high conflict party into a box of accountability, which is exactly what they don't want, because they're working, they're working on all of these, all they're working all of these loopholes that Robert Garza talked to us about months ago in the system that don't allow that that don't have any accountability for them. So they can keep exposing them and manipulating them to their advantage. You're essentially giving so so this is the thing, then, is you're essentially giving them enough rope to show the court exactly who they are, all while you're remaining calm and consistent and defend and defensible leader of your case. And so the problem I see many times and with many dads is they fall into the nice guy trap here. They think that by not pushing for the emergency motion or full temporary orders, they're being reasonable or they're being amicable. Amical. They think they will make the divorce go faster. And it's the exact opposite. High conflict parties see amicable as a weakness, and they will never stop at just one thing. They will use your lack of structure to push you further and further to the margins. If you give them an inch, they're gonna take a mile, and they will keep doing that. And I and I and I highly recommend, dads, that if this is the the circumstances and the case that you are experiencing right now, to just pause and think back through the history of your relationship, if that is in fact true, and then you're going to know and understand. You may not have recognized it before now, but if you if you pause and you think back, that's probably the relational dynamic that you've been experiencing. And you do not want to perpetuate this this going any further in post-divorce and for maybe the next 20 years in your co-parenting with this individual. So, what is the tactical script? When you're in your attorney's office, do not ask them, what do you think will happen? Because that is subjective, right? And every attorney, based upon his subjective experiences, is going to have something different that you're gonna that they're gonna tell you. You can ask 10 of them, you're probably gonna get nine different answers. Maybe if you get two of them to say the same thing, that would be amazing. What you need to tell them is I want to file a motion to establish a 50-50 status quo and define communication boundaries immediately. I'll say that again. You want to tell your attorney, I want to file a motion. It can be an emergency motion, it can be a temporary orders motion, it depends on what your circumstances and what's going on. But I want to file a motion to establish a 50-50 status quo and define communication boundaries immediately. You have to be the primary strategist. Your attorney is there to file the paperwork, lead you through the legal process. They know and understand that better than anybody else. They are an important, important piece and player in your divorce team, but you have to be the one to say no to informal agreements that don't protect your role. Temporary orders are your strategic defense blueprint in action. They provide financial stability, defining who pays what bills, and they also define parenting stability, defining when you are on duty, if you will, or when you are getting parenting time. This structure, I promise you, is going to lower your stress, and it's going to lower your children's stress. When things are chaotic, and when somebody is doing this to you and creating this circumstance and this environment where the children are uncertain, they're not seeing their father, it creates stress on them, which makes so so by lowering their stress, lowering your stress, it's going to make you a better father. And it's going to make a more make you a more composed witness, frankly, in court if you are not stressed out about this stuff. So no one's going to hand you this justice on a silver on the silver platter, no matter when your when your case goes to trial, even if it's as quickly as six months or as long as two years. You, and I want you to listen closely to this too, guys. This is probably the second most second most important thing I want you to hear. You win your case in the quiet hours of the temporary phase. So you win your case when you're not in court, when you're strategizing and you're doing the right things before you go to court and in preparation for court. So don't let the word temporary fool you into complacency. It's the most high stakes move you can make. It stops the gatekeeping, it provides a venue to fight false allegations, and it establishes the pattern that the judge will eventually make permanent. So stop this drift, dads. Stop waiting for permission to be the active father if you're and if you're ready to move from that state of hope to a non-negotiable operational end state. Go to the website, check out the divorced advocate.com. We've got lots of resources, but in particular, take the weekend visitor risk assessment. It's going to help you to identify where you are exposed. And then you'll have an opportunity for us to sit down, assess that, find out where you're vulnerable, and triage your next steps. So, fellas, the decision gap is closing every day. Every minute, every hour that you wait, this is getting solidified for you. And if you're not doing something about it, then somebody else is doing it for you. So make sure you're the one deciding what happens next. Stay strong, gentlemen. Your kids are counting on you. I appreciate you listening to this this week. If you found some value, please share this far and wide. Social media is great. Share a clip of this, leave us a comment, which is really helpful. At the very least, give us a star rating on whatever podcast platform or whatever platform you might be watching this on. It helps to just get this information out. I know it was for me the same thing that it would be terrific if I had this information, but that's why we put this out there now. So thank you so much. Have a great week and God bless.