295 - Amicable Is Not A Strategy, It’s A Setup

The custody battle isn’t decided by a gavel—it’s decided in the quiet hours between court dates. We break down the decision gap, the stretch of weeks where messages, handoffs, and “temporary” deals stack into the patterns a judge will actually see. If you’ve ever fired off a heated text, argued on a porch during pickup, or let a holiday slide without a makeup day, you’ve felt the drift: the slow erosion of paternal authority that turns well‑meaning compromises into a new status quo.

We pull back the curtain on how family court rewards preparation, pattern, and restraint—not sentiment—and show you how to build a defensible record of being the steady parent. You’ll hear a composite case of “Mark,” a devoted dad who moved out to “lower the temperature” and months later faced an attorney arguing his limited time proved lack of involvement. From there, we walk through practical tools: BIFF communication to avoid traps, a command center for logging exchanges and decisions, and a clear method to grant flexibility only with documented reciprocity.

Expect specific plays you can run today: set up a dedicated communication channel that time‑stamps every message, pre‑write calm responses for predictable provocations, document holiday swaps with equal makeup time, and push for temporary orders that reflect true involvement. We also talk about the power of community—learning from dads who’ve already navigated these pitfalls—and why shifting from hope to an operational end state is the move that protects your role for the long haul.

Being unprepared is how great fathers become weekend visitors. Most ground is lost quietly through "drift" and decisions made under pressure. Stop the drift today at TheDivorcedDadvocate.com.

Access your tactical tools:

• Risk Assessment: Identify your "quiet loss" exposure in 10 minutes.
• Protection Session: Book a private triage to ensure mistakes don’t become permanent.

Your kids are counting on you.

Chapters

• 1:41 Framing The Stakes For Fathers
• 3:32 Decision Gap: Where Cases Are Won
• 6:04 Text Traps And Volatile Communication
• 8:35 Court Priorities: Pattern Over Feelings
• 11:47 Defining Drift And The Nice Guy Trap
• 14:40 Mark’s Story And Status Quo Risk
• 20:42 Spotting Quiet Loss In Real Time
• 24:26 Weekend Visitor Risk Assessment
• 27:05 Building Your Command Center
• 30:21 Restraint In Handoffs And Holidays

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Hello and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for tuning in again this week. We are going to be talking about closing the decision gap and stopping the drift. Gentlemen, most fathers don't lose their kids in a courtroom. They don't lose them because of a judge's gavel or because of the brilliant closing argument of opposing counsel. You lose them quietly. You lose them in the silence of a Tuesday night. You lose them in a text message sent at 2 a.m. in a moment of desperate anger. You lose them in a quote unquote temporary agreement that they that you signed because you just wanted to quote unquote lower the temperature for the kids. Fellas, welcome back to Strategic Defense for Fathers. This is your command center, like we talked about last week. This is where we are providing the mission critical intelligence you need to navigate the most dangerous, and I'm not kidding, the most dangerous transition of your life. Now, last week we introduced this new messaging of the community. We talked about how being unprepared is how great fathers become weekend visitors. And we talked about how this community and myself and this podcast helps to ensure that your mistakes do not become your permanent reality. So today, what I want to do is I want to go a little bit deeper into some of the concepts that we talked about and that I shared with you last week. We're going to unpack the two forces, the two main forces that are working against you right now. Forces that are designed to extract you from your children's lives while you're distracted by the quote unquote amicable lie. And just remember that word amicable and keep that into the back of your mind because I hear it all the time. I heard it on our group call this weekend a lot. And that's why I'm prompted to talk about this today and go into more detail. We're going to talk about the decision gap and we're going to talk about the drift. If you don't understand these two concepts, you're you're not just at risk. You're already in the process of being erased. And you might think that is an inflammatory phrase, but I've got a story I'm going to share with you a little bit about one of the guys that showed up for the first time on our call this weekend and pretty much came to the realization that that's happening for him. So let's uh let's start out with the decision gap, the the war, if you will, between dates. Your lawyer is a creature of the court. They live in 15-minute increments of billable time, fellas. They are thinking about you and they are focused on you when they are billing you. They are focused on your hearings, your motions, and your depositions. But here's the reality: your lawyer's not going to share with you. Your case isn't decided on those dates. I'm sorry, they're just not gonna, that's not their mindset. When your case is decided, it is in the 60 or 90 days or whatever time frame that it takes for you to get your divorce complete between those court days. And that is what I am calling the decision gap. It's the space between the filings where the quiet hours, the quote unquote quiet hours, right, when you're not in court, uh, are happening. And this is where patterns form and evidence takes shape. And I'm gonna say that again. So these quiet hours during where this decision gap happens is where patterns form and evidence takes shape. So think about it this way. Here's an example. You're at work, your your phone goes off, it's a text message from your soon-to-be ex or your ex. She's blowing up your phone, she's calling you names, she's bringing up your father and all the stuff that you've shared with her in intimate times. She's telling you the kids, quote, don't want to come over this weekend because your place is depressing, end quote, whatever other BS she's she's floating out there, right? And you start to feel it, right? It's this emotion, heat in your chest, hurt, insult, and then you respond. You send maybe a five-paragraph essay defending yourself, or maybe it's just an F you because you've had enough, right? In that moment, you think you're defending your honor, it might make you feel better, but in reality, you just filled the decision gap with a data point of let's call it quote unquote volatile communication. Your lawyer didn't manage that. Your divorce coach didn't manage that. Your therapist didn't manage that, you managed it, and you failed. Every interaction you have during the decision gap is a tactical maneuver. The court system doesn't care about your heart. It does not care that you were a quote-unquote good dad for 10 years. It cares about pattern, it cares about consistency, and it cares about restraint or being reasonable, right? If you are unprepared, the decision gap is a minefield where your intuition becomes your worst enemy, right? Your lawyer will protect your rights. That is what their job is. That is their important job, definitely an important job, but your strategic defense protects your role as a father. So let me just let me just clarify that. Your lawyer is protecting your rights and your rights in court. You, it is incumbent upon you and creating a street strategic defense to protect your role as a father. And if you aren't managing the decision gap with a command center mindset, you're essentially letting your soon-to-be or your ex-spouse's attorney write the script for your future. A future that, depending on how old your kiddos are, could be for the next one or two decades. That is a very long time. Let's address the drift, the passive eradication of paternal authority. This is the silent killer. Drift is the passive process where you gradually lose ground through the accumul through the this is a tongue twister, where you lose ground through the accumulation of small, seemingly insignificant compromises. It's the quote unquote nice guy trap. And if you're a nice guy, or if you're accommodating, or you're trying to be that word that I said earlier, amicable. It's the belief that if you just quote unquote play along or are quote unquote flexible, everything will eventually work out just fine. But let me tell you a story. And it's a story about it's actually well, it's actually a story about lots of dads that I've seen in the community, but I'm just gonna call him Mark because it's a conglomeration of lots of dads. But Mark was a great dad. He coached the sports teams, he did bathtime, he cooked, he was a phenomenal, phenomenal father. When his wife asked for a divorce, he was absolutely devastated. He didn't want one. He tried to get her to go to therapy, she refused. And so what happened was she filed divorce, which is what happens with 70 plus percent of divorce cases, is the woman files for divorce. She told him, then she told him, hey, Mark, it's very stressful in the house right now for the kids. Why don't you go stay at your brother's house for a few weeks? We can figure out a parenting time schedule a little bit later. Mark, even though he is devastated, is a nice guy. He's amicable. He wanted to be supportive and he wanted to quote unquote lower the temperature, right? So he packed a bag, he left, went to his brothers. He was seeing the kids on Saturday at the park. He was still going to games and and and visiting and being supportive. That was week one. In week three, he asked to have them overnight because he got his own place. She said, Well, you know what? The kids are still adjusting, Mark. Let's just keep it simple for now. Don't be difficult. You know, that let's just keep it status quo. Mark didn't want to be difficult. He wanted to keep it amicable, right? There's that word, that word. And so he agreed. This is what I mean by drift. So fast forward six months and they're in court. Mark is, they have no temporary, they put together no temporary uh arrangement or agreements. They've been going back and forth. They can't come to an agreement on parenting time. He wants 50-50, and now they're at trial. His ex-wife's attorney looks at the judge and says, Your Honor, for the last six months, the children have lived primarily with their mother. The father moved out volunteering voluntarily. He has only seen them for a few hours on Saturdays. The children are stable. Why would we disrupt their lives now for a father who clearly wasn't that involved? Well, Mark shocked. He was trying to be nice. He was amicable. But friends, the court doesn't reward nice. It does not remore, it does not reward amicable, it rewards status quo. And so this is just an example. I use Mark, I see it and I hear it all of the time in the community. Drift happens when silence is interpreted as agreement. It happens when flexibility becomes precedent. It happens when you allow quote unquote temporary compromises to quietly become your permanent reality. By the time you realize you're drifting, you're already miles, miles away from the shore. And your parenting time has been cut in half, if you're lucky, actually. There were guys on the on the call this week at 30 and percent or less. So that is a reality too. So uh your parent, that's when your parenting time gets that gets cut, guys. So what are the tactical tools that that you can utilize? If you're listening to this and you just felt a gut punch, or you just had a light bulb go off, or whatever reality is helping you to go, holy crap, I've been drifting, or that you've been losing the battle in that decision gap. You need to stop hoping and you need to stop and you need to start operating. Stop hoping, start operating. I know this might seem counterintuitive and it might seem challenging for you. But the first thing you have to do is identify your exposure points. Most dads don't realize they are at risk until the pattern is already set. And that's where we had a guy on the call this weekend in our in our in our tactical briefing, we're calling it now on Saturdays, who showed up. We had about eight or nine guys, I think, on the on the call, and he started to describe his situation. And there were about three or four guys that were like, Whoa, hold on. And then they started asking more questions, and then they said, Is she doing this? Is she doing that? Is she doing that? And he said, Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And they said, All right, you need to pay attention because, and then some of the guys shared their stuff, and and then, but we then talked him through why he is already in a pattern that is put him at risk. Well, we scared the shit out of him, unfortunately a little bit, but that wasn't that wasn't our attention. What we wanted him to do was to wake up, which is what he what he what he did. And so now he now we're gonna we're you know we're gonna work with him to figure out getting away from this decision gap and this mostly the the the drift that was happening. This is a uh very similar circumstance, although not exactly what I just described with Mark. So I want to give you a tool. Um, I created uh on the website and the new design website, a weekend visitor risk assessment. And I want you to go to the website and I want you to check it out. That's gonna be part of your homework later. In 10 minutes, the assessment will help you to identify what I'm calling your quiet loss exposure across six critical zones, six critical uh parenting zones. And it's gonna give you a personalized risk score. So you're gonna get something in your email immediately. It's gonna break it all down, it's gonna give you uh what your score is, and it's gonna give you an interpretation of that score. And and what this is gonna help you to do is identify where you can stop before these temporary mistakes become permanent. So check out it, check it out at thedivorcedavicate.com. That's our that's our our community websites. But identification itself isn't enough. You need also what I described last week as a command center. Listen, our divorces are a high-stakes transition. It's an operational crisis. You wouldn't run your business or your department on vibes and hope. So let me ask you, why are you running your fatherhood that way or the future of your fatherhood that way? A command center is your physical and digital environment designed to support mission critical restraint. It means having a dedicated way to communicate with your soon-to-be ex or your ex, which is huge, that has an impact. It means having high conflict emotional regulation, which, fellas, this is incredibly hard because if you haven't practiced it, and what I mean practice it, unless you have been in some sort of high pressure job, high pressure military training, you have no idea how to deal with high conflict emotional regulation. So that when your soon to be your when your wife or your or your ex pushes your buttons, and trust me, she will push your buttons, you are able to respond with the calm authority of a man who knows exactly what he's doing. We're moving you from being a reactive hot mess to executing a strategic defense blueprint. This is about what I describe as parental authority upskilling. Parental authority being your parental authority as a father and how you are able to upskill that. You're transitioning from being supportive, which you may have gone into this divorce thinking that, to being a protective guide for your children. I know that might be a difficult mindset shift for you, but I'll tell you, just like the guy this weekend who showed up on our call, had that shift happen immediately when he heard some of the stories from some of the guys that were on the call talking, but then also when some of his risk points were pointed out to him in the course of us sharing with him and uh helping him to put together that uh strategic defense blueprint and think about that. So so let me let me share with you some some other relatable case studies and and and talk about really what that looks like on the ground for you. Because if it hasn't clicked yet in what I'm telling you about this, about this drift and about this decision gap, then then maybe these stories will make you go, oh, okay, yeah. This is I I'm experienced this. Example, you're supposed to pick up the kids at 6 p.m. You're five minutes late because traffic was hell. If you're in like a big city like I am, or or if you live in Denver, Colorado, like I do, and the traffic's horrible and the drivers are bad. You know, it's a nightmare all the time. So you pull up, and your ex or your or your soon-to-be ex is standing on the porch with their arms crossed. Kids are inside, and she gets on you immediately. You're always late. You don't respect my time. The kids were crying because they thought you weren't coming. Now, you know the kids weren't crying, right? Okay. And you know that you were only five minutes late, which, okay, that's pretty much everybody in the world's grace period. Uh, and but you want to defend yourself and you want to point out all the times that she was late or all the crappy stuff that she's done. That is the moment of your decision gap. If you drift, you get into an argument on the porch. The kids hear it, she records it. Now she has quote unquote evidence of conflict to use against you in mediation or in court. Now, if you use strategic defense, you've created your strategic defense blueprint, you do something else. You master your restraint, you don't engage, you offer a simple, I apologize for the delay. I'm here now, let's get the kids. Brief, informative, friendly, but firm, right? Biff. You document the exchange yourself in your command center. You remain calm, defensible, and authoritative, which is what you need to be as a dad. Another example, the holiday drift. I've experienced this one. She asks if she can keep the kids for an extra day during Christmas because her quote unquote entire family is finally together. Hallelujah. You want to be, here's that word again, amicable. So you say yes, but you don't ask for a makeup day in return because you're a nice guy, right? You don't update the schedule. Next year, she does it again. By year three, that extra day is now quote unquote her day, right? By custom and practice, you drifted. You lost 24 hours of influence because you were too afraid to be strategic and get that day in return. Gentlemen, your kids are counting on you to be the anchor. They're counting on you to be the leader. And you cannot lead if you're drifting. You cannot protect them if you're losing your role in that decision gap. The system and we're gonna talk about uh securing your role, right? Okay. The system is designed to exploit the unprepared. What it does is it rewards preparation, pattern, and restraint. So let me say that again. And when I say system, I mean the family court system. The family court system is designed to exploit the unprepared. You listen to Alex talk a couple of weeks ago about his uh book and and uh and about being strategic and how the court is not based upon justice, and it's not based upon uh anything other than efficiency. So, in that mindset, it rewards preparation, pattern, and restraint. So if you're just surviving your divorce, you're already failing. And and this, I know that's hard, that might cut to the heart, guys. I know that's hard to hear because there is an element of so much overwhelm that goes on during this process because you've never been through it, and it is all foreign and it is very overwhelming. But I I assure you and I implore you that you need to transition from hope to a non-negotiable, a non-negotiable operational end state. And that's and I mean, there's just no other way, no other way to say it. You are a committed father, you want to stay deeply involved, but you're sensing the ground is shifting and you don't want to guess anymore. So let's take this guesswork out of it for you. This is for you if you understand that preparation beats. Reaction every single time. So let's get to your mission work for this week. First, like I mentioned, I need for you, and you need for you to identify where you are drifting, where you're making these quote unquote temporary compromises that are starting to feel permanent. Where have you been too nice or accommodating or amicable at the expense of your parental authority? Write it down, journal on it, reflect on it, talk to other dads about it. That is a really, really good reference point and feedback source to ask about these kinds of these kinds of things, especially dads that are divorced and have been through it. And then what I want you to do is to start identifying where you can cook where you can close the gap. First step can be to take that weekend visitor risk assessment that we've got at the website at thedivorced advocate.com. You're going to get that score, it's going to give you an analysis and an interpretation, and then you're going to see kind of where you're exposed. So I'm so serious about identifying this stuff for you guys so that you can get pointed in the right direction wherever that might be, so that this any of this stuff doesn't happen to you. And then the next thing is to execute the strategy. So the the scrap the strategy could be to join our command center, right? So it might be to join the community. We have like these meetings, we have on a regular regular basis, we have about five or six meetings a month that are that are going on that are strategic uh around this. Really, what I was describing to the guys this weekend about this whole mindset shift is that we have a after so the the community has been together after five years of so many guys, when we've got guys that are still on our calls from that have been on for five years, there is a collective intelligence that is that is part of the hundreds of guys that have that are in the community, have been through the community across the world, that listen to this podcast, that show up, that email that that is part of this that we're able to share. So when if you go to the website and you scroll all the way down, there is the the command center. That's the membership site. Get involved there as well. There are all kinds of resources on the backside in the command center, replays of all of the uh all of the meetings that you can go through. Those are the biggest gold. We've got the app with all of the the do it uh the the self-guided uh courses, etc. Join the command center and get involved with the alliance of all these other guys with the collective intelligence. All right. Look, guys, I'm gonna close it out with the fact that that your kids need their father. You hear me say it. I try to say it every week. Maybe I haven't in a few weeks. There is no greater impact on whether or not your children are gonna grow up to be healthy and functioning adults as to whether or not you are involved in their lives. They do not need a weekend visitor or a lodger who sees them for pizza on Saturdays or every other weekend. They need a permanent, influential presence who leads them with strength and restraint. That's why I founded the Divorced Advocate. This is your guide, and we are here to help ensure that your mistakes do not become your permanent reality. But again, the first step, the first maneuver, if you will, is going to be yours. So if you found some value, go to the divorced advocate, check it out, start with the the the quit or with the risk assessment, and then share this with all other guys that you know that either are going through a dwarf divorce or even if they are post-divorce, because we get tons of guys jumping into the community post-divorce that are that didn't have this information, that don't know, that have drifted, that are dealing with this decision gap, and are having immense amounts of problems because they were not strategic in their divorce and getting through that. So share this far and wide. Leave us a star rating, please, or a comment that really, really, really helps us. So, fellas, thank you so much. I sincerely appreciate you being here this week. Have a terrific week and God bless.