Crazy people also lose in court

Someone pointed out that I could lose custody if I am crazy, even if I never committed a criminal act. But no one is accusing me of being crazy.

The closest thing to such an accusation is that my wife asked the court:

At this time, I believe the court will need to set temporary custody and visitation orders, along with support and refer the matter out to a Full Evaluation, including a Psychological Evaluation of Father.

She supported this by saying that I have an "addiction" to my computers, and by providing an "illustration of his psychological state". That consisted of accusing me of telling our kids that she is suing for custody, and that I had refused to assume some of her debts. She was, in fact, suing for "sole legal custody" of the kids. I guess that she didn't want them to know what she was doing.

In papers to the court shrink, she said:

5. Suggested solution: George attends parenting classes to develop skills to appropriately supervise and parent the girls. He should also attend counseling to address his computer addiction.

That is what the shrink ordered, more or less.

What she calls my "computer addiction" is what I call working for a living. I am a computer programmer. I earn a living by sitting at a computer for long hours and writing computer programs. It is bad enough that she devalues my parenting, but she belittles everything that I have done to support the family. She wants me to stop working, and still find the money to pay her thousands of dollars in child and spousal support. And she convinced the shrink that I am the one who needs psychological counseling!

A lawyer has just advised me that angry people also lose in court. He says that the courts make a lot of people angry, but judges hate anyone who shows any anger and they go out of their way to punish it. He advises his clients to act like docile lambs in the courthouse.

Another reader writes:

Doesn't he also advise them to get a haircut and shave????

Going into court looking like you do seems like a self-defeating act to me. Or are you consciously trying to fit your appearance into the picture of a lunatic that your wife has painted for you?

Hey, this isn't a clean fight, so go for every advantage. Shave, get a haircut, wear clean clothes, and act like a normal, clean-cut Silicon Valley geek!

Think "I'm going to play Mr. Nice Guy, not Burt Reynolds, at my next court appearance!"

Yeah, my kids even tell me to shave my beard. It is on my to do list.

When the Soviet Union sentenced Natan Sharansky to the Siberian gulag, did you argue that he just needed to trim his unusually long sideburns?