Judge Kelly's ruling

My ex-wife tries to claim that there have already been court findings that I am a bad father, and tries to quote Judge Kelly in support of her request for sole legal custody of our kids. Actually, she made all of those arguments at trial on March 25, and here is an excerpt from Judge Kelly's concluding remarks:

THE COURT: Right, with one of these these people will help me get a sense of you more than I can get from just an hour on the stand or something. These are really skilled people. They're there to help their clients. They're not there to snitch to the Court for returning fees. These people are really good. That's why they're on the list and they will have a sense of you that they can communicate back to me that might give Mother, give me the assurance that we can go right to D and get you guys back on a fifty fifty time line here. ... If you're well, it will give me information I need to make a good call on this because I do want to go to 50 percent but I have to be assured that this is in the best interests of the kids. I think if you go to this counseling regiment it will be. You can get there. … If things are going well I'll tell you. I will go to D, okay, fifty fifty time share.

Plan "D" is 5-2-2-5, a 50-50 time-share plan. The "list" consisted of Jay Goodman, Ph.D., Jay Muccilli, Ph.D., CJ Neustadter, LMFT, Sheilah Seigel, Ph.D., Judy Zappacosta, LCSW. My ex-wife had requested that I see someone on the list.

Judge Kelly said that the switch back to 50-50 custody is supposed to benefit her as well:

THE COURT: This is written for Mother too is because she desperately, I'm sure, wants to be out in the work force and once she gets employment she is going to be real busy and parenting time is she's going to be torn a lot of directions trying to have a career and with these children. She's really going to need you to step up at the plate here, so this is a win win here. Like I say, once she has full employment then it's going to be really critical that you guys are working as a team. [March 25, 2005, p.121]

So when my ex-wife claims that the trial evidence "overwhelmingly validates and substantiates" her concerns, she is ignoring the actual findings at the trial. The judge did not find me at fault in any of the issues being tried. He merely sent me to a court-approved expert in order to get some further assurances.