He survived three shots at close range from a .38? Tough guy. He deserves better.

I read both of the posts on this and I'm assuming the courts have decided "his son was only a baby at the time, never really knew him, and he can't see so he's not a fit carer. Best to leave him with the guardians that raised him". In other words they've written him off as a father in the name of "best for the child".

None of which explains why the wife is allowed access.

She's a mother Ltw, thats all the courts need. Children need their mommies, daddies not so much.

I wonder if he has to pay child support now that she is released. I am sure she will file a motion to get full custody and with that child support as well and she will get it to boot. And the mainstream media of this country(cnn et la) continues to ignore all this and harp on sharia

That poor kid. The court system is very frustrating. The goal is always reunification with the biological parent no matter how shitty, and yes, for some reason, mother is a god like status. One kid I took in went to live with another friend. His mother was brought into the court room in shackles after violating her probation for the 15th time. The court was still trying to figure out a way to get this kid back with his mother. She slashed herself many times in front of the kid threatening to kill herself but the court felt it was in his best interest to be reunited with that psycho. I'm sure you can find many more stories like the one you posted and the one I told you about.

yeah, lets give custody to moms so they can drown their kids in the bathtub, drive off a bridge into the river, lock them in the trunk while they go party, and kill them and hide the body so they can live their party girl lifestyle. This crap makes me sick. If I did not have custody of my son I would be worrying about him with his whacko mother. What is up with these women who kill their kids so the father can't have custody?

Mike 2, are those cases where the dad fought for custody and lost to the mom? There are many things that can be said about abusive or crazy dads too so why not stick with the issue which is the unfairness in the way the court decides custody issues and the cases where a parent is denied custody based on their gender. Every mom awarded custody is not crazy just as every dad denied custody is not an abuser. Why not fight for more fairness in the system as opposed to using broad generalizations that don't fit many situations. There are times the father is just the better parent and it isn't always because the mom is crazy, abusive, or an addict.

Kristen -

Mike 2's response is based on the fact that in most states merely being the mother is sufficient to grant custody, regardless any other aggravating or extenuating factors. In many states, unless the mother is dead or in prison, she gets primary custody.

Shit, there was that broad who shot her husband in the back with a shotgun (while he slept), watched him die, gathered up her two daughters and fled. She served 6 months, and got custody back.

So there is a fundamental bias in the system that exacerbates the problem of the courts trying to resolve these things in the first place.

Of course, hoping for better people is an effort in futility, so I don't see any improvement coming soon.

If all the facts are as shown here, there is no reason the father would be denied visitation rights. One could, I suppose, argue that he might be unable to care for his children as sole custodial parent, but even that would seem a stretch (we don't assume the blind are incapable of being good parents).

It seems like there must be more to this story that is leading to the foster parents' being able to deny the father visitation. Has he even taken them to court? Without a doubt, the father must lack a competent lawyer (or perhaps lacks a lawyer entirely). But I assume we're missing something here that is being used as justification by the foster parents, or the guy must not be fighting back.

It seems like there must be more to this story that is leading to the foster parents' being able to deny the father visitation. Has he even taken them to court? Without a doubt, the father must lack a competent lawyer (or perhaps lacks a lawyer entirely). But I assume we're missing something here that is being used as justification by the foster parents, or the guy must not be fighting back.

I'm an attorney and used to work for a court which handled a lot of family law issues, and I've been very surprised at the number of fathers who don't fight cases similar to the ones that Amy points to. In almost every case, even ones where the mother was truly and clearly ill, the father will testify that he believes that the child should have a relationship with his/her mother and that the mother should have significant custody of the child because she's the mother.

I'm not trying to discount the struggles of those fathers who have fought hard, but, based on my experiences, I think that they are very much in the minority. I'm not sure why this is, although I expect that some misplaced chivalry possibly bordering on sexism is at play (the beleif that mothers are supposed to be wired to care for children combined with an over-willingness to excuse the mothers' bad behavior because she is less competent or held to lower standards). It's odd, and a difficult situation for the courts, but it's not uncommon.

I don't know if this is the case here but in many states if you don't file for custodial rights within a certain amount of time after their initial termination it can be used as a sign of neglect or at minimum a lack of concern and used against you in a custody battle. So it could be due to being in recovery from bullet wounds, dealing with the death of his mother, etc. this guy took a little longer than they liked suing for custody and it is now being held against him in a sort of "Why do you care now when you didn't before." type of insane philosophy.

And people wonder why men are eschewing the dating pool.

I suspect that there's more here than is being presented as well. Even by this very sympathetic account, the father's demonstrated lack of judgement causes me to wonder whether there isn't something more significant that's playing a role in the custody issue.

Also, as a rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to send the woman who'd killed your mother, and attempted to murder you, 'off color' emails about underage prostitutes while she's in the mental hospital.

y'know, now that the foster parents are invested in having the kid, I'm sure they'll say anything about the father to make sure he can't see the kid. anything. People can be very strange about this sort of thing, when they believe that their POV about what is right for the kid is the only CORRECT pov. We don't say as much about the actual parents, simply because we believe that they are correct in that pov, it's their kid after all. But when the parents are split for whatever reason, most people will bias towards the mother. If the mother is out, THEN they will bias towards the next female that seems to have a stake. I'd have to go looking, but I remember a case in Chicago when I lived there where the wife killed herself, and they gave the kid to the wife's mother instead of her father, simply because they were divorced.

OTOH, I think Lyssa is possibly correct. The guy stood for his supposedly crazy wife in court... I could see where he might believe that she should have some kind of visitation, I could also see where he might think it was better if the kid lived with the foster parents.

It may well be that he is just waiting for his [ex?] wife to come finish the job. He would have every excuse to end her life... perhaps he doesn't want to live anymore either.

Brian, Mike 2's point didn't go over my head. I get that its frustration at the system and some of the more extreme cases. I listed a case I was aware of as well as my belief that it is unfair that mothers have the edge regardless of fitness as a parent. However, broad generalizations that have nothing to do with custody cases don't really accomplish anything. If he wants to vent, then fine, but if he's looking to make a change, then it would be better to stick with facts. One thing I love about Amy's blog is that she is very fact based so while I may disagree with her opinions at times, she usually can make a very factual based argument.

The Westword article mentions that the guardian couple is friends with the mother. I'm sure that's a factor. They've probably justified his shooting in their minds, or have the "Poor Dear, she just wasn't right in the head, she's a really good person," mentality. Since Teresa Lynn killed her mother-in-law, there probably wasn't anyone nearby from Spitz's family that could take the child, or advocate for him- so the baby went to an ally of Lynn's.

It's unlikely that Spitz has the money to fight this. How long was he convalescing? Can you imagine the medical bills he must've had (even with insurance and VA benefits?) Can he work? I doubt that Teresa has anything he can sue her for, and anyway- he'd have to find a lawyer for that, too.

I'm sure there's more to it, but unless there's some type of documented history of abuse on Spitz's part, there's no reason he shouldn't be allowed to see his child.

Amy said: "people wil usually tell you what they're about...."

Actually, that is one reason why I tend not to have quite as much sympathy for the men in these cases as I think Amy would like us to have. It doesn't excuse the behavior of the mothers, but crazy mothers wouldn't be a problem if men weren't having relationships with them- and most of these cases don't involve a single bad decision, but a continued relationship, often where neither party took good precautions against pregnacy. Like I said, this doesn't excuse the terrible mom, but I can't work up that much sympathy or expectations of good parenting for a man who continuously has sex with an obviously crazy woman. (Exactly the same goes for women who have continued relations with crazy or dangerous men, btw).

Lyssa, what happened to your blog? You're dead on BTW. My wife threw her wedding ring in my face about ten times before I finally agreed to leave. When I finally left, I rented a studio apartment and assumed I'd never have my son overnight again.

Much of it is a sort of misplaced chivalry, mothers are the ones who care for the babies and all that. But a lot of it is a deep misunderstanding of father's legal rights brought on in part because these extreme divorce stories are the only ones that make news.
You never hear of the nice, nominally amicable divorces (nobody survives this deep a blow without some animus). But those are only possible when choose well to begin with.

The kids around 7 or 8 now. I wonder what they've told him about all this?

It doesn't excuse the behavior of the mothers, but crazy mothers wouldn't be a problem if men weren't having relationships with them

Riiiight, that's it. It's all men's fault. Thank god. I thought we might have to hold a woman accountable for something. God knows that can't happen.

There are two types of guys...those with a backbone when it comes to women and those without.

Those with backbones get the best prospects...both short term and long term. Those without backbones...well....

This guy is getting the post attempted homicide/blindness custody shaft for the same reason he married and had kids with this crazy woman....no goddamn backbone. No fucking romantic self-esteem. Whatever you want to call it.

Ironically, the lack of backbone not only makes you a prime target for potential abusers, but also fatally cripples your ability to manage the crazy away.

Most girls I know are at least somewhat crazy....the ideal match for them would be a guy who could agressively manage them so as to mitigate their worse impulses and behaviors. This is not a job for a guy whos a doormat.

I swear chivalry is just as bad as misogyny...they both replace the human female in front of you with a caricature, which cripples your ability to deal with them.

Having said that...if ur dating the losers and crazies of the world, then a pure misogynistic outlook is probably a better approximation of reality than a chivalrous outlook.

Amy is correct about people showing us who they are. In hindsight I realize that I was too emotionally insecure and immature to make a good relationship choice. I belonged to the school that if I loved him enough everything would magically work out. Imagine that I was surprised that my boyfriend who drove 90 mph weaving in and out of traffic because I was five minutes later became a husband who thought nothing of throwing a VCR at me because I forgot to press record. That's the least of it but the truth is had I truly looked I would have seen many of the signs early on. Instead I chose to wear the love blinders which really weren't love blinders as much as romantic illusion desperation blinders.

"It doesn't excuse the behavior of the mothers, but crazy mothers wouldn't be a problem if men weren't having relationships with them-"

No. It's the fault of the male-dominated court system full of white knight patriarchal judges who give women every pass they can because it makes thjem feel like big, rpotective men or something. Thank God for the few female judges there are, who see through this kind of crap. Feminsts have been fighting this fight for decades - not their main fight, they have others, but every time it comes up, it seems like all the women on the right side fo the argument are feminists.

Women in general get a pass in the criminal justice system, and crazy women generally get all kinds of apologists coming out of the woodwork to excuse their behavior, and that's who to blame, not the crazy women. You don't blame a rabid dog for finally biting someone.

KristenW, great comment! Please allow me to add some things to your points, because the phenomenon you are talking about is a pendulum that swings both ways...

"Amy is correct about people showing us who they are. In hindsight I realize that I was too emotionally insecure and immature to make a good relationship choice."

Same here. I had a pretty screwed-up idea about what a relationship was supposed to be. Some of my ex's red flags were waving in my face well before we married, but at the time I semi-consciously chose to ignore them.

"I belonged to the school that if I loved him enough everything would magically work out. "

Sort of the same thing here. I knew she had some crazy in her, but at the time I thought that she was the best I could do. And I very mistakenly thought I could deal with the crazy.

"Imagine that I was surprised that my boyfriend who drove 90 mph weaving in and out of traffic because I was five minutes later became a husband who thought nothing of throwing a VCR at me because I forgot to press record. "

My ex was a lot more passive-aggressive; instead of throwing stuff at me, she cheated, spent my money, and talked about me behind my back. Same basic idea, though. One thing that I failed to realize at the time was that, the more I tolerated her bad behavior, the less she respected me.

"That's the least of it but the truth is had I truly looked I would have seen many of the signs early on. Instead I chose to wear the love blinders which really weren't love blinders as much as romantic illusion desperation blinders."

"Desperation" is the key word here. I was the same. I thought that she was my one and only chance, and she was expert at playing up to my delusions when she wanted something out of me. Back in the 1980s, there was little material about Cluster B personality disorders available to the layman, and for years after the divorce I still had questions about just what the heck happened. Even though I've long since remarried and we're going on 18 wonderful years now, it's only been fairly recently that I've finally managed to work out what happened and why. (Hanging out here has been one thing that's helped.)

To answer the chicken-or-egg regarding those who are involved with abusive spouses: Yes, they need assistance. But they also need to make a commitment to help themselves. Until they do that, there's not a lot anyone else can do for them.

"To answer the chicken-or-egg regarding those who are involved with abusive spouses: Yes, they need assistance. But they also need to make a commitment to help themselves. Until they do that, there's not a lot anyone else can do for them."

Its funny that you say this Cousin Dave, because I just had a similar conversation with a friend. Until I was willing to not only help myself but stop bad patterns I was engaging in, there was no way to help me. I took a good look and saw that many of the people in my life were all the same person just in different forms. And I'm sorry about your ex. Its true though, looking back the red flags are so clear. I hope the 18 years have been good ones and continue to get better.

(If you're truly strong and a real man, you don't have to behave like an aggressive asshole to be powerful.)

I made this point to my husband just a few weeks ago. He was a little critical of himself for not being more of a traditional man's man. By that, he meant into cars and sports and hyper-aggressive. He's a nerd. He's in the top five smartest people I know, but he's no pushover.

My brother, on the other hand, is a macho asshole -- smacking his wife and kids around, cheating with anything that will lie still long enough, that sort of thing. In a dispute with my brother last year, he came very close to punching me in the face because I disagreed with something he said. My brother is built like a professional thug. My husband is built like an average-sized guy who spends a lot of time writing code. I'm not exactly an Amazon.

I had an unfortunate freeze reaction when my brother rushed me, and my husband stepped between us, ready to take a punch for me and ready to fight my brother, knowing he was likely going to get his ass handed to him. He was able to talk his way out of an actual fight and get us both out of there unharmed. My brother, on the other hand, was looking to start a fight with two people he could have killed with one hand tied behind his back.

I know which of these guys is actually powerful. I'm glad I married him and not someone like my brother.

"No. It's the fault of the male-dominated court system"

Marry a reasonable person, and be reasonable about the dissolution and you don't have to end up in court in the first place. It also helps if you and your spouse lack the assets to back 5k retainers.