First of all, you don’t have to be a family law expert.

When fathers are fighting a restraining order, they often do one of two things:

1. either they waste hours upon hours trying to learn decades of American family law on their own, or
2. they throw money at an expensive lawyer in the hope he can win custody of the kids, trusting that he cares about the case.

Neither of those two solutions is a good one.  If you’re fighting a restraining order, battling a custody case, you’re already swamped with paperwork… court citations… restrictions on your personal freedoms.  If you’re holding down a job, maybe even dealing with a legal divorce too, it’s no wonder that many dads just crumple under the pressure of trying to figure out how to win the case with his own family law knowledge.

It’s asking far too much at the best of times, never mind when you’re  distracted on so many fronts.  And there’s nothing so emotionally distressing for a dad to be unwillingly, and often forcefully, separated from his kids whilst fighting a restraining order.

Secondly, you should focus on what you DO know instead.

You don’t have to hire or become a family law expert to win custody of your kids.  You don’t have to go bankrupt financing a big-shot lawyer to do it on your behalf.  What you should do is remember the most important thing about your case:  that you need to prove your innocence and beat the system.  This is at the heart of winning your case.  For example, you need to stick by the rules, even if they seem unfair at the time.  I’ll never forget the feeling of panic when I mailed a birthday present to my eldest son whilst fighting a restraining order, only to get a court summons in return.  If your ex tries to bait you by meeting you in public (planning to claim later that YOU hassled HER), be prepared.

I’ll explain this tip in more detail, using a real life example from my own three-year divorce battle:

If you meet her in your local supermarket, leave immediately – just leave the cart and get out.  If she tries to stop you, get it on camera (if the store has them), and note the name and description of any witnesses, as well as the time it happens.  If you feel threatened at any point, call the police.  As long as you can prove that you’re complying with the rules, she can’t accuse you of a restraining order violation.

Being cut off from your kids when they need you is an upsetting experience, but if you follow tips like these, you won’t be for much longer.

First of all, I’m here to give you a clear warning about the biggest problem you’ll be facing.  It’s that if your ex has decided to fight dirty by filing a temporary restraining order against you, or made phony abuse allegations in court, it’s just the start of the games that she has up her sleeves to make your life hell.  And there is no lack of lawyers willing to educate her, if not.  Some lawyers have fathers fighting a restraining order as a standard procedure – it doesn’t matter to them that there is no merit to any of the accusations, and it won’t influence their sly legal maneuvers.  The benefits are too huge for your ex to ignore – namely, that:

• your ex can file a petition to the court that maintenance payments should increase (since you can’t see your kids, they can’t stay at your place or go on day trips)
• you end up swamped in paperwork, and end up financially and emotionally bankrupt after fighting a restraining order AND trying to win custody at the same time

Worse than that, most women’s online advice resources or advice charities which advocate traditional divorce practices suggest the same old defenses which usually lengthen and abuse the legal system in their own way – with very few of them actually focusing on the needs of the kids involved!  Fathers have a right to be around to see their kids grow up, and very often they fail to win a custody battle whilst fighting a restraining order – not because they’re not good dads, but because they didn’t know the right steps to take to defend themselves.

The good news is that you can successfully defend yourself, by gathering evidence (store receipts, emails, names of witnesses, bank statements) and learning how to present it in the family court yourself.  Whether you’ve just been served the order (so you’re basically fighting a temporary restraining order, aka an “ex parte” order) or it’s evolved into a permanent one at a later court hearing, many fathers regain access to see their kids.  My own case involved firing an expensive lawyer who wasn’t really putting my needs (or the needs of my kids) first, and I ended up winning 100% full custody of my two sons as a result.  It’s something I am thankful for every day.  I want more fathers to realise that they can win a custody battle too – and it’s easier than they might think.

When you’re fighting a restraining order, it’s incredibly easy to let the court hearing slip by, un-noticed, or fail to prepare some simple, crucial steps for your defense.  Fighting a restraining order can be a harrowing process, and you’re going to feel a lot of pressure – that’s especially true if you’re also going through a legal divorce, as well as trying to win a custody battle and fight a restraining order!  But each year, thousands of American fathers fall into these types of easily-avoidable custody traps, and losing the right to see their kids – often for years at a time.

During these difficult times, it’s very important to be mindful of the date of the renewal of order, because you need to be aware of one thing: the court can, and in many cases WILL, automatically renew the order should the plaintiff request it.  Your ex doesn’t even need to re-hire a lawyer, or produce new or better evidence.  So if you’re fighting a restraining order due to phony abuse allegations, the same false “evidence” can continue to haunt you well into the future, far beyond the original expiry date.

When fighting my own restraining order, I came up against this exact problem.  I was under some kind of delusion that I would be informed by the court that the time for renewal was due and that I should be prepared to defend myself against the action, much as I’d been served the legal papers the first time.  I was stupid, and it cost me more time away from my two sons.  The court automatically granted my ex-wife with a renewal of the restraining order without me realising until it was too late.  The first I knew about it was when I was standing on her doorstep trying to visit my kids on the day of the original expiration.  I thought that the time had passed and that I was once again safe to visit, trusting that by hiring an expensive lawyer I’d been told reliable advice.  Some time in a police cell and a trip back to court made me understand just where I’d gone wrong.

Don’t let this happen to you.  You only get one chance to see your kids grow up.

Thankfully, in my case, I got the restraining order removed because I was able to successfully defend myself from the same action the following year – this time defending myself.  I ended my three-year divorce and custody fight a lot more broke and a lot more wise about the nightmare facing American dads in today’s custody courts.

So whilst fighting a restraining order, always be aware of any important dates relating to the case and remember, it’s up to YOU to know them, prepare for them, and win in court.  Your kids are depending on it.

The main problem is that modern divorce courts practically encourage an ex to file a restraining order based on phony abuse allegations.  They don’t encourage it directly, of course, but the advantages are so great that a lot of lawyers advise their clients to do this as standard procedure – in other words, whether there is any merit to the accusations against you or not.  For example, it’s becoming more common these days to have a father fighting a restraining order so that maintenance payments are increased (since he can’t see his kids any more, they can’t stay overnight, and your ex will argue that she needs more financial help to support them).

Added to all this is that the burden of proof is incredibly low; when a father is fighting a restraining order, far too often it becomes permanent simply because they didn’t know how to defend themselves in a courtroom, or they relied on a lawyer to do it for them.

During my three-year divorce battle, the most invaluable move I ever made towards finding a solution to the mess I found myself in was to increase the level of direct involvement.  I had a crisis meeting about the cases I was already paying my lawyer to handle, because the lack of progress became too frustrating.  What I did was start to follow outside advice on what kind of evidence I should be gathering to support my defense (names of witnesses to important events, store receipts, email communication), and actively taking the lead on winning the case.

I ended up achieving more in the final three months of my custody case than my lawyer had done in the two years before, and it taught me a very valuable life lesson that I will never forget:

Fathers only get one chance to see their kids grow up, and life is far too short to let phony restraining order cases plod along, with us crossing both fingers in the hope that it turns in our favor.

After fighting the restraining order, winning my custody battle and being awarded 100% care of my two sons, I realised just how important it is to make the right moves in these situations.  It’s scary how close I came to being one of the thousands of American dads out there who didn’t know what to do for the best and relied solely on their lawyer’s competence to enable them to ever see their kids again.

• Your composure
• Your appearance
• Your reliability

These points might sound obvious, but when we break them down they do affect a judge’s opinion of you, and no matter how sound your legal argument is when you’re fighting a restraining order, you still need to pay attention to the basics of how you come across.

Your kids are relying on you to make the right moves when you’re fighting a restraining order – you only get to see them grow up once.

Basically, how you present and conduct yourself in court influences the case.  You should stay calm at all times throughout the proceedings – fighting a restraining order due to phony abuse allegations are difficult times, but you can’t afford to let your emotions show in that courtroom.

You need to present yourself in a neat and tidy fashion when fighting a restraining order.  No matter how difficult things are for you, the outward appearance must be that of a strong parent, ready to regain control of his life and custody of his kids.  Just remember – your partner is making a case against you, and appearing as anything other than a model citizen will not help you at all.

Be reliable, appear at the hearing ahead of time, and never make anyone wait for you.  Always ensure you know beforehand where you are going.  You should have all the evidence you’ve gathered well organised, so that you can find paperwork easily in the courtroom – the last thing you want to appear is flustered or unable to produce evidence during the hearing when you’re fighting a restraining order!  After the hearing in which my restraining order was officially cancelled by the court, I overheard my ex-wife discussing how calm I’d been – she was upset that my handling of the case completely ruined the image of me she’d tried to portray to the judge.

All of this, along with the steps I’d taken to produce evidence in the best way possible to the court, meant that I ended up receiving 100% custody of my two sons.  There are thousands of fathers fighting a restraining order every day – and many of them are winning.  I’m here to let you know that it IS possible, and is easier than most people (including highly paid lawyers) would have you think.

The kind of paperwork that I’m talking about includes the following items:

• store receipts
• e-mails
• automatically-logged archives of instant-message communication
• phone bills
• names, dates and locations of any incidents with witnesses

The reason for this is simple: what you think might be an irrelevant fact might actually provide a crucial piece of evidence that you rely upon in court at a late date.

If you’re not already aware of how restraining orders work in custody cases, I’ll explain.  Evidence is one of the make-or-break factors in how to fight a restraining order, because the burden of proof is so low – forget the idea of “beyond reasonable doubt” which is the level reserved for criminal cases.  When it comes to getting a restraining order granted permanently, if you are without evidence, you’re facing a ‘his-word-against-hers’ situation, which comes as a massive shock to most fathers when they try to start figuring out how to fight a restraining order for the first time in their lives.  And the unfortunate reality is that a judge will generally side in favor of the plaintiff (your ex) if you don’t have evidence to prove that the reasons given for the restraining order are false.

To give a real life example of the sort of thing I’m talking about, I’ll explain why this tip made such a dramatic impact on my winning 100% custody of my two sons.

Essentially, my ex-wife had accused me of violating the restraining order restrictions after the paperwork was served.  She accused me of contacting her to complain about maintenance payments.  However, I was able to prove that I wasn’t (and couldn’t have been) in our town.  How was I able to do this? I’d saved a store receipt for business expense filing, so I was able to pinpoint where I’d been on the date in question.  More importantly, I was able to identify the time I’d been in the store in the afternoon so that camera records could be subpoenaed to the court showing how impossible it was to be 100 miles east just 30 minutes later.

The above situation provides a really good insight into why this is such an invaluable tip to pass on.  Just make sure that you keep any paperwork safe that you think could have an impact on the outcome of your custody case whilst you’re fighting a restraining order.  At best, it’s a “get out of jail” card which allows you to be around to see your kids grow up – and what could be more valuable than that?

The first and most important thing is to get an understanding of what’s motivating your ex to file the restraining order.

• Does she want to cause financial hardship by making you pay more legal fees on top of the custody case?
• Does she want you to get fired from your job or prevent a job offer being made, when they see the restraining order on your criminal record?
• Does she want immediate custody of the kids while you wait on the court date to defend yourself?
• Does she want the higher maintenance payments which are often awarded when you’re no longer allowed to see your kids?

Basically, any father who wants to win custody of his kids should sit down and really think of the reasons behind your ex filing the restraining order – because an understanding how the other side is thinking is half the battle already won.  It’s the best starting point so that you can figure out how to fight a restraining order.

The second most important element that you need an understanding of when fighting a restraining order is the legal process involved.  If you’ve just been served a restraining order, it will be a temporary one which is often called an “ex parte” order, and it will be valid for a few weeks.  It will have been granted at an “ex parte” hearing requiring only the attendance of your ex, and in the paperwork served to you, there will be a date for a second hearing.  This may be referred to as an “Order to Show Cause” hearing date.  This is where you should appear to defend yourself in front of the judge.

The second court hearing is a crucial point in fighting a restraining order – it’s where you have your first (and often, only) chance to stop it becoming permanent!

If you have a clear idea of the two things I’ve discussed above (firstly, understanding the motivation of your ex, and secondly understanding the legal process involved in getting a restraining order rescinded), you’re already ten times more prepared than your average father who’s trying to win custody of his kids.  Too often, fathers think that fighting a restraining order in a custody case just involved throwing the most amount of money at hiring a lawyer – and nothing could be further from the truth.  The single-most important aspect to winning custody of your kids  is that you get involved in your case – even if it’s just to ensure your lawyer is doing a great job for you, should you choose to hire one!

Fathers win custody of their kids every day of the week.

There’s some dad out there right now who’s just been informed of just that outcome, maybe in your state, maybe in your home town… and you can be one of them. I’ve written this article to answer the direct question of “can a father win custody of his children if he is fighting a restraining order?”, and to offer a bit of light at the end of the tunnel with practical suggestions about how this can be achieved.  Too many fathers think that the legal case is hopeless before they even begin to mount a defense; your kids only grow up once, and they are relying on you making the right moves so you can see them do that.

The first thing you need to do is not panic.  If your ex has decided to play dirty tricks during a custody battle, you don’t need to lower yourself to her level with underhand tactics OR roll over and take it.  You just need to be aware of your rights, and have patience that you can win in the end.  With the right information, advice and planning, you can blow her legal case right out of the water (in my case, without a lawyer – because I’d had to fire him six months earlier for a mix of incompetence and the financial ruin caused by my ex-wife).

The other thing you need to do is start planning your courtroom defense now.  I’m not talking about tomorrow, next week, or at a lawyer’s meeting (if you choose to hire one).  Right now.  Go and get some paper, grab a pen and start writing down all the possible angles from which your ex might be moving with her divorce or custody tactics – is her aim to increase maintenance payments?  Will she continue to allege phony abuse allegations until you’re fired from your job?  Or does she just want to stop you seeing your kids? If you try to understand what she wants, you’re already better prepared than 90% of fathers who go into a courtroom and think that by telling the truth they’ll win custody of their children.

As part of this defense, you need to start gathering evidence that backs up your claims.  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again:

Fathers win custody of their kids not by telling the truth, but by being prepared to back up the truth with evidence.

I’ll give you a personal example of the sort of thing that I mean.  When I was fighting a restraining order based on false abuse allegations by my ex-wife, she claimed I’d violated the restraining order by hassling her about maintenance payments on a date a few weeks earlier.  But I’d prepared evidence to blow away her claims – I had a store receipt saved from two towns over which allowed me to pinpoint where I’d been on the afternoon she was supposed to have seen me, and store cameras submitted as evidence to the court proved her to have falsified the allegation.  It was one of the biggest factors that influenced the judge’s decision to throw out the petition for a permanent restraining order, which in turn allowed me to win custody of my children.

Fathers can influence the decision of the courts to rescind a restraining order or win custody of their kids by doing the same thing.  Save e-mail communications, letters, receipts, write down the names of witnesses to any incidents – compile data on anything and everything that you think might influence the outcome of the custody case.

If you follow the tips I’ve outlined above, there is no reason why you can’t be one of the fathers celebrating the win of child custody this month – good luck!

The problem is that a lot of advice is given which isn’t easy or practical to follow.  This article has been written for fathers who are trying to figure out how to fight a restraining order, to give them a really good tip which helped me immensely during my divorce (before I won custody of my two sons).  I just wish I’d been told about this earlier.  The tip is this:

Keep a journal, or two – perhaps for the first time in your life.

If you’re wondering why on earth a couple of journals might help you on your struggle to fight a restraining order, I’ll explain.

Firstly, Journal #1 is a practical thing.  And it’s the most important one.  In it, you need to record every thought, movement, communication and action that has any bearing on your divorce case and/or the restraining/protection order, along with any paperwork.  Examples of the types of things I’m talking about are:

• Dates, times of your daily activities
• The names and places where you met anyone or talked to
• Store receipts
• Email communications

Journal #1 should remain factual, accurate, and very brief (just a 5 minute summary before you got to bed each night is enough).  This can be a crucial piece of evidence which can help you during your defense in court, because it’s unlikely that your ex will be organised or smart enough to realise what you’re doing.

In my own case, I was able to figure out how to fight a restraining order not through my lawyer (who I ended up firing due to a mix of incompetence and lack of funds), but based on evidence supplied via my own journals, and admitted into the courtroom.  For example, a store receipt from two towns over proved that the temporary (ex parte) restraining order violation I was accused of at my ex’s home never took place. I was able to pinpoint the time and date I’d been in the store, so camera records could be requested!

If I’d not kept that receipt, fighting a restraining order would have been much harder.

The second journal you should keep is a private record of your own thoughts on how to fight a restraining order, or your frustration at the divorce or custody case.  This is just meant to help you feel less angry (even though it’s entirely justified to feel like that).  Just make sure that you put these words at the start of every entry in Journal #2 so that it can’t be subpoenaed as evidence against you if your ex ever gets hold of it:

“To My Attorney, [his or her name]“

I hope the above information has been useful – too many fathers are having to fight a restraining order during custody/divorce cases these days, and I want to spread the word that it IS possible to win 100% custody of your children, if only you make the right moves for them.

There are many reasons why a mother might decide to punish the father of her kids in this way, but the main one is that: whilst a father is trying to figure out how to fight a restraining order, it’s likely that he’ll make a mistake in the general custody court case.  Or run out of funds trying to defend himself on two fronts.  Or simply cave from the pressure of it all.

This article has been written to explain to you one important fact, and it’s one that you should be clear on:

Tens of thousands of American fathers are fighting a restraining order every year. And every year, tens of thousands of them win custody of their children.

I’m going to give you some practical tips that helped me win custody of my son when I was fighting a restraining order, so that you can learn from my experience during your own legal struggle.

Tip 1: An expensive lawyer isn’t always a good enough defense.

When I started out fighting a restraining order during my divorce, I was in the lucky position that I just went with the first available family lawyer I could find without having to worry too much about the costs. But even I was shocked when I saw some of the invoices coming through, because the service I received was terrible.

My lawyer failed to explain some very important facts about the way family divorce cases are handled by the system when it comes to fighting a restraining order at the same time – and throwing more money at him or her isn’t going to give them the experience the case needs.  Make sure you get someone with specific knowledge about your type of case, if you choose to hire a lawyer at all (I ended up defending myself in the final year of my court case).

Tip 2: Keep a journal, or two.

You might be wondering why there’s the “two” in this tip.  I’ll explain, because it’s one of the best tips you’ll ever be given about how to fight a restraining order.

The first journal is for practical reasons.  Keep a journal of the dates, times, witnesses and location of any incident or communication that may influence your defense.  Keep it factual and to the point.  Fighting a restraining order isn’t about fighting dirty, it’s about playing within the rules and being as smart as your ex.  If she calls to demand maintenance payments after filing the restraining order, log it, report it, use it as evidence – she can’t be “in fear of harm” if she insists on hassling you for more money, can she?

The second journal is for your own purposes.  I found it helpful to write down some thoughts about the case when I was fighting a restraining order, and it helped to alleviate some of the anger and frustration I felt.

REMEMBER, though, that if your ex ever finds out about the journal that it could be subpoenaed by the court as evidence by her – so make sure you keep it safe.  You should also begin every journal entry with the following words so that so that the record becomes “privileged communication” and isn’t acceptable for your ex to call for in court.

“To My Attorney, [his or her name]”

Tip 3: Never give up hope.

Your kids will only ever grow up once, and they are relying on you to make the right moves so that you can be there for them.  You CAN win, and fighting a restraining order and false protection orders just takes time and patience – persistence is the key to winning custody of your children.