Divorce Support Forums: Witnesses during trial

There's one more thing I want to suggest... I've dealt with a lot of people who are going through litigation (mostly criminal) and they're often unwilling to make their friends & family come in & testify, when the usual testimony needed is just a little thing, like with this friend who would say, "no, we're just friends & he's been talking to me about how to handle the various horrifying things involving her alcoholism and what an awful affect it's having on her ability to be a parent"... about 5 minutes, in & out... painless. And as you can see, the purpose for which you were all worried that your wife would try to force her to testify is kind of going to backfire if SHE wants to make that happen.

People get all hung up on subpoenaing each other's friends & relatives as if they think that their enemy's friend is going to tell the truth flat out without finding some way to minimize it or even hide it. They get all hung up on not wanting to subpoena their own friends & family to protect them from this horrible thing they're going through, yet you never know WHICH particualr little stupid thing a friend or family member might say that will tip things to your side in the trial. Getting all caught up on the PROCESS of who should be exposed to this & who should not (other than that the kids shoudl NEVER be exposed) is really not productive to your figuring out a good trial strategy.

And it's usually not worth worrying about, because most often the testimony is just something littlte, non-threatening, and at the very least, your friends are not experiencing the urgency of worry about their testimony that YOU are experiencing about your LIFE AFTER their testimony. You are feeling it from inside, so it feels harder for you, and it's really not all that hard to go into court for a friend & say, "he's a great dad, I saw him have to discipline the kid once for having a tantrum & he was wonderful, gentle, and the kid shut up right away & gave him a big hug & " etc., etc. Truly, there's nothing really terrible that an opposing attorney can do that will really hurt them. This is not Perry Mason & no one is going to suddenly reveal that THEY are teh TRUE VILLAIN in all of this. EVEN IF she paid your friend's expenses to travel to your state to testify for her, and got your friend on the witness stand and asked, "don't you have some romantic feelings for my husband?", and even if your friend's answer was "well, maybe, but I've been happily married for 20 years and any residual feelings I have have for the friendship your husband & I had in college is simply casual"... there is no other question that your ex's lawyer can do to hurt your friend. They can berate her, call her a liar, etc., but if she keeps telling the truth, it's ... well, it backfires... looks to the judge like your wife is crazy jealous and your wife's lawyer is a jerk & a half for keeping after the issue once it's dead.

And once you clear away all the cobwebs of worry about that your friends & family will be somehow harmed by testifying for you, and once you decide that it's OK for ANYONE to testify for or against you, so long as they're not going to lie or so long as there's nothign particualrly damaging for them to tell, then the world is your oyster as far as who to put on your witness list... and THEN you'll figure it out... with teh short 3 or 4 hours that most divorce trials have, and the huge number o fissues that have to be dealt with, there's really no point to havign witnesses come in just for the purpose of saying they do or do not feel romantic towards you, they have or have not seen you act as a good father, or even that they saw her go off in a drunken rage once 2 years ago and nearly hurt the kids. There's just not enough time for this.

For the stuff you need to prove custody, ask for a psychiatric or custody evaluation. The therapist or evaluator assigned will informally interview all the people you ask him or her to talk to, or they'll accept letters on your behalf from these people. And hopefully they'll talk more extensively with the people who are closer to the kids... the teachers, grandparents, daycare workers ... who will hopefully tell the truth (though the grandparents will likely support your point of view).

If this happens & the evaluator makes a reasonable report, then your interest in havign anyone testify might suddenly come into perspective. That it's not so important.

Think of it... you've got 3 hours to explain to the judge why YOU should get the house, why SHE should have to go back to work, what the debts are & how they shoudl be divided, whether or not the furniture is already properly divided, whehter or not you've been paying all the expenses while waiting for the house to sell & shoudl be reimbursed for half of that before the proceeds of the sale are split, whether or not you are able to manage your work hours around the kids' needs, etc., etc. And in that three hours, you get an hour & a half and SHE gets an hour and a half... and you'll want to save out some time from YOUR hour & a half to rebut the things she says that are absolutely wrong or crazy. Because once it's over, it's over & the judge can legitimately say that he gave you all the time you needed, that you knew there were only a few hours available and you chose what was a high priority to talk about, and if there was something he didn't hear about it was because you didn't think it was a priority, so it's over. He's not going to go back & listen to testimony about the outstanding electric bill or whatever you missed in that hour & a half that you already had.

I guess I'm trying to let you know that there are a lot more importnat things to think about than whether or not any of your friends will be inconvenienced for a few minutes (heck, your friend might get a free trip to your hometown out of this & you can have an in-person visit to reminisce about old times, if your ex insists on subpoenaing her...might not be all so inconvenient!)

Save your worry for the important stuff. And yes, don't let her draw you into the vortex of her alcoholic system of misdirection & skewed thinking.