Family court is filled with a strange contradiction—one so common it often goes unnoticed.
A parent is declared “untrustworthy,” “unsafe,” or “not reliable enough” to spend time alone with their own child. That claim is treated as a settled fact. Access is restricted. Parenting time is denied or indefinitely delayed. The child disappears behind unanswered messages and vague excuses.
And yet, when you look closely at the history between the parents, that same claim of distrust collapses under its own weight.
Because the distrust is selective.
The Problem Isn’t Distrust — It’s Inconsistency
In theory, distrust should be grounded in conduct. Courts should ask:
What happened?
When did it happen?
Is it ongoing?
Is it corroborated?
In practice, that rarely occurs.
Instead, courts often accept statements like “I don’t feel safe” or “I don’t trust him” at face value—without requiring those claims to be tested against years of contradictory behavior.
The result is a system that rewards inconsistency, so long as it flows in one direction: toward exclusion.
When Trust Is Convenient
Consider a scenario that is far from unique.
A father is told he cannot be trusted to be alone with his child. No finding of abuse. No criminal history. No substantiated neglect. Just an assertion of distrust.
But this same father was once entrusted with deeply intimate responsibilities—administering medical injections over many months as part of an IVF process to help create the child in question. This required precision, care, and physical trust. It required vulnerability. It required reliance.
That history doesn’t vanish simply because the relationship ended.
Yet in family court, it often does.
The court does not ask how someone who was trusted with medical responsibility suddenly became unfit for basic parenting. The contradiction is not explored. The past is erased. The claim is accepted.
Selective Communication, Selective Authority
Another pattern appears just as frequently.
A parent does not respond to repeated messages requesting court-ordered parenting time. Days pass. Weeks pass. Silence.
Then, suddenly, a message arrives—not about visitation, not about cooperation, not about compliance—but about travel.
We’re going out of state.
We’ll be back Sunday.
Communication is not absent. It is selective.
The same parent who claims distrust is comfortable traveling freely, making unilateral decisions, and excluding the other parent from any meaningful role—while still maintaining just enough contact to assert control.
This is not chaos. It is governance.
“I Don’t Trust You” as a Litigation Tool
In modern family court, distrust has become a superpower.
It requires no evidence.
It invites no cross-examination.
It triggers no accountability.
Once spoken, it justifies nearly anything: denial of parenting time, refusal to communicate, unilateral decision-making, and prolonged alienation.
The claim is rarely examined for consistency. It is never weighed against prior reliance, cooperation, or shared responsibility. And it is almost never questioned when it conveniently emerges only after separation or litigation begins.
Fear, in this context, becomes a strategy—not a condition.
The Child Is the One Who Pays
What is most often ignored in these cases is the cost to the child.
A child does not understand selective distrust. A child only experiences absence.
They lose a parent not because that parent disappeared, but because the system accepted an untested narrative and declined to ask follow-up questions.
Family court frequently claims to act in the “best interests of the child,” yet it routinely tolerates behavior that would never be accepted in any other legal context: withholding access without findings, ignoring court orders without consequence, and rewarding non-cooperation.
A System That Doesn’t Examine Credibility
In any other courtroom, credibility matters.
Past conduct is relevant. Inconsistencies are explored. Claims are challenged.
In family court, credibility often yields to convenience.
If a narrative aligns with the path of least resistance—or with longstanding assumptions about which parent is presumed safe and which must prove innocence—it proceeds unimpeded.
This is not justice. It is administrative indifference dressed as concern.
What Needs to Change
Family courts must stop treating distrust as a self-proving allegation.
They must:
Examine claims against historical conduct
Require consistency or explanation
Enforce communication and court orders equally
Recognize selective silence as a form of control
Understand that untested fear can be as damaging as actual misconduct
Until that happens, thousands of capable parents will remain “trusted until it matters”—discarded not because of what they did, but because of what someone later claimed.
And thousands of children will grow up believing one parent simply stopped showing up.
They didn’t.
They were shut out—quietly, selectively, and with the court’s permission.
It seems what has been removed is the Constitutional right to Due Process. I honestly can’t believe there aren’t hundreds or thousands of lawsuits in Federal Court laying this out clearly. It seems like there are more than enough situations that clearly show this, it’s wild to me that these situations are not explored in Federal Court. But finding an attorney willing to fight this battle seems nearly impossible. Very odd. It’s so easy to find attorney’s for all other civil rights related issues.