Coercive Control And The New Custody Trap

And, and what we're talking about is this sudden aggressive ways- wave of coercive control bills, quote, unquote, "coercive control bills," that, that are quietly passing through state legislatures all over the United States.

As of right now, we're seeing about, we're seeing about 14 states that have already codified these provisions, and there's another 20 pushing them through committee.

And this isn't some distant, uh, abstract legal theory.

If you are in the same state, in my home state of Colorado, this is your immediate reality.

And this is one of the reasons that I'm, I'm-- it's come to the forefront for me is on May 27th, the governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, signed H- signed House Bill 26-1309 into law.

It is called the Abuse in Cases of Separation Act, and it officially takes effect on August 12th, so it's, it's going into effect immediately.

[clears throat] This law and the others that are sweeping the nation represent the most massive fundamental disruption to custody litigation we've seen in over two decades, and I don't feel like I am over, overemphasizing that at all.

On the surface, these bills are packaged under the banner of protecting spouses and children from domestic a- abuse.

And look, let's be entirely clear.

Domestic violence is real, it's evil, and any person who physically harms a partner or a child belongs behind bars.

Nobody's disputing that.

I don't think any rational thinking person would dispute that.

No good dad disputes that.

But what these coercive control bills do is something far more subtle and far more dangerous.

They loosen the already highly subjective legal definition of domestic abuse to include non-physical behavior-- I'm sorry, include non-physical behavioral patterns.

They expand abuse to encompass vague concepts like emotional manu- manipulation, financial oversight, technological surveillance, or restricting a partner's autonomy.

I mean, those are incredibly subjective.

Now, why does it matter to you? It matters because they're, they are so incredibly, highly subjective, and they, and, and their loosely defined terms are being dropped into family court system.

And, and, and we know that this family court system is already tilted against fathers.

It's a system that decides custody based on the incredibly vague standard of the best interest of the child, and it does so using a civil standard called the preponderance of evidence.

And you've heard me call it-- y- you've heard me describe it lots of times before, and you need to know and understand this because it's incredibly important.

I call it the 51% r- the 51% rule.

When a family court operates on that fi- on that 51% rule, and you couple that now with an incredibly loose, subjective definition of what constitutes abuse, you create a perfect storm for litigation abuse and abuse within this family court system.

You create an environment where normal marital disagreements, standard financial accountability, and necessary parenting boundaries can be easily repackaged by a high-conflict spouse to paint you as a domestic abuser, and therein lies the problem.

So today, what we're gonna do is we're going to do a deep dive tactical briefing on the mechanics of the coercive control playbook.We're going to look at the exact text of Colorado's new HB 26-1309 and how it completely flips the burden of proof against fathers and why the nice guy approach, if you're still in this and the amicable facade to your divorce, is a form of strategic suicide under these new laws.