I fought, I lost, there is no way I'd advise anyone to fight, period. If I got a different result, I'd give a different recommendation.

If something works for you, you recommend it. If it doesn't work, then one cannot in good conscience recommend it. I am giving the only logical recommendation I can give given my experienced results. If you want to change my mind, change my result.

Your comparison to alcoholism is an apples to oranges comparison. Your decision to drink or not drink is entirely yours, not dependent upon the choices of another person. The outcome of any legal battle or relationship issue is not dependent only upon your actions. Therefore, it's not a valid comparison.

If it were my behavior and only my behavior considered, then I'd think I'd end up the winner. However, I don't get to decide. Therefore, I simply recommend not ending up in a place where someone else decides your fate.

Then and only then can it be just like your battle with alcohol, which is essentially a battle with your own behavior.

EE, what you're recommending is completely surrending to the enemys terms. I mean, if you're going to lose, you might as well go down fighting.

I coach soccer. I have a very successful team (part of which I feel is due to my leadership and knowledge of the game as well as understanding where each players needs to be on the field to play their part). We're a 4A team, and we play 6A teams as nondistrict games. It's often difficult for a 4A team to compete against 6A schools. And we realize that when we play certain teams that we will more than likely not win. However, we don't run from the challenge and we play hard till the bitter end. Sometimes we win and sometimes we don't. Playing against those teams makes us much better when we go to play our district 4A teams. But we certainly don't walk into the match giving up.

Maybe women will more often win in court. However, that doesn't mean you don't fight tooth and nail.

No, it is not apples to oranges. Your premise is that nothing should be done unless there is a guaranteed outcome, so it is most certainly analogous. If I used your logic I would have never tried. It is the same with BH's coming here for help. Just because you lost doesn't mean others do.

Like I said, many others have won. No guarantee other than the fact that one is guaranteed to lose if they DON'T try. Your plan comes with a guarantee to lose. Harley's come with a CHANCE, albeit a small chance.

As far as telling newcomers not to try, that there is no hope, you might want to rethink that since the purpose of the forum is not to promote your personal opinion to newcomers, but Dr Harley's opinion. The sign on the door is Marriage Builders.

Now, THAT is a guarantee to LOSE. EE, you criticize this plan as having no guarantee to win, when your plan is a guarantee to LOSE. Your plan has a 100% guarantee to LOSE.

Why would you recommend that to anyone unless you want them to lose just like you did? Why not send them to other men who saved their marriages or came out favorably in court in the hopes they can emulate success like them? Do you want others to lose too?

"Hey, follow my plan!! It is guaranteed to lose! Lose like me!!" <-------who would sign on for that?

You haven't read all my advice. Because the real advice is do not get into a situation where you are faced with the fight. Don't have kids. Eventually, folks will realize why the quality men will not marry, will not have children.

It's the Mr Miagi fight, "no be there" advice.

Now you may say it's not fighting, I contend it is a fight, but on my terms, not the terms specified by others.

It's Viet Nam. The other side has military superiority, but still lost the fight because of unconventional warfare.

I'm not saying don't fight. I'm saying this is not the fight nor the tactics to fight and win. I will not advise anyone to fight the fight on those terms.

I fight the fight by being the best father I can be when I have time with my child. I save my resources for the fights I can win and those that matter.

So to be clear, I'm saying don't fight a fight you cannot win and that will not matter. Fight the battle on your terms, terms where you can win.

So far, the fights most recently recommended are not fights that are typically winnable, and therefore inadvisable.

What I'm saying is if I'm a baseball player, I don't compete on the soccer field. To try to win at soccer when I'm a baseball player is insanity.

Fight the fight on your terms, not on terms dictated by others. So for me, I'd fight on the diamond, not a soccer field.

That is your advice to men? To all men? To your son? "Don't have kids"?

If they can be taken away due to no misconduct on the part of the father, then who in their right mind would advise a man to have a child?

I recommend anyone considering a fight that they read the Art of War by SunTzu. I read it as a young cadet and find it's still applicable today.

The jist is to avoid the fight if possible, but if you have to fight, fight smart, fight on your own terms and to win, win quickly and decisively.

You have to know yourself, the enemy and the battlefield should be of your choosing.

The fights folks are suggesting men fight here violate all of those principles, and I would not advise a man seeking to win to engage in battle on those terms.

Okay. But what if a man wants to have a son or a daughter? I think maybe a better idea is to start a movement...a change. I don't think the idea is to stop having children. I think a lot of marriage would cease. I'm not even sure how you would have that conversation when dating, "No, honey. I don't want to have kids because one day you might have an affair and divorce me and take everything."

Of course there are a lot of children that would love a home sitting with an adoption agency. Maybe adopt before getting married?

If you're so passionate about this, what have you don't to change things? Maybe you could start a march to put an 'at fault' clause back in divorce.

EE, my boys are competitive and welcome challenges. So do I. If the baseball team challenged us to a game, we'd take them up on it. Sure we'd prob lose. But we'd still take on the challenge.

A challenge is still a challenge regardless of where, when, and how it is fault. Some challenges are just more challenging than others.

The stakes are very different between a pickup baseball game and the custody of a child.

Your children will not suffer long lasting emotional trama if you lose a baseball game. However, if you have a child with someone who ultimately largely removes you from their life, the damage is far greater and long lasting.

I can both welcome a challenge and not be willing to put another human child on this earth to face that prospect and not be inconsistent.

I was very clear with my now wife that I did not want any children and why, that I did not want another child taken away from me.

You know what, instead of telling me I should feel or believe that way, she understood.

Sorry I've been away from my own hornet's-nest-kicked-over thread for almost a day, but - GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST - the only two posters assiduously telling men to stand up and act like men appear to be KT, and M/L !!!!! (HHH is darting around throwing odd quips, so can't be put down to either side.)

GUYS,YOU ARE THE **edit** PROBLEM ! "I won't fight if I can't win!", "But she might leave!", "They might call me a disgusting pig!" (Yeah, thanx for THAT one, moronic unnamed poster!)

Yes, society is doing EVERYTHING it can to de-nut us. Now, you either hitch 'em up, and wade into the fight, or concede that your SONS will be even more fully neutered.

Well, of course. I think that's a given. My point is that if we dwell on the what ifs and the could bes and all the what might happens then we'd never do anything.

Again back to athletics...when I step on the throwing field or in a powerlifting meet, I know that there are those out there that are going to out throw me or out lift me. However, I step into the arena that I am going to dominate, that I am going to my absolute best, and that I will not waver.

If we all dwelled on the could happens we'd never have children, never get married, and never date.

I don't think it's wrong to not have children. I don't think it's wrong to not marry. But I don't understand telling others (as you have) not to have children because X and Y might happen.

lol, thanks. I'm more than okay to be thrown into being grouped with Melody Lane. She's aight in my book.

All this might happen stuff leaving one paralyzed to make decisions I don't understand. I had a vasectomy so I wouldn't have any more children. However, I realize that if I have sex with my wife there is the possibility I might have another child. I'm certainly not giving up sex because I might have a child.

I fully admit to doing some devil's advocate play.

Thankee. I think y'all boys oughta start paying me commission for my defense of your wimpier brethern....


Agree. Living a life paralyzed with fear is not living.. I am in sales. We win and lose every day. If I laid down and died every time I lost, I would never win. A winner gets up and fights every day and never backs down from a battle. A person who never fights because he "might lose" chooses to lose.

�A coward dies a thousand deaths... a soldier dies but once.�

A winner fights the battle on his terms. A winner is smart enough to know not to get into fights that are seldom winnable.

If anyone has taken what I've said to mean NEVER fight, then you need to go back to anyone who taught you to read and ask for an apology. I've clearly said that it's folly to fight the battle on the terms dictated by society. However, I've also said to shape the battlefield to fight on the terms most advantageous.

Please elaborate..

I think what EE is saying/meaning is this:

If you play the "game" by your soon-to-be ex-whatever's rules....you're going to lose...guaranteed.

EE says that *IF* you are going to fight them over anything (especially custody)...you need to change the rules of the game to your advantage...you need to change the "landscape" of the battlefield to suit you.

When they say "all is fair in love and war" it especially goes for war...which is what some custody battles are, from what I know.

Everything is fair game in a fight.
You can't be afraid to do whatever is necessary to win.

Was watching "The Deerhunter" last night...and the last bit of discussion made me think of it.

When "Mike" and "Nikki" were POW's and playing Russian Roulette....Mike knew what he had to do in order to have a chance at survival: he had to get more bullets in the gun. He had to change the rules of the game, and change the battlefield to give him an advantage. He use psychological warfare to distract (all his laughing).

He had no fear when it came to doing what was necessary in order to have the opportunity to escape.

And when the opportunity came about...he acted swiftly and devastatingly.

I too have read Sun Tzu...amazing stuff....and you really can apply his teachings to many aspects of life.

So if you're going to fight...for whatever it may be in life....fight to win. Do what it takes, because if you don't, you won't.

Just my 2 cents tonight.