The wife of the doctor with the missing kidney has surfaced, and of course she has a different story from that of her husband. In her version, HE was the one who had the affair [at least the first affair], not she. Who knows, who cares? For the purpose of this story, I care.
In San Diego County, when we hear stories like that of Dr. and Mrs. Batista [of kidney swap fame], we have a saying: "Darth Vader doesn't marry Snow White."
Not that there aren't many marriages where one party is evil and the other a victim, it's just that its pretty likely that neither party is perfect - they found one another after all. Whether true or not, judges are jaded by that aphorism - they tend to stop listening to the charges after the first sentence or two. After awhile, it always gets a little ding-dong, as in "For every Ding, there's a Dong", another Divorce lawyer adage.
The consequence of that reasoning is a lessening of interest in the details of the case. Judges, in part because of the crunch of time, and in part by the repetitive nature of the work, tend to pigeon hole cases which makes decisions easier. Unfortunataly, that often puts the parties on an equal footing even though one is trying his or her best to be cooperative, and the other trying to make as much mischief as possible.
Clients often fail to understand why it is important to be on their absolute best behavior during their divorce case - if the judge believe one side is acting improperly, he or she tends to assume there is misconduct on the other side, so it is important that they not be given a reason to believe their assumption is correct - you don't want to give the judge any reason to believe you aren't Snow White.
If, for no other reason, that is why we recommend some type of alternate dispute resolution, from mediation, collaborative practice, and on to private judging where you need someone with authority to pay attention and make hard decisions. In these forums there is a greater chance the differences between the parties will be more apparent, and dealt with appropriately.
