Will this go against someone in family court?

[Survivingastorm]

Will stating in family court that you believe or feel your ex is controlling go against you in court? Or would it be better just to present the evidence and let the judge come to their own conclusion?

Not a lawyer here, but you have no other replies you thought I'd bump your post a bit. I assume this is about child residence/contact? You are saying you don't want your Ex to have contact or to have limited contact with the children because of controlling behaviour? Really, ideally you would get legal advice because (a) you have no guarantees any advice you get here is from people who know what they are talking about and (b) with limited details/context it's hard to advise anyway. But I am guessing from your question you are self-representing?

Generally courts prefer to deal in evidence and facts rather than opinion/beliefs/feelings, so you wouldn't want to baldly state 'I think Ex is controlling'. But if you do have lots of evidence, in some circumstances I guess you would want to draw out an inference that X, Y and Z behaviours or incidents form a pattern of controlling behaviour so it really depends on the context.

The main thing to remember about cases involving children and child contact/arrangements, is that the court is concerned with the welfare and rights of the children, not of the parents. Judges do get impatient where parents try to drag their relationship issues into court - remember s/he is not ruling on who behaved the worst in the relationship or whose fault it was it broke down or who is the better person or even the better parent. Their only concern is what is best for the children. So I think if you want to bring in allegations of controlling behaviour/abuse, what you do need to do is frame it around the impact on the children - so e.g. if there are likely to be arguments/conflict/upset at handover because of Ex's behaviour (evidenced by ABC previous events), even though it's horrible and upsetting for you, your main point should be that this will impact the children in XYZ ways. Also I think it is generally advised that where it's safe to do so, you try and demonstrate where you have tried or are willing to try to compromise or work around the negative behaviour for the sake of protecting the children, so e.g. if handovers are a flash point you could suggest handovers at a neutral venue or by a family member rather than saying because the father has behaved badly you are stopping the children having contact all together which except in rare circumstances doesn't usually go down well...