She Came Prepared. You Just Came Quietly.
There was a time I thought I had to ask just to be kept in the loop…
To be copied on the weekly school update, consulted before she switched something around. Ask to be treated like a father, and not just the unpaid assistant to her solo act. I used to think asking was a form of respect, but really, it was a textbook covert contract. I figured if I was courteous, they’d of course return the favor. As if being calm and considerate would signal that I was reasonable…cooperative…you know, the kind of father courts, schools and admin overlords would want to work with. I figured if I phrased things right…polite tone here, clear subject line there, professional language…they’d recognize I wasn’t effing around anymore
lol…they saw a welcome mat.
“Nice guys believe if they are ‘good,’ they will be loved, get their needs met, and have a smooth life.” —Dr. Robert Glover
But they recognized something else entirely. They saw hesitation, deferral. They saw someone trying to be liked more than he was trying to be taken seriously. I didn’t know it then, but every time I framed a request like I needed her agreement, I wasn’t advocating for my kid…I was handing over my credibility. Quietly, efficiently, and with a smile. It’s a bit different when you’re a father. It’s different when you’re not just dealing with women, you’re dealing with courts, therapists, admin staff, mediators, co-parenting apps, and a system that’s trained to see men as mainly decorative…
The System Loves a Quiet Loser
The worst part? At the time it felt virtuous. I wasn’t yelling, I wasn’t name-calling, I wasn’t being aggressive. I thought that earned me moral ground….spoiler alert: the system doesn’t run on moral ground. It runs on posture. And in the custody circus, posture gets assumed fast, either by you, or by the person who got tired of waiting for you to show up like you belonged. Eventually, I stopped trying to look reasonable. Not because I wanted to play hardball. But because I realized I was the only one still waiting for permission to lead.
“When you defer decision-making, you defer responsibility. And that’s what most men don’t want to admit—they’re scared of leading.” —Rollo (early TRP Reddit)
There’s something humiliating about showing up to a meeting or mediation with your notes organized, your tone in-check, your facts clear, and still watching them defer to her because she acted like she owned the place. You sit there thinking…“But I’m being rational. I’m co-operating”. They’re not measuring your tone, they’re measuring your presence.
Buy-In Is Foreplay. She Finished Alone.
That’s what the theory doesn’t tell you. It’s not about dominance or submission in the abstract sense. It’s about who fills the space without asking…who calls the school…who sends the calendar…who reaffirms their involvement without waiting for the conversation to start. There’s no checkbox for “respectful father” on any family court form. But there is one…whether stated or not…for point of contact, and they fill it in fast. I started to change my posture not by reading more, but by losing patience with how many decisions were getting made without me. I acted like I belonged there. I didn’t ask if I could be added to the thread…I started the email. I didn’t wait to be invited to events…I called the office and confirmed myself. I made it logistically impossible to ignore me. That’s not aggression, that’s fluency. And it changes the way everyone moves around you.
You Taught Them You’d Wait
Once you stop performing patience, you realize how many people only respected your boundaries because you never enforced any. The longer you delay that shift, the harder it is to recover from the narrative they’ve already built around you. Not unfit, just passive. Not unstable, just…unnecessary. And if you think the truth will speak for itself, you haven’t been through enough hearings. There’s a difference between asking for support, and giving people the illusion that you need it. I had family offer help during the worst part of my case, said they just wanted to be there for me. But the second money got involved, the dynamics shifted. The system doesn’t reward restraint, it rewards structure. It rewards whoever shows up like the point person, and in most cases, that’s her, because you’re still waiting to be granted access to a role that’s already yours…
“You either act like the authority… or you get treated like a child.” —Jack Napier
Advice started showing up where it wasn’t asked for. Judgments snuck in under the label of concern. And eventually, they weren’t supporting, they were steering. At first, I thought I owed them something. Gratitude…updates…a vote. But no. All I owed them was a thank you and a receipt, and that’s it. I stopped including them. And they didn’t like it. Because most “help” isn’t actually help, it’s actually access, and access is just a socially acceptable way to apply pressure. The RP told me to stop supplicating…that helped. But the deeper truth I had to live through is this: no one knows they’re playing for control until you stop asking and just start deciding. And that’s when the backlash hits…that’s when people accuse you of being controlling or uncooperative, right at the moment you stop performing powerlessness….
It’s a strange feeling, being punished for doing what everyone claims they wanted you to do. They say be involved, be mature, be proactive. But when you actually do it, without waiting, without pleading, without disclaimers, they start calling it something else. Suddenly you're ‘making things difficult’…’creating tension’…or…’not working as a team’…
Translation: you stopped asking for a seat at the table and just started speaking like the father you are.
It doesn’t matter how calm you are if they think she’s the one in charge. And she’s not in charge because she earned it, she’s in charge because she took it while you were still trying to play fair. That’s not bitterness, that’s clarity. The faster you accept that they’re not grading you on effort, the faster you’ll stop writing six-paragraph emails that go straight to archive…
Broadcast Less. Move More.
I don’t do that anymore. I write clear…act early…call first. I don’t wait for approval. I don’t broadcast my plans or explain my tone. And I don’t need anyone to agree with how I parent before I do it. Because the moment I needed their buy-in, I lost control over what mattered. The quiet irony is this: once you stop posturing, people start adjusting. I’ve had a school admin double-check facts with me first…because I’ve never left them waiting. Therapist called me first. Turns out a spreadsheet beats a sob story.
So no, I don’t ask for control. Because I’ve lived what happens when you do. They don’t give it. They hesitate…delay…reroute. And eventually…they forget you were ever supposed to be there at all.
Like u/Whisper used to say back in RedPill OG days:
power’s not handed to you. You take it, or you don’t have it…
That’s not bravado, that’s just the cost of waiting. I assume it now. Not loudly, not angrily, not because I want to dominate anyone…
It’s that I know what happens when I don’t.
Mason
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