It's been two years since the separation and you still have it. Clients Say the Darnedest Things What we have at work here is a problem in persuasion - the judge cannot identify with the witness. She finds something the witness has said to be unbelievable, and it's causing her to lose her ability to identify with the witness, which will soon become a witness credibility problem for the wife's lawyer. The three basic principles of persuasion are primacy, recency, and identity, and it's the last of these that caused such a problem in this equitable distribution trial. Primacy is the first thing you say, the first evidence adduced by a witness.
Recency is the last item - the final piece of testimony, the closing argument.
And identity, whether in a domestic trial or some other hearing, means that the trier of fact has to be able to connect with the witness, or with the position taken by an advocate. These principles operate in all civil trials, not just ones involving family law issues. They may be ignored only at your peril. They are often ignored in family law trials. And that's what went wrong in this case.