Originally Posted by
solicitude 
I don't want to scare you, but I want to be honest. I spoke with a GAL once, not in an active case type of circumstance- she wasn't my GAL or anything it was in a forum like this but regarding legal stuff. She was REALLY nasty to me. She literally kept saying to me "if he is so awful why did you spread your legs for him and have his kid" and "you must not believe in abortion, huh"
I don't know how a person with this kind of strong bias and opinion regarding people's lifestyles/choices could be a GAL. But... It appears to be a VERY common opinion among lawyers, GAL, mediators, and judges. My own lawyer even seemed to kinda assume I was just bitter over our break up. No, I'm scared for my 2 year old that can't even tell someone if something is wrong.
My son's dad is in the middle of a very long outpatient rehab program and is bullying me to give him unsupervised visits. I have looked things up and believe if he went to court the bias is leaning straight in his favor just because of the amount of time. Regardless of the fact that has twice relapsed within one month of finishing rehabs.. I have been pacing my house and feeling anxious for a month, now. I would just say try and negotiate your wants and be sure to insist that your main concern is the safety of the child, not hatred. Because sometimes they seem to take it upon themselves to just decide we are being bitter because we are exes.
She did stress many times in her report that I need to realize I chose to procreate with this man knowing his past. So yes I think you are right about this being a VERY common thought amongst GAL. Why don't they see that we are trying to keep our kids safe. You keep your kids in the environment with drugs and you are just as liable as the one who is using them. So we do the right thing and get the kids out of a harmful situation and then BAM the system is trying hard to get them right back under that roof with the drug user. I would NEVER have kids with someone who I thought was actively using. I thought it was in the past and I believed him.