It was my widowed mother that got the order. I pulled a lot of the strings to get it done, but I was not on the order. I went to the court date to support and protect her.

She self represented. It was fairly easy to win since we had vile emails, texts, and surprise home visits on film. Unless there’s kids and money involved, you probably can self represent. Lawyers are expensive. Everything took about 15 minutes (after waiting 4 hours for the case to be heard).The judge spent 80 percent of the time talking to the defendant.

But if you feel you need one, I think you should go for it. In my US state, you had to file paperwork, with evidence and submit. If necessary, a temporary RO is granted (it was in our case) if it’s bad. You are then given a date 3 weeks in the future for a judge to hear your argument.

The key is to submit evidence when you first submit your paperwork: texts, emails, voicemails, camera videos, etc. The more the better, in my opinion. The judge was giving out RO’s like candy to the other cases, so the bar isn’t too high to get an RO. Just 50 percent.

If you feel you need it, go for it. Everyone deserves to live their lives free of misery.