The Father’s Wheel: six spokes, one move a month
Father, Law, People, Earnings, Body, Soul. Roundness before height. The lowest spoke is this month’s one move.
When you need this
You know every article of the law that applies to you. You have not slept properly, trained or seen a friend in months. Somewhere along the way the dispute stopped being something you have and became something you are.
The book places this tool after release, for a reason. After letting go, there is space, and most people stop there, mistaking relief for the goal. But a space that is not filled by building fills itself: with the old load, a new charge, the next email.
Space is not a reward. Space is a building site.
Who the wheel is for
Plainly: the book writes this chapter for fathers, and the wheel carries that name. A father, it says, is not one thing. A father is a wheel of six spokes, and the child rides on the whole wheel, not on the strongest spoke.
The wheel works the same way for a mother in the same position. Read the first spoke as your relationship with your child in the time you have, and nothing else in the instrument needs to change.
The six spokes
For each spoke, give a mark from 0 to 10. Today, honestly. Not where you were before the marriage, and not where you plan to be. The sliders draw your wheel as you go. Nothing is stored or sent; the numbers live in this page and vanish when you close it.
Your relationship with your child as it is today: not what a court allows, but what you make in the time you have. Presence without a screen. Can you listen, play, be silent together?
Literacy in your own case. Documents in order, deadlines tracked, every letter written to be read by a judge. This spoke does not measure the outcome, which is not yours. It measures readiness.
Your crew. Friends who are not just an audience for the dispute; people with whom you are a person and not a case. Isolation is the most expensive luxury a parent in a dispute can afford.
Work, income, professional growth. Not only because a dispute costs money, but because work is a part of identity that no judgment can take away.
Sleep, food, training: the infrastructure of everything else. Nobody runs a dispute of several years on an exhausted body. It is also the first proof of discipline your child sees.
Care, which the book translates as maintenance of the engine. Silence without a screen. Nature. Touch. The boat in the evening, the scale in the morning. The oxygen mask goes on your own face first.
Move the sliders to today’s honest marks. The wheel redraws as you go.
Nothing is stored or sent. Copy your six numbers and your move somewhere of your own; this page forgets them when it closes.
Roundness before height
Now look at the numbers as a wheel. Here is what the book says shows up almost as a rule in a parent who is in a dispute: Law inflated to 9, because this person knows every article, and then Body 3, People 2, Soul 1. A wheel like that cannot roll. It hops. A dispute has a way of sucking every spoke into one.
You become the subject of your own case.
The rule of the wheel is roundness before height. A wheel of six sixes drives better than a wheel of nine, nine, two, two, two, two. The aim is not a perfect spoke. The aim is a wheel that rolls, because your child is riding on it.
The lowest spoke is this month’s move
Only one task follows from the measurement, and it is deliberately small. Look at the lowest number. That spoke is yours this month. Not all six. One. One move on it, with a date.
Next month: a new measurement, a new lowest spoke. That is the whole system. A wheel is not repaired all at once. It is repaired spoke by spoke, month by month, the way small deposits compound.
Father 6, Law 9, People 2, Earnings 5, Body 3, Soul 2.
People and Soul are tied at 2. One is chosen: People.
“Thursday the 9th: call an old friend and fix a walk for the weekend my child is away. No talk about the case for the first hour.”
Not “rebuild my social life”. One call, one date.
The rhythm
The last thing the chapter hands over is a rhythm for afterwards. Not a plan, because plans die on Monday. A rhythm:
- Morning: the Scale. Two numbers, thirty seconds.
- Evening, when needed: the boat. Three minutes.
- Weekly: a look at the wheel. Where does it hop?
- Monthly: the lowest spoke, one move, a date.
- On every email that tightens your chest: welcome the feeling, boat, move. Fuel, not fire.
The book adds one weekly note, because people in a dispute remember their misses with photographic precision and forget what went well within a week. Once a week, next to the wheel, write down one concrete event for each: where strength showed up, where courage, where persistence, where clear thinking. Not general praise. An event. “I did not answer the provocation, although I could have.” Behaviour that is noticed gets repeated.
That is all. Small enough to fit into a life.
What this is not
- It is not a score of your worth as a parent, and not something to show anyone. It is a private instrument for deciding where the next small move goes.
- It is not a programme of self-improvement for an exhausted person to fail at. One spoke, one move, one month. If the month goes differently, the charge goes into the boat and you measure again.
- It is not therapy or treatment, and it promises no recovery. If you are in crisis, contact your local emergency services or a crisis line.
- The Law spoke measures readiness, not outcome. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
- It is not reserved for fathers. The pattern has no gender, and neither does the wheel.
Beneath the Divorce, ch. 13 (“The Father’s Wheel”)
The author uses a growth wheel in his professional work and applies the same instrument here to the figure the book defends: the father.
“Beneath the Divorce” is the working title of a book by Miroslav Ćurčić. It is still being written. The chapter this tool comes from is finished; the book is not.
About the book →Questions people ask
What is the Father’s Wheel?
It is a wheel-of-life instrument from the book “Beneath the Divorce” (working title), adapted for a parent in a custody dispute. Six spokes (Father, Law, People, Earnings, Body, Soul) are each rated from 0 to 10 as they are today, and the lowest spoke becomes the one move for the month, with a date.
What does “roundness before height” mean?
A wheel with six sixes rolls better than a wheel with two nines and four twos. The book’s typical profile of a parent in a dispute is Law 9, Body 3, People 2, Soul 1: a wheel that hops instead of rolling. The aim is balance, not one perfect spoke.
How do I survive a divorce as a man without the case taking over my life?
The book’s answer is a rhythm rather than a plan: two numbers on the Scale in the morning, the boat exercise in the evening when needed, a weekly look at the wheel, and once a month one dated move on the lowest spoke. Small enough to fit into a life.
Can mothers use the wheel?
Yes. The book writes this chapter for fathers, but the instrument works the same way for a mother in the same position. The first spoke is simply your relationship with your child in the time you have.
Are my scores saved?
No. The sliders and the two text fields run only inside the open page. Nothing is stored in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
Related tools
Do you recognise this?
The tools are the practical half of the book. The other half is recognition: moments that parents in a long dispute describe in almost the same sentences. Read them and see which are yours. A pattern you can see loses some of its power.
Do you recognise this? →