Report comment

Interesting, at least to a layman.
I divorced my wife in 1980 because of her puzzlingly starting to behave unreasonably towards our two primary age children, girls. (It turned out she was going into a 'personality' - not 'mental' - disorder.) For ease, I accepted her accusation of infidelity, as she could name no-one. The social worker's report had nothing negative to say about me, but puzzled at how calmly I was taking the matter. I was puzzled that doing so was not obviously the way to behave, for a father seeking custody of young children, or anybody.
The judge retired to chambers and took the girls with him, sitting the younger one on his knee (they thought he was lovely). He came back, saying they were lovely, intelligent children, who knew what they wanted and why, and had not been influenced by me. He awarded me custody (to the amazement of my wife and her 5 sisters, older, and maybe others).
The rest of the settlement doesn't matter. This article and comments seem to suggest that that natural, human behaviour was unusual for a judge. Why?