Nobody Wins in Family Court

2017

I haven’t written publicly about it before now – but feel that this is the time.

It’s a complicated and heart wrenching story.

It’s a story about anger and jealousy. Of power and control.

It’s a story of an unconscionable, unimaginable life being tied to family law court.

It began many years ago by me saying “yes” – yes to a man that I hardly knew, who swept me off my feet during a time when I was vulnerable and hurting. Who swooped in and loved me like I had never felt before. Within a few years, we were married and had 3 children together. 

The love and attention gradually shifted to anger, violence and control. I can’t begin to explain the darkness that engulfed our family. I became confused, completely dependent with a constant ache in the pit of my core - every day, all day. 

I simply couldn’t find a realistic solution. How to make it end for myself and my kids - this torture that we were living in. I do want to note here - as it’s important to know that not every second of every day was violent. In fact there were vacations, nice restaurant dinners, fun days at the park with picnics. I would have thought before this happened to me, that those things could not co-exist in a life with violence. But it does, all the time as it did for us. 

I finally came to a breaking point and in my desperation, made the break with my kids and began to put myself back together again - thousands of miles away from the man I was leaving. The separation was relatively amicable at first – but when I began a new relationship a few years later, which led to becoming pregnant, the world for our family shattered. 

The day I received the court order demanding my appearance before a judge, I was sitting on my couch breastfeeding my new baby after just returning to the area where the ex was living - so he could visit the kids, and we could visit our other family and friends. It was only supposed to be for a year before we would return to our home in Costa Rica. 

But it all changed while I was sitting on my couch, quietly feeding my baby. It was a cool fall day so I had the front door open, with just the storm door closed. The sun shone on my face through the large picture window in front of the couch. I was just thinking what a lovely day it was when a large man, with a very visible gun on the side of his body and bulletproof vest opened the storm door, stepping over unopened boxes still strewn across the floor from a few days before when we had moved in - and walked straight in my house uninvited.

I couldn’t move. I just sat there in shock. He smiled brightly and asked me if I was Linda Hamilton. I couldn’t reply - I just sat there. He proceeded to sit down next to me and mentioned how cute my baby was. I think he played with her toes. Feelings from my childhood when I would be randomly sexually assaulted by big smiling men came rushing back…the fear literally paralyzed me. He then proceeded to “serve me” with legal documents – the ex husband was suing me for full custody as well as a court order demanding that I turn over all the passports immediately. And so began a 3 and a half year battle that was bloody and horrific. Literal torture.

We were in court every few months, back and forth. I finally realized at one point that nobody was ever really going to “win”. I spent as much time as I could researching, talking to others that were or had been in a similar situation. I met with, retained and fired many lawyers throughout the process. I sat before “judges” that blatantly lied to me. It was an unimaginable fucking circus. Every “mediation” – every “hearing” was a harvesting of life force. Life as we knew it became a darkness that I could never have imagined. My precious 7 year old talked about suicide, followed by his older brother. I watched the light in their eyes dim more each day.

The case would go on and on, in fact it didn’t take long to put 2 and 2 together before I realized that it’s actually set up to be this way - the whole thing a constant cash cow - it would never end until the kids were all 18. I also realized that sociopathic narcissists use this system as a means of further abuse. Yes, maybe you can get out of the marriage, but you will face - in some cases - even harsher abuse through the legal system, especially family court afterwards. I was completely stuck in this horrific cycle - realizing that it will not only never end but will keep getting worse, as the past 3 years had proven already. If I continued, even if we survived, we’d all be battered and bruised and I was already completely broke, hanging on by a thread to keep my house and business alive, ending up losing both in the end. All for nothing. 

For over 3 years - there was no energy to do anything else. Forget cleaning the house. Forget trying to make money to pay for that house. It consumed us all. When I wasn’t battling in court, I was calling the police to report another violation from the ex - stalking me, sabotaging my vehicles, leaving voodoo dolls or dead animals by my front door - the weirdest kinds of abuse were constant. 

The police that had become familiar with our family story sat me down one night telling me that it wasn’t a matter of “if” he was going to hurt me badly, or kill me, it was a matter of “when”. “And as far as the lawyer he’s hired” the seasoned cop told me in my living room “He’s an evil wicked person and you will not find anyone who can beat him in court. You need to make solid alternative plans if you want to survive this”.

I listened to them, but couldn’t imagine what an “alternate plan” would look like. So I kept fighting - what I would realize later was a war I could never win. “We want to be with you” they would say – please tell the judge that. “Can I talk to the judge and tell him?” my daughter once asked me. 

When I asked the judge if he would hear what my 12 year old daughter wanted to tell him, he turned his body from his chair, scooted forward, looked me straight in the eyes literally screaming “I DON’T CARE” – with an incredible callous, dark force emanating from him. “This is the man that holds my childrens lives in his hands”, I thought - and that was when It all collapsed. I remember leaving the courtroom completely broken knowing that I couldn’t be a part of any of it anymore.

I called the ex husband on the phone on my way home to ask one more time if there was another way we could sort this out. It turned into one of the worst fights ever and it was then that I knew that I had very limited options, and had come to such a desperate place in my life that I had to make what has become the hardest decision of my life.

I walked away. I surrendered. 

I came to believe that as long as I continued in the insanity of this weaponized system, the chances of me and my kids surviving on a soul level were very small. As I lost hope, I was hollow and losing my will to live. And in the middle of the darkness, I had the thought that an alive mother to my kids - anywhere - was better than no mother at all. I thought back to when just a few months prior, my sister, who was working in an elementary school at the time as a teacher, told me of a little 9 year old girl in her class whose mother had jumped off an interstate bridge because of the custody case they were involved in. “I TOTALLY get it” I told my sister. And wondered if she had had the same lawyer as the ex had, or the same judge as me.

So I made the decision not to jump off a bridge - and instead sold everything that I could, paid some debts off, bought some tickets to Costa Rica and left, leaving my 3 kids with their father. Believe me, the bridge would have been so much easier.

I have a visceral reaction of absolute panic whenever I thing about thinking about the last time I hugged them goodbye, with my 10 year old not letting go, who just kept squeezing me. It’s being buried alive in a massive avalanche of twisting, sick sensations of doom deep in my core and my soul. But I did it and walked away, my heart breaking for my kids standing on the sidewalk as my car to the airport drove away. 

It has forever changed who I am. Soul shattering. Devastating. I haven’t seen my kids for 4 years now. They’re growing up. And I’m not there. My heart aches wishing I could just hold each one of them for at least 5 minutes. Just to touch them…

But, mutual manipulation by a vindictive man who is coddled by a deeply emotionally disturbed, yet successful lawyer, all playing together in a self-created illusion of power and control within a soul harvesting legal system that has captured the souls of my precious babies, has prevailed.

Further manipulation of the system, a few months later, through Domestic Relations (family court and domestic relations - 2 wicked cohorts, together exponentially breeding and cultivating hatred), demanding a crazy amount of child support from me that is impossible to pay – has led to a current warrant for my arrest. If I return to the states to visit my kids, it would be a visit in prison, leaving my other daughter Zara without her mom either.

No “good” choices to be made here.

So I share my story with you – I’m not even sure why – as there will be no resolution in it. Now that I’m finished with it, I don’t feel healed – I don’t feel “better” – if anything, I’m crying again. Like I have so many times before. And I don’t have an answer. At all.

I met a woman a few months ago who reached out to me after hearing about what had happened. She wanted me to know that she had gone through the same thing, and knew what I was feeling. She also wanted to tell me that as hard as it was to leave, that I should consider that there’s a really good chance that it was the best thing. Her story was different. She kept fighting, for years on end, thinking that it was the best and only way. Always thinking it was over, but then receiving more court orders - this pattern going on and on. After one such event, with a new wave of legal issues that would have to be fought after she thought it had been settled, she came home to find that her teenage son had hung himself in his bedroom. "Maybe he'd still be alive if I had stepped away" she told me through a strangely strong but broken voice. 

There are many destructive and depraved things that happen in the world, and I’d like to make sure we all include this on that list. And do all we can to help support each other, working together in any way that we can to stop the insane destructive control of the family court system, and those who use it as a tool and a weapon, holding those most guilty accountable.

All while hoping that a better way will emerge - because it just has to and for the kids - because they simply deserve better. We can’t keep allowing these things to happen to them anymore - or to any of us.

*POSTSCRIPT:

It’s eight years later and I wanted to give this horror story a conclusion.

After spending 4 more years after writing the above post, of becoming my own lawyer, binge watching the tv show “Suits” online over and over (I believe this helped more than anything, which is funny), using a few loopholes in the Pennsylvania family law code that I studied constantly, holding hearings online and working relentlessly to get back to my kids, I finally was able to visit them after 5 years of being separated from them.

I remember everything being a blur when I saw them again for the first time. Such deep unimaginable feelings to have. Joy. Relief. Heart bursting happiness - but also so much grief and anger for the time that we lost together and will never have back again.

They were all grown up when I finally held them, surprisingly shocked at the change in their bodies, with immediate overwhelming sadness that I had missed seeing it happen in real time. The tears literally felt like they were bursting from my chest - I couldn’t believe that I was with them again.

A few years after that first visit, and after visiting a few more times, it was clear that I needed to come back. Although questioning the safety of it, I finally had the resources to be able to do it, so I moved back and bought a house which we’ve now shared together for 4 years. My older kids live only a few miles away, one of them just a few blocks away. We take vacations to Costa Rica but we have our lives back together in Pennsylvania. 

Looking back on it all, I wish that I would have asked for more help from those close to me, although I did have so much life affirming, and loving support from my soul family in my community in Costa Rica. They literally held me through the darkest times and kept me alive. Thank you to them. And thank you to the large black woman figure that would come to me whenever I called out to God - who held me like a baby and rocked me in some cosmic rocking chair in a mysterious far away place.

It’s a happy ending after all - we’re all together again, although a fair amount of trauma processing still needs to be done - for all of us. Something like that is just not a thing you get over quickly - if ever.

I am amazed at my kids though - at how resilient they are - going through all of that and still being loving, compassionate, intelligent, creative, independent and healthy - and kind.

I’m also amazed at myself - for I know better than anyone how many times I just wanted to cave and give up - but I didn’t. I stayed alive and strong and I finally made it back to my kids. 

*Additional Postscript:

As I was randomly reading some local news recently - the name of the judge in our 3 and a half year custody case popped out to me in a headline and as it turns out, someone finally filed a complaint against him for the same treatment that I received on a regular basis all those years of being in his courtroom - being screamed at, emotionally abused, dismissed and ultimately siding with the other parent mostly out of spite. The complaint that was filed began a cascade of complaints from so many others, which turned into charges being filed against him, which turned into him resigning from the bench. I’m so thankful that someone stood up to him - that he’s gone, but at the same time, I grieve for the damage that was done for my family and for the countless others that he abused. 

I tell this part of the story in case it may help anyone else - please know that you can file a complaint with the JUDICIAL CONDUCT BOARD if you are or have been mistreated by a judge or lawyer, or legal entity (my kids and I had some of the worst treatment from the state funded legal advocates that were supposed to be helping us) - just please know that you have this right and obligation.