Who better to abuse the Family Court system and an ex than an attorney?
The story below belongs to Amber. Amber’s attorney husband filed for divorce and used the Family Court to abuse her legally and emotionally. #ChangeThisNow
My ex was a UPS driver when we met and married. I worked as an elementary school teacher. Three years after marrying we had a son and my ex decided he wanted to go to law school. We both knew that living on my salary alone while he was in law school meant tightening our belts and trimming our financial expenditures.
And that is what we did. We sold our 3-bedroom home and moved into a less expensive 2-bedroom apartment. We paid off our cars and set up a strict budget that meant no vacations, very little money for entertainment and counting every penny to make sure it went as far as it could.
He went to school, we lived frugally and once he graduated and went to work for a large law-firm I took a deep sigh of relief and thought life would get back to normal. In fact, I thought it would be better than before. He was now making 3 times as much as he did as a UPS driver and I had money signs dancing in my head.
Foolishly I thought about how much we would be able to save for our children’s college educations (I was now pregnant with our second). I wanted him to start contributing to a retirement account, something he hadn’t contributed to during our 6-year marriage. And, yes, I wanted to relax and not worry about money any longer. I wanted a vacation, too!
He wanted a divorce.
Within a year of graduating from law school, he served me, in my classroom, surrounded by second graders with a divorce. No notice!
He had an advantage: He worked at a family law firm so, he had free representation.
I start the process at a disadvantage: I had to hire an attorney and the pickings were slim because most family law attorneys in our area had either worked with or played golf with my ex. Can you say, “conflict of interest?”
I ended up with a lawyer fresh out of law school who had set up practice the next town over. She and I both learned a lot about family law during my protracted divorce.
I’ve never been one to play the victim. My thinking was, “if he wants a divorce, that means he no longer wants me and why wouldn’t I give someone who no longer wanted me a divorce?”
He, on the other hand, and much to my chagrin, no longer wanted me but, for some reason, also seemed hell-bent on destroying me financially.
Whoever said, “You never know someone until you divorce them” was damn right!
I found out he had “fallen in love” with his 24-year-old paralegal. And I guess he wanted to be free to live the life we had dreamed about and planned for with her.
He did many things during our divorce that not only cost me thousands in legal fees to defend myself against but, also delayed him and his new love from starting their lives together. My Dad said, “the man doesn’t want a divorce, he wants a fight.”
What did my ex do?
1. He filed paperwork with the court falsely accusing me of abusing our children.
2. He filed paperwork with the court falsely accusing me of running up debt on his business credit card. He was spending money on the new girlfriend…vacations, a new car, clothes and paying her rent. For some reason, he thought he could convince the court that I had access to his card and was living the good life.
3. He filed for full custody of our 2 children. Can you say, custody evaluation, guardian ad litem, psychiatric evaluations? If it were something that would cost me money, he insisted we go through it.
4. He ended up with 50/50 custody and then never saw the children. He would go months at a time once he was remarried without visiting the children. He called me out of the blue on Friday night demanding to see “his” children.
He had not seen them in 2 months but, I was supposed to drop what I was doing and cater to his desire to spend time with them. When I didn’t he took me to court for “parental alienation.” He lost that battle. It’s now been 4 weeks since he has seen the children and it isn’t because I’m barring him from doing so.
5. When our oldest started pre-school I had sent several emails via Family Wizard attempting to get him to work with me on finding a good pre-school. He ignored all requests by me to work together on what I thought was an important issue. So, I found a good pre-school and off our boy went on the first day of school.
Within a week, I was served with paperwork from the court where he was objecting to the pre-school I had chosen. I’m not making this shit up.
6. When he was a child, his father took him to a local bank to open a bank account. The bank gave away piggy banks with the bank’s name on them to all children who open an account. For some reason, that piggy bank was one of his most prized possessions. Four years after we divorced, he lost his piggy bank. How did he respond to losing it? He took me to court and accused me of stealing it and keeping it from him. I had to pay my attorney to help defend myself from this man/child’s accusation that I had stolen his piggy bank. Wah, wah, wah!!
7. We were both Jewish. Not practicing Jews but, Jewish none the same. When he met his new love, he decided to become a Catholic. He took me to court in an attempt to force me to raise the children in the Catholic faith. I’d never stepped foot inside a synagogue with this man. Had never heard him say religion was important to him in any way and now he wanted to raise his children as Catholics?
That is the short list!
Ninety percent of the time we spent in court he walked away losing the battle he started. But, that isn’t the issue. The issue isn’t who won or lost. The issue is the Family Court allowing someone to use them in frivolous ways to abuse another person.
The key elements of abuse of the legal process is the malicious and deliberate misuse of the family court process that is not justified by the underlying legal action, and that the abuser of the process is interested only in accomplishing some improper purpose such as causing financial harm to another person.
The mind-boggling thing to me is, we have been divorced for 9 years. We’ve had the same judge for every trip to court. A judge who, unless stump dumb knows exactly what my ex is doing, and he allows it to continue. Don’t tell me the Family Court is interested in protecting my children or me!
Oh, yeah, we have another court date next month. He wants me to pay for and give him school pictures of the children. Instead of contacting the school and requesting his own package of school pictures, he wants me to pay for them and deliver them to him. And, we’ll be going before the same judge.
How much has my ex spent on legal fees in the last 9 years? $00.00
How much have I spent? $48,321.00
So many of us women get put through this, yes it is a form of abuse, of control. It’s a shame the courts don’t stop it from happening.
And so many men have this happen , and against women who get legal help for free when they falsely accuse of abuse
Wrong, Kevin. I used to be a Legal Aid attorney. For a woman to obtain free representation they must have police reports and medical records from hospital visits due to domestic abuse. No false accusations via Legal Aid.
Ummmm….wrong James. My ex gets free legal aid via DCSS for every frivilous and silly motion she files. And when she did happen to have an attorney (she’s gone through 3 so far) I had to pay thousands of dollars to her lawyer to fight against me. WTF is up with that?!
Hold on. If he loses doesn’t hw have to pay your legal fees?
Not always. You can petition the courts that he pay the fees but it’s up to the judge. If you get a bad judge they aren’t going to hold a man responsible.
Even if you do receive a monetary judgment for fees, good luck collecting! You’ll have to hire another attorney for the enforcement as these individuals typically don’t pay. It’s absolute madness.
It amazes me how the family court gets used to abuse us by the ex’s. it’s not fair to us & it’s not fair to the kids. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I agree the person who keeps taking the other to court for should pay all of the attorneys fees!
I’ve spent over 80k and we aren’t done yet. He’s fighting me for custody so he can get child support. This nightmare will never end.
So many women are victims of family court and an ex who is irrational and angry. I was in and out of court with my ex for 5 years and the courts did nothing to stop his frivolous and continued use of the courts to harass me. I agree that it needs to change now but, I’m not sure it will. Not until we speak up and make our voices heard. Men’s Rights Groups have been able to get state laws changed, we can too if we start speaking up and grow in our numbers. Thank you for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
Women are going to have to learn to stand up and fight this – the men’s groups are getting more and more legislation – and most women don’t even understand what they are going up against in the family courts until it is too late.
This is all so staggering! I’m listening to your live segment on Facebook now and my heart is breaking for all women who have been the victim of narcissists. I went through it too, am still going through it. I don’t believe he will let up until my children are 18 and he no longer has access to the court to cause me harm. How I wish I could get myself and my children away from him!
I’m so, so sorry you have gone through this, Amber. I wish I could tell my story but, I’m right in the middle of the hell and am terrified of what he would do if I went public and he found out. I go to be at night with a knot in my stomach and wake up the same way. He is like a raging bull, every day brings something new from him. He wanted a divorce, he has a new girlfriend and he is ANGRY. Why? Why, I have no idea. I wish you all the best. One way or another, we will get through.
Oh Girl, my X is cut from the same block as yours, except mine’s a dr—and I put his sorry butt through school too. Family court and guardian ad litums do not look out for the “best interest of the child.” I’ve been divorced almost 4 yrs and have been to court about 20 times. Honesty, I’ve lost count. Same judge, still an idiot. He’s such an idiot that even after my 5yr old daughter was sexually assaulted by the new wife’s 8yr old daughter, he let visitation resume on weekends her kids aren’t present. Of course, he never wants to see the kids and is very sporadic with visitation. His parents pay for his legal fees while I drown in mine. I feel for you because I know exactly where your coming from!
Mindy, if you ever want to tell your story and join our #ChangeThisNow movement let me know. We can change names and places to protect you and your children. You can send your story to [email protected].
My ex is a special kind of moron. After 33 years of marriage he wanted to “start over” without me. The 58 year old fool was screwing his 22 year old teaching assistant. He made my life and the lives of our three adult children hell on earth for 3 years. He went as far as calling our adult children to court as witnesses. I didn’t know someone could go as off the wall crazy as he did. Last month, after trying to take everything we had worked for in court he called begging me to let him come home. I used to love him with all my heart and now the thought of him makes my skin crawl. He threw away our life and his relationship with his children and grandchildren for a piece of 22 year old a$$. How could I ever share my life with a man with that little impulse control. He showed me the devil I didn’t know I had lived with. No thanks!
My Ex has been playing the system with child support. He has moved 6 times to 5 states in 4 years. This way he does not have to get modified. He believes that he should not have to pay me. Now he is a doctor and makes enough money to pay and skips out on child support. The state and judge does not see this and it is so wrong.
Women are guilty of doing these things just as much as men. My husband’s ex is the custodial parent and receives full child support, yet she has continued to use the court system to harass my husband and to attempt to push him out of his children’s lives. She is now married to husband #6, yes that’s right, she’s on her 6th marriage now and she is still in her 30’s! And every time she gets divorced or remarried she uses it as an excuse to try to reduce the parenting time and get more child support. Her most recent attempt at court was to try and get my husband to agree to not contact the kids anymore because she had just gotten married to husband #6 and she likes to pretend that each new husband is also the father of her kids (except when it comes to child support of course). My husband refused to sign papers. He still sees his son several times a week but his daughter is a teenager now and due to the successful alienation and brainwashing by her mother, she no longer spends time with her dad.
This is so sad but very common. My ex a no ambition, came from money so he just had to work for family business. I came in the picture and lit a fire up his ass. Years of me supporting him even when we broke up because he would get disowned by his parents. Yes, I would pay his rent car and would give him money to spend not on me but a gambling habit he had(I later found out)
Married him his parents weren’t sure they were going to attend our wedding because I was Mexican and he was Syrian. Crap crap happens for many years. 3 very successful businesses later, my surrogate pregnant with our twins he left me. He was famous or restaurant was a hit. I was depressed my sister had passed from breast cancer and 2 weeks later my aunt. He walked in our bedroom and said, “ I rather pay than to be with a sick person”. ( by this point I’ve had 2 heart surgeries leading to pacemaker and patuitary tumors) just like that! With in months old girlfriend from high school came in.
Since he had a new life divorce should of been easy, right….! No!!! I was in and out of court for the next 4 years I stopped counting after 15 times. He has dragged my name through dirt, claimed I never did anything for the businesses. Constantly told the courts I was going to die and he needed control over my estate. Crazy right! More bad things happen.
But I too had same judge she did nothing and allowed his court abuse. My ex’s parents now give him money to live a life and to make sure to fight me in court.
Our girls don’t have a relationship with him but he still has his 36% custody. We are now going to court because my daughter needs foot surgery and he won’t allow her to recuperate in my house 3 weeks of no walking. So surgeon has canceled surgery we now have to speak to social worker and get a court order.
Only if the courts or the law would acknowledge emotional abuse, financial strangulation and mental abuse as real as domestic abuse.
So if I can do anything I would love to help change the law to help woman (I know there’s men too) to stop the narcissist in there life.
Prayers to all of us going through court abuse because the narcissist has money and would love to see us suffer.
I’ve been to family court 38 times, 100,000$ in debt and we don’t even have a trial date set. The way he operates, we will probably have to go back to court 3-4 times to set a date and have him actually stick to deadlines. He’s been through 7 lawyers and now is a self rep. The courts don’t care, the judges don’t care because here I am.
I am in a nightmare myself because the courts, police and state’s attorney refused to help me but jump all over for him. He never shows up when his behavior is called out because he has has scheduled surgeries or makes some crazy health issues up. The patriarchal system that is in place needs to be changed. I have so many friends that have had double standards.. this is not even funny!
My divorce took 7 years. When I met him he was sleeping on his mom’s couch in a roach infested apartment, and was thousands in debt. I helped him in any way I could, he “presented” as the “nicest guy in the world” and fooled everybody. My parents loved him. He was there for anything they needed and they encouraged me to marry him. He kept this up for years! Because of my and my family’s guidance and help, he got a high level position (I even went on the interview with him!) and we accumulated real estate (using my savings), making for a very nice life and income. Then he began dating his boss, whom he never let me forget “has a PHD”, and the true controlling and abusive personality came out and worsened 10 fold – which I could not believe would be possible – during the 7 years of divorce process. He even began abusing our child in order to force me to sign everything over to him, which I did. She was getting very ill and missed a third of the school year. Now he is trying to alienate her from me. My lawyer was sick to death of him and encouraged me to sign. He is now is living the good life – with my money- (vacations, etc.) and we are left in poverty. He has spent close to $200,000 just to extend the divorce process and to harass me incessantly. And he put thousands of his legal fees on MY credit card without my knowledge or permission though spyware he somehow keeps placing remotely on my computer. I’m on my third computer, and the police can’t help me. I can no longer afford a lawyer. He is using “scorched earth” tactics, and will do anything to destroy me. I don’t even know why? Also, he can talk his way out of anything, and whenever I file a police report for stalking, harassment, and so on, he talks them out of arresting him. Even though many times I have witnesses! I don’t understand how this could even happen. He thinks he can just do whatever he wants, and so far, he’s right. I’ve had two cardiac procedures, I now have fibromyalgia and PTSD, and wake up every morning with my fists clenched so tight that my palms bleed from my nails digging into them. My doctor tells me it’s all from the unrelenting stress. Every day I wonder what is coming next.