We hear a lot about how women are favored during divorce but, in my opinion, the opposite is true. No one can hold onto resentment and anger like a man and nothing proves that more than the outrageous behavior by some during a high conflict divorce.
A woman’s only recourse is the protections afforded her by the Family Court and, bless our hearts, there aren’t many protections there.
I know a woman who has been divorced for over 12 years and still has legal issues with her ex. He constantly files a petition or motion with the court. It can be for something as simple as extracurricular activities her children are involved with to not liking the therapist her children are seeing. He makes NO attempt to negotiate and settle issues with the mother of his children. There is no emailing back and forth over a certain situation. He goes straight to the courts.
A woman has no defense against such a man. She is vulnerable to such a man’s whims because the Family Court allows the nonsense to continue year after year.
She has NO protection!
4 Ways The Family Court Fails to Protect Women During High Conflict Divorce
1. Failure to Protect Against Defiant Exes
If a woman is divorced from a man who defies court orders, she has no recourse via the Family Court. She can file a contempt of court motion but that’s like pissing into the wind. She will spend money on an attorney only to get a new order and listen to a judge tell her ex to “get it done or else,” and the or else never happens. The problem with contempt of court is this, a new court order means nothing to a man with a history of defying court orders.
2. No Protection from Crushing Financial Expense of Divorce
Most women going through the divorce process are stay-at-home Moms or the lower income earner in the marriage. They start the divorce process in a one-down position because they don’t have access to the best attorneys and experts to advocate for them. The Family Court takes none of this into consideration during the process and there is an old saying that is true, “the one with the money wins in Family Court.”
3. No Protection for Victims of Domestic Abuse
Victims of domestic violence are especially vulnerable in the Family Court system. Their main concern is naturally protecting their children from a violent man and with the courts’ main focus on not separating a child from a parent, the domestic abuse victim has to have substantial evidence of abuse to protect their children via the court.
What professionals fail to realize is that women in abusive situations don’t call attention to their abuse. Doing so can only lead to more abuse. So, instead of going to the emergency room so they’ve have a record of injuries or filing police reports, they stay quiet out of fear of inviting more abuse upon themselves and their children.
If a woman doesn’t have substantial evidence of abuse and brings up accusations of abuse in court she can be viewed as making false allegations of abuse and attempting to alienate a father from his child. Women all over the country are losing custody rights to violent men due to the lack of protection abuse women received in the Family Court.
4. Failure to Protect Children from Harm
If you’re divorced from a bully hell-bent on using your child as a pawn to punish you, the “best interest” doctrine, flies right out the window. A Family Court judge will NOT hold a man harming his children emotionally, accountable. I think they believe that a bad father is worse than no father so, purposely put children in harm’s way so they can tell themselves “at least the child still has 2 parents.” And, as someone who raised her children alone, with no contact from their father, I can say that, that belief is straight up BS!
You just described my life for the last 16 years! He’s mentally & emotionally abused them & there’s nothing the courts will do except force the kids to go to visitation with him with the threat that if they don’t go I’ll lose custody of them. Makes no sense to me. One daughter has severe anxiety & ptsd because of what she’s had to endure.
As a mother I feel like I’ve failed to protect them. I try not to let it consume me. I tried even with good lawyers it didn’t help.
Child support court….. going back for the fourth time to get the two years of child support he didn’t pay. He’s in contempt of three stipulation orders (that he agreed to) & I don’t see this time being much different.
Be happy to hear any advice you have.
Reading your post makes me feel even less optimistic for my future. I am 2 months into the divorce process from an abusive narcissist and the caregiver to our adult special needs child. My husband and I are co-guardians and I am going to move heaven and earth to have him removed. I just hope I can. He constantly defies court orders and I am basically penniless. I have no idea if the mortgage will get paid or any of the other bills. I am the one who manages the money but he does not deposit anything – he wiped us out leaving .67 in the bank. Each time he defies a court order another one is written – they are not worth the paper they are printed on! in 2 months our legal fees are over 10k. He made it clear he was going to bankrupt me so I would be living on the streets and it is looking like he might succeed.
I am only 2 months into the divorce from an abusive narcissist, both physical and emotional. I have been married for 38 years and am the full time caregiver to our son with special needs. Needless to say I have no means of supporting myself outside of the minimal caregiving money I receive through his programs. I can’t leave him alone so I can go and work outside the house or get him in more day programs since they are all full, so I stayed in the miserable marriage. I finally got the strength to leave and it has been a disaster. He has defied one court order after another. He has wiped us out of money and not deposited his pay to cover the bills, he has texted our son even though there is an OOP stating he can’t. I am being forced to sign papers to sell our only investment, a lake house that he lives in so he can ‘move on’ and he is trying to get me forced to sell our house that I live in with our adult special needs child. He is trying to do an equity grab on my residence knowing I have nothing and can’t refinance with no work record over the last 26 years. I sit and cry daily, I am trying to be strong but just want to give up. I sometimes wonder which is worse, living with him or being destitute. I had no choice after he threatened to kill me and went to get his gun; at least I had the foresight to have them removed from the house and stored at the sheriff’s office. My lawyer keeps telling me to be patient but also knows my financial situation and also feels I will have trouble refinancing the house to get my husband off the title.
He uses my old cell phone on my plan and I can see who he is calling, he is trying to report me to DHS for abuse of our son! The man who has never taken him to a doctor’s appointment, therapy or cared for him after surgery or illnesses! He doesn’t even know how to do the daily living procedures on our son. Not to mention that he has been the abusive one and I am still working with an agency to get our son therapy for being present when he threatened to kill me. My son is terrified that his father will come after me again or try to take him away. My son has finally told me of all the abusive things his father had been doing to him over the years. My heart is broken is so many ways. He has been calling Private Investigators to have me followed, he insists I have a boyfriend – he believes he has been the perfect husband so I must be cheating to finally leave. He is demented and evil and I am terrified for my future not to mention my life.
Sorry for being dramatic; but I feel hopeless, helpless and alone. I am trying my hardest not to let my son see my struggles. I would love to tell him what a rat his father is but would never do that to him. He is just an innocent child in all of this.
I stress constantly about how I will survive, my husband is retired due to an illness and receiving a pension and SSDI, I have no idea how that plays into support for me and my son. I know I will get 1/2 of the pension but I don’t think I will get anything more than that. I won’t have health insurance and pray that I am not forced to go on Medicaid. I am so fed up with how he keeps getting off scott free in his disregard for the court orders and my son and I are the one’s who suffer.
Michele,
PLEASE KNOW YOU ARE NOT ALONE, THIS IS A COMMON THEME WITH ABUSERS. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING, RECORD EVERYTHING, SAVE ALL YOUR EMAILS, TEXT, ANY AND EVERYTHING THAT PERTAINS TO HIM. Go to the courthouse and retrieve all the CD’s of when you were in court, trust me, they will come in handy later.
You can’t give up, that is what he wants you to do, do not give him the satisfaction. My ex-husband, his girlfriend and lawyer is every bit as nasty as you say your husband is; with no concern for who they hurt, kids included. I believed in the justice system at one time, the county I had to flee is nothing more than a money market, my now attorney, (don’t ever represent yourself) who I made certain was from a different county calls it “the good ole boy system.”
These psychopaths turn around everything they have done to us and play victim. I have been through it all… He tried to take MY son, his step son, costing me $5,800. He tried to brainwash my son, telling him I was emotionally abusive to him, my son. I have been reported to DHS, have a malicious restraining order against me that ruined both my careers, teacher and counselor for the government, filed fake violations of that restraining order resulting in being put in jail, where I was assaulted by 2 female correctional officers for either crying, because I was falsely arrested or because of my race. The lake house, I am dealing with that issue now. I offered it to him when we were separated and he did not want it. At divorce I had to rethink the decision because I remembered him telling me out of spite he let his first house foreclose and ruined his wives credit; I could go on and on.
Your ex will do everything in his power to control you, via court, why? Because you took his power to control you behind closed doors. When you don’t think he could get any lower, be prepared… I just got a motion today and in it he is trying to keep me from telling MY STORY TO ANY THIRD PARTY. He wants to take away my freedom of speech to save himself from the horrible deeds he has done and said. He can take me to court all he wants, if it’s true and helps myself or others, I’m standing tall. I won’t stoop to his level and make up falsehoods or write anything I cannot back up with proof, that is why I say, save everything.
His attorney was warned and given proof of who this man is and still chooses to represent and lie for him, he made a conscious choice to choose money over ethics and it will bite him in the end. I am not out to destroy anyone’s life or career, however, I will make it known what you did to destroy mine.
I understand you not wanting to be on medicaid, nor did I, but you and your son’s emotional and physical health is more important than the insurance you carry. Look at it as a positive, who would you rather be? The only thing psychopaths possess is material possessions; they lack empathy, feelings, love and real happiness. They are so miserable with themselves they try to bring others down with them. We may be traumatized by their actions and it may take years to heal, BUT we can heal; they have a life sentence.
Don’t let him win, don’t let the ugly in others kill what makes us beautiful.
Angela S.