The Truth and Realities of What Victims Face When Leaving an Abusive Relationship and Enter Family Court. (Part One) The Back Story

The Truth and Realities of What Victims Face When Leaving an Abusive Relationship and Enter Family Court.(Part One)

The Back Story

We say it all the time, trust me victims of abuse hear it all the time; “Leave him, you have to be strong and leave.’’ ‘Leave no matter what, take your kids and run” “You can do it, you must be strong for the kids.”

Empowering right?

Not so much when faced with the actual reality of family court and the lack of resources once the victim has left. Add to that the next to nonexistent support to those that don’t have blood or guts spilling from their bodies when they do leave, just years upon years upon years of emotional scars PTSD, C-PTSD, Social Anxiety and an enormous amount of trauma.

It was February right before Valentine’s Day when Dan beckoned Holly to the kitchen table to have a talk. Holly surprised and confused timidly sat down in shock. Dan hadn’t spoken to Holly in nearly 3 weeks living under the same roof but sleeping separately in different rooms. For well over the past year Dan barely acknowledged Holly’s existence unless it was to complain about young Maddison bothering him by trying to interact with her father. Dan usually worked late, then when home went straight to his part of the house to play with his guns, obsess over his newest hobby at the time it was a fish tank. Occasionally Dan would eat dinner with Holly and Maddison but would almost always accuse Holly of poisoning his food actually making Holly switch plates with him several times per meal to make sure the food was safe. Holly dreaded these meals with Dan. Once the couple had even argued for weeks about who had done the dishes. Holly had done the dishes, but Dan insisted he had, he was relentless about this, texting Holly multiple times late at night demanding she admit he had done the dishes, finally Holly relented and by the end of weeks of sleep deprivation caused by Dan she even questioned her own memory on who had done the dishes!

Back to the table with Dan and Holly. Dan told Holly that he wanted a divorce, he had already spoken to “a nice Christian lawyer” who would help them both come to a fair agreement as to property and custody of Madison. Holly’s immediate reaction was NO, no way. No one in Hollys family had had a divorce and this went against Holly’s beliefs. The truth is Holly had left Dan before for a break several times, when things had gotten scary and Dan would throw things at her once even knocking her down with baby Maddison in her arms. Holly always went back. Not because Dan was charming or smooth talking or even persistent. Dan didn’t really seem to care when Holly left, maybe he knew she’d always be back because to Holly that’s just what a dutiful wife should do. Later Holly would come to realize that the reason she would always go back was because she was extremely embarrassed, so so many people had always complimented Holly and Dan and little Maddison for being the picture perfect family on top of that Dan had repeatedly told her without him she would be nothing, she wasn’t smart and or capable of doing life without him. She believed this to be truth. The truth was Holly had given up a promising career in fashion to become a stay-at-home mother, which she loved.

Holly saying No to Dans request of a divorce and a divorce HIS way truly started a tsunami of an extremely convoluted and contentious divorce and custody battle, Holly unsuspecting and unaware truly felt like a baby fawn, barley with her legs under her abandoned in the forest with Dan and his lawyer(remember the “nice Christian” one) hunting for sport with their guns aimed directly at her and her biggest weakness. Her natural instinct as a mother to protect young Maddison used against her in the most horrific ways.

The first thing Dan did was call the police upon his lawyers’ advice. Holly had slammed a door during an argument that Dan had instigated. Dan had wound her up (*reactive abuse*) and Holly could see the evil grin on Dans face as she slammed the door to a room in anger at being called a whore and some other choice words by her husband. About thirty minutes later while putting Maddison to sleep and finishing up the kitchen cleaning, bright lights shown into Holly’s face from outside the home. Scared Holly ran upstairs to Dan, “I think someone’s outside with flashlights Dan! He just stared at her, blank, dead eyes and said “you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”  Next, loud pounding on the back door with voices yelling “Sheriff’s Department, come to the door!” standing there 2 officers both with one hand one their guns and the other blinding Holly with bright lights in her eyes. Holly opens the door, mind racing, was there a break in down the road? Had someone escaped from jail and in the area?

Holly let the police in and they told her that a male from this house had called saying he had sustained bodily injury from a domestic dispute and that Holly was described as the offender.

Holly stood there, sobbing, she had just been cleaning up, she didn’t understand, surly they had the wrong house. She admitted they had had an argument and she had slammed the door out of anger, she was just so tired, and she didn’t mean to make Dan upset. Dan entered the room after speaking to a male officer alone, his thumb with a surface scratch he claimed Holly had thrown a weapon at him but he had caught it( from a sitting position at a computer). He than stated that he had barricaded himself in the room and that Holly had gone to the work bench in the garage and grabbed an electronic power tool to try to take the hinges off the door to further attack Dan! Can you even imagine this!? Holly was dumfounded and very luckily the police didn’t quit seem to be buying this either, that’s one thing about Cluster B personalities during these moments, they lie and lie and lie, use word salad and believe it or not are usually pretty convincing.  I have known several women whom have been jailed on false allegations right at the beginning of their divorce cases. This is a set up to gain more custody of the children, to make the healthy parent out to be violent and insane lessoning their chances of primary custody time. This is a power move by the abuser, it’s a very frightening situation to be in, to have the kids treated as weapons held against the healthy parent. Not only is this threat meant to cause extreme emotional pain to the healthy parent it’s often a tactic for the cluster B to not have to pay child support.

Neither Dan nor Holly went to jail that night. But Dan had inserted his power and control over Holly. He let her know this was war. He would be relentless and ruthless. He would lie. He would emotionally torture her with the threat of taking away the most important thing to her in the world, their child.

8 years later when Holly was brave enough to pull the actual police report it read “ Female Victim, Male Aggressor” and that the “Male had called the police to see *what his options were to get her arrested* Holly faintly remembers the female officer that night asking her if she wanted to leave, Holly wishes she had listened more to the words in between what the female officer was saying.

 The Truth and Realities of What Victims Face When Leaving an Abusive Relationship and Enter Family Court. (Part One) take away,

There will be so many more in the upcoming blogs. The first step here is to be aware that your abuser is not going to play nice, they will go to many great lengths to smear the healthy parents’ name. A healthy parent can expect to be painted as an unstable person, lawyers will all of a sudden become doctors and diagnose loudly in court motions and to a judge that the healthy parent had a plethora of mental health conditions. Holly once found herself defending herself against the accusation of being a prostitute in court even!

Cluster B’s are famous for taking even the slightest bit of truth (yes Holly slammed a door) and turn them into huge outrageous stories. The problem here is the courts must take this into consideration even if there is no truth to these accusations when kids are involved. The abuser uses a tactic called DARVO(Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim Offender) If you don’t have a good lawyer that understands Cluster B High Conflict Individuals be prepared to be defending yourself against Post Separation Abuse. Be aware that before your Divorce is even filed the Cluster B is often 10 steps ahead ready to use the courts to continue to abuse you.

Please reach out if you are in an impossible situation. I can help you look at things strategically though a forensic lens to help you document properly and clean p your side of the street.

#MeTooFamilyCourt #Postseperationabuse #DVbyProxy #HighConflict #Abuse