When Marjorie told her husband she wanted a divorce she agreed to his request to hold off filing until after the first of the year. She thought he just needed time to adjust and she was happy to give him that, if it meant they could work civilly through the divorce. With hindsight, she realized he was using the time to figure out how to manipulate her, how he could get custody of their daughter. That became apparent when she was arrested for domestic violence and then faced a restraining order. Here’s Marjorie:
It’s about 8:30 in the morning and I have to stay in jail for 24 hours.
Finally, I call my eldest daughter at the house, and she is just so upset. I said, “Look, go to school. Try to concentrate.” This is her senior year. I do not want her distracted. I said, “Call a couple of friends and I will be out in the morning. Don’t worry. Check on your sister.”
But once my daughter left for school, she never went back to the house. She said she couldn’t stomach it. I spent the night in jail…that’s a whole story within itself, but when I came out the next morning, my husband had closed all the bank accounts.
Not only that, I couldn’t go back to my home. He had filed a restraining order, not only to keep me away from him, but away from our daughter because I “was a danger to her.” He had filed this injunction that said that I had mental illness problems, that I was an alcoholic, I drank a bottle of wine a night. All the accusations were so sickening, so sickening, and for thirty days, I did not have phone or person-to-person contact with my child. Thirty days! My youngest daughter, one day her sister and her mother just disappeared, just disappeared.
When we went to court, which was the early part of December, the judge granted him the injunction because he shows up to court with pictures of injuries. I looked at my attorney and I said, “I didn’t do this!” The police asked him clearly, “Do you need a paramedic, are you injured?” and he said, “No.” And then there are injuries?
He had to self-inflict them when he was closed up in the bathroom or after everyone had left. After they’d taken me away, he had taken my daughter to school, he came back and took pictures of injuries.
Now, I’ve never been in court before, I’m sitting there without hardly any clothing, because I can’t get any of my clothing, I’m probably looking a hot mess, I’m probably looking the way he’s accusing me of looking.
This judge grants the injunction for one year. My husband asked for supervised visitation, based on the fact that he said our daughter witnessed what happened. What saved me, was that my oldest daughter was in the home, and she kept our youngest in the other part of the house and helped get her ready for school, and kept her away from it. She came on the stand and said, “No. She was nowhere near there. We heard some of the shouting, but we didn’t see anything and she was with me the entire time.”
With that, the judge didn’t grant him supervised visits, but he cut my visits down to where I see my child once on a weekday right after school until 8pm and then every other weekend. The minimal amount of time. To go from being a stay-at-home mother from the time she was born to that?
The judge also ordered that the only way my husband and I communicate is through an email system called the “Our Family” wizard.
When he said that, I was happy, because I said. “OK, what’s going to happen is this man, the way he’s been with me verbally in person is going to show on paper, I know it’s going to show on paper.” So I thought this is going to be a good thing. And I’ll be darned, if it hasn’t shown. His verbal abuse has gone on paper now. The anger, even after a year, you would think that you would come to a point where you would reason with each other, you would understand that, “We need to do what we can that’s in the best interest of the child.”
Not at all. The things that he has said, showing clearly not only his anger towards me, but the verbal abuse, the attacks, the threats and the alienation that he’s trying to do between me and my daughter, that’s exactly the thing we’re using when we go to court.
We’re finally going to court next month. We have gone to mediation twice already and he refuses to do a joint custody agreement. He wants to keep primary, major custody of our child because he knows how much this would hurt me.
On top of all of that, I was homeless.
The Divorce Coach Says
When Marjorie was telling me this, I tried to imagine what it would feel like to have your life change dramatically, quite literally overnight. She’d been arrested for domestic violence, she’d spent a night in jail, lost custody of her child, had no money, and was homeless. No access to money means not being able to hire an attorney to defend you. Remember that Marjorie was also a stay-at-home – it isn’t easy to just go out one day and get a job. This has to be rock bottom.
Granting an injunction for a whole year seems unreasonable to me and it’s hard for me to understand why a judge would not see through this. The best I can conclude is that when you deal with these situations all day, it is hard to know the real truth and so you err on the side of ultra-caution because you don’t want to be the person accused of failing in a domestic violence situation.
Marjorie is an amazingly strong and resourceful woman and in the segments that follow she’ll be sharing how she got pro bono legal help and how the loss of her custody rights hasn’t stopped her from being actively involved in her youngest daughter’s life.
As far as getting cut off from money, Andrea and Grace were also cut-off. They were fortunate because they had financial help from their families.
I read recently a quote from a law firm that they always tell couples to go through counseling first and that the lawyer’s office is the place of last resort. While I do agree that couples should try multiple avenues to try to work through their marital issues, I also believe it is critically important to know your legal rights and I would start researching that as soon as I felt divorce was a likelihood. Knowing your rights isn’t sufficient either – Marjorie had consulted with a lawyer before she told her husband she wanted a divorce – you have to take the steps necessary to protect your rights and yes, sometimes that’s a hard emotional decision.
Photo credit: 401k
Wow. This is such a heart-breaking story for the children. So sad.
funny. Men have been saying the family courts have been broken for years. But as long as it was broken in women’s favor, you all were content to stay silent about it. But now that men have been cottoning on to the tricks women have been using (and abusing) for years, decades even, now that the shoe is on the other foot… suddenly it’s “tragic.’
Welcome to the hell of your own creation ladies
@8ball, While this blog is targeted to women, I’ve been very conscious over the years of not making it gender-specific or making sweeping generalizations. I have heard many people, men and women, argue that the family court system is deficient and that it isn’t fair. I think that most people would agree with you that it needs reforming but the challenge is creating a system that does work equitably.
so 2 wrongs make you happy? when there is injustice in family court; children suffer. that is not cause for joking or celebrating. and it certainly is not “funny”.
Seriously? This is about false accusations, not gender. Try again
This article just came few days after my husband (who left me for a younger woman, filed for divorce and has made my life miserable since then as if the rest was not enough) had called me and woke me up to demand explanations of why I was getting his mistress’ deposition. For some reason I didn’t hang up and next I was hearing her insulting like nobody had ever done before and even gave me a death threat and hung up. Because I was stupid enough to try to call back and send a text THEY called the police for harrassment…no report was filed. But now I’m scared I will get an order for protection from her. It is interesting how they turn everything in their own advantage. I once read that the worst thing you could do in your divorce is to play victim- especially when you are the one who strayed. This is what he has been doing and I’m hoping that it will only help my case. However, this story is so similar that I’m scared of what they are capable of doing. And my only mistake was marrying him and they are making me pay for it. She already accussed me of a violation of conduct in my job. Now they called the police after she threatens me and I react to it. I look around everyday when I walk to work and I’m so scared to open my mailbox and find the subpoena to the family protection court.
@stlouismd – Argggh – so sorry you’re having to deal with this. I’m glad you’re reading Marjorie’s story. I would also recommend you read Lisa’s and Andrea’s . I don’t want to be alarmist but you really do need to prepare for the worse and hope for the best. Requiring communication via text or email is a good start and then exercising restraint and not responding immediately will also help. What else have you done to protect yourself? Changed your passwords? Opened your own bank account and credit card? Changed the locks? Hired an attorney? Pulled a credit report? Try to always have someone else with you, when you meet with your ex, if you have to meet and chose a public place. You’re welcome to use my community to post questions or vent. Take special care of yourself and be safe.
I let my ex bend me over a barrel in a (thankfully) less extreme, but sadly similar way. He filed for divorce just weeks before the kids started school. In our state, the person who files gets to maintain residence unless there is just cause why they shouldn’t. I completely fell for his “we will work together for the kids” routine, and moved out without a fight, leaving the kids so they would have “as little disruption as possible”. Because I fully bought into the “working together” story, I also did not hire my own attorney – after all, we were only going to continue working together til we agreed, so why waste all the money? I was a student, and getting no support from him believed him that I couldn’t afford it. What did all my cooperation get me? Blackmailed into signing an agreement that he only had to pay half of the calculated support and maintenance, or he would file (and win according to my attorney once I did finally hire one) for sole custody and I would have minimal visitation and owe HIM child support (he made literally 10X what I did that year.)
My advice to women is call a counselor and make an appointment, work out your marriage with all your might if you can, right after your first consultation with your attorney.
Pamela – thank you for sharing this painful story. Stories like yours really make me wonder about the laws in some state. Which state are you in? I hope you’ve got a second opinion. Do you now have shared custody?
My wife did nearly the same thing to me, except she didnt file for divorce.. she just pressed domestic abuse oh and threw in sexual abuse as well because I yelled at her about her adultery. She has no intention of divorcing me, why would she according to the restraining order she gets my car, our house, our kids and I have to pay her.
I have a hearing in a few days to determine if it will become a permanent restraining order or not, but my lawyer who knows the truth of what is going on said we do not have a good chance of winning because a judge will be ultra safe in these situations. There has never been an allegation of misconduct by me, the police have been called one time during our marriage by her mother when I called to inform her of her daughters infidelity. The police left because there was no violence just yelling. I have no criminal record, I have state issued background checks for my last two jobs and my lawyer is informing me that the only way to avoid it becoming permanent most likely is to agree to a mutual no contact so the judge does not have to make a finding.
I filed for divorce but as it stands right now I have no place to live other than mooching off friends and family. If she does not agree to drop this I will lose my job because I need the license and my visitation with my children will be maybe every other weekend.
The truly disgusting part of this whole scenario is that I have never hit her or sexually assaulted her or done much of anything that could be considered domestic abuse, I pushed her one time when she was standing too close yelling and waiving her finger in my face. That is the entirety of her claim of physical abuse on the affidavit and unnamed sexual abuse consisting of me yelling at her about sex acts (she says that I dont get from her but in reality the ones she performed in her adulterous relationship)
~Broken
brkenhrted – you’re in an ugly situation. I hope you’re keeping good records, limiting your communication with your wife and I hope your lawyer has experience dealing with situations like this. Before you agree to anything ask lots of questions to determine the potential impact on a future parenting agreement. You already know this .. your divorce is going to be challenging.
This happens to men everyday-no one posting a page about that-Welcome to my world.
Hi Chris – it sounds like you feel that there aren’t good sites covering divorce from a male perspective? There are many aspects of divorce that impact both men and women and I do my best to avoid stereotypes. I hope you’ll keep visiting.
oh wow, im two years out from leaving my marriage, and 1 year out from the divorce finalized, and i sit here reading all these stories, and i could add my also.. manipulation, alienation, job loss, an attorney who died, another who bailed cause i couldnt pay my bill, no support during separation and mental, verbal and emotional abuse even after the divorce, we have 15 and 12 year old and he uses them.. ugh.. cant even find a job. its been two years since i lost my job. no legal aid is available ive been turned down by everyone.. im surviving… but i want to live..again
Aghh .. Tracy, it sounds like you’ve had rock after rock thrown in your path.Do you have a good support network in place? Any job prospects? How is your relationship with your kids/
The only thing I want to point out, is that if you read this story very carefully, it is clear, due to some discrepancies in it, that this person did in fact attack her husband. She does not deny “hitting him” she only alleges that when the police came there were no injuries and that he must have manufactured the injuries later. I’m sorry but a court doesn’t give custody to the father unless there are extremely compelling reasons. There is more to this story than advertised.
There’s always at least two sides to every story I post and that’s why I encourage my readers not to fall into the trap of trying to decide who was “right” but rather to understand the person’s perspective and to see what they can learn from that person’s experience.
If this isn’t one of the biggest testament to why you should NEVER EVER get married, I don’t know what is…
I’m not sure that being married or not would make a difference. I think this situation can happen in any committed relationship.
I just came across this it struck very close to home. My ex-husband did the exact same thing to me. I used to work but became a stay at home mom with the 3 kids. We built a house and office together and I helped in his successful business. He had a mistress (the secretary). In his mind, he wanted me gone (as I was a pimple on his ass). He wanted his business, home, and three kids to accept the mistress as their new mother. I was kicked to the curb, homeless and was supposed to go to a women’s shelter, but luckily I had my own small savings and credit and a friend let me move in.
I fought like hell, but in the beginning I was ready to cave and give in to whatever he wanted. I had the sense and good judgment to fight. I had minimal visitations but luckily not supervised. My arms ached. In court, he arrived with a black eye, not given by me, and told my eldest that I am a liar and am accusing him of attempted murder. I call that parental alienation, the very thing he accuses me of.
He accused me of being an alcoholic, bi polar, coke head, parental alienator, a thief, a liar, gold digger, frigid bitch, crazy bitch, etc. the list goes on and he stills calls me names and threatens a year AFTER the divorce.
His attorney told him to file a protective order to get custody of the kids so he could get what he wanted from the marital assets. He told my friends, who kept telling him to drop it, that this was the only leverage he had. With that one statement, the protective order was vacated and I got to see my kids. I won due to his arrogance. And that fueled me and angered me even more. In one fell swoop, if it stayed, I would have had a misdemeanor, no job or shelter. In one fell swoop, he would have destroyed my life and had control over my life.
Divorce is ugly. But when lawyers start to stir the pot and tell their clients to file protective orders, it makes it sickening. They don’t realize who has been harmed. And it is the kids. It is not my ex nor myself. All I can say, fight like hell and don’t let the bastard win. Mine is a narcissist, verbally abusive to me and my kids. Even documented and give to DCFS and the police. No one really cares. No one does anything. Divorce is ugly.
Thank you for sharing this Mary Still – your courage and determination is inspiring. I do agree that there are lawyers who thrive on conflict and they can and do escalate the conflict in divorce. Unfortunately, if your STBX chooses to work with one of these attorneys then it’s difficult to de-escalate the conflict and legal battles.
I’m going through the same thing!! It’s awful
Angie – I’m sorry you’re going through this. I hope you have some good advisors who are able to guide you through this. ~ Mandy
The courts could care less about a sob story. The judge has zero interest in hearing about how you are homeless, unable to parent or even visit your children. Don’t bother argueing you have no history of violence or any crime for that matter. Furthermore the judge gives no consideration that you as a respected professional may suffer irrrepairable damage to your career and ability to even support yourself.
The facts and statistics show the vast majority of such cases are intiated by a female and the male is presumed guilty and booted from the home. This is a despicable maneuver employed in the onset of a divorce. In my case I was a hard working husband and father with no history of any crime besides a speeding ticket. The legal term is an Ex parte order. Although the statistics clearly show most are initiated by the female – I feel very sorry for the undeserving person (male or female) who must contend with this. This was and always will be the most horrible experience I could have never imagined. My former wife had sex with the neighbor guy while me and my three boys slept just upstairs. Denied it… put me through hell with her lies and denial. I tricked her into confessing. What do I do with my “stay at home wife?” I forgave her, bought her a brand new Mercedes as a surprise Christmas present because she said she didn’t “feel special.” Next thing I know the sheriff comes knocking on the dream house I bought for my family and tells me I have 10 minutes to gather some stuff and must leave. The order stated “although my husband of 15 years has never laid a finger on another person in his life – I’m scared of him.” and the dirty little trick that got the judges approval????? after being denied she stated “she was scared I might hurt my 3 young boys.” Just like that I was removed from my own home, with zero criminal record. AND ordered to not contact my 3 son’s for 2 weeks until a court hearing. As I stated earlier – the courts / judges / legal system has ONE interest – thats to cover and protect themselves. What if a judge denied the order and some crazy causes harm to the other party? Judges are intended to make decisions to the best of their ability, inherently human beings will always make errors. Unfortunately our socieity would viciously punish the poor judge who made an error and rejected a restraining order. Therefore the judge has ZERO interest in taking any risk and in the majority of cases its an automatic approval. You the respodent to such an order are on your own. Yes get an attorney and a good one. I paid $5,000 to get the order against me vacated – my attorney invested no more than 5 hours time. In the end you get hosed by your current or ex-partner, the judge, the law and even by your legal counsel. Its a dysfunctional system and the more dysfuntional the more profitable for attorney’s that practice in such cases. I respectfully and humbly submit my optics on this issue and the topic of dealing with false domestic abuse / violence accusations. I sincerely hope this helps someone avoid the terrible experiences I had to contend with:
HOW TO AVOID EX PARTE RESTRAINING ORDERS AND FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE / VIOLENCE – Chances are if you are reading this you are likely average to above average intelligence – THINK! DO you trust your significant other? Do you suspect they may be unfaithful or may have ill intenntions? TRUST your feelings and intuitions. Most of the time such feelings are accurate – I chose to lie to myself because I didn’t want to break up my young family – this got me slaughtered and caused my children exponentially more emotional pain and suffering. As a recipient of unfounded and false actions – I suggest you trust your instincts. Protect your children and yourself with dignity and honestly. Inflicting needless harm to your partner is destructive and indicative of a longer term deficiency that posses the greatest risk to yourself longer term. LISTEN! Listen to your doctor, friends, colleagues and family. More than once I was cautioned by my well intentioned Doctor, friends and family. I chose to ignore these repeated concerns. I hope this helps someone avoid the issues I had to contend with. Love don’t hate. but don’t be a dummy like me. Peace.
Mike – this sounds like it was an awful, dreadful experience and no one should ever have to go through this. I hope you and your ex have been able to come to a somewhat civil relationship now in the interests of your children.
I am going through nearly the exact situation. Restraining order, getting set-up- our family wizard- homeless-no $ even kicked out my 2 sons that he helped raise for 10 years…except the judge did not see merit in his restraining order so she kept temp on till we get in family court. The judge ordered 50-50 visitation and he refuses he is narcissistic and it’s all on him and his schedule I need help! Please contact me if you have advice! Angelalynn1432@yahoo.com
Angie – in these situations you really need to have good legal advice. Are there any pro bono services or low cost legal services available where you are?
Glad I came upon this article and the comments and learned that I’m not alone in this sort of situation. Learning that this is happening to both men and women is good to prevent me from developing a jaded anti-feminist perspective on this. I also had never touched my wife or children and had a restraining order filed on me when my wife said she wanted a divorce. We did have a history of verbal fights, which she had escalated to calling the police every time I raised my voice at her or the children, even if it was as I was leaving the room to cool down. I had felt emotionally battered by these regular incidents before the protective order came.
She included the children on the protective order and has been fighting to prevent my visitation. To put me in my place, she is insisting that my mother who lives several hours away supervise my visits. Thankfully my parents have been supportive and helped with this or I would not have seen my children at all for a couple of months, including the holidays. I filed a custody case, and the judge recognized my right to unsupervised visits, directing us to come up with a schedule with our lawyers., Her and her lawyer are now being extremely aggressive about fighting against every hour of time I get to spend with the kids and will likely drag this out in the court forever.
We live paycheck to paycheck, so this has all been a big financial blow and we cannot afford another residence. Luckily I’ve found a temporary place to crash. I actually doubt my wife will even file for a divorce when she realizes how little money she will have to try to live on, My lawyer went through the standard calculations for a divorce and it wouldn’t be very pretty for her, since all she brings to the table is a very low paying part time job. However, with this protective order I just have to go along and turn over just about all of my paycheck to her, so she maintains the status quo with me deleted from the picture. She had already been overspending and running up credit card debt at a rapid pace.
I am not sure what I should do at this point. I definitely will keep fighting to see my kids, but I’m not sure if I should file a divorce soon or not. Part of me just doesn’t want to return the cruelty in kind. I also have many reasons to believe that things will deteriorate in the home and that I’ll look better and better as time goes on. At the same time I am also thinking that divorce may be the only way to protect my credit and financial future from what is a spiraling dysfunctional mess. My kids might need me to be there and be strong when the whole house of cards falls.
Your kids need you. Period. Not when the house of cards falls. They need you.
What you have is not a marriage and yes, to protect yourself financially you probably need to proceed either with divorce or legal separation depending on what legal separation looks like in your state.
Custody battles are always expensive but you don’t want to do this without legal help. I’m sorry, but this sounds like this is going to be a rough divorce.
Mandy, Thanks for your kind and thoughtful reply. It is much in line with the advice I’ve been getting from my therapist, lawyer, and concerned family. It’s just so hard going through this, and I’m getting tired of the legal wrangling, even though its really just beginning. I do still love my wife, which makes this so hard, but I know that tough decisions need to be made in the coming year.
I’m going through the same exact thing. I’ve been abused for 20 years he would threaten me whenever police were called. I was all set to go to a woman’s shelter and he happened to come home as I was walking out the door. He grabbed me strangled me until o passed out and said how many times do I have to tell you that the only way your leaving is in a body bag. I am terrified of this man. Everyday the same verbal,mental,physical,financial and emotional abuse happened to me. One day I made dinner I did everything that he told me to do after dinner he went in the bedroom I walked out back came back in and two police officers were there they arrested me for assaulting him I kept saying idk what happened but I do know it wasn’t me that assaulted him. I went to jail for 24 hours he was granted a temporary restraining order immediately and then he proceeded to go for a final restraining order. The judge looked at his picture and said what a disgrace I was and granted him the FRO. She wouldn’t let me show any evidence she wouldn’t let me talk. I’ve been homeless on the streets for over 30 days now. I have no family no help . I tried calling all kinds of places for help and I’m being rejected because I’m listed as an abuser. I don’t know what I’m going to do I can’t eat rather than hire a lawyer. I was court ordered to attend some mental health thing because he told the judge I had mental problems. I have no vehicle he refuses to give me it even though it’s in my name. I have no way of getting to this mental group thing I don’t even have clothes he won’t let me get them every time I try to setup a police escort he says he isn’t available. He is now sending threatening and harassing messages to me from some free number app.