Custody cases are often referred to as “custody battles”. Lately when I hear this term, I have to chuckle to myself because a “battle” seems so mild and finite compared to what I have been dealing with since the night I fled my ex’s house with my newborn son.
A “battle” might be an appropriate title when the case is between two rational parents. If you are dealing with a sociopath in a child custody case, however, you are probably experiencing what feels more like a war. Some battles are won and some are lost, but it is never just ONE battle with a person like this. I am blessed to be able to share my war stories in hopes to give others ammunition that I didn’t have (and maybe even gather some tips/weapons from others who have been here before me).
My story begins…
The first time I walked into my lawyers office, I probably looked like a crazy woman (and to some degree that is how I felt). I still remember the black sweat pajamas and spit up stained shirt I was wearing that day. These were the only clothes I owned because they had been the ones I fled Lucifer’s house wearing (Lucifer is what I am calling the psychopath – Luc for short). My two week old son was in my arms, despair and fear were the written all over my face, and I was visibly shaking as I held out my hand to meet my new attorneys.
As I sat in their office and told my story, I felt their judgement and disbelief. They had seen so many scorned women come through their office with false accusations and unbelievable stories. To them, I was just another one of these women who was determined to get some sort of revenge on her ex. It took me nearly a year to convince them that we were not dealing with a normal and healthy man. That, in fact, we were dealing with someone who very likely had a dangerous personality disorder – a sociopath.
A little background:
Just a few short weeks after my son was born, Lucifer’s mask fell. After he threatened to kill me, me and baby boy fled the house and never looked back. In the weeks that followed that horrible night, I learned more about Luc than I knew about him in the whole two years we dated. What I learned was very disturbing and, frankly, continues to scare the hell out of me. I learned he had lied to me about everything from his name and age to how he made his money. I also learned that two of the most important women in his life died of unnatural causes. While a lot of terrible things seem to happen around Luc, he has yet to be convicted of any crimes.
Things I have learned from my Custody War:
- Family court is not about what is best for the child. It is only about dealing with parents. Every time I hear people talk about “father’s rights” and “two parents are better than one” I want to throw up. Again, these might be totally justified ideas when the father is not a sociopath. Family court is “one size fits all”. Judges are not interested in making sure the child is safe and healthy. They are only interested in making parents happy enough so they don’t have to deal with the case again.
- Sociopaths are very good at finding people who will lie for them. This includes professionals. Luc actually found a psychologist to take the stand for him and testify that while he was at risk for a mood disorder and “socially maladaptive”, she didn’t have any concerns about him. She said all of this after learning that he had lied to her about previously receiving a psych exam and about what he did for a living (among other things).
- The courts don’t recognize psychological abuse as abuse. After only a few months of supervised visits, the judge awarded Luc unsupervised visitation with my non verbal baby boy. The judge stated that unless baby boy was returned with cigarette burns on his back, the threshold for abuse would not be met. He noted that he didn’t think Luc was a good guy, however, unless Luc was arrested, he would be allowed unsupervised visits with baby boy.
- No matter how many mistakes a sociopath makes in family court, he will always be given the chance to try again. On the day of our initial trial, Luc showed up by himself with nobody to testify on his behalf and not a shred of evidence as to who he was. He believed that the mere fact that his sperm contributed to baby boy’s life was enough for him to be awarded at least joint custody. He wanted the court to make me pay him child support so that he could continue to sit at home and play video games all day. This behavior went on for several months. Luc even tried to get jurisdiction changed to his state after he had disappeared from baby boy’s life for three months without even a phone call. For a while, I felt like I was in court with Luc every other week. These trials were sport to him and he knew that the judge would keep giving him chances. He continued to drag out proceedings and not pay his attorneys, while I drained all of my resources trying to show the courts who his true motivation – money, power, and terror.
- Perjury might still be against the law, but don’t count on it being enforced. Luc is a pathological liar. Throughout the custody war, my lawyers were able to catch Luc in several lies. Let me just give you an example of one of the basic and most glaring lies Luc told to the court. About half way through the year, Luc’s age changed. The age he testified to at the original trial was false (even though he had managed to obtain an official drivers license with that fake age). When we were able to prove this lie through official Social Security and Department of Homeland Security records, he pretended as though he had never testified under oath to a different age. This ridiculousness continued throughout the custody war.
In the year since I left Luc, many people have questioned how I got myself into this situation. Here is the best answer I can come up with:
If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, he will jump out; however, if you put that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly bring it to a boil — before too long, you are going to have one dead frog. (In case it’s still not clear…I am the frog and Luc is the pot of boiling water)
The sad reality is that my war with Luc is far from over. Each day, I wake up wondering if I will end up like his older sons mother (in a grave). I have many days when I get discouraged by our terribly ignorant justice system. What is my silver lining, my ray of hope, and why I keep fighting? My baby boy. He is my guardian angel and the reason I wake up every day. I have been through a hell worse than I could ever have imagined in the last year, but I will do it all over again and for the rest of my life if I have to in order to save my son.
LPMarie13, your story sounds hauntingly familiar to mine. It’s funny, if I didn’t know better I would wonder if our ex is the same person (except mine hasn’t been caught yet for his crimes). It is also nice to hear that some folks are feeling “normal” again. Thank you all for your kinds words. I recently learned that my ex has two other children he has no connection to. Their mothers ran away from him. Sometimes, no matter how hard I fight I feel like a terrible mother for not running. I don’t know if I could live my life like that though. I have worked so hard to make a good living for me and my son and running would only make me a fugitive and shift the whole situation in his favor. (He is in too deep not to try and find me) I do respect the people who have the bravery to leave though.
Truthspeak and Darwinsmom,
Thanks so much for the wonderful compliments and encouragement. I need the support, and in down times, I rely on the kind words people on LF have shared with me. Such good folks here!
Whyohwellwhy,
“However, I do live in fear and I do live looking over my shoulder.” Ditto. I’m around 6,000 miles away from Spathy and I ***still*** wake up during the night and wonder if he broke into my apartment. I won’t feel safe until I read his obituary. And then I’ll wonder if it’s a fraud, just like him! I love that you said you almost feel normal again. I feel myself getting stronger, too, so it is refreshing to hear that after some time and distance, you are healing. I’ve been NC for over a year with ex Spathy and his family. It was the best decision, and I found out that I am a stronger, more resilient person than I ever dreamed possible. Of course, having a sweet angel in the form of a 20 month old daughter has brought me all types of new confidence I didn’t know were available to me! It’s amazing how that awesome responsibility to a vulnerable little one will have me facing a huge mountain thinking “there has got to be a way I can get this thing moving.” 🙂
cappuccinoqueen,
I remember feeling the same way, that maybe my ex was the same person as another member of LF’s. Especially because she had met her Spathy ex in the same state that I met mine. But then, the more I started reading and discovered they pretty much operate from the same playbook, I’m wondering if they aren’t actually an alien species. (There was a article on here last month, I believe, likening these strange birds to aliens as an exercise in understanding their lack of “humaness.” Anyway, I diverge!).
I just wanted to encourage you to be gentle with yourself for your decision to stay, for the time being. I agree with Truthspeak who said:
“I believe that you clearly understand your situation. IMHO, you’ve expressed incredible courage, strength, and resolve.”
Only you know what is best for your individual situation and what you can personally handle. I had the incredible good fortune of having a judge who was a bit of a hard ass in my favor. She wouldn’t give me exactly what I wanted, but she gave me enough power to legally leave the state. The way the agreement is written, I am supposed to give him my residential address and phone number because there is child support being enforced, but I think he’ll stop paying in the long term and be grateful that I don’t track him down for it. I remember when I wasn’t aware that he was a Sociopath, and we were still together, his ex wouldn’t let him see his older daughter. I thought she was vindictive and said he should take her to court for legal visitation rights and he said no because she could ask for more child support. This gives me hope for the future. But I agree, it’s difficult living with the unknowns. Will he try to continue the drama? Could I end up in trouble or lose my daughter, etc? In the long term, I just hope he’s as sleazy as I think he is, and that he lets us go as long as I let the child support go. I think he’s that low, and that would be great. He has NOTHING positive to offer a child.
Don’t doubt your bravery. You didn’t stick around for more of his abuse, despite how vulnerable you were with a brand new little bundle to care for. You refused to wrap the blanketof denial around yourself and saw the situation for the dangerous one that it was. You removed yourself and your son promptly and got yourself lawyered up. You’re doing your best, and that is all that is ever expected out of any one of us!!! Hang in there and take good care of yourself and the baby. BIG (((HUGS))) to you. You’re gonna make it 😉
Capqueen, Thanks for sharing your story. It is very inspiring and strengthening.
I don’t live in your state, but I still have some questions to ask. If you could do it over again, would you engage in the legal battle? I ask this because I have decided to stay out of it, even though there are pros and cons. The ex doesn’t want to pursue legal action even though he keeps threatening to. The reason is that he doesn’t want to spend the money on the application and says it is cheaper for me, on a pension.
One of the advantages of having a court order is that there are fixed times – at the moment he tries to get away with calling in and getting time anytime he wants it. He won’t agree to fixing times for phoning the kids, because he says I will not negotiate a schedule. I definitely will not do it in person and every attempt to do it with a mediator has failed.
The downsides of going through the court system are everything you wrote in your article – there will be no justice. A battle (or rather a war) is exactly what he wants and I need it like a hole in the head. I don’t want ANYTHING to do with him, but I know that’s not realistic, given that we have children. If I go to court, we will be put through the wringer and come out of it worse than now; the kids will have to see him MORE often than they do, something they have told me they don’t want to do. AND we will be fifty thousand dollars poorer.
But if I don’t ask for a court order, he thinks he can phone them any time he wants, come around to leave gifts, ask for more times when he feels like it, change times when he feels like it with short notice, etc.
After what you’ve been through, would you avoid the legal battle if you had to?
Not-too-late,
You ask an important question that is very difficult to answer, but I will try my best (based on my experiences). First, I think about this on a daily basis. I have made so many mis-steps in the past year because I just couldn’t have imagined how much evil my ex was capable of. To answer your question simply – if I could do it all over again what would I do? If I knew then what I know now….I would have run and never filed for custody. If I had disappeared, I don’t believe he would have spent the time and energy to come after me.
That being said, I believe I missed that window and it sounds like you are a bit past that as well. How old are your children? If they are old enough to speak for themselves and you believe they would tell a court evaluator or a guardian at litem
that they don’t enjoy spending time with their father (and are old enough to give solid reasons that your ex can’t blame you for) this might change my answer. Here are some pros and cons you should consider:
PRO: Having a solid and air tight custody order (with as much specifics as possible) means you don’t need to communicate with him as often as you currently do.
CON: A custody war is costly both financially and economically. From my understanding, sociopaths enjoy causing emotional pain and they seem to thrive in these settings. He will do things to drag it out and lie on the stand to the point where you will want to jump out of your seat and punch him in the face. (but you can’t because the judge will be watching)
In your situation, depending on your finances, you might want to consider going for it to protect yourself from further abuse. If your ex already has access to them, him winning some access won’t be a loss for you. One of my only saving graces in the past year has been that I don’t have to communicate with that monster myself. Court wars suck – big time; however, I have also learned that if you don’t have a detailed agreement the sociopath will do anything he can to terrorize you more. With a written custody order that is sealed tight, you can hold him accountable. If he is late, you can cancel the visit. If he doesn’t bring the children back, you can press criminal charges. If he doesn’t pay child support, you can get it enforced.
That being said, if you think he will go away if you just keep going the way that you are going – that might be the better option.
I am sorry my answer is sort of a non-answer, but I hope it was helpful. If you choose to go the legal route, plan your war BEFORE you file. You want to be completely prepared and catch him off guard as much as possible. Hire a Private Investigator and document EVERYTHING. Keep a diary so you will have specific dates and times, etc. These are the sorts of things that will help you when he starts telling lies on the stand. Good luck and God Bless.
Not-too-late~
I left the exspath when my son was three weeks old. The ex was abusive when I was pregnant and I knew that I couldn’t be in an abusive situation with my children. He declared war at that point and has been dragging us through the courts for the last seven years, nearly non-stop. He has a trust fund and wealthy parents so the money is nothing for him. For me it almost destroyed us financially and emotionally.
At first things were fine as we had a judge that was favorable because he saw the ex get angry on the witness stand. He had supervised visitation for a few months and of course he showed up looking like the perfect father every time. So he kept taking me to court for more time over and over. He always had wild accusations so people were appointed to check things out. We have had two mediators, a parenting coordinator, a CFI, PRE, Guardian Ad Litem. My life feels like it has been under a microscope.
Our court order also says that I can’t move out of the state so am trapped here by it. Our judge retired and the one we have had for the last two years has been from He**. She advocates for father’s rights and believes that 90% of restraining orders are taken out to make the other parent look bad. He now has 50% custody even after he was charged with child abuse.
I would never gamble with the family courts. Once you have a court order you are bound by it and if your ex is anything like mine, one slip up and he will drag you into court for contempt.
If there is ANY way that you could leave the state I would move heaven and earth to do that. Once visitation is established with a court order, it is VERY difficult to break that off and move. In my state they feel that the child benefits from having contact with both parents under nearly all circumstances unless the other parent has committed murder or serious sexual assault. Yep, that is their stance.
IF I could do it over again I would have NEVER, EVER entered the family court system. Just my opinion from what we have been through. What you think should happen in court and what actually happens are two completely different things.
I would have never believed in a million years that a man that I have a permanent restraining order against for domestic violence would have unsupervised custody. Until I went through this I had no clue how messed up the family courts are.
If you can, take those children and run baby run!
AnnieO,
Your story terrifies me. My ex initially had supervised visitation as well. Of course, like your ex, he came each week acting like a perfect parent (because what do they expect – that he is going to punch the child in front of a supervisor?).
My ex is already talking about how in six months he is going to take me back to court for overnights. The judge we had is going on a rotation out of family court so if he does take me back, it will be a total crap shoot. I thought it couldn’t get much worse than this, but 50/50 would be a nightmare.
I am so sorry for what you are going through. In my case, my ex has been accused of both murder and sexual assault (multiple times) and that, too, doesn’t matter if the state won’t go after it. The way our laws are set up, good criminals always win. I never realized how incredibly hard it was to actually get convicted of something until I met my ex. A person must literally have to be like the Colorado shooter to be charged and convicted.
Cappuccinoqueen~ I remember reading about stories like mine back when I first left the xspath. I thought to myself, that would NEVER happen in my situation! It did. The ex knew what was near and dear in my life, my son, and he has gone after that full force. He has filed five motions in the court over the last year alone. Two are still pending.
I have often wondered how things would be if I had made custody or visitation a non-issue. Like if i would have said, ‘sure you can have son for a few hours, that would be great so I can go to out to the movies with a date.’ Or something along those lines. Am not sure if that would have worked or not. Spaths seem to be keenly aware of what makes us tick. He may not have believed it.
As far as these guys getting away with everything they do, they seem to be experts at that. The couple of times that he has been charged with a crime, he has gotten off completely.
One thing that has happened is that the ex has become an expert at the court proceedings and manipulating the multitude of ‘experts’ in our case.
The CFI we had made seven or eight references to his anger issues and stated that she felt that he had physically abused me and that there was loud fighting occurring in front of my son in exspath’s home. She concluded that my son would ‘benefit’ from more time with his father! It was downright reckless. Her report was turned into the court right before my son turned five. Four months later he choked him during a long unsupervised weekend over the Easter holiday. He was charged with child abuse. It gets very painful from there so maybe will write about that at another time.
I am not even sure what advice to give except that if you have a way out TAKE IT when it is presented!
Have thought about taking my son and just running for the hills many, many times. The ex has plenty of money and resources to track me down. Ending up in jail with no reprieve for my son from the spath would be devastating.
We have been being stalked by the spath for years as well and were placed in an address confidentiality program by the state. After relocating, he still found us! He tells others how he wants me out of the picture completely, how he would do it. It is sick and graphic. Don’t ever underestimate these creatures.
Another pattern that you may see emerge is this: They ask for more parenting time. You say, ‘no way’. They claim that you are uncooperative, trying to keep the child from them, alienating the child, blah, blah. Afterall, they are just wanting to be a good dad and have a relationship with their child. They will paint you as an uncooperative, controlling, vindictive bi%*# who is trying to keep the child away from them. Many times the courts will look at this so unfavorably that they will say that YOU are harming the child and award custody to the father. Bleck!
Funny how they call it a custody battle when the only ones that want to engage in a fight are the spaths. Us, we just want to be left alone.
Wish I had a magical answer. The courts need to be overhauled, but that won’t help our children now.
((HUGS))
AnnieO,
I am so sorry to hear about your situation. I am also sad to hear about what happened to your baby boy. I know it must be so hard for both of you.
You are completely right about them making us look like we are blocking access and uncooperative. His lawyer actually tried to set me up several times. Luckily, we had a supervisor for the visit who was able to say that I was NOT being uncooperative and that, in fact, he was the one being uncooperative.
The problem I have faced, time and time again, during this custody war is that even when the professionals SEE that they are dealing with a sociopath or just a generally unstable person…they are often afraid to be honest. We had a court evaluator who asked to have police presence during her testimony and shook like a leaf when she was forced to say negative things about the spath. During cross examination she feel apart and just looked completely not credible.
The supervisor during the initial supervised visits told me she felt he was not well and not in touch with reality. She also told me that she was concerned he would kidnap my son or even kill me. Oddly, she said NONE of that on the stand. She merely told the court that didn’t harm the baby in her presence. It was completely unbelievable. She was even shocked when he was awarded unsupervised visits. I wanted to say, “um…what did you think would happen after your glowing report?!?!”
The bottom line IMHO is that the courts need to realize that having an abusive parent is dangerous and abuse comes in all different types of forms. A person like this….a sociopath…is no good for families and the healthy parent who is lucky enough to escape with his/her life should be allowed to leave this person regardless of whether or not he/she has a child with the person.
I sometimes feel completely wrecked. I feel like I am screaming through the hills asking for the system to protect me and my son from his dangerous person and all I am hearing in return is, “you chose this man – deal with him.”
When something terrible happens, what happens then? I can’t walk into my lawyers office, the judges chambers, etc from the grave and tell them “I told you so”. Or am I supposed to come to them AFTER he does something else terrible and say, “see I told you he would rape/kill/con, etc again!” At that point, it might be way way way too late.
Sorry all, tonight I am having a bad night. 🙁
Cappuccinoqueen~ Take a deep breath for tonight. It could be a long battle. I am really worried about your ex’s violent past.
Regarding the experts that seem to be too scared to actually have the balls to stand up and say, ‘Hey, this guy is psycho! He is abusive! No way this child would benefit in any way from being around him.’ Won’t happen. At least not anytime soon.
One of the mediators suggested that I should agree to meet with the spath once a month to stop him from becoming frustrated about having no contact with me. He actually suggested this!
A CASA we had on our case had turned over a multitude of emails where she indicated that she had to actually hang up on the spath because he had become so verbally abusive. This was AFTER she turned in a report to the courts stating that communication between the parties was difficult because of the restraining order and that I should ‘cooperate’ more and allow contact. That the lack of contact was ‘harming’ the child. *puke*
Can you possibly leave the state? Maybe get a job, or job offer. Wink.
I didn’t learn about psychopathy until about two years ago. Wish I had that knowledge years ago. You are at least ahead of the game in having the information about what the ex is.
I so wish that you weren’t going through this. Glad that you are armed with information about psychopathy.
Take care,
Cappuccinoqueen and AnnieO:
I’m so glad I came back to scan LF one more time tonight. I’m having one of those nights where my relocation “adaptation stress” is catching up to me.
I’m realizing yet one more thing I am going to lose due to my entanglement with Spathy. I’ve been stressing and trying to find a way to hang onto it, after all I have lost so much, and it’s been a steady source of income, benefits, and identity for me through Army reserve service.
I went through a bad time after my deployment and subsequent divorce (I suspect that ex is a S, too, but that’s another story for another night). I met Spathy during the aftermath. After I had some intensive therapy, I busted my ass trying to rebuild my military career and I had a wonderful opportunity to go to a great school for a new job that I was really into. And Spathy talked me out of it so he would have a place to live when he got out of jail. And I bought into it, allowing him to guilt me. And then I got pregnant a few months after he got back. I shouldn’t say “got pregnant.” I allowed Spathy to pressure me into having a baby. (This is not to say I don’t love my daughter, but it is often a bitter pill to swallow, knowing he wanted a child with me to continue to have access to my lifestyle, manipulating my dream of finally having a happy family).
I tried do the school online. But having a new baby and a Spathy partner who was bringing METH around made it impossible. I believed him to be clean and a “reforming” person when we met. After having seen how he can hide his drug use, I now suspect he was using drugs early in our relationship and maybe even throughout. It was only obvious toward the end when my daughter was 7 weeks old.
I’m angry that I worked so hard and have lost so much. All because I wanted to be loved and I believed he loved me as much as I loved him. Or the mask, I should say. I sometimes believe I would have made more self protective choices had I not been in such a vulnerable mental and emotional state when I met him. But what good does that do me or my daughter now?
But reading these last several posts between the two of you are a good reality check for me. My ex Spath has admitted to and literally gotten away with murder. That my daughter and I got out with our lives and limbs intact is truly a blessing.
Anyway, I’m grieving yet another pending loss and wondering what the heck I’m doing and going to do, but I’m also realizing how difficult a struggle so many of you other parents go through to protect your children from Spathy parents. It really stinks that you have to go through it, but thank you so much for sharing it.
It just convinces me that I, too, would have gone through a lot more stress and likely watch helplessly as he would eventually be granted unsupervised visitation and take my little angel God only knows where with God only knows who.
“I sometimes feel completely wrecked. I feel like I am screaming through the hills asking for the system to protect me and my son from his dangerous person and all I am hearing in return is, “you chose this man ”“ deal with him.”
That really stinks, too, but I know exactly what you mean. The judge gave me a lot, but she gave me that attitude, too. How can you possibly begin to explain the con and what happens when the mask drops without sounding like a total nutjob.
I think my train of thought is disjointed right now. I love my daughter and have so many fears about the future, how I will take care of her with my once relatively stable finances now crumbling around me. I also have a condo in the process of a short sale in the state we fled and soon my credit will take a massive hit for it.
I’m not sleeping well at night with all these worries on my mind. It’ s hard to see that in the long run, leaving was the best decision. But your posts really do help me to remember WHY I needed to leave, and what we had to look forward to and possibly worse if we didn’t go. So thank you for sharing such painful and stressful experiences here with the LF community. I’m not glad either one of you are going through it, but I am learning so much from your experiences and trying to remind myself to be grateful to be away from Spathy.