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.
AnnieO,
I think the best way is to do it gradually, and as if seemingly slipping your guard…
An example… Let’s say he wants to make an appointment to have your son over, and he’s trying to make it a moment that was not previously agreed upon. Instead of arguing with him over it, or reminding him of the rules… you first say, “That’s not really according to schedule,” and then do some out-loud thinking, offhand, “But then it might be convenient so that I can do [whichever]” You can prepare convenience excuses for yourself. Make sure that when you mention it, that it’s not on writing and it’s a reasonable convenience for you (that way he can never use it). But saying a thing like that would be enough to make him change his mind on the spot… Exercise on that, and then you can start to expand it somewhat, until he believes that you’re absolutely fine with him seeing your son because it gives you free-time. Once he believes that he doesn’t want you to have free time anymore.
Thank you Darwinsmom! The only communication we have is emails through Family Wizard so it would be in writing. They can be simple things though like a girls night out or whatever fun activity. He surely doesn’t want me to have fun so it will be easy to come up with things.
Funny that I was just thinking that I need to come up with a ‘long con’ for him, lol.
As long as it’s off-hand and to a 3rd person looks like you are both reasonable to his plans + making use of your time innocently he wouldn’t be able to use it.
There’s no long con needed, just a small one. Just make them think that instead of annoying you (as they expect), they are doing something that is pleasing to you, then spaths will back out of it.
And you have this important advantage: the last thing he’ll expect of you is to be pretending something in that smart opposite way. 😉
AnnieO,
It’s not easy to be fake because we have real emotions and they need to be hidden. It’s easy to give advice but harder to implement it. I’m so sorry for what you are going through.
The good news is that they really are dumb about emotions so that’s your ace. You can tell him you are on anti-depressants and he will be curious as to how they affect you. (yes, that’s how my spath was when I took SSRI’s.) Or you can take up a new REALLY EXCITING HOBBY. Or get a new boyfriend. Basically any STORY will work. But that’s the key word: STORY.
These drama queens get quite involved in stories. Whatever story you present, make sure there are lots of props and actors and emotional expressions. They’ll believe anything you present that way. Ironically, that’s EXACTLY what my spath does!! You would not believe the lengths he goes to create productions with an entire cast of characters. But these are REAL people getting conned into behaving as he wants, in order to create the “reality” that he wants.
I truly believe that they don’t know the difference between the “reality” they create and the real world. I had real cops chasing me around at his command. The neighbors were recruited to make me miserable. My own sister was involved. All of this so that he could convince me of the reality of his stories and I was supposed to commit suicide. (no, the recruits were not innocent, they knew the end goal.)
The mistake he made was that I’d been with him for 25 years. That was quite long enough to know what he was capable of.
Sorry, I digress. It still shakes me to my core when I think about it. But the point is, whatever you present, they will believe. Have fun with it, if you can. Laugh as much as possible. Laughter is our ONLY defense against the tragedy that a spath is.
As far as some props you can use, try face book. Post away about your fake plans. Then see how he reacts. If he tries to sabotage your plans, then you’ll know how to roll with it.
Skylar and darwinsmom (whose story I remember reading and being touched by somewhere else on this site last year?), I get what you are saying about reading the spath’s mind and not letting up about what we value.
But how do you lay down boundaries then? All the expert advice to “us victims” (*roll eyes*) seems to be that we need to set out boundaries. But to do that firmly is telling them where we want our boundaries. Eg, if I don’t want him to leave me personal notes, I tell him in no uncertain terms, “Please do not leave letters in my letterbox, I will not read them” but of course, what happens is that more letters come. But if I don’t, then when I try to get police help, they say I haven’t told him in no uncertain terms.
Similar problem with the court (which is why I’ve stayed away). If I start saying that I don’t mind the notes, or don’t mind him having the kids at certain times, or calling them whenever, then he has proof that I don’t have a problem with him. The court won’t know that it is a ploy. In fact, the policewoman said to me this week that surely I would not be sending the kids there since he was abusive, and I said, “You got to be joking. I am only doing what I can to make sure we get the lesser of the evils. If they don’t go, who knows what he’ll do and our lives might be at stake.” She seemed to understand, being a mother of a young child. Her advice was to tell him when he could or could not come to my door (is it EVER acceptable for him to come to my door??), then see if he breached it, then maybe I had a case for police to caution him.
Good news, though. I don’t want to say where I am, but we are connecting with people who are on a mission – victims who are going to harass and take it up to the police and the government. This particular person has already effected change – the new law with restraining order forces the perpetrator out immediately, even if he owns the property. We ARE going to see the system change!
Not-too-late,
I undestand your issue. It can be important for 3rd party reasons (court) to be very clear about boundaries. However, spaths will always disrespect boundaries.
As I understand it your tactic has been to show the court that he is a dangerous man who doesn’t respect rules. The problem with that tactic is that even with a huge amount of evidence how much he doesn’t care about the rules, the courts will still listen to his argument about him having the right to see his children. Even when the courts recognize the thruth of the situation they will still give him the benefit of the doubt to be a father, and in the eyes of the court you become someone with the goal to strip that right away from him… and they don’t like that.
Yes, setting boundaries is very important, but that does not always necessarily mean you make them heard. For example, with regards to the communication. The rules how to communicate and what to communicate have been made clear long ago. Those are the boundaries. Yup, he will break them, but you do not need to repeat the boundary, you simply ignore the ‘wrong’ type of communication… you don’t say it, but do it. Have some box to throw all these notes in (as evidence) without ever reading them. You don’t need to tell him that you’re not reading them. Setting the boundary means simply that you do not read them nor spend any energy on it. Those notes do not exist for you on an energetic level. When you tell him instead that you’re not reading them and that he shouldn’t put notes in the mailbox, then you acknowledged their existence on an energetic level and your annoyance by them to him. Let’s pretend he were to ask you about mailbox notes, you could answer astonished ‘What notes?’, because on an energetic level those notes were never supposed to exist in the first place and you haven’t read them anyway. Do you see the difference? Repeating boundaries to him is ‘trying’ to set a boundary and giving him another chance to comply with it or not; not repeating them and just acting accordingly (ignoring their existence completely) is actually setting a boundary, irregardless of whether he complies to it or not.
Setting boundaries is more of an internal process than a communication process (and it took me a lot of years teaching to understand it). Some people will not respect your boundaries. You do not have any control over that. But you do have control over yourself. You can hang up the phone, not respond, throw the note with the thrash without ever reading or speaking of it again, walk out of a room and completely ignore a person who disrespects your boundaries, and you do that by setting the boundary for yourself that you will not spend an ounce of energy in it.
Also, thank you for your words on my story. I feel my story was not as dangerous nor as destructive as that of others, because luckily for myself a lot of it was ultra long distance and little less than 2 years, and it was fairly easy to go and maintain nc. But the cognitive dissonance and the aftermath effect upon all of my life for several months was as painful as it is for everybody. And I did experience some very scary and personally very painful degrading moments. And though I had not much to lose financially… the € 14,000 debt I had amassed by November 2010 was a lot for me and pretty much a downward spiral that kept choking me. At least over € 9,000 has been paid back now, and I actually have over €1000 in savings.
Not-too-late,
I hear you. It can be confusing trying to read their minds at each step. I suggest distilling the concept of boundaries down to the bare basics. What are we really setting a boundary on? Our emotions. The boundary says they cannot have our emotions or any emotional responses, or any reactions based on emotions. Since they eat emotions, we don’t feed them. But you can give them fake emotions, to keep them busy.
What darwinsmom described is spot on. When they cross a boundary, do not respond the way they would expect, by telling them again to stop. Simply don’t respond or walk away.
Maybe another story might help. There is a woman who has a son with a spath. The spath is remarried but continues to try to torture his ex by not following the court ordered rules like writing in the journal. He sends emails, changes the schedule etc…He also keeps giving the boy a buzz cut. The mom likes at least 2 inches in length and makes every effort to compromise by going short on the sides, to no avail.
I wish it didn’t bother her so much but I told her to keep making a big deal about it, as if it bothered her more. That will keep him focused on it.
You see, she told me she knows he is cheating on his new wife already because when he cheats, he goes to the emergency room a lot. He suddenly needs all kinds of drama. He even takes the dog to the emergency room.
I recognize the pattern. The spaths think that by causing upheaval and drama, they can hide and distract from, any evidence of their cheating.
My concern is that he will hurt the boy so he can take him to the emergency room. So I told the mom, to allow him drama over the hair to appease that need. She doesn’t get hysterical over the hair but she does keep trying to get her point across. She also documents EVERYTHING. Pictures, email, everything.
It’s amazing to hear that there are so many stories and there are tons of parallels through all of them (with of course their own unique twists of terrible as well).
AnnieO – I know that my ex’s intension is to slowly work his way to at least 50/50 because for him I believe its not only about winning and terrorizing me, but he actually thinks my son is going to be a pay off for him. If he someday obtains joint custody, I will have to pay him child support. This to him would mean that he has completely won because everything is about money to him and how much he can get out of other people without actually doing any work. While my lawyers have assured me that his efforts to gain more access will be futile, I am not so sure after the stories that I have heard.
On another note, I am very intrigued with the idea of fooling the spath into thinking that you WANT them to have visitation. In my situation (like others), I don’t have direct access to him so it will be hard for me to put on a show and convince him of anything. We have a safe transfer program where I drop the baby off with a “supervisor” of sorts and she delivers the baby to him at a police station (I know…classy. Not sure how I will explain this one to my son someday). Any suggestions of how I can get him to think I don’t mind? I don’t really trust the supervisor because she is the one who called him delusional and then went to court and said he was fine.
cappuccinoqueen, how old is your child right now?
Once he’s of communicative age, you could tell him how happy you are his father is trying to be a father figure for him and there for him, that you wish him to have a father who loves him (and the latter wouldn’t be a lie, because we would all prefer a child to have a loving parent). You give him a hug and wish him fun and tell him you’ll try to have fun too, and mention some activity.
Spaths love to interrogate their children to find out as much as they can from the ex-partner. Spaths use their children to have knowledge and control over the ex-partner. The sole thing you are doing then is (a) proving you’re not alienating a child from a parent (b) be loving and encouraging to your child (c) you have more control over what your child will be telling to the spath when he gets to be interrogated.
Another way that will be of help for you now, instead of waiting until your child can talk, is to drop some off handed remark to someone you know will talk to him, might be a spy, or just an innocent in denial or no knowledge, or an ex-in-law you can sometimes run into and still have a cordial meaningless weather-chat with. You could even have the supervizor mention something. You don’t tell them the plan in any way. But when you give the baby you can say while saying goodbye to the supervizor, “Well, I’m off to treat myself on … (fun activity here)”. Or if you run into such blabbing mouth of his camp you can have a cordial chit-chat and mention that the other day, when he had visitation you had so much fun when you treated yourself on (fun activity here)… Do this a few times and he’ll hear about it.