Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader in Australia who we’ll call “Lana.” All of the names below are pseudonyms.
Everything had been quite on the Spath front for a while. But I have worked out over the past 3 years there is always something lurking, ready to rear its ugly head especially when there are children involved.
Two weeks ago I received a call from Gary, a man that my ex-husband (Steve, the spath) worked for a year ago and ripped off. Gary knew where I was working, and being in the same industry, knew my boss. He asked my boss if I could call him a few months ago and we have been in touch since. Gary told me Steve had constantly made threats on my life etc, and he would be prepared to make a statement if I were to ever require a AVO which he advised, as he was very unnerved by Steve’s constant rants. Greg phoned me again two weeks ago he told me an acquaintance went to work for Steve and he had to leave because of the abuse the staff had to witness between Steve and the current girlfriend Nicole.
We have recently moved house and Jasmine, Steve’s eldest daughter, was going to come over and visit her half-sister Emme, now 3 1/2. Emme was not well and something in my gut kept stopping me from having Jasmine visit and giving her my address, which she asked for 3 times that morning. Being now 18 and with a car, Jasmine was looking forward to developing a relationship with Emme and I thought that it would be a wonderful idea as Emme is very close to Steve’s other daughter Ally.
Steve has had no contact with any of his three daughters for over 2 years.
Concern about Jasmine
A few days ago I received a message from Jasmine’s Aunty Lisa. She was really concerned as Jasmine has been in contact with her father, and her own mother was not even aware of this. Jasmine had not seen Steve for 2 years, the last time being when they were at the holiday cabin. He threw her against a wall and his then girlfriend stopped him from punching her in the face. He then locked her in the cabin for 2 days and the then girlfriend bought her in food and water before she was taken home for being disobedient. That was the last time she had spoken to him until recently.
Aunty Lisa is a acquaintance of mine but her sister Di, Jasmine’s Mother, is not, as she sided with Steve when we separated (Di has never been with another man for 18 years after Steve left her and has always been under his spell) until recently, I hear.
Lisa is very worried about Jasmine, as I am. When Lisa told me they were in contact, instantly all those old emotions of fear and anxiety came flooding back. I am fearful of Steve and have gone to every length to protect Emme from him. I have a close relationship with Ally and her mother, Jane, and both of us have gone to court to get full custody and to have the girls surnames changed. We have both moved and changed our numbers, all to protect the safety of our girls, and their safety is paramount. With Jasmine now seeing her father, sadly, we see as a direct threat. Jane deleted her off Facebook so Steve can’t see into her world through Jasmine, and I have also now done the same.
I wrote a message to Jasmine, which is below. The messages are hers and my responses. Although we were very close, I have not been particularly close to her since I left Steve; although we have been in constant contact, we have only physically seen her twice in 3 years. What surprised me most are her responses. It appeared like it is a game. I texted her Aunty Lisa and said I am concerned about her motives, and think she may have a bit of her father in her. Lisa’s response was:
Um hello Lana! She has been on Facebook for 3 years and Di still swears black and blue she isn’t. I luv Jasmine 2 pieces but she is a convincing liar and there is a lot of mischief she gets up too.
Jasmine and Lisa are very close and she is more honest with her than her own mother.
Email exchange
I have changed the names on the messages below but not the text. I wanted to highlight when there are children involved from a spath, you never feel free from them. My letters are in italics and Jasmine’s responses are in regular type.
Do I trust the eldest daughter???
Is she genetically disordered?????
Or am I being over the top because of my own fears??
My gut says, never give him the benefit of the doubt.
But is this about Jasmine or Steve or now both????
Hey J!
Dont be angry at Lisa but she had thought I knew you had seen your dad the way I made mention on the topic. Jaz I want you to know I dont know your reasons for this but understand your Dad is manipulative and could have ulterior motives for seeing you. He is not capable of love, as hard as it is to understand, it is all acting to get what he wants from people. Your Pa has desperately been trying to get Matt (Steve’s brother) to talk to him and I am sure he may have done the same to you. But your dad has lost everyone because he is evil and abusive and his sad stories are all lies to con people. Hunny he is dangerous and he will hurt you again. I worry about you so much. Your Dads mental condition cannot be fixed and I beg you to research what a Sociopath is so you can understand your father and your relationship with him better. I love you and I write this because I care about you. I also write it because I care about myself, Emme, Jane and Ally as well, and he could be getting close to you to find out where we are. Your Dad still makes threats on my life through people, and I cannot afford for you to know where I live, as he could manipulate this information from you. I am happy to catch up with you but maybe we can meet at a Park or somewhere else, I am not sure but I know knowing you are seeing him I don’t feel safe and I don’t think you are safe either. Your father has been screaming at Nicole and she is abused by your father, say co workers, his patterns will never change and I feel for her and for anyone that meets him. I beg you to not tell him anything about us, he has started paying maintenance for Emme & Ally and I don’t trust his motives, but one thing I know he will never see Emme because he is the sort of person that would kill her to get back at me for leaving him. I believe he is getting worse with age and I absolutely believe he is dangerous. Stay safe. Love Lana xxxx
well i saw him once”¦ At xmas eve and nothing comes up about you”¦ I dont mention anything and neither does he”¦ I keep it separate because i want to be in my sisters life”¦ And aunty Lisa has no right to talk about that and Im very angry”¦ Because she has just ruined my relationship that I may have with my little sister!! Never u mind”¦ I no my father and I no he doesnt love and i no i still dont tell him anything and i dont fall for what he says so im playing on that”¦”¦ And to b honest i dont believe anything in what goes on in anyones life”¦ I dont trust easy again soo im safe and i dont ever plan and spilling anything to him on u so”¦ Yeah ”¦ Yeah u to
jaz xo
Dear Jaz,
Thanks for getting back to me. You will always be part of Emme’s life if you choose too, she is your sister and she loves you even tho you have not played a large part in her life she knows exactly who you are and loves you as I do too. Lisa is really worried she didn’t mean to say anything! Steve hurts everyone that comes into his life and will continue to hurt the ones that keep giving him another chance. He will con you, promise you things and then let you down again and again. I am sorry if above read like I didn’t want you in our lives that is not what I meant. I trust that you wouldn’t say anything knowingly but I dont trust him at all. Myself and Jane included never want him to know where the girls are, were they will be going to school, anything… That cruel heartless bastard can rot in hell for all I care and he will never meet the daughter he so happily told everyone she wasn’t his so people would feel sorry for him the sick fark. I hate him for all the horrible things he has done to us all and I will never give him a chance to be in Emme’s life to con her or hurt her!
Jaz I have had someone from Werribee get in contact saying that I should put an AVO out on him as he wants to kill me because someone needs to bring up Emme, like he would do a much better job than me. Anyway I hope you understand why I need to be so protective of my privacy. The guy is a dead set loser and will only be in touch with you because he wants something. No normal man has nothing to do with his children and it is important that from the outside that he appears normal to con people less they will think he is not right in the head, that is why he could be trying to see you, so it makes him look better not because he loves you, misses you and cares for your well being. If you still want to catch up maybe next weekend that is fine! but you not knowing where we are is also to protect you too as if anything happened I would hate to know he found out through you. Just dont even leave your phone alone for 2 seconds near him or change my name in your phone just in case. Trust me he has ulterior motives to wanting to see you, like he did to Matt a couple of years ago because he wanted Pa and Gran to believe that he was normal to get more money off them and look how that turned out. I was there when he had a massive fight with Matt and it was sickening, it was also the same day he bashed me whilst holding Emme and was also the day I knew he was capable of anything and I had to run”¦ Dont be angry at Lisa because she hasnt ruined your relationship with your sister, she is just worried sick about you and for very good reason;
Love Lanaxxx
fair call”¦”¦ Well i wont trust him ever”¦”¦ And im playing the same game he is but on the other side putting it right back at him if u no what i mean lol!! Ahh yeah sure next weekend should be ok is it ok if Aiden my new boyfriend comes still?? Anyway i dont tell him anything about my life!!
Miss you xxxx
Would love to meet Aiden that would be great! I am sorry but the whole thing makes me want to vomit….
Miss you too xxxx
Oh BTW your dad wont ask anything yet as he needs to build his trust with you, that is always the game plan and you cant play the same game with him as he has 20 + years more of deception and he will already be 10 steps ahead of you. His number one priority in his normal game plan as to let you trust him and as soon as your guard is down that is when he starts to manipulate. Take care he is not after your best interests he is after something else! xxxxxxxxxx
i know….. Ppl say im playing with fire but im gonna play his own game and make sure i win”¦ Im always thinking ahead”¦ 🙂 im only looking out for myself 🙂 well shall we next week”¦”¦ At lilydale lake? If its fine? Xxxxx]
Hunny you cant play his game because he is mentally ill, you are not. He dosent have a conscience, you do. He does not love or have real feelings, you do. He uses everyone even family and does not care who he hurts, you do! You cant play games with him he is the master game player. He already has a miserable relationship with Nicole; she is financially and emotionally abused and trapped because he is winning the game with her. Steve will only have something to do with people that he can control. If he feels he has not got control or is losing the control the person is wiped it is as straight forward as that with him. You ‘are’ playing with fire and you will ‘never’ win.
He never bonded with you as a child when you needed him and loved him most and that is because he does not love, it is all acting to get what he wants. The only way you can win is by walking away as he does to everyone, that is the only thing that affects him because in his universe he thinks he is king and everyone is his servant and when he does not get his own way he walks.
Lilydale lake sounds great but I cant do Sunday now as I have a friends birthday xxx
End of messages!
I am starting to think that I do not know my stepdaughter anymore. There was no emotion in her responses to a father that continually abused her, other than being angry at her aunty for calling her out! Would appreciate some thoughts on my relationship with my 18-year-old stepdaughter. To cut a long story short, Steve is violent and I need to do everything to protect the younger children to him and the mothers, and feel although Jasmine swore she would never see her father again, I feel she will compromise our safety. I am now very confused about my relationship with her.
Jofary ~ thanks for your care and concern. Our latest court battle ended two weeks ago, with us reaching an agreement. We do have legal custody, but she has unsupervised visitation. We were able to have a provision put in that allows my grandson the option of rejecting any and all visits. The GAL objected to this provision, but we were able to keep it in.
To answer your question, in this juvenile court the GAL’s opinion counts for EVERYTHING. She entered the case with her mind already made up and when the facts did not support her theory, she changed the facts. We were fighting not only our S/P daughter and her attorney, but also the person who was suppose to protect our grandson’s best interests.
Our grandson is 10 and we have had legal custody of him for the past 6 years and guardianship of him prior to that. During those 6 years, his mom’s visitation was all of 36 HOURS, her choice. Almost 2 years of absolutely no contact, her choice. She took us back to court to state we would not allow visitation. What amounted to a clerical error was discovered in our 6 year custody order and our custody was vacated. We had to start all over again. Thank God we had a previous emergency custody order which we were able fall back on and he stayed with us during the year long battle.
So, even though we had done NOTHING wrong this GAL from Hell decided this 10 year old child that had not seen his mother in over 5 years and had not lived with her since the day he turned 3 would be better off with mommy dearest. She believed that we were poster children for “parental alienation” and NOTHING could change her mind. Even after my daughter admitted in court that she didn’t really want custody, the GAL still tried convincing the Judge that she should have him.
My grandson has been diagnosed RAD, high functioning Autism, ADHD, OCD and ofcourse emotional problems galore. We have had him in therapy since age 3, he has received Occupational Therapy for almost 2 years and is in Special Ed. classes at school for behavioral problems. Now, let’s just yank the security right out from under him, put him back into an abusive home and call it BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD.
Sorry, guess I’m still a little “raw” on this one. Just heard today that the GAL is asking the court to order us to pay 100% of her $8,000 fee. This is customarily split 50/50. We now have to pay our attorney to argue this. Our legal bills have now reached six figures. UNREAL
Dear Milo,
FOLLOW THE MONEY! This GAL’s $8,000 feel is about as bad as that guy(?) the other day I was reading about –CRS–that wanted the $20,000 right now and would send over a runner to pick up the check—
Milo, I too am so sorry that you have had to go through all of this misery and still are perched on the cliff of having it all yanked out from under you…wonder why this (the GAL) hates you so bad, it is obvious by what you’ve said and her wanting you to pay ALL of her fee…BTW where is the P-DTR coming up with attorneys fees and so on to take you back to court? Kind of sounds like the GAL is an N or a P herself. (((hugs))))
Oxy ~
Very good question (why GAL hates us) – no one can figure this one out, other than she did interview daughter dearest FIRST and fell for her verbal vomit hook, line and sinker. But, she seems to hate us way more than that because she has literally had all the VERIFIED information given to her on many occasions. I don’t want to become one of those people that run around seeing P’s everywhere, but this seems to be the only feasible explanation. She certainly can and has lied about many, many things.
Daughter has had the same attorney since Grand was a year old and Children Services took her to court to remove custody. He was her public defender then, all cases since then have been ones that do not qualify her to use a public defender. He has NEVER charged her a dime (cash). Daughter and boyfriend deal drugs (boyfriend did 2 years for it) – wonder why this man keeps defending her ??? hmmmmm
Oh, the $8,000 isn’t necessarily the end of it. She is playing “Let’s Make A Deal” – if we don’t come up with the $8,000 there is a “mystery” amount behind door number 2 for the last several months in fees that she plans on charging IF she has to go to court to collect. Here is an example of her charges – $162.50 for an ATTEMPTED phone call to me – I was not home and my answering machine malfunctioned because of a power outage x 2 = $325. and on and on and on.
Oh Well, this too shall pass and maybe my dear husband can start yet a third career to pay for all of this. He retired from his first career the day Grand was born. How funny is that?
These people who are appointed by the court to work for the court with the litigants to pay some UNSPECIFIED amount….which several times have been shown that the judges appoint their “friends” or even people who give them KICK BACKS….and the “let’s make a deal” thing sounds sort of like someone who is dishonexst….she is trying to get you to pay because she KNOWS that DTR ain’t gonna never pay NONE, NADA, ZIP, ZERO…so she is going for the “deep pockets” she thinks….and her threat of “door number two” is to try to get you to give in, buckle under. I actually think I’d rather pay the lawyer than her.
And as awful as it sounds, maybe next time the daughter goes to court, if the boy is old enough that you can explain to him, just tell her, OK, you can have him….and she won’t keep him long. NONE of this as you know is about HIM, it is all about her PUNISHING YOU which of course she is accomplishing royally.
Your story makes me SO ANGRY!!!!
As for the GAL I think she sounds very N-ish or P-ish and somehow you gave her N-injury or she could be playing some other dysfunctional game or just plain greedy. But as long as she stirs the sheet, it is going to fly everywhere. Good luck and my prayers for you! ((((hugs))) You know I’m in your corner 110% for what that’s worth!
Oh MiLo –
You poor things! How awful for you and how dreadful for the little one…. : (
I saw the same thing/opposite thing happen with my brother. When he and his exwife split, they each had half of shared custody of their children. Both parents lived nearby, so schooling and changeovers were not issues. The exwife falsely accused my brother of abuse, so a Children’s Representative lawyer (the equivalent of your GAL) was appointed to oversee the “children’s interests”.
The mother started to pour poison into the oldest child’s ears and after 3 years of fighting to maintain contact with his kids, my brother gave up, By then, the false accusations had been long since withdrawn, but they had already worked their un-magic.
That was in 2001 and here we are, 11 years later, with my brother struggling to have any sort of relationship at all with his daughter, who is as bitter and twisted (and WRONG) as her mother. This kid is 18 now and spits venom at him if he tries to say hello – it’s just awful.
You can take your GALs and your CPLs and float them up the muddy river in a barbed-wire canoe for all the good they do for families….
My sympathies to you and your husband. x
(On a brighter note, most of a child’s bonding and brain-networking for emotions is set up before they turn 5, so if you guys have given him a good start, he may well do okay, despite the less than perfect circumstances he finds himself in)
Dear Aussie,
It is difficult when you get a situation like your brother’s is, but he also needs to keep in mind that there is some genetic stuff going on that helps make her like her mother—so there really isn’t anything he should be guilty about not doing more….it is a disappointment when our kids aren’t the adults we wanted them to be, but we just have to realize that we did the best we could and that is all you can expect out of a jack ass so why do we expect perfection out of OURSELVES?
I hope you can help your brother to see that he is not “responsible” or “to blame” for his daughter’s attitude or behavior, though she of course and her mother will try to convince him he is the evil one. Give him a hug from me!!!
Milo,
I am commenting on this way too late– but if you get this message, have you ever heard of Rainbows? It’s an afterschool program for kids who have had such terrible trauma. I went to it as a child and attribute much of my current sanity to the fact that I had a safe place to talk about my feelings. I have become a volunteer for the program for a couple years, but since moving to new place and having tiny children, won’t be able to be in it for awhile again. It’s a safe and confidential group where kids can freely talk about their emotions and experiences with other kids who are going through similar things. The kids really minister to each other too- it was very touching to see them cry with each other and validate eachother, I saw a marked change in one girl during the two years I was there. . . it gave me a lot of hope. Maybe you could volunteer to be a facilitator for a different age group than your grandson, so you can learn more about the program etc.
Hope this helps anybody with traumatized children! There are people who understand the complications of divorce, death, abuse, neglect etc on children, and this program is a fruit of a mother’s love for her children who were not recovering well from their parents divorce.
Hi Hushabybaby
Thanks so much. I have never heard of Rainbows, sounds like a fabulous program. I will check into it and see if we have anything like that out in the sticks. I think the kids ministering to each other’s needs could be key. Right now my Grandson is flatly refusing to discuss his feelings with ANYONE. He is in a group for social skills at school and whenever they talk about feelings, he says something like he is a closed book. His therapist is not having much luck either.
Thanks for the post and I will look into it. We can always use all the help we could get.
Hey MiLo,
Sorry to hear that junior is sort of pulling a “turtle” act, but what can you expect when his egg donor is who she is? DUH?
I thought that was a cool group too….
What is going on with the GAL and her demand that you pay the entire bill? I have thought about you and prayed for you, and I hope that you can keep that witch out of your hair.
I am stillllllll mad about that woman trying to shaft you! UGH!!! LOL
Milo–
yes we lived in the sticks too. . it just depends on what kind of people you have in your little village. :0)
http://www.rainbows.org/
is the website for the program. I’m the reason that my hometown started it up again because I shared with an old facilitator how much it meant to me back then. It was a small start, but every year about 10 kids in that community hear the message, “It’s ok to feel whatever you feel” . . . and that message is so imperative for the child to know. . . I also learned at that group that IT WASN’T MY FAULT. That was extremely important, and because of those facilitators stating that so clearly, I never struggled with my BM’s issues and flair ups as being contingent on who I was. Those messages were imperative for me.