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The most heartbreaking dramas that sociopaths create are those that involve children. Many sociopathic parents stand up in court proclaiming that they “only want what is best for the children.” They’re lying. What they really want is to use the children as clubs to beat their ex-partners into submission.
There is no such thing as a simple phone call to find out what little Johnny needs to bring to soccer practice. Every phone call or e-mail is an opportunity for the sociopath to manipulate, denigrate and infuriate the ex, through lies, innuendo and misinformation. For the parent trying to protect the children, it’s exhausting.
A few months ago, Lovefraud published a letter from “Penny,” who is in this situation. She wrote her Tips for co-parenting with a sociopath. One of Penny’s recommendations was that parents request that all communications with their former partners go through Our Family Wizard.
Our Family Wizard
Our Family Wizard is a website designed to facilitate communications between separated or divorced parents in relation to their children. It promotes “cooperative parenting:”
Parents can coordinate shared custody and joint custody parenting time schedules, health records, immunization histories, expense sharing, school information, virtual document storage and much more on a website specifically designed to deal with the issues that arise in co-parenting situation.
Our website is committed to removing conflict and improving the lives of children. In fact, judges in all 50 states order families to utilize the site in contested cases to reduce conflict.
The Our Family Wizard website is a great tool for managing difficult parenting relationships. The website provides excellent documentation to help reduce conflict that may arise from ineffective communication. Should you need to return to court, all pages are printable and most come with a preformatted print option with all the necessary data you will need to show that you have met your parenting obligations.
The service costs $99 per year per parent. “This fee is worth it,” Penny wrote. “I know this because the judge hearing my case ordered that communication between my ex and I take place solely on the Our Family Wizard website. The judge also ordered that no verbal communication is to take place between the parties facilitating the exchange of my child.”
No creative language
Thousands of families use Our Family Wizard, according to Jainarain Kissoon, CEO. One reason why it helps in high-conflict situations, Kissoon says, is because the website’s structured format allows no room for “creative language.”
“Phone conversations used to turn into heated battles, then the battles moved to e-mail,” Kissoon says. “The site helps compartmentalize what everyone is doing. In co-parenting classes, they emphasize businesslike communication. The site provides organization—there are no long e-mails back and forth.”
With Our Family Wizard, parents can limit communication to filling in the blanks—soccer game, what day, what time, what the child needs to bring.
Features
Our Family Wizard includes the following features:
- Calendar—each calendar event, such as soccer practice, includes which children participate, the location, the drop off parent and the pick up parent.
- Journal—entries can be shared or private. It’s a place to document any incidents, and all notes are time and date stamped.
- Message board—With no outside e-mail servers, there are no lost messages and always a way to verify a message has been received.
- Info bank—A place to manage all family information, such as schools, childcare providers, immunization history, emergency contacts, insurance and more.
- Expense log—tracks shared expenses, automatically calculating each parent’s contribution.
Documentation
An important benefit of Our Family Wizard is its level of documentation:
- Each entry is time and date stamped—who created it and when
- Every page is stamped with the last time both parents viewed it
- Messages cannot be altered or unsent
- Dates on journal entries cannot be altered.
- One parent cannot change the other parent’s information
- Nearly everything can be tracked back to an IP address
- An accurate chronology of events can be produced
- All pages are printable
The software includes the option of third-party accounts, so, if necessary, therapists or guardians ad litem can monitor communications. If a parent engages in abusive behavior, it is readily discovered and difficult to deny.
With Our Family Wizard, it becomes easy to tell who is complying with court orders, and who is not. Kissoon relates why one judge said he liked the software: “It gives people enough rope to hang themselves.”
In an early pilot program for the software, a judge ordered 40 families to communicate only through Our Family Wizard. For two years, none of the families were back in court.
Testimonials
The Our Family Wizard website includes testimonials from parents. “Manuel S” wrote:
I am thankful to this avenue of communication. It has controlled the nasty phone calls from my ex-wife to me and my wife, and has put an end to her foul language since she is aware the content of messages is monitored. I have documentation to avoid he said she said situations and her violations of my rights to see my kids!”
Penny says the website works. “Please mention to readers that they can request that Our Family Wizard be ordered by the judge hearing their case,” she wrote. “The judge can order the Our Family Wizard email as the sole means of communication between couples litigating a child custody/visitation dispute.”
For more information, visit the website below. If you decide to subscribe to OurFamilyWizard, Lovefraud will earn a commission from your purchase.
Hi Jill;
I’d be very interested in getting your resident Psych’s views on Cluster B’s.
One of the very frustrating issues we face, is the amount of professional’s who don’t ‘get it’, and offer guidance without fully understanding ‘our’ situations.
This goes from the medical profession to the legal profession.
To protect our children fully, it is essential we have a ‘team’ of professionals who ‘getit’.
I, fortunately, had a therapist who ‘got it’…..but i’m not so sure it was right away. He evolved with me weekly. I would bring in literature and we’d devise a plan of protection.
As time and the ‘ante’ grew, the spath was very predictible in his actions and claims. My therapist, after being shocked into not being shocked any further…….saw my approach in exposing the spath in the legal system, to protect my children legally and we councelled on keeping the balance.
My approach was harsh, hard and straight forward. I call it ‘backspath’. I used the sociopaths behaviors back on him. i didnt’ defend wild accusations, I went on offense.
Fortunately, my kids were in their teens and NOT young. Otherwise, I think he may have been able to grip them with his activities and abuse.
My kids suffer from PTSD and showed signs of ‘stockholm syndrom’ when they were kidnapped. (gone 3.5 months).
Society needs more professionals willing to ‘get involved’ and educate and help others with the realities of Cluster B’s.
Medical AND legal. Lf has several professionals who have ‘lived’ the hell of a Sociopath and offer us food for thought.
It’s like finding a needle in a haystack to identify a professional who ‘get’s it ‘ and can offer US some guidance in the real world.
In the meantime…..those of us in this situation WILL continue to do whatever in our power to keep our kids and ourselves safe…….
Thanks Jill……I hope you do delve into this ‘side’ of the coparenting spectrum.
Keep us posted.
Hi OxDrover … yes, I appreciate that now – and hence my post to Erin clarifying my initial post was responding to the merits of OurFamilyWizard.com’s services to compliment our particular services.
Unfortunately my post was inappropriately placed when commenting on predominantly typical split family parenting scenarios (ie. not the serious disorders, abuse or survival issues being addressed on this site) … and for this I sincerely apologise – my post would have been far more appropriately placed on OurFamilyWizard’s website.
Erin, I will be catching up with our Psych regarding Cluster B’s and serious disorder situations next week. And I completely agree with you, society most definitely needs far more professionals willing to get involved, assist and guide those living through these horrific realities. An alarming increase in numbers of children (and parents) are affected by seriously dysfunctional and disturbing adult behavior, which in turn frequently self-perpetuates into our next generation, leaving our children with little hope of growing into healthy adults.
In closing, while I have walked a path of raising 3 children in a split-family for over 10 years, parenting with a sociopath is not a path that I have walked, nor can I comprehend the magnitude of your situations. Therefore, as one parent to another, I can only offer my most sincere, compassionate and loving thoughts to you, Erin, OxDrover, and others participating in this LF group.
Warmest,
Jill
Jill:
I don’t think it was a coincidence you found LF.
Ourfamilywizard is a wonderful tool for all coparenting situations….and as Oxy stated above, we have ‘tapered’ it to suit our needs aswell.
These personatlity disorders are slick in the courtroom, and when ordered to coparent with a sociopath EVERYTHING must be documented. Personal emails are used to harass, phone calls exploited and this leaves the ‘victim’ and coparent open for more abuse.
For those involved in Cluster B personality disordered relationships/coparenting…..OFW is a valuable tool. A tool which a child advocate, the judge and attorneys’ can monitor. If one party uses it to harass or threaten, it’s right there……If one party said they weren’t notified of an event…..it’s right there….
It shows log in, from what computer and who…..and all content.
It’s WONDERFUL! And highly recommended.
I hope you take this clandestine opportunity to educate yourself about Sociopaths and Cluster B personality disorders and the severe damage and destruction they flail around….to children…..their smallest victims.
You can find all sorts of articles here, along with Lf bloggers personal experiences in comment form.
It will give you a well rounded insight into what we live with and survived……
Sociopaths make up 1-4% of the population…..they are ALL around us….
Every single person who can educate themselves, and in turn speak to others, will aid in shutting down the Sociopathic hellish behavior, and quite possibly save a life along the way.
Sociopaths are our neighbors, parents, children, partners, lawyers, Dr’s, teachers, preachers, local cop, babysitters and uncles, coaches, friends, inlaws and the list goes on…..NONE OF US ARE IMMUNE!!!
I think you landed here for this education, I hope you take advantage of this opportunity.
I congratulate you for raising and coparenting successfully with your ex. This alone is a large accomplishment…..but better yet…..a huge gift to your beautiful children. Wonderful!!!
I look forward to the input from your psych and his/her recommendations and thoughts on this subject.
Again…..Welcome to LF….I trust you find the information here helpful.
Dear Jill,
“reasonable people” even dysfunctional ones, are able to co-parent with a minor amount of problems. Like ErinB said, you have an opportunity to learn about the ones who are NOT the reasonable ones, even dysfunctional ones but the TOXIC ones that use their children as battering rams to injure the other co-parent with, totally careless of the damage done to the children.
About 75% of domestic abusers are psychopaths, so there are more than a few psychopaths involved in divorce. It is common for psychopaths to have multiple sexual relationships and many children scattered around, many times uncared for, or used as poker chips in the game of “life.”
There is no “treatment” or “therapy” that is able to help the psychopath, only therapy and help for the victims—who many times are so wounded and broken they are in dire straights.
I suggest that you start by reading Dr. Robert Hare’s “Without Conscience” and look at LF’s list of books as well as the book reviews here on LF among the articles.
I have NO doubt that when you start learning about psychopaths you will come to a point when you say “AH HA!!!! That sounds just like X” and by having this knowledge you will be better able to help your own clients, by validating them when they are dealing with a psychopath. Lack of validation from our families and our friends, co workers and therapists is a big problem with victims of Psychopaths. The “Oh, it’s just a divorce, get over it and get on with your life.” People who have not dealt with a psychopath have no idea what devastation their attacks can leave.
Hi! I am new here…I just wrote a profile and not sure if I was to put a “mini” story on my profile but that is what I did.
I am so grateful to have found you. I have been pretty alone the past five years post divorce from what I now know to be a sociopath and narcissist. I was married for 7 years….he was married before me and then got married a third time 5 months after our divorce. We have a little girl who is 9 and he is using her on this battlefield. I am desperate to learn more, to understand more and figure out how to take better care here because I am sinking. He has a lot of money, a little power, some credentials that make him high profile in his town and once I left my friends, my church, everyone abandoned me. He was abusive and controlling, obviously!, and he raped me…even that didn’t force me to leave. I didn’t want to get divorced…but when I read the words discard on your site I thought, yep, that is what he did. use me and discard me. I couldn’t have kids and we adopted, but he was the golden boy of his family and I was the “uterus”. I overheard his grandmother two years after we married and after 4 miscarriages say to him, “Honey, she is to fing old”. I about died. The family was as abusive to me as he was and his anger towards women stems from his mothers abuse but he is too afraid of her to face that. So, initially he talked about his first wife our entire marriage and now I am the topic. He lies and slanders me, he has called people I dated, called my employer, called my landlord, called my brother who is a mental health nightmare and when my mother died recently he accused me of stealing her medications! He didn’t even say I am sorry. But that is where I am naieve…why would he say that? When his grandmother died, the one who said I was too old, I called him and offered condolences…But as you probably know I could go on and on and on. The things he has done to “destroy me” (his words “I will destroy you”) have been insidious…slow and hard to believe. Attorneys, therapists, friends who are therapists…no one understands this. They are all thinking that I must be doing something wrong for this to still be happening five years after divorce. it is just getting worse. I lost my job because of him (and there is a pending lawsuit for that because I had never had one bad report a work) and lost custody of my daughter….there is no reason for that but the fact he is a schmoozer, the strong silent type, but if you look in his eyes you will see the evil. I think you know what I mean? But people think he is a god….they believe what he says. He uses his credentials and also lives in a small town so he is big fish, little pond, big man on campus kind of guy…He told me I would never leave him and it felt like a threat. I remember at the end feeling sucked dry…like I was a skeleton of what I once was…and 2 weeks after leaving him I lost 20#, felt so happy and alive, a huge weight off my shoulder, I felt like myself again. Then the nightmare really began. I had no idea what I was in for and up against. My attorney asked me if I thought he would seek custody. I said no! He told me the last year of our marriage that my daughter and I would have one night a week with him and the “rest of the days are mine” so I fugured he’d be thrilled I was leaving and leaving with my daughter. I had no idea he would do something so evil…ripping her away from another mother when for four years we were together 24/7. My poor daughter kicked and screamed and spit and scratched at him and he watched, blank and feelingless as she did this and would grab her and put her in his car. He wouldn’t even say hi to her. This is not about me being an unfit mother. He would even say, when we were married, that I was a great mom and his father would always tell me that…this is about him needing to save face and be able to look in the mirror and be ok. Because two women left him means there is something wrong with him. I wonder deep down if he knows this…I think he does. He used to say he was a “miserable man” but maybe that was another smoke screen. He was good with smoke and mirrors, especially when it came to money. I remember feeling about 4 years into the marriage that he led a dual life but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t put my finger on a lot of things….so much didn’t make sense. I am hoping I will get some answers here and find a way to get my life back. I am so depressed and sad and feeling like I am losing everything. I feel hopeless and helpless and I know I am a strong woman. I just can’t take this on any more. My mom just died, too and there has just been so many losses. Another death in the family a few years ago and a job loss and I lost my house because after everything settled I had paid out 90K in attorney fees. Everytime I think this can’t get worse it does! Please tell me I will come back out of this! I don’t want to wait until my daughter is 18 to see her again….that is the last part…I live 2 1/2 hours away and he got the judge to make me drive there to see her and see her supervised! For no reason. The story is unreal. He has a live in nanny, 3 more kids from his 3rd wife and I know that he just didn’t want to drive my daughter to our meeting place any more…he lost one nanny and another one and now has a third one so she probably won’t do the drive, who knows…but the thing is he continues to get what he needs and I am losing my mind! Thank you for listening to such a long post. I am desperate.
Just reading ErinBrock above about the legal, medical and mental health professions not understanding personality disorders. This is true. I am new here but I am also a therapist. I just finished grad school 2 years ago and feel great that I did so well during all of this hell. My practice focuses on treating addicted professionals but I also do a lot of work with women and after going through what I have been through, (although I need a lot more healing in this area and more knowledge) I want to get to a place where I can help other women who have gone through this. Because I can’t find a therapist who gets what I have endured and am tired of hearing “just move forward” I am going to learn as much as I can and devote myself to changing this issue. However, I need to heal first!
Dear Chinagirl,
I am so sorry that you have endured such a harassment and abuse and that your daughter is taken away from you. It is the power he can use to hurt you, not that he cares for the child. All I can suggest for you at this moment is to just go see her as often as you can and tell her you love her no matter how far away you are.
The psychopaths hurt us just to enjoy their power, and it sounds like your P has driven you into the dirt to the extent possible.
I am glad that you found Lovefraud, this is a safe, educational and supportive place where you will be believed and will have comfort.
Knowledge is power, keep on reading as many as you can of the older and archived articles. Some of them may not resonate with you yet, but as you heal most of them will resonate with you.
Healing takes time, focus and energy and heavy on the TIME. Hang in there, and focus on getting better…focus on looking at the htings you DO have rather than at the things you don’t have. Change the things you can, and accept those things you can’t change. ((((Hugs)))) Again, welcome! and God bless.
ps Chinagirl,
Many people on here are professionals, medical or mental health, and almost everyone here is very bright and successful…it seems that the psychopaths target those of us with a great deal of empathy. There are other things that “we” have in common, just as “they” have many things in common.
I also think that many if not most of us want to help others who are in similar shape as we have been due to the abuse we have endured.
Check on Dr. Liane Leedom’s blog “raising the at-risk child” and also her book “Just like his father.”
You are right that many professionals DON’T GET IT and that is a darned shame, but Donna is working on educating a lot of people and will be on TV on the Discovery channel this week, and others have written and published books, spoken out in various forums etc. about this and so the word is ever (slowly) expanding on this disorder.
Dear OxDrover,
thank you for the welcome, the support and encouragement..I can feel the ‘love’ here…and it is a blessing. I feel like I have been spinning for five years and hopefully now things can change. What good advice “focus on what you do have and not what you don’t have” I have been in victim, poor me mode a lot lately especially after the recent decision by judge…It just makes me feel as if something is wrong with me when I know that there isn’t!
I can feel the empathy throughout here….I remember day three into marriage alreading having a “UH OH, who did I marry” feeling. Shoulda, coulda, woulda…..you know? ! Thanks again for the welcome.
Dear Chinagirl,
I honestly think this blog saved my life. I’ve been here nearly 3 years and have no intention of going anywhere. This is the AA group meeting for former victims. We change from victims to victors, from mush into steel.
There is just so much great information here and I recommend to everyone new that you read the articles (about 700+) but leave the comments on them for later. For now just read and read and read. Some of them won’t resonate right away, but I go back through them from time to time and re-read them and get meaning out of ones that didn’t resonate before.
I’ lost my husband in an accident 6 years ago and have been in crisis mode pretty much ever since, with a big case of PTSD as well, and a continual crisis with a P-son (he is in prison for murder) and just couldn’t get out of that VICTIM mode. Only the last couple of years have I started to heal, to see my way out of the FOG (fear, obligation and Guilt) to discard the psychopaths in my life (the son, an X boy friend, a psychopath by proxy my maternal DNA donor, etc. etc.–long list) That stress that they put on us,a nd that then we put on ourselves is way too heavy to carry and we have to emotionally and physically rest from that state. Do holmes and Rhe’s stress schedule and see where you rank. I hit the max, times 3-400%! That stress is not good for us, causes burn out so make the most of your life, the things you do have.
Start making a list of them. Start out with “I have enough clean water to drink every day” and go from there. Read the NYTimes and see how fortunate you are to have that ONE blessing. How many people don’t have that blessing? A great many people on this planet don’t have that blessing.
When I get to feeling sorry for myself, I try to count those blessings and concentrate on even one of those blessings and I feel pretty RICH when I do. ((((Hugs)))) and God bless! Glad you are here!