Mom2Girls
addict
Reged: 06/14/05
Posts: 461
Loc: RI
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I hope someone can learn from what I have been through with my children. It started 12 yrs ago, my children were very little, one a toddler, the other in grade school, my 15 yr marriage was unraveling, I was emotionally abused & manipulated by a spouse who was no longer in love with me. This isn’t a story about me but a story on how the fall out of divorce, the lengthy legal process, the failure on CPS’s part to protect the kids & a destructive step parent profoundly & forever affected the children. I was forced into the powerless world of being a N.C.P., a puppet in years of the controlling game of keep away. I struggled to see the kids; the more I fought the more difficult my ex made things. My ex became involved in 2 relationships, they are both mothers themselves, but had their own agenda & stake in things. What better a life they could have if the ex (me) was just out of the picture, how many others have been down that road? I have spent over $70,000.00 in legal fees on battles that took too long. I did “win” however but from one parent to another, the system supports itself, endless trips up to the court to get rescheduled after hours of waiting. Courts assigning more lawyers, endless calendar court dates & legal fees. In the interim my ex married a woman who he knew was beating our kids, not her 2, just the 2 from his marriage with me. CPS was called but the kids were threatened with more abuse as a punishment if they told. This went on for many years, until the step parent went too far one day, beating one of the kids into a repeated black out, keeping the kids from me & from school under false claims of illness. Days later the marks were clearly visible, CPS was called in & photographs taken, but after indicating the abuse as founded CPS left the kids in the home with the abuse step parent. It took 2.5 yrs, the longest, hardest, most traumatic years of my children’s lives until the judge finally saw the light & removed the kids from that home. I was awarded sole custody. Many years have passed; the kids are nearly fully grown. Their father & step mother moved, once out of the area the calls from their father dwindled. I should have been happy but I wasn’t, everyone thought I was crazy, I felt that the kids had been through enough, I had even gotten them therapy after all the trauma & change of residence. As a parent your hands are always tied, you forever have no control or influence over the choices/ behavior of your ex spouse, all one can do is be careful not to add to the trauma that all kids go through when their parents split up. Last year one of the kids had a “break down”, it didn’t happen overnight. I witnessed a change in personality over a period of several months; I went to the HS seeking a therapist referral. It was then I learned through one of my kid’s friends that my kid had been cutting themselves & had also made 3 failed hanging/poisoning attempts on their own life. All the damage control I had done, all the years of fighting the system to have the kids removed from an emotionally & physically abusive home had amounted to nothing, I was now in a battle to help save my Childs life. The years of being kept from one parent by the other parent, the choices my ex made in allowing someone to abuse their own child, the $$$ spent stuck in a court system, CPS dropping the ball. Our teen now has a diagnosis of mental illness, a direct result of the trauma that they endured during the period of time where their brain was developing. For whom ever is reading this, CP, NCP, divorcing, divorced, male, female, please think 1st of the impact of your actions on your child(ren) before you make a decision that is self serving. The impact can profoundly change the development of your child, effecting their future interactions with others & their understanding of trust in love.
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yregna
veteran
Reged: 07/25/06
Posts: 1265
Loc: Oregon
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Unfortunately, according to Divorce Law, the children are merely pawns in a huge war over money between two adults. If the law were equitable, there would be no war, but you women like the law giving you tons of easy money, so the kids must suffer.
Live happy with your money...At least you didn't actually have to work for it, eh ?
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"Anything free is worth what you pay for it..."
"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get"
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Maury
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 06/02/04
Posts: 8148
Loc: This Asylum --->
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"Unfortunately, according to Divorce Law, the children are merely pawns in a huge war over money between two adults."
That is a rule puin play by irresponsible parties involved in a divorce which has little to do with the law.
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Mom2Girls
addict
Reged: 06/14/05
Posts: 461
Loc: RI
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"Live happy with your money...At least you didn't actually have to work for it, eh ? "
I can see you have been burned, or have seen others burned by woman, and to a big extent I agree with you. I dont receive "assistance" of any kind from my daughters father, and to be honest; thats fine. Money is money, what mattered and the point of my sharing is that my kids were abused by another woman, one has a diagnosis of emotional disabilty and Unipolar disorder. I blame the legal system as much as the woman who abused them. My experience was that the courts supported themselves, lawyers have no problem seeking retainers up-front, judges appoint more lawyers, it just went on and on. I can see why men are angry at the system, I just hope that maybe one angry person can stop and think before lashing out. The kids pay the price in the end. I could give a dam about money, I never cared about that. Shocker, I know, but not everyone fits in the "mold" of "A-Typical mother" or "A-Typical father". It isn't about me, its about the children.
Thanks for your concern on how my child is doing
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almostheaven
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 07/13/04
Posts: 10468
Loc: West Virginia
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So little to bother with.
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Char Fox
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javajunkiee
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 06/01/08
Posts: 3158
Loc: SC
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zing!
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Marriage doesn't come with a money-back guarantee.
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Rudderless_Ship
newbie
Reged: 08/04/09
Posts: 32
Loc: Mississippi, USA
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It isn't about me, its about the children.
Thanks for your concern on how my child is doing [/quote]
That is such a difficult thing to do what is right sometimes. My eventual ex (not stbx because I decided to not except what she wanted out of the divorce so its no longer a strict NF) is a typical redhead you could say with her temper and the kids. She is an OK mother thought. I think I am the better parent though. While I could say she is verbally abusive because of her temper/yelling (yes, i have been on the recieving end of it especially in the last nine months too), I am heisitant to do that. She is the kids mother even though she is a worse parent then I am.
I agreed origianally before I seen a lawyer to her getting half my retirement, her getting CP and me getting EOW visitations with her bringing them up every other one (10 hour drive one way) and me keeping the house so I would have a place to live and keep my job. She has no job and is staying at her mothers. She used the classic "I dont love you any more" that most midlife crises divorcee's use instead of putting any effort into getting close again.
She said that between us I would get to talk to them every day and she would keep me involved/informed on whats going on in their life and involved as much as possible. in the first 2 weeks since she walked out with them, 3 days I have not been able to talk to my 5 year old boy who just started Kindergarden down there and my 11 year old girl. When I talk to her to ask her about the kids or send emails asking, if she doesnt like anything I say, I am "harassing her". She reads emails I sent to her parents (she is using their computer, not her own for some reason) and says that I am harrassing her because I tell them how I feel when they ask.
Now I have loved her for 18 years and was married 17 when she said she was going to the store and seen a lawyer instead and came back, said what she did and said she wanted a divorce. I was in serious shock and denial the 2 months afterwards and pretty much agreeing to everything she wanted except for minor points she "gave in" to me on.
When she finally left (I think in the back of my mind I really thought she would never be selfish enough to take the kids so far away from their dad, even if MS "antislavery" laws allows it)it removed all denial and I started really thinking long and hard and realized how much she controlled me with my love, trust, respect, and innate sense of honesty and unselfishness that I thought she had.
Her leaving has proved that a lie, maybe she was like that once or maybe she just had me fooled because I am too trusting for almost 18 years and she was waiting for me to retire from active duty and settle in a civilian job before she had no further use for me.
So now I am reconsidering everything and especially the child custody. I would be the better parent and she doesnt even have a job since she CHOSE to be a SAMH and I supported her because I wanted to make her happy as always when we talked about it even though our bills, it would have been really helpful to the family if she had worked.
The other part of the custody is that in MS the general feeling that my lawyer and friends give is that unless the mother is a drug addict, prostitute, or mentally ill, I would be wasting money I really don't have putting me even further in debt then our marriage did and maybe even causing me to file bankruptcy. That is the practicle side of my dilemna. But the biggest is how can I not fight and just give the worse parent custody and how to I look my kids in the eye when they are grown up and ask why I never tried to get custody. As a man who I play everquest 2 with said. "Wish my dad had cared enough to fight for custody".
I am giving myself until after the first visit to the kids that we had agreed upon when the NF divorce had been scheduled for 4 sep and I had set sep 11th weekend for my first visitation to make up my mind even though everything I think about how me and her parented says that I am the best parent.
Of course she was originally not going to take the kids away to texas until after the divorce was final but when I wouldn't agree with her that "it wasnt her fault" the divorce was happening she suddenly decided it was in the kids best interest to leave 2 weeks earlier (which I argued against and she didnt like that either) so "they could start school on time there" which she didnt care about before.
Whats best for the kids is a very hard thing to decide. When she wanted to leave, I could have told the kids they were not going and they would have listened to me over her and not got in or even got out of the van but I didnt want to do put them in that position. Maybe that was a mistake. She could always have just taken them when I was at work though so it wouldnt have done much good except to make her stay until she could run off with them later.
Sometimes I just feel that this is the age of the disposbale family/dad and that I really dont belong in it. Love, honesty, respect, and reliability are only okay IF they happen to make most people happy at the moment and as soon as they decide they want to be single and play the field again like they were 20 years younger, they do it, thats the only thing important to them.
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BeachBabeRN
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 01/16/06
Posts: 3051
Loc: VA for 21 years, NC forever!
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Mom2girls, the state that you list as where you live -- that isn't where this took place, was it?
If you're who I'm thinking of -- how the heck are you?
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Mom2Girls
addict
Reged: 06/14/05
Posts: 461
Loc: RI
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Hey Lady!
No, my state is changed to protect the identity of my kids...
PM me here OK?
:D
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saks
recently joined
Reged: 11/22/09
Posts: 5
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help me out what does nc npc mean
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saks
recently joined
Reged: 11/22/09
Posts: 5
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well my children have lost all confidence with the law, and i have to, and i have lost confidence in our judges also.
when i call them to take me to my hme to get our clothes, they are bitching about how much money it cost them to do that, The reason i need clothes although my 3 children and i have no idea where were going to stay and have no acess to the checking account because of my abusive husband and his control issues.and with the dvo being in affect i am unable to go home because he is there so asked sherifs office to escourt me for protection but it cost 2 much money, the judge basicly ruled in my husbands faver that he should be allowed the home, for the next 30 days, although it was 60 until my husbands lawyer said to bring it down to 30, and that he needed to be in the home in order to conduct business,so someone could pay the bills seeing how i dont do anything, and am just a stay at home mother.
I said your honor, hes not allowed to conduct bussiness let alone be at the home, he would be violating his DVO. My husbands atorney says no hes not theres a loophole, and he is alowed to work. Your honor he is lieing to u there are no loopholes, Basicly after that she said who ever gets to the kds 1st gets the kds whoever gets 2 the home 1st gets the home, well i went 4 my children, he went for home. i go back 2 court house after geting my children and ask the sheriff why the judge is alowing my husband to sell firearms and remain in the home with over 200 firearms. when he clearly is not allowed to be around firearms.You know what my sherif said well we dont know he isnt allowed around firearms.I walked out crying, that sheriff knew darn good in well he was unable to conduct business, but everybody likes my husband they get good deals from him.needles to say there are more events that has happened, and where the good old boys have harassed me. and has done nothing to help my children and I but going through all this my 13 yr old tries to comit sucide, why because of her abusive father and has to go to the crazy home for a wk, is anything being done with her father, hell no.I get the hospital records and its all about her father abusing her because he cant abuse me anymore, wheres the cops to help us where my judge to help me, can u answer that???
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