WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS SITUATION?

I have received emails from various people around the State of Connecticut also talking about the abuses that they have suffered in the hands of corrupt judges and abusive lawyers.  Many of these people talk about having lost thousands and thousands of dollars in the court system and having had judges simply dismiss their cases without a legitimate hearing. 

From my own personal observation, it seems as though judges and attorneys along with their colleagues within the mental health profession, operate without any concern that they will be held accountable.  Unlike in many other systems, there appears to be no checks and balances in place within the legal system which could protect the average citizen against the worst of these abuses. 

So the question I've had posed to me is what can we do about this situation.  As you know, I have joined Protective Mother's International, an organization run by Janice Levinson and Lundy Bancroft, which maintains as a primary goal changing the corrupt court system which is abusing so many people, particularly women.

I know that this is the goal, but how can such a goal become achievable?  What would the strategy be for creating change? 

I know that around 1999, 2000 Thomas C. Foley, a politician who had undergone his own very difficult high conflict divorce, was involved in establishing a Commission on Custody and Divorce issues which heard testimony from people throughout the state.  Granted, many of the names of the professionals who participated in this Commission consist of some of the people I know have cheated, lied, and financially exploited people, still the Commission worked productively. 

The end result of this Commission was a series of recommendations which we now see in the form of the Automatic Orders which I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog.  So, for those of us who can become discouraged , it is important to note that the outcome of one person's activism, that of Mr. Foley, did result in some significant changes. 

Unfortunately, subsequent to the Commissions actions, it was disbanded and without followup, the possibility that the automatic orders would end up being enforced was significantly reduced, if not totally nullified.  As I have learned in divorce court, there is the Agreement, which is all well and good, but then there is the Enforcement of the Agreement, and the first without the second is essentially absolutely nothing. 

Of course, this doesn't totally wipe out the significance of Mr. Foley's contribution.  I believe that the automatic orders essentially provide a blueprint for reducing or eliminating the problem of high conflict divorces.  While we still haven't been able to enforce those orders, at least we have a blueprint, a map that leads us in the right directions. 

Of course, I don't think that the automatic orders cover every problem that victims of high conflict divorce have to address, but at least they get us started in a positive direction. 

In responding to some of the emails I have received, I talked about the necessity for a small core of dedicated activists to approach our elected officials and have legislation passed which could protect citizens from the abuse of the corrupt family courts here in Connecticut.  However, what I have had pointed out to me is that this has been done.  But, again, the problem lies in the area of enforcement. 

For example, we have the automatic orders which were so carefully crafted by the original Commission, but Judges and attorneys fail to enforce them.  We have our constitutional rights such as a right to a hearing and a right to due process, but again Judges and attorneys fail to enforce it.  Some of the reason why these orders and rights are not enforced is because we as litigants are not sufficiently informed about them and consequently we don't demand that they be enforced.  This might surprise you.  You might say, sure I know what my constitutional rights are!  But, trust me, you may have memorized them in Social Studies in High School.  But that does not translate into you recognize them when they flash by you in family court.  So, I do think that simply educating people about what their rights are, about what the automatic orders are, could play a very vital role in terms of enforcement.  How can litigants enforce their rights when they don't know about them? 

The major areas where we need to see enforcement are:  1) The automatic orders; 2) Our constitutional rights and 3) perjury, when people lie either verbally or in documents submitted to the court as the basis for court orders there must be consequences. 4) protections from bias based upon gender, race, disability, etc.  I see discrimination directed towards people all the time based on those criteria. 

Another problem that I see is that litigants are excluded from the attorney/judge gossip loop.  Often judges and attorneys chat in the hallway and decide a case, go into the courtroom and hold a hearing that is simply a charade because the decision has already been made on the sly.  This should not happen. 

Well, these are just some general ideas that I'm throwing out based upon my experiences and the ones you've written to me about to my email:  Slopercathy@gmail.com.  If we can come up with a coherent and coordinated approach to ending the problem of corruption in the family courts in Connecticut, we can go a long way towards eliminating it.  Let's keep this dialogue going.  Email me!  Comment in the comment section!  A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step!

THE MIGHTY SPREADING BLOB

One of the problems they don't tell you about when you get into this legal mess is just how much work representing yourself can be.  

I think I've told you about this before, when I get online and write blogs about how busy I am.  That busy consists of time spent at Staples or Kinkos making multiple required copies of legal documents.  Hours spent on making sure that all the details that need to be in order when you put a motion together have been attended to.  

Today, I spent all sorts of time simply on making sure that everyone who was required to get copies of documents, i.e. judges and the other parties in the case, received their copies, and that meant writing up the envelopes they had to be sent in.  Then there are the writes and the multiple rewrites and proofreading of documents.  It goes on and on.  

How it begins to become unmanageable, to become this mighty spreading blob, is when you take your case through trial, and then it goes to appeal, and then, as it has with me, you end up with grievances to the Statewide Grievance Committee regarding certain lawyers.  Just submitting a complaint about a single lawyer ends up rising to the level of engaging in another lawsuit.  

So you have your original lawsuit, and it goes to appeal, and then you have, say, two or more grievances against lawyers with the Statewide Grievance Committee, and then you can go to the ADA and submit a complaint there, and that adds to the mix, and then you can go further and start complaining about the judges.  

Well, complaining about the judges requires that you submit paperwork to the State Judicial Board, and that, again, is similar to starting another lawsuit.  And if you've been in Court as long as I have, that means you probably want to submit a complaint about more than one judge.  

Of course, don't forget your Guardian Ad Litems who have probably acted just as badly as anyone else, so again, you could file a complaint about them.  And once you have finished with them, there are the mental health professionals who acted like jerks, why not file a complaint to the APA (American Psychiatric Association), the SWA (Social Work Association) or the DPH (Department of Public Health).  

Basically, when things go wrong from the beginning, the wrong doing continues to multiply, one mistake leading the next mistakes, leading onto the next mistakes and onward.  It's like a Hurricane Katrina right in your own front and back yards, and it just keeps on spreading.  

It's like, as I have said, a mighty blob that keeps on blobbing and blobbing until your life is just one great, big blobula.

That's what I envision when I actually sit and ponder about what I could do if I actually had the financial and emotional resources to do it.  What actually needs to be done in a high conflict divorce would take an entire corporation to complete, if you really thought about it.  

That is why you have to be pretty careful about what you choose to do and pretty much pick and peck through the lawsuit possibilities and establish what are your priorities in terms of what you want to achieve.  Think about it.  What really, truly matters above all else to the point where the other options for what you could do seem to pale in comparison.  That is what you have to determine.  Otherwise, the whole task seems overwhelming.  

And, of course, the attorneys you are opposing know this and that is why they keep on adding additional motions into the mix or looking up rare and esoteric cases, rules and regulations to hit you with, because they know it will take you time to look it all up and respond to it and tire you out.  Sometimes, you have to look at what they are doing and say, do I really have to rise to that bait, or can I wink at it and move onto some issue that is more important.  

Prioritizing, selecting out the important matters, pacing yourself, all of this is important.  You don't want the blob to roll over you and squish you--trust me, you don't!

PART I: IS IT ME?

Recently, my ex asked me to be flexible and allow him to see the kids at a time he wasn't scheduled. And I said "yes".  Then he asked me to drop the kids off at a different time, could I do that.  And I said "yes."  And he  called me back and said, could we change that time and do another time.  And I said "yes."  And then he called me back and said return would be a problem, could I meet him sooner.  "And I said "yes."  


And before you knew it I was twisted up in the biggest visitation pretzel imaginable.  I was doing all this work in order to have him benefit, and he was still asking for more.  That's when I stopped and said, you know, I just can't do this.  And then he went off in a rant and rave.  When I got off the phone I said to myself, "I know better.  I know better.  I know that when my ex wants to break the visitation schedule, when he wants me to be flexible and change this arrangement and that arrangement, he is just playing with me.  So what in the world led me to do this again, when I've done it before and gotten the same results."  


"Is it me?" I asked.  Am I somehow inviting this behavior by my willingness to go along with it?  Am I this masochistic, abuse inviting, self destructive, person?"  How can I understand this?  


In the course of my divorce, I had a therapist whom I later ditched, who would flinch at the word "victim."  Don't call yourself a victim, he would say.  You aren't a victim.  Don't talk like you are a victim, don't walk like you are victim.  Whatever, you are bad if you try to say you are a victim.  Of course, my point in calling my self a victim was to affirm that I had been abused and I was not a perpetrator and the disaster that my ex had made of my life and that of my children was not my fault.  We didn't deserve it.


Unfortunately, among many in therapy circles calling yourself a victim is not considered politically correct, certainly not in a mental health environment in which victims are suspected of secretly being the cause of their own abuse.  Yet, in my mind, by calling myself a victim, I was simply trying to distinguish myself from the perpetrator of the abuse, and I was stating that whatever wrong that had been done had been done against me and I had not done it.  No more blaming the victim for me.


But could I really say that when my ex was overstepping his boundaries that I didn't know what he was doing?  Didn't I know that when my ex started to ask me could I change the schedule, and switch the plans around, that this was simply a preamble to further abuse?  Was a kidding myself?  


Not really, I'd say, this was the essence of the problem--that the abusive behavior arose from the ordinary, everyday conversations and activities of life.  I mean, the whole conversation was couched within the umbrella concept of my ex having the opportunity to spend time with the children he loved.  As a mother, how could I stand in the way of my children getting the love they need from their father?


Take some greater good such as maintaining a frugal budget. My ex would come to me and say the economy is going to go downhill, you need to economize, you need to cut back on expenses.  And he would show me articles on the subject and have  conversations about the possibility of economic disaster.  And I'd agree with it, that, indeed, all couples should exercise financial caution.  Our Church even had homebuilder seminars on the subject.  


Except, as the weeks would go by, I'd find myself in a situation where my ex was rigidly controlling every penny that I spent and going over all my accounts and scrutinizing me closely and cutting me off from our bank accounts.  Somehow, ordinary frugality had transformed into straightforward abuse.  


Then when I tried to explain the situation to friends or to a therapist, it was hard to tell them exactly what was going on.  I'd say, "He is really concerned about the economy."  Well, isn't everyone concerned about that?  I often had no words to explain that my ex had concerns about economizing and the economy that had elevated to the point where he was totally controlling my life and harming me.  


Often, I didn't have the words to explain what was going on in a way which could make people understand what I was going through.  Then I'd get these looks like "What is her problem?"  And since my ex had already gone around saying I was crazy, my inability to express myself, to distinguish the kind of ordinary behavior that they were used to from the abusive behavior my husband regularly got up to, left me isolated, misunderstood and alone.  


So, it was sort of like my friends, my family, my therapist
--they were in denial, so I wanted to be in denial too.  I didn't want to admit the abuse any more than they did.  It meant rocking the boat!  It meant, maybe filing for a divorce.  It meant walking away from the evil I knew, my abusive marriage, into a possible evil I didn't know, such as single parenthood which I knew nothing about at the time.  


I questioned my sanity, was I really going to break up this family because my husband was trying to save money for the future?  I didn't want to think about whose future he was really saving up for, and had been for some time--his own!  And so I went back and forth.


So, was it me?  It some ways maybe "yes"--my yearning for everything to be normal and Ok sometimes overwhelmed my better judgment, and let the abuser in the door.  Still, the fact that you can abuse, doesn't justify abusing, i.e. my ex's abuse.  And the fact that the abuser chose to abuse didn't mean I deserved it.   

BUMPS! BANGS! SMASHES AND CRASHES

Yes, I know I suffered a great deal from my divorce. But do you want to know what suffered the most?  My car!  Yes, My car!

First of all, there was the direct damage from my ex.  What he would do is put screws in the tires of my car so that I would end up with a flat tire.  When he wasn't expelling the air from some of my tires, he was adding it on to others with a icycle pump, so some of the tires would be on the verge of going flat, while others were almost popping right off they were so full of air.

Next there was me.  If my ex upset me with an argument before I got in the car, or I received a court document in the mail at the Post Office just before getting into the car, then I would peal out of my driveway, or the parking lot, depending on where I was, with a mighty squeal of my tires and a roar of the car engine. 

Sometimes I would be so upset that I wouldn't actually be conscious of where I was going or how fast I was going, and I didn't always have control of my mouth when stopped by a police officer. 

By the way, for those of you who didn't know it, the speeding limit is 25 miles per hour in a residential area not 50, even if you are going down a hill.  I repeatedly forgot that when the nightmares of what was going on in Court replayed themselves in my mind again and again and I was at the wheel of my car. 

Also, remember that if you don't get a ticket when you are caught speeding, that means the police officer is doing you a favor.  So don't act like me and start arguing with the police officer when you are caught, saying things like "How do you know I was going 50 mph?  Did you have a radar, huh, huh!  What's your proof?" 

During my divorce, I was constantly getting caught for one thing or another--not stopping at a stop sign.  I mean, who sees stop signs when you might lose your child in a custody battle?  Turning on a red light.  "Oh, come on, that red light was never going to turn green, officer!" 

I mean, who can be patient when you are adding the numbers in your bank account and recognizing that you can't pay for the heat or electricity that week and that the kids also need checks for their school lunch but you can't afford that either. 

Then there are the fender benders--rear ending other people, or having other people rear end you because you braked suddenly.  How about backing out of parking spaces right into the traffic behind you.  I mean, who has time to look behind you when you are on your way to Court. 

Of course, driving with insurance papers is impossible when your husband won't pay the car insurance and yet you still have to drive to where you agreed to exchange the children according to the custody agreement; otherwise, you'd be in contempt--right! 

And, of course, when the police stop you for a routine check and you don't have car registration because your ex didn't pay town taxes, well, that's all par for the course!  That means you are lucky if they let you tow your car home, lucky if you have $80 in cash to pay for the tow, and lucky if you can get a friend to drive you and your crying children home so you all don't have to walk. 

Oh, and the times when I just forgot to renew my license--those were good ones.  Try explaining that to a police officer. 

My favorite incident is the time when my kids were talking, talking, talking with me and I was blabbing back all stressed out and I backed right into a truck smashing my rear window.  Then there was the time I backed out of a parking spot and sheared off the front bumper of my car.   

Yes, this is the quintessential high conflict divorce experience--sliding past a curb and smashing a headlight,  backing out of the garage and knocking off a side mirror, scarring the entire side of your vehicle on a fence.  Scraping, scratching, banging, you name it, I did it...to my car, all in the throes of my divorce. 

A lot of this led to citations, which led me to traffic court, which meant I spent many mornings at the courthouse at Lafeyette Street sitting among crowds of fellow car abusers, waiting to plead my case to the prosecutor and cut back on the fines I owed. I want to tell you how much time it took to repair registrations, correct licenses, update car insurance, beg prosecutors not to fine me, at least not that much, and sit in dealerships while my car was repaired.  It took lots and lots of time. 

So, when you are in a high conflict divorce not only are you seeing the inside of divorce court, you are most likely seeing the inside of traffic court too.  It's just one big happy party. 

Thank goodness, everything has calmed down in the last few years as I have solidfied my custody of the children and become more effective in advocating for myself in Court.  As a result, when I drove an unsuspecting friend of mine around recently for a little sightseeing she said, "Boy, you are good driver!  So calm, so collected, so careful when you turn corners.  "Little do you know." I answered, "Little do you know."   

WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, REPRESENTING YOURSELF

As you know, or should know by now, I am a self represented party.  But I wasn't always a self represented party.  To start with, like everyone else, I had a lawyer.  The entire legal process totally frightened me and when it came to Courtrooms, I was afraid of my own shadow. 

So why did I end up representing myself?  It was pretty clear after a few months with my first lawyer that there was a really bad attitude out there regarding my case, and the attitude kept on going with each successive lawyer I called upon. 

My initial thought had been, if one lawyer is bad, just move on to a different one and start with a fresh perspective.  Unfortunately, that was not such a great idea.  If I had it to do over again, I would have stuck to the first idiot lawyer.  The problem is that divorce attorneys in the State of Connecticut are in a very specialized field.  Most of these folks have known each other for a long time and they have arrangements with each other regarding how they are going to interact.  I've even heard that cases are decided within the first few weeks that a party files. 

Under these circumstances, no matter what you want in your divorce, if you have fired your first attorney because you didn't like his management of the case, watch out, because you can be sure the second attorney has spoken to the first attorney, gotten the low down on your case and plans on handling your divorce exactly the way the first attorney intended to handle it.  And the same goes on down the line. 

This is true no matter what wonderful stories they tell you in the first few meetings before they get a check from you.  When you hit the third attorney, he will speak to the first and second attorney and keep on with the program. Except the likelihood is that the third and later attorneys will be more threatening and intolerant because the fact that you've had multiple attorneys weakens your position in court and makes you far more vulnerable. 

Many attorneys have a rule that they will not handle a divorce case where there have been more than a few attorneys involved. 

I have to say I would not recommend becoming a self represented party prior to judgment.  There are too many technical issues involved that most of us would have no way of knowing.  Even now I am discovering parts of the stipulations attorneys made on my behalf at the time and coming to understand more clearly how important it was that those parts were incorporated in the agreements.  Yes, these attorneys failed when it came to important parts of my case, but the situation could have been much worse.  

So, prior to judgment it made sense to have an attorney representing me, but post judgement I was smart to stand up and represent myself.  The primary reason for that, of course, is that it saves you a whole lot of money.

Otherwise, I will agree that it is hard to come in as a self represented party because the Court System is clearly hostile to people who represent themselves and often hold them up to a higher standard.  Further, judges often jerk around self represented parties, making up rules that don't exist, denying self represented litigants their constitutional rights and their right to due process without blinking an eyelid.  I have often had to tolerate personal attacks on my character from judges, all of which was entirely unjustified.  I would also say that the Court usually rules against me whenever I bring forward a motion. 

On the other hand, I'm not sure that they wouldn't have ruled against me with or without a lawyer, simply because if you are the oppressed party in a case, it's generally going to stay that way unless you can somehow change the dynamic.  Let me know if you figure that out. 

The most difficult part of representing myself was the absolute sheer terror I experienced taking on the job.  My blood pressure shot up to the roof just stepping foot in the courtroom, all tribute to the fact that there is nothing worse than getting yourself stuck in a situation where you simply don't entirely know what the rules of the game are and yet the stakes are extremely high.  Plus, you have a full audience audience of other litigants sitting there behind you watching you make a fool of yourself when you make mistakes. 

I have to say that my first year or so as a self represented party I spent most of the time apologizing to the judge for every mistake I thought I'd made, real or not.  But it got better as I learned how to handle myself better with each of my successive appearances in the courtroom.

The down side of representing yourself is how you can be manipulated since you don't know all the rules, how you can be the focus of the Court's hostility, and how often the Court will rule against you simply because you have the nerve to represent yourself. 

On the other hand, the upside of representing yourself is the fact that you no long have to sit silently taking shit.  Finally, you can speak your mind on the issues that arise.  You can also behave with dignity and self respect no matter what the Court says to you or about you, and by your merely behaving in a proper manner, you can demonstrate decisively that the Court is simply wrong about you. 

Finally, and yes, it doesn't happen all the time, but you can present case law and quote the Practice Book, and bring forward quotations from the Connecticut General Statutes to prove that, legally speaking, your position is solidly the correct one, and if they rule against you, they appear foolish that they have to break the law in an attempt to break you. 

And, this truly does happen no matter how down I get in my discussions on this blog, every once and a while your logic and your presentation of the legal argument is simply unassailable, and the Court will rule in your favor, or, at the very least, refrain from trashing you altogether as it would have liked. 

Sometimes, by the time a litigant in a high conflict divorce goes self represented, the game is over and you have pretty much lost, so what we are talking about often, but not all the time, is more of a moral victory than anything else.  It's about not walking away from the field until you've had your say. 

There is that old Roman prayer, "Oh Great Jove, you may sink me or you may save me, but I will keep my rudder true."  In this case, you go with the knowledge that you kept your rudder true no matter the outcome.  Even if you have lost, there is an immense satisfaction to that, a satisfaction that only comes from being a self represented party and having the chance to speak for yourself. 

And there is always the possibility that your arguments may not fall on deaf ears and that you will be able to sway the Court in your favor. 

Ultimately, I choose to represent myself in order to have that opportunity.  And, also, the bottom line is, no one is  as convinced of the justness of my own cause as I am, no one speaks with as much intensity and conviction, no one can advocate for his or her own client as passionately as a self represented party, and, in a legal system shot through with corruption and sleeziness, there is no one you can trust as much as yourself. 

When you come to that realization, as far as I am concerned, that's when the time is right to decide to represent yourself and go for it.  Thoughts anyone?!?

CAN A BATTERER CHANGE HIS OR HER BEHAVIOR FOR THE BETTER?

For many of us who deal with abusers in our own lives the big question is:  Can a batterer change his or her behavior for the better?  Well, so far, studies indicate a 70% failure rate for batterers who undergo treatment, and the remaining so called successes are likely to simply replace physical abuse with verbal abuse.

I can recall asking Lundy Bancroft the very same question about whether abusers can succeed in treatment three years ago when I started going to his workshops.  His answer then as it is now was that it is quite unlikely that a batterer will change unless there are serious consequences to his abusive behavior.  But, as Lundy explains, how often are there any serious consequences to a batterer's behavior?  Not that often! 

If there is one thing I note about my abuser it is that divorce was very good to him.  Not only is he in the situation where he no longer has to listen to anything that I say, he no longer has to support our children financially or emotionally on the level that he did when he was married, leaving me with the great majority of the sacrifices and the expenses.  

The only redeeming feature of the situation is that with time he no longer takes as much of an interest in harassing me, but if he did, he would be able to harass me and there is nothing I could do about it. Yes, we have agreements, but they are totally meaningless if the Court chooses not to enforce them, and the Court does choose not to. 

Prior to my divorce, I had at least the illusion that society did not condone the oppression and abuse of women, as did my husband, and that kept him in check and limited him in the worst of his behavior while providing me with at least the illusion of a minimal sort of protection for me and for my children.  However, once the divorce was filed, it was interesting to see how many people lined up to support this man whose oppression of me and my children was so blatent, as was the physical and psychological damage he had inflicted.  Somehow, so many of these people--lawyers, GALs, psychotherapists, pastors, etc.--found reasons to explain away and justify my ex husband's abuse, and the rest didn't want to get in any trouble by getting involved. 

So, why should an abuser stop?  Where is the reward?  Where is the motivation? 

Also, programs to get a batterer to reform are based upon the concept that people can change who they are.  Of course, where would psychotherapy be if we didn't believe that people could change themselves, and transform themselves into better people.  The field of psychology is founded upon the belief that people can change if they want to. However, as you well know, abusers don't want to change.  They are really satisfied with the way things are.

Regardless, how reasonable is it to believe that people can change themselves in any significant way?  I know many people who have changed their lives in the face of new opportunities and new ideas.  But these are the exceptional ones, the people who look at life and view its potential for greater depth through ongoing personal transformation, and want to grab at the opportunity. 

However, the vast majority of people are perfectly happy to stay as they are and they will stay as they are unless they are hit by a train or something.  And how often does that happen?  This was a tough lesson for me to to learn. 

All my life I hoped to change my Dad who was very abusive towards me from my childhood on.  As a child he used to put me down and call me, let me say "lazy" (I've just invented this adjective because I don't want to get too much into my personal story.)  All my life, I tried in various ways to prove to him that I wasn't "lazy" taking on enormous projects, making sure my home was impeccable, keeping busy from morning to night.  And there were times as the years went by when my Dad would actually appear to see that I was hardworking and I'd be so proud of myself.  But in the months before he died, what was he saying again?  He was saying I was "lazy." 

Even though I'm sure he loved me in many ways, some ways in which I may not have been able to see due to my own blindnesses. After all, "I was his daughter" as he declaimed in those final months, desperately trying to comfort me even as he couldn't resist continuing to harp on the old themes regarding my laziness.  Until the day he died, I was his "lazy" daughter. 

So, I'm not one to talk to when it comes to thinking people can change, or batterers can change.  Batterers are batterers.  They like to batter.  Our culture provides no serious consequences to batterers so they will keep on battering.  I basically think that, like pedophiles, batterers are completely incurable.  There is one exception to this I would add, which is that I do believe that a batterer can relinquish physical violence and replace it almost entirely with verbal abuse.  So they can change from using one form of abuse into using another form of abuse, but whatever it is that they are using, it will be abuse. 

What particularly worries me about Batterer Intervention Programs or Fatherhood Initiatives for batterers which are so immensely popular nowadays among the folks that continue to abuse and oppress women is that they won't eliminate the abuse, because as we know outcomes in these programs are pretty miserable.  Instead, they will educate these men to talk an even more righteous talk so that they will be able to talk themselves out of the consequences for their actions with even greater facility. 

Then the burden ends up being on the victim to explain her unwillingness to let the abuser back into her life and the lives of her children.  The result is that the abuser is even more sophisticated and clever about using the system to harm the victim even further.  This is my greatest fear.  And not just a fear.  This is a reality going on all over the country as different states establish batterer intervention programs and reduce the legal consequences to batterers in order to ensure their participation in the lives of their children, no matter how harmful that participation may be. How long will it be before these batterers end up with custody of the children because the mother refuses to work with the batterer cooperatively.  Not very long, I can assure you. 

It's all very sad, but the fact that this is going on is a reality in this country and the sooner we face it, the better off we will be.

PACING YOURSELF: THE EMOTIONAL COST OF HIGH CONFLICT DIVORCE

Last week I had a friend who called me saying emergency, emergency and talked in detail about an upcoming court date.  The court date happened and then there was silence.  I didn't hear from her for several weeks until the next court date.  

This is often how a high conflict divorce unfolds--there are weeks and weeks of monotony, interspersed by sudden bursts of confrontation that are intensely emotional and exhausting.  If the confrontation ended well, then you feel really happy and high, but if the confrontation didn't end well, then you feel as though you want to die.  

Everything that happens in this kind of lawsuit is couched around the concept of winning and losing, nothing is about compromising or coming up with win-win solutions.  Often, it feels as if you have manic-depression because you either have really high highs or really low lows.  With me, where I was losing most of the time, there were lots of low, lows and I had to learn how to withstand that.  

Most high conflict divorces take up to two years or more, and sometimes go up to a decade, before they are resolved with costs of up to $300,000 or even more.  What is interesting about these cases is that no one seems to count the cost--you might as the mother--but it seems that everyone else, the attorneys, the judges, your ex ignores the fact that by spending so much money they are mortgaging their childrens' futures, and the futures of the litigants.  It is terribly tragic.  When I brought the issue up in Court, the judge immediately shushed me up.  It is like the dirty little secret everyone knows about, but no one is allowed to actually speak of it.  

During the lulls in the litigation, between court appearances, which can last anywhere from a few weeks to months, there are usually motions hanging over your head which, if the other party wins them, could result in absolute disaster for you or for your children.  This means that during those times, you have days during which time you can phantasize about all the terrible consequences that could occur should the opposing party win their motions.  That kind of thinking can spread throughout your mind, grip onto your heart, eat away at your soul and turn your interior life into a pool of corrosive battery fluid. 

The end result of that is by the time you get to court you start agreeing to anything just because you want some relief and then after you have done so, you end up being plagued with regret and self hatred for being so dumb.  

A high conflict divorce is an emotional marathon and the person who will achieve the best results is the one who can hang on the longest.  You can do this by centering yourself spiritually and pacing yourself better.  Here are some ideas on how to do that:  

1.  Whenever you find yourself becoming upset, exhausted, or losing control, it is necessary to stop and recenter yourself back on your higher power.  This means a morning, afternoon, and evening time of talking to your higher power, telling him or her what you are dealing with, asking for his or her guidance and support, asking to be filled with healing and strength.  I always make sure to do this before any hearing, court appearance, or meeting; 

2.  Remember to place your own personal experience within the context of everyone who is also going through the very same experience.  You are not being picked on solely; others are going through the same thing.  Also, keep in mind, that with every action you take to fight back, you are striking a blow for others as well.  If the work you do defending yourself changes the mind of a judge and makes him or her think in a more enlightened manner, then you have struck a blow for freedom.  If a judge rules against you, but respects you in the end, you have still won;  

3.  Also, remember that the way things appear is not always the truth.  You can never tell what the outcome of a particular circumstance will be in the long run.  In the legal system, if plan A doesn't work, there is always plan B, C, and D.  Always take action with your eyes on the final prize, and don't get too concerned about the variations along the way;

4.  Remember that slow and steady wins the race.  Every day do something for your case so that when the time for the court hearing finally arrives you don't drown in a flurry of preparatory work, and become so emotionally distraught you are not able to think straight.    

Finally, in terms of everything you say and do, think further down the line.  What will your children think of what you have done and said ten or twenty years from now?  Will they respect your character and your actions?  If there is the slightest question that they won't, don't do it or say it.  As the children's mother, you will always be their only mother, no matter what, and you want to present them with a person who maintains ethical standards that you would wish them to aspire to.  This will keep their souls alive and give them hope in what is often a very dark, conflicted world.  And, of course, that is your ultimate goal anyway.   

THE MALE ADVANTAGE

I was just driving my daughter to school this AM doing the usual.  You know, did you remember your math homework?  And what about your clarinet, did you remember your clarinet.  Now, I want you to work hard today, none of that bothering your neighbors that Mrs. Smith talked to me about at the last parent teacher conference.  Have you been working hard?  I expect you to work hard.  Bye, sweetheart, you wonderful sweet thing.  Have a nice day!  Mommy loves you, cutie pie!  I see that smile!  

Anyway, as I was driving home, I was half listening to 101.3 on the radio and as the conversation continued, I began to pay more and more attention, half laughing and half groaning.  What was happening was two of the radio announcers, one a man and one a woman, had called up a flower shop and done a scam on the sales lady and were now playing it for all it was worth.  

The lady announcer called first and ordered a $300.00 bouquet for what she said was her dead grandfather's funeral.  Then, a few minutes later, the guy announcer called and said he was outraged by the big bill and cancelled the order.  To start with the sales lady was very appropriate and said, "No, I can't cancel this order since you weren't the one who originally made it."  She also said, she would not let him have the details of the order, such as the price, since he wasn't the one who originally made it.  

The sales lady and the guy radio announcer went back and forth until the lady announcer got on the phone and started to argue with the guy announcer while they pretended to be a married couple disputing over this flower arrangement.  The guy announcer kept on saying, cancel the order, while the gal announcer kept on saying no, go ahead with the order, sometimes both speaking at the same time and swearing at each other.  

Meanwhile, the sales lady is saying, I really don't know what to do, could you tell me what you want me to do?  I have other customers that I have to deal with."  Finally, as the arguing continued, the sales lady said, "Why don't I hold your order, and why don't you folks make up your mind and call me back when you know what you want to do."  

Then the lady announcer was like, "Are you saying you aren't going to fill the order because my husband is disagreeing with me.  It's my order and I say go ahead with the order!" And the guy announcer goes, "Yeah, that's right, cancel the order." And the sales lady says, "Well, unless you guys agree, I can't go ahead with this order."  And the lady announcer was like, "What, are you saying that because he is a man, you are going to just cancel this order even though I said go ahead with it." And the sales lady responded, "Unless you guys can make up your minds, I can't follow through on this order." which is another way of saying, well, yes, she wasn't going to follow through on the lady announcer's order unless the supposed husband, the guy announcer agreed to it.

What I heard going on, and what you have just witnessed through my description of it, is what I would characterize as The Male Advantage.  If the guy in the marriage says it ain't happening, it ain't happening.  

I've had this occur, for example, when I was trying to get landscaping work done on my house before my divorce.  Once I went through a whole discussion with a service man on getting the bushes around our house cut, but when my husband came out and said, "I'm not paying for that." the man got back in his truck and left  in five minutes saying, "Call me when you have worked it out."  

In any dispute, in any disagreement, as far as Joe Public is concerned, the man's voice is the only voice that matters.  The same thing happens in legal disputes, in therapy sessions, if you as a woman state there is a problem, that is ho humm, but if the man says there is a problem, we better straighten up and deal with it or else.  

It's the male advantage. It exists because the world is full of sexist bums. It is here to stay, and we women have to deal with it, whether we like it or not.

DEPORTMENT

It isn't easy participating in a movement for social change.  Usually, there is a need for social change because some kind of injustice exists.  When injustice exists you have a great many--get ready for the word again--victims.


Unfortunately, the hurt these victims have experienced, the hurt which galvanized them into action in the first place and endowed them with the energy to work for social change, also can end up being the source of a great deal of turbulance and disruption within the movement.  Ironically enough, as a consequence, we advocates can end up doing more harm to one another than we ever do to our opponents. 


For example, consider what happened during the Rodney King incident.  When the people who attacked Rodney King were acquitted, out of anger some members of the black community ended up looting and vandalizing their own stores and homes; they didn't vandalize in middle class white neighborhoods.  


That's what can happen with us.  We can end up turning on and attacking one another in the movement rather than focusing on the real enemy.  Not only that, not only is there this self hating, self destructive influence within our community of advocates, there can also be spies coming in from our opponents' side who join up with us with the intention of spying on us and disrupting our attempts to organize.  So, often, we don't even know what is truly going on in the head of someone who is sitting right next to us.  I know this may seem unreal to some of you, but this truly happens, and we have to succeed with good results nonetheless.  It has been going on as long as social movements began.  


Consider Benjamin Franklin--he was surrounded by a bevy of spies from the moment he woke up until he settled himself into bed at night.  If the man so much as sneezed, the King of England heard about it.  Nonetheless, he accomplished the results that he wished through his intense focus, sharp intellect, and Oh! Papa Franklin!, charm with the ladies.  We need to be the same.  Throughout the struggle, throughout the adversity, we need to succeed with our focus, sharp intellect, and charm which we have in abundance.  


We need to work with one another effectively and avoid power struggles among ourselves at all costs.  If we don't see eye to eye on a particular issue, rather than tear each other apart, perhaps we simply need to agree to disagree rather than attack each other and accuse one another of not bearing the true faith.  We need to stand together and expand our numbers and find common ground upon which to fight, rather than disintegrate into a fragmented, squabbling, self involved group that ends up being totally ineffective.  


Courtesy, respect for other peoples' opinions and hurts, recognizing you will not always have it your way, flexibility, the willingness to consider where other people are coming from while respecting your own place, all of that is central to achieving the results we all want, which is a more just, and a more safe society for ourselves and for our children.  Don't let the bastards win!

WHY WE STAY

I was only able to leave my ex husband after several friends urged me to leave, pointing out to me the ways in which he was abusive. They told me to consider the impact, not only on my long term mental health, but also on my children.

I knew that my ex husband was abusive, but then there were the good times we had as well. Whenever I considered leaving because of something terrible he had done to me, I would think about, maybe the one thing that he'd done in the last six months, one moment of levity or something nice he had done with the children. I would say to myself, well, he may not be a good husband, but he is a good father.

And I was always aware of exactly how dangerous he was--always in the back of my mind there was this lurking understanding that if I left him, he would exact revenge. Within months after I had left, I was embroiled in this legal war of attrition which I have described in some detail in the pages of this blog.

Right away, I told my friends who had urged me to leave my ex husband, things like: "It's your fault. You told me to leave him. You knew that he was a monster and he would make me pay for leaving him. You never, ever challenge a man like my ex directly in the way I have now. He will kill me in the end." Somehow I'd had this idea, which continued to linger in my consciousness, that I could control my ex husband's abusive behavior by staying in the marriage and just avoiding problems.

I had ideas such as that I could change him, that I could tone down his behavior, that one day he would understand how badly he had behaved and come to his senses. My parents said things to me like, "Well, he just likes to have his dinner on time, and you could be a little more consistent in when you put it on the table." They were always explaining away the way he ordered me around, the way he made belittling and vicious remarks to me, and the way he hid what was going on from me, particularly when it came to financial matters. My ex could be very charming and persuasive, sending them flowers at Christmas, and so he was very believable when he complained about me.

Meanwhile, he was exhausting me by all of his demands and I wasn't receiving essential medical and dental care and the result was that I was run down and overwhelmed. Once I left him, I was diagnosed with diabetes and began to receive treatment for this condition. Looking back I have no doubt that I was suffering from this condition years before it was diagnosed, but I had to leave him in order to get proper treatment. I have no doubt that had I continued to stay I would have ended up with additional medical problems and might even have died earlier than I should.

I still wonder whether leaving my ex husband was the right thing to do. I worry about how this leaves, in particular, my children with economic challenges they never would have faced had I not left him. I'm free of him, but I'm also broke, and I have endured severe legal abuse from a judicial system that is incapable of addressing the issues of women who are abused as I am. I feel saddened at times by how the legal system could revictimize not only me, but also my children.

My ex husband is a monster. Who knows what else he could still do. Yes, I live with that fear. Still, I am empowered now in a way I never was before. Daily I am able to make my own decisions about my life in a way my ex never allowed me to when I was married. I'm not tense, rushed and stressed out the way I used to be. I hug my kids freely and I can focus on their needs, unlike before. I am not having constant fender benders with my car. Thank God for these small things that make my life better in modest, but significant ways.

Most important, I've said to my children, my family, friends and colleagues these lies have to stop, the abuse has to stop. It is not acceptable. That is the standard I live by. On the other hand, I have had to pay a high price for the freedom I have now, so when other women express doubts and are unsure whether they should leave abusive husbands, I don't judge them. I understand, because the freedom they reach for could cost them everything they have and some more.

SCREAMING! SCREAMING! SCREAMING!

I think the most difficult thing about being in a divorce is how alone you are while so many bad things are happening to you.

I struggled in my twenties and thirties, but for a while there I was quite spoiled what with having a steady income, lovely children, and a home, etc. Then this situation crashed into my life and upended everything I held dear and put me at risk of losing everything I'd fought so hard for.

Then as the drama unfolds with motions in court and accusations and counter accusations and lawyers getting into the mix with their scheming and then the GAL and then the custody evaluator and everyone is scrutinizing you and you have to justify all the prior actions of your entire life, it gets totally complicated.

Try explaining what is going on to your friends and neighbors. It is awfully hard!

In the end, people who know you may decide that you are a difficult person because they just don't get all the details and I do believe there is a subtle assumption that if bad things are happening to you, then you must somehow be bad yourself.

Believe me, the idea is out there.

For the first year of my divorce, this situation was so difficult that once the kids had gone to school and I was in an empty house, I would sit in my bedroom and scream and scream and scream, long drawn out screamy screams using my whole body. I'd go on for a long time until I was totally hoarse. Then for the rest of the day my voice would sound gravelly and I'd say as a way of explanation that I had a sore throat. . .And no wonder!

So, if you find yourself doing something weird like that, all I can say is: It is OK. Tomorrow is another day.

Now go have a bubble bath, wash and style your hair, put on your favorite perfume, go to a nail salon for a manicure and pedicure, whatever you can afford, or just sit in silence and rest. You deserve it!