1997 - THE ABOVE PICTURE WAS BASICALLY THE LAST TIME MY HUSBAND SAW HIS CHILDREN OUTSIDE OF A FEW THERAPY APPOINTMENTS ORDERED BY THE GAL IN 2005-2006
My Husband's Story - This is why I got involved!
My husband's story started when he married his second wife, S, who stole his children from him and his family. Since 1996, he has only seen his children six (6) times and since 2006, he has had no relationship with them at all.
He was and still is a good man and father with strong values and morals for raising children. Yet, his second ex-wife would have none of this. As far as she was concerned, if he was not going to be with her and love her, he was not going to have a relationship with his children either. In her warped mind, she believed she was protecting them from their father and to this day still believes this.
It all started when he met S in high school and she refused to let go. Even after my husband married his first wife, S would still not let go. When my husband and his first wife's marriage ended, S returned to our home state and tracked down my husband. She lied to him, entrapped him by getting pregnant, knowing that my husband would do the right thing and marry her.
During their marriage, she would put Chris down in front of his children, friends and family. One Christmas, she actually made their two small children (ages about 4 and 6) return every single gift they got from my husband's parents and brother. On another occasion, without my husband permission, she went out and bought a Cadillac with a car loan of $600 a month. My husband had no say in this except to pay the bills. As their relationship progressed, things went from bad to worse.
In fact, S started her rein of psychological abuse with my husband’s son, E, from his first marriage. When E would come for his visitation, S would treat him horribly, making him crawl on the floor with his half-siblings, cleaning up after them and taking care of them. E never told his mother or us until he was 16, and then he opened up about how S would tell him his mother was no good and that she was a liar and how he should just come live with them because his mother could not properly care for him. She even went as far to try to get child protective services to take custody from E’s biological mother. When that did not work, her abuse of E became even worse to the point that he would no longer visit his father.
Though out this time, my husband was allowing his second ex, S to manage and pay all the bills. He was literally just handing his paycheck over to her, to pay the bills. And she was deliberately not paying all the bills and in particular, his child support to his son from his first marriage. My husband had no idea because she was throwing all of the letters from Child Support Enforcement into the garbage. It was not until they he was threatened with arrest and slapped with a bill for over $16,000 owed in child that he figured out what was going on.
Two children later and the marriage was worse than ever. They separated for three (3) years, during which my husband tried to make the marriage work for the sake of the kids. But the final straw was when S demanded he get his hair cut her way. When he refused, she threw him out of the house. Her need for control was overwhelming. Finally, it was decided they would get divorced using the same attorney to save costs. S thought this would get him to come back to her if she agreed to the divorce.
This is when my husband went on with his life and met me. As soon as S found out, her plans to get my husband back were over and she knew it. They were still in the middle of working with the joint attorney, when without notice, she switched attorneys and filed for divorce without properly serving him. She deliberately gave the sheriff an incorrect address to serve my husband, thus he was never served. But the courts did not know this. They assumed that a proper attempt at service had been done and thus S was able to get a divorce without my husband's presence along with convincing the judge that she should have sole custody since he was not there. On to child support enforcement, where S then lied about my husband income, even without any proof, she was child support at four (4) times the amount he made. The judge did not care that my husband was not there to represent himself or that there was no proof of income. We tried to fight this but to no avail, as we could NOT afford the expensive attorney that the mother's family had paid for her.
What the judge did half right was to give my husband generous and liberal visitation. Yes, an ambiguous, without borders court order for visitation that S could violate at any time. And so it went for the next ten (10) years, with my husband going to court to get his child support reduced, his visitation complied with, while fighting false allegations of abuse.
At first, the mother started by refusing to allow visitation by claiming the kids were not available. In addition, she would block phone calls and refuse to allow the kids to call. She claimed that it was too expensive to call to two towns away. So, we established a toll-free number to our house phone for the kids to call on, and still she would not let them. Then she claimed that the kids could not visit overnight on Fridays because they had special TV shows they watched together. The judge told her “Too bad, then tape them and watch them another time”. Then she claimed that they could not sleep over on Saturdays because they had to go to church even though she had never gone to church with them before. The judge again told her again, “Too bad, then take them to church during the week”. But this did not stop her; she just continued to make sure the kids were not available. Either no one was home when hubby would call to pick them up or the kids were not allowed to answer the phone and she refused answer the phone either to make the visitation pickup arrangements.
Finally, my husband filed contempt charges for visitation violations along with a request for a family court evaluation. Panicked that the courts would find out the truth, she filed false allegations of abuse, which she coupled with a false allegation of fear for her life. This last incident occurred when my husband went to pick up his kids, who were again not home. On his way back from their house, he found the mother hiding in her car waiting for him to pass by so she could go back home. He cornered her in the parking lot and told her that she was nasty and what she was doing was not good for the kids. Later he called leaving her am message that he knew what she had done and that he was going to get her, and by that he meant, get her in court. She called the police and claimed that he threatened her life. The police listened to the voice message and told her that it as not a threat on her life, but she did not care and told them she still wanted a restraining order against him. This all occurred just as my husband, my own biological daughter and I had been burned out of our home by fire. The day the sheriff came to serve my husband, we were homeless and just trying to get our life back after the fire, and the mother knew it. We could not add this to our plate of problems and so my husband never went to court to fight the charges.
It took eight (8) months for Family Court Services to do their visitation evaluation, during which time it was proved that there was never any abuse. It was determined that not only had the mother made up most of the story but that anything the kids knew had been told to them by their mother. In addition, not one but two-family court evaluators determined that his ex was refusing to accept that my husband had moved on with his life in a positive way and that it was over with her. From here it took another four (4) years, including being threatened with jail and having a pro-bono attorney appointed to get the child support reduced. His ex was even caught committing perjury, fraud and forgery by the courts, and they did nothing to penalize her.
This last incident of the perjury, fraud, defamation and slander occurred during the child support modification trials. During the first trial, it was determined that my husband's child support should be reduced and the attorney general’s office, which was supposed to be assisting the mother agreed. The ex was furious; filing a motion to appeal the decision claiming my husband was committing fraud. By the time this second round of child support determination came around, the ex was on her third attorney. During this trial she tried to present a day camp bill for $3600 for the YMCA. I knew this was not correct as my daughter had gone to the YMCA in our town and just like us, she would qualify for financial assistance. Between my husband's attorney and I we found out that the actual cost for the kids’ days camp was $600. She had taken the bill and put a three (3) in front the six (6). The judge was furious when he saw the actual bill and told her if anyone has committed fraud here it was her. But the judge did nothing to penalize her for lying in court, slandering or defaming my husband. And his attorney refused to take the case in civil court to press charges against her so that once and for all she would stop her antics.
This, of course, was not what she told the kids. They were told that their father refused to pay for their bills and now they had no money. And like all the financial issues that over the years my husband would prove and win, the kids would be told a different story and my husband never had an opportunity to correct it until it was too late, since she would not allow him to see his kids.
During this time, my husband never gave up fighting for his rights to have a relationship with his kids. He filed six (6) contempt of visitation violations and non-compliance with counseling orders. Each time the judge did nothing to penalize his ex for impeding on his visitation or the orders for counseling. It was like a slap on the wrist for her contempt of the courts with the judge just issuing a new court order for visitation and counseling for the ex to violate. After ten (10) years of impediments by his ex it was too late. The kids were 16 and 18. They were completely brainwashed and programmed to believe that their father was a horrible, terrible man who never loved them and never would.
In 2006, a final court order was made to get his children into counseling and his visitation complied with. The GAL (Guardian Ad Litem) had court ordered the kids to be picked up after school by my husband. There was just one glitch. The mother had not only included in the children's files, the overturned and expired restraining order, but had hand written in each of the children's emergency contact file that the children's father nor I were ever allowed to pick the children up from school. The GAL was furious when she heard about this and had to write a specific order/letter informing the school that the father was allowed and going to be picking his kids up from school.
But this was not the end of it. As with the other five (5) court orders for visitation and counseling that the mother impeded with, this one would be no different, if not worse for the kids. As with all the other orders for counseling, when she could not get out of taking the kids in one way or another, she would change her medical insurance provider to one that the counselor did not take. She knew we could not afford to pay out of pocket for the counseling as we were also on state medical insurance. So, this last time, my husband and I agreed to go further into debt and pay out of pocket for the counseling. But it made no difference at this point. During every session both the counselor and my husband would break down the lies with evidence, making small little steps in their relationship. But after every visitation and counseling session, the kids returned home to their mother who ripped any progress made apart. She told them it was all lies and not to believe it. She would further denigrate their father so that at the next visitation and counseling session, they would be 10 steps further backwards and the kids that much more psychologically and emotionally destroyed with confusion.
After months of no progress, my husband spoke with the counselor and it was agreed that until the kids were out from under their mother, they would never be free to think for themselves. My husband made one last appointment with the children and the counselor. During this last appointment, my husband reiterated to them that he loved them, has always loved them and would always love them. He told them he would always be there for them but would no longer force them to visit or go to the counselors.
This was basically the last time he ever saw his kids. His daughter called him once 2 weeks later asking him to take her summer clothing shopping. Two weeks later it was Father’s Day, not one card, call or even email to their dad. Though he tried to reach out to them on several occasions, as soon as their mother would find out, the coldness and refusal to be involved with their father would start all over again.
If only!!! If only!!!! If only, the courts had put down their foot and penalized the mother, when she was caught lying in court. If only, the court had included strict penalties that they enforced when the mother violated the court orders for visitation and counseling. If only the court had ordered the mother into specialized counseling with a specialist in grief and anger that understood Parental Alienation with strict penalties if she did not comply or make progress. If only, from the outset, the court had ordered and enforced an inter-parent communication plan and ample inter-parent mediation, while staying all adversarial proceedings pending mediation, and while remaining neutral throughout the completion of at least five sessions of structured family mediation, if only…, the court would have taught the mother and father a much better way to resolve marital and inter-parental conflict and both parents would have saved thousands of hours of time that was wasted on adversarial ‘violence,’ and would have each saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and each would have a healthy [or much healthier] relationship with [their] kids. If only....then maybe today my husband would have a healthy relationship with his kids today.
He was and still is a good man and father with strong values and morals for raising children. Yet, his second ex-wife would have none of this. As far as she was concerned, if he was not going to be with her and love her, he was not going to have a relationship with his children either. In her warped mind, she believed she was protecting them from their father and to this day still believes this.
It all started when he met S in high school and she refused to let go. Even after my husband married his first wife, S would still not let go. When my husband and his first wife's marriage ended, S returned to our home state and tracked down my husband. She lied to him, entrapped him by getting pregnant, knowing that my husband would do the right thing and marry her.
During their marriage, she would put Chris down in front of his children, friends and family. One Christmas, she actually made their two small children (ages about 4 and 6) return every single gift they got from my husband's parents and brother. On another occasion, without my husband permission, she went out and bought a Cadillac with a car loan of $600 a month. My husband had no say in this except to pay the bills. As their relationship progressed, things went from bad to worse.
In fact, S started her rein of psychological abuse with my husband’s son, E, from his first marriage. When E would come for his visitation, S would treat him horribly, making him crawl on the floor with his half-siblings, cleaning up after them and taking care of them. E never told his mother or us until he was 16, and then he opened up about how S would tell him his mother was no good and that she was a liar and how he should just come live with them because his mother could not properly care for him. She even went as far to try to get child protective services to take custody from E’s biological mother. When that did not work, her abuse of E became even worse to the point that he would no longer visit his father.
Though out this time, my husband was allowing his second ex, S to manage and pay all the bills. He was literally just handing his paycheck over to her, to pay the bills. And she was deliberately not paying all the bills and in particular, his child support to his son from his first marriage. My husband had no idea because she was throwing all of the letters from Child Support Enforcement into the garbage. It was not until they he was threatened with arrest and slapped with a bill for over $16,000 owed in child that he figured out what was going on.
Two children later and the marriage was worse than ever. They separated for three (3) years, during which my husband tried to make the marriage work for the sake of the kids. But the final straw was when S demanded he get his hair cut her way. When he refused, she threw him out of the house. Her need for control was overwhelming. Finally, it was decided they would get divorced using the same attorney to save costs. S thought this would get him to come back to her if she agreed to the divorce.
This is when my husband went on with his life and met me. As soon as S found out, her plans to get my husband back were over and she knew it. They were still in the middle of working with the joint attorney, when without notice, she switched attorneys and filed for divorce without properly serving him. She deliberately gave the sheriff an incorrect address to serve my husband, thus he was never served. But the courts did not know this. They assumed that a proper attempt at service had been done and thus S was able to get a divorce without my husband's presence along with convincing the judge that she should have sole custody since he was not there. On to child support enforcement, where S then lied about my husband income, even without any proof, she was child support at four (4) times the amount he made. The judge did not care that my husband was not there to represent himself or that there was no proof of income. We tried to fight this but to no avail, as we could NOT afford the expensive attorney that the mother's family had paid for her.
What the judge did half right was to give my husband generous and liberal visitation. Yes, an ambiguous, without borders court order for visitation that S could violate at any time. And so it went for the next ten (10) years, with my husband going to court to get his child support reduced, his visitation complied with, while fighting false allegations of abuse.
At first, the mother started by refusing to allow visitation by claiming the kids were not available. In addition, she would block phone calls and refuse to allow the kids to call. She claimed that it was too expensive to call to two towns away. So, we established a toll-free number to our house phone for the kids to call on, and still she would not let them. Then she claimed that the kids could not visit overnight on Fridays because they had special TV shows they watched together. The judge told her “Too bad, then tape them and watch them another time”. Then she claimed that they could not sleep over on Saturdays because they had to go to church even though she had never gone to church with them before. The judge again told her again, “Too bad, then take them to church during the week”. But this did not stop her; she just continued to make sure the kids were not available. Either no one was home when hubby would call to pick them up or the kids were not allowed to answer the phone and she refused answer the phone either to make the visitation pickup arrangements.
Finally, my husband filed contempt charges for visitation violations along with a request for a family court evaluation. Panicked that the courts would find out the truth, she filed false allegations of abuse, which she coupled with a false allegation of fear for her life. This last incident occurred when my husband went to pick up his kids, who were again not home. On his way back from their house, he found the mother hiding in her car waiting for him to pass by so she could go back home. He cornered her in the parking lot and told her that she was nasty and what she was doing was not good for the kids. Later he called leaving her am message that he knew what she had done and that he was going to get her, and by that he meant, get her in court. She called the police and claimed that he threatened her life. The police listened to the voice message and told her that it as not a threat on her life, but she did not care and told them she still wanted a restraining order against him. This all occurred just as my husband, my own biological daughter and I had been burned out of our home by fire. The day the sheriff came to serve my husband, we were homeless and just trying to get our life back after the fire, and the mother knew it. We could not add this to our plate of problems and so my husband never went to court to fight the charges.
It took eight (8) months for Family Court Services to do their visitation evaluation, during which time it was proved that there was never any abuse. It was determined that not only had the mother made up most of the story but that anything the kids knew had been told to them by their mother. In addition, not one but two-family court evaluators determined that his ex was refusing to accept that my husband had moved on with his life in a positive way and that it was over with her. From here it took another four (4) years, including being threatened with jail and having a pro-bono attorney appointed to get the child support reduced. His ex was even caught committing perjury, fraud and forgery by the courts, and they did nothing to penalize her.
This last incident of the perjury, fraud, defamation and slander occurred during the child support modification trials. During the first trial, it was determined that my husband's child support should be reduced and the attorney general’s office, which was supposed to be assisting the mother agreed. The ex was furious; filing a motion to appeal the decision claiming my husband was committing fraud. By the time this second round of child support determination came around, the ex was on her third attorney. During this trial she tried to present a day camp bill for $3600 for the YMCA. I knew this was not correct as my daughter had gone to the YMCA in our town and just like us, she would qualify for financial assistance. Between my husband's attorney and I we found out that the actual cost for the kids’ days camp was $600. She had taken the bill and put a three (3) in front the six (6). The judge was furious when he saw the actual bill and told her if anyone has committed fraud here it was her. But the judge did nothing to penalize her for lying in court, slandering or defaming my husband. And his attorney refused to take the case in civil court to press charges against her so that once and for all she would stop her antics.
This, of course, was not what she told the kids. They were told that their father refused to pay for their bills and now they had no money. And like all the financial issues that over the years my husband would prove and win, the kids would be told a different story and my husband never had an opportunity to correct it until it was too late, since she would not allow him to see his kids.
During this time, my husband never gave up fighting for his rights to have a relationship with his kids. He filed six (6) contempt of visitation violations and non-compliance with counseling orders. Each time the judge did nothing to penalize his ex for impeding on his visitation or the orders for counseling. It was like a slap on the wrist for her contempt of the courts with the judge just issuing a new court order for visitation and counseling for the ex to violate. After ten (10) years of impediments by his ex it was too late. The kids were 16 and 18. They were completely brainwashed and programmed to believe that their father was a horrible, terrible man who never loved them and never would.
In 2006, a final court order was made to get his children into counseling and his visitation complied with. The GAL (Guardian Ad Litem) had court ordered the kids to be picked up after school by my husband. There was just one glitch. The mother had not only included in the children's files, the overturned and expired restraining order, but had hand written in each of the children's emergency contact file that the children's father nor I were ever allowed to pick the children up from school. The GAL was furious when she heard about this and had to write a specific order/letter informing the school that the father was allowed and going to be picking his kids up from school.
But this was not the end of it. As with the other five (5) court orders for visitation and counseling that the mother impeded with, this one would be no different, if not worse for the kids. As with all the other orders for counseling, when she could not get out of taking the kids in one way or another, she would change her medical insurance provider to one that the counselor did not take. She knew we could not afford to pay out of pocket for the counseling as we were also on state medical insurance. So, this last time, my husband and I agreed to go further into debt and pay out of pocket for the counseling. But it made no difference at this point. During every session both the counselor and my husband would break down the lies with evidence, making small little steps in their relationship. But after every visitation and counseling session, the kids returned home to their mother who ripped any progress made apart. She told them it was all lies and not to believe it. She would further denigrate their father so that at the next visitation and counseling session, they would be 10 steps further backwards and the kids that much more psychologically and emotionally destroyed with confusion.
After months of no progress, my husband spoke with the counselor and it was agreed that until the kids were out from under their mother, they would never be free to think for themselves. My husband made one last appointment with the children and the counselor. During this last appointment, my husband reiterated to them that he loved them, has always loved them and would always love them. He told them he would always be there for them but would no longer force them to visit or go to the counselors.
This was basically the last time he ever saw his kids. His daughter called him once 2 weeks later asking him to take her summer clothing shopping. Two weeks later it was Father’s Day, not one card, call or even email to their dad. Though he tried to reach out to them on several occasions, as soon as their mother would find out, the coldness and refusal to be involved with their father would start all over again.
If only!!! If only!!!! If only, the courts had put down their foot and penalized the mother, when she was caught lying in court. If only, the court had included strict penalties that they enforced when the mother violated the court orders for visitation and counseling. If only the court had ordered the mother into specialized counseling with a specialist in grief and anger that understood Parental Alienation with strict penalties if she did not comply or make progress. If only, from the outset, the court had ordered and enforced an inter-parent communication plan and ample inter-parent mediation, while staying all adversarial proceedings pending mediation, and while remaining neutral throughout the completion of at least five sessions of structured family mediation, if only…, the court would have taught the mother and father a much better way to resolve marital and inter-parental conflict and both parents would have saved thousands of hours of time that was wasted on adversarial ‘violence,’ and would have each saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and each would have a healthy [or much healthier] relationship with [their] kids. If only....then maybe today my husband would have a healthy relationship with his kids today.