Monday, July 16, 2012

Domestic violence in custody cases - seeking custody as harassment method

 Fighting for custody is a typical part of the psychologically violent man’s mission to destroy the woman who slighted him.

When divorced parents are incapable of collaborating concerning their children and shared custody is not an option, divorce courts have a duty to investigate which one of them is the best suited to have principal custody and which one will have to make do with visitation rights. They do so by means of various investigations conducted by social workers and psychologists.

In Sara’s and Paul’s case, ever since Sara fled from their home, the court has consistently given her principal custody of the children, whereas Paul, just as consistently, has been granted legal visitation rights about half of the children’s time outside school hours. Sara has always declared herself happy with the rulings, and she has never tried to obstruct Paul’s right to have his children – even though she does, of course, worry a lot when they are with him. For one thing it has always been a natural thing for her to respect legal decisions, for another she wants her children to have as near and warm a relationship with their father as possible, and if the court considers him to have sufficient parenting abilities she is prepared to accept this.

By contrast, Paul has challenged the court’s custody ruling time and time again. As soon as the judge has once again confirmed the old ruling, Paul has invented new allegations against Sara or found new issues for the court to consider, so that the judge has been obliged to reopen the case. As is so common among violent avengers, Paul has made use of this obligation to an absurd degree.

Time and time again, one thorough investigation after the other conducted over several months have concluded that there is no substance at all to Paul’s allegations; each investigation has shown that Sara is an exemplary, loving and caring mother, whereas Paul is a mentally rigid control freak, who refuses to accept that he is now divorced and that he has no business at all trying to control neither his ex-wife, nor his children while they are with her; time and time again the children have told social workers as well as the judge that for as long as they can remember their most ardent wish has been for their dad to stop persecuting their mother; time and time again they have made it clear that they wish to live with their mother, and that they want their dad and his family to stop speaking ill of her and dragging them into his fight against her.

Moreover, time and time again the investigations have shown that Paul's ardent need/wish to be near his children evaporates as soon as they are in his own care, when he invariably hands them over to their grandmother or a childminder. It has also emerged that his so called concern for them evaporates as he never takes them to see their friends, doesn’t let them participate in their friends’ birthday parties, never takes them on an outing or even for a walk, and doesn’t let them participate in social school events like end of school year celebrations. His goal is cleary neither to spend more time with his children, nor to let them lead a fulfilling life, but to not let Sara have them. 

In subsequent articles I will discuss some serious problems with current legal routines, which, in fact act as incentives for vengeful abusers to initiate endless legal procedures as a means to put spokes in the wheel for the custodial parent.

Articles in chronological order

1 comment:

  1. This is such an important subject.
    Thanks for bringing it up, have be exposed to this myself.

    ReplyDelete