Children as innocent pawns in an endless custody battle

The saddest part of Eric’s harassment of the mother of his children – and his endless smear campaign against her to the family court is no exception – is that it hurts the children even more than it hurts Maria. It is, in fact, with regards to the children that Eric’s (and so many other violent men’s) perverted, self-centred and extremely egoistic, psycho rigid “logic” becomes the clearest. For five years Maria’s and Eric’s children have had no choice but to be stuck at the very centre of their dad’s untiring attempts at destroying their mother. They have never been allowed to relax and just get on with their lives, but their whole existence is constantly under attack. During their mum’s custody periods they have had to endure their dad’s endless attacks on her; when they are with their dad they are exposed to a relentless smear campaign against her. In fact, even though a series of thorough investigations of the whole family, each one conducted over a period of at least 6 months, have concluded that Maria is an excellent mother, whereas Eric is a mentally rigid control freak who prefers to hand over the children to someone else during his visitation periods, that the children are leading a good life with their mother, that they wish to go on living with her, and that it is in their best interest to do so, he never gives in. As soon as the court has confirmed the previous custody arrangement he produces new allegations against Maria (always completely gratuitous and without any kind of corroboration) so that the court is obliged to keep the case open eternally and expose Maria and the children to ever new investigations - each of them with the same result.

At the same time Eric would of course never admit that what he does is in any way detrimental to his children. Instead, he obstinately maintains that he does what he does "in order to protect them". He even tries to make out that it is his duty as a responsible father to make sure firstly that his children understand “what kind of woman their mother is”, and secondly that they are removed from her. If anyone protests that what he does is harmful to the children, he claims that this is not down to him. For if Maria (or the court) would just do what he claims is the only sensible thing, i.e. hand over the children to him, he wouldn’t need to do what he does, would he?

In fact, I am personally convinced that the whole point of the exercise from Eric’s point of view has never really been to have the custody transferred to him but to cause as much psychological and economic harm to Maria as possible. What Eric is after is so very obviously not to be given more time with his children – in that case he wouldn’t be quite so eager to hand them over to someone else, as soon as they are in his care! What he is really after is instead clearly the same as always: to ruin Maria’s life, in particular by making sure she doesn’t get a chance to lead a quiet life with his children outside of his control. He is in fact using a technique that psychiatric literature describes as very common among violent men who want to get back at the woman who dared leave them. With the intention of having their own view of her as an unfit mother confirmed, they do everything in their power to make life as difficult as possible for her, and, most importantly, they do all they can to prevent the children from having a good time with her!

Fortunately Maria is both psychologically very strong and has an instinctive feeling for the best way to counter Eric’s attacks. Thanks to her consistent refusal to enter Eric’s game, thanks to her always focusing on being the best mother she can, thanks to the children’s recognition of her unconditional and unselfish love and care for them, thanks to her honesty and her calm but unflinching resistance to Eric, Maria has won every custody battle, whereas Eric has invariably ended up biting the dust; the judge invariably tells him off for his failure to accept that he is now a divorced man. At the same time the law seems to stand without possibility to make him stop producing ever new allegations. So the battle goes on, year after year. Year in year out, the children are forced to live in a limbo, where their whole existence is constantly under attack by their own father!

One cannot help but ask oneself: Who does the current system really protect?

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.

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The best response to psychological abuse

      The best attitude the victim and everyone in her network can adopt when faced with her ex’s constant harassment is to never respond emotionally to his attacks, never answer back, never seek to take revenge, but concentrate on collecting proof of the abuse. And if there are children involved, the victim’s best bet to foil her tormentor’s determination to have them taken from her is to concentrate on being the best mother she can. In short - she must always stay true to her own values, the values she sought to defend by leaving him and never allow herself to stoop to his level.

      This is the consistent advice given by all knowledgeable sources that I have come across. That it is a very effective method has also been proven time and time again in Maria’s and Eric’s case – which is very typical in many respects. What is not so typical is that Maria, to a much larger extent than most, has all along managed to stick to the fundamental principles of the advice, and that the man, largely because of this, was in fact finally sentenced for his persecution. 

      Already when Maria left Eric she knew instinctively that this was the only route she could take or would ever want to take. In fact, her main reason for leaving the marriage was in order to be able to be the good mother she knew she could be – if she was given a chance. She knew that in order for the children to be able to grow up without having to witness one violent incident after the other between their parents, it was imperative that she and Eric would henceforth have as little contact as possible. She had known for a long time that Eric took malicious pleasure in hurting her, and she also knew that it is very detrimental to children to time and time again have to witness their father’s abuse of their mother. In her heart she knew that for her children’s sake she had to get away from Eric’s endless abuse of her and his constant attempts at making her loose her temper – only to immediately use her anger against her by saying something like: “You really need to seek psychiatric treatment for your unbalanced behaviour!” Then, when she finally told him that she saw no other solution to their problems than a divorce – in order to spare the children – he told her that if she dared go ahead with this, he would make sure the children were taken from her “because of her mental instability”. 

      This is in fact, a very common trick among violent men to frighten their partner into staying in a destructive relationship. Don’t fall for it! No divorce court will just take your ex’s word for it! Remember that a man who resorts to violence and threats in order to force you to stay with him does not love you -  leave him!

      The overall guiding principle is: 

When dealing with a sworn avenger there is no way of winning except by refusing to play his game!

      After the break-up, you must never again allow yourself to enter into an argument with him. Let him accuse you; let him throw dirt at you. When dealing with someone intent on throwing you off balance and to twist everything you say around to get back at you, the only way you can win is by refusing to give him more words to twist around. And if you never allow yourself to respond emotionally, no one will be able to corroborate his allegation that you are mentally unbalanced!

      Remember that he wants you to enter his game, the manipulative game that narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths excel in, and that honest people can never win. The whole point of his endless provocations is to throw you off balance so as to make you and yours become as bad as he, so that he can turn your reactions against you, so that he can despise you the more, so that he can make others believe that you are unbalanced and blame you for what he does to you, and so that he can counter any police report you file by filing a counter report against you.

      Remember that he hates it when you fail to respond, but that he gets exhilarated whenever he manages to trap you into reacting emotionally. Not only does it give him the opportunity to accuse you of being unbalanced, but it also proves to him that he still has power over you. 

      Remember that to him your relationship has always been a question of POWER and CONTROL – his god-given power over you that he needs to maintain in order to preserve his inflated self-image.  

If an attack should end up in court, it is of course also vital that you yourself are whiter than snow. Don’t ever fall for the temptation to lie to the police or anyone else about what happened! The truth has the enormous advantage that it can never be proven wrong. And a truthful person never risks nailing herself into a corner or entangling herself in a net of lies. 

      Your best bet is to simply allow him to be the precipitator of his own downfall. This sort of man is in fact his own worst enemy! If you can only manage to stick it out, wait him out, while you let your pile of evidence grow – sooner or later he will get caught up in his own net!

      The above advice may sound fairly simple, but in reality it takes a lot of courage and a lot of patience to follow it through. Everyone who has been exposed to constant, serious abuse knows how incredibly difficult it is to not fall into the abuser’s trap and stoop to his level. But, as Maria’s story shows, it can be done, and, fortunately, while you concentrate on keeping your calm and being a good mother, there is a lot you can do in terms of various precautionary measures to take.

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Isolating the victim

      A typical technique used by violent men in order to control their women is to isolate them. This is a process that usually starts long before the relationship is over. Controlling men typically stress the importance of a very tight relationship, where the woman should be satisfied with his company, his family and his friends. If she has friends of her own, he will convince her that they are below her standards, if she wants to do something on her own, he will flatter her that he loves her so much that he cannot bear not having her around all the time, and then he will typically make her an offer of a competing activity she cannot refuse. If she insists on doing something on her own once in a while, he will become jealous and suspicious and accuse her of not loving him enough: If she loved him the way he loves her, she would prefer to spend the time with him and wouldn’t need to be with anyone but him.

      Sometimes this kind of man will work hard on making sure her family has a favourable impression of him, while at the same time, he will speak ill of them to her behind their backs. He will also typically trick her into joining him in his criticism of them; then he will tell her family members how concerned he is that she doesn’t treat them with proper respect... All this in order to sow seeds of discord between the woman and her family. Sometimes this leads to the woman’s family taking sides with him in case of a break-up.

      The efforts to isolate the victim will typically escalate after a break-up initiated by the woman. In Eric’s case spreading lies about Maria to friends and acquaintances, neighbours, colleagues, family, school personnel the social services..., became one of his favourite methods to make Maria’s life intolerable. His rock-solid negative opinion of her then extended to every single individual who chose to socialize with her, or, even worse, support her. In fact, most often Eric has not been even remotely acquainted with the persons he has attacked after Maria left him! Simply talking to Maria outside school has been enough to ”provoke” a vicious attack from Eric.

      If anyone challenges Eric by ignoring his order to stay away from Maria and the children, he resorts to provoking that person to attack him back and thereby become disqualified as a credible witness in the eyes of the court. For Eric knows full well that when two persons fight each other, the courts tend to jump to the conclusion that both are equally guilty. The arsenal he has most commonly used to make the target attack him back have been verbal assaults, telephone harassment, threats, vicious smear campaigns and, occasionally, physical assault and car vandalism.

      The avenger’s true objective with all this is of course to take yet another step towards the ultimate annihilation of the woman: He wants to make sure that she stands isolated and without support in view of his future attacks, and he wants to prove to the whole world that she is so worthless that no one wants to be with her.

            In my next article, “The best response to psychological abuse”, I will elaborate on the victims’ best approach to incessant harassment.

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Mental rigidity, inflated ego, self-righteousness

      Three of the most important defining characteristics of most psychologically violent men are mental rigidity, inflated ego and self-righteousness.

      When a woman challenges such a man by leaving him, he typically decides – once and for all (mental rigidity) – that she must be a “whore” – the only reason he can think of that any woman could ever want to end a relationship with him (inflated ego). He then sets out to prove that his opinion of her is right. When he cannot find anything real to accuse her of, he typically tries to provoke her into making mistakes that he can use against her; failing that he makes false allegations against her, going to great lengths in order to make the allegations stick, for example by doing everything imaginable to ruin her reputation. And all the time he sees it as his right (or even his obligation!) to chastise the woman who dared challenge what he thinks is his undisputed superiority and unquestionable right to control her – a right that he believes was given to him once and for all as of the day when she gave him her heart, and even more so when she became the mother of his children.

      The violent man’s self-righteous persecution of a woman who has dared leave him takes many shapes. The techniques used are uncountable. In future articles I will discuss those that I am the most familiar with: They include for example: creating all kinds of problems in the woman’s daily life ("spokes in the wheel"), various tricks that aim at isolating her ("Isolating the victim"), unwelcome visits with verbal and/physical attacks, threats, telephone harassment, slander, false allegations. Frequently this kind of man will even resort to hurting his own children in order to get back at their mother, while all the time blaming her for forcing him to hurt them. He will also typically carry on an endless fight for custody based on various vague and uncorroborated allegations ("Fighting for custody as harassment method").  

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Violence against women - who does the law protect?

      When Sara, the woman at the centre of this blog, after years of escalating psychological and physical abuse, finally packed the children into the car and sought shelter at the nearest police station, she had only one thought in her head: to protect her children and make sure they would never again have to witness violent incidents between their parents. She was determined to show her children that she was prepared to stand up for herself, and that that she would never allow herself to let a man demean her, degrade her, use violence against her. She swore that she would never again give Paul a chance to be alone with her, and most definitely not with her and the children. But Paul was just as determined not to let Sara and the children off the hook. If Sara didn’t want to live with him, she wasn’t to have any life at all – especially not with the children, and most certainly not with another man!       
      During the first chaotic time after Sara’s flight from her husband, when incessant malicious harassment continued to be part of hers and the children’s daily life, Sara was convinced that their nightmare would soon be over. Up until then she had lived under the delusion that democratic societies protect upright, honest people against those that are out to harm them. When it then slowly dawned on her that the judiciary system had very limited, not to say inexistent possibilities to intervene against Paul, she, as well as all those that happened to be present at one or other of Paul’s attacks, were deeply shocked!
        The major problem, when it comes to individual acts of harassment by men against former wives/partners, is not only that it is difficult to make law enforcers see them as something worth while spending energy on, but also that it is difficult to prove even that they actually happened. If the victim cannot show visible (i.e. physical) injuries that would result in a jail sentence for the offender in case of a conviction, the police do not normally even bother to start a proper investigation. The perpetrators know this, of course. In fact, every time that the police send a perpetrator off with a non-committal reprimand after yet another vicious attack, the man’s sense of superiority and “righteousness” is strengthened! Instead of hampering the abuser’s urge to “punish” the “whore” that slighted him, the police thus manage to spur him on to commit even harsher attacks!

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Psychological violence - Spokes in the wheel

    Those that have been lucky enough never to have had to live with constant persecution by a vengeful, rejected former husband/boyfriend/partner usually find it hard to imagine all that it entails.

     Try imagining what it would be like to live with the knowledge that someone hates you and sees it as his goal to destroy you mentally or physically! Try to imagine what it would be like to have to live, day and night, with constant threats and incessant telephone harassment, to have someone constantly trying to peep through the windows of your home, someone who is waiting for you when you open the front door to go out, someone who intercepts you and the children when you arrive with them at the school in the morning, or when you pick them up in the afternoon, someone who turns up as soon as you park your car outside the shopping centre, when you take the children to the playground or on a Sunday walk, when you get out of the car outside your home – all with the sole intent to harass you: to put himself in your way, taunt you, threaten you, spit in your face, pull your hair, threaten your friends, tell the children he is sorry for them that they have to be with their mother, but that he intends to rescue them soon...

     In the following I will call the man that most of my blog will focus on “Eric”, and his ex-wife “Maria”.

     From the day that his wife left him, the guiding principle that Eric has consistently followed has been to sabotage every single decision that Maria has ever taken in her daily life with or without the children. What I refer to is simple, daily little decisions of the kind that every person makes every day without even thinking about it - like who she chooses to have coffee with, who she talks to in the school yard, what other children she lets her kids play with, who she invites into her home, who she visits with the children, who she sees without the children, who she hires as baby-sitter, what paediatrician she consults for some commonplace ailment, what ordinary after school activities she lets the children participate in, what she writes in their school contact books, how she helps them with their home work, who she asks to collect them from school when she is otherwise engaged, who she allows to be present in her home when her ex (or his replacement) collects or drops off the children, how she dresses them, where or with whom they spend their holidays etc.

     Eric has not only consistently opposed every single decision that he has known of, but he has also done everything he can to prevent Maria from carrying them out. His imagination, when it comes to inventing new methods to put spanners in Maria’s wheels, has been all but inexhaustible.

     And how has Eric been able to keep himself informed about all these, most often completely commonplace little decisions?

     In short: he has supervised Maria with all available means. He has kept her home under surveillance day and night, he has kept track of all her comings and goings, followed her when she has left her home, hacked into her email, surpassed the security settings of her Facebook account, contacted her landlord, her neighbours, her friends and acquaintances to question them and denigrate Maria, he has interrogated the children as well as various employees at their school, and he has demanded of teachers, headmistresses, as well as the daughter's childminder, that they must keep him informed of absolutely everything that concerns his children.

     For a long time, before Maria managed to understand how he could get access to her new password as soon as she changed it, he could also enter her internet bank account, and in this way he could check her income and expenses as well as her geographic movements. He also searched for information on the internet, e.g. checked up on every new person who appeared anywhere near her, and if he found contact information, he contacted them to threaten them with ”serious consequences” if they did not stay away from Maria and the kids. Every time that Maria managed to put a stop to any of the ways Eric made use of to check up on her, he always invented new ones.

     In the beginning, when Eric still talked to his children on the phone every day while they were with their mother, he always made sure to squeeze Maria’s plans for the near future out of them. As soon as he got wind of anything at all (e.g. a shopping trip, a visit to the playground, a walk in the sunshine, participation in a village fair, a visit to someone’s house, friends coming over, plans for a children’s party, a trip out of town…), he made sure to either put a stop to the plans or to ruin the events. He turned up in the grocery store or in the playground, he intercepted the family in the street and put himself in their way and harassed Maria until she took the children home with her again. When he knew that she had guests, he came to her home, threw pebbles on the windows and yelled that the guests must leave and never again get anywhere near his children, or else there would be ”serious consequences” for them.

     And last, but not least: Without any kind of proof or even a hint of circumstantial evidence, Eric has conducted a massive denigration campaign against Maria at all conceivable levels. In a long succession of pleas to the court he has put forward shameless, invented, completely uncorroborated allegations against Maria as well as everyone near to her, and he has also repeated the same slander high and wide among a large number of people: his own as well as Maria’s friends and acquaintances, his family, work colleagues, school personnel, social workers, welfare officers, psyhologists, openly on Facebook etc. etc.  
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