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

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.

Articles in chronological order

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.

Articles in chronological order