I hung up the Waving Santas which I made with my young daughters in 1991. Little did I know then that by Christmas 1998 the Waving Santas would be a reminder of children that had been alienated from me, the primary caregiving parent. The “we’ve grown apart” and the “I don’t know if I want to be married” discussion in 1995 was to turn into 3 years of domestic violence and abuse through hellish litigation with me fighting to be a father and my ex fighting to exclude me. The $30,000 I paid in “child support” offset the (estimated) $50,000 spent to remove me from my child’s life.
Middle aged with 2 pre teen daughters, we had focused on my career and now settled my ex went back to school and then working as a nurse. She then began to denigrate and insult me, often disguised as humor, fat, don’t make enough money. I became the primary caregiver as she was in school and now with both working full time expected equal help around the house, which I didn’t get. She then announced that my money was to pay the bill, hers was hers. She started dressing up and going out to night clubs staying out late, drinking and smoking weed.
She opened up a bunch of store credit cards and ran up bills to the point I paid them off and then cut them up. She then began to run up the joint credit card we held for “emergencies.” She was spending a lot on personal items, to great excess such as 15 pairs of jeans. A year into the split a friend advised she was using the “Divorce War” strategy, the book “Divorce War: 50 strategies every woman needs to know to win” which was the number one seller of books on divorce by women. I got a copy and realized I had been duped, fighting to keep my marriage together while she was plotting the divorce.
When the marriage was breaking down we were arguing incessantly about her appearance of infidelity (she claimed none) and one evening she punched me in the lip, a right cross, and then doubled up with a roundhouse right to the ribs leaving me with a fat lip and a bruise on my side. I stated we were done and told her the next day I was going to get an attorney and suggested she do the same. I met with my attorney but she went to (anti) family court and got an ex parte “temporary” Order of Protection (OOP) and a temporary child custody order. When served by the local police I complained of my Domestic Violence injuries which were apparent and was told “we don’t take counter complaints.” My children were removed and I was denied access for months.
I’m a police officer and as a condition of employment had to maintain a home office in my area of assignment. I had “settled” the custody and visitation in (anti) family court. I started in family court with an attorney but when I ran out of money discharged him, an incompetent waste of time and money he was anyway. I went pro se and managed to get my kids dropped off each weekday where I brought them to school. Unfortunately my ex moved to an adjoining school district and the kids start times were an hour apart but I toughed it out and spent 2 hours each weekday getting them to school. I also had them every other week on my days off which rotated.
About a year into the process my ex got a new steady boyfriend. Unknown to me at the time, the attorney’s relied on a “how to” manual by a local attorney in which he advised if your client didn’t have a solid chance at full custody to agree to a liberal access order with them as “primary physical possession” and then cause conflict as the courts would eventually award custody to the “custodial” mother. “Primary physical possession” is government double speak for custody. She started causing conflict including marching into my house and threatening me. I started recording EVERY interaction with video cameras and voice recorders, plainly visible which prevented her from causing conflict but in effect had me as a prisoner to the fear of false allegations.
She escalated and began to call the police and allege I had threatened her “reaching behind where he keeps his (off duty) gun,” but the local and state police would just make a blotter entry of the provable allegations and refer us back to family court. Filings in family court were continuous and I was forced to counter file to protect myself and the status. One day she picked up and was in the car in the driveway and waited until I turned off the video camera and came back to the door, opening it she threw a bunch of papers at me and then refused to leave the porch, putting her face on the screen and daring me to “go ahead and hit me” and to “make her leave” as she berated and swore at me. Luckily a neighbor saw the encounter and agreed to testify on my behalf.
I ended up with an OOP against her and the current custody arrangement was continued. The DV Advocate, by policy, was forced to interview me. She stated that being a 6’ 220 Lb.+ police officer who carries a gun I shouldn’t be afraid of her. I asked if I could arrest me ex? No. Can I beat her up? Of course not! Can I shoot her? Absolutely NOT! “Then how is being a 6’ 200 lb. policeman with a gun going to prevent her from abusing me? She just walked away at that point. Over a year and a half of litigation resulted in her gaining no leverage towards alienating me. I had battled the unjust leviathan to a stalemate.
By the custody order the children had to remain in their present school district, upheld by the recent litigation in family court. I had filed for divorce, unbeknownst to me she had also begun divorce filings but in hers she asked for a temporary ruling allowing the children to be moved to an adjoining county which her boyfriend lived in. She had listed about 10 items she didn’t gain in family court such as $2000 toward her attorney fees while I was forced to go pro se. The preliminary conference turned into a fiasco as the court clerk went down her bullet item list and I said no to each and every item as I had just spent 2 years litigating them in family court. The conference ended with my ex and her attorney both hollering at me and me asking the clerk how long I had to endure the abuse.
In the Judges chambers in 2 weeks, he obviously mad at the pro se trouble maker where I again refused to negotiate and advised i wanted a trial. He then ordered me to pay her attorney $2000 and lifted the custody order allowing the children to be moved and just like that the past litigation was thrown out as was stability for my children. But here’s where it gets even weirder. My girlfriend lived about 2 miles from my ex’s boyfriend, and she knew this. But then she moved into a rental kitty corner across the street from my girlfriends. I tried to enforce my OOP but it had no distance listed in the “stay away from.”
Due to my employment I couldn’t change my residence to my girlfriends and transferred into an open sector 20 minutes away from them to get closer. I no longer had the kids in the morning before school but as I was at my girlfriends unless actually working I made the best of it and would walk them to the bus each morning. My ex tried to get an OOP forcing me to drive “away from her residence” and not use the common walking trails to no avail. What she did do was to deny me my time with the children when there was a change in my normal day off schedule (which occurred often as I was on salary).
Multiple complaints of custodial interference were filed by me with the state police and DA’s office declining to prosecute or even take a report, referring me back to family court. One day when she denied my custodial time I was standing in the front yard and she drove by with the kids so I walked to the end of her driveway with my ever present voice recorder running. I calmly asked for the kids and she declined yelling “I’m calling the police” to which I replied, “Please do.” I waited for their arrival expecting the same do nothing and referral back to family court.
When the police car came down the road my ex’s boyfriend started getting my kids out of the car and I walked 10’ down the driveway and told him to get away from my kids. I was then slammed forward onto the trunk of the vehicle by the state trooper with my ex’s boyfriend pushing me from the front. The trooper asked if I had a firearm and I told him my off duty was on an ankle holster and I held up my leg and told him to go ahead and take it, which he did. I started to complain of his treatment and he then told me to shut up or he would arrest me to which I replied I should arrest him for interfering with my court ordered custodial time. Another car arrived and he said we should go to the barracks to straighten things out, which I agreed to thinking it to just be referred back to family court.
There were about 3 troopers and a station commander when I arrived and I was seated at one of the desks calmly talking about my continued custody battle with my ex and her multiple false allegations of abuse which ended up with me getting an OOP. The original trooper came in and told me to shut up stating “you don’t have any rights to your kids.” A Lt. from my outfit had arrived and I looked at her and said, “with that I say nothing without an attorney.” My Captain and Lt. arrived and was meeting with the station commander and the trooper and then the trooper walked back into where I was and gave me 2 appearance tickets to appear in court for simple trespass and simple harassment, charges so low I was not required by policy to notify my agency of.
He went out and returned throwing my wallet on the desk and when I looked inside my badge and ID were gone so I walked into the meeting room and asked my Captain my status and he advised I was suspended without pay. So, tickets in hand I headed towards the door of the station intending to walk the 10 minute trip back home but was grabbed and asked where I thought I was going. I have he appearance tickets and I’m walking home I answered but was then advised the tickets were being pulled and I had to go for an immediate arraignment.
I wrote of my “red flag” law treatment here, https://nymensactionnetwork.org/2021/04/lets-red-flag-unconstitutional-red-flag-laws/ and refer you there for that part of this story.
I was only charged with simple violations as I would not be entitled to a jury trial. And when I advised I had a tape recording to refute the ex’s statement the Judge advised he wasn’t going to allow it into evidence. I heard through the grape vine that the Judge was going to find me guilty and sentence me to consecutive 15 day in jail terms, 30 days in county jail and to be place in population followed with a lifetime OOP restricting firearm possession and putting me out of work. The system was going out of its way to prevent me from showing the system was a sham and any injustice to silence me was acceptable to them.
The temporary OOP put me out of work as I couldn’t legally carry a firearm. I was in both divorce and criminal court and hired an attorney for each with the last of the money I could scrape together and then filed for personal bankruptcy. I had the clothes on my back and a few changes, $20 in my pocket, no income, and a borrowed vehicle. The deal to get out left me with an OOP for a year but allowed carrying a firearm at work. A violation of the OOP would be a felony charge and put me out of work again. Given her past false allegation and the fact I was now a “convicted” abuser any future allegations would be added to the others on record and I would be sent away to prison.
And so 1998 was the first Christmas without my kids, the Parental Alienation having worked. I tried to get the divorce Judge to order exchange at a neutral location but she said no, in effect denying me the ability to get my kids. To add salt to the wound she ordered me to pay another $2000 to my ex’s attorney, arguing my recent bankruptcy “freed up credit” to pay him. I told my ex she could send the kids down the road at any time and she responded that I had to get them at her place, or not at all. I said I wasn’t going to risk another false allegation and arrest and she said, “I guess you’ll never see your kids again”. She was right. Within a couple of month’s she moved away.
Of course friends and family blamed me for “losing” my kids. I was supposed to not fight the system and just pay the “child support,” shut up, and visit my kids when allowed. Even other fathers, beat dead and disenfranchised, would pass judgement on me for not getting my kids when “I had the chance” as most don’t understand the two questions of fatherhood, fatherhood by whose definition and fatherhood at what cost? And for me the every other weekend visiting dad (no parental rights) didn’t justify the cost (risk of prison) with expected continued litigation costs to boot. Correspondence by mail continued for 3 month’s but slowly faded over a year as it was one sided, not a call or card in return, and I suspected not reaching them.
The hardest part is watching your kids ripped apart by a system which denies one parent their parental rights, forcing a parent to fight to be a part of their child’s life. Not a day goes by where you don’t wonder if just giving up and walking away is healthier for your children. But I expect in the long run the fight for your rights conveys to them that you care, even if they have to suppress those thoughts under the sharp tongue of an alienator. The narcissistic alienator having no such thoughts or care for their children are willing to use the kids to abuse you as the only way the abuser can get to you is through the kids. The abused alienated parent if forced to either walk away from the abuse or fight it and ultimately end up losing anyway, at least knowing you did what you could.
I heard through the grape vine that work might argue that I was mentally unable to continue as a police officer so I decided to apply the old adage of “I’m more sane than you as I have papers to prove it.” So off to the psychologist I went and at the 3rd visit he summed up my plight as, “with all the injustice you suffered it’s a wonder you didn’t lose it and kill somebody.” I was then diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from government persecution and he advised I needed to get out of the system. He didn’t understand, the system is designed to put a box around you, floor, four walls, and a lid to keep you as a beat dead, driven dead broke, disenfranchised dad who has been denied your parental rights without cause. At least now I’m sane and I have papers to prove it.
I lived on 35% of my gross pay for 10 years, paying “child support” and attorney garnishments, until they both hit majority. When people would inquire abut my kids I would initially try to explain the Parental Alienation and they would inevitably respond with a “when they are older they’ll come back,” the feel good statement which isn’t true. Ironically similar to my first which was a stillborn with people responding “it’s probably for the best,” in both instances masking their own inadequacy if faced with the same circumstance. Eventually I got tired of the people passing judgements about me and just started stating “they’re dead” as they are dead to me and which served to stop the asking in short order.
And yet, year after year I put out the Waving Santa’s now 25 years without a response. You can only change the things that you can change and accept the things that you can’t change, including your kids. But I suppose it is important as a parent, on the off chance it might occur, to convey to your children that the door is open and always has been, holding onto that slight sliver of hope while accepting the inevitable no show.
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