This piece was submitted to our 100K STORIES PROJECT by an anonymous protective mom.
I divorced my ex, also the father of my three children, in 2011. He was very abusive to the children and me. He has been arrested several times for domestic assault and for violating orders of protection. He has a history of becoming suicidal and threatening to kill the children and me. I got awarded the kids in the divorce, he got every other weekend visitation.
My ex never exercised his right to his visitation. From 2010 through 2015 he saw our middle son 42 days a year at the most. Our oldest and our youngest, he only saw 20-30 days per year.
I started dating in 2012, and I remarried in 2013. My husband has raised the children and has even carried them on his insurance through his work all these years. We’ve never asked anything of my ex. We’ve let his contempt (of 18 different things) slide because we wanted peace. Any of you know, if a sociopath is confronted or exposed they become unstable.
My husband and I were overly nice and very civil to him and his girlfriends to keep him from blowing up and dragging the kids through mud (he was labeled bipolar and a sociopath by a Ph.D.). All was going great until…
… On May 22, 2015, the State of Tennessee filed contempt charges on my ex for failure to pay child support. My ex immediately filed to modify his child support, and for full custody of our three kids. He’s claiming me to be unfit due to me letting my youngest drink coffee and for homeschooling, which he agreed to. It has been a living hell since. My ex has our Family Court judge and GAL in his pocket.
My ex immediately started forcing the kids to visit him on his every other weekend visits. The kids barely knew him. What they did remember of him was all PTSD trauma from the abuse. They started mentally and emotionally breaking down. I got them in counseling; they were in therapy for PTSD. I invited my ex to attend, which he refused and never did.
Our children had to spend time in mental facilities due to suicide attempts (ages 12, 10, and 8). The children were so depressed, defeated, and felt hopeless because the “system” was failing to protect them.
There have been five DCS investigations against my ex for child abuse since 2015. He choked our middle son twice. He’s left bruises all over our other two. I have documentation of everything including pictures of the bruises.
We had several Dr’s (even from East TN Children’s ER), counselors, and caseworkers testify that visits with dad need to be stopped. At that hearing, the Judge gave my abusive ex an extra weekend visitation per month and ordered me to stop homeschooling and to put the kids in public school or he would put my kids in foster care.
I did everything I was told to do. In late Oct 2016, I called DCS about another round of bruises on my 8 yr old. This DCS worker turned on me, never investigated my abusive ex. She ran straight to the corrupt, bought-off, guardian ad litem. I was served with a Temporary Restraining Orde and had my children taken away from me on December 2nd.
The GAL is claiming that I have been mentally abusing my kids because I’ve taken them to so many counselors. The GAL is also claiming parental alienation. I have never kept the kids from my ex. I have so much proof showing I’ve never alienated him, emails and phone recordings galore. I documented everything over the past few years.
I was served a restraining order against me on December 2nd at 7pm. My attorney was faxed the order on December 5th at 8:45am. The hearing for the emergency custody restraining order was on December 5th at 2:30,, the same day my attorney got notice. The guardian ad litem had spoken with my attorney and knew she would be out of town til December 6th.
The guardian ad litem and the judges chambers told my attorney there would be a conference call (since my attorney was out of town) to hear the motion to set aside or to continue hearing which my attorney hurried and filed.
During that “conference” call, the other side had a full blown hearing. The judge transferred custody over a “conference” call. We weren’t even there. The DCS worker and GAL were lying like dogs. DCS admitted to never investigating my ex, but testified that I had coached my son because I told him he needed to tell her what happened. She said that was pushing and coaching him.
We had a hearing on January 4th regarding child support. He is now over $20k behind. It got postponed. We had a hearing January 17th. I got 2-hours-per-week supervised visitation which I have to pay for, and each of us is ordered to have psychological testing done. The next hearing was supposed to be March 31st, which the opposing council has already postponed to April 17th.
I have emails I have sent out. I have call recordings of the kids screaming for me, and begging to come home. I also have recordings of the children saying my ex is telling them about court and all this being my fault.
I have been a stay-at-home mom since my first child was born. My whole life has been my children. My ex was never involved even during the marriage. I have so much hard evidence against him, but can’t get anyone to look at it. He has worked for cash for three years and makes a killing but is on food stamps and was receiving unemployment benefits at one time. I have his bank statements to prove everything I say. He was putting $9,000 cash in his account but drawing unemployment and couldn’t pay child support. I just want my children home and away from his abuse.
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