This is a journal of my navigation though
the Connecticut court system regarding custody of my son. It is a way to express my feelings and experiences
as I attempt to make some semblance of order out of an extremely dysfunctional
system. Until January of 2009 I had
joint, shared custody of my son. What
that means is; he spent 50% time with me and 50% time at his father’s
house. In the spring of 2008 I was
approached by someone from social services and a sheriff in my driveway. I was served papers from the sheriff claiming
I had abused my son and a motion for sole custody was filed with the CT family
courts. The social services
representative was there to interview me about allegations of physical
abuse. Let me go on record that I have
never abused any of my children and these false allegations were made in order
to facilitate my son’s father so he could gain the upper hand and do whatever
he could to remove me from my son’s life.
Although his attempts were unsuccessful in
so much as erasing me out of my son’s life, he was quite successful at severely
limiting my time with him, thus limiting my access and ability to parent him. This battle has been raging for four years
now and the damage has been immeasurable on both my son and I. Our relationship has suffered and the financial
devastation is astounding. Yearly, like
clock-work, the motions are filed and another round through the Connecticut
courts begins. My frustration stems from
the fact that the CT courts facilitate such abuse of the system and allow a parent
to use the courts as a means for punishing an ex spouse. The children are sadly pawns in this devastating
game of chess as the ex spouse launches attack after attack in his attempt to destroy
the other parent.
I hope to enlighten anyone who reads this
blog and hopefully stir enough interest for action to address this destructive
flaw in the system which encourages such evil intent and in fact thrives on
highly contested custody battles where the children are the real victims. I have tired everything within my power and
financial resources to protect my relationship with my son. In the end however, I have been denied the
right as a parent and a mother, to actively participate in the rearing of my
child all because of false allegations made against me and innumerous lies
accusing me of being an unfit parent. My
ex husband didn’t have to produce a shred of evidence substantiating his
stories. There was no effort made to
investigate if any of the stories he fabricated had credibility. It was just easier to err on the side of “caution”
and hand my son over to his father. The
courts have swung the pendulum in favor of fathers and in highly contested custody
battles; the convention is to side with the father.
I divorced this man because he was a
mean-spirited verbally and emotionally abusive individual with no regard for
others. I do not for one minute regret
leaving this evil person, but I have been staving off his attacks for years and
sadly still have four more years before my son turns 18. I have hired lawyers and paid them huge
amounts of money only to find that they show up in court ill-prepared and disinterested
in defending their client. Why you may
ask? Well, simply put, they get paid the
same whether they do a great job or a lousy job. There is no incentive for them to want to do
a good job – the pay’s the same either way.
What that means in court is the person with the most resources gets better
representation because the lawyers know (from the financial affidavit) up front
what your net worth is and how much money they can expect to get out of
you. Therefore, the one with the most
financial resources gets better representation.
Not to sound sexist here, but it is a know fact that a man’s income
still far exceeds that of a women’s income especially if she is a mother and
has had to make career sacrifices for her children.
I thought I was the only women in the state
(if not the world) that has done nothing wrong as a parent and was stripped of
a huge part of her parental rights. Yes,
the courts still recognize joint custody, but my son’s father is now considered
the primary custodial parent and enjoys 90% of time raising him. I get a mere 2.5 hours twice a week and two
weekends a month form Friday after school until Sunday evening at 8pm to be his
parent. There are many, many more cases
just like mine, where for unfounded reasons, mother’s have lost time and in
some cases custody of their children.
The only hope we have of setting the scales back to a balanced arrangement,
is if women unit and overturn this unfair default decision to hand children
automatically to the father if there is a dispute. Unless one parent or the other is unfit, the
children should by default, enjoy equal time with both parents.
Because my ex husband made false claims that
my son doesn’t do his homework at my house and I can’t get him to school on
time in the mornings, they have denied me sleep-overs on school nights. This schedule remains in tact even in the
summer months! Once the over-nights were
taken away, the state no longer recognized these days as my parenting
days. So, essentially, they see me having
4 days a month and my ex husband having 26 days a month. Because of this, I now have to pay child
support, do all the driving back and forth to his father’s house (except for 2
Sundays a month) and have to pay for 100% of my son’s medical insurance and pay
for 50% of unreimbursed medical/dental.
I am constantly getting bombarded with
hostile messages accusing me of not paying my fair share of medical. The e-mails are slanderous and verbally
abusive. They are filled with lies as if
once he writes them in an e-mail they become fact which he can then refer to in
court. He develops scenarios he believes
are going on in my home and then insists his fictitious stories are fact. I have begged my attorney to protect me
against these attacks, but was told there is nothing that can be done through
the courts unless there is a threat of physical violence or an actual physical assault. So I am left with no way to protect myself
and regain my rightful place as the mother of my child.
Please, if you know of a mother in similar circumstances,
please tell her about this blog and maybe with enough mothers standing united,
we can finally set things right again in the family courts and Family Services so both
parents are allowed unfettered access to
their children! After all, both parents
are equally important when in come to raising their child(ren).
