©2010, Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.
Note: Although this is based on personal experience, the following is a work of fiction.
By November, 2005, we had been in a pitched battle of words for over two and a half years, and John hadn’t seen his children since spring, 2003. Every hearing date was preceded by a flurry of activity: preparing statements, rapid two-way flow of documents and copies between us and our lawyer; harassing, very nasty letters from the Ex; and the general schedule re-arranging and synchronizing required by going to court. Each hearing was also immediately followed by a flurry of paper-pushing activity, but after a few days the frustration and sadness returned, like a heavy blanket covering the whole house
However, one good thing had come of the extended wrangling. The court finally ordered psychological interviews of everyone involved, first the adults, then, eventually, the children.
John and I were both deeply concerned about his son’s unresolved anger and about threats of violence he had reportedly made. Although the threats were attributed to him by his mother, and we couldn’t be certain they were true, we did know that the anger was real. We had begged the Ex to take Boy to see a therapist but she didn’t do it, presumably because his anger played into her desires. So at least the court finally ordered something that would help Boy.
We probably would have continued longer if not for John’s growing worry that the children were being emotionally abused by their mother, who was using confidential information from the proceedings to upset the children further. We had hard evidence, the Ex’s own unwitting admission in her letters, that she had told the children things they were not supposed to hear.
In another letter Ex stupidly confessed to– no, actually bragged about– her husband’s illegal hacking into my computer files, even going back to years before I met John. She cited her husband’s computer expertise from working on computerized bombs that were used to kill thousands in Iraq. I was appalled that someone would actually brag about involvement in the bombing of civilians. But I was angered by the blatant illegal hacking into my computer files. We considered taking this letter to the police and filing a case against the Ex’s husband. John contacted the Crown Prosecution Service to ask how to proceed. In the end, however, we decided not to pursue it because the fallout would probably hurt the children.
So this gives you an idea of the type of people we were facing in this struggle.
28 November, 2005, letter to a friend:
We have a full day hearing on 1 December.
Today John looked at me and said, “This will be the last hearing. I’m going to say that I want it to be the last hearing, because there’s no point in going on. It’s hard on us, hard on the children. Besides, no matter what the judge orders, she [the Ex] won’t follow it; and the court will do nothing to enforce it. There’s absolutely no point. Even if the judge ordered her to hand them over to me, it wouldn’t happen, because the court won’t enforce the order.”
The whole process has sucked emotional energy out of me for almost three years. I’ve been the target of the Ex’s most vicious attacks, her most vile and outlandish lies. John suffers for me and worries about my being hurt. But she lobs lies and pure malevolence at him as well. We want it to be finished. John accepted a while ago that he will probably not see his children until they are old enough to defy their mother openly, and he’s come to terms with that fact.
More important, at this stage in the proceedings, continuing the process will involve the children more, quite possibly even require them to talk to a judge, and John doesn’t want to put them in the middle (even though this has been the Ex’s strategy from the very beginning).
So… after three years and tens of thousands of pounds paid in legal fees, John’s stopping this train. I am so incredibly relieved; I feel almost guilty for being so relieved. But I feel as though our whole life has been on hold, waiting to see how things would turn out with this seemingly endless court battle. It hasn’t ruined our first years of marriage. In fact it’s made us closer and more devoted to each other and to our partnership. But it has taken a tremendous amount of emotional energy, caused periods of frustration and sadness, and made our day-to-day lives uncertain and unsettled. I’m grateful that we can now get on with finding a place to buy and move forward in our life together, without wasting more time and money in an anti-father family court system which, regardless of the evidence, considers only the mother’s interests– not the children’s interests or the father’s.
Astrology had said the hearing date would be full of surprises, and it was. We finally got a judge with BALLS, and it was a woman. (Of course.) We could hardly believe our ears. John was asked to speak first and at the very beginning said he wanted to withdraw his petition because he felt it best for the children “not to endure this atmosphere of conflict any longer. I am emotionally exhausted, and it can only be worse for them.”
But this savvy woman judge wouldn’t let John withdraw his petition.
She got the shrink up on the witness stand and questioned her. Shrink said that the children need to see John, and that it would be a shame if he withdrew now. She said that Boy, especially, needs his father as he enters adolescence. She also said that she is “deeply concerned by the language [Ex] used in her submissions to the court because there are so many distortions and misrepresentations.” Shrink said that Ex “medicalizes” simple problems or situations and magnifies their significance; and that Ex’s reactions are disproportionate to situations, i.e. she over-reacts or under-reacts; her sense of reality is out of kilter.
That judge said she is “extremely concerned about the children’s welfare, considering the mother’s attitudes toward the father.”
Both the shrink and the social worker testified that the children are more than normally influenced by the mother; that the children are both suffering from “fantasies and confusion” about what really happened when they talk about events with their father; and that “their stories more than normally agree, indicating that they are repeating things rather than speaking from memory.” Both the shrink and social worker also said that the children keep changing their stories and embellishing them, which is symptomatic of their not really remembering, but trying to please by giving information because they think it is expected.
For instance, Girl said she had seen a picture of Daddy kissing Mimi. She has never seen a picture of us kissing; no such picture exists. John sent some pictures to the children not long ago, because the last judged ordered that he send photos of himself and one or two of him with me. He had never sent any before. Even Ex confirmed that. Well, the evidence was right there; there was no picture of us kissing, no way she could lie.
This judge, after three years of John and me asking, finally ordered psychiatric evaluations of the children. She told their legal guardian to monitor the process. (At John’s request, they now have their own solicitor.) If the mother does not present them for the first appointment, the guardian is to come back to court immediately, and the court will attach a penal notice, which means that Ex would go to jail if she missed a second appointment. FINALLY, a judge who is willing to enforce court orders.
Shrink’s assessment of John was that he has “unresolved issues about his childhood” (at which I thought, who doesn’t?); and she thinks he has more memory loss than the average person But from the questions she asked when she was interviewing us together, I don’t see it. She asked him about his very early childhood, and I don’t know many people who have a crystal clear memory of when we were potty trained; or who can evaluate for ourselves whether we had “normal” or “exaggerated” friction with our parents during adolescence. John said the questions were similar in the sessions he had on his own with her. She wasn’t specific in her report, so I’m left questioning the basis of her assertion. However, overall, her evaluation of John was shorter and more neutral than her report about Ex.
The judge asked if Shrink thought Ex should have a psychiatric assessment. Shrink hemmed and hawed for a good 40-50 seconds, then said, “At this stage, it might make the situation worse for the children. I would recommend against it at this time.” (YIKES, I thought. She thinks Ex is so unstable that probing might set off some erratic behaviour or psychotic episode or God-knows-what.)
On balance, this was all good news. This judge really jumped in and was authoritative, intelligent, attentive to all the issues and asked a lot of the right questions. And she is willing to put some teeth into her orders. So John decided to hang in until next April, when the next hearing will have the reports of the evaluation of the children.
The best part other than that is, the judge ordered Ex not to write any more letters to us, AT ALL, except one or two lines that conform to the court order that she must tell John what new school Girl will go to next year (she moves to middle school). No more hate mail. If we get anything else from her, we are to forward it to the children’s law guardian, who will then petition the court to attach a penal notice for that.
Filed under: Children and Family, Divorce and Children, England, the English and Village Life, Fathers' rights | Tagged: child custody, English Family Court, Fathers' rights, parental alienation syndrome | Leave a Comment »

