Between Alabama’s child custody laws, The McLendon Standard being particularly devastating in my case, and the fact that there is no real accountability for Judges in Alabama, even family court judges, where I'm told other things are "relaxed" so to speak, as in basic human rights can be dispensed with for no reason. Ex parte hearings are held and outrageous orders result from some of them. Ex parte conversations between lawyers and judges happen and are overheard. In my case, common human decency was dispensed with. My case was a travesty, as are far too many cases in Alabama’s courts.
My case felt like a feeding frenzy of hysterics, and I was what was for dinner.
If my experience hadn’t been so devastating, it would have
almost been funny. When I think about it and am able to disassociate the events
from the excruciating pain they caused, what springs to mind is the something
along the lines of the Three Stooges gone rabid join with the dark side of the Keystone Kops and go to court.
My ex-husband very forcefully grabbed full custody of my children,
because that was the only way he could get it. I wanted joint custody so my
boys would have time with both of their parents, and have good relationships
with both of us. My ex was more interested in control and money, so he went to
war against me and put our children in the middle of his devastating war. While
he was plotting and planning, I was trying to keep the peace
and doing things like buying "Healthy Divorce." Silly me.
The custody war that my ex waged damaged my children and me
in more ways than I can say, and it took more things from us than I can count.
It took time away from us, years of time that we’ll never
get back. It took birthdays. It took graduations. It took holidays. It took
regular days. It took every day away from my youngest son and me for a very
long time. In my eldest son’s case, it’s still taking away all of our days, and
it may keep taking them away forever. We no longer have a relationship. Our
once close and happy bond is gone, and it may have been damaged beyond repair
for my child.
The war was devastating, and it was a war. One of my friends
opined that my ex had read or was reading "The Art of War" as a guide
because of the tactics he was using. Another friend told me that he was using
terrorist tactics. She was right. They were probably both right.
For me, and I suspect for my children as well, the war took
away the vague, un-examined feeling that our society is essentially a safe and
fair one. I now know that it is not. If what happened to my children and me can
happen in our society, our society is very far from safe or fair.
The divorce began in 2009 when my boys were 12 and 15, and
was final in January, 2011. By the winter of 2012, both of my boys had
exhibited symptoms of suicidal ideation. My children had never even been
depressed before the custody war, which I call The War of the Self-Righteous,
among other things, commenced. The War of the Willfully Ignorant fits nicely as
well.
My other son, who only interacted with his father’s
attorneys, told me that lawyers “say what you pay them to say,” in response to
my telling him that I knew at what age he could stay alone overnight because
I’d asked my attorney. One of my ex's attorneys, a female, shamelessly displayed among the most shameful behavior I have witnessed in my life. The constant high level of drama with frequent bursts of hysteria on the part of my ex, that attorney and my christian mother and sister who helped him was just amazing. The hysteria was essentially his whole case. All he did was take grains of truth, spin them up beyond recognition, get a few hysterical people willing to go along around it and you have a winning case.
