Okay, basically I’m a wreck. I had to get a restraining order against my ex last week because he hurt our youngest son. My ex has always had a nasty temper but it’s rarely surfaced (maybe four or five times over the 15 years I’ve known him and he never physically hurt anyone on those occasions), and I never thought he’d hurt our kids. Then he did. My son is fine physically (he’s 7), and when he told me what happened he finished with, “daddy has issues.” My partner and I were stunned. My oldest son (10) said he didn’t see what happened, but he heard everything and verified it.
We go back to court next week and I’m so stressed and anxious about it. I know I did the right thing–it was the only thing I could do since trying to talk to him about it wasn’t an option. I don’t doubt my sons for a moment. I’m just worried about what will happen next and how it will affect them. Aside from the divorce, I’ve never been to court so I have no idea what to expect here–and there’s a possibility the boys may have to go to court, too. I’m also incredibly angry. I can’t stop feeling betrayed. You spend so much time trying to nurture and protect your children and do things that’ll keep them safe and then the one person you just assume will be doing that, too, does something like this and whips the rug right out from under you. And I’m also feeling a lot of maternal “how dare you hurt my son!?” rage. How can anyone look into that sweet, little face and do something that would physically harm him?
Has anyone else been through this? I’ve been putting on the brave front with the kids, but when I’m on my own I’m not doing so hot.
Really sorry to hear you are having to go through this. I have not personally, and my professional dealings in family court have been limited, tho sufficient to inform me that it can be quite an unpleasant place.
I hope you can derive some comfort from focusing on the future - this is just some majorly unpleasant stuff you have to wade through to get there.
I trust you have a good lawyer. In court, depend on them to be your voice. I recommend avoiding overt confrontations with the ex to whatever extent possible. At least until sufficient time passes and he takes sufficient steps to make himself someone you and your kids can be around.
Good luck. Again - look forward, not back. This has to be done, and you are strong enough to do it.
Thank you! You don’t know how wonderful it feels to hear this–I guess I just needed that little pick me up. My SO has been so wonderful through all this, but he has little experience with this kind of thing and I didn’t want to stress him further with my own anxieties.
My lawyer is good and I trust him. My SO and I will be meeting with him tomorrow to discuss what will be coming. This is going to get ugly–I can just feel it. Now where did I put those tums?
My son has a bowel problem that we’ve been dealing with for a while–his doctor has prescribed a course of treatment that I’ve been following and my ex knows all about (I don’t know how strictly he follows it when the boys are with him.) At times my son has accidents-- it doesn’t happen daily, and it’s usually not too much more than staining. Apparently he had an accident when he was with my ex and my ex picked him up off the floor by his feet and swung him into the shower stall. He hit his head on the bottom track of the shower (fortunately no cuts or bumps). Then he washed him off with very hot water (fortunately no burns.)
My ex is an alcoholic and uses drugs. He is very violent. Once he broke my jaw and broke his arm while breaking my jaw. I tried to protect the kids but when he started on them I filed an “enjunction”.
You go to court and sit at a desk usually with an advocate of the court. The judge asks you some questions and you anwser.
Your ex is sitting at another desk and will be given his turn to speak.
The judge will decide if the enjunction is warranted and will grant it for a period of time. I believe each state is different.
The first enjunction I got only lasted a year but then the laws changed and when I got another one it lasts until the kids are 18 years old.
After the judge makes his final decision you will sign some papers and walk out of the court room. Your ex will follow behind you.
Hopefully you won’t have to deal with him after that for a period of time. If he violates the enjunction you can have him arrested. It is that simple.
My ex just up and moved to another state. Stopped paying child support and we haven’t heard from him in over 5 years.
My youngest is now 13 so we still have a ways to go under protection.
Good luck
P.S. Get counseling for the kids. They are going to need a strong support group.
Well, I talk to my lawyer tomorrow and find out what’s going to happen on Monday. My ex has called a friend of mine with questions about the boys that he says his lawyer needs answers to. I told my friends to tell him to call my lawyer if he has any questions. I’m not sure what to make of this–I suspect he’s grasping at straws.
Thanks for the information, Isabelle, you’ve given me some idea of how this is going to play out. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through!
ivylass, I’m hoping he’s ordered into some type of therapy program to help him get a handle on his anger so he can see the kids again (at some point) with supervised visitation.
Okay, now for the big update. Apparently DCYF says that the “accusations of abuse are unfounded,” --apparently it’s perfectly okay to pick your seven year old up by his feet and toss him into a shower stall. So I went to court today to drop the restraining order. My lawyer and ex’s lawyer are trying to make nice and the boys will go see their dad this weekend. I’m hoping this has been a wake up call for my ex, but I have little choice in this and had to allow it. Life just majorly sucks sometimes.
The boys seem to be okay–my oldest is taking it far better than my youngest and even said to me the other day “none of this would be happening if daddy could just get over the divorce.” Yeah, that’s from the 10 year old. My youngest, however, feels that it’s happening because of his condition. If he hadn’t had an accident, daddy wouldn’t have gotten mad… I’ve told him many times that this was not his fault and that it’s up to the adults to control their temper and not hurt little kids. I think he may benefit from talking to a therapist once more of this calms down and he gets back into a regular routine with school and visitation.
I’m doing the brave front thing, but having mixed success with it. Some days I’m empowered and feeling like I’m going to get this all resolved and do what’s best for the kids and we’ll all be happy and well adjusted people. Other days I get discouraged by the ruling and feel like it just may not work out well afterall and we’ll end up being one big dysfunctional mess. But most of this calms down after half a pint of Cherry Garcia and a few mindless reruns of Friends–I don’t have my therapist on speed dial yet, or anything.
What’s DCYF? I hope to god it’s not the Child Protective Service in your area.
If it’s not, is CPS involved? They should be informed. As should the police. The child can tell them himself what happened! Jesus, I can’t believe (if DCYF=authorities) this isn’t being taken very seriously by anyone other than you! I’m so so sorry to hear it!
I wish I had concrete advice for you. I know how ineffective the stupid legal system is. I want to tell you to keep fighting, don’t just give in, but I know how hard that is when no one else takes it seriously. Argh!
If it turns out that, yes, the children will continue to go to dad, I would beforehand sit down with them and very clearly tell them that they need to tell you right away if anything else occurs. They need to know what dad did was wrong, and grownups aren’t supposed to act that way. That they deserve to have nice visits with dad, and if the visits aren’t nice, that you need to know so you can help them.
You could also get in touch with the local women’s shelter in your area. They may have advice for you, or a free lawyer referral (for a second opinion on your legal options), etc.
If it happens once, the potential is there for it to happen again. I’m so sorry for you and your boys.
DCYF is the Department of Children, Youth and Families (essentially RI’s CPS.) And I’m dropping the restraining order because the judge informed my lawyer that because of DCYF’s findings, the restraining order would be dropped when we go back to court anyway–and that court date was just a few days away. This way my ex’s lawyer (and any future judge we go before) will see that I’m “cooperating” and trying to work with my ex to resolve the situation. Ultimately I wanted supervised visitation until my ex got some counseling, but that’s just not going to happen given what the judge for the restraining order has said. So right now I’m hoping to work out a clearly spelled out visitation schedule–my ex doesn’t want that, he wants things to remain vague and undefined so he can come over whenever he wants and disrupt things as he’s done in the past–but that sure as hell isn’t going to happen anymore.
I’ve talked to the boys about all this (in a very modified form, of course), and they know my cell phone number and will call/tell me if anything more happens. I’m hoping that this was a big wake up call for my ex and he’ll be much more careful in the future.
I have learned from my wife and her children, do not step between a mother bear and her cubs. I hope he as learned his lession, but I doubt it. On the other hand, you will be ready to act if he goes stupid again.
I am impressed with your ability to explain a very hard situation which means to me you are (basically) in control. And I am amazed at your children’s understanding of it all. Sounds like they are older than your ex emotionally. Obviously they take after you. Good luck and remember to let the law get his ass in a sling.
I’m going to tempt fate and look at this from the other side.
Presumed innocent until proven guilty, remember? It’s not as if children don’t invent things. It is very easy for a woman or child to invent something and the man is all but presumed guilty. A friend of mine was arrested and locked up in a police cell after his wife, who was divorcing him, said that he had assualted her - a complete fiction and almost immediately so proven. But she still got the kids.
‘Think of the children!’ they cry; yes, but take a step back and act with the brain, not the gut.
That said, if he did behave like that then he’s scum. Horseplay gone wrong is one thing, deliberately doing it is totally unacceptable.
qts, I thought long and hard about this when my son told me what happened. I completely believe him for many reasons–first, he is not the type of child to invent something like this; second, he didn’t begin telling me about it, his brother did. When he has accidents, he doesn’t like to talk about it because it embarasses him. He only started to tell me because his brother mentioned it. And third, and most importantly, his story hasn’t changed at all–he hasn’t embellished or altered it in the slightest, which kids usually tend to do when they have an interested audience.
Given that I believe my son’s account of what happened, I did try to look at it from my ex’s point of view. If this had been a spanking, I probably would have called to discuss it with him. The major point being that he really shouldn’t punish our son for something the kid can’t control–something the doctor has explained to us both that he can’t control. But it wasn’t a spanking. He picked a seven year old up by his feet and swung him into a shower stall–he did it out of anger, this wasn’t horseplay. Lots of people lose their temper, but this was just too extreme for me to feel that talking to him (which I’d already done in the past) would make a difference. I was worried that my children could be hurt again unless I did something to prevent that from happening. I did the only thing I could have done at that point in time and even though DCYF doesn’t seem to think it was abuse, I don’t regret my reaction to the situation.
Thanks for your kind words, dewizeowl. I do so hope he learned a lesson from this and will be more careful of losing his temper with the boys. I’m just sad that the court is so quick to dismiss this and, therefore, won’t order any therapy for him because I do think he needs help with controlling this.
