The Psycho Ex Wife

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A great article (or series) on Fathers and Fatherhood. I’m thrilled to see this myth debunked.  The BBC had undertaken a series about Fatherhood from a “historical, scientific, and literary perspective.” This article is called The Myth of the Tyrannical Dad.

Though I’m sure many of us may have experienced our fair share of harsh punishments and perhaps even heard stories of generations within your own family past, I remember my father as every bit as loving, nurturing, affectionate, and involved in our lives despite working very hard to keep a roof over our heads and providing for us more than just the basics in life.

Further, I remember my grandfather being much the same way and heard wonderful stories about his father before him.

It’s unbelievably amazing how often I hear people talk about how this “actively participating father” is something that really has only turned up over the last few decades while I see very little in the way of proof supporting such an assertion.  It probably comes as no surprise that this mindset is often rooted among female-dominated discussion forums.

In any event, this article is worth a read and the series worthy of more exploration.  There are a lot of falsehoods about fathers and fatherhood that are so firmly entrenched in our society I often wonder how hard the work will be to keep the bullshit-machines from operating so effectively.  Most interesting from the above linked article are the studies dating back 100-years which turn on its head the notion that today’s fathers “…are finally more involved in childcare and child rearing.” They always have been (and we know that not every parent was a good, involved, etc. parent - and it goes with both mothers and fathers alike).

No greater joy have I experienced in life than all of those things I had the good fortune of doing with my children from the moment they were born, including:

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It is no secret that some of the most downtrodden of fathers in our family court system come from the military. While off in other lands fighting wars on behalf of the freedom of others - on the home front, they’re not often given any protection when their spouse chooses to file for divorce in his absence. Oftentimes, that divorce is granted. Oftentimes, he doesn’t even know about it until he comes home from combat to find:

• He’s lost his family.
• He’s lost his children.
• He’s lost his home and all of his other assets.
• He’s a fugitive from justice for failure to pay child support while in combat.
• He’s credit is destroyed.
• That those he volunteered to help defend with his life, couldn’t give a rat’s ass about his predicament.

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act provides that - if a parent moves with a child(ren) to a new state, that new state becomes the child’s presumptive residence after six months. Unfortunately, the grim reality for military personnel is that deployments for war are often much longer than 6-months. In effect, a military spouse can move to another state while her spouse is deployed, divorce him, and then be almost guaranteed to gain custody of the child(ren) through the divorce proceedings in the new state. All of this is done in his absence. All of this is done while he is in no position to fight it. All of this is done with the help and because of the greed of our Family Court System.

There is almost nothing an enlisted man can do to stop it, either. Though the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act affords military personnel some small measures of protection while they are deployed (unavailable prior to 2003), the devastating impact on such circumstances is resulting in ever-increasing numbers of suicides by military personnel who are left homeless, without their children, with unreasonable child support orders, and in poverty because a wife decided to cut & run with the children, the money, the assets - everything - while he was deployed during war.

I urge you to spend the 5-1/2 minutes to watch this very powerful video - a tribute to a fallen hero, a decorated soldier and Purple-Heart Award recipient.

Thanks to SDDAD who brought this to our attention and offered the following commentary:

I work as a police dispatcher for mid size community in So Cal. I see and hear all sorts of things that usually just flow over me with very little reaction. It is a coping mech that helps us deal with the heartache and pain we deal with on a daily basis. Being a military town, one of the things that comes through our phones every now and then is the service member that comes home from deployment to find his (or her) spouse has left with the children. It is heart breaking. Somebody sent me this video the other day and it actually brought me to tears.

Warning, this is a very moving and sad clip. It is not graphic in any sense other than that message it projects. But should you watch it…when you are done, please pay tribute to those that serve their country. Everything we have is due to their service and sacrifice.

To the men and women serving in our armed forces…THANK YOU!

It brought tears to my eyes, too.  We really appreciate you sharing this.  I recently sat down and spoke at length with an enlisted man about this site and what we try to do in helping others through tough times.  This occurred about 2-weeks ago.  I promised him that I would do some posts to bring light to the special suffering that is brought upon “many of my friends in the military” (his words) who are going through just such situations and need help.

SDDAD gave us a powerful way to start.

Thanks again to the men and women who serve in our armed forces. You endure enough with your work and should not have to be treated so awfully when you return.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

The following story is offered with the understanding that I have not checked the facts in the story.  I don’t know the names of those involved in the story.  It is simply another to toss on the growing pile of stories that can best be described as “horror stories.” I choose to post it because it’s all too believable.

Andem4, a reader, writes:

Not sure if I mentioned this story before, but a former close friend of mine was married to a guy with a serious PEG (Psycho Ex-Girlfriend).  The PEG was a drug addict, worked for cash under the table, collected all kinds of state assistance, plus a huge amount in child support.  They were in Canada.

My friend had 2 children with her husband.  They managed to buy a small house, and his PEG saw dollar signs.  She filed for a support increase, including back payments.  Since the government was paying her all kinds of benefits since she was “poor single mom,” they jumped on the bandwagon of making the father pay it all.  They not only calculated support based on his “household income” (both his and my friend’s), but they looked at all assets he had (the house) and granted her 33%.

She had alienated the child against my friend (step-mom) from the start, and when the kid hit teen years, the alienation extended to the father.

When the final appeal failed, they were forced to sell their house and move in with my friend’s mother.  My friend had asked the judge in the case about how her children were expected to be taken care of when their household income was going to the PEG.  The response from the judge was, “He shouldn’t have had anymore children. The first born child always comes first.”

So they were broke, homeless, and facing a huge bill of about $30,000 in arrears for the years of backpayment.  At the time, my friend made a little more than $30k/yr, while her DH made $50k as mechanic.  The small amount of equity from the sale of the house all went to PEG.  The worst part was that the child was the product of a one-night-stand the guy had when he was 20, and she told him she was on birth control (a lie).  He tried to make a go of it with her, but did not marry her.  He left when the child was about 3, and met my friend when the child was 5.

The final straw was when a man they knew going through a similar issue killed himself.  He could not face putting his family through anymore of the nightmare, so he ended it. That was actually the second suicide in the area of this type.  My friend asks to meet me at a shopping mall.  There she tells me they are leaving the country and going into hiding.  She said she couldn’t tell me where, nor would she be able to contact me once gone.  All ties with family were going to be cut so no one would be able to find them.  Shortly after that, they were gone.

I did hear from her about a year later.  They established themselves in a place that would not enforce extraditing him for the child support.  They had a VERY hard life there, but at least they could feed their kids and were able to go day to day without the nightmare.  She also told me some of the family had been hounded by the PEG, but she somehow managed to keep her lifestyle without collecting the $30,000.  I guess the government continued to take care of her and her heroin addiction.

I haven’t heard from her in over 4 years, and I have no way to reach her.  I hope they have managed to get a decent life for themselves, PEG free.

Given the sheer volume of stories like this I see, both privately (via internet contact) and even in the media - this isn’t hard to believe.

My observations:

• I’m fairly familiar with the reality that in some countries, fathers have it even worse than here in terms of child support, child custody, and spousal support (alimony).  Canada is certainly one of those places.
• Men are more than 4-times more likely to commit suicide than women.  It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that a sizeable chunk of those victims did so out of the stress and hopelessness associated with trying to obtain reasonable custody of their children and pay a reasonable child support figure.
• Sadly, this guy was another foolish victim of the “I’m on the pill” gags and lead with his penis rather than his brain on the night in question.  For that, he and that child will be burdened for the rest of their lives.
• I firmly believe that if you want to have an effective deterrent to teenage sexual activity or any irresponsible sexual activity - these are the types of stories that would go a long way towards scaring the shit out of kids today.

Another in what is sure to be a long line of stories we post regarding the bias against fathers in family court situations, I offer you the case of the missing Norris children, Parker and Preston - aged 2 and 3.

Their boys’ 27-year old mother, Nicole Butcher, allegedly kidnaps the children and flees their home area of Kitittas, Washington.  She does not have custody of the children.  She allegedly also left a suicide note and authorities were quick to put forth the excuse that “she is suicidal” after their discovery and apprehension in Nevada.

From the article:

Investigators said Butcher was not placed under arrest because the situation has more domestic implications than criminal ones.

This may be surprising to some, but it’s not to me if you look for and read enough stories.  The media and the authorities, across a broad range of topics, lean heavily towards finding excuses and justifications for women’s crimes & associated sentencing.  It’s in civil matters.  It’s in criminal matters.  And it’s not a secret that it’s a huge problem in family court.

In this case, a mother who appears not to have custody of the children, kidnaps and flees the state.  Soon after their discovery, are there any local arrests?  No.  Are there any Federal arrests for kidnapping and fleeing across state lines?  Nope.  Is there excuse-making and justification for the mother’s actions?  There sure are and it’s not uncommon, either.

Forgive my apparent lack of sympathy, but the reality is that if the gender roles were reversed and this situation involved a father who kidnapped his children (sans custody rights) and left behind a menacing note threatening harm to self or others - there would be no sympathetic reporter writing a story.  There would be no sympathetic federal, state, and/or local authorities expressing concern of the mental stability of the father to justify not arresting him and charging him with kidnapping.

His ass would be in jail.  End of story.

Not a mother, though.  Too often there is some kind of excuse or justification for their criminal action which, if they even garner arrest and charges… assuming a successful prosecution, the female will most certainly receive a lesser sentence than a man, all things being relatively equal.  It’s often referred to as “The Female Sentencing Discount.”

It’s wrong.  It’s sad.  It needs constant exposure.  It needs to stop.

For the full article: Missing Kitittas Boys Found Safe in Nevada

Because he’s dead and people want his money!  HOORAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!! Not.

In Broward County, Florida - an un-named father dies when he is struck by a car.  This father was stripped of his parental rights to his daughter, and perhaps rightly so as he was allegedly a serious drug addict.  That is not what is important in this story.

In death, the courts are considering restoring his parental rights!  Amazing as that sounds, that’s not even the issue.

What is at issue is how a story like this exemplifies what is truly at the root of the manipulations by the family court systems throughout this country as well as how the mainstream media tends to accentuate vilifying a father while shielding the mother who is guilty (in this case) of the same thing as dad.    Bottom line - It’s all about the money!

From the article:

In life, he was a lousy father.

His love for the crack pipe was mightier than the love for his children, a Broward judge decided, and ended his parental rights to his pre-teen daughter….

That’s a tragedy and a shame.  What’s abundantly clear from this article, if you read carefully enough, is that the mother was a drug addict, too!  That only gets a passing mention much later in the article.  However, dumping on dad as quoted above is what opens the article.

Dad appealed the ruling that stripped him of his parental rights.  However, before the case could be heard, he met with his untimely and tragic death.

From the article:

In a case believed to be a first in Florida, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach has ordered Broward Circuit Judge John Frusciante to reconsider his order ending C.A.’s rights as a father. Perhaps, the court says, it is in the girl’s “best interests” to retain a relationship with C.A. now that he is dead.

At stake: perhaps a large sum of money. If the girl — who is not named in the appeals court decision — has no legal ties to her father, she would have no right to claim any proceeds from a wrongful-death lawsuit that may be filed by her father’s estate, the opinion says.

In a previous post:  BIOTCH! I do a brief about how disgusted I am at the grotesque use of the term “Best Interests of the Children” as both a sword and a shield to justify some of the most callous things I see, hear, and read about regarding family court.

One need not be a genius to realize that this has less to do with the BIOTCH, and everything to do with the money.  There is little question that the courts wouldn’t be reconsidering restoring the parental rights to a DEAD MAN if there wasn’t the possibility of there to be money made off of the deal.

“We must not forget that the overriding concern in [cases involving the termination of a parent's rights] is for the best interests of the child, not the parents,” the opinion states.   “The state initiates [termination] proceedings, not to punish parents who fail to met their obligations to the child, but to protect the child and her interests.”

And if there is money to be made, well, we’ll give the dead father back his parental rights.  Another example of the state using BIOTCH to shield themselves from rather well-deserved criticism for what amounts to restoring dad’s rights to gain access to the money that could be made from his death.

First - the girl probably won’t see the lion’s share of any money that may be forthcoming as the state will undoubtedly want to take large chunks of it to “reimburse” themselves for the costs of taking the children away from the parents in the first place.

Second - I wonder, assuming CASH is in the “best interests of the children,” had dad hit the lottery for many millions, would they would have restored his parental rights?  I can’t answer that question, maybe they would have if it meant they could profit from it.  At least now, with Dad being dead, they can get to his cash without him being able to defend himself - not that he would have been able to defend himself from Family Court money grabs if he were alive.

Finally, I doubt you’ll see this dead father’s rights restored one MINUTE before his estate files the wrongful death suit.  Sicker would be if they withhold restoring his rights until after a judgment has been secured on the potential suit.  If there is no money to be had, there is no purpose to restoring dead-dad’s rights.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet that the system is too stupid to do so regardless, even just to avoid appearing to be doing this solely for the money.

The estate’s attorney should immediately move to withdraw this man’s appeal.

Read the full article here:  In Death, Broward Father May Become Dad Again