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I have always fought with this, turned myself inside-out with the anxiety, seeing the physical, mental, and emotional harms coming to my children inside the family home, but then handing them over to have ‘alone-time’ with him???
I am scared at what is going on in court now, and children, the most vulnerable victims, just being handed over to fathers despite a mother’s best attempts to tell the court of the abuse, and being ignored because ‘parental alienation’. (detail removed by moderator) What mother wouldn’t though, would sit back and hand over her little lambs. You are expected, at one of the most awful times of your life to be the expert, to deal with the abuse yourself, to set your mind right, ignore all the brainwashing and gaslighting, see through it all, be the perfect mum, but don’t speak about abuse. (detail removed by moderator) I despair of our courts and services.
Just that really.
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Hi I’m just at the start of my own journey really and similar in terms of abuse to the children and gaslighting, so don’t have any lived experience of the courts, but won’t cafcass review the situation and make sure the children only have to see him if it’s deemed safe?
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Hi Spideymum
I am sorry that you are at the start of this. I suppose it will depend on your faith in CAFCASS to see through his lies, and to hear your truth as truth, and how the children are manipulated by him to talk him up, and fearful of him finding out that they’ve said things they ‘shouldn’t’ and they fear being in trouble with him. I know mine never said what happened, too scared. I also felt like I was betraying if I were to share some of the things that they had told me in fear and in trust and in confidence, terrified that he, or anyone else would find out, because at some point he’d be alone with them. (detail removed by moderator) Noone prepares you for how to be that supermum that can do all this for them.
You’d have to gather experience from other’s outcomes too, as there are times that children are believed and contact is restricted to supervised only, but there are others where children are exposed again to the perpetrator you fought so hard to keep your children safe from only for the courts to hand them back. something that the services will blame you for if you don’t leave, I guess in the mistaken believe that no further harm will come to them now that they are not in the family home all together? IDK, I can’t claim to understand the reasoning of some outcomes.
CAFCASS and courts, I believe, will start out on a 50/50 shared custody basis, and you have to be very clear about the abuse, and not always be heard.
I also think the interpretation of ‘safe’ varies considerably across courts and judges.
Holding abusers to account when they repeatedly break court orders by continuing to stalk, and track and grill children for information about you and your life, get third parties involved to also threaten and intimidate and cause damage to you, is virtually impossible to be believed over, and very difficult to get a court to listen to or act on. I had a lot of confidence in a court order, until I had my first one that is.
The best advice I can give is to go in with your eyes wide open, expect the worst, hope for the best, and gather all your resources around you to hold you and the children up through the process. You will need to look after yourself and your children extra carefully, with lots of deep relaxing in there somehow, whatever it takes, which could be doing very physical stuff to combat raised cortisol levels. Get all the support on board you can, and find out all you can. There is limited information around court on the forum, which is to protect women from being found talking about any specifics of a court case, as this would jeopardise their case which is confidential.
Talk on here all you need, read other’s experiences and arm yourself with resilience, truth, self-belief, and love.
warmest wishes
ts
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Oh gosh I am so sorry to hear about your experiences. My ex’s abuse incidents are documented via local safeguarding team so we have it in writing and he admitted it at the time. The children were too young to remember the first events consciously although I can see the trauma impacts.
I am terrified of court ordering 50/50 or anything more than I have allowed up to now.
I wish you well with your fight and hope that you can find peace x -
You are already further down the line, and have supports in place with a safeguarding team on your side, and an admittance of guilt from him.
That is a huge leap forwad in terms of getting safety for you and your children. You already have a lot going for you legally, so hopefully you will have a smoother path to your freedom.
If he is alredy ‘behaving’, so much the better for you all.
good luck on your journey
warmest wishes
ts
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This is the reason why I’m terrified of leaving. Handing over an innocent child to an abuser. Knowing it will be worse for them without you. These agencies tell you to leave to protect your child, then hand them back over to them through court.
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Hi Toofarr
I’m sorry you are so stuck. Is this literally the only thing keeping you there?
Yes, they do tell you to leave and then take control of access to your children by their abuser!
If it’s the only thing keeping you in the abusive environment, have you yet spoken with anyone outside in specialist DV support/advice?
I’m glad that you felt able to come here to express this, as I’m sure this is a very real fear of many women who won’t leave their children to a decision by those who know less than you and your children about how they have been abused, and the potential risks for them/you.
I would, in your shoes, arm yourself with as much information as you possibly can. Explore possible ways of evidencing his abuse. Do you have much to do with your neighbours and do they hear anything, for example? Has he been abusive to yourself or the children in front of anyone else, or out in public, for instance? Get as much information as you can on the tactics of abusers, so you can see it all clearly, and notice all the different ways in which they have been abusive.
Please talk more if it helps you, and find out the supports available to you in your local area. If the children are school age, teachers can bear witness to abuse on the children also. It’s also the case now that any abuse reported to the police at the home, could be passed onto the school they attend. There can be in-school supports for children also, where children may be comfortable to share their experiences, but not always, I know mine didn’t want to.
We can’t tell you what to do, but the more you know the better prepared and greater choice you could have, depending on what you know already of course.
warmest wishes
ts
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Wow I relate to this so much, you’re so right, they expect you to come to court as though you have a level head and haven’t endured years of abuse and confusion. It’s just awful, and I guess it’s a long game, their mask will fall and when it does you take them right back and say, there you go.. here he is
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There’s also the worry of how many court’s are not aware, even today, of the tactics of abuse, and how well many of the abusers are able to manipulate the system, despite the judge and legal team supposedly knowing better! It’s a joke, as well as incredibly worrying.
It’s a further trauma in many cases.
ts
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Totally hearing you on this at the moment. It is an utter and complete frkn nightmare. whole system is broken and corrupt.
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