What I want to do with this post is to have it be an example of what can happen to you if you're not careful.
I've been hesitating to write this post for a long time because I don't want to just sound like I'm another bitter person complaining about my marriage. I'm not....
What I do want to do is help change what I see as an unfair system towards Men, specifically the abused Men out there....... Here goes.
First and foremost: You have to understand that as a man you're most vulnerable to the abuser's most effective tool: The judicial restraining order.
If you become the subject of a restraining order you're just about done. In my opinion the only real way to fight this as a man is to file first. If you don't there's virtually nothing short of tens of thousands in attorney's fees that will help.
Second: What you also have to realize is that since the beginning of the "Violence against Women Act" went into effect it has pumped BILLIONS of dollars into an industry that is hostile toward men and has become very sophisticated in how to fight these battles to a Woman's advantage.
How to do what I'm about to describe is available from any Woman's center in this country.
Third: There is a lot of money to be made from divorce; tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars that can and will strip a family of everything it may have taken decades for you to save. In my case over $130,000 was spent by my wife on a case that was essentially one sided and never even went to trial. This money represented my children's college fund and it's now gone.
Fourth: All's fare in Love and War..... and in court too:
What I didn't know & what an attorney later told me was that Perjury just doesn't matter in court.... Judges EXPECT people to lie and they essentially rely upon the "adversarial system" in their court room to hash out the truth. So if she lies about you in a courtroom where you're not in attendance..... Too bad.
With regard to the restraining order, the rules work both ways... and this can help to level the "playing field". Please see my note at the end of this post.
In my state (California) there are so many "abuse" laws that virtually anything qualifies as "abuse" and the level of proof is so low that simple "fear of abuse" is all it takes to have you lose your Children, your home and everything you've worked so hard to save over the years; your home, your savings, your checking, your retirement.... everything is likely to be given to her if she can paint you as an "abusive and violent man" who hits his wife, or worse "abuses his children".
The fact that you've never done anything to anyone just won't matter until it's too late. So If you're tagged like this.... you're toast.
In my case as a classic example:
My Wife (Ex-Wife) had been planning this for at least a year. I know this because of how long the records showed how she had been paying her attorney with "community property" funds.
Her first move was to change our mailing address with the Post Office so I would never find out about what she was doing.
The next thing she did was to start transferring all of our liquid assets into new accounts in her name only. In our case that was close to 200K, a substantial "war chest" that was never declared to the court. (and you'll never know because the Post Office is now diverting all your mail to her office or the home of one of her friends)
The next thing was to stop paying on our bills and two property Mortgages. So after about a year our homes went into default and then foreclosure... and I never suspected a thing until after she emptied our checking account at the last minute and left with the children.
It was only after I went to use the ATM to get gas that I found this out from my bank when I called.
I has Blind Sided & devastated; I was the one who was disabled and had been being abused by her. I never ever thought I could be caught up in something like this.
In my opinion however, the worst thing that was done to me was to portray me as a "Wife-Beater".
I had never laid a hand on my wife.... Ever. The thought never crossed my mind but that just didn't matter.
In my case my kids denied everything she said to CPS and the psychologist.... in the final investigation. But that didn't matter because by then the Judge was convinced of what his opinion was of me..... A worthless, sponging, violent, wife beating, child abusing man....
How it was done:
In my case Suzanne is a Surgical nurse. When she's on call she may also have to recover the Patient too, and some times patients wake up violently. She works in a V.A. Hospital and so this happens occasionally.
In this one case, a few weeks before she was about to leave, a patient hit her in the face and she came home with this classic "Shiner" on her left eye. When I first saw it I saw red and I think the first thing I said was "who hit you".... like any husband. But when she told me how it happened I felt bad for her and kind of babied her and her black eye. The strange thing was she got really mad at me when I did. Here's why.
As soon as she got the black eye she went to an "abuse psychologist" that was recommended by her attorney. The Psychologist "documented" how she got the injury blaming me for hitting her.
And that's all it took... I was toast from that moment on.
But she didn't stop there: She then requested an Emergency meeting with our county CPS (Child Protective Services).
A note on CPS: These people can be your most devastating and effective adversary because they're secretive and more importantly they're autonomous, THEY ANSWER TO NO ONE. By statute in most states they have no obligation to notify you that you're being investigated or that you've been accused of anything.
In California the entire preliminary and even the final investigation itself will be kept secret until the accusations (assumptions) show up in court FOR THE JUDGE'S EYES ONLY.
If you're lucky enough to be there or have been notified that there's a case pending against you, you won't be allowed to know the specifics of what you've been accused of! The Judge MAY tell you the basic accusation (if you're there), but you won't be allowed to see the "evidence" against you, and you SURE AS Hell won't be allowed to see the case file.
In my case, when I finally found out about the CPS investigation IN COURT, the only thing the judge said was "There are some very serious charges here"...That's it. That's as much as I was allowed to know about what I was accused of.
How's about that for what you thought was "Due Process"?
In my state, according to the State Attorney General's Office, CPS is supposedly required to use the same standard of investigation as any Law Enforcement agency, but they don't.
In many counties (like mine) most "investigators" are just on the job trained civil servants who have no specific background, training or education in Law Enforcement or even social work. Never the less, their word carries a tremendous amount of weight before any Judge.
From the CPS record (that I wasn't supposed to see), the interview went something like this:
Suzanne: I'm "afraid of my husband" and I'm "afraid he's going to hurt the children".
She says with her black eye.
What do you think happened next? If you guessed an Emergency Restraining order you would be right!
An Emergency restraining order doesn't require notice. A judge can issue it on the spot and with the psychologist's report and the CPS preliminary report that's all it took.
I guess you have to admire the sophistication of the plan, but that's the problem: This same plan has been carried out in almost this exact way against THOUSANDS of innocent men across the country.... It's become just another Lawyer's common tactic, It's Cookbook...... It's WRONG!
So now that a judge has said so, you're officially a "violent wife-beater who abuses his children"... without ever lifting a finger against anyone or even knowing that this was going on behind your back.
Try and fight that label in court. Remember, it's a matter of Law now and any subsequent judge will ALWAYS accept another Judge's opinion first.
Blind Sided? You bet and the game was over before I even knew it had begun.
A note on "Filing first":
In my opinion the only defense a man has against what I've just described is to file for the restraining order FIRST.
Remember, virtually ANYTHING qualifies as abuse and you won't have to be too specific when you fill out the form to qualify. A no notice Emergency Restraining order does require a slightly higher standard. You'll just have to provide some form of documentation such as a medical professional's or psychologist's report of injuries or a police report of domestic disturbance... Virtually anything you can get a Judge to sign off on, and that is very very easy.
You can do this yourself, in fact it's easy (too easy) and may be better than having an attorney asking too many questions.
I know this may seem underhanded, especially if the "abuse" you may be thinking of is thin. But what you have to realize is that her attorney is likely to use this as a first strategy. The first question any attorney will ask is "has he been abusive". If she responds by saying "I don't know" or "what's abuse".... you're off to the races my friend.
So you have to ask yourself, have you EVER been hit by your wife (what man hasn't). That's all it takes. It doesn't matter when why where or how, the judge won't ask.
Again IMO, the only way this "tactic" is going to stop is when Men start doing what women have been doing for years.
A Note on judges and the restraining order:
When was the last time you remember your local T.V. news station broadcasting from in front of some courthouse where some judge refused to issue a restraining order where someone got hurt?
It doesn't happen too often any more, but it used too.... Remember?
The reason for that is because no judge in his right mind is going to refuse to issue a restraining order any more... For two reasons.
The first reason? The laws have changed giving him/her an excuse.
The second reason? I can guarantee you that the news team will be back come election time to remind the voters how that judge got someone hurt or killed. As far as I know, short of corruption it's about the only way to turn a judge out of office. So what would you do if you were the judge hearing your Wife's (OR YOUR) emergency petition?????
