Being a warrior-mom sucks sometimes

[Joods]

Wow, awful situation. Few questions:
What was the reason for taking your daughter away from you?
Why are you not allowed any contact any more?
Why is your family so staunchly against you and supporting your ex?
If I read your op right, you have three other children, why are you allowed to look after them but not your oldest daughter?

Great questions...
1. According to the transcripts from the hearing, my ex stated that "the only reason why he wanted Jordan was to teach me a lesson that he was not going away". Being the narcissist he is, he seeks out control. Jordan will never be able to live independently, therefore, she will always need to live somewhere that her needs can be taken care of. My ex, in his smear campaign, realized that once my youngest child (the one he is a biological father to) turns 18, he will no longer be able to use her as a weapon against me because there will be no more custody battles to fight in court. Taking Jordan was a step he used to ensure that he will always have a foothold of control in my life.

2. I am not allowed contact with my oldest because he refuses to allow it. When the courts granted him plenary guardianship, they unfairly stripped away all rights I had. All of them. He was placed in complete control of my daughter. This is one of the primary issues I had brought in front of the Superior court. Now, it's in the hands of the Supreme court.

3. My family is doing what they are doing because back in 2010 when I found out that my mother was crossing boundaries with regards to my oldest, and not adhering to my wishes while my daughter spent weekends with her, I gave her a warning. She continued to violate the boundaries I had set up and this earned her a permanent ban from my life. What she was doing was not in the best interests of my child and even though she knew that my ex was violent and abusive towards me, she stayed in contact with him, despite my wishes for her to stop. There was no compelling reason for her to keep communicating with him whatsoever. Once I removed her from my life and from my daughters lives, she decided to fully jump on the bandwagon of trying to destroy my life. Even though she has done this, knowing what I know, I still would have made the same decision as the one I made back then. Cutting toxic people out of my life is my right and she has been toxic to both me and my kids. It is a heavy price to pay and a hard lesson learned, but I would rather end up fighting for my kids, like I continue to do, than to continue to allow her toxic bullshit into my life, causing further destruction of who I am. She is the reason I have PTSD.

4. I have partial physical custody of my youngest child. My ex cannot refuse me my rights to be with her. I also have equal legal custody of my youngest. He can't do crap without my agreeing to it.

The other two children belong to my fiancee. His sons come to us three weekends out of the month. They have expressed a desire to want to live with us, as we found out last year, their mother was being abusive to them. The boys consider me to be more of a mother to them than their own mom. The last thing I want to do is have them feel that way, but they have a mother who constantly yells at them, beats them and makes them do ALL the housework while she sits on her ass, drinks till she passes out, pops pills and gets high, they started looking at the next closest maternal figure in their lives. That would happen to be me. I love these boys as if they are my own and they know that.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's a sad story you've got, JL.

I got lucky in my custody dispute over my son, and was able to represent myself and defend my rights as a father only because we had a a judge who was sensible.The law is often inhumane, but so much of justice relies on the people who administer it.

[robvalue]

That is heart breaking Judi, I'm so sorry for you I can't imagine how soul destroying that must be. I've been in the receiving end of highly persuasive manipulative bastards before, so I know what you mean, they can have a hypnotic effect over some people and spin their lies as fact. I think it's absolutely disgusting that you've been ruled against based on basically slander, as it seems to me they did no investigating to actually substantiate any of the bullshit allegations.

I hope some day, some how, you get to see your daughter again. How dare your family support that fuck.

[Joods]

They support him because the only way they get their hooks in my kids is through him. That and they are extremely stupid and are his flying monkeys and enablers. I suspect that my mother is also a narc, but she is of the mild variety, if there is such a thing. One of these days his mask is going to fall off and sadly, even when that happens, they still won't see what kind of monster he is.

[Bad Wolf]

Great questions...
1. According to the transcripts from the hearing, my ex stated that "the only reason why he wanted Jordan was to teach me a lesson that he was not going away". Being the narcissist he is, he seeks out control. Jordan will never be able to live independently, therefore, she will always need to live somewhere that her needs can be taken care of. My ex, in his smear campaign, realized that once my youngest child (the one he is a biological father to) turns 18, he will no longer be able to use her as a weapon against me because there will be no more custody battles to fight in court. Taking Jordan was a step he used to ensure that he will always have a foothold of control in my life.

And that was the reason he gave? Nothing else? Sounds like the tactics of an abuser to me. How could any sane judge agree to that?

2. I am not allowed contact with my oldest because he refuses to allow it. When the courts granted him plenary guardianship, they unfairly stripped away all rights I had. All of them. He was placed in complete control of my daughter. This is one of the primary issues I had brought in front of the Superior court. Now, it's in the hands of the Supreme court.

I don't know anything about law but surely they can only do that for a legitimate reason and not just that your ex wants it. In any case, the courts made the wrong decision, i'm sure they'll come to their senses eventually.

---

3. My family is doing what they are doing because back in 2010 when I found out that my mother was crossing boundaries with regards to my oldest, and not adhering to my wishes while my daughter spent weekends with her, I gave her a warning. She continued to violate the boundaries I had set up and this earned her a permanent ban from my life. What she was doing was not in the best interests of my child and even though she knew that my ex was violent and abusive towards me, she stayed in contact with him, despite my wishes for her to stop. There was no compelling reason for her to keep communicating with him whatsoever. Once I removed her from my life and from my daughters lives, she decided to fully jump on the bandwagon of trying to destroy my life. Even though she has done this, knowing what I know, I still would have made the same decision as the one I made back then. Cutting toxic people out of my life is my right and she has been toxic to both me and my kids. It is a heavy price to pay and a hard lesson learned, but I would rather end up fighting for my kids, like I continue to do, than to continue to allow her toxic bullshit into my life, causing further destruction of who I am. She is the reason I have PTSD.

---

What was your mother doing to your daughter? What boundaries was she crossing?

The other two children belong to my fiancee. His sons come to us three weekends out of the month. They have expressed a desire to want to live with us, as we found out last year, their mother was being abusive to them. The boys consider me to be more of a mother to them than their own mom. The last thing I want to do is have them feel that way, but they have a mother who constantly yells at them, beats them and makes them do ALL the housework while she sits on her ass, drinks till she passes out, pops pills and gets high, they started looking at the next closest maternal figure in their lives. That would happen to be me. I love these boys as if they are my own and they know that.

It'll be a good character reference for the courts, to know the bond you have developed with your fiances kids

[Joods]

And that was the reason he gave? Nothing else? Sounds like the tactics of an abuser to me. How could any sane judge agree to that?

I don't know anything about law but surely they can only do that for a legitimate reason and not just that your ex wants it. In any case, the courts made the wrong decision, i'm sure they'll come to their senses eventually.

What was your mother doing to your daughter? What boundaries was she crossing?

It'll be a good character reference for the courts, to know the bond you have developed with your fiances kids

That was his reason. And yes, those on my side were all VERY shocked at the judges decision.

With regards to the law, when a person has plenary guardianship over a person and their estate (their SSI funding in my daughter's case), they have complete control over that person's affairs including who they get to see, where they get to live, what sorts of medical and/or education decisions are made, where their money goes etc. He has completely and utterly cut me out of her life. This will be my strongest argument for Parental Alienation when I file my petition for getting his guardianship revoked. The fact that he testified, under oath, that it would never be his intention to destroy the bond that I share with my daughter, he has done every thing he can to ensure that I am completely out of her life.

The boundaries that I had set for my mother were simple. Since 2005, my ex has taken me to court dozens of times. There was a span of approximately seven years where he wanted nothing to do with my oldest and was rather adamant about it. I had reduced myself to limited contact with him because during this time, we had shared equal physical and legal custody of my youngest daughter. It was week on/ week off. Given his inability to try and get along and co-parent her with me, I told my mother that under no circumstances was he allowed to see my oldest child while she was with my mother during the occasional weekend. My mother secretly called him during those weekends and he would sometimes go down there and "visit" my daughter. I did not know any of this was happening until 2010. I confronted my mother on this and asked her why she would allow this to happen, given that he told me numerous times that he was not her father and wasn't interested in being a part of her life in that way. She played it off and made excuses and lied about it. She knew how abusive he was and yet she continued doing what she wanted. Because she refused to respect my wishes and my boundaries as Jordan's mom, I cut her off.

My ex was refusing to cooperate with me in regards to my other child and I did not want him around my older one. As their mother, I had a right to make this decision. My mother did not have the right to go behind my back and continue contact with him. Regardless, there was no compelling reason for her to have any need to contact him. She knew what she was doing and she knew it was disrespectful. I told her that because she was incapable of showing me any respect, she would no longer be allowed to have Jordan come down on the weekends because I could not trust her to do the right thing.

As a punishment for my cutting off her contact from Jordan, she decided to help my sister fund my ex's attorney's fees. She furthered this by also lying on the witness stand during two custody hearings between 2010 and 2013. My sister had also lied during those hearings and during the guardianship hearing. My mother was not present for the guardianship hearing.

Bottom line: The lies they told in court were convincing enough for the judge. Despite my being truthful and pointing out to the judge that there was not a single provable accusation from my ex, he still sided with him. Personally, due to the corruption here, I think it was partly because my ex had the more expensive attorney. Can't prove it, but if you look at everything else, it sort of jives with all of it.

[robvalue]

From what you've said, you were perfectly justified in cutting your mother out. In fact, you had no choice in order to protect your child. It sounds like he's spun a web of deceit around her and drawn her in.

Can they really make a decision like this with no evidence backing the allegations against you? I guess the answer is yes, but I'm stunned at that.

[Kitty Galore]

I am so sorry to hear your pain. I can't imagine going through this.
My ex controlled me and pushed my buttons by threatening to take my children away when we were together. Although it was very unlikely that a court would let that happen, I had a real fear, and his emotional abuse, kept this as a real threat in my mind. I lost my shit every time he did it.

[Nope]

I will not say how this person is related to me. A close relative was in an abusive situation. After leaving the state with the kids he got temporary custody. Even though he had photographs, statements and recordings the judge decided the children should return to the wife until the judge in the original state could decide. My friend went back to the marriage rather than let his kids go alone.

CPS had been called and they didn't even go out and check. After six weeks of begging we got animal control to make the wife and her mother get rid of 15 cats. The church paid for the clean up of her house and the wife's lawyer offered her free services.

We were told the judge had no time to listen to the recordings we secretly made of the wife saying some bizarre and frightening things

The entire situation is gut wrenching so I don't like to even think about it now

[robvalue]

Oh no, that's horrible, I'm so sorry to hear that I can't stand abuse, especially when the law is failing to prevent it.