y most people’s definition, I was an independent young female. That isn’t too surprising when you consider I became an adult during the dawn of feminism. After graduating from high school in 1970, I went straight to work. By the time I was twenty I owned a three-bedroom house and a new car. Shortly after settling into my new house I married. Two children resulted from that marriage. In 1983, after ten years in an abusive marriage, I divorced and was awarded sole legal and physical custody of both children. The abuse did not end when the marriage ended, however. As the children grew, so did my ex-husband’s rage at having to pay child support. He had announced on the day of the divorce that he intended to rid himself of his child support obligation and did not stop in his quest until his mission was accomplished.

This website details and documents the methods used by my ex-husband to gain custody and achieve the goal of ridding himself of his child support obligation. It also exposes a judiciary who rewarded and aided his abusive behavior.

My ex-husband is a police officer.

…If you’re a woman caught in the cycle of abuse, READ BELOW!
      …If you’re a mother contemplating divorce, READ BELOW!
      …If you’re a wife contemplating having children, READ BELOW!

There are those who think our system of justice is fair and equal. I once did. In fact, my professional background involved working in the legal field in non-lawyer positions. I now know that believing our system of justice is fair and equal couldn’t be further from the truth! My naivety was based on a belief that the purpose of our judicial system was to assist victims who sought protection from their abuser’s behavior. It seemed like a perfectly logical conclusion at the time. After all, everything I’d learned in school, seen on TV, and read in the newspapers said that the government created laws to protect citizens and that the judicial system was to enforce the laws created by the government. Too late I learned how naïve my logical conclusion was.

In my opinion, the best book discussing the topic of custody and the conduct of the judiciary in custodial matters is titled Mothers on Trial: the Battle for Children & Custody, written by Phyllis Chesler and published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, copyright 1986. It is a very comprehensive research document containing hundreds of fascinating and revealing studies and statistics involving mothers, fathers, custody, and the North American judicial system.

Ms. Chesler’s book details one study (at p. 79) involving divorcing fathers conducted between the years 1960 to 1981. In that study, more often than not, fathers used, or threatened to use, violence against the mothers in order to achieve their goal—obtain custody and rid themselves of their child support obligation. The judiciary rewarded the abusive fathers in the study with custody. Of the fathers who were awarded custody, 83% had NEVER participated in the primary care of their children; 67% had NEVER paid any child support; 62% had physically abused their wives during the marriage and post divorce; 57% had engaged in mother-bashing campaigns with the children, and 37% had kidnapped their children in order to gain custody.

For more than five thousand years women have been socially obligated to raise their children, while men have been legally entitled to custody. Child support was not even awarded to mothers until around 1920. Based on research I’ve conducted since my Washington experience, I am convinced that, when making custody decisions, today’s judiciary relies on two guidelines created under the direction and guidance of the Catholic Church during the Inquisition period.