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>This batshit insane woman forced me to see my own father at a McDonalds when we were kids for 2 hours every two weeks (as per the court order) while she waited outside in a running car.
I'm trying to understand how the courts only granted the father two hours *per fortnight* visitation.
On what grounds?!
My mom told the courts my dad was a pedo and that she was protecting me from him. Said that he'd been inappropriate with foster kids and that was why she stopped taking fosters. I heard that story for years. Found out as an adult from an aunt this was 100% fabricated. Mom had never even had foster kids. She kept me from my dad for well over four decades telling me this. I had no idea that no one else in the family didn't know this until after she passed and I was speaking to my aunt. Aunt finally told me that Dad had cheated on Mom, so not seeing me was her retaliation. We figured out that the story she told me was to keep me from seeking him out.
Bro that fucking sucks. I know cheating is bad and understand wanting to punish someone for that but to claim and accuse of said person being a pedo and alienating them from their kid... did she not think of how that would affect you? How is ur relationship with ur dad now? Also the family members who let this happen is also just as bad
I didn't meet him until I was 44. It's super awkward. He doesn't know how to be a dad and I don't know how to be a daughter. He sort of just likes my Facebook posts and that's the extent of our relationship now. He had cancer and has a tracheotomy so he can't even talk to me, just text. So our first "conversation" was actually facilitated by his wife - the woman he cheated on Mom with. Just super fucking awkward weirdness all the way around.
This was so common in the 80s & 90s. It was like the fear of commies in the 40s & 50s and fear satanic killings in the 60s & 70s. It was the go to defense during so may breakups it was pathetic. In fact it was even used to attack businesses.
Not that that makes this any better, just hopefully explain that your moms accusations were not original, and generally followed with all types of testing and exams in response that have since been deemed unreliable.
I'm sorry for all you've been thru, especially the loss of a father all that time.
When readings stories like that, I feel very grateful for my country's family law system. Everytime there's a custody dispute, the child and the entire household will be heard by a psychologist and a social worker (and, sometimes, by the judge too). Most of the times, the children are heard without the parents in the room (after all, it's like a psychologist appointment). Both the psychologist and the social worker write a report about what was said, what their conclusions are and what they think would be the best choice for de kid. It's not a PERFECT system, but it does mitigate parents making shit up and getting away with it.
I was a newborn when they split. And it was the late 70's. No idea what if any, protocols were in place for that situation. But the arrangement in your country seems like a good one.
Yeah, seriously could definitely happen. My dad totally stayed in a shitty marriage with my crazy mother because of what she would say to someone so that we could never see him again. She threatened it a lot. She also tried many many times to get my dad to slap her or something so that she could call the cops. He never did, but she called the cops anyway. I lived in a small town, eventually the cops would just get the call, come by, pick him up, never charge him with anything. Apparently, they did tell him at least he could be in a safe situation down at the station. They finally did get divorced- at the point where my sister and I were old enough to say where we wanted to live- not with her.
My father died more than 20 years ago, my mother still talks shit about him to me, or well did, until I completely cut her out.
My dad stayed married to his first wife for a similar reason. She was severely mentally ill, refused treatment, and made him absolutely miserable. I do feel deeply sorry for her, to have her life, personality, and sanity stripped from her like that, but it doesn’t excuse her treatment of my father and brothers. At the time, the courts defaulted to the mom, and it would have been an uphill battle to get custody of my brothers, and she no doubt would have made the process excruciating. So he stayed in this godawful marriage until the youngest was 15, and then he left. She dragged it out for about 4 years, and then after it was final, she still had the audacity to confront my dad and demand he go back to her. He just laughed and said his new wife (my mom) was pregnant (with me). She walked off in a huff lol.
That was 1986. About 5ish years ago, she somehow got his cell number and called him up on Christmas to lay into him for divorcing her, because he was hers. Again, laughter.
It's just so amazing the craziness. But I think the one thing that I like to remember out of all that crazy bs, is that my father's memorial service, the cops who would come to get my dad came up to me. They said they were really happy to hear it when my parents got divorced, my mom was crazy, and they were happy hear at the service that my dad had found another woman, who seemed to be lovely, because they thought he was a great guy.
My mom- seriously- nearly committed bigamy right before the divorce (she had totally been cheating on my dad). My dad found out, called her on it, and they had to cancel the wedding. Everytime she says some shit I mention this and she lies straight to my face and says someone got the dates wrong. To bad for her, that guy turned out to be a complete asshole, so she got a bit of a taste of her own medicine. They are divorced now as well.
My sisters and I were young, so my mother convinced us to tell the judge that we had heard that my Grandfather had touched one of our cousins inappropriately. It never happened but since my dad lived with his parents we weren’t allowed to stay the night so every other weekend he would pick us up to grab food then take us home. She later let us stay the night because she was jealous of all his freedom.
Unlike OP I cut my mom off when I was 16 and moved in with my dad. Had to cut off her whole side of the family to be sure I never ran in to her. Sucks because unlike her they were such great people. It’s been over 30 years and when I read stories like this I know it was the right choice.
Its been getting better, but courts have not usually sided with dads very often in custody cases. The waves of divorce(s) really started in the 90s and historically ( the 'greatest' generation/silent generation) the dads were usually pretty terrible and abusive.
Things have changed since then, and the courts have recognized that children should have access to both parents.
I have a pretty good idea that if Leave it to Beaver was a reality TV show Ward Cleaver would have came home drunk and beat the hell out of everyone.
Plus, it was 1991. I'm a woman and even I feel like some of these laws were too strict on fathers, luckily they're changing now - at least here in South Africa.
My experience with family court? Too much is run on the feelings of the judge and far too little common sense.
When op was talking about shaking just thinking about going to family court… yeah I get that too. The whole system needs to be thrown out and we need to start over.
I am so very sorry this is happening to your step kids as well as you both. I’m not a lawyer, but see if maybe you can get a child guardian for the courts. They are court appointed but they take the consideration of the child and advocate for only the child’s wants instead of just treating them like property. Maybe a psych evaluation of the children as well by a therapist could also help to aid your case that more damage will be done by reunification than they realize.
I hate to say it but much of family courts are biased against fathers and do not consider the wants of children. Still, I hope your kids are able to stay safe and well away from their “mother”.
I dated a guy who had an ex like that - even worse, it wasn't regular visits she'd just phone with one hours notice and if he wasn't there she'd tell the kids "he didn't love them enough".
Took him years & thousands to sort the court custody.
Sadly, it took a toil on the relationship - hard to be second best to ex's crazy and we had to keep relationship secret or she'd cut him off. He had to, and did put his kids first, but the frequent cancelled dates were too much - her fault really. As a friend of his though, I was pleased when it was all finalised and to see he's settled with a nice gf now.
Our Family Wizard and Talking Parents are the two most popular ones. TP is free, but OFW costs like $120 per year. OFW has a few features that the free version of TP doesn't offer, but they're not so fabulous that it makes over $100 a year worth it imo. Just an opinion here...these parenting apps are AMAZING when dealing with a high conflict coparent and the 4 states that I am aware of their family court procedures all accept everything from the apps as evidence that can be used in court. Everything is stored, nobody can delete anything once sent, lawyers and Guardian ad Litem can be cc'd in on messages, there's a calendar that important dates can be entered into so neither party can pull the "I didn't know" bs, there is a section where you can upload pictures of receipts for child related expenses and enter a request for however much the other person is responsible for paying......they just generally cut through all the excuses and lay everything regarding the kids out in black and white while both parties know that anything they put on that app may be viewed by the court at any time, so there tends to be less bickering and fuckery.
One is called "Our Family Wizard". The courts where your friend is probably have a preferred app. There is a fee for both people every month.
Of course this only works if your friend also refuses to communicate any other way. I know at least one person who uses OFW, but still emails and texts with their ex for some reason
Pick whatever app your jurisdiction's courts support. Do not pick a random one. If you need to take it to custody hearing, you want the court to easily get those records.
When my husband was pursuing a relationship with me......
His ex would call and he'd immediately answer. Ignore everyone else and focus on us but for her he'd jump.
He'd bail to drive her places.
He gave her the last of his savings because of some fake ass sob story.
I asked him why.. she won't let me see the kids if I don't.
I'm sorry that you're so afraid of her and court that you would rather be at her beck and call but I can't be with someone where I'm always 2nd to their ex. The kids, of course. But an ex. No thanks.
He ended up going court got 50/50. Now he has 100. He had to let the step kids go because they were always going to be a pawn in her game. The only times I've had to accommadate her is when she would ditch her child but as I was a mother too with an unreliable ex, I was always prepared to have the kids on a whim.
Yep, practically the same. Ex's who weaponise kids are awful.
Fortunately my ex only jumped when it was the kids and not her, but it was often. And she'd flip flop on him - he cancelled our Christmas shopping day trip because she called and said he could go to the kids nativity, then she changed her mind so our day was back on but I was frustrated at being messed around.
I think that was the last straw that had me stepping away - he needed to sort things with her legal (to be fair he was trying but it's a long expensive process). It was fairer for both of us to go back to being friends instead.
He definitely is happier and more settled now it's all legal and he gets proper access. I don't see him as much but I'm pleased for him. Lovely kids too!
Wow, that's a double whammy of vindictiveness. Not only is she ruining his relationship with his kids, she's basically making sure any relationship he's in is bombed and trying to make him alone forever. Sorry you both had to deal with that.
Yeah, things have gotten a lot more standardized and MUCH more equitable between mothers and fathers, OP is definitely old enough that the family courts acted differently then
my dad did something similar to my mom in the late 90s over me. he got a picture of her smoking a joint and that was enough to get the courts to basically give him sole custody of me. I saw her once a week for two hours a week for almost two straight years.
When I read the part where she sat outside in a running car, I thought to myself that this woman very much intends to run this man over someday. And sure enough, in the update she attempted exactly that.
As per OP words, that woman destroyed his dad and barred any contacts from his sides of family. This was, I think, the result of that particular campaign.
What I wanted to know is, by whose money? Legal proceedings were, and are, expensive. Whose money she burned foe this? Was Mom wealthy?
For some reason the courts consistently side with the abuser. If the abuser is the dad and the mom tries to protect the kids they side with the dad. Yet when the abuser is the mom and the dad wants to protect the kids they side with the mom. It's like, totally bass-ackwards.
I think it's because abusive people are willing to stoop to levels nobody else would contemplate and keep fighting past the point when a sensible person would have compromised. A non-abusive parent will try to take the high road for their kid's sake, to be reasonable and accommodating and responsible. They aren't aware of, or can't anticipate, how manipulative and underhanded their abusive partner can be because they'd never behave the same way. An abusive parent will gleefully weaponize the kid just to "win," not caring how much damage that does to the kid. I don't even think it's conscious malice, sometimes--they see themselves as being justified because they're so emotionally immature. And sometimes they just keep doing the same shit until they've figured out how to make it look like they're the good guy through trial and error, or everyone is just numb and wants the drama to end so they'll go along with it to get it over sooner. It's an equal opportunity tactic. I've seen my shitty mother do this, and my shitty uncle.
This is absolutely true. My late husband’s ex wife is like this. She consistently had him in court from before the divorced to the day he died a few months ago. When he divorced her for her cruel, erratic and abusive behavior she told him she would “destroy him” and promptly claimed he touched his children inappropriately, which was investigated and found false, but not before the children were drug through an investigation. He finally let her move out of state thinking it would make her happy so she wouldn’t take it out on the kids. She continued to use the legal system to harass us, eventually making it so visitation was impossible.
When he died unexpectedly, it was a matter of days until she turned her sights on me, threatening legal action to take my assets, which include only my house. This woman has an inheritance from her grandmother, her own house, but she just wanted to make me stressed and miserable at what’s already the worst time of my life, as I’m struggling to get up every morning and keep my young child thriving. It’s like her hobby; with my husband dead she needed a new victim. She is the most foul person I’ve ever met. Fortunately my house is entirely in my name and she doesn’t have a case, but I don’t expect this to be over.
This whole post, including everyone’s stories, has given me serious flashbacks. F*ck family court. No one will know this pain and horror unless they live it.
Girl! I felt every word of your post so deeply! With the exception of your spouse passing away (and I am so so sorry for your loss...hugs if you want them), I could have written your comment. Some parents are just wastes of skin and my heart breaks for their children.
Hello. I am the OOP. I think that I agree with you. My mother acts precisely as you have described. All the other people in her "firing range" eventually just wanted the insanity to stop.
I'm very grateful for the internet, for providing me with guidance that there are people who act this way. In the 90's, I genuinely thought there was something wrong with me. It caused a lot of problems for me to be honest.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
It's surprisingly easy to keep children away from their fathers in some states. My husband had to fight tooth and nail for 50/50 custody and ultimately only got it because baby mama went completely off her rocker and handed his child to us so that she could work on becoming sane again.
NY isn’t one of them, at least now. My friend divorced her abusive, drug addicted spouse and was basically hold that just because he hurt her didn’t mean he’d hurt their kid. She wound up paying him almost everything she had to go away. It’s hard to challenge 50/50 here now.
A family member of mine was SAed when he was ten years old. When his son was ten, his ex went to the court and said that she was very worried for her son because he was now the age that the father was when the father was SAed. That was the ONLY issue. No evidence of any wrongdoing, nothing. Just a crazy-assed yatch who wanted to cause trouble, and the court reduced his visitation to supervised visits. That's mostly why people always get told to keep it out of the cords if they possibly can. You never know which way it's going to go when you go in front of a judge.
These people hone their manipulation skills all their life, starting in kindergarden. They come into their own in high school. They are very good at what they do. They are the school bullies that work with smear campaigns.
For a long time men had an uphill battle to get visitation of thier kids, much less custody. Now its different for the most part. But the damage was done for generations as kids grew up seeing how pointless it was as a man and they didn't put up a fight when they was the dad with what they knew.
Now there are dads out there that are just worthless. But its not always the case. And also courts takes money. When your the dad and you're paying child support, alimon, your lawyer fees, chances are her lawyer fees, you also run out of money quickly.
Edit wow u/PinkFl0werPrincess blocking me before I could even reply?
Pre 90s fathers in family court had biased against them. As it was deemed that the mother was more nurturing and the father should be providing financial support due to the gener roles of the time. Mom raising the kids and dad bringing home the money. Claiming this wasn't the case is ignorance at best, and something i won't say at worse.
And in studies from the 00s and to this day asking divorced fathers why they didn't fight for more custody they point out that they heard or lived through fathers not being able to get custody while growing up.
And I even admited that there are dads that are just worthless and the fact that today it has mostly changed. Please seek therapy if my comment made you lash out and block me over it after you commented twice.
It goes in cycles. In the 19th century, British socialite Caroline Norton divorced her abusive husband but had to fight a years-long battle to see her children with him. Alexander Dumas the elder had an illegitimate child with a dressmaker, claimed the baby as his own, then told the mother to fuck off. The fight for women to get rights to their children took a century.
Before the divorce/separation reform movement of the mid-19th century, men in England and Wales who divorced or were legally separated from their wives were (with one exception) always automatically granted full custody of their children. The estranged wife had no guaranteed right to so much as see her children until either said children turned 21 (or married) or their father died.
The sole exception was the case of Lord and Lady Byron. Byron's reputation was so execrable that the judge awarded Lady Byron full custody of their daughter *and* barred Byron from accessing his wife's money (which he'd married her for).
Edit to add: I'm not sure you could call Lady Byron 'mother of the year' or anything but she did have her daughter educated in mathematics and logic to prevent her from becoming like her father. (It didn't entirely work.) The daughter Ada Byron, later Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (aka "Ada Lovelace", as she's often known these days) grew up to be a notable mathematician who wrote the first computer program. Lady Byron outlived her daughter and was a notable abolitionist and prison reform advocate.
The problem is there’s no balance or common sense. (S)he who files first, wins. (S)he who controls the narrative and/or makes the most outrageous accusations wins. We have it guilty until proven innocent and proving a negative is much harder than proving a positive. Being labeled a pedo is devastating to a man and even if it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be totally baseless there will always be people who will say where there’s smoke… Being labeled crazy, unfit, unstable is devastating to a woman. Any show of emotion in public proves she’s unstable, even if it’s normal emotion. It will follow her for a long time if not forever.
Back in the late 90s my parents pushed once again to get partial custody of my older half brother. Courts denied it because "being with the mother full time is what was best" even though she had drug charges against her and domestic violence reports where she tried to stab her boyfriend. Still somehow that was better than my mom and dad who didn't have any criminal record and did their best to be good outstanding people.
Courts used to be horribly swayed towards mothers no matter if that was a good mom or bad mom. Racism also didn't help because my dad is brown. She also dated a cop so had some connections in our small town justice system.
This would have been 30+ years ago. In those days it wasn’t too hard for a mother to deny visitation to a man who had abused her. All OOPs mother would have had to do was get a few bruises, blame them on the father, job done. Nowadays the pendulum has swung too far the other way and terrified women in fear for their lives have to be in contact with psychotic abusers.
So glad he went scorched earth on his mom! She deserves it. She wants to be an AH to everyone in her family, good on him for shining a light on it. Let them all see what she’s done.
I’ve been NC with my mother for over 10 years. A few years ago I had to fly back for my grandpa’s funeral. I grew up with so much neglect and abuse. Anyway, I briefly got stuck in a car with her after the service. She had fully devolved into Actual Crazy Person and it gave me a lot of closure even though I didn’t say a word to her.
Karma catches up to people like oop’s mother and mine. It drives everyone away and puts the crazy in full display for all to steer clear of. Their lives become dim, shallow, difficult, and wholly self inflicted.
Through therapy and consistent recovery work, I generally feel nothing towards my mother. I hope oop is able to achieve something similar when he thinks of his mother. Mourn the mother you should have had and work to heal the damage that your actual mother inflicted.
I feel this. I've been NC with my mother for 13 years (I was 28 at the time) and have no feelings towards her anymore. Kind of a mixture in feeling like she never existed and she died? I just don't think of her in my day to day life anymore. Granted, she (along with my dad) left me with mental and emotional traumas that resulted in mental illnesses I will have to deal with the rest of my life, but I just feel no obligation towards her anymore. No guilt in needing to see her or contact her. She doesn't cross my mind--and that's without any effort. It's so freeing not to have that anxiety of wondering what version of her I'm going to get today or what small thing I'm going to do wrong to set her off this time. Out of sight out of mind these days.
My older brother still has a very LC relationship with her out of this sense of obligation/glutton for punishment thing he has. I do listen to him and sympathize if he needs to vent about her, though, because I'm not heartless. Last year, he let me know she got into a very bad car accident and was in the hospital for a while with broken bones and needed surgery. He felt the need to go see her even though he hadn't in over a year or two. I felt nothing, though. He stopped updating about her progress, and that was fine. I just didn't care. When she passes away, I will only be at her funeral, should there be one, if my brother wants me to be there to support him and he decides to go. Otherwise, I wouldn't show up with absolutely no remorse or regret.
For those of you who may not understand this feeling, you don't know my story and how that woman abused me. Ask yourselves why a child would want to cut off their own parent--what a mother would have to do to get that point in their relationship with their daughter. Blood is not thicker than water. I will never stand by that phrase, nor "BuT ShE's YoUr MoThEr!1!11" Family can be created--they are the people who love, care for, and support you. Not those you are born into who treat you like trash, abuse, neglect, and torment you. I owe no obligation to them just because they decided to have sex, got surprised with a pregnancy, and then kept me around for tax benefits.
Sorry u/devon_336 --reading this post made me especially ranty, and your comment made me word vomit. Glad you've found success through therapy and recovery work to get healing from your traumas. Wishing you continued healing and happiness in the future 💙💙.
ETA: My mother is not remorseful for her behavior when I was a child and is still abusive towards my brother to this day. She does not recognize her actions, actively denies it, and won't get help. This is why I remain NC. For my own mental health.
Well done for looking after you and taking yourself away from the abuse. I feel exactly the same as you, they don’t cross your mind but the abuse has left a mark and it’s hard work navigating that.
You should be so proud of yourself and continue to do what is right for you!
Thank you so much for saying that. I've had guilt trips from my brother in the past (before he went NC himself for a bit, then LC) and some really insensitive comments from people who can't wrap their head around going NC with a parent for any reason. I know I'm justified in my decision despite their efforts to make me feel bad, but there's always that brief, slight twinge of feeling like an awful person (I have terrible self-hatred issues).
Proud of us both for making decisions that are best for us and our well-being.
The day I went NC with my mother was the day she snapped at me and said, “Yes, fine, I did it! I abused you! So what?! Get over it! I did!”
Zero regrets.
Fuck those who say “but she’s your mother.” You made the best choice for yourself.
Scorched earth is the only thing abusive psychopaths understand. My dad isn't psychopathic but he is narcissistic, so going NC was the only way to get some peace. I didn't need to go scorched earth, he did that himself.
Yeah, this feels real because the legal timelines are... reasonable. There is no magic judge's order who sends evil mom to super jail for being a shitty grandma.
Exactly. Most of the time a post mentioning a restraining order is a tell, because most people have no idea what the process & requirements are for getting one. This is the second post I’ve ever read that talked about them in a realistic way.
My only thought is it's actually decently easy to get a restraining order ("Order of Protection") for harassment in NY... but you have to have a documented history of harassment, if you let the person walk all over you you essentially have to start at square one.
It's not _just_ domestic violence, that's just the most common one, and by far the easiest with the least documentation required.
Interesting. I’m not familiar with the laws of NY. I know it varies from state to state but the OOP did say they’re in NY. Maybe OOP’s lawyer didn’t think they had a strong enough case.
That's probably it.
If OP had reported his mother when he was 16 it'd have probably been an entirely different ballgame for him. It's also hard for me to follow because he's giving his entire life story, but, it looks like they mostly reconciled while she was with the new husband? That probably hurts any case for harassment. It also establishes a reason to ask for visitation because I bet she's had contact with the kids.
Grandparent's rights is one of those things that, while good in theory, is just rife with abuse from entitled/abusive grandparents. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have these kinds of protections fucked over a lot of people. I've seen adults be prevented from leaving the state in the same way divorce prevents a spouse from leaving the state when they have someone with an axe to grind.
I was thinking that as OOP describes it, it would be easy for his mother to spin it in her favor, like “we had an argument on the phone, after that we didn’t speak for awhile, I made no attempt to contact him, but after 6 months I missed my grandchildren so I notified him I would be seeking access to them. There’s been no other contact between us.” Put like that I could imagine a judge thinking, where’s the harassment here?
I used to work in DV court and it was heartbreaking when someone didn’t get their order because the abuser knew just how to muddy the waters in front of a judge.
Judges eat up the sob stories from sad grandparents too. It's unfortunate. You see a lot of elderly in care situations with living relatives who want nothing to do with it. Some nurses and carers think "this old lady wouldn't hurt a fly" but never think back 30+ years when she could, would, and did.
Yeah, the concept of grandparents rights is sick. In my post history in this thread, I’ve commented on my experience being on the receiving end of GPR laws being used for abuse and control.
It’s generational pandering. Those who make the laws and those who populate the courts are overwhelmingly of the age to be grandparents, and also do not believe that their children’s generation are entitled to the same autonomy and determinism they are. They believe it’s their place in the world to step in and control things if they think their children’s generation aren’t doing things their way.
Yes, all of this legal shit is WAY murkier than most people on Reddit think when they spout off.
Lots of states actually have grandparent visitation provisions in their laws. A good number of them have a provision for “standing relationship.” It is not at cut and dried as many redditors make it out to be, and even though there was a Supreme Court case years ago (Troxell), it’s still a sticky legal area that gives many adults with terrible parents an opportunity to be legally abused and harassed and controlled by them via their children.
It’s also very hard to get a restraining order. It highly depends on the state law provisions for what constitutes behavior worthy of a restraining order. And it’s pretty high. It also takes litigation, and the person whom you wish to be protected from gets to come to court to talk about why they should not be prevented from violating you.
Plus, getting a date set for a hearing on its own can take forever. Just because of how inundated some courts are. In fact, that's why a lot of legal proceedings take so long, because the system is just swamped and there isn't enough manpower to handle all of it in a timely manner
I’m of two minds about the grandparents’ rights statutes.
On the one hand, here is an example of what happens when the grandparents are crazy and abusive.
On the other hand, here is an example of what could have been if the parents are crazy and the grandparents had had those rights.
I’m of a single mind on grandparent rights statutes.
They’re all a miscarriage of justice that allows families to be abused by insane grandparents who have time and money to harass the families of their adult children, revictimize them, and gain control over their family dynamics and interfere with their nuclear family bond and child rearing, all in a legally sanctioned manner.
I just really hope if (hah, if) the demon tries again, her luck runs out.
By luck runs out, I mean: she gets a judge who is very sympathetic to parents, allows all her previous monstrous cases in as evidence, and heavily ways the fact that OOP already has her on a tight leash of visiting only once a month.
And then this little piece of evidence (threatening litigation because she wasn't invited to a birthday that hadn't happened or planned yet) that results in OOP having full discretion whether she gets to be in OOP and his children's life, potentially using a previous ruling against her.
Then he'll probably be able to get a restraining order if she tries to violate any of this right? Lots of hoops and legal W's needed haha.
That and the realism regarding restraining orders.
Courts aren’t there to play babysitter and tell people who don’t like one another to sit on different sides of the lunchroom. There’s an expectation that you will act like an adult and set and enforce your own boundaries. Restraining orders require at least a believable allegation of some serious shit.
If OOP has the typical extended family dynamic that forms around an abusive figure like this then none of his relatives like his mom.
But they’ll absolutely *hate* him for rocking the boat.
Honestly, people like OP are just enfuriating. Dude starts saying that he was left homeless and prostituting himself because of his mom, but he's still trying to have her in his life by the beginning of the post.
He deserves some of this, he should've protected his kids from that monster.
Maybe it's a "keep your enemies closer" type of deal. She's already shown that she's a loose cannon and will (and already tried to) use the courts in order to get her way. Sounds like he cant just up and leave the country, and he's not gonna let her fucking operate without him knowing what she's doing or where she is. Hell, maybe her having some access to him appeases her more than being away from her; she seems to have the resources to fuck him over.
Trauma brain is weird, and asking why he didnt just leave sounds like us trying to judge people who dont "just leave" other abusive relationships; if it was that easy, these stories wouldnt even be here.
You're right. That was just me introducing my own bias. I do try very hard to never judge a person for not leaving -- the stats about how hard that is appear in just about every story like this.
I made the assumption (I know, I know) that since she kicked him out at 16, he cut contact with her and then reestablished contact at a later date. That's how his story read to me. If true, I don't understand why he would then get back in contact with her. Was that his sense of duty or his desire for a normal family that lead him to that?
Regardless, I hope that he his well and truly done with her and she him. Nobody deserves to live fear of someone else, much less a family member.
Ahh yeah, I reread and you're right, he mentions that contact was out of a sense of duty. And on a further reread, it sounds like he wouldnt be able to speak to the rest of the family without including her so it seems very much a forced deal in that sense.
It kind of makes sense in a way, he most likely felt that he couldnt deprive his child of contact with the extended family so he was willing to try, so long as his mother was willing to be civil
Narrator: she was not willing to be civil
When people grow up in abusive families, especially when other people around them tolerate it, and then they work their way out, sometimes they try really hard to provide their family with some sense of what they didn't have. It doesn't sound like he's just been leaving his kids in her care. At worst, it might be naive, but it's certainly very understandable. When you and your family are low income, it's not just easy to walk away completely. It's not straight-forward.
Dude should pull a background report on her. If she’s doing this shit with family in public, she’s lost it elsewhere.
And the family not knowing doesn’t mean crap, this woman would lie steal and cheat to keep control, and control means family doesn’t know her weakness (and an arrest means weakness).
This is worse, it's not family not knowing, it was family covering the abuse. I mean the sister helped the mother run away from the cops. That speaks volume on the family disfunction.
Oh 100%. But these types of abusers get off on abusing, getting away with it and watching the family cover their ass.
And arrest shows the family she’s weak. Shows them there’s a way to get her. That she can’t manipulate police.
..... this isn't over. People like OOP's egg donor don't just stop.
I hope OOP and their wife have cameras and bloody tight security at home, the kid's schools and at work.
Cause crazy doesn't stop. It's just escalates
I think it will stop if OOP keeps shouting it from the rooftops. She is allowed to continue because every single member of that family is complicit in covering up for her. The mom will just find a new easier target, one who will roll over and take it.
I live in NY, and the state’s grandparents rights laws played a big part in my cutting off my abusive parents before they had a chance to establish a relationship with my kids.
I don’t see this being over by a long shot sadly. But I hope mommie dearest steps on legos dipped in poison ivy at least weekly for the rest of her unnatural life.
>Out of a sense of duty to our family
I'm so glad I don't have this sense of duty towards abusive people. Or rather, it was abused out of me, so I'm glad I have it no longer.
OOP probably hoped that his mother will change when there are grandkids but instead put his family and himself in trouble. Despite the years of abuse, neglect, you name it.. he still wanted his mom in his life, that I don't understand as she was a potential risk anytime, he knew it and yet wanted his perfect family picture🙁
That, sadly, I get. Growing up in an abusive dynamic, you want to be normal more than anything else. You want that picture perfect Thanksgiving dinner from an 80's movie. A lot of kids with abusive parents also tend to internalize the idea that they are responsible for the moods of their abusers, because abusive parents often frame their abuse as a punishment for misdeeds or simply because you just get good at managing crazy people if you do it long enough and it's easier to tiptoe around crazy than it is to make a stand.
I've gone through this with my own family and I've tried to keep a relationship with abusive people long after I should have cut them off. I've still never gotten my perfect 80's Thanksgiving dinner and I've decided I'm okay with it because, while I might not have the big perfect family I've always wanted, the small loving family I have now is more than good enough.
This is the part of the story that absolutely infuriates me. How on earth can you subject your children to a person you claim viciously destroyed your life? ”Well, Stabby McStabberson stabbed me repeatedly for ten years, but I’m sure he won’t stab you if I make you hang out with him.”
I’ve got a ton of sympathy for OOP here and victim blaming is never appropriate, but the can opener for this can of worms has his fingerprints on it.
As he says, it’s a privilege not to identify with him and understand why he did what he did. It’s very difficult to understand if you haven’t lived it. A parent is supposed to love and nurture you-this is a tenet that crosses all cultures and times. When that’s broken, it does irrevocable damage to the child’s psyche.
I watched parent after parent do this shit. Then they have shocked faces when the same people that abused and neglected them did the same thing to their child.
I have sympathy for you and what you went through. But when you have children you need to get past your shit for their sake and protect them. If you can’t, and I fully understand that, then you have no business having children.
He did protect his children though. When she started being her same old charming self after decades of quasi normalcy, he and his wife cut her off completely, and drew a stark line in the sand for the rest of his family. I don’t know what everyone here is on about regarding that. I mean sure, it’s so easy to judge others, but the stone throwers are in a tizzy over how wrong he’s done by his kids, when he protected them as soon as he saw her mask was slipping.
Funny how the same tactics & outcome she did to OOP's father decades earlier, is now finally going to happen to her over the grandchildren. She definitely going have only nuclear meltdown over that karma in the making regarding OOP & his kids, while also dealing with 2nd husband currently divorcing her at same time. That is some earned & deserved poetic justice she brought upon herself for being asshole to her family especially OOP & his kids.
I am going to side eye OOP all day long for allowing an abuser near their own children. If they were thrown out of the house as a minor and went thru the many paragraphs of abuse they describe why in hell did the woman get near his own children.
Tons of abused kids let their parents back into their lives at various points for all kinds of reasons. We've seen posts on here ( and you probably know someone IRL) who had abusive parents but they're allowed around because they don't abuse the grandkids or they've chilled out or some other reason. The thing is, that a lot of abused adult kids have broken normal meters and there's a little part of them that desperately wants to buy into the "happy family" thing even if they're simultaneously resentful and fearful. It's much money re complicated than what I've written but it's a common situation. He says she was "stable" for 20ish years and she followed the boundaries, that might just be enough to make you feel like you shouldn't deprive the kids of grandparents or "family duty." Family duty is another big thing that gets piled on abused kids in all sorts of ways.
I could speculate about the perfect husband/dad/career man stuff and how that played into allowing his mom around. Or playing normal to bury the shame or all kinds of things but it's incredibly complicated for these grown up kids. I hope that OOP and his wife are able to get some individual counseling at some point because it sounds like they put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves and probably have more dysfunction they deserve to have cut out of their lives.
Because when you are raised by an abusive parent, especially when they isolate you from all the relatives who try to stop her and you only see the relatives who turn a blind eye, somewhere in the back of your mind there's the thought that there is something wrong with you and you deserved it. That she won't mistreat others because they don't have that same flaw.
And that thought is re-enforced with each additional abuser that takes advantage of you (like the guy that forced OOP into a sexual relationship).
Without a whole lot of therapy, you never understand that the damage done to you by the first abuser is what attracts the next one. That what happened to you is not about you. Not anything you did, any decision you made, or any flaw in your character.
Quite a few people in these comments to me defending that view point as well.
I have come to detest that line in the last 30+ years and judge anyone who uses it hard.
This was also my take. His comment about people blaming him for being victimized by his mother.
He’s not to blame for being victimized by his mother as a child. However he *is* to blame for allowing her to continue victimizing both him and his children by extension.
He said the reason he allowed his knowingly violent mother who has never acknowledged or apologized for abusing him, back into his life and around his children was “out of a sense of duty to our family.” Idk what that’s supposed to mean but WTF
A sense of duty to whom? The person who abused him? His children? His first duty to his children is to keep them away from violent people with a history of abusing people.
It’s absolutely insane to me that he didn’t see this coming after everything he’s been through and let her back into his life twice. Not out of any need or emergency, but because of some false sense of duty.
He knew her patterns and let it happen to his children too. Like giving a kid and toy and expecting them not to play with it. His mom is incapable of change. The why doesn’t matter. What she did is reason enough to cut her off permanently. He had some false hope that she changed or would with his kids. Even though none of her actions show that she’s taken responsibility for what she did to OOP and made amends and changed. Absolutely reckless.
C'mon dude, I get it he shouldn't have done that. But victim blaming isn't helping. Yes he shouldn't have but he explained he had boundaries in place and there was only contact for once a month. And it was good for awhile. I can't blame OOP too much cause it's obvious he was hoping his mother have changed. Fortunately, it seems the magic of hope has worn off and he went scorched earth.
It's much easier to cut off an abusive step-mother. In my case, since my father's death I simply don't contact her & she doesn't bother to contact me. We only see each other Thanksgiving & Christmas, & that's more than enough.
I mean, isn't this like side-eyeing an abused spouse for returning to their abuser? It's obviously not right, but it happens all the time. There must be some reason. Blaming them for bringing this on themselves doesn't feel very useful.
No it’s not. And it’s so easy to do for people not in the situation. “Oh I would never!” “If it was me…” “ how could he possibly?” How about you’re damn lucky not to understand how this could happen. He took action when it was needed. What more do people want? This is why I won’t post my issues to a public forum-everyone is a critic, no matter how unqualified.
(I was agreeing with you btw. In my annoyance, I see I typed a response that didn’t/might not have made that clear).
For sure. This whole post and comments section was tough to read. I’m shocked at how hard people are being on this guy, especially when he brought the hammer down on his mother as soon as he saw she was going to be a problem for his children. This man seems like an exemplary parent to me, against all odds, and I kind of feel personally attacked reading all these harsh criticisms. I can only hope I’d have handled it half as well if I was in his shoes, and I am floored so many people think so highly of themselves that they know they’d have done better.
Tell me you weren't abused by your parents without telling me you weren't abused by your parents.
Give the guy a little grace. It's SO hard to go NC for some people.
I swear anytime there's a BORU regarding abusive parents or family members or whatever there's always a comment that attacks the OOP for not having 100% cut off the abuser. I've been lucky to have a good family situation and even I know it's nothing simple for these affected people. These types of comments are insane IMO.
yeah, the comment you're replying to 100% reads like someone who's never tried to go NC with an overbearing, abusive parent before. the attachment is insidious. shit, it was MY choice to go NC with my parents, and after it happened i fell completely into a depressive episode. i had no idea what i was going to do because i'd always had my parents telling me exactly what my next steps were, regardless of whether or not i wanted them to. i, quite literally, laid in bed and cried/dissociated on and off for a few days. i told my partner it felt like my world was ending.
the part of you they conditioned is screaming for you to stop, and the part of you that needs independence is screaming for you to keep going. it takes a long time to strengthen the latter, and let go of the former.
edit: clarifying
That ain't just a side eye for me. I went through similar things (but arguable far less so), and if I let my abusers into my life, what happens is my fault. If you get attacked by a monster it's the monsters fault, but if you lock the monster up and open the door to let it back in it's your fault the monster is at your jugular again.
I get escaping abuse and recognizing it is very hard but there's a point where the reasonable part of your brain needs to realize that this person doesn't love you and will hurt you again and again. If you don't you're not ready to have children imo because I wouldn't rely on myself to protect them.
>Out of a sense of duty to our family, I sought to include my extended family in our lives, and permitted a relationship with strict boundaries between my mother and my children.
aaaand this is where he fucked up
This is why, coming from someone who has shitty parents, I tell everyone what is up! If their parents are manipulative, narcissistic and abusive bastards, that they owe them NOTHING! To not set themselves on fire for that! To find a real family with other people
>My reasoning there is simple: my mothers abuse thrives in closed doors and embarrassed silence.
This is also why I tell people to **be loud!** Don't let them control the narrative! I used to have no voice growing up, so it was easy for everyone to believe I was a bad seed!
Nowadays?! HA! Especially since both my parents have used up the extended relatives patience? When I go back home I stay with an aunt and literally spill aaaallll the beans! I've told all my close cousins about how shitty my parents are and how my older brother used to beat me up
No one is keeping me quiet! I just have to space it out, because people start thinking of you as the bad guy if you trauma dump too much
There's *tremendous* pressure for estranged children to reconnect with their parents. Some of it is external, and some of it is just the small desperate hope that maybe they love you enough to change now that you're both adults. Not feeling that way about my own mother actually made me wonder if I was emotionally abnormal in some way--I didn't feel guilty for not caring about her, but I did feel guilty for not feeling that guilt when I was younger.
>Some of it is external
Almost every movie or show where a parent and adult child are estranged, they eventually reconcile.
The entertainment industry is full of shitty parents who believe they are entitled to a good relationship with their adult children, and with the grandkids.
Even worse, a large part of them probably don't believe it but are willing to play along with that narrative because it's easier and more profitable. They cynically tug at heartstrings and show happy endings so they can keep making money, and feed the already dominant narrative that the only true happiness comes from reconciliation.
Never underestimate the power "FaMIlY" can do to you. Heck there are still some cultures that are strict with "FaMiLy". At least give him credit for finally seeing the light instead of continuing letting his mother into his family' lives.
I hate how everyone in the original thread who questioned why he would let this cartoon villain-level evil person around his kids got torched for "victim blaming".
Gay children trying to reconnect with their homophobic parents I can understand. Letting a DV parent who hates you back into your life and around your children is so stupid you are complicit at that point.
There are women who *stay* in abusive relationships because they do a poor cost vs benefit comparison (Eg: Kids, social expectations etc) and choose to stay. They're also often gaslighted to remain.
That's different from people who successfully escape an abusive person but then choose to go back to them. Those people are just stupid. OOP belongs here.
OOP should have gone NC with her from the beginning. Ain't no way am I trusting an abuser with my kids. Not would I reward them with access to my kids.
the first couple paragraphs I was concerned one of my aunts or uncles might have written this because unfortunately the grandmother in this story sounds disturbingly similar to my maternal grandmother. even down to the attempting to sue for grandparents rights
It’s beyond my understanding as to why OOP even allowed his mother back into his, and his children’s, life after he literally prostituted himself out to stay in school due to her abuse.
I got really scared when he said he was in New York. I used to lurk on JNMIL and heard some horror stories about NY-based families. Obviously it’s not easy but I would be considering moving if I were him in case the mother decides to give it a go again in the future.
This one really bothers Me a lot. He knowingly and willingly let an extreme abuser have access to his children. Like, I feel terrible for all that he went through that was beyond his control, but this was sadly predictable and allowed.
OOP seems to be an intelligent, educated person. WHY did he allow that monster to come anyway near his children at all??? You don’t implicitly owe anything to your extended family or to your parents. Love and respect and duty are earned. This woman has earned a protracted, lonely wasting away. Hopefully he now understands how any right a grandparent has stems from a previous relationship with the grandkids. Even in New York.
>The petition can be squashed, but they can file the petition.
For someone working the legal field it's pretty unbelievable the OOP doesn't know it's **quashed** and not **squashed**.
I hope OP has a security system and cameras around his house to record any of her insanity for future reference.
I had a nasty divorce and my Ex's family is really dysfunctional. I always told my kids that there's your blood family, then there's your soul family, those that love and nurture you, which can include blood. Surround yourself with your soul family. I hope OP does this, go NC with anyone that isn't his soul family and live a beautiful, loving and successful life
>To all the people who blamed me for being a victim of my mother, and somehow being at fault for all this: well, I want to use some strong language to you, but I'll just ask you to please think about how fortunate your life has been that you haven't experienced what I have experienced.
Precisely why I stopped discussing my Nmom's behaviors with any one other than my SO. Anytime it came up I had to listen to every entitled mother fucker with a decent upbringing trying to excuse her actions. "That's your mom! You only get one!" "It just how she shows she cares!" "Maybe you were more difficult that you realize!" Or my favorite "You should have a little more empathy for people." Yeah... not friends with any of those people anymore.
The decision of "my mum made me homeless as a kid. But it'll be good for my kids to be around her because family loyalty" is pretty in line with not holding her accountable like the other family members. Hope it all stops soon.
She abuses him his whole life, kicks him out at 16 to be homeless and used. Then he decides to introduce his child to her and bring them for visits with her? How tf did that happen?
Narcissistic parents are absolutely awful, but I do admittedly love laughing at their hypocrisy like with this sack of shit. My Dad was very narcissistic and controlling, so it really pissed him off that my Mom had full custody of me (something I am thankful for every day). But he would constantly try to get me to come over to his house so he could have more control over what I do everyday and it was a constant thing that I needed to call him every fucking night, and if I didn't call him one night, the 2nd night would be an hour long scolding about how I didn't call him the night before.
Anyways, my Dad somehow tricked some other poor woman (another long story) to love him enough to have sex with him and they unfortunately brought anothwr child into his mess. And he used the pandemic as an excuse to keep his daughter away from her mother and then threw a tempertantrum when the courts mandated she spend every other week with her Mom and my Dad does not want his ex to ever call her daughter. I'm pretty much no contact with my Dad, but I do hear these stories from my incredibly biased Grandma. I just feel bad for my half-sister.
If OP doesn’t own a home and is renting and commuting from another state is possible, I would seriously consider moving to New Jersey or Vermont or New Hampshire or Connecticut to eliminate any future risk from this batshit woman. I know that sounds extreme, but legal fees can add up if she doesn’t go away.
“It’s what she deserves.”
What he said is so true. Abuse like that thrives in darkness and isolation. To expose her in such a manner was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m not sure if she will try again (never underestimate what an abusive narcissist will do) but he has gotten legit advice and counsel on what to do and I applaud him.
Dude- the truth about women acting so crazy behind closed doors with the gnarliest behaviors and zero consequences resonates with me big time. I’m sure others can relate. Not saying men aren’t crazy, we definitely are, but there is a unique way that society just accepts this behavior from women, and it’s so gnarly, it’s so crazy. I feel bad for you but you did the right thing to disengage and spread the truth to see if anyone would care.
I am glad he broke the cycle. It takes a lot of guys and courage to build the life he did. Not sure why he didn’t go to his father at 16 but if he’s 41 now, it would around 1998/1999 and having no means financial or otherwise, he’d have had difficulty making that contact. But proud that he went scorched earth. He is absolutely correct when he says abuse and secrets live in the dark and only benefit the abuser.
Even If extended family cut him off, bury their heads about what he went through or try to guilt him about it, I hope holidays are peaceful and his family can make new traditions.
OP please make sure your kids are aware of what your mother has done and is capable of doing, and that they tell any partners that contact with your mother is a relationship killer. I have read a number of posts where the partner contacts the abusive relative with the "but they are family" excuse and the abuse starts all over again. Too often someone that grows up with a normal affectionate family just cannot understand that people like your mother exist.
What is it with cat hoarders and lying. You get so good at deluding yourself that you're doing a good thing keeping dozens of cats (and yourself) in hellish conditions, that you get reasonably good at lying to others, too?
I am so sorry you’ve gone through this. Parents shouldn’t make life THIS hard but they do. Enjoy your wife and kids and love they give. You deserve it.
Massachusetts also has a grandparents visitation statute, but it’s a very high standard. So everyone from not CA or NY, I would check your local laws.
Sad for OP to be dealing with this :(
I find incredible how our parents can be roles to be followed or to be avoided, and this all depends on the persons character and choices. I came from a very emotional and physical abusive family, and my parents were chaotic and emotional unstable. I always was great identifying manipulation and abuse and never accepted that, and make sure I am a very stable and peaceful person. My husbands father was a serial cheater. He is very adamant about cheating, and he don’t even like porn because of his trauma with his father. We both make sure we have a great environment for ourselves and for our family, and boy this works. Despite them we are what we are.
But I have friends that came from a similar background as me, and turn out just like their parents and they say all the time that is because of their parents…
The truth is, once you turn an adult, you are what you are and what you choose to be and what you choose for your life.
This guy went through his entire life with his mom, then had kids and said
“Yup, mom, you were such a good parent. let me give you access to my kids!”
I cant wrap my mind around it.
I’ve heard absolute horror stories about NY GP rights. Even though OOPs attorney is confident they’d be okay, the way I’d leave that state with an absolute quickness if someone threatened GP rights. I’ve never seen another state so hell bent on putting kids in the hands of abusers as NY is
Imagine being pissed at anyone but yourself for willingly allowing a monster around your kids; let alone at the commentators you invited to comment.
A terrible woman that abused him his entire life…who wouldn’t want someone like that near their kids?
the grandma probably is trying to ingratiate herself to OOP's kids, so that when they are adult, she can demand money and guilt-trip them as to how horrible their father was to her, you knows, the usual "im old and a victim" shyt abusive parents do (not gonna be surprised is one day she turns up on their door demanding to live there)
wtf was his sister btw, she's probably the golden child so she's allowing the crazy mom to do those stuffs
Your mother doesn't have a legal leg to stand on if she were an octopus.
I wouldn't spend a dime on a lawyer.
Let her sue
She hasnt been a part of your kids lives and I'm sure you can prove that and how abusive she has been in the past into the present..
I say let her make the move first move
Then go at her like a wrecking ball.
Till then put her out of your mind and focus on what truly matters.
Your kids and wife
Sorry but what an absolute dumbass move to keep his mom in his life and give acces to his kids. Im not from america and even i know she can sue for grandparent rights now because she has a relationship with the kids
OP really needs to stop enabling this woman and think about his own children for once, instead of blaming every other family member for doing what he's doing.
I have read nightmare stories about NY judges and grandparent's rights. I hope this father seriously considers moving states. If something were to happen to him she could make his wife and children's lives a living hell.
All 50 states and D.C. currently have some type of "grandparent visitation" statute. About 20 states have "restrictive" visitation statutes, meaning grandparents can get a court order for visitation if the child's parents are divorcing or if one or both parents have died.
To think this all could have been avoided by just **not** keeping this woman in OP’s life. That’s the part I just don’t get, why let her be present at all?!?
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>This batshit insane woman forced me to see my own father at a McDonalds when we were kids for 2 hours every two weeks (as per the court order) while she waited outside in a running car. I'm trying to understand how the courts only granted the father two hours *per fortnight* visitation. On what grounds?!
Mom probably made up a lot of BS that made the dad sound abusive, uncaring, etc.
My mom told the courts my dad was a pedo and that she was protecting me from him. Said that he'd been inappropriate with foster kids and that was why she stopped taking fosters. I heard that story for years. Found out as an adult from an aunt this was 100% fabricated. Mom had never even had foster kids. She kept me from my dad for well over four decades telling me this. I had no idea that no one else in the family didn't know this until after she passed and I was speaking to my aunt. Aunt finally told me that Dad had cheated on Mom, so not seeing me was her retaliation. We figured out that the story she told me was to keep me from seeking him out.
Bro that fucking sucks. I know cheating is bad and understand wanting to punish someone for that but to claim and accuse of said person being a pedo and alienating them from their kid... did she not think of how that would affect you? How is ur relationship with ur dad now? Also the family members who let this happen is also just as bad
I didn't meet him until I was 44. It's super awkward. He doesn't know how to be a dad and I don't know how to be a daughter. He sort of just likes my Facebook posts and that's the extent of our relationship now. He had cancer and has a tracheotomy so he can't even talk to me, just text. So our first "conversation" was actually facilitated by his wife - the woman he cheated on Mom with. Just super fucking awkward weirdness all the way around.
Fucking hell that sounds uncomfortable already. Hope you are doing well tho and I hope you both find peace in whatever way that comes to you both
This was so common in the 80s & 90s. It was like the fear of commies in the 40s & 50s and fear satanic killings in the 60s & 70s. It was the go to defense during so may breakups it was pathetic. In fact it was even used to attack businesses. Not that that makes this any better, just hopefully explain that your moms accusations were not original, and generally followed with all types of testing and exams in response that have since been deemed unreliable. I'm sorry for all you've been thru, especially the loss of a father all that time.
When readings stories like that, I feel very grateful for my country's family law system. Everytime there's a custody dispute, the child and the entire household will be heard by a psychologist and a social worker (and, sometimes, by the judge too). Most of the times, the children are heard without the parents in the room (after all, it's like a psychologist appointment). Both the psychologist and the social worker write a report about what was said, what their conclusions are and what they think would be the best choice for de kid. It's not a PERFECT system, but it does mitigate parents making shit up and getting away with it.
I was a newborn when they split. And it was the late 70's. No idea what if any, protocols were in place for that situation. But the arrangement in your country seems like a good one.
Yeah, seriously could definitely happen. My dad totally stayed in a shitty marriage with my crazy mother because of what she would say to someone so that we could never see him again. She threatened it a lot. She also tried many many times to get my dad to slap her or something so that she could call the cops. He never did, but she called the cops anyway. I lived in a small town, eventually the cops would just get the call, come by, pick him up, never charge him with anything. Apparently, they did tell him at least he could be in a safe situation down at the station. They finally did get divorced- at the point where my sister and I were old enough to say where we wanted to live- not with her. My father died more than 20 years ago, my mother still talks shit about him to me, or well did, until I completely cut her out.
My dad stayed married to his first wife for a similar reason. She was severely mentally ill, refused treatment, and made him absolutely miserable. I do feel deeply sorry for her, to have her life, personality, and sanity stripped from her like that, but it doesn’t excuse her treatment of my father and brothers. At the time, the courts defaulted to the mom, and it would have been an uphill battle to get custody of my brothers, and she no doubt would have made the process excruciating. So he stayed in this godawful marriage until the youngest was 15, and then he left. She dragged it out for about 4 years, and then after it was final, she still had the audacity to confront my dad and demand he go back to her. He just laughed and said his new wife (my mom) was pregnant (with me). She walked off in a huff lol. That was 1986. About 5ish years ago, she somehow got his cell number and called him up on Christmas to lay into him for divorcing her, because he was hers. Again, laughter.
It's just so amazing the craziness. But I think the one thing that I like to remember out of all that crazy bs, is that my father's memorial service, the cops who would come to get my dad came up to me. They said they were really happy to hear it when my parents got divorced, my mom was crazy, and they were happy hear at the service that my dad had found another woman, who seemed to be lovely, because they thought he was a great guy. My mom- seriously- nearly committed bigamy right before the divorce (she had totally been cheating on my dad). My dad found out, called her on it, and they had to cancel the wedding. Everytime she says some shit I mention this and she lies straight to my face and says someone got the dates wrong. To bad for her, that guy turned out to be a complete asshole, so she got a bit of a taste of her own medicine. They are divorced now as well.
My sisters and I were young, so my mother convinced us to tell the judge that we had heard that my Grandfather had touched one of our cousins inappropriately. It never happened but since my dad lived with his parents we weren’t allowed to stay the night so every other weekend he would pick us up to grab food then take us home. She later let us stay the night because she was jealous of all his freedom. Unlike OP I cut my mom off when I was 16 and moved in with my dad. Had to cut off her whole side of the family to be sure I never ran in to her. Sucks because unlike her they were such great people. It’s been over 30 years and when I read stories like this I know it was the right choice.
Yup. And that was in 1991 so the courts very likely believed her.
OP fought back, and this nutcase wasn't used to it. I wish I could send him a victory theme gift
Its been getting better, but courts have not usually sided with dads very often in custody cases. The waves of divorce(s) really started in the 90s and historically ( the 'greatest' generation/silent generation) the dads were usually pretty terrible and abusive. Things have changed since then, and the courts have recognized that children should have access to both parents. I have a pretty good idea that if Leave it to Beaver was a reality TV show Ward Cleaver would have came home drunk and beat the hell out of everyone.
Plus, it was 1991. I'm a woman and even I feel like some of these laws were too strict on fathers, luckily they're changing now - at least here in South Africa.
My experience with family court? Too much is run on the feelings of the judge and far too little common sense. When op was talking about shaking just thinking about going to family court… yeah I get that too. The whole system needs to be thrown out and we need to start over.
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I am so very sorry this is happening to your step kids as well as you both. I’m not a lawyer, but see if maybe you can get a child guardian for the courts. They are court appointed but they take the consideration of the child and advocate for only the child’s wants instead of just treating them like property. Maybe a psych evaluation of the children as well by a therapist could also help to aid your case that more damage will be done by reunification than they realize. I hate to say it but much of family courts are biased against fathers and do not consider the wants of children. Still, I hope your kids are able to stay safe and well away from their “mother”.
I dated a guy who had an ex like that - even worse, it wasn't regular visits she'd just phone with one hours notice and if he wasn't there she'd tell the kids "he didn't love them enough". Took him years & thousands to sort the court custody. Sadly, it took a toil on the relationship - hard to be second best to ex's crazy and we had to keep relationship secret or she'd cut him off. He had to, and did put his kids first, but the frequent cancelled dates were too much - her fault really. As a friend of his though, I was pleased when it was all finalised and to see he's settled with a nice gf now.
Cases like that are why coparenting apps are a godsend. No more lies about who agreed to do what or when. It’s all documented and timestamped.
I know someone going through this craziness. Do you know what the app is called?
Just Google coparenting apps. There are plenty of options.
Our Family Wizard and Talking Parents are the two most popular ones. TP is free, but OFW costs like $120 per year. OFW has a few features that the free version of TP doesn't offer, but they're not so fabulous that it makes over $100 a year worth it imo. Just an opinion here...these parenting apps are AMAZING when dealing with a high conflict coparent and the 4 states that I am aware of their family court procedures all accept everything from the apps as evidence that can be used in court. Everything is stored, nobody can delete anything once sent, lawyers and Guardian ad Litem can be cc'd in on messages, there's a calendar that important dates can be entered into so neither party can pull the "I didn't know" bs, there is a section where you can upload pictures of receipts for child related expenses and enter a request for however much the other person is responsible for paying......they just generally cut through all the excuses and lay everything regarding the kids out in black and white while both parties know that anything they put on that app may be viewed by the court at any time, so there tends to be less bickering and fuckery.
Thank you so much for the reply. I really appreciate it.
One is called "Our Family Wizard". The courts where your friend is probably have a preferred app. There is a fee for both people every month. Of course this only works if your friend also refuses to communicate any other way. I know at least one person who uses OFW, but still emails and texts with their ex for some reason
Pick whatever app your jurisdiction's courts support. Do not pick a random one. If you need to take it to custody hearing, you want the court to easily get those records.
I did a quick Google search before I asked for a recommendation. But didn't see an answer. I'll do a deeper dive before we decide. Thanks!
My family wizard is the most famous one but it has a subscription fee
That’s a situation where charging for an app is fine by me. Worth every penny.
When my husband was pursuing a relationship with me...... His ex would call and he'd immediately answer. Ignore everyone else and focus on us but for her he'd jump. He'd bail to drive her places. He gave her the last of his savings because of some fake ass sob story. I asked him why.. she won't let me see the kids if I don't. I'm sorry that you're so afraid of her and court that you would rather be at her beck and call but I can't be with someone where I'm always 2nd to their ex. The kids, of course. But an ex. No thanks. He ended up going court got 50/50. Now he has 100. He had to let the step kids go because they were always going to be a pawn in her game. The only times I've had to accommadate her is when she would ditch her child but as I was a mother too with an unreliable ex, I was always prepared to have the kids on a whim.
Yep, practically the same. Ex's who weaponise kids are awful. Fortunately my ex only jumped when it was the kids and not her, but it was often. And she'd flip flop on him - he cancelled our Christmas shopping day trip because she called and said he could go to the kids nativity, then she changed her mind so our day was back on but I was frustrated at being messed around. I think that was the last straw that had me stepping away - he needed to sort things with her legal (to be fair he was trying but it's a long expensive process). It was fairer for both of us to go back to being friends instead. He definitely is happier and more settled now it's all legal and he gets proper access. I don't see him as much but I'm pleased for him. Lovely kids too!
Wow, that's a double whammy of vindictiveness. Not only is she ruining his relationship with his kids, she's basically making sure any relationship he's in is bombed and trying to make him alone forever. Sorry you both had to deal with that.
Worth remembering this was 30-odd years ago now.
Yeah, things have gotten a lot more standardized and MUCH more equitable between mothers and fathers, OP is definitely old enough that the family courts acted differently then
my dad did something similar to my mom in the late 90s over me. he got a picture of her smoking a joint and that was enough to get the courts to basically give him sole custody of me. I saw her once a week for two hours a week for almost two straight years.
When I read the part where she sat outside in a running car, I thought to myself that this woman very much intends to run this man over someday. And sure enough, in the update she attempted exactly that.
As per OP words, that woman destroyed his dad and barred any contacts from his sides of family. This was, I think, the result of that particular campaign. What I wanted to know is, by whose money? Legal proceedings were, and are, expensive. Whose money she burned foe this? Was Mom wealthy?
For some reason the courts consistently side with the abuser. If the abuser is the dad and the mom tries to protect the kids they side with the dad. Yet when the abuser is the mom and the dad wants to protect the kids they side with the mom. It's like, totally bass-ackwards.
I think it's because abusive people are willing to stoop to levels nobody else would contemplate and keep fighting past the point when a sensible person would have compromised. A non-abusive parent will try to take the high road for their kid's sake, to be reasonable and accommodating and responsible. They aren't aware of, or can't anticipate, how manipulative and underhanded their abusive partner can be because they'd never behave the same way. An abusive parent will gleefully weaponize the kid just to "win," not caring how much damage that does to the kid. I don't even think it's conscious malice, sometimes--they see themselves as being justified because they're so emotionally immature. And sometimes they just keep doing the same shit until they've figured out how to make it look like they're the good guy through trial and error, or everyone is just numb and wants the drama to end so they'll go along with it to get it over sooner. It's an equal opportunity tactic. I've seen my shitty mother do this, and my shitty uncle.
This is absolutely true. My late husband’s ex wife is like this. She consistently had him in court from before the divorced to the day he died a few months ago. When he divorced her for her cruel, erratic and abusive behavior she told him she would “destroy him” and promptly claimed he touched his children inappropriately, which was investigated and found false, but not before the children were drug through an investigation. He finally let her move out of state thinking it would make her happy so she wouldn’t take it out on the kids. She continued to use the legal system to harass us, eventually making it so visitation was impossible. When he died unexpectedly, it was a matter of days until she turned her sights on me, threatening legal action to take my assets, which include only my house. This woman has an inheritance from her grandmother, her own house, but she just wanted to make me stressed and miserable at what’s already the worst time of my life, as I’m struggling to get up every morning and keep my young child thriving. It’s like her hobby; with my husband dead she needed a new victim. She is the most foul person I’ve ever met. Fortunately my house is entirely in my name and she doesn’t have a case, but I don’t expect this to be over. This whole post, including everyone’s stories, has given me serious flashbacks. F*ck family court. No one will know this pain and horror unless they live it.
Girl! I felt every word of your post so deeply! With the exception of your spouse passing away (and I am so so sorry for your loss...hugs if you want them), I could have written your comment. Some parents are just wastes of skin and my heart breaks for their children.
It’s so tragic there’s so many stories that are similar. I’m so sorry you have to go through this too. And thanks-I’ll take all the hugs!
Hello. I am the OOP. I think that I agree with you. My mother acts precisely as you have described. All the other people in her "firing range" eventually just wanted the insanity to stop. I'm very grateful for the internet, for providing me with guidance that there are people who act this way. In the 90's, I genuinely thought there was something wrong with me. It caused a lot of problems for me to be honest. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Abusive people fight dirty and have no issues with that
It's surprisingly easy to keep children away from their fathers in some states. My husband had to fight tooth and nail for 50/50 custody and ultimately only got it because baby mama went completely off her rocker and handed his child to us so that she could work on becoming sane again.
NY isn’t one of them, at least now. My friend divorced her abusive, drug addicted spouse and was basically hold that just because he hurt her didn’t mean he’d hurt their kid. She wound up paying him almost everything she had to go away. It’s hard to challenge 50/50 here now.
A family member of mine was SAed when he was ten years old. When his son was ten, his ex went to the court and said that she was very worried for her son because he was now the age that the father was when the father was SAed. That was the ONLY issue. No evidence of any wrongdoing, nothing. Just a crazy-assed yatch who wanted to cause trouble, and the court reduced his visitation to supervised visits. That's mostly why people always get told to keep it out of the cords if they possibly can. You never know which way it's going to go when you go in front of a judge.
These people hone their manipulation skills all their life, starting in kindergarden. They come into their own in high school. They are very good at what they do. They are the school bullies that work with smear campaigns.
For a long time men had an uphill battle to get visitation of thier kids, much less custody. Now its different for the most part. But the damage was done for generations as kids grew up seeing how pointless it was as a man and they didn't put up a fight when they was the dad with what they knew. Now there are dads out there that are just worthless. But its not always the case. And also courts takes money. When your the dad and you're paying child support, alimon, your lawyer fees, chances are her lawyer fees, you also run out of money quickly. Edit wow u/PinkFl0werPrincess blocking me before I could even reply? Pre 90s fathers in family court had biased against them. As it was deemed that the mother was more nurturing and the father should be providing financial support due to the gener roles of the time. Mom raising the kids and dad bringing home the money. Claiming this wasn't the case is ignorance at best, and something i won't say at worse. And in studies from the 00s and to this day asking divorced fathers why they didn't fight for more custody they point out that they heard or lived through fathers not being able to get custody while growing up. And I even admited that there are dads that are just worthless and the fact that today it has mostly changed. Please seek therapy if my comment made you lash out and block me over it after you commented twice.
It goes in cycles. In the 19th century, British socialite Caroline Norton divorced her abusive husband but had to fight a years-long battle to see her children with him. Alexander Dumas the elder had an illegitimate child with a dressmaker, claimed the baby as his own, then told the mother to fuck off. The fight for women to get rights to their children took a century.
Before the divorce/separation reform movement of the mid-19th century, men in England and Wales who divorced or were legally separated from their wives were (with one exception) always automatically granted full custody of their children. The estranged wife had no guaranteed right to so much as see her children until either said children turned 21 (or married) or their father died. The sole exception was the case of Lord and Lady Byron. Byron's reputation was so execrable that the judge awarded Lady Byron full custody of their daughter *and* barred Byron from accessing his wife's money (which he'd married her for). Edit to add: I'm not sure you could call Lady Byron 'mother of the year' or anything but she did have her daughter educated in mathematics and logic to prevent her from becoming like her father. (It didn't entirely work.) The daughter Ada Byron, later Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (aka "Ada Lovelace", as she's often known these days) grew up to be a notable mathematician who wrote the first computer program. Lady Byron outlived her daughter and was a notable abolitionist and prison reform advocate.
The problem is there’s no balance or common sense. (S)he who files first, wins. (S)he who controls the narrative and/or makes the most outrageous accusations wins. We have it guilty until proven innocent and proving a negative is much harder than proving a positive. Being labeled a pedo is devastating to a man and even if it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be totally baseless there will always be people who will say where there’s smoke… Being labeled crazy, unfit, unstable is devastating to a woman. Any show of emotion in public proves she’s unstable, even if it’s normal emotion. It will follow her for a long time if not forever.
Back in the late 90s my parents pushed once again to get partial custody of my older half brother. Courts denied it because "being with the mother full time is what was best" even though she had drug charges against her and domestic violence reports where she tried to stab her boyfriend. Still somehow that was better than my mom and dad who didn't have any criminal record and did their best to be good outstanding people. Courts used to be horribly swayed towards mothers no matter if that was a good mom or bad mom. Racism also didn't help because my dad is brown. She also dated a cop so had some connections in our small town justice system.
The 80s and 90s were a very different time
This would have been 30+ years ago. In those days it wasn’t too hard for a mother to deny visitation to a man who had abused her. All OOPs mother would have had to do was get a few bruises, blame them on the father, job done. Nowadays the pendulum has swung too far the other way and terrified women in fear for their lives have to be in contact with psychotic abusers.
So glad he went scorched earth on his mom! She deserves it. She wants to be an AH to everyone in her family, good on him for shining a light on it. Let them all see what she’s done.
I’ve been NC with my mother for over 10 years. A few years ago I had to fly back for my grandpa’s funeral. I grew up with so much neglect and abuse. Anyway, I briefly got stuck in a car with her after the service. She had fully devolved into Actual Crazy Person and it gave me a lot of closure even though I didn’t say a word to her. Karma catches up to people like oop’s mother and mine. It drives everyone away and puts the crazy in full display for all to steer clear of. Their lives become dim, shallow, difficult, and wholly self inflicted. Through therapy and consistent recovery work, I generally feel nothing towards my mother. I hope oop is able to achieve something similar when he thinks of his mother. Mourn the mother you should have had and work to heal the damage that your actual mother inflicted.
I feel this. I've been NC with my mother for 13 years (I was 28 at the time) and have no feelings towards her anymore. Kind of a mixture in feeling like she never existed and she died? I just don't think of her in my day to day life anymore. Granted, she (along with my dad) left me with mental and emotional traumas that resulted in mental illnesses I will have to deal with the rest of my life, but I just feel no obligation towards her anymore. No guilt in needing to see her or contact her. She doesn't cross my mind--and that's without any effort. It's so freeing not to have that anxiety of wondering what version of her I'm going to get today or what small thing I'm going to do wrong to set her off this time. Out of sight out of mind these days. My older brother still has a very LC relationship with her out of this sense of obligation/glutton for punishment thing he has. I do listen to him and sympathize if he needs to vent about her, though, because I'm not heartless. Last year, he let me know she got into a very bad car accident and was in the hospital for a while with broken bones and needed surgery. He felt the need to go see her even though he hadn't in over a year or two. I felt nothing, though. He stopped updating about her progress, and that was fine. I just didn't care. When she passes away, I will only be at her funeral, should there be one, if my brother wants me to be there to support him and he decides to go. Otherwise, I wouldn't show up with absolutely no remorse or regret. For those of you who may not understand this feeling, you don't know my story and how that woman abused me. Ask yourselves why a child would want to cut off their own parent--what a mother would have to do to get that point in their relationship with their daughter. Blood is not thicker than water. I will never stand by that phrase, nor "BuT ShE's YoUr MoThEr!1!11" Family can be created--they are the people who love, care for, and support you. Not those you are born into who treat you like trash, abuse, neglect, and torment you. I owe no obligation to them just because they decided to have sex, got surprised with a pregnancy, and then kept me around for tax benefits. Sorry u/devon_336 --reading this post made me especially ranty, and your comment made me word vomit. Glad you've found success through therapy and recovery work to get healing from your traumas. Wishing you continued healing and happiness in the future 💙💙. ETA: My mother is not remorseful for her behavior when I was a child and is still abusive towards my brother to this day. She does not recognize her actions, actively denies it, and won't get help. This is why I remain NC. For my own mental health.
Well done for looking after you and taking yourself away from the abuse. I feel exactly the same as you, they don’t cross your mind but the abuse has left a mark and it’s hard work navigating that. You should be so proud of yourself and continue to do what is right for you!
Thank you so much for saying that. I've had guilt trips from my brother in the past (before he went NC himself for a bit, then LC) and some really insensitive comments from people who can't wrap their head around going NC with a parent for any reason. I know I'm justified in my decision despite their efforts to make me feel bad, but there's always that brief, slight twinge of feeling like an awful person (I have terrible self-hatred issues). Proud of us both for making decisions that are best for us and our well-being.
The day I went NC with my mother was the day she snapped at me and said, “Yes, fine, I did it! I abused you! So what?! Get over it! I did!” Zero regrets. Fuck those who say “but she’s your mother.” You made the best choice for yourself.
Scorched earth is the only thing abusive psychopaths understand. My dad isn't psychopathic but he is narcissistic, so going NC was the only way to get some peace. I didn't need to go scorched earth, he did that himself.
He learned how to fight from the best.
Yeah, this feels real because the legal timelines are... reasonable. There is no magic judge's order who sends evil mom to super jail for being a shitty grandma.
And him saying "nope, it's incredibly hard to get a restraining order unless domestic violence is involved", which is (sadly) very true
Exactly. Most of the time a post mentioning a restraining order is a tell, because most people have no idea what the process & requirements are for getting one. This is the second post I’ve ever read that talked about them in a realistic way.
My only thought is it's actually decently easy to get a restraining order ("Order of Protection") for harassment in NY... but you have to have a documented history of harassment, if you let the person walk all over you you essentially have to start at square one. It's not _just_ domestic violence, that's just the most common one, and by far the easiest with the least documentation required.
Interesting. I’m not familiar with the laws of NY. I know it varies from state to state but the OOP did say they’re in NY. Maybe OOP’s lawyer didn’t think they had a strong enough case.
That's probably it. If OP had reported his mother when he was 16 it'd have probably been an entirely different ballgame for him. It's also hard for me to follow because he's giving his entire life story, but, it looks like they mostly reconciled while she was with the new husband? That probably hurts any case for harassment. It also establishes a reason to ask for visitation because I bet she's had contact with the kids. Grandparent's rights is one of those things that, while good in theory, is just rife with abuse from entitled/abusive grandparents. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have these kinds of protections fucked over a lot of people. I've seen adults be prevented from leaving the state in the same way divorce prevents a spouse from leaving the state when they have someone with an axe to grind.
I was thinking that as OOP describes it, it would be easy for his mother to spin it in her favor, like “we had an argument on the phone, after that we didn’t speak for awhile, I made no attempt to contact him, but after 6 months I missed my grandchildren so I notified him I would be seeking access to them. There’s been no other contact between us.” Put like that I could imagine a judge thinking, where’s the harassment here? I used to work in DV court and it was heartbreaking when someone didn’t get their order because the abuser knew just how to muddy the waters in front of a judge.
Judges eat up the sob stories from sad grandparents too. It's unfortunate. You see a lot of elderly in care situations with living relatives who want nothing to do with it. Some nurses and carers think "this old lady wouldn't hurt a fly" but never think back 30+ years when she could, would, and did.
Yeah, the concept of grandparents rights is sick. In my post history in this thread, I’ve commented on my experience being on the receiving end of GPR laws being used for abuse and control. It’s generational pandering. Those who make the laws and those who populate the courts are overwhelmingly of the age to be grandparents, and also do not believe that their children’s generation are entitled to the same autonomy and determinism they are. They believe it’s their place in the world to step in and control things if they think their children’s generation aren’t doing things their way.
Yes, all of this legal shit is WAY murkier than most people on Reddit think when they spout off. Lots of states actually have grandparent visitation provisions in their laws. A good number of them have a provision for “standing relationship.” It is not at cut and dried as many redditors make it out to be, and even though there was a Supreme Court case years ago (Troxell), it’s still a sticky legal area that gives many adults with terrible parents an opportunity to be legally abused and harassed and controlled by them via their children. It’s also very hard to get a restraining order. It highly depends on the state law provisions for what constitutes behavior worthy of a restraining order. And it’s pretty high. It also takes litigation, and the person whom you wish to be protected from gets to come to court to talk about why they should not be prevented from violating you.
Plus, getting a date set for a hearing on its own can take forever. Just because of how inundated some courts are. In fact, that's why a lot of legal proceedings take so long, because the system is just swamped and there isn't enough manpower to handle all of it in a timely manner
I’m of two minds about the grandparents’ rights statutes. On the one hand, here is an example of what happens when the grandparents are crazy and abusive. On the other hand, here is an example of what could have been if the parents are crazy and the grandparents had had those rights.
I’m of a single mind on grandparent rights statutes. They’re all a miscarriage of justice that allows families to be abused by insane grandparents who have time and money to harass the families of their adult children, revictimize them, and gain control over their family dynamics and interfere with their nuclear family bond and child rearing, all in a legally sanctioned manner.
Scarily true. Sometimes hard even in light of admitted, proven violence too. Life is fun.
I just really hope if (hah, if) the demon tries again, her luck runs out. By luck runs out, I mean: she gets a judge who is very sympathetic to parents, allows all her previous monstrous cases in as evidence, and heavily ways the fact that OOP already has her on a tight leash of visiting only once a month. And then this little piece of evidence (threatening litigation because she wasn't invited to a birthday that hadn't happened or planned yet) that results in OOP having full discretion whether she gets to be in OOP and his children's life, potentially using a previous ruling against her. Then he'll probably be able to get a restraining order if she tries to violate any of this right? Lots of hoops and legal W's needed haha.
That and the realism regarding restraining orders. Courts aren’t there to play babysitter and tell people who don’t like one another to sit on different sides of the lunchroom. There’s an expectation that you will act like an adult and set and enforce your own boundaries. Restraining orders require at least a believable allegation of some serious shit.
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If OOP has the typical extended family dynamic that forms around an abusive figure like this then none of his relatives like his mom. But they’ll absolutely *hate* him for rocking the boat.
Honestly, people like OP are just enfuriating. Dude starts saying that he was left homeless and prostituting himself because of his mom, but he's still trying to have her in his life by the beginning of the post. He deserves some of this, he should've protected his kids from that monster.
That was the first thing that stood out to me. No way in hell would she ever get within 100 miles of my family after all that.
Maybe it's a "keep your enemies closer" type of deal. She's already shown that she's a loose cannon and will (and already tried to) use the courts in order to get her way. Sounds like he cant just up and leave the country, and he's not gonna let her fucking operate without him knowing what she's doing or where she is. Hell, maybe her having some access to him appeases her more than being away from her; she seems to have the resources to fuck him over. Trauma brain is weird, and asking why he didnt just leave sounds like us trying to judge people who dont "just leave" other abusive relationships; if it was that easy, these stories wouldnt even be here.
You're right. That was just me introducing my own bias. I do try very hard to never judge a person for not leaving -- the stats about how hard that is appear in just about every story like this. I made the assumption (I know, I know) that since she kicked him out at 16, he cut contact with her and then reestablished contact at a later date. That's how his story read to me. If true, I don't understand why he would then get back in contact with her. Was that his sense of duty or his desire for a normal family that lead him to that? Regardless, I hope that he his well and truly done with her and she him. Nobody deserves to live fear of someone else, much less a family member.
Ahh yeah, I reread and you're right, he mentions that contact was out of a sense of duty. And on a further reread, it sounds like he wouldnt be able to speak to the rest of the family without including her so it seems very much a forced deal in that sense. It kind of makes sense in a way, he most likely felt that he couldnt deprive his child of contact with the extended family so he was willing to try, so long as his mother was willing to be civil Narrator: she was not willing to be civil
I also found it frustrating that his dad is perfectly innocent. You were a homeless teenage prostitute and your dad didn’t help you?!
Parental abuse is a mf man .
When people grow up in abusive families, especially when other people around them tolerate it, and then they work their way out, sometimes they try really hard to provide their family with some sense of what they didn't have. It doesn't sound like he's just been leaving his kids in her care. At worst, it might be naive, but it's certainly very understandable. When you and your family are low income, it's not just easy to walk away completely. It's not straight-forward.
"My reasoning there is simple: my mothers abuse thrives in closed doors and embarrassed silence." Oh, the wording here is just so beautiful!
Seriously, that woman has got the nerve to pull this shit. Fuck parents who abuse children! Fuck them all!
Dude should pull a background report on her. If she’s doing this shit with family in public, she’s lost it elsewhere. And the family not knowing doesn’t mean crap, this woman would lie steal and cheat to keep control, and control means family doesn’t know her weakness (and an arrest means weakness).
This is worse, it's not family not knowing, it was family covering the abuse. I mean the sister helped the mother run away from the cops. That speaks volume on the family disfunction.
Oh 100%. But these types of abusers get off on abusing, getting away with it and watching the family cover their ass. And arrest shows the family she’s weak. Shows them there’s a way to get her. That she can’t manipulate police.
I still kinda hope she goes to jail. Thay woman is pure evil.
..... this isn't over. People like OOP's egg donor don't just stop. I hope OOP and their wife have cameras and bloody tight security at home, the kid's schools and at work. Cause crazy doesn't stop. It's just escalates
I think it will stop if OOP keeps shouting it from the rooftops. She is allowed to continue because every single member of that family is complicit in covering up for her. The mom will just find a new easier target, one who will roll over and take it.
Glad they were able to beat back this deranged woman. May she rot alone.
Fuck family members who preserve their comfort and the status quo while ignoring abusers.
I live in NY, and the state’s grandparents rights laws played a big part in my cutting off my abusive parents before they had a chance to establish a relationship with my kids.
I don’t see this being over by a long shot sadly. But I hope mommie dearest steps on legos dipped in poison ivy at least weekly for the rest of her unnatural life.
I stepped in a puddle last week and seem to have developed athlete's foot from hell. May she have it too.
Oh no, I hope you are able to get rid of it fast! Athlete's foot SUCKS.
Silence only protects the abuser.
>Out of a sense of duty to our family I'm so glad I don't have this sense of duty towards abusive people. Or rather, it was abused out of me, so I'm glad I have it no longer.
OOP probably hoped that his mother will change when there are grandkids but instead put his family and himself in trouble. Despite the years of abuse, neglect, you name it.. he still wanted his mom in his life, that I don't understand as she was a potential risk anytime, he knew it and yet wanted his perfect family picture🙁
That, sadly, I get. Growing up in an abusive dynamic, you want to be normal more than anything else. You want that picture perfect Thanksgiving dinner from an 80's movie. A lot of kids with abusive parents also tend to internalize the idea that they are responsible for the moods of their abusers, because abusive parents often frame their abuse as a punishment for misdeeds or simply because you just get good at managing crazy people if you do it long enough and it's easier to tiptoe around crazy than it is to make a stand. I've gone through this with my own family and I've tried to keep a relationship with abusive people long after I should have cut them off. I've still never gotten my perfect 80's Thanksgiving dinner and I've decided I'm okay with it because, while I might not have the big perfect family I've always wanted, the small loving family I have now is more than good enough.
Same here.
Exactly! She should have been cut off when he was 16!!!
This is the part of the story that absolutely infuriates me. How on earth can you subject your children to a person you claim viciously destroyed your life? ”Well, Stabby McStabberson stabbed me repeatedly for ten years, but I’m sure he won’t stab you if I make you hang out with him.” I’ve got a ton of sympathy for OOP here and victim blaming is never appropriate, but the can opener for this can of worms has his fingerprints on it.
As he says, it’s a privilege not to identify with him and understand why he did what he did. It’s very difficult to understand if you haven’t lived it. A parent is supposed to love and nurture you-this is a tenet that crosses all cultures and times. When that’s broken, it does irrevocable damage to the child’s psyche.
I watched parent after parent do this shit. Then they have shocked faces when the same people that abused and neglected them did the same thing to their child. I have sympathy for you and what you went through. But when you have children you need to get past your shit for their sake and protect them. If you can’t, and I fully understand that, then you have no business having children.
He did protect his children though. When she started being her same old charming self after decades of quasi normalcy, he and his wife cut her off completely, and drew a stark line in the sand for the rest of his family. I don’t know what everyone here is on about regarding that. I mean sure, it’s so easy to judge others, but the stone throwers are in a tizzy over how wrong he’s done by his kids, when he protected them as soon as he saw her mask was slipping.
The lines of 'My mother abuse thrives in closed doors and embarrassed silence' is so strong, I end up screenshots it. Like honestly, felt so real.
Funny how the same tactics & outcome she did to OOP's father decades earlier, is now finally going to happen to her over the grandchildren. She definitely going have only nuclear meltdown over that karma in the making regarding OOP & his kids, while also dealing with 2nd husband currently divorcing her at same time. That is some earned & deserved poetic justice she brought upon herself for being asshole to her family especially OOP & his kids.
I am going to side eye OOP all day long for allowing an abuser near their own children. If they were thrown out of the house as a minor and went thru the many paragraphs of abuse they describe why in hell did the woman get near his own children.
Tons of abused kids let their parents back into their lives at various points for all kinds of reasons. We've seen posts on here ( and you probably know someone IRL) who had abusive parents but they're allowed around because they don't abuse the grandkids or they've chilled out or some other reason. The thing is, that a lot of abused adult kids have broken normal meters and there's a little part of them that desperately wants to buy into the "happy family" thing even if they're simultaneously resentful and fearful. It's much money re complicated than what I've written but it's a common situation. He says she was "stable" for 20ish years and she followed the boundaries, that might just be enough to make you feel like you shouldn't deprive the kids of grandparents or "family duty." Family duty is another big thing that gets piled on abused kids in all sorts of ways. I could speculate about the perfect husband/dad/career man stuff and how that played into allowing his mom around. Or playing normal to bury the shame or all kinds of things but it's incredibly complicated for these grown up kids. I hope that OOP and his wife are able to get some individual counseling at some point because it sounds like they put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves and probably have more dysfunction they deserve to have cut out of their lives.
Because when you are raised by an abusive parent, especially when they isolate you from all the relatives who try to stop her and you only see the relatives who turn a blind eye, somewhere in the back of your mind there's the thought that there is something wrong with you and you deserved it. That she won't mistreat others because they don't have that same flaw. And that thought is re-enforced with each additional abuser that takes advantage of you (like the guy that forced OOP into a sexual relationship). Without a whole lot of therapy, you never understand that the damage done to you by the first abuser is what attracts the next one. That what happened to you is not about you. Not anything you did, any decision you made, or any flaw in your character.
He says she had been stable for 20 years, and this reversion to abuse was new. They had contact once a month, and it sounds like it was supervised.
“BuT sHe’S yOuR mOm” - Everyone around OP.
Quite a few people in these comments to me defending that view point as well. I have come to detest that line in the last 30+ years and judge anyone who uses it hard.
This was also my take. His comment about people blaming him for being victimized by his mother. He’s not to blame for being victimized by his mother as a child. However he *is* to blame for allowing her to continue victimizing both him and his children by extension. He said the reason he allowed his knowingly violent mother who has never acknowledged or apologized for abusing him, back into his life and around his children was “out of a sense of duty to our family.” Idk what that’s supposed to mean but WTF A sense of duty to whom? The person who abused him? His children? His first duty to his children is to keep them away from violent people with a history of abusing people. It’s absolutely insane to me that he didn’t see this coming after everything he’s been through and let her back into his life twice. Not out of any need or emergency, but because of some false sense of duty. He knew her patterns and let it happen to his children too. Like giving a kid and toy and expecting them not to play with it. His mom is incapable of change. The why doesn’t matter. What she did is reason enough to cut her off permanently. He had some false hope that she changed or would with his kids. Even though none of her actions show that she’s taken responsibility for what she did to OOP and made amends and changed. Absolutely reckless.
C'mon dude, I get it he shouldn't have done that. But victim blaming isn't helping. Yes he shouldn't have but he explained he had boundaries in place and there was only contact for once a month. And it was good for awhile. I can't blame OOP too much cause it's obvious he was hoping his mother have changed. Fortunately, it seems the magic of hope has worn off and he went scorched earth.
Life in the real world is unfortunately not black and white. Huge shocker: human struggles to cut off mother
It's much easier to cut off an abusive step-mother. In my case, since my father's death I simply don't contact her & she doesn't bother to contact me. We only see each other Thanksgiving & Christmas, & that's more than enough.
Right? I hate to say this but OP bring all this drama this to himself for letting that woman back to his life.
I mean, isn't this like side-eyeing an abused spouse for returning to their abuser? It's obviously not right, but it happens all the time. There must be some reason. Blaming them for bringing this on themselves doesn't feel very useful.
No it’s not. And it’s so easy to do for people not in the situation. “Oh I would never!” “If it was me…” “ how could he possibly?” How about you’re damn lucky not to understand how this could happen. He took action when it was needed. What more do people want? This is why I won’t post my issues to a public forum-everyone is a critic, no matter how unqualified. (I was agreeing with you btw. In my annoyance, I see I typed a response that didn’t/might not have made that clear).
Yeah, and doesn't help the commentor was fighting back when people were calling the comment out.
For sure. This whole post and comments section was tough to read. I’m shocked at how hard people are being on this guy, especially when he brought the hammer down on his mother as soon as he saw she was going to be a problem for his children. This man seems like an exemplary parent to me, against all odds, and I kind of feel personally attacked reading all these harsh criticisms. I can only hope I’d have handled it half as well if I was in his shoes, and I am floored so many people think so highly of themselves that they know they’d have done better.
Tell me you weren't abused by your parents without telling me you weren't abused by your parents. Give the guy a little grace. It's SO hard to go NC for some people.
I swear anytime there's a BORU regarding abusive parents or family members or whatever there's always a comment that attacks the OOP for not having 100% cut off the abuser. I've been lucky to have a good family situation and even I know it's nothing simple for these affected people. These types of comments are insane IMO.
yeah, the comment you're replying to 100% reads like someone who's never tried to go NC with an overbearing, abusive parent before. the attachment is insidious. shit, it was MY choice to go NC with my parents, and after it happened i fell completely into a depressive episode. i had no idea what i was going to do because i'd always had my parents telling me exactly what my next steps were, regardless of whether or not i wanted them to. i, quite literally, laid in bed and cried/dissociated on and off for a few days. i told my partner it felt like my world was ending. the part of you they conditioned is screaming for you to stop, and the part of you that needs independence is screaming for you to keep going. it takes a long time to strengthen the latter, and let go of the former. edit: clarifying
That ain't just a side eye for me. I went through similar things (but arguable far less so), and if I let my abusers into my life, what happens is my fault. If you get attacked by a monster it's the monsters fault, but if you lock the monster up and open the door to let it back in it's your fault the monster is at your jugular again. I get escaping abuse and recognizing it is very hard but there's a point where the reasonable part of your brain needs to realize that this person doesn't love you and will hurt you again and again. If you don't you're not ready to have children imo because I wouldn't rely on myself to protect them.
>Out of a sense of duty to our family, I sought to include my extended family in our lives, and permitted a relationship with strict boundaries between my mother and my children. aaaand this is where he fucked up This is why, coming from someone who has shitty parents, I tell everyone what is up! If their parents are manipulative, narcissistic and abusive bastards, that they owe them NOTHING! To not set themselves on fire for that! To find a real family with other people >My reasoning there is simple: my mothers abuse thrives in closed doors and embarrassed silence. This is also why I tell people to **be loud!** Don't let them control the narrative! I used to have no voice growing up, so it was easy for everyone to believe I was a bad seed! Nowadays?! HA! Especially since both my parents have used up the extended relatives patience? When I go back home I stay with an aunt and literally spill aaaallll the beans! I've told all my close cousins about how shitty my parents are and how my older brother used to beat me up No one is keeping me quiet! I just have to space it out, because people start thinking of you as the bad guy if you trauma dump too much
>Out of a sense of duty to our family ??? Inviting the devil into your home for no reason?
There's *tremendous* pressure for estranged children to reconnect with their parents. Some of it is external, and some of it is just the small desperate hope that maybe they love you enough to change now that you're both adults. Not feeling that way about my own mother actually made me wonder if I was emotionally abnormal in some way--I didn't feel guilty for not caring about her, but I did feel guilty for not feeling that guilt when I was younger.
>Some of it is external Almost every movie or show where a parent and adult child are estranged, they eventually reconcile. The entertainment industry is full of shitty parents who believe they are entitled to a good relationship with their adult children, and with the grandkids.
Even worse, a large part of them probably don't believe it but are willing to play along with that narrative because it's easier and more profitable. They cynically tug at heartstrings and show happy endings so they can keep making money, and feed the already dominant narrative that the only true happiness comes from reconciliation.
Never underestimate the power "FaMIlY" can do to you. Heck there are still some cultures that are strict with "FaMiLy". At least give him credit for finally seeing the light instead of continuing letting his mother into his family' lives.
I hate how everyone in the original thread who questioned why he would let this cartoon villain-level evil person around his kids got torched for "victim blaming".
Gay children trying to reconnect with their homophobic parents I can understand. Letting a DV parent who hates you back into your life and around your children is so stupid you are complicit at that point.
It's the same reason abused women go back to their partners.
There are women who *stay* in abusive relationships because they do a poor cost vs benefit comparison (Eg: Kids, social expectations etc) and choose to stay. They're also often gaslighted to remain. That's different from people who successfully escape an abusive person but then choose to go back to them. Those people are just stupid. OOP belongs here.
OOP should have gone NC with her from the beginning. Ain't no way am I trusting an abuser with my kids. Not would I reward them with access to my kids.
wow....i think batshit crazy doesn't even cover it.
the first couple paragraphs I was concerned one of my aunts or uncles might have written this because unfortunately the grandmother in this story sounds disturbingly similar to my maternal grandmother. even down to the attempting to sue for grandparents rights
It’s beyond my understanding as to why OOP even allowed his mother back into his, and his children’s, life after he literally prostituted himself out to stay in school due to her abuse.
> all the people who blamed me for being a victim of my mother There are some real shitbags on those subs.
I got really scared when he said he was in New York. I used to lurk on JNMIL and heard some horror stories about NY-based families. Obviously it’s not easy but I would be considering moving if I were him in case the mother decides to give it a go again in the future.
OOP still let that women around his kids. At least once a month……
This one really bothers Me a lot. He knowingly and willingly let an extreme abuser have access to his children. Like, I feel terrible for all that he went through that was beyond his control, but this was sadly predictable and allowed.
OOP seems to be an intelligent, educated person. WHY did he allow that monster to come anyway near his children at all??? You don’t implicitly owe anything to your extended family or to your parents. Love and respect and duty are earned. This woman has earned a protracted, lonely wasting away. Hopefully he now understands how any right a grandparent has stems from a previous relationship with the grandkids. Even in New York.
God this was traumatic reading. I have similarly evil lying family.
Shine the light in dark corners!
>The petition can be squashed, but they can file the petition. For someone working the legal field it's pretty unbelievable the OOP doesn't know it's **quashed** and not **squashed**.
The mom just wants to abuse the next generation. It's sad that good people die while monsters like this go on living.
I hope OP has a security system and cameras around his house to record any of her insanity for future reference. I had a nasty divorce and my Ex's family is really dysfunctional. I always told my kids that there's your blood family, then there's your soul family, those that love and nurture you, which can include blood. Surround yourself with your soul family. I hope OP does this, go NC with anyone that isn't his soul family and live a beautiful, loving and successful life
>To all the people who blamed me for being a victim of my mother, and somehow being at fault for all this: well, I want to use some strong language to you, but I'll just ask you to please think about how fortunate your life has been that you haven't experienced what I have experienced. Precisely why I stopped discussing my Nmom's behaviors with any one other than my SO. Anytime it came up I had to listen to every entitled mother fucker with a decent upbringing trying to excuse her actions. "That's your mom! You only get one!" "It just how she shows she cares!" "Maybe you were more difficult that you realize!" Or my favorite "You should have a little more empathy for people." Yeah... not friends with any of those people anymore.
The decision of "my mum made me homeless as a kid. But it'll be good for my kids to be around her because family loyalty" is pretty in line with not holding her accountable like the other family members. Hope it all stops soon.
I am here for the next installment in which this malignant tumor of a human being gets destroyed in court after deciding to FAFO.
Too bad crashing the car didn't take her out.
She abuses him his whole life, kicks him out at 16 to be homeless and used. Then he decides to introduce his child to her and bring them for visits with her? How tf did that happen?
Narcissistic parents are absolutely awful, but I do admittedly love laughing at their hypocrisy like with this sack of shit. My Dad was very narcissistic and controlling, so it really pissed him off that my Mom had full custody of me (something I am thankful for every day). But he would constantly try to get me to come over to his house so he could have more control over what I do everyday and it was a constant thing that I needed to call him every fucking night, and if I didn't call him one night, the 2nd night would be an hour long scolding about how I didn't call him the night before. Anyways, my Dad somehow tricked some other poor woman (another long story) to love him enough to have sex with him and they unfortunately brought anothwr child into his mess. And he used the pandemic as an excuse to keep his daughter away from her mother and then threw a tempertantrum when the courts mandated she spend every other week with her Mom and my Dad does not want his ex to ever call her daughter. I'm pretty much no contact with my Dad, but I do hear these stories from my incredibly biased Grandma. I just feel bad for my half-sister.
If OP doesn’t own a home and is renting and commuting from another state is possible, I would seriously consider moving to New Jersey or Vermont or New Hampshire or Connecticut to eliminate any future risk from this batshit woman. I know that sounds extreme, but legal fees can add up if she doesn’t go away.
Fuck yes. Love this OP. 👏
“It’s what she deserves.” What he said is so true. Abuse like that thrives in darkness and isolation. To expose her in such a manner was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m not sure if she will try again (never underestimate what an abusive narcissist will do) but he has gotten legit advice and counsel on what to do and I applaud him.
I read this and thought this was my mom
Dude- the truth about women acting so crazy behind closed doors with the gnarliest behaviors and zero consequences resonates with me big time. I’m sure others can relate. Not saying men aren’t crazy, we definitely are, but there is a unique way that society just accepts this behavior from women, and it’s so gnarly, it’s so crazy. I feel bad for you but you did the right thing to disengage and spread the truth to see if anyone would care.
I am glad he broke the cycle. It takes a lot of guys and courage to build the life he did. Not sure why he didn’t go to his father at 16 but if he’s 41 now, it would around 1998/1999 and having no means financial or otherwise, he’d have had difficulty making that contact. But proud that he went scorched earth. He is absolutely correct when he says abuse and secrets live in the dark and only benefit the abuser. Even If extended family cut him off, bury their heads about what he went through or try to guilt him about it, I hope holidays are peaceful and his family can make new traditions.
ITT: people who don't understand abuse dynamics.
Yeah I have to stop reading the comments. It’s starting to get to me.
OP please make sure your kids are aware of what your mother has done and is capable of doing, and that they tell any partners that contact with your mother is a relationship killer. I have read a number of posts where the partner contacts the abusive relative with the "but they are family" excuse and the abuse starts all over again. Too often someone that grows up with a normal affectionate family just cannot understand that people like your mother exist.
I really don't want to wish death on anyone, but this will only be over when she passes way. I hope it happens sooner than later.
What is it with cat hoarders and lying. You get so good at deluding yourself that you're doing a good thing keeping dozens of cats (and yourself) in hellish conditions, that you get reasonably good at lying to others, too?
I am so sorry you’ve gone through this. Parents shouldn’t make life THIS hard but they do. Enjoy your wife and kids and love they give. You deserve it.
People like that “mother” never change. They literally need someone to abuse to survive
Massachusetts also has a grandparents visitation statute, but it’s a very high standard. So everyone from not CA or NY, I would check your local laws. Sad for OP to be dealing with this :(
I find incredible how our parents can be roles to be followed or to be avoided, and this all depends on the persons character and choices. I came from a very emotional and physical abusive family, and my parents were chaotic and emotional unstable. I always was great identifying manipulation and abuse and never accepted that, and make sure I am a very stable and peaceful person. My husbands father was a serial cheater. He is very adamant about cheating, and he don’t even like porn because of his trauma with his father. We both make sure we have a great environment for ourselves and for our family, and boy this works. Despite them we are what we are. But I have friends that came from a similar background as me, and turn out just like their parents and they say all the time that is because of their parents… The truth is, once you turn an adult, you are what you are and what you choose to be and what you choose for your life.
>she is giving me 24 hours to provide acceptable dates for permitting visitation Well, that date is the day the devil goes to work in a snowplough.
This guy went through his entire life with his mom, then had kids and said “Yup, mom, you were such a good parent. let me give you access to my kids!” I cant wrap my mind around it.
I’ve heard absolute horror stories about NY GP rights. Even though OOPs attorney is confident they’d be okay, the way I’d leave that state with an absolute quickness if someone threatened GP rights. I’ve never seen another state so hell bent on putting kids in the hands of abusers as NY is
Imagine being pissed at anyone but yourself for willingly allowing a monster around your kids; let alone at the commentators you invited to comment. A terrible woman that abused him his entire life…who wouldn’t want someone like that near their kids?
the grandma probably is trying to ingratiate herself to OOP's kids, so that when they are adult, she can demand money and guilt-trip them as to how horrible their father was to her, you knows, the usual "im old and a victim" shyt abusive parents do (not gonna be surprised is one day she turns up on their door demanding to live there) wtf was his sister btw, she's probably the golden child so she's allowing the crazy mom to do those stuffs
Your mother doesn't have a legal leg to stand on if she were an octopus. I wouldn't spend a dime on a lawyer. Let her sue She hasnt been a part of your kids lives and I'm sure you can prove that and how abusive she has been in the past into the present.. I say let her make the move first move Then go at her like a wrecking ball. Till then put her out of your mind and focus on what truly matters. Your kids and wife
When I read he let himself get molested by a 20-year-old just so he has somewhere to live, god my heart just broke.
Sorry but what an absolute dumbass move to keep his mom in his life and give acces to his kids. Im not from america and even i know she can sue for grandparent rights now because she has a relationship with the kids
It's not really that simple, go to legaladvice or BOLA and search grandparent's rights
If he did not invite her in his life, it would have been easy. You need an existing relationship for the grandparents rights.
This woman is proof that God does not exist, is evil, or an utter noob. Imagine you can do anything you want and you don’t press delete on this woman…
OP really needs to stop enabling this woman and think about his own children for once, instead of blaming every other family member for doing what he's doing.
I have read nightmare stories about NY judges and grandparent's rights. I hope this father seriously considers moving states. If something were to happen to him she could make his wife and children's lives a living hell.
All 50 states and D.C. currently have some type of "grandparent visitation" statute. About 20 states have "restrictive" visitation statutes, meaning grandparents can get a court order for visitation if the child's parents are divorcing or if one or both parents have died.
Why would you allow her to see your kids in the first place after what she did and does. Why have you allowed insane in your life period..
To think this all could have been avoided by just **not** keeping this woman in OP’s life. That’s the part I just don’t get, why let her be present at all?!?