It is almost 3 yrs since I left my p after one year of marriage and we are still not divorced! Our little girl is almost 4. Our trial is in a few weeks and I must recommend to any of you trying to protect your children to read the book, The Batterer as a Parent by Lundy Bancroft and Jay Silverman.Although this book is not directly about psychopaths, many p's are abusive (as we all know). I found this book an invaluable validation of my experiences and fears.
I plan on using my own divorce trial as a forum to possibly gain case law in my state on issues that need recognition in the legal community: 1. anger management courses are not domestic violence courses in that they do not need the batterer to recognize that his/her actions are abusive (my p was allowed to find his own anger management course after being asked to leave a court ordered batterer program because he refused to take responsibility for his actions/If the judge had no discretion he would have been ordered into another batterer program and probably would have failed to pass it. His visitation was reinstated after suspension for "successfully completing the batterer program" Malarkey. 2. Abuse against women (spouse)is correlated with abuse against children, or the potential for abuse. (my daughter's law guardian has neatly separated the two and claims that just because the p abuses me doesn't mean he is abusing his daughter. This despite the fact that the guy shook the kid as a baby, didn't pay any money to support her unless garnished/threatened with jail, and made us homeless. 3. I want to raise the bar in the courts that unless the kid is sexually or physically abused the father still gets visitation unsupervised. This negates the protection of the kid against the constant lies,mind games and manipulation these p's do. (This last point I know I will lose. Look at all the instances the father has gotten custody after he kills the mother/or after the mother alleges sexual or other abuse/or after the mother tries to tell the kid "Daddy lies, watch out (automatically parental alienation instead of protecting the child).
I have so many hoops I have to go through to do the above: I have to prove my p to be a liar, batterer, and a p! Anyone out there with any expertise in this? I feel I am fighting a battle for myself and my battered brethren.

survivor

Hi Survivor

I hope you keep up your strength and your faith as you go into court. A few years back I went to court with the same sort of ideas. But soon learnt what really goes on - in the UK anyway. First priority was not the protection of the child. Anyway I won't go back into my story which rattles on more because I am trying to bring the professionals to account - but they are all so protected by their employers and all self policing. So that I have made no progress in 3 years.

What we all need is proper awareness of the damage done again and again by Ps throughout the child care and protection network, including the courts. Which is why we are trying to get a lobby group started - but this will be a slow process. Your experience would be useful for that.

I hope you get real progress and come out of court with higher expectations than I did. I think it all hinges on one individual in the court who is both sympathetic and knowledgable as after a prelim decision is made everyone tends to fall in with that view no matter waht the evidence says. I hope you are lucky.


Please let us know how it goes.

best regards

Recovery

I am am happy for you and your title about "validation" really hit me. Unlike the rest of you on the board, my "P" is so dangerous that I am able to keep him out of my life with state parole b/c the nature of his charge was so serious he would go back for A VERY LONG TIME AND I've maded myself a familiar voice to the parole guys. But what I loved about your title about validation was that a year and a half ago I met a guy at my job and he finally after all his round-about coniving offered ME TO WORK for him.
This guy, I considered nerdy. Buy I decided to have an open mind and he paid twice as much. He seemed entirely besotted with me. Turned out he was pretty loaded too. He promised my daughter and myself the moon. He was going to guide my new career in "real estate," he gave my daughter 3 crisp one hundred dolllar bills to spend in Florida, he didn't approve of my landlord and wanted us to move into one of his apartment buildings ( I wouldn't). He would call alot just to talk. He took me out to eat. He was funny. I started to think, well maybe he's not a dork and maybe I could date him at some point. I gave him a gentle innocent hug and he froze like a pillar of salt. I recovered in a couple days thinking, yeah well. who cares.
He began to treat me SO badly in the office. He was always furious. He was always talking about how stupid and idiotic and low class everyone is (I think he'd like the human species exterminated) and he operated his business WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. I have cold details but won't bore you. No matter what I did I was wrong..even though I instituted a system that prevented the constant errors of him missing appointments that had been occurring. He was vicious and looked for reasons to be cruel and abusive. I walked out after months of this but was incapacitated by it for 10 months-did not work. I went so far as to wonder if he was possessed (he spoke of these things). And of course my friends and family thought I just had a cranky boss and was being delicate --they couldn't fathom the rage I was dealing with everyday for no reason. I thought there was something wrong with me AGAIN.
THANKS to this board I have healed that little monster memory away into oblivion. He was a P. There was a logical explanation! Thanks board...Dianne eveyone