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  1. #1

    Angry How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser

    My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Maryland

    i need help in protecting my daughter from her father
    he denied her from the time i was pregnant untill i had a paternity test done. I knew she was his but he never believed me. Now that he is going to be paying a high amount of child support he wants things his way or no way.

    when we dated he emotionally abused me and i feel he will do the same to her i have learned this is not enough to keep her from him which would be my goal if i could.

    he wants control over everything and if i do not agree with him and his demands then i am unreasonable and not willing to compromise which is not the case.

    he wants her half the time and wants to be able to control legal decisions i do not have barely anything that i can use against him and i fear if this goes to a judge he will get what he wants and i know for a fact it will be damaging to my daughter he will undermine me even if it is written not to, he will do what he wants with her no matter what i say or put in writting and he will get away with it he always has because he is a firefighter. he has made threats that state if this is the way you want it then i will take it to court. he tells me i am playing games when i dont want to crompromise on things i feel strongly about. i need help and i need it bad my nerves have gotten the best of me and i dont want to see my daughter harmed or taken from me.
    i look forward to your advice.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    Southern California
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    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    I am not an attorney but I am a mom with an abusive ex.

    I would highly recommend obtaining an attorney and a therapist for yourself. You do need someone to vent your fears to and your attorney shouldn't be the one for that! I'm sorry you are faced with the daunting task of figuring out a custody situation. Your therapist is a good place to start and ask your ex to join you and your daughter (you didn't say how old she was...) so that you can build a strong co-parenting environment for her. When you step back, (in spite of how you feel about him; after all if you still loved the guy you'd be with him?) you need to think about her. She deserves to have a strong, emotionally healthy relationship with her Dad. And a forensic therapist will be able to document your fears and help both you and Dad create that healthy environment for your daughter. Keep detailed notes with dates and times, witnesses etc. about your interaction with him. Document EVERYTHING, phone calls, emails etc. Keep a calendar timeline of his actions. Then, if anything goes wrong you can take this to your lawyer who will know how to handle things.

    Should you ever discover he is becoming abusive to her - you will be able to address that in court. In the meantime, you need to focus on her best interests and the courts (and most parents) believe that the child's best interests lie in emotionally healthy relationships with BOTH parents.

    I understand your fears for your daughter, I've been there - but maybe just because he is difficult with you, he won't be with your daughter; he will love his child enough to be good with her. Don't feed into or buy into 'just being a firefighter' making him a better parent - he's just more talented than you might be when it comes to dealing with burning houses. But you are the Mom.

    Best luck to you.

  3. #3

    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    thank you mauimom for your response you had some good ideas and i plan to use them
    what do you mean by a calendar timeline of his actions?

  4. #4
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    Southern California
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    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    Quote Quoting concernedforpretty
    View Post
    thank you mauimom for your response you had some good ideas and i plan to use them
    what do you mean by a calendar timeline of his actions?
    In other words, use a calendar program (iCal on the Mac, Outlook Calendar on the PC, or gCal if you want it browser based) or just a plain old paper desk calendar (something w/big enough squares to write in) or just a journal where you can log dates, times and occurrences.

    For example, NCP doesn't show up on time for court ordered visitation on April 23rd. Specifically, he's 1.5 hours late. Make a log entry of "April 23rd, NCP 90 minutes late for COV". Another example would be signs of emotional abuse being logged. So, lets say your daughter comes home from visitation and everytime she returns she has nightmares the first night home. This could be a sign of emotional stress or abuse that she's experienced at NCPs home, so again, you'd log the date and symptoms - "April 25th, daughter has nightmares again on return from NCP COV". Same would apply to signs of physical abuse etc etc... the point is to keep a log of anything that you feel you'll want to bring up in court as a regularly occuring problem. Whether it be disobeying court orders, physical, sexual, emotional abuse, (obviously you'd contact the police and/or CPS if abuse was suspected) being hassled by too many phone calls or excessive communication, threats, late returns from COV etc etc - these are all things that you should log and pass on to your lawyer so they have a copy and can address date specific issues in court, which apparently make a more powerful argument than just saying "he's always late to pick up our daughter" as the retort would be simply "WHEN was he late? WHEN SPECIFICALLY did he not show up on time?" That's when the log shows exactly that. While logging, I'd also recommend sending a monthly copy to your lawyer so that they have possession from a specific date, proving that you didn't just make it all up on the fly. Alternatively, make a copy of the log every month, have the post office seal it and mail it to yourself so you have sealed and dated copies of the logs proving the time they were written. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, these are just some ideas to help you with your situation. Good luck.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    Personally, I wouldn't want a child's nightmares used against me in a court of law. I understand what you're saying, but, that just seems a bit too open for interpretation.

    ~Christina

  6. #6

    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    mmmagique i thank you for your quote also and although you are correct about the nightmares the thing to keep in mind is it is a symptom there is an underlying reason as to why she would be having these nightmares and the goal would be to figue that out and use the help of a therapist to show evidence that the ncp is the cause i believe. but the good thing is that my daughter is only 7 months old so hopefully she wont have to experience that.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    Quote Quoting mmmagique
    View Post
    Personally, I wouldn't want a child's nightmares used against me in a court of law. I understand what you're saying, but, that just seems a bit too open for interpretation.

    ~Christina
    While I totally respect where you are coming from, our experience, in hindsight, shows that our son's nightmares were a corroberated symptom of the suffererd abuse - amongst many other things. This is why a journal with every questionable behavior entered and the patterns of the NCP can provide a more assessable picture of the situation.

    By the way, our lawyer was the one who suggested we do this and frankly, I wish I'd done a better job of it back when... as I may have (or maybe not), seen something that further alerted me to the abusive relationship my son was involved in with his father. JMHO, of course.

  8. #8

    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    youve been extremly helpful so far and your advice has been great i really appreciate it

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    TN
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    Default Re: How Can I Protect My Daughter from an Emotional Abuser?

    Quote Quoting concernedforpretty
    View Post
    My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Maryland

    i need help in protecting my daughter from her father
    he denied her from the time i was pregnant untill i had a paternity test done. I knew she was his but he never believed me. Now that he is going to be paying a high amount of child support he wants things his way or no way.

    when we dated he emotionally abused me and i feel he will do the same to her i have learned this is not enough to keep her from him which would be my goal if i could. He is her father and has a right to be around her, that's just life, get used to it. Just because you feel he emotionally abused you, does not mean that he will do the same to her. It's not up to you to make that assumption. And if he did emotionally abuse you, the fact remains that you still chose to have a child by him and he has the right to be in that child's life and have imput on the child's upbringing.

    he wants control over everything and if i do not agree with him and his demands then i am unreasonable and not willing to compromise which is not the case. He does't get total control, but he does get to have imput if he has joint legal custody which you haven't mentioned he has. Are there any custody orders in place?

    he wants her half the time That's up to the court to decide, however he should be able to spend time with her. and wants to be able to control legal decisions i do not have barely anything that i can use against him and i fear if this goes to a judge he will get what he wants and i know for a fact it will be damaging to my daughter How do you know that? Are you psychic? You don't know for she how he will be toward his child.he will undermine me even if it is written not to, he will do what he wants with her no matter what i say or put in writting and he will get away with it he always has because he is a firefighter. he has made threats that state if this is the way you want it then i will take it to court. You should go to court anyway.he tells me i am playing games when i dont want to crompromise on things i feel strongly about. i need help and i need it bad my nerves have gotten the best of me and i dont want to see my daughter harmed or taken from me.
    i look forward to your advice.
    If you don't have a custody or visitation order, get one ASAP. That will decide what he will and will not be able to do in regards to the child.

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