This is my story

Because I am still in the middle of a court battle, it is best that I not give names. I'll be able to do that in a couple of months (hopefully), but I wanted to tell my story. If this helps one person it will be worth it.

I have had sole custody of my son since before he could walk or talk. When my son was almost 3, I got remarried. So this won't be too long, lets fast forward three more years. My new husband and I were blessed with the news there was a baby on the way. My son was so excited. He couldn't wait to be a big brother and that was all he talked about. One night he came home from visiting his father and was mad as a wet cat. He was talking back, stomping his feet and basically just being ugly. My husband sent him to his room until he could act right. He stomped his foot and said "He (his father) told me this would happen!" I went back to is room and sat on the bed with him. I asked if we could talk about what his father had said. He poked me in my belly and told me he had been told when THAT baby gets here, we won't love him any more because that was his (my husband's) REAL baby. I was devistated. We assured him that wasn't true and nobody would ever take the love we had for him away. When a new baby is born, God gives you even more love to share. He seemed okay after that.

Fast forward some more -- over the next several years, we had a good family life. He was still showing signs of jealousy over his sister, but I figured that was normal so I just let it slide.

From time to time he would make comments about why was his father so mean? Why didn't he have time for him? Why was he so selfish with his money? I never knew how to answer those questions, so I just found a way to change the subject.

When he was in his preteen years, he started coming home from visitations acting angry at us. When we asked him why he would tell us he had a horrible weekend and they couldn't do anything at his father's house because I made him send me all his money and there was nothing left for fun. We knew he was being lied to, but what can you say? He was sending us less that $400 per month and that was all his money?

My son would tell me negative comments that were being said about me by my ex, but I just let it go. I didn't know how much damage years of these little comments could cause.

Three years ago, my ex got remarried. I was so happy for him because I thought that meant he was finally moving on with his life. How wrong I was. All of a sudden, the child support checks stopped coming, he stopped backing us up when we had to discipline our son for something and the negative comments were getting more and more harsh.

The checks stopped coming because the new wife started paying all the family bills, but she refused to write a check to me. There was some serious animosity there, but I didn't know why. She just seemed to truly hate me and I didn't even know her. Anything she could do to undermine my decisions as a mother, she would. She even insisted they list HER as my son's mother in the obituary after my ex mother-in-law died. It was like she was trying to erase me from the picture.

Right after my ex's mother died, my son informed us that he was going to live with his father and there was nothing we could do about it. We told him that wasn't going to happen and he just laughed at us. He said he would do or say anything to get his way. He would even tell the judge we beat him if he had to. Please know I have never hit either of my children. Six months went by and we never heard anything else about it until a Jefferson County Sheriff was banging on our door at 6:15 a.m. Sure enough, they had officially filed for custody.

Okay, fine. I know how the legal system works and I knew custody would not be changed after 15 years unless there was a material change in circumstances. The only material changes were we lived in a bigger house, had higher incomes and lived in a better school district. The court battle has been dragging on for almost two years now. Why? Because my ex won't answer any of the discovery questions. He won't answer the questions because there aren't any answers to questions like "What material changes have occurred what would necessitate a change of custody?" "What evidence do you have that the child's mother is neglectful?" These things aren't true, so he can't answer them.

Every time we went to court, my son would get more and more angry with us. He obviously wasn't being told the truth of why the case got put off each time. He began saying the most hateful things possible to us and showed absolutely no respect to any of us. He started pulling away from all his friends and my husband's parents. He was always angry. He started telling stories of "memories" he had that never happened. He started telling me they had "dirt" on me from all the back to when I was married to his father. He made the comment that "I had taken away any chance of him having a normal childhood when I made his father leave." He also told me that "his attorney" had told him that I was a neglectful mother, didn't deserve to be his mother, and he would fix that soon enough. We may address that with the Ethics Board when the rest of this is over. The most disturbing thing he said was that he would be doing his father a FAVOR by going to live with him. I asked what he meant and he explained to me that would be $400 he didn't have to send me and then I would have to send him $400, so that was $800 HE could help put in his father's pocket to help him pay his bills.

All I could think was "Dear God, they have put a price tag on my son's head! They think he could be a paycheck to them every month instead of a monthy bill." Why could my son not hear what he had just said? And why was he so aware of their inability to pay their bills? That is not a burden that should be put on a child. We juggle money all the time when unexpected things come up, but my kids never know it because that is not something we would ever discuss with them.

After the case had been drug out for over a year, we got a phone call from DHR telling us they had gotten an anonymous tip and we were being investigated for abuse. Can you believe they would go to that extent? I knew exactly where the anonymous tip had come from. Every comment she made was straight out of the Petition to Modify Custody. We cooperated and the DHR worker came to our house and did a full investigation. They found NOTHING wrong in our house and immediately closed the file. We never talked about the DHR investigation in our house so my son did not know the case had been closed.

My ex apparently lied to his attorney and told him he was not the one to call DHR, so his attorney subpoenaed the records. He did not know my family had been cleared and the file had already been closed. Because they subpoenaed the records, I got to see them. Do you want to take a guess who was listed as the reporting party? There it was in black and white. He tried to manipulate the system and bully me into giving up custody and it flat out blew up in his face. The fact that the anonymous tip was called in the day after the last court date got continued seems to be a little interesting too.

We had a pretrial hearing last September where once again, the judge ordered that my ex provide all discovery answers within two weeks. It has been six weeks and we have not gotten a thing yet. The judge also told them that he was not seen any material change and it did not appear they had a case. BOOM! We knew right there we had won the battle.

How wrong we were! My son's father lied to him and told him that I had gotten the case continued again and the judge knew I was trying to stretch it out until he turned 19. That was so untrue. We had been ready to get this trial over with but couldn't until they answered the questions necessary for us to prepare for trial. Over the next week my son became more and more angry. I don't think he said two words to me during that time. On the next Monday his anger got out of hand and he became violent.

The last memory I have of my son is his sticking his middle finger in my face and screaming "F*** You". He then hit me and shoved me against the all and into a door frame. We should have called the police right then, but I didn't want to do that. We grounded him, we took away the keys to the car and then we just backed off to let him cool down.

The next morning when I went to get the kids up for school, he was gone. He had run away in the middle of the night. We knew he was at his father's house but for some reason, his phone number had been disconnected, so we had no way to call him. This seemed strange that the phone didn't work since my son had called him the night before after his blow up. I believe they were planning his running away. We called the sheriff and filed a missing person's report and they did confirm he was at his father's house. We agreed -- through our attorneys -- to let him stay there for a couple days until things cooled off.

I have not seen or heard from my son since he left. I am sure his father is encouraging him to break all contact so he can stay with him. His father refuses to abide by the custody order. He has no regard or respect for the court system, which is just one of the signs of an obsessed alienator. He has now stopped sending his support checks even though his attorney has told him he has to until land unless the judge officially changes the custody order. He doesn't care. If he doesn't like the rules, he will just change them to whatever he wants them to be.

We have another court date set in the next couple of months, and I pray the judge will see this for what it is. My son has been brainwashed against us. He has been taught to hate us and been told that we don't want him because his last name is different than ours. That is such a lie. There are numerous counts of contempt against him and he owes thousands and thousands in back child support and other court ordered amounts. When the court date comes, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes, because I truly expect justice will be served.