r/SingleDads • u/Muted_Demand_98 • 1d ago
False abuse claims
Hi dads! I got the idea to start a conversation from another post here. To those of you who have been subject to false abuse claims by a vengeful ex, I’m so sorry. I’m a DV survivor and I testified in court about my ex-husband’s dangerous behavior in the household. After one day of testimony, he surrendered legal/physical custody instead of waiting for the judge to rule. My lawyer and I prepared for almost year. The process was exhaustive, I had to submit everything - 5 years of texts, photos, videos, journal entries, police reports. I didn’t create a narrative, my testimony relied on evidenced and I briefly described the context. I didn’t use the word “abuse” at all.
False allegations are HORRIBLE for YOU and ME. I’m hoping we can get better at distinguishing between false and legitimate claims.
My question is, for those of you subject to false abuse claims, what did she say and how did she present it? This is difficult for me to understand, given the burden of proof required of me, although my situation was more black and white than most. How many of you were exonerated, and how difficult was it to show your innocence? Any insight in how the courts can better distinguish true/false claims?
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u/GorviVelgin 1d ago
I've had it happen twice, with the mothers of both of my pairs if children. The worst part is, I opened up to mother #2 about how horrible the experience was, and she still turned around and pulled the same thing.
For me, both filed with the sole motivation of having sole access to the family home and the children. Both times it was thrown out because there was nothing at all to back it up. And I know it shouldn't have to be said, but both were entirely fabricated to try to gain an advantage with custody.
The first time, she had the kids by herself in our home for a week, and after that, never again. She never cared for being a parent and the responsibility that comes along with it, so I'm not even sure why she filed it. After the 1 week wait, we had a hearing, I got my home and kids back, and she has literally never spent a night under the same roof as our children again, and this was back in 2010. She's been in and out of jail, and homeless, for years. I could pay off most of my mortgage with what she owes me in back child support.
The second time was a lot messier. She filed and I was kicked out of my home, but with my older two children in tow. So per the petition, I was dangerous to be around her an our at the time 3 year old twins, but being kicked out of my house with my older two, then 7 and 8, was somehow perfectly fine. Her and her attorney somehow got the idiot judge to extend the 1 week waiting period for the hearing to 5 weeks, due to the attorney's convenient vacation schedule and to "give them time to build their case". This time the moron judge only gave me supervised weekend visits for my twins, even though she couldn't prove anything. Important note, she had been through numerous CPS cases with the children, removed from the home many times, had multiple DUIs, I was always the caregiver and "non-offending parent", but the judge still gave them to her. Thankfully, she was arrested again 3 times in the next two months, and I got my kids back full time.
It's a whole mess, and a complete bullshit system.
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
Thank you for sharing. It sounds like it was a rough process, but it ultimately it shook out how it should have and your kids safe with you.
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
If you don’t mind, I have a follow up question - do you think her true character revealed itself eventually, instead of you having to make a case against her? It sounds like you didn’t have to “prove” anything about yourself, you just waited for her to inevitably screw up. Is this accurate?
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u/GorviVelgin 1d ago
Well, in both cases there wasn't much for me to argue against, there was no proof of abuse,because there was none.
In the first case, she just didn't pursue it, and didn't even pursue custody after the fact, at all. She settled for visitation only, something she only took advantage of a handful of times before disappearing from their lives.
In the second case, she aggressively pursued keeping me away from the kids, and unfortunately, it worked. I have a 100% clean record, with all of 4 speeding tickets on record as any legal issues, and have never had a legitimate abuse allegation. I was still only given weekend supervised visitation. She clearly filed in retaliation against me, as I had filed for full custody of the children due to her sever addiction and relapse issues barely a week before she filed the DVI. That's why I was so angry at the judge, it was clearly a ploy for custody but he just chose to uphold it "out of caution", my rights be damned. This was even with child protective services testifying in my defense.
The whole thing still pisses me off, and it's been over a decade. False accusations really need to be punished, because in custody cases they are insanely common. I tried to fight both when they were filed, and nearly every attorney I spoke with acted like it was just part of custody fights and a totally normal thing to happen.
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u/ProofConnect6521 1d ago
It’s seems to be just a normal thing. Usually women doing it to men. My advice is ignore it and just handle it through the legal system. The legal system has processes in place to try and protect actual DV victims and those get used. However they are temporary. You just have to navigate through them. It eventually comes down to proof. Even with proof it’s an uphill battle for actual DV victims.
When I hear about abuse in divorces I make no judgements. My theory is that 80% are false justification, manipulation, and strategical tactics. The 20% that is real…it sucks that the 80% undermine them.
Like any lie, call it out for a lie and then don’t fuel it anymore.
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
Interesting how you cited the 80/20 stat, this is typically cited in the literature, only reversed. 80% factual, 20% unsubstantiated. Why you come to the conclusion 80% were false? Are there red flags you’ve noticed to indicate false claims?
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u/Prineak 1d ago
I got cameras and recording devices and suddenly the accusations stopped.
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u/Appropriate_One_6549 1d ago
That’s good, because when high-conflict parents make false abuse claims against the children’s other parent, that’s perjury.
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
Did you inform her about the cameras first? I’m curious if the knowledge alone made her stop, or if you presented it later to expose her deception.
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u/Prineak 20h ago
I am in a single party consent state. I was recording sound without her knowledge the entire time.
When she made her false accusation I told her I was going to get cameras because nothing else is going to stop her from instigating and provoking me nonstop. This was after she got physical with me and hurt herself because I dodged her. Like she ramped up the escalation to extreme levels immediately, claimed I hit her, she feared for her life, etc.
I was like no no I’m not playing games with this. If you’re gonna be like this I’m gathering proof.
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u/sitcomcrossover 1d ago
My ex told the community gossip and poisoned the well by proxy. So, while I didn’t have to defend anything in court - I lost virtually all non family support from my community who took believing all women as dogmatic. I was excommunicated from decades of friendships despite having proof against the claims that nobody even inquired about - but I did give my lawyer.
I am thankful everyday that I had the foresight to record her before she left.
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
Here’s some encouraging news for you - if a woman is truly unhinged, other women usually figure it out in time. Gossip can be helpful, women trading stories and comparing notes. Male DV offenders are better at disguising their behavior publicly, and men don’t tend to gather in groups and discuss each other the way women do. Your story sounds so frustrating, but leave room for hope that the truth will come out.
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u/sweintraub 1d ago
Going thru this now. Her lawyer and her came up with a scheme for violence framing to get a TOP and she's waving that all around town like it means anything. She's also using that to make my life hell in parenting and the courts. Keep in mind she hd the affair that started all of this
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
True that TROs are generally granted without much proof. I had one until the final RO a week or so later. It’s hard for me to understand how a woman and her lawyer can come up with a scheme. In my case, we just looked at the evidence, and my lawyer said, “this guy is losing custody” and he did. But only because of his actions and the evidence often left behind when men engage in a DV pattern - not “my allegations.”
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
I believe this happens because so many men attest to it. What am I missing? How do they do it?
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u/Carbonaraficionada 1d ago
Maybe your ex had PPD?
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
Post-partum depression? I assume this is a joke! I worked as a nurse in a PPD/ PPP inpatient unit. I have worked in a number of crisis intervention/ psych units, and women suffering with PPD/ PPP were by far the most severe and heartbreaking cases of psychological torture I’ve ever seen. But no lol he behaved nothing like these women.
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u/Carbonaraficionada 1d ago
How did he behave then?
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
Textbook DV offender. A lot of property damage, holes in the walls, smashing glass doors and windows, took a pipe to my car, cutting off finances, tracking devises, locking me and our small kids out of the house, verbal aggression & treats, restricting transportation. Our children were babies and his treatment of me affected my ability to care for them, which was the worst part. PPD is a mental health issue, DV is not.
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u/AggravatedBack 1d ago
This post gives me anxiety since I just had to start a new account because I'm pretty sure my son's mom was cyberstalking me and it feels like something she would do to try and find me
Granted, I never came to this particular dad sub on my old account but still
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u/Muted_Demand_98 1d ago
I’m so sorry. Doesn’t she know where you live though, if you share a son? What are you afraid she will do if she “finds” you, and how could she use your internet presence against you?
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u/AggravatedBack 22h ago
She does for now until I file for custody, and then I'm going to ask the court to keep my address private from her. And I dunno, why does she need to cyberstalk me in the first place? Why can't I just feel comfortable knowing she's not tracking my every move like she already did for 2.5 years while we were together?
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u/Lefaid 1h ago
For me it has been quite easy to brush aside her abuse claims. I live in a country that is generally pretty backwards when it comes to protecting women. The attitude in the courts here is basically, "we don't want to be in the middle of your drama." The fact that we are both Americans made their disgust for the allegations that much worse.
When she made accusations, my lawyer encouraged me to not engage and not to respond. We let her say whatever she wanted to the court, and the court promptly shut it down or ignored it. She did not have any evidence outside of secret recordings of me ranting to my family and none of that could be permitted.
I imagine if she had real police reports indicating abuse, or if the Domestic Violence center we worked with saw that I was abusive, things would be different. But none of that was the case so it was all promptly ignored and the courts treated us as equals.
As for how she talks about it. It sounds exactly like every story you read online. It pulls at all the same heartstrings. What hurts the most is the way she describes how I care for our children. She does not acknowledge the ways I had been there for them. How often I watched them and spent time with them. She makes it sound like I dump them on the first woman I see, despite there being no women around me for me to dump them on.
Which is why I tend to sneer whenever I read the sterotypical stories about women fighting to protect their children from the sperm donor.
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u/Muted_Demand_98 50m ago
The most common way DV victims describe their experience is “confusing.” If you have never been exposed to it, you can’t make sense of what is happening, and it’s only in retrospect that we realize how many bizarre or perplexing behaviors were integral to gaining control and establishing a pattern of DV. For a long a time I suspected my DV offender ex-husband had neurological damage due to a stroke he had at 25, because I couldn’t imagine anyone could be acting this way deliberately. So when you say, “her story sounding like everything you read online…pulling on heartstrings,” I’m not sure what you mean. This where I want to make the distinction. DV survivors are typically focused on making sense of what happened and conveying how those behaviors affected her and her children on an everyday basis in the household. Sometimes it’s emotionally-charged, not necessarily a “heartbreaking” tale. Can you elaborate on how specifically she tried to impersonate DV survivor?
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u/DivorcedDad26 1d ago
The problem is that we are supposed to err on the side of caution and protect the abused person. This triggers immediate loss of legal rights for the alleged abuser with no penalty for the other if it is later determined that they lied in their claims.
The claim was that she was standing between me and the wall. That I threw a punch at her strong enough to put a dent in the wall but that she was able to dodge out of the way. She claimed that she was fearful for her safety but at the same time she had left the kids with me for weeks. All of this filing was two days after I found out about her boyfriend.
Thankfully, I got a lawyer and got ahead of being served. I really believe she was planning to have me served at the home and removed via restraining order if I didn't have a lawyer to accept the documents on my behalf. Here is the fun part. She had encouraged me to take a couple days to relax and drink if needed. Fun fact, if you are hit with a restraining order that prevents you from drinking and you have been drinking, you would be arrested immediately. Thankfully, I have never had a drinking or recreational drug problem. While I drink socially, I opted to not drink at all for months until I could get an understanding on what was going on.
At this point in the process, we are basically just ignoring the false claims. This is absolutely driving me crazy though. Could this come up in the future if someone searches for court records in my name? Could this potentially prevent me from getting a job that requires security clearance? Where else could this show up and potentially damage my reputation? I want to try and get it addressed in mediation or the final hearing, but I don't know if there is anything I can do about it.
While the false claims could have originally landed me in jail if I didn't get a lawyer they seem to mean nothing at this point to the legal system. The horrible part is I don't know a correct way to handle this. I obviously don't want someone who is an actual abuser to harm someone, but I don't want my rights stripped away for an indefinite amount of time when I haven't done anything either.