(00:00:00): My ex-husband, my children's father, sexually abused my daughter's best friend.

(00:00:05): They were 14 at the time in an ice fish house and all of my kids were there,

(00:00:09): ages 10,

(00:00:10): 14,

(00:00:10): and 15,

(00:00:12): along with nieces that were under five.

(00:00:14): Child protection and the police never filed an order for protection on my behalf.

(00:00:18): I had to hire a lawyer and pay $8,000 to protect my kids through family court.

(00:00:23): And even then, they made my son call him.

(00:00:26): He fought the protective order, and the judge dropped it saying there is no domestic violence.

(00:00:31): Before they dropped it, he violated it.

(00:00:33): Because he had money,

(00:00:34): he drug it out for 20 months,

(00:00:35): and they ended up giving him a stay of adjudication while he was out on bail with

(00:00:40): no conditions for first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

(00:00:43): When you violate your bail by committing another crime, you should be held.

(00:00:47): He was not and no one would listen.

(00:00:50): They played the angry woman card on me.

(00:00:52): When he violated it, the cops wouldn't go look for him and kept saying they couldn't find him.

(00:00:57): My sister and I located him ourselves and called the police and waited for them to come.

(00:01:03): They didn't want to come.

(00:01:04): They actually were really not taking it seriously.

(00:01:07): He's in prison right now.

(00:01:08): When he gets released, there will be no protective order to protect my kids and me.

(00:01:13): I could say so much, but it's so lengthy.

(00:01:16): I've also worked as a domestic abuse advocate since 2015,

(00:01:19): and the amount of orders for protection that don't get granted is insane.

(00:01:23): And the amount of police officers that don't enforce them is even more insane.

(00:01:27): And the court system that gives them a slap on a wrist and doesn't hold them

(00:01:30): accountable is even more insane.

(00:01:32): It is so bad.

(00:01:34): Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:01:39): I am a feminist writer and activist.

(00:01:42): You can learn more about the podcast, about me, and about my work at liberatingmotherhood.org.

(00:01:48): Today we are talking about the family court system and specifically how to improve your odds of winning.

(00:01:54): And my guest is an amazing one.

(00:01:56): It's Caitlin Jorgensen.

(00:01:57): Hi, Caitlin.

(00:01:58): Hi, Caitlin.

(00:02:00): Hi, San.

(00:02:00): Thank you for having me.

(00:02:02): I'm so glad to have you here because you're like a celebrity in the world of activism,

(00:02:07): and I have no doubt that you have saved and changed so many lives.

(00:02:11): So let me tell you guys about Caitlin,

(00:02:13): if you're one of like the three people listening who don't know who she is.

(00:02:17): Caitlin Jorgensen is a family court strategist who helps women tell their stories

(00:02:21): in a way that the courts find compelling.

(00:02:24): Too often, trauma inhibits our ability to tell our stories well.

(00:02:28): This is where Caitlin comes in.

(00:02:29): She knows how to talk so judges will listen and can help women pare down their

(00:02:33): stories to the most important elements.

(00:02:35): You can follow her on Instagram at Caitlin.Jorgensen.

(00:02:39): I'll also link to all of her socials and contact information in the show notes.

(00:02:42): If you are going through the family court system right now, she is an invaluable resource.

(00:02:48): Caitlin is not a lawyer.

(00:02:50): She does not give legal advice.

(00:02:52): She's a supplement to your legal team.

(00:02:54): She's part editor, part friend, part counselor.

(00:02:57): But she can really help you because ultimately what you're doing in family court is

(00:03:02): you're telling a story and she knows how to tell stories.

(00:03:07): Thank you for that introduction.

(00:03:08): I appreciate that.

(00:03:11): That was nice to hear.

(00:03:12): Believe it or not, I often get stumped when people say, well, what do you do?

(00:03:16): Because in my head, I'm just a fellow survivor.

(00:03:19): I am what I refer to as a proactive, protective mom.

(00:03:23): I certainly consider myself a strategist working in the community and working with

(00:03:28): fellow survivors and do my advocacy work online.

(00:03:31): My platform has really been built to

(00:03:36): You know,

(00:03:36): and it has been created through information that I have learned through my lived experience,

(00:03:44): both as a child within the family court system and now as an adult mother within

(00:03:48): the family court system.

(00:03:51): And I really have just tried to ensure that every protective mom who's navigating

(00:03:58): this system has access to information,

(00:04:00): support,

(00:04:01): data.

(00:04:02): And that they have access to content that makes them aware of what's to come.

(00:04:11): Because when I started doing this as an adult,

(00:04:15): I very naively thought that the system would have changed between when I was a

(00:04:20): child 30 years ago and an adult.

(00:04:25): And I was shocked to learn that the system has not changed.

(00:04:29): And there was very little information out there

(00:04:32): as to what to anticipate while navigating family court proceedings.

(00:04:36): So I'm very happy to be here,

(00:04:38): very happy to engage with you and talk with your audience about my experiences,

(00:04:44): both personally and professionally.

(00:04:46): So I think one of the reasons you're so helpful,

(00:04:48): Caitlin,

(00:04:49): is that the family court system is an entirely different world.

(00:04:54): Unless you are a lawyer or a paralegal,

(00:04:57): you probably have no real understanding of how the legal system works.

(00:05:00): It's a bizarre system.

(00:05:01): And whatever you think about how it works, it's probably wrong.

(00:05:04): And so you're kind of like an anthropologist of the legal system who just like,

(00:05:09): you know,

(00:05:09): guides people through its bizarre system.

(00:05:11): customs and practices um it is bizarre absolutely so there's this widespread belief

(00:05:19): that i think is starting to change but still persists that family courts are biased

(00:05:23): against men since most mothers do end up with more than half custody the idea is

(00:05:29): well if she's getting more than half custody it must be biased like never mind the

(00:05:32): fact that she was the only one ever raising the child

(00:05:36): For listeners who are new to this issue,

(00:05:38): can you talk to me a little bit about why that's not actually true that it's biased

(00:05:42): and what kind of world women encounter when they enter the family court system?

(00:05:46): Sure.

(00:05:48): I mean, let me tell you what bias is.

(00:05:50): Bias is awarding a father who,

(00:05:54): historically speaking,

(00:05:56): has been absent,

(00:05:57): neglectful,

(00:05:58): violent,

(00:05:59): temperamental,

(00:06:00): controlling,

(00:06:02): 50-50 custody or full custody after he has voluntarily relinquished time with his

(00:06:08): children when he has not participated in their care in any capacity and show no

(00:06:14): interest in them until the mother leaves him.

(00:06:18): That's bias.

(00:06:20): That is assuming that every child should just have immediate access to their father

(00:06:27): simply because they share genetics and DNA with him.

(00:06:32): So this narrative that moms are just constantly awarded custody is,

(00:06:36): first of all,

(00:06:37): the data doesn't support that.

(00:06:39): There's data out there that shows that this is just an inaccurate assertion.

(00:06:46): In addition,

(00:06:48): what we're just seeing on an international scale is that not only are fathers being

(00:06:55): awarded generous access time just because they're fathers,

(00:07:01): in many cases,

(00:07:03): on an increased basis,

(00:07:08): fathers are being awarded full custody after making false allegations against the mother.

(00:07:14): So,

(00:07:14): you know,

(00:07:15): when we talk about bias,

(00:07:17): to me,

(00:07:17): that is just the biggest component to this because it assumes that if a father has children,

(00:07:26): he has automatic rights to those children,

(00:07:29): whereas the mother generally does not.

(00:07:32): Yeah, it's the idea of children as property and of property as belonging to the father.

(00:07:37): It's not that different from how things were 150 years ago under laws of coverture.

(00:07:42): No, absolutely.

(00:07:44): And just a little side note for our listeners, I am 100%.

(00:07:49): For a father,

(00:07:50): I believe both a mother and a father is needed in a child's life,

(00:07:55): but safety should take precedent above giving immediate access to an unsafe parent

(00:08:01): simply because they share genetics with a child.

(00:08:05): Yeah,

(00:08:06): I mean,

(00:08:07): I think that's important is,

(00:08:08): you know,

(00:08:09): I think about my own marriage,

(00:08:10): which is an equitable marriage with someone who is a good father.

(00:08:13): And in my marriage,

(00:08:15): if we were to get divorced,

(00:08:17): to try to deprive my children of access to my husband would be an act of abuse.

(00:08:21): And I think that we have this idea that if we just pretend that there is gender equality,

(00:08:28): that there will be.

(00:08:29): So we just pretend that men should have half access to children that they've never

(00:08:32): participated in raising.

(00:08:34): And that's not equality.

(00:08:36): That's actually child abuse because children need to be with a loving caregiver,

(00:08:41): not any specific gender of or number of caregivers.

(00:08:44): So this is not anti-father.

(00:08:47): This is about when parents split up, children's entire way of being shouldn't be disrupted.

(00:08:53): And we should generally try to preserve what's healthy about the status quo.

(00:08:58): Absolutely.

(00:08:58): Children should have access to what they've grown accustomed to.

(00:09:01): Their standard of care and their standard of living should be prioritized and

(00:09:05): maintained above all else,

(00:09:07): in my opinion.

(00:09:08): Yeah,

(00:09:09): and it's galling to me that this is not the standard in family courts,

(00:09:14): that the standard is amorphous and mostly focused on what the father wants.

(00:09:20): Absolutely.

(00:09:21): And one area where we see this a lot is—

(00:09:24): You do a lot more direct work with victim survivors who have experienced abuse,

(00:09:29): but I've found that I'm doing more and more of it because there just aren't enough

(00:09:32): people doing this work.

(00:09:34): And so in the past month,

(00:09:36): I've worked with dozens of women who are seeking protective orders,

(00:09:39): and they all have horrifying stories.

(00:09:42): The man who waved a gun at an infant,

(00:09:46): the man who has repeatedly threatened to slit his wife's throat,

(00:09:51): the man who is stockpiling guns and has cameras on his wife at all times,

(00:09:57): the man who has put multiple air tags on his partner's car and holds her

(00:10:01): accountable for every single place she goes.

(00:10:04): All of these men have been hitting, raping, otherwise assaulting their wives.

(00:10:10): And all of these men share something else in common,

(00:10:12): which is that when their wives sought protective orders,

(00:10:16): the courts did not give them protective orders,

(00:10:19): leaving these women with not even the flimsy piece of paper that a protective order is.

(00:10:25): And these women have something in common too,

(00:10:29): which is that they're all traumatized by these men and that that trauma makes it

(00:10:33): harder for them to tell their stories.

(00:10:35): And I think that's where you come in.

(00:10:37): So talk to me about why women have such difficulty telling their stories of abuse

(00:10:43): and how that gets weaponized against them in family court.

(00:10:46): Sure.

(00:10:47): I think a big component to this is that most women are not aware of what's expected of them.

(00:10:53): A lot of us grow up in our culture, we have TV shows like Law and Order, for example.

(00:10:58): And the imagery that we see culturally is that when and if a crime is committed

(00:11:05): against you,

(00:11:05): a cop is going to go get the bad guy and you'll be safe.

(00:11:09): And so when we as women enter these systems,

(00:11:12): so to speak,

(00:11:13): there's almost a feeling of relief,

(00:11:15): like,

(00:11:15): okay,

(00:11:15): I'm sounding the alarm,

(00:11:16): now help is going to come.

(00:11:18): Per my lived experience and per the experience that I have professionally,

(00:11:24): that is just simply not the case.

(00:11:25): When you sound the alarm,

(00:11:28): So to speak,

(00:11:28): you basically open up Pandora's box and there's very little preparation for what is

(00:11:34): to come.

(00:11:36): From my lived experience,

(00:11:37): for example,

(00:11:39): when I was three months postpartum,

(00:11:41): that's when I initiated this process and I filed for custody and there was no

(00:11:46): assistance whatsoever.

(00:11:47): Everyone just kept telling me, I can't give you legal advice.

(00:11:50): I had no idea what to do back then.

(00:11:53): And so,

(00:11:53): you know,

(00:11:54): when we talk about presentation and we talk about why women don't present well due

(00:12:01): to trauma,

(00:12:02): this is a huge component to that because there is no middle person

(00:12:08): in a lot of these areas that say,

(00:12:10): okay,

(00:12:11): this is how you get from point A to point B.

(00:12:14): This is what's expected of you.

(00:12:16): And that's really what my platform has set out to change because I want women to understand that

(00:12:25): Yes, it's courageous to ask for help.

(00:12:28): And yes, I encourage you to seek remedies and to secure you and your children's safety.

(00:12:36): But you have to do so with an objective and with the awareness that there are now expectations on you.

(00:12:49): It is very difficult.

(00:12:51): for an at-risk woman to identify expectations and to even meet them because she's at risk, right?

(00:12:59): So my hope has always been to create these thresholds so that women present better

(00:13:07): because it is really hard to present well,

(00:13:10): again,

(00:13:10): when you don't know what's expected of you.

(00:13:13): So what is expected of women in the family court system?

(00:13:15): What do courts want to see?

(00:13:19): Generally speaking,

(00:13:19): for my lived experience,

(00:13:22): not legal advice,

(00:13:24): what is expected...

(00:13:25): So I want to interject something here.

(00:13:27): The reason we are so gung-ho about saying that this is not legal advice is that no

(00:13:33): matter what women do to try to push back on an unjust system...

(00:13:39): Men push back harder and try to silence those efforts.

(00:13:42): So,

(00:13:42): for example,

(00:13:43): you know,

(00:13:44): we had midwives delivering babies until doctors took over that and tried to

(00:13:48): criminalize midwifery.

(00:13:49): And now what we have is we have mostly male lawyers trying to criminalize helping

(00:13:56): other women,

(00:13:57): advocating for them,

(00:13:58): even something as simple as editing a woman's statement,

(00:14:00): which is obviously not legal advice.

(00:14:03): trying to make that into you're practicing law without a license and you can't do it.

(00:14:07): It's fundamentally a constraint on free speech and on relationships.

(00:14:12): I 100% agree with you.

(00:14:14): And it's very frustrating,

(00:14:16): particularly as a survivor,

(00:14:18): communicating with fellow survivors,

(00:14:21): constantly having to add those disclaimers and constantly,

(00:14:23): you know,

(00:14:24): feeling the paranoia of if I assist,

(00:14:28): could that result in some backlash,

(00:14:30): right?

(00:14:31): To me,

(00:14:31): that is actually a perfect reflection of what is expected of women within the

(00:14:36): family court system.

(00:14:38): Take it, don't make a fuss, and don't try to essentially move forward.

(00:14:46): Back to your original question,

(00:14:47): what is expected,

(00:14:48): generally speaking,

(00:14:49): of women within the family court system is to accommodate the father above all else.

(00:14:56): I have been advised by my attorney that,

(00:14:59): you know,

(00:15:00): the father could end up in jail and I would still be ordered to facilitate visitation.

(00:15:07): And so there's this threshold of,

(00:15:11): okay,

(00:15:12): there's really nothing I can say or do here that prevents him from exerting himself

(00:15:19): over me and the child,

(00:15:22): right?

(00:15:24): And women are expected to be okay with that.

(00:15:28): Mothers are expected to be okay with that.

(00:15:30): And that's difficult for me to even articulate because it feels in itself so

(00:15:36): constraining and like such an injustice.

(00:15:39): But what I have found is

(00:15:41): is that when women push back,

(00:15:43): when they organize amongst themselves with their communities,

(00:15:48): when they try to get support and legal advice,

(00:15:51): et cetera,

(00:15:52): if they step out of line more than they already have by seeking safety,

(00:15:58): generally speaking,

(00:15:59): there's a severe consequence for that.

(00:16:03): And that is a consequence that most women and moms are not willing to pay because

(00:16:08): their ultimate priority is to safeguard the child.

(00:16:11): Yeah.

(00:16:12): And I think that what often happens when mothers enter this system is because their

(00:16:17): focus is on the child,

(00:16:19): they focus on the things that are most relevant to the child,

(00:16:21): like how the father has treated the child,

(00:16:23): whether he has provided a safe home,

(00:16:25): whether he's been a decent parent.

(00:16:28): And courts really don't care about this.

(00:16:29): They really just only care about violence.

(00:16:32): That's the only thing that might tip things in the mother's favor.

(00:16:36): So could you talk a little about what courts don't care about and what they may

(00:16:42): care about when you are seeking a protective order or seeking more than 50-50 custody?

(00:16:47): So generally speaking, what I see is that they do care, but that

(00:16:54): Again, this is where language comes into play.

(00:16:57): For example, I get in touch with moms who are holistic, who homeschool, who breastfeed and co-sleep.

(00:17:08): And this is a more traditional style of mothering, right?

(00:17:13): Old school style of mothering.

(00:17:15): And they go in there saying, well, I'm a co-sleeper.

(00:17:17): You can't take my child from me.

(00:17:21): They've never slept apart from me.

(00:17:23): not realizing that they just opened the floodgates for their father to suggest that

(00:17:29): the mother's enmeshed with the child and inappropriate with the child.

(00:17:33): Right?

(00:17:33): So...

(00:17:35): What I have seen work and family dynamics like that is for the mother to simply

(00:17:41): highlight that she's the primary caretaker to the child,

(00:17:45): that the father has never participated in childbearing duties.

(00:17:49): He has never put the child to sleep.

(00:17:51): The child has never spent prolonged periods of time alone with the mother, okay?

(00:17:58): her and I are basically saying the same thing,

(00:18:00): but one,

(00:18:00): again,

(00:18:01): opens the floodgates to she's enmeshed and she's crazy,

(00:18:05): and the other is more structured,

(00:18:06): okay?

(00:18:09): I'm not prepared to say that the chorus, quote-unquote, don't care, generally speaking.

(00:18:14): What I am prepared to say is that it depends on how you layer it,

(00:18:18): and it depends on how you approach your storytelling.

(00:18:22): Generally speaking,

(00:18:24): If,

(00:18:24): again,

(00:18:24): you open a window for the father,

(00:18:26): the perpetrating father to make emotion-based allegations against you,

(00:18:32): you will face an issue.

(00:18:33): If you work towards shutting that down, though, and not creating that opening,

(00:18:42): What I'm seeing in my work is that successful results can be obtained.

(00:18:48): Again,

(00:18:48): this is why my platform focuses on things like knowing your language,

(00:18:54): anticipating bias,

(00:18:57): knowing how to tell your story,

(00:18:59): because I would love for women to be able to say,

(00:19:02): I'm a homeschooler.

(00:19:03): I birthed at home.

(00:19:05): I'm a co-sleeper.

(00:19:06): We are doing breastfeeding on an extended basis, et cetera.

(00:19:12): I would love for women to be able to share their true journeys as mothers.

(00:19:18): But what I'm just seeing is

(00:19:21): again and again and again, is that that deviates from the norm.

(00:19:26): And generally speaking, our systems just don't like anything that's not quote unquote normal.

(00:19:32): Yeah, I think that's really important is like knowing what the system is that you are in and knowing that

(00:19:40): You know,

(00:19:41): you can't turn this into a dispute over parenting style because the court doesn't

(00:19:46): want to intrude in that way.

(00:19:47): But you can make it about what's in the child's best interest,

(00:19:51): what preserves the status quo,

(00:19:53): you know,

(00:19:54): all of that kind of stuff.

(00:19:55): And the bar for women to be perceived as crazy, as unreasonable, as you noted in Meshed, is on the floor.

(00:20:04): Like one wrong move and all of a sudden completely normal parenting decisions.

(00:20:10): are made out to be evil, and objectively awful parenting decisions are made out to be fine.

(00:20:18): But I also think that this can play out, like, not just in court, but in a woman's own head.

(00:20:23): Because these destructive relationships break down a person's sense of self by design.

(00:20:28): Absolutely.

(00:20:29): Abuse victims often feel that they deserve it,

(00:20:32): and that if they just behave better,

(00:20:33): things would get better.

(00:20:34): As a result, most of them don't even see their abuse as abuse, especially if it's not physical.

(00:20:39): Or they even think that they are the abuser.

(00:20:41): And I see this over and over with women where they're not able to prominently

(00:20:45): highlight the most important pieces of abuse because they're so in their head and

(00:20:51): so guilty.

(00:20:51): How much of your work involves convincing your clients to see the reality of their

(00:20:58): relationships for what it actually is?

(00:21:02): Well, by the time I meet with my clients, they know...

(00:21:07): that it's bad because they felt propelled to meet with me.

(00:21:11): But I do often meet women who say, it's not that bad.

(00:21:14): I'm sure you've dealt with worse, right?

(00:21:17): And every time I hear that sentence, I interrupt them right away.

(00:21:21): And I said, you booked a call with me.

(00:21:23): You are engaging with my platform, which means it is that bad.

(00:21:28): Okay, I just want to affirm that.

(00:21:29): And to anyone listening today who is relating to any of this,

(00:21:35): I want you to know it is that bad, okay?

(00:21:38): Because what I have noticed in my work is that 90% of my clients are not being physically abused.

(00:21:45): And so they are under the impression that they're not able to gain reprieve,

(00:21:51): that it's not that bad,

(00:21:52): that nobody's going to take them seriously.

(00:21:55): And what I'm seeing through my work on an

(00:21:59): uh uh very frequent basis is that that is simply not true if you know how to

(00:22:05): articulate what is going on okay when we when i hear from a client or a woman who

(00:22:12): says it's not that bad

(00:22:14): Nine times out of 10, she is tiptoeing around her home.

(00:22:18): She has no access to finances independently of her partner or husband.

(00:22:23): She is enduring everything from sleep deprivation, food deprivation, her children are being

(00:22:31): called names,

(00:22:32): their toys are being broken,

(00:22:33): she's being disparaged,

(00:22:36): she's being really targeted and isolated,

(00:22:38): okay?

(00:22:40): And by the time that she tries to articulate that to me,

(00:22:45): what it oftentimes sounds like is that,

(00:22:47): well,

(00:22:47): he doesn't hit me,

(00:22:49): but he gets really mad at me.

(00:22:52): And I, again, have to interject oftentimes and say, listen,

(00:22:56): Starting your storytelling out like that will open the door for someone to

(00:23:02): disregard you and say there's nothing to see here.

(00:23:05): He may not have hit you yet, but he has established that he is capable of and willing to.

(00:23:12): And you know that based off the fact that you're tiptoeing around your house in fear of him, right?

(00:23:18): And I have said that exact sentence before.

(00:23:23): a few times now.

(00:23:24): And anytime I say it,

(00:23:25): I just hear silence on the end of the phone because the client,

(00:23:30): the mother realizes,

(00:23:32): I've told this story a few times.

(00:23:36): I've discounted myself from the beginning.

(00:23:39): And now I'm realizing that,

(00:23:40): wait a minute,

(00:23:41): he hasn't made physical contact with me,

(00:23:44): but I know he desires to.

(00:23:47): And I know that his end goal is to make me feel like he can do that to me.

(00:23:51): And it's like a revelation, right?

(00:23:54): So like when we say again, knowing your language, this is part of why.

(00:23:59): Because she now understands I can't disregard this.

(00:24:05): And I have to make sure that nobody disregards me when I share what the father of

(00:24:11): my child has been putting us through.

(00:24:14): Yeah,

(00:24:15): I think that's really important because I think a missing piece of all of this is

(00:24:19): that abuse is both an individual and a systemic problem.

(00:24:22): And so he often doesn't have to literally hit you to bring down the full weight of

(00:24:27): patriarchy into your relationship because we all know that men are potentially dangerous.

(00:24:33): So they can weaponize that danger against you without actually physically harming you.

(00:24:39): even if they are willing to eventually do it.

(00:24:41): So talk to me a little bit more about the kinds of language and narrative shifts

(00:24:46): you encourage people to make.

(00:24:48): Like what are some mistakes you see and what are some rules that people can follow

(00:24:53): to tell their stories a bit more effectively?

(00:24:55): Sure.

(00:24:57): What I generally speaking see in terms of storytelling is that a lot of moms,

(00:25:03): protective moms are very lengthy in their storytelling.

(00:25:07): What they ultimately do when they sound the alarm is that they have this laundry

(00:25:10): list of things that the perpetrating father has been doing.

(00:25:13): And they basically start off with, and then he did this, and then he did that, and ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

(00:25:20): And they lose people because...

(00:25:23): Again,

(00:25:23): what that does is give an opportunity for whoever is listening to discount the

(00:25:29): mother by saying,

(00:25:30): OK,

(00:25:30): well,

(00:25:30): this has been going on for two,

(00:25:32): five,

(00:25:32): six,

(00:25:33): 10 years.

(00:25:33): I even had a client who had been married for 30 years.

(00:25:36): OK,

(00:25:37): and they listen to her and they say all of this has been going on for such a long

(00:25:41): time and you did nothing about it.

(00:25:43): You're an accomplice here.

(00:25:45): You have participated in this.

(00:25:48): All of a sudden, it's so bad.

(00:25:50): I don't really want to listen to this.

(00:25:53): Nine times out of 10, people don't come out and tell you this to your face.

(00:25:57): They just treat you this way.

(00:25:59): So what I have seen be more effective is to focus on the father's patterns of

(00:26:05): behavior versus his individual transgressions and the individual incidents that led

(00:26:13): up to the mother finally seeking reprieve.

(00:26:17): Generally speaking, again, these fathers navigate the home very aggressively.

(00:26:23): They isolate the family unit.

(00:26:25): They make veiled threats a lot of times.

(00:26:28): What I'm seeing often is that the father presents very well in public,

(00:26:33): but in a much different way within the home.

(00:26:37): Highlighting that,

(00:26:39): highlighting the mother's dedication to the family unit,

(00:26:44): to the marriage,

(00:26:45): tapping into what is generally speaking expected of a mother and a woman,

(00:26:51): I see being very successful.

(00:26:54): A lot of women...

(00:26:56): are primed to believe that if I just absorb this,

(00:27:00): and if I just do what he wants me to,

(00:27:02): and if I just keep trying,

(00:27:04): then things will be better and the family unit can remain intact,

(00:27:07): which is my ultimate goal most times,

(00:27:12): because we're facing that societal pressure,

(00:27:14): that systemic pressure,

(00:27:16): the pressure from the perpetrating father to really just keep going,

(00:27:22): right?

(00:27:23): So

(00:27:24): What I,

(00:27:25): generally speaking,

(00:27:27): see causing issues,

(00:27:30): again,

(00:27:30): that lengthy storytelling,

(00:27:34): giving someone the opportunity to say,

(00:27:36): well,

(00:27:36): this has happened so many times,

(00:27:37): and suddenly now you want to say something.

(00:27:40): What I see shifting that mindset and that bias is highlighting the need for urgent intervention,

(00:27:48): highlighting recent escalations,

(00:27:51): and then tying it together with the father's patterns of behavior and why he is an

(00:27:56): ongoing safety concern to both her and to the children.

(00:28:01): Yeah,

(00:28:01): one thing I see over and over again is you emphasizing a pattern of behavior and a

(00:28:06): pattern that is escalating.

(00:28:09): Talk to me about why that's so important to talk about.

(00:28:12): Because the father's not changing, right?

(00:28:15): What he's doing now will continue in the post-separation period.

(00:28:19): He will continue to be domineering.

(00:28:21): He will continue to exert himself over the mother and the children.

(00:28:26): He will continue to make demands of the mother and the children.

(00:28:30): And the reason it is so vitally important to highlight the patterns of behavior is

(00:28:35): because that is a factual statement.

(00:28:39): assessment of the father, okay?

(00:28:41): It's not emotion-based.

(00:28:43): Most perpetrating fathers use emotion-based arguments against the mother,

(00:28:47): which is part of why we don't focus on the nurturing and the mothering as much as

(00:28:53): we do,

(00:28:54): I'm a primary caretaker,

(00:28:56): because that is a factual assessment of the mother.

(00:28:59): Right.

(00:29:00): Fathers,

(00:29:00): perpetrating fathers,

(00:29:01): generally speaking,

(00:29:02): are emotion based because they understand that motherhood is emotional and they

(00:29:10): understand that people's biases against the mother are emotional.

(00:29:14): So that is why it is so important that the mom stays factual in how she

(00:29:22): communicates about the father and his patterns of behavior,

(00:29:25): because the patterns are not changing.

(00:29:28): So whatever she reveals now,

(00:29:31): is to be expected of him through the post-separation period.

(00:29:37): I am of the belief that it is better for a mother to reveal details about the

(00:29:45): father's behaviors and patterns and have it fall on deaf ears

(00:29:51): than to not reveal anything at all.

(00:29:53): Because in the post-separation period, he will revert back to baseline and engage in that behavior.

(00:29:58): And hopefully then the mother will be able to say,

(00:30:01): I have been sounding the alarm on this this entire time.

(00:30:05): Will somebody listen to me now?

(00:30:06): I love that.

(00:30:08): I also...

(00:30:10): I noticed that you talk a lot about,

(00:30:13): you know,

(00:30:13): men weaponizing certain aspects of motherhood and kind of knowing exactly how to do that.

(00:30:19): And I think that's really important because we have this idea that abuse is accidental,

(00:30:24): that abuse is a loss of control,

(00:30:26): that abuse is an anger management problem,

(00:30:29): when the reality is that there is a misogynistic playbook and these men know what

(00:30:33): they're doing.

(00:30:33): Yes.

(00:30:35): A lot of these men not only know what they're doing,

(00:30:38): they actively resent the mother of their child for being the mother that they never had.

(00:30:44): Oh, interesting.

(00:30:44): And so when we talk about the emotion behind it,

(00:30:48): So in my experience, the emotion stems from what the father has been denied by his own mother.

(00:30:54): And that is not to blame his mother or to continue any misogynistic trope, right?

(00:30:59): It's just to acknowledge that the father has felt entitled to certain things from his mother.

(00:31:05): Generally speaking, it's been denied to him.

(00:31:08): So when the children arrive, he is reminded of that and he can't handle it.

(00:31:13): And that's part of why my belief that most perpetrating fathers don't fully

(00:31:19): deteriorate and escalate until their children arrive.

(00:31:23): Like if you talk to protective moms,

(00:31:27): every single mother I speak with says when the babies arrived,

(00:31:33): he never returned to baseline.

(00:31:35): I didn't recognize my husband.

(00:31:38): I didn't know who I married.

(00:31:39): I didn't know who I had a child with.

(00:31:41): He grew so vicious and so violent and so angry and resentful of me.

(00:31:47): And I don't know why.

(00:31:49): In my opinion, this is why.

(00:31:51): In addition, abusers know...

(00:31:57): the biases that their victims are going to be met with.

(00:32:00): They are very calculated.

(00:32:02): And so when they assert these tropes,

(00:32:07): it is to gain community,

(00:32:09): to gain support,

(00:32:10): even from within the mother's immediate family unit.

(00:32:15): I see this all the time.

(00:32:17): Because she's trying to break free,

(00:32:19): not just from him,

(00:32:20): not just from systemic issues,

(00:32:22): but from her own family unit to preserve the children.

(00:32:26): And this is just how these men isolate,

(00:32:29): how they belittle and abuse,

(00:32:31): and how they create this environment that's what I refer to as crazy making.

(00:32:36): Right.

(00:32:36): Which is, again, not to beat a dead horse.

(00:32:39): Part of why my platform focuses so much on structure and giving the mother structure,

(00:32:46): giving her a foundation to build off of,

(00:32:48): knowing what to anticipate,

(00:32:50): knowing how to articulate.

(00:32:52): Because if she stays within that framework for both my lived experience and professional experience.

(00:33:01): She can come up for air.

(00:33:03): If she fails and starts feeding into his narrative about her,

(00:33:07): that's when the floodgates really open in my experience.

(00:33:11): Yeah.

(00:33:12): I mean, I think that's true.

(00:33:13): And also the bit about the family of origin,

(00:33:16): it is shocking to me how many of these men recruit the woman's family to their side

(00:33:21): and just rob her of any of her community.

(00:33:24): And it shows how there's kind of a family to husband pipeline of abuse where your

(00:33:29): family of origin primes you for the abuse and then your husband kind of finalizes

(00:33:33): the process.

(00:33:33): Yeah.

(00:33:34): Absolutely.

(00:33:35): I mean, women, just a little side note, women don't just end up in these relationships out of nowhere.

(00:33:43): Certainly there's a systemic...

(00:33:45): Component to this,

(00:33:46): there is,

(00:33:47): you know,

(00:33:48): the perpetrating father has potentially targeted her and all of that.

(00:33:51): I'm willing to acknowledge and entertain that.

(00:33:54): I will say,

(00:33:56): though,

(00:33:56): my experience dictates that there's a family unit behind him prior to him that has

(00:34:04): really normalized these behaviors.

(00:34:06): And that's part of why the protective mother didn't notice prior to conception.

(00:34:13): That's so important because it's not that he became abusive.

(00:34:16): It's that he just revealed more of his abuse.

(00:34:19): So we have an advice question from a reader.

(00:34:22): I still love my abusive soon-to-be ex.

(00:34:26): Intellectually, I know he will never change.

(00:34:29): I left him to protect my kids from his emotional abuse,

(00:34:32): which was starting to escalate toward physical violence with a lot of threats.

(00:34:37): but I still want to be with him.

(00:34:39): It took so much work to leave.

(00:34:40): I am constantly second-guessing myself and wondering if I am overstating the abuse

(00:34:45): or if perhaps I am the abusive one for abandoning him.

(00:34:48): I know that I need to be strong in family court,

(00:34:50): and again,

(00:34:51): my core self knows that he's abusive,

(00:34:53): but how can I be strong when I'm going face-to-face with someone I love who makes

(00:34:57): me doubt myself?

(00:35:01): I believe you can be strong by focusing on what your parental obligation is.

(00:35:06): making it that simple.

(00:35:07): I love that.

(00:35:09): Yeah,

(00:35:09): when a perpetrating father fails to honor his obligation to both his partner and

(00:35:15): his children,

(00:35:16): that leaves the children one healthy parent.

(00:35:19): And your feelings don't supersede that.

(00:35:24): Your feelings don't supersede your parental obligation.

(00:35:27): As we can see, the system is not going to advocate for children and mothers.

(00:35:32): They're not going to elevate safety above all, which means that you need to.

(00:35:37): There's plenty of time to be sad.

(00:35:39): I get sad about mine.

(00:35:40): I cry about him to this day.

(00:35:42): I'm all for acknowledging the sadness, the mourning, the grief.

(00:35:47): There is 110% room for that when you are safe.

(00:35:52): And when you have stability routine for your children and hopefully some resemblance of safety.

(00:35:59): But while you're going through this, it needs to be one foot in front of the other.

(00:36:03): Very black and white.

(00:36:05): What is my parental obligation to my children?

(00:36:09): And am I meeting it?

(00:36:10): Yeah.

(00:36:10): I think that's wonderful advice.

(00:36:12): And it may seem kind of like tough love advice,

(00:36:16): but I think that,

(00:36:17): you know,

(00:36:18): ultimately what we need to be saying is you don't have the right to subject your

(00:36:23): child to an abuser even if you love him.

(00:36:25): And you know, you know what he is.

(00:36:31): Can I tell you something about tough love?

(00:36:33): Absolutely.

(00:36:34): I don't think it's even tough love.

(00:36:35): It's just respect.

(00:36:37): I respect protective moms enough to tell them how things are.

(00:36:41): And I think we are so desperately need that in this field, so to speak.

(00:36:49): People treat domestic violence survivors like they're idiots and like they're somehow incompetent.

(00:36:55): And like they don't know how to make executive decisions for themselves and their children.

(00:37:00): That is not accurate.

(00:37:02): And we would see more women successful in family court and beyond if they were

(00:37:08): treated as competent parents,

(00:37:11): women and individuals.

(00:37:14): Um, no survivor needs tough love.

(00:37:17): They need respect and they need someone to say like, listen, you can do this.

(00:37:22): This is what's going to be required of you.

(00:37:26): Now go execute.

(00:37:28): right?

(00:37:28): Yeah.

(00:37:29): I love that of presenting it as a challenge that she can surmount rather as

(00:37:34): something that she just needs to be terrified of and worry about.

(00:37:37): I think that's part of why you're so effective is that you can just be direct and

(00:37:43): tell people how it is and tell them what they're capable of because women crave

(00:37:47): that because women spend their whole lives being told they're not capable.

(00:37:51): Right.

(00:37:52): And then you go through this process being told you're incapable.

(00:37:54): You feel stupid.

(00:37:56): You feel like you were taken advantage of, that you're a fool.

(00:37:58): Now you have children.

(00:38:00): You don't have two pennies to rub together potentially.

(00:38:03): A lot of us experience housing insecurity.

(00:38:06): We don't have access to transportation or community.

(00:38:08): And then you enter these environments and no one tells you what's going on or what's expected of you.

(00:38:13): And people baby you.

(00:38:15): I absolutely refuse.

(00:38:17): I absolutely refuse.

(00:38:18): I genuinely believe that if we give women and protective moms the tools to move forward, they will.

(00:38:23): And like I said, there's room for emotion, sadness, all the facets of this.

(00:38:29): But you have an obligation and we need to urge women and moms to meet the

(00:38:34): obligation that they have to themselves and their children.

(00:38:36): I love that.

(00:38:38): And I love you for that.

(00:38:39): Thank you so much, Caitlin, for coming on here.

(00:38:43): Again, Caitlin is offering something that like you really don't get anywhere else.

(00:38:48): So readers,

(00:38:49): if you're going through a divorce or seeking a protective order,

(00:38:51): I urge you to really seek Caitlin out.

(00:38:54): She can spend that kind of time with you that like your lawyer can't spend with you.

(00:38:58): She can help you tell your story in a way that is not just compelling in court,

(00:39:02): but maybe compelling with your friends and with your family and your employers and

(00:39:05): all the people who you really need

(00:39:08): on your team.

(00:39:09): So I'm just, I feel really lucky that we have a Caitlin in the world.

(00:39:13): I'm going to put Caitlin's information in the show notes so you guys can reach out to her.

(00:39:17): And I will talk to you in two weeks.