Divorce as a metaphor

Cross posted with gooseandganderreport.wordpress.com

Scorched earth divorces, as discussed in the book, Divorced from Justice, start out by the spouse with deep pockets (SDP) and cutthroat attorneys cutting off the innocent spouse from any financial support. Then, SDP's attorneys throw every stalling tactic, legal (and not so legal) maneuver, and obfuscation at the innocent spouse. As her attorneys fend off the various maneuvers, her legal team runs out of funds.

While on paper, there are protections in place to protect the innocent spouse, the reality is quite different. Attorney Penelope Bryant wrote about coercion (see http://tinyurl.com/4t8pjbc) and the long-lasting, devastating effects on the spouse and her children.

I have been told that I should describe myself as an undocumented victim of domestic violence. Undocumented because like many others, my divorce court has routinely denied enforcement of domestic violence laws since my abuser is the one with deep pockets. So, even though I've attempted to just move on with my life after 26 years of marriage, my Ex has repeatedly used the court to deny me my rights to my share in the assets from the marriage at the same time he's forcing me to take his extortion debt, take his lavish vacation debt (think Bonaire, Islemorada, and Vail) and debt taken to hide his asset-hiding.

As I am struggling to fight back against my Ex, who took the entirety of the retirement assets, dissipated the value of the marital home by over $100k, and has tried to incarcerate me on several occasions for failure to pay utility bills in the dissipated house (think holes in the roof, kicked in doors, and broken boiler) even though I am financially destitute due to his court maneuvers, I can't help but think about how these scorched earth divorce tactics are similar to the seizing of assets and power by political bullies, most recently the GOP in Wisconsin.

As I struggle to fight total financial devastation and probable homelessness, my personal Patronus (think Harry Potter) is to channel Luke Skywalker trying to shoot the death star, in the first Star Wars movie. As he is being shot at by the Evil Empire's fighters, Luke channels the Force as Obi-Wan Kenobi implores him to focus using the force, to shut out the distractions as he focuses on the target he must take out in order to save humankind.

As citizens are attempting to fight against the takeover of our country by corporations (think Wisconsin and the Koch brothers), I think about the similarities between scorched earth divorces and the disenfranchisement of our workers, families, communities, and country.

First, the corporates took away many of our rights when they changed bankruptcy laws, allowing credit card companies (think Bank of America) to charge loan shark credit card rates and policies, then they reduced funding to such an extent to legal assistance programs that those programs still remaining had few resources to make a difference. The corporates bought out SCOTUS (think Bush v Gore), are trying to control access to the Internet, and ignore open meetings acts, and have used the government for unfettered attacks on whistleblowers.

They want us to believe that we have no option but to comply. Therefore, we must figure out ways to fly under the radar and cover the backs of those who still have resources to fight peaceful yet effective battles.

In order to survive, to preserve any shred of decency and life, we must prioritize and focus, yet decentralize our peaceful attacks. We need hundreds of wikileak-type sites. While we decentralize, we need to find ways to share resources to enforce ethical laws and practices.

More later... I have to get back to fighting my own legal battles. I am still not out of the woods in my own divorce. My Ex continues to stall, obfuscate, submit frivolous motions with perjured affidavits and has so far prevailed in the court system.

In the meantime, even if you feel you have no energy to fight these battles for common decency, talk to your neighbors and find ways to pool and stretch your energies. Our children are relying on us.

Unintended Legacies: Corruption in the courthouse

UPDATE: For those who care about justice for families in the Cook County divorce courts, I’d really appreciate court observers on Monday, September 20 at 10AM in room 3004 of the Daley Center. Abusers get away with their obscene tactics because there are few who dare to speak out. The greater the numbers, the more likely I can avoid being dragged off to Cook County Jail. Please read my story…

Karen Winner, in her investigative book, Divorced From Justice, documented the various ways in which individuals (primarily women) are eviscerated and completely disenfranchised in the court system, especially in the Cook County System.

My divorce is not famous like the Woods and Nordegren's. Like Nordegren, however, I am very concerned about the effects of divorce on my children as well as other mother's children. As a child psychologist, I used to write about how to help children navigate through the challenges of today's living and learning environments. However, because my Ex's behavior did not have media scrutiny (after all, Nike and other corporate sponsors needed to reduce the negative publicity fallout for Tiger), my Ex was allowed to get away with physical abuse, emotional abuse, willful deprivation, and financial abuse. Since the first step my Ex did was to lock me out of my private practice office suite, I was unable to earn a living as a psychologist both during the divorce as well as at this moment, especially since I have to spend so much time trying, without benefit of an attorney, to fend off his continued litigation. After taxes, I do not have any measurable funds from our savings to get back on my feet or support myself so that I can continue the advocacy for those with disabilities (as I have done for the past 25 years). What will I do? My Ex is poised to make me more destitute and homeless, so who knows?

The media is selective in what they cover. Unlike Tiger's abusive philandering, they apparently did not scrutinize OJ's abuse of Nicole Simpson until after she was murdered, probably because OJ was a has-been that minor corporate sponsors quickly dropped. Without a marketing team's press releases, and meaningful law enforcement, Nicole Simpson's only voice was from the grave, and even then they said it was her fault for "going back." When protections fail, Nicole had few options, especially with young children. Because of custody/visitation issues, she could not just disappear out of his reach unless she was willing to give up her children. But when Nicole Simpson finally escaped, she joined the ranks of the 70% of abused women who are murdered AFTER they escape.

Before you click away from this post, please read my story, as I believe that a governmental system that allows wealthy people and corporations to take advantage of the families that form both the backbone and the foundation for our country need to be held accountable. This is the first of what I hope is multiple posts to try to rally reasonable people in this country to take back their families, take back their communities, from the control of the corporations (including the media) that take advantage of those who do not have the deep pockets to hire "crack legal teams" to protect their rights. This is not just about divorce, but it is about mortgage lenders, credit card companies, school administrators, and other corporate interests that have deep pockets to bias the courts, even the Supreme Court, into delegating personhood status so that corporate bullies can continue to stack the legislative and judicial systems to get their own way.

How could my Ex get away with abuse? Aren't there domestic violence laws and protections? Aren't there laws that say that a wife of 26 years is entitled to half the assets? Aren't there laws that require that a judge take into consideration the wife's contributions to a marriage, require that a judge consider a person's future ability to be a contributing member of society when allocating assets and debt? It's all up to "judicial discretion" which is consistently biased toward those with the greatest financial resources, usually men. Every day, judicial discretion decimates individuals, families, and dedicated community members.

It is my belief that protective laws without transparency and enforcement teeth, are worse than no laws at all. That is, when someone in need of protection asks for help, reasonable people assume that the victim must have done something to cause the protections to not apply.

Because it seems the media is reluctant to report on the impact of divorces in general, my Ex was free to take advantage of his total control of the family finances, using the court system to "legally" (that is, via judicial discretion) take everything (via judicial discretion, the judge gave him all of the assets (failing to take into account a tax liability I cannot pay), and gave me over $100k of marital debt.

As you can probably deduce from the photo (recent surgery for rotator cuff and bicep tenodesis necessitated by abusive demands for me to perform furniture moving and other acts I cannot afford to pay others to do), I am an undocumented victim of domestic violence. In the Cook County divorce system, my Ex has seized all the marital assets of our 26 year marriage to continue his domestic violence via court orders. He told me that his goal was to make me destitute, and he has essentially succeeded.

My Ex has used multiple maneuvers, including what he has called his "crack legal team" to systematically deny me "level playing field" attorney fees, and managed to take 100% of the retirement annuity (but claimed in documents presented to the judge that a six figure annuity was worth approximately $1800). His attorneys withheld discovery, enabled fraudulent statements on legal disclosure documents, obfuscated any attempt to obtain funds for me to survive, perverted legal definitions of "status quo," and wrote meritless motions to have judicial discretion award him with exclusive use of a substantial part of the Winnetka home while I was forced to live and sleep in a doorless room and shower at the local fitness center. He bought himself copper river salmon and gave me expired yogurt to eat. I lost over 50 pounds, but the judge continued to enable my Ex's abusive behavior.

A year ago, my Ex used the court to force me to sign over disputed assets of $75,000 check from the 401k, under threat of incarceration if I refused,(all monies from 401(k)s are allocated to spouses as "alternate payees" in divorces). While he had promised that his receiving of these assets via an "agreed order" would be his preallocation of his share of the retirement, he had not honored his part of the agreement, which was to FINALLY provide me with support But then, after the judge forced me to sign over this check, in violation of Illinois Supreme Court Rule (13), after the judge allowed my lawyer to withdraw 1 day before pretrial, taking any and all monies I had to hire new counsel, thereby guaranteeing that my Ex would get his way with the judge, who does most of his negotiations off the record, in chambers, so that I have no opportunity to confront my accuser or challenge his fraudulent evidence.

His most recent "legal" maneuver was to refuse my request for a continuance due to recent surgery and then have the judge find me in contempt of court, to be remanded to Cook County jail on Monday if I do not pay Bill what I view as extortion. Quite a fall from grace for a Winnetka Mom and professional child psychologist.

Being unaware of the depth of corruption, I have reached out to many people to ask for help. However, when a whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, reported corruption, they went after his wife, Valerie Plame. No one has been held accountable for this, but the impact on our country, the impact on reasonable people, to stand against corruption was stopped dead in its track. Who can afford to have their families exposed for speaking out against fraud and corruption?

This kind of corruption is why we need everyone to contribute to Wikileaks.org. Posting documents can help reasonable people to reconnect the dots to root out corruption. If the very foundation of our country, the working and middle classes, are allowed to be bullied because reasonable people failed to speak out, our country will crumble.