Brave Little Gerda Knows More Now

[Gerda]

Breaking my Lent fast to post tonight as I am in such despair.

Last summer when D cut off contact with H, I filed for a change in custody. I felt I had no choice, had been waiting for divorce to go through and then try family court where they care more about kids, but D was punching herself in the face and talking about self harm, and H and his L were threatening to take me to court, so I filed for the change -- just to change visitation to once a week and to have a therapist or social worker speak for the kids if they didn't want to go. And to get child support and legal custody.

Judge took forever, finally had a conference in the fall and by then my kids had both started seeing H again a little bit, after his father died of Covid. D regressed horribly as soon as she started seeing him again but I was thankful that she only wanted to see him a few hours a week. I knew them seeing him would weaken my case but tried to leave it in God's hands.

Judge called us for a second conference; she had never done that before, so it seemed like a sign she was actually reading everything for once. My papers were very thorough and solid evidence of all the horrible reasons I was trying to change custody.

Judge gets moved off matrimonial and we get a new judge. I thought this had to be a good thing, no one could be as bad as mine.

Remote conference today. I was determined to be as quiet as possible and let them do their usual yelling, so I could start fresh with this judge.

It did not matter. She was hell bent on putting me in my place. H lied about what had happened, lied about how often he sees the kids, and Judge did not care about me getting no child support or anything I tried to say.

She rejected every single part of it. When I said I had teenagers who would not follow the visitation schedule, she said, "Are you a grown-up or not? Are you in charge or not?" and threatened me that she would do far worse if I interfered with visitation. She muted me when I tried to ask about child support.

And that would have been enough to bear. But then she announced she was awarding them legal fees. She said I had to pay his lawyer's bill for that motion sequence. $7000

I called the pro se office and told them what happened. They were shocked. They said my only option is to write a motion asking for her to review facts she missed -- e.g., there is no money in bank account and I obviously can't afford to pay a lawyer or I would have one.

The only thing I managed to get through was to corner them into agreeing to have the property appraised in order to push forward the buyout we agreed upon.

I feel so so so so bad today. I cried all day. That feeling of not being heard or seen or understand, of knowing who I am and what I am trying to do, the dozens of attempts I made to enforce the agreement we made to resolve, all of them ignored. And still to be seen as whatever that judge must think to do something like that. My last judge was terrible, she never read any documents or help H accountable for anything. But she would never ever have ordered me to cover their legal fees. She knew what H's lawyer was.

Today's judge told me I had failed to prove a change of circumstances though the was a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, he quit his job and opened a restaurant, our daughter was threatening suicide and both children had cut off contact with H. This was not enough proof of a change of circumstances for her.

I had paper taped over the faces of H and his L but still could see their smug delight.

I feel as bad as after bomb drop. Total despair.

I don't even know why. Nothing that much has changed, it's just $7000 and I will keep trying to get him to resolve as I have been all this time. But that feeling of being misunderstood, of knowing who I am and of facing people who think the opposite of me, despite the facts on the page and the story right in front of them of me sitting there just asking for child support and to follow the resolution we had agreed on two years ago, being fined $7000 while H pays nothing, no child support, no help with anything, has spent three years dissipating our asset on legal fees and now I am asked to pay his lawyer as punishment for filing a motion to protect my kids and try to get him to stop declaring our kids on his tax return, to stop taking the child tax credit. It seems like BD all over again, this disbelief that someone could see things so wrongly, and the confusion of trying to do what I can to protect my kids and being punished for it.

I don't want to violate my fast too much but I am so low today, like the early days when I couldn't eat or function, so I thought I had better reach out.