(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.