My Voice Is My Superpower

The same is true for you!

A Moment of Decision

I woke up at 4:55 am and could not get back to sleep. My mind was filled with words! Not surprising, since I’m a writer. I was debating with myself about how I would speak my truth about my divorce and its aftermath, and where. My intention for this post is that it be delivered in a way that is beneficial to as many people as possible. I decided that doing so via some of my usual social media chanels didn’t work well. What I have to share is a bit too long for those spaces.

*In this post, I won’t mention specific names of the people involved. I will refer to them by their relationship to me.

What’s Been Happening

In March of 2020, my ex-spouse abandoned our marriage and moved out of the house. In May of 2021, I filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized on August 19, 2022. The divorce process was filled with Coercive Control by my ex and his expensive Boston lawyer (paid for by his parents) and the lack of true defense of my own and my son’s needs by my lawyer. I was put in a position of making a choice between two impossibly horrific things - say yes to an extremely inequitable separation agreement or say no and have the divorce go to trial, risking damage to my my relationship to my co-housing community neighbors among other things. I also risked losing more money than not going to trial.

For two years I reached out for help for staying in my affordable (40b) home, but received no help from HUD’s Homeowner Assistance Fund with its unreasonable gatekeeping eligibility rules, from my state’s RAFT mortgage assistance fund, or from biological relatives who turned their backs on me for asking. On May 23, 2024, after three days of around-the-clock packing with lots of help from my friends, I was escorted away from my home of 14.8 years in co-housing . I am now unhoused and looking for the right place to land and begin my new life, as a new person.

But first, I have to get this out of my system.

The Legacy

History has taught us that when a group of citizens gathers together to link arms and speak Truth to Power we can achieve landmark progress in assuring essential rights for all US citizens. We are all conected that way ~ assuring freedom for a few means greater freedom for all. Ordinary citizens have risked imprisonment and death to protect their fellow humans who were targeted for genocide because of the color of their skin or the way they worshipped their deity. Families often hid their persecuted neighbors in their own homes. In village/town/city squares, citizens with privilege surrounded protectively those being mistreated. They said “no more” to injustice.

People in authority who cared about creating a more just society listened and responded. New laws protecting the civil rights of all citizens were written and upheld. It took time, patience, and fortitude to work on those who wanted to protect the status quo of the time, but the citizens who worked for positive progress eventually prevailed and won those protections for more people. They were the people who were truly working to make our country great. I believe that is true for the state governments who have acknowledged their part in taking away land from Native Americans and have given that land back to them.

The Work for Justice in The Twenty-First Century

Some injustices in modern times have become less obvious, more nuanced, and are kept “underground.” They are often systemic and you may not realize how damaging they are until you are “on the wrong side of the law.” The legal system around probate court is one of those places. I’ve learned quite a lot about how the legal system works in practice through the process of obtaining a divorce from my ex-spouse. There is so much I wish I knew going in that I know now, only after the whole process is over.

It is very good to know that the state of Massachusetts has recently passed legislation around the prevention of Coercive Control during divorce proceedings, and that it is recognized as a form of domestic violence, whereby one spouse uses court proceedings as a means of abusing the other during a divorce. This means that judges must recognize when it is happening and that your lawyer is willing to recognize it and call it out so s/he can defend you from it. It is still more often the male member of the couple who exerts the Coercive Control over the female member of the hetero couple during the divorce process, to the best of my knowledge. Sometimes the woman, often also a mother, is the person who is harmed by a law that is meant to protect her/them, as are the children.

My Divorce Story

The Coercive Control Act has come too late for me to benefit from it. My own lawyer would not defend me against any instance of its presence, nor call it out when my ex and his lawyer exerted their control over the process. Here is what she advocated:

• Both parties did not owe the other alimony or child support (my child was 17).

• Child Support was moot ~ because my child was 17 at the time.

• I retained custody of my still-minor child and the right to claim our child on my tax return every other year. I challenged that and was granted the examption for every year.

• My ex’s long history of calls about him to DCFS was not ever addressed - kept off the table.

• My ex insisted on keeping a “contingency to sell” as part of the final separation agreement, despite my request to have it removed. This piece insisted that my affordable home be put on the market and its sale rushed, that I would only have until a buyer signed a Purchase & Sale agreement to refinance the mortgage. The rate we had with BoA was 3.875%. The interest rates for refinancing were rising steadily, so a new one would have been closer to 6%, increasing the amounts of the payments, which were affordable only as they were. They also kept it in because they knew that though the judge hearing our case was more sympathetic toward me, the trial lawyer would likely not be. It was stated in the Separation Agreement that I would receive 100% of the equity from the sale of the house, but that is not really what happened. This was in exchange for my agreeing to not take any of his retirement funds. When I asked that the “Contingency” be removed altogether, my ex’s rebuttal was that “he has given enough already.” Ha!

• At the same time, my employer insisted on cutting the hours allowed for the work I was doing, so that made it unlikely I could even Acquire the loan at the original interest rate and ask for modification. I started the paperwork for that, but then my income no longer supported making the mortgage payments, so it went into default. Takingthe loan out of deferment was a requirement for anyone to receive help from the Homeowner’s Assistance Fund via HUD, which was no longer available once the government determined that the Covid pandemic was no longer a health “emergency.” I must call out here that a person who doesn’t need financial help would not put their mortgage into deferment, which my ex had done without consulting with or informing me, then hid it from me by having the address window show only his name. What a bunch of terribly inequitable gate-keeping for a fund meant to help homeowners keep their homes - to make mortgages in deferment ineligible for the help, especially for affordable 40b homes. I also asked for help to resolve the arrearage from another agency, RAFT, but someone from that organization sat on my required paperwork for a month after I produced the March bank statement, and then closed my case beause BoA didn’t produce a mortgage statement for April on April 1st. I filed a request for help from the Victim’s Compensation Fund with the MA Attorney General’s office for survivors of domestic violence, but they denied my request because I hadn’t filed a police report. This can be tricky and women who have experienced DV are often abused by police officers on top of it.

• My ex demanded 50% of the 2021 tax return + 100% of the stimulus funds alotted to him. By then, those funds were used to pay bills, including $1850 for a new hot water heater. Also despite not being required to pay any child support. Total demanded by ex on top of the other elements in the divorce: $4,196.50. This was after I had liquidated my own $4,000 IRA to pay bills for which we were both responsible.

• My ex did not divulge on his court financial statement that he received $4,000 severence pay from his former employer when he was fired in June of 2021.

• A statement was included that if either party had to hire legal counsel to bring the other party to court if they did not adhere to any part of the document, the “defendent” would be required to pay for the “plaintiff’s” legal counsel. As you’ve seen, there was more in the ‘agreement’ for me to challenge than for him.

Two days before the final hearing for the divorce, my body shut down in the middle of Target. That was triggered by hearing from the Real Estate agent hired to sell my home. I sent a text to my son to tell him what was happening and that I did not feel that it was safe for me to drive, two co-housing neighbors came to bring me home from Target (one to drive my car with me and my son in it), another neighbor called an ambulance, and I spent the next 8 hours in the ER, being tested for all sorts of stuff, mostly drifting in and out of sleep from utter exhaustion on all levels. I later realized it was a CPTSD response.

To Trial or Not To Trial?

On the day after my hospital stay, still recovering, my lawyer and I negotiated the final draft of the Separation Agreement, and I “docusigned” it. I did tell her about my trip to the ER, to no avail. She did not care one bit. On the day of the final hearing, I was presented with my ex’s financial statement just 5 minutes before we all went live on Zoom. His severance pay was nowhere to be found on it. The judge reviewed it and asked me if I signed it freely. If I said “yes”, the agreement would be stamped by the judge and be filed at probate court as pending. If I said “no,” the divorce would be taken to trial.

If I said “no” to the question of whether I signed the Separation Agreement freely and without duress, the divorce case would be headed for trial. Here are some pros and cons to that:

Pros:

• I could let go of my first-round lawyer and find one who would be more effective.

• I could challenge the “Contingency to Sell” as abuse and possibly keep my home. I could also challenge it on the basis of it taking my not-yet-”emancipated” child’s home away from him and potentially isolating him from his social support network.

• My new lawyer would have the opportunity to subpoena my ex’s DCFS history.

• My new lawyer would have the opportunity to subpoena the appropriate records from my ex’s former employer to discover that he had received severance pay I’d be entitled to, severence pay he was supposed to report on the financial statement for the divorce but didn’t. We could possibly exchange his keeping his severance pay for my keeping the $4,196.50 he wanted to take, perhaps as an exchange for still not demanding child support from him.

Cons:

• I would need to pay for both my own new lawyer and my ex’s expensive Boston lawyer for trial work. My mother was helping me with paying for the divorce and I knew there was 0% chance she’d pay for my ex’s lawyer. She wasn’t willing to co-sign on a refinance for me to keep my home. For all I knew, I’d be stuck without any financial support for appropriate legal counsel mid-trial and without a final divorce.

• Allowing the divorce to go to trial would prolong the process of obtaining this final freedom from my ex for myself and delay my chance to start a new life for an indefinite amount of time. My ex would have had the chance to prolong the process for a very long time through costly legal actions and I could possibly have lost more money than I actually had.

• Allowing the divorce to go to trial would have been divisive to my co-housing community, and damaging to my relationship with my co-housing neighbors.

• Allowing the divorce to go to trial may have harmed my son further and possibly damaged my relationship with him.

So, in the end, I said “yes.” I took so long to answer, took time to check in with myself physically, that I am sure that the judge knew that my “yes” wasn’t because I totally agreed with the document. I was carefully considering the meaning of all the options. I am sure she knew that my “yes” meant that I had my reasons (listed above) for wanting to avoid having the divorce go to trial. I was entertaining fantasies that I‘d find a way to get around the “Contingency to Sell.” I wanted that divorce to be final as soon as possible! I wanted freedom from my ex, and to make sure he didn’t have access to any of the income that I expected to earn moving forward. That part went both ways in the separation agreement document.

The Fallout

After hearing from the Real Estate agent again, I started feeling remorse for that “yes.” Over and over, for two years I’ve spent way too much time regretting it. After I released my lawyer from service to me, I drove over to the Court Service Center and received help from one of the volunteers there in filling out forms to request a “relief from judgement” and “request for modification.” That was denied, by a different judge. My ex filed contempt charges against me for delaying my cooperation for the sale of the house. My mother paid for my lawyer to appear in court with me this time. Because the lawyer was with me, the judge gave me a warning to cooperate with the real estate agent and allow her to show my home, in addition to granting my ex the contempt charges. That took around $4,000 out of my equity.

I continued to stall on allowing the real estate agent to show my home a bit more, doing my best to work out how I could possibily stay in my home, racing against the inevitability of a P&S being signed. My ex filed another contempt charge against me, but this time I had no legal counsel because my mother and I had become estranged and Legal Aid did not help unless I was being physically abused. They didn’t recognize financial abuse and litigation abuse as serious enough, even though I had a child to support. Ironically, my ex brought his “best man” to that hearing. The judge noted that I did not have the support of legal counsel (representing myself ‘pro se’), and that the property in question to be sold was an affordable 40b property. Then he granted my ex the second contempt charge and assigned a “court master” to sell my home from under me in my name. I found it interesting that my ex and his best man walked out of the courtroom with scowls on their faces. Did they not get that they “won”? I was in shock.

Total financial losses from my ex’s legal activity that I was required to pay for:

• $8,000 for my ex’s lawyer.

• $11,000 for the 2 court masters: #1 was fired but was still paid $3,000. Court Master #2 took $8,000.

• $5,000 for the constable to come on Monday, 5/20 to tell me that I had 3 days to move, per order of Court Master #2 who would not give me the extra day to make my departure date a Friday (the original moveout date) instead of Thursday. My friends and I could have used that extra day to pack. Luckily the constable was kind. He brought coffee and muffins for me and my friends, and allowed me to arrange for my stuff to be brought to the storage facility I preffered. He was privy to all of the court activity for the previous two years and saw that my ex’s choice of lawyer and legal activity as over-the-top unreasonably aggressive.

• $1,000 + miscellaneous. I was left to shoulder much of the financial burden for the sale of the home. My ex was held accountable for $0. This included additional services such as the replacement of old smoke alarms and disposal of furniture and other items I needed to leave behind, as well as the movers to take the stuff I was keeping to my chosen storage location.

This was all money I could possibly have used to live on and to help pay my child’s university tuition. So, the sentence in the Separation Agreement that stated I’d receive 100% of the equity from the house contradicted all of what actually happened. I’d lost as much as I had received.

Lessons

I’ve learned quite alot about the legal system in the past two years. I’ve learned through both experience and conversations with others who have had similar experiences, that the odds of having our needs met at court are stacked high against women, especially if those women are co-parenting children with abusive spouses. Children’s real needs, such as mental health, are very rarely considered. My number one recommendation for any woman who feels the need to file for divorce in order to free herself from an abusive spouse is to conduct lengthy interviews with prospective legal counsel. Here’s a bit of a checklist:

1. Research your rights, especially your state’s position on coercive control and litigation abuse.

2. Finding a good divorce lawyer who knows what they are doing is willing to spend the time to defend you properly is worth the cost!

3. Document everything.

4. What perentage of this lawyer’s case load is populated by divorce cases? What percentage of their cases were successes for their clients?

5. Can this lawyer recognize attempted financial and litigation abuse? Is s/he prepared and willing to call it out at court, no matter who the other lawyer is representing the other party?

6. Is this lawyer willing to do the research on case precedences for your side of the case (mine wasn’t).

7. Has this lawyer successfully represented a client in a contested/contentious divorce? How did they do this? What gains did they win for their client?

8. Does this lawyer have experience securing the rights and safety of the child(ren) involved? Are they ready for anything your ex might throw their way?

I was recently given the name of an organization that helps women navigate divorce, especially contentious divorces. It’s named Jane Does Well. You can ask them for recommendations for good family lawyers, and also get lots of emotional support, too. They are a fantastic resource that I wish I knew existed from the beginning of my divorce journey.

A New Direction For My Journey

I hope that this post has been helpful to you, or someone you know! I have offered it for free because so many women need support when they are facing such a life-changing ordeal! If you’ve received some benefit from my writing, and if you’ve enjoyed some of my other posts, please consider upgrading your Subscription to paid or recognize the value of this post by clicking on the “buy me a coffee” button. I’m grateful for all support for my landing (with my beloved cat) in the right place as I move forward. Thank you so much for reading, especially if you’ve made it this far!

One of the events in my life that has prompted my writing this post was having a male co-housing neighbor begin bullying me the day after I moved out of my home via email and in person with intense gaslighting - telling me that I’m lying about my ex’s part in my current circumstances, that sharing my true experience of my divorce at court is damaging to the community, and that I’ve “thrown my ex under the bus.” He was only willing to stop this behavior if I agreed not to discuss my ex’s part in creating my present circumstances in public spaces, including the community email list. He wanted me to stop “blaming” my ex for my present reality. The word blame carries so much baggage with it, especially these days. I believe that I am assigning an appropriate amount of (legal) responsibility to my ex for my present circumstsances. I don’t intend to remain in this reality. I know that great things are ahead of me and I won’t let anyone hold me back!

*Unhealthy blame:

• Blaming someone for something they had absolutely nothing to do with.

• Blaming someone else when your own actions were the sole origin of your situation.

• Blaming someone for refusing to do something that was in their soverign right to refuse.

• Blaming someone with less power in a situation for being in the circumstances they are in.

• Baiting a child to respond to a situation a certain way, then blaming/shaming them when they respond as anticipated - as a child would.

• Blaming others’ actions for not doing what you are responsible for - i.e. changing habits, healing and moving forward.

I’ve agreed to not post about this anymore to the community lists or on social media. But I will not be silenced! I will not swallow my truth and keep quiet just to keep someone else feeling comfortable, man or woman. Nah! We all need to share our journeys with each other, and with those in ‘authority’ if they will listen. When all else fails us, our combined voices are our superpowers and using our voices to communicate our experiences could lead to further positive changes. We must keep our faith and hope that it will!