Empowering Justice-Help Stop Litigation Abuse

Hi my name is Terri and I need your help. My daughters and I need help. In 2017, I filed for divorce from a man who had influence in the small town that we lived in. He was an administrator and I was a teacher in the same school district. We had been married since 2008 and had two daughters together. From the outside, we looked like the picture-perfect family. No one knew the personal hell that I was living. The marriage was dysfunctional, volatile, and abusive. I knew almost immediately that I had made a mistake, but he had a degree, a home, a title, represented stability, and people in our town seemed to look up to him. However, they did not know him the way that I did. In public, he was social, respectful, and engaging, but at home, he was none of those things. He was a monster and treated me terribly. He never told me that he loved me. He reasoned that “if he said it often, it wouldn’t be special.” If he wasn’t tantruming, he was not speaking to me. It started with the cold shoulder for a few days and that would soon turn into weeks without speaking to me, sometimes months. You might ask, what did she do to deserve this treatment? Walked in front of the tv? Breathed too loud? Asked for money to buy the girl's backpacks? It didn’t take much to anger him. My name wasn't on the home he bought, although he took money from me each month. He told me that he would only consider adding my name to the home if I gave him $10,000 as a downpayment. It became apparent that what was his, was his. He took almost every dime that I had monthly. I attempted to plead my case, but there was no use. I learned to keep my mouth closed very early on to keep the peace.

Initially, I attempted to figure out what I was doing wrong and tried to find ways to make him happy. I wanted to be everything that he desired in the hopes that he would treat me better. I overexercised to get to a desirable weight in his eyes. I didn’t complain that he was out at the bar three nights per week while I was home with the girls. He frequented strip clubs, cheated regularly, and watched pornographic videos without a word from me. He eventually made me complicit in his deviant behaviors, which made me feel some sort of love or connection to him. This was not a marriage, this was a nightmare and I had no idea how I would ever get out of it.

This went on for years. The sexual abuse became more pervasive, the disrespect more commonplace, and the abuse more regular. This was my life and I had no way out. In 2015, I went to him and asked if we could go to marriage counseling and his reply was no. I said that I could not continue this way and his reply was, “When the girls graduate, then we will figure it out.” My mother told me that he clearly was planning to keep the girls and I there until they were out of the child support system and that he was probably planning to put me out. After yet another affair on his part, he moved into the guest room. The girls started sleeping in my bedroom with me, ages 8 and 5 at the time, and we lived completely separate lives. The abusive behavior continued. He spoke to me when he felt like it. He would have sexual intercourse with me only when alcohol was involved or as a means to control me. My life was a mess. He would come home, shower, and leave coming back home at midnight or later. I had lost who I was. He controlled which friends I had. He dictated who I could speak to and who I couldn't. I was a shell of my former self. I had become a robot- essentially giving the responses that kept my girls and I emotionally safe.

In 2017, the kids and I waited for him to go to work in the morning, and we left with only our clothes. He was content with seeing the girls for a few hours on the weekend. Never any overnights because the girls had only been accustomed to being with me. However, when I filed for divorce and The Friend of the Court was notified, he lost it! He hired an attorney and told the court that he was a good dad and wanted 50/50 custody. The judge ruled in my favor and gave me sole custody and he had every other weekend with an overnight on Wednesdays. He fired his attorney hired another attorney and filed an appeal citing new evidence and said I had lied. He started turning the tables and making everything about me. He lied in court and said I had multiple affairs when it was he who had the affairs. He told the court that I had sexual partners, but failed to say that he encouraged it as part of his sexual deviance and addiction. The judge said the previous ruling would be upheld. He petitioned for a new judge. During this time, my daughters had started saying that their dad was trying to peek at them while they were showering or changing clothes in their bedrooms. Because of how volatile our relationship was, I couldn’t say anything to him. It became so bad that they were refusing to shower at his home. One weekend, my girls came home and the older one stated that her dad had touched her inappropriately. He had placed his hand up her shirt. The look in her eyes when she told me. I knew it was not an accident. It was one of the most devastating days of my life. I had never had the strength to fight back with this man, but this was the time that I knew I had to stand up for my girls. I filed a case with Child Protective Services. There was a safety order in place, but as I mentioned, he is well-connected in the community and it didn’t take long for the case to be closed due to insufficient evidence even though my daughter was very clear about what had been taking place. I was told without penetration, there was not a lot they could do.

Meanwhile, he won his appeal and this new judge, who happened to sit on a board of directors with his very best friend, gave him everything he asked for. He asked to have them pulled from the therapist that had been assigned through CPS, the judge said yes. He asked for a $7500 custody evaluation. The judge said yes. He asked for a therapist of his choosing. The judge said yes. The therapist that he has chosen costs between $10,000-$20,000 for a therapeutic weekend. The judge ordered me to pay $5,000 of it. In 2021, the judge gave him 50/50 custody. Despite the testimony of my daughter detailing how she had told her dad multiple times to stay out of the bathroom while she was showering and to not walk in while she was changing her clothes at the exact time her private areas were exposed. She was 13 years old and sat on the stand embarrassed and carrying the shame that her dad had placed on her by his actions, just as he had done to me, and this judge still refused to listen.

I started a new job in Ann Arbor and so I moved to be closer to work. He filed motions to get me to drive the girls to a school in Jackson where he lives which is 50 minutes away from where we live. He is doing everything he can to disrupt our lives and continue to maintain control over us.

The girls have not gone with their dad. They haven’t been able to bring themselves to do an overnight since the incident, despite what the orders have said. They have told the judge who they prefer to live with because they do not feel safe with him. They have had parenting time with him without overnights. The girls can’t do therapy without his consent and he will not consent to any therapy except for Fountain Hill and we can not afford the therapy that he has chosen (which is by design). What should have been a $5000 divorce has quickly become a $30,000 bill. This man files a motion against me every single month. Last month, he filed 14 parenting time complaints against me. The month before, he filed 16 complaints. In the last two weeks, he has filed 2 Show Cause hearings and one contempt of court motion. I can’t keep up with what is coming next which is what he is hoping for.

To give you a glimpse into what he is doing, here are the dates of every time he has filed a motion to drag me into court for a show cause, an evidentiary hearing,any time that I have had to go in to defend myself against motions filed against me or anything that he can think of to have control:

12.19.18- 11.26.19- 12.2.19- 1.13.20- 1.13.20- 1.24.20-

2.11.20- 3.3.20- 3.11.20- 5.15.20- 6.4.20- 7.7.20- 7.21.20-

8.10.20- 8.17.20- 9.24.20- 12.29.20- 1.5.21- 1.14.21- 1.21.21-

5.21.21- 6.21.21- .9.21- 8.5.21- 9.15.21- 11.22.21- 1.4.22- 2.17.22- 3.18.22- 4.21.22- 8.22.22- 8.31.22- 9..22- 10.6.22- 10.13.22- 11.8.22- 12.28.22- 1.25.23- 1.27.23- 2.7.23- 3.17.23- 4.15.23- 4.21.23- 5.5.23- 6.19.23- 10.30.23- 12.6.23- 12.7.23- 12.15.23- 12.21.23

It is hard to fathom, but this has been my life. He has taken me to court over 50 times and there is no end in sight. His real purpose is to harass, intimidate, and control me.

I have read about this type of abuse where a dejected spouse uses the court system to continue the abuse. He is using the court system to financially bankrupt me and the judge is allowing it. I filed for a divorce in 2017 and it is almost 2024 and he has recently filed an appeal, this is his 3rd, with the Michigan Supreme Court. We have been at this for almost 7 years. The girls and I want peace and the only way for us to get some peace is to get justice served. I am so far in debt because of this legal abuse, we can barely breathe. I have been quiet all of these years, but I am no longer willing to allow this abuse to continue and do nothing. He has counted on me being his secret keeper for years. My silence was muffled by fear and I refuse to have this be my story. I refuse to have this be the blueprint for my daughters.

This is what is happening. Abusive litigation is when someone uses the legal system to take power and control over you. It is common in domestic violence cases.

Even if you have left your abuser, they can cause psychological, emotional, and financial harm by taking you—and even your friends and relatives—to court again and again.

What Counts as Abusive Litigation?

Abusive litigation can come up in several types of cases, including family law, protection orders, and unnecessary (“frivolous”) lawsuits.

Common forms of abusive litigation are:

Filing for protection orders against you and/or your friends or family.

Starting custody battles.

Filing contempt motions against you for no reason.

Describing you as an unfit parent and/or requesting mental health evaluations.

Filing unnecessary (“frivolous”) motions, appeals, motions for revision, or motions for reconsideration, forcing you back into court.

Trying to bring closed cases back into court (“relitigate”).

Trying to relitigate in different courts (switching jurisdictions).

Using the court’s discovery requests and/or using the discovery process to bring up embarrassing or irrelevant information about you, and/or taking up a lot of your time and money with large discovery requests.

Dragging out court hearings, harming you financially and/or emotionally.

Refusing to obey court orders, forcing you to spend time and money to enforce the orders.

Threatening to report you to immigration authorities.

Making false reports to Child Protective Services (CPS).

Falsely claiming you abuse drugs or alcohol.

Suing you for reporting abuse.

Suing or threatening to sue anyone who helps you, including family, friends, advocates, attorneys, and law enforcement officers.

Filing complaints against the judge or your lawyer.

Can Abusive Litigation Be Stopped?

Judges can help stop abusive litigation with a specific court order: Order Restricting Abusive Litigation.

The Order Restricting Abusive Litigation can:

Prohibit abusive litigants from filing new lawsuits without the court’s authorization.

Limit the number of allowable court filings.

Limit the scope of discovery.

Require abusive litigants to post a bond for lawyers’ fees.

Impose sanctions.

Impose conditions on—or prohibit—appeals.

Now, he has filed a motion for temporary custody. The therapists that he found in Grand Rapids have attached a mandatory parenting timepiece to the therapy weekend demanding that the girls go with him for 90 days with no contact with me. We have a hearing this week. It never stops and we need help. I need to pay these legal expenses so that I can get additional help. He won’t stop unless someone makes him stop and that costs money. Please help us. The girls and I just want to live without looking over our shoulders. We want to be able to live without planning to attend yet another court proceeding. We have spent over half of their lives in court drama. Please…someone help us. He was ordered to pay me 50% of the equity in the marital home in 2021 and he continues to file motions to set things aside and has yet to pay a dime. He sent a text to me stating that he would never pay it. Please help us.

We are asking for donations to pay our current attorney bill which is linked in our story and funds to retain additional legal help. If you can not afford to donate, maybe you know of professionals in the legal field who can help us. We also welcome any prayers that you want to send.

With gratitude,

Terri