Help Melissa escape DV & fight for her children

Please help us. Whilst many of you have seen the beautiful posts of our daughter Melissa and our three grandchildren looking like all is well, she has actual been the victim of domestic violence (DV) and suffering in an extremely abusive marriage for many years.

This is something we have all chosen to keep quiet as she navigated her situation which is extremely difficult. As a victim of DV Melissa has struggled to find her inner strength and to fight her abuser.

Melissa lives in the USA, and has no family there and he has made sure she has no/few friends. Despite this Mel has finally started to stand up for herself and to draw a line in the sand to say she deserves more than to be constantly threatened, degraded and made to feel like a lesser person at his hands. Melissa went and spoke with a lawyer and was told that she could leave on her own, but she could not take her children without a court order. Estimated legal costs were in excess of $50,000US, plus relocation costs. Without access to these sort of funds Melissa decided to lay low and work hard to find a way to get away from this abuse, and to seek a safe home for her and the children. In the meantime, she took the lawyer’s advice to report her abuse and any concerns she had about her safety and wellbeing.

This approach has unfortunately ‘poked the bear’. In retaliation , he orchestrated a plan to take the children to visit the grandparents during which time he served her with divorce papers seeking full custody of the children, and to be granted possession of all material items, whilst at the same time making a number of false allegations against her to help in his plan to ‘punish her’. Mel is now stuck in another country with no family or support and having to fight for her three young children, aged from 1 to 4 years. He has lawyers and intends to fight her as he states she deserves nothing and she is getting what ‘she deserves’. This is her punishment for her struggles during her post natal depression last year after the birth of their third child, and for her alleged laziness as a wife and mother. Mel is one of the hardest workers we know.

To say we are heart broken is an understatement, we have no words to describe the pain we are all going through. Melissa’s ‘mistake’ was she played fair as she wanted the children to have a relationship with their father. She offered an equal division of child access and property. This has been rejected. Melissa refused to do anything that might help her case if she did not deem it to be the right thing to do. If there had been any suggestion that she was being physically abused then she could have walked out the door with her children. But the fact that her abuse left no bruises meant she could not just leave. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking ‘oh it was not physical’ so it’s not that bad. Verbal, psychological, financial and coercive control are just as damaging.

Melissa has been the children’s primary care giver for all of their young lives. Her children are now about to be ripped out of her arms and their father is trying to stop her from having any custodial rights. He has told her it is her “punishment’ and it’s what she deserves. We know this won’t happen if she can get to court, but she needs legal advice to fight his lies. She cannot go up against his lawyers by herself.

We never thought we take a Go Fund Me approach, but to be honest, we are left with few options, and we would do anything to keep our grandchildren at home with their mother. We cannot fly there to be by her side as we need to save every dollar for this fight. We will do what we have to do to help, and that includes asking for your help, big or small.

At this stage we don’t know how much this is going to cost. If the estimate is correct it is in excess of US$50,000. We can’t possibly hope or dream to find that sort of money, but if we can get the ball rolling at least it’s a start. If Melissa can get to court she can at least initially fight. We pray that the universe looks after us and we find a way to continue to fight to keep this family together. We will then work out how we can find her a place to live etc, but we need to take one step at a time. She can’t return to Australia as she won’t be able to take the children out of the country. We have set the target at US$10,000 which might be wildly optimistic, but we know there are good people in this world who care but honestly anything helps so it is worth a try

Please, if you can help in any way please know we appreciate it so much. You will seriously be helping to save our family. If you can’t help financially we understand. Times are tough and we hate even having to ask. We know you would if you could. But you can still help by sharing this post. Who knows, it might land in the hands of someone who can help, or give strength to someone suffering from DV.

If there are any unused funds at the end of this nightmare they will be donated to victims of DV.

Thank you for taking the time to read this heartfelt plea.

Warmest regards, Johanna and Greg