Legal Abuse
I do not use the term legal abuse to mean abuse that is malignant but which does not violate criminal statutes--as this website details, there is plenty of that and that is a problem.
But by 'legal abuse' I mean use of the legal system to abuse the survivor. This type of abuse becomes more prominent once there is a separation or a protection order in place. More so than in criminal proceedings against the primary aggressor, family court proceedings are especially vulnerable abuse. It is the ultimate abuse of process. For sake of discussion, legal abuse can be divided into three categories: gender driven, jurisprudence driven, and primary aggressor driven.
Gender Driven Legal Abuse
- A woman being disputatious (actively defending herself against false accusations) is considered by most people as more disordered or 'crazy' than a man doing the same.
- A woman is expected to be a "perfect victim." Addiction, infidelity, legal history, untruths, immature or irascible behavior, or even confusion is held strongly against her. Abusive partners on the other hand, are 'forgiven' for failings since an offender is somehow always held to be undergoing a redemptive process. This is related to victim blaming.
- Mothers are held to a much higher standard of parenting. A woman seeking to regain contact with children after say a three month absence is regarded as having abandoned them and potentially unfit for contact, while a man seeking to regain contact after the same three months (with whatever motive) is regarded as prompt in protecting his fatherly role.
- Women often do the majority of 'work' in maintaining relationships, so a woman who no longer wants to (for very good reason) is seen as 'cold' or unnatural.
Jurisprudence Driven Legal Abuse
- In family court over the last many decades, emphasis in decision making has gone from 'what happened' to 'what are these people like,' using the opinions of variably trained mental health professionals. Of course this plays into the hand of most primary aggressors who are organized around impression management. Forensic assessments, of parenting, DV, or drug and alcohol abuse, at the present state of the art, are very hit-or-miss and of course frequently manipulated by the primary aggressor. On her end, the survivor usually proceeds guilelessly and openly. Most mental health professionals have insufficient understanding of DV. Moreover they usually have little understanding of narcissism and not only miss it, but tend to be seduced by it.
- The legal system is a power and control system that redistributes power based on ideas of merit. Primary aggressors are experts at evincing the appearance of merit. Many primary aggressors, especially psychopathic and narcissistic, are able to remain very calm, which is considered especially meritorious, while survivors may well be appropriately flustered or emotional.
- Courts intentionally move slowly and in a piecemeal fashion, which is intended to safe-guard justice. But to a survivor, any legal proceeding is traumatizing because of high expense, personal invalidation, impersonalness of the system, length of time, and uncertainty of outcome. Even if the ruling is favorable, the harm has been done
- Family court presumes that each party arrives in a position of rough equity. There is a 'fairness bias' in which each side's story is given equal plausibility. With DV, finding truth in the middle is not a valid proceeding, because the primary aggressor is an expert at the con.
- Each party to a dispute is expected to give something and get something. However, before legal proceedings began, a survivor may have been giving for years and a primary aggressor may have been taking for years. The survivor often is modest in requests where the primary aggressor is extravagant. A survivor that doesn't want to give into many of the primary aggressor's demands (which are usually numerous and constantly renewing) will be seen by the court as uncooperative, when in fact she is just trying to exercise some boundaries. The 'Friendly Parent Doctrine' is an off-shoot of this
- Because the legal system has as a principle "what can't be proved didn't happen," proceedings can replicate gaslighting that happened in the relationship.
- The burden of defending is always much much greater than the burden of accusing. The survivor cannot respond unskillfully while the primary aggressor can be unskillful and rely on quantity not quality of motions. Usually the survivor needs to pay an attorney, while the primary aggressor again can act pro se, and even get filing fees waived or reduced for indigence.
Primary Aggressor Driven Legal Abuse
- Legal proceedings can be used to weaken or bypass most protections survivors might have assembled to protect themselves and their privacy.
- Primary aggressors may deliberately take numerous free consultations with divorce attorneys to create conflict of interest and so narrow the options (sometimes to zero) for the survivor. This is especially devastating in smaller cities or communities.
- The burdens of a long contentious judicial process is not felt by the primary aggressor since 1) the adversarial aspects are thrilling and enlivening for him, and 2) others usually pay for the process anyway, and 3) he doesn't 'clean up any messes' anyway.
- The primary aggressor gets to be in the same room as the survivor. It is a way to force unwanted contact. This alone becomes a strong incentive.
- The primary aggressor can act pro se (as his own attorney) and often questions or badgers the survivor. Afterwards, he can re-litigate everything with an attorney, claiming he represented himself poorly! If the primary aggressor is disappointed in the results brought by his attorney, he can likewise relitigate pro se.
- Proceedings can be drawn out several years or more. Where there are children, until that child is eighteen, The only limit is the imagination of the primary aggressor in creating causes for motions. This constitutes several years of forced unwanted contact.
- Blame-filled written products, that may actually be obscene or abusive, by the primary aggressor, (in the guise of pleadings or communications to the survivor attorney) will eventually make their way to the survivor via her attorney. This defeats the no-contact protections that may be in place through protection or other orders.
- The survivor will honor her agreements, honoring or fearing the power of the court, whereas the primary aggressor usually will not, but enforcement or censure will be ponderously slow.
False Equivalences
Any family or civil court process is going to devolve into a 'weighing' of factors. This opens the door to false equivalences which are the stock and trade of abusive blame. Common false equivalences drawn by abusers and their attorneys are:
- Survivor violence IS EQUAL TO the primary aggressor's instrumental and pre-emptive use of violence
- The survivor's protecting, warning, and inoculating children with information about abusive tactics (aka 'parental alienation') IS EQUAL TO the primary aggressor's use of power and control.
- The survivor's refusal to cooperate with an uncooperative primary aggressor any longer IS EQUAL TO the primary aggressor's harassment aimed at coercing compliance.
- The survivor's flaws and parenting deficits ARE EQUAL TO the intimate partner violence
Click here to read an excellent article on this subject