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Co-Parenting: Time to Mutually Agree to Save and Protect Your Children During Coronavirus Pandemic

Co-Parenting: Time to Mutually Agree to Save and Protect Your Children During Coronavirus Pandemic

Originally published by Nacol Law Firm.

Dealing with a worldwide medical pandemic and personally trying to stay alive and healthy is mentally changeling, but for parents who are divorced or have separate custody agreements and co- parent, it can be a disaster for the entire family. Hopefully, this Coronavirus Pandemic will be a short-lived life-threatening situation, but how the Co-parents cope with the problem could deeply impact their children’s emotional life.

In Texas, on March 13, 2020, the Texas Supreme Court issued an emergency order that divorced /single parents should go by the originally published school and visitation schedule in their current decree.  Since the last life-threatening pandemic in the United State was the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918, most divorce/ single parent agreements do not include a pandemic clause!

Do not be one of those parents who decides that they “are the decision maker” and drives away with the kids for an extended vacation to Grandma’s in Florida without telling the other parent. Or deciding that the family circle of trust does not include their Other Parent and refuses visitation or joint decision making.  These hasty, irrational decisions may seem reasonable in this time of national panic but consider the legal ramifications of violating an order.  Since all courts, in Texas, are now closed except for emergency litigation matters only, when the courts are fully operational again and the medical danger has passed, how will a violation of your current decree look to the Judge?  Judges always look to the needs of the child versus the unreasonable expectations of the parent. There will be serious ramifications against the violating parent.

Let’s look at some ideas on how co-parenting during this pandemic season can work the best for all family members and by joint agreement will save your both money that would normally go to legal fees.

Just remember that as co-parents your children are most important.  Your child has been told that they can’t see their grandparents because of their age and if infected by the coronavirus, may die. No school, no playing of sports, or playing with friends since they may be infected with a deadly virus and become very ill. Decide to cooperate as responsible co-parents to navigate the child to the new changes in their daily routines without a lot of stress and anxiety on the child.  By keeping the child calm and showing “a united family circle” the child will know that Mom and Dad are there for him/her.

Some areas of agreement should be that the child will have regular email, phone calls, FaceTime, Zoom visits, and texting with the other parent. The child needs to know that both parents are safe and interested in their wellbeing. Regular visitations times must be made available for the child to see each parent. Remember the child’s core circle of trust are his/her parents and siblings.

Another very serious matter is the decision of what will happen to the child if one parent becomes ill and cannot care for the child. The joint decision must be made by both parents and must ultimately be in the best interest for the child.

Custody disputes and circumstances that have totally changed in the last month. Just remember, co-parent cooperation is the best choice. There is no doubt that judges will be happy to hear that parents have worked together to meet their child’s best interest, by taking steps to protect the child’s health and safety.

This is a time for mutual give and take from both parents. No one is always right nor always wrong. In this upside crazy pandemic world, jointly trying to navigate your family to a better place will have its own rewards.

If, however, one parent unilaterally refuses to make fair agreements for the children or violates your custody orders, avoid retaliation and follow your decree orders faithfully. This Pandemic will pass, and most Judges will not treat lightly intense misconduct when the courts reopen.

Mark A. Nacol
The Nacol Law Firm P.C.
Dallas, Texas
(972) 690-3333

Click to open Copy of Texas Supreme Court Emergency Order on Child Custody Schedules during Coronavirus Pandemic. (pdf) 

Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.



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Let’s Talk Divorce: 4 Ways The Family Court Fails To Protect Women During High Conflict Divorce

Let’s Talk Divorce: 4 Ways The Family Court Fails To Protect Women During High Conflict Divorce



 

We hear a lot about how women are favored during divorce but, in my opinion, the opposite is true. No one can hold onto resentment and anger like a man and nothing proves that more than the outrageous behavior by some during a high conflict divorce.

A woman’s only recourse is the protections afforded her by the Family Court and, bless our hearts, there aren’t many protections there.

I know a woman who has been divorced for over 12 years and still has legal issues with her ex. He constantly files a petition or motion with the court. It can be for something as simple as extracurricular activities her children are involved with to not liking the therapist her children are seeing. He makes NO attempt to negotiate and settle issues with the mother of his children. There is no emailing back and forth over a certain situation. He goes straight to the courts.

A woman has no defense against such a man. She is vulnerable to such a man’s whims because the Family Court allows the nonsense to continue year after year.

She has NO protection!

4 Ways The Family Court Fails to Protect Women During High Conflict Divorce

1. Failure to Protect Against Defiant Exes

If a woman is divorced from a man who defies court orders, she has no recourse via the Family Court. She can file a contempt of court motion but that’s like pissing into the wind. She will spend money on an attorney only to get a new order and listen to a judge tell her ex to “get it done or else,” and the or else never happens. The problem with contempt of court is this, a new court order means nothing to a man with a history of defying court orders.

2. No Protection from Crushing Financial Expense of Divorce

Most women going through the divorce process are stay-at-home Moms or the lower income earner in the marriage. They start the divorce process in a one-down position because they don’t have access to the best attorneys and experts to advocate for them. The Family Court takes none of this into consideration during the process and there is an old saying that is true, “the one with the money wins in Family Court.”

3. No Protection for Victims of Domestic Abuse

Victims of domestic violence are especially vulnerable in the Family Court system. Their main concern is naturally protecting their children from a violent man and with the courts’ main focus on not separating a child from a parent, the domestic abuse victim has to have substantial evidence of abuse to protect their children via the court.

What professionals fail to realize is that women in abusive situations don’t call attention to their abuse. Doing so can only lead to more abuse. So, instead of going to the emergency room so they’ve have a record of injuries or filing police reports, they stay quiet out of fear of inviting more abuse upon themselves and their children.

If a woman doesn’t have substantial evidence of abuse and brings up accusations of abuse in court she can be viewed as making false allegations of abuse and attempting to alienate a father from his child. Women all over the country are losing custody rights to violent men due to the lack of protection abuse women received in the Family Court.

4. Failure to Protect Children from Harm

If you’re divorced from a bully hell-bent on using your child as a pawn to punish you, the “best interest” doctrine, flies right out the window. A Family Court judge will NOT hold a man harming his children emotionally, accountable. I think they believe that a bad father is worse than no father so, purposely put children in harm’s way so they can tell themselves “at least the child still has 2 parents.” And, as someone who raised her children alone, with no contact from their father, I can say that, that belief is straight up BS!

The post Let’s Talk Divorce: 4 Ways The Family Court Fails To Protect Women During High Conflict Divorce appeared first on Divorced Moms.

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Gaslighting: How To Demystify And Protect Yourself From The Narcissist’s Smoke-Screen

Gaslighting: How To Demystify And Protect Yourself From The Narcissist’s Smoke-Screen

 

Gaslighting is a term that most abuse communities are very familiar with.

But what does it mean?

How does it affect people?

Why is gaslighting so hard to identify, and so mentally and emotionally damaging?

How can you get clear that you are being gaslit, remove and protect yourself and recover from its insidious effects?

The answers to these questions are very important because if you are being abused, there is every chance that you are being gaslit.

 

The Origins of the Word Gaslighting

If you are not sure what the expression ‘gaslighting’ means, Wikipedia describes it like this – a  form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

The term owes its origin to a 1938 play called Gas Light and its 1944 film adaptation.

Gaslighting is commonly used by toxic and abusive individuals to diminish others, which often means close intimates or other people who they wish to gain control over, as well as punish.

Let’s examine how this gaslighting plays out.

 

The Main Tactic of Gaslighting – Confusion

If you are feeling confusion regarding what is real and what isn’t real, there is a good chance that you are being gaslit.

An example of this would be that you have a conversation with someone and you know what was actually said. Then this person, as narcissists often do when confronted, flatly denies ever saying it at all, and will tell you that you completely misheard what was said.

You know you didn’t, yet, you start to doubt yourself. You believe there is a possibility you misheard things. Worse still, you might begin to think that you are losing your mind. After all, this person is apparently so convinced that you are wrong.

Confusions of this type are an incredibly common occurrence with an abuser, and this is only the beginning of how far it can go and how devastating gaslighting can be.

The following is a classic example of how gaslighting can take place. Tracy, one of my clients, experienced a situation of confusion and horrific punishment through the use of gaslighting.

This lady’s mother had very recently died, and friends and family gathered at her home in deep commiseration together. Her narcissistic husband was incensed because the attention wasn’t on him.

Tracy had too much to drink in her state of deep grief, and when she woke up the next morning her husband was gone. He went missing for three days with his phone turned off.

When he returned, he told Tracy that she was seen in the kitchen kissing her own male cousin. He said that he wasn’t the only one who caught her out, and there were other family members who were also disgusted by her actions.

Tracy was mortified. She was drunk that night, she couldn’t remember. She was horrified thinking she may have done it, even though she had never felt any attraction or romantic inclination towards her cousin.

In our Quanta Freedom Healing session together, we shifted out not only the grief of losing Tracy’s mother but also the terrible trauma of her husband’s accusation.

Because the terrible feelings had shifted out of her Inner Being, Tracy got very clear about showing up in integrity and confronting these allegations. She contacted people who were present at the house that evening. When Tracy told people what her husband had said, they were shocked. They told her that she had done nothing of the kind, and that her husband’s mood and behaviour towards her that night had been totally unsupportive and horrible.

This is the thing when we’re not in our power, we recoil in shame and don’t check out the facts. Tracy’s husband had not expected her to do that. When she confronted him about his abusive behaviour he quickly changed to the next gaslighting tactic, ‘Of course people aren’t going to admit what they saw, it’s too disgusting’, and ‘Not only should I leave you for what you did but why would I stay with a wife who believes other people’s lies instead of her own husband?’

Of course, this threw Tracy into an even worse spin. That’s exactly what gaslighting is all about.

Gaslighting truly is an incredibly malicious tactic. It’s used to punish people by stripping their power and getting them to distrust themselves. It’s also about destroying a person’s own character to themselves and anyone else who will listen.

And sadly, many outside people do listen. Most decent people have been conditioned to believe that when another adult looks them in the eyes and says something horrible about another person, that it must be true.

In this case, Tracy’s narcissistic husband told joint friends and work colleagues his twisted version of what she did that night. Most of these people believed him, including him purporting she had cheated on him numerous times previously.

So, what was his motivation for doing this?

Hurting Tracy – pure and simple. Taking out his rage on her because that evening he couldn’t regulate narcissistic supply and be the centre of attention.

It is important to understand that narcissists will use the tactic of gaslighting to fulfil any agenda necessary for him or her to feed the False Self, or punish someone who hasn’t adequately done so.

 

When to Suspect You Are Being Gaslit

Being gaslit is probable if you are facing mind-bending confusion with one specific person in your life.

In other words, if you don’t suffer confusing accusations, information and conversations with other people, this is generally a very strong indication that you are being abused by the person that it is happening with.

If there is no real evidence regarding the information you are being told and if you believe that it was a different version of the events being presented, and especially if the confusing times happen on a regular basis, there is a good possibility that you are being gaslit.

If this person is often unkind, unsupportive, envious, pathologically jealous or prone to try to sabotage your interests and happiness, and takes umbrage when life is not all about him or her, make no mistake – the confusing times are gaslighting episodes.

Gaslighting is cruel – it’s conscienceless – it’s malicious. And it defies what we would like to believe humans are capable of doing.  Truly, only a pathologically disordered person is capable of doing it.

 

The Parts of You Susceptible to Being Gaslit

Your emancipation from being gaslit is to realise first of all that anybody who is hurting you is not healthy for you – regardless of what they are saying or doing.

When situations are confusing, you may not be able to make logical sense of what is going on. This is normal. However, when you go inside and start addressing what is being triggered within your Inner Identity with my Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP), you will get to the core of the problem.

These are the unhealed parts of yourself which are susceptible to being lied to, manipulated, twisted and confused.

If you have been susceptible to being scapegoated and blamed when you were little or told that whatever you did was never good enough, or parented with guilt tactics, or told how bad and worthless you were, then all of these original traumas can make you highly susceptible to being gaslit.

If you have struggled to trust yourself and believed that other people have more power, jurisdiction or better skills at organising your life than you do, then you are also highly susceptible to being lied to and manipulated through gaslighting.

Gaslighting is one of the narcissistic tactics that prey on our already existing gaps – the parts of ourselves that haven’t been healed and shored up yet – meaning we hand over our rights and value to another person’s opinion of us.

We can easily fall for this, especially if we have a terror of persecution and being criticised rejected, abandoned or punished by those who don’t believe we are a good person.

If you believe that your love, approval, security and survival depends on a key person’s thoughts and feelings about you, then the more they maliciously gaslight you, the more you will cling to them trying to fix their version of you, and to get safety and clarity from them.

Yet, you can’t create sanity out of insanity. Trying to is a dangerous recipe to potentially go fully insane.

You may even capitulate, apologise and hand your values, rights and boundaries away to retain this person in your life, trying to make them love you. Not only does this not work, it will leave you drastically devastated and diminished, and you will become more and more unwell.

 

How Do You Heal and Become Impervious to Being Gaslit?

I promise you that when you heal your susceptibilities to abuse, you will never be gaslit again.

In the case of Tracy, when her husband started smashing her with continued gaslighting tactics – threatening to abandon her due to her purported adulterous behaviour and betrayal of him – understandably she was hit with further doubt and panic.

Yet, rather than caving in to him, and handing her power over even further, Tracy went inside herself with Quanta Freedom Healing (NARP) and targeted these intense traumas that were activated within her Inner Being.

The belief systems and original traumas that were at the core of Tracy’s susceptibility to believing him, were how she was scapegoated as a child. These were the unhealed traumas of how she was blamed for her father’s dysfunctional and abusive behaviour. As a child she had taken the blame and the shame on for her father.

Thank goodness that with NARP processes, Tracy was able to load up her original childhood traumas, and release and replace them.

It was then that she anchored into her power and truth.

No more was she a broken little scapegoated girl in an adult woman’s body. Rather, Tracy had clarity and knew that her narcissistic husband was abusing her, was unsupportive and pathological, and that this behaviour was no longer a match for what she wanted or deserved in her life.

This was the beginning of the end of the relationship.

She took action to get a solicitor, moved out and her husband was blindsided regarding her newfound power. She was no longer scared of him, tiptoeing around him or handing him her power.

He then switched to love bombing, apologising and trying to win her back. This predictably triggered her feelings of guilt and obligation and wanting to try to fix things. (Which were other unhealed traumas that had taken place between Tracy and her father during her childhood).

The triggered painful feelings meant that there was just more stuff to heal!

Fortunately, when Tracy was close to capitulating, rather than reconnecting with him, she went inside again with the NARP healings and shifted out the parts of her that were triggered. These were the parts of her that had previously given abusive people repeat chances, time and time again. But finally, Tracy felt impervious and unmoved by her husband’s crocodile tears and false promises.

Now, who he was and what he stood for no longer appealed to her in any shape or form.

Because of being unmoved by him, within six months she received her settlement and he was fully out of her life.

The truth was that Tracy’s emotional attachment and trauma symptoms were healed and finished many months before this.

Such is the case for all of us, when we finally heal the original traumas that the narcissist is presenting as the current evidence in our life. This is because we have awakened, healed and reset our Inner Identity and relationship code to one that no longer matches the abuse that the narcissist in our life delivers.

I promise you the same will be true for you.

Tracy, just like so many of us (myself included) who were gaslit, became a confident, solid human, anchored into her own Inner Being with self-value.

When you have released the trauma that has made you susceptible to being gaslit and shift into your True Self on this topic, you will finally be free of this hideous and malicious form of manipulation.

Okay, so … I dearly hope that this article has helped grant you clarity and power. I also hope that it has given you a roadmap to get up and out of the pain and susceptibility to being abused by someone else’s malicious tactics – otherwise known as gaslighting.

If you know it’s time for you to get serious about healing your original traumas so that you can escape abuse and enter a true, healthy life where you are treated with respect, then it may be time for you to take the next step and start my NARP program.

This holiday time could be the perfect opportunity for you to get serious about healing your Inner Identity and getting relief, clarity and your power back very quickly.

You can get this process started today right here.

And as always, I am so looking forward to our discussion on this topic below.

 

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Parents call for reforms to protect families from mistaken child abuse allegations

Parents call for reforms to protect families from mistaken child abuse allegations

Texas lawmakers pledge to “learn from past mistakes” as parents recall the pain of having children taken following disputed doctor reports.

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