I love my son more than life, and I’ve loved him since conception just as if he is biologically…

I love my son more than life, and I’ve loved him since conception just as if he is biologically mine. It has never made a difference to me that I didn’t carry him. I’ve had two daughters of my own — now grown. I had them at 19 and 21, respectively. Before I even met my wife, they were both grown and thriving. Therefore, when my wife asked me on our first date if I was willing to have another child, I didn’t hesitate. I love children! My daughters have been my life’s greatest gifts as well as my greatest accomplishments. How fun it would be to help her experience the joys of motherhood and help her raise our child.

I never — in 100 years — would have imagined that decision would lead to where we are now. My life with my wife was happy — we were happy. We planned to open a business, have a child, raise that child together and live a fulfilling life as a loving family. Our age difference was not an issue, but still I always anticipated being more of a support system to my wife during her journey through motherhood. I was happy to let her take the lead in most things — motherhood included.

I raised my girls mostly alone, and it was tough! I managed to work, run a home, raise my daughters, attend church, involve them in extracurricular activities, and help them blossom into the lovely humans they are today. Both are college graduates (first generation, no less), both are successfully employed, both are kind, both are humble, loving, supportive — they are just good people. There was absolutely no way I would have allowed them to slip through the cracks. They had constant love and support, a focus on education and spiritual growth, rules and consequences, and they loved, trusted and respected their mother who always put them first in life and understood that effective parenting meant selflessness and sacrifices. I was proud of how I raised them, and when asked, often spoke about being a good parent as one of my God-given gifts. My mother and I are close now, but we’ve had our issues. But my maternal instinct was strong.

Imagine how I felt when I realized that the woman I loved, married and conceived a son with would not allow me to help her parent our child. Once our son was born, I was not allowed to feed him until he was 9 months old, I was told I wrapped his diaper too tightly, I was told I was too rough (let’s not mistake being comfortable swaddling a baby with being too rough, shall we?) with him and my own wife would not allow me to take care of our son by myself. Excuse me? How did this happen?

Looking back, I blame myself. I should have seen the signs, the red flags, the little cracks in the surface. I should have trusted myself to remain the strong, independent woman I’d always been. But, for the first time in my life, I had a mate I thought I could trust with life. My wife appeared to be intelligent, charismatic, kind, loving, adventurous and quite capable of being a reasonable and enlightened human being. I adored her in every way, and I allowed myself to let go and just let someone love me who I thought really did — with all the scars, poor conditioning, baggage, bad habits — all the things. I thought she loved me as I was. I have always been honest about who I am and my past. I’ve had bad relationships, made life-altering mistakes, allowed my temper to take the lead, allowed sadness to consume me, and made a lot of knee-jerk decisions based on emotions instead of logic. I make no excuses. I’m better than I was and not as good as I will become.

I did not realize that I was allowing myself to be diminished, undermined, devalued, disrespected, isolated and in the end — barely tolerated as a human being. It began with a small correction in front of my wife’s medical-field colleagues. To her, it was embarrassing when to everyone else, it was nothing. After all, I wasn’t yet in the field. A little self-deprecating joke and some chuckling and all was fine. But I had — to her — made an unforgettable mistake. I then started to notice how every telling of a tale became far more than it was. The accomplishment grander, the experience more dramatic, the deal made much larger — everything was subtly turned into an attestation proving how amazing she and her life were. I loved her and truly thought she was amazing, too. So what if she exaggerated a little? I have my idiosyncrasies, too. At the time, it was easy to overlook. Then came the little criticisms and the blame game. If something didn’t get done to her satisfaction or caused an issue, it was never her fault. It was because I didn’t remember something or didn’t handle something correctly. She was so accomplished, so intelligent. I believed myself to be inferior, so I just tried harder to please her. So what if she was a little controlling? It was worth the sacrifice, and she had big plans and big dreams for us. No big deal, I knew who I was, right? Occasionally, I would try to talk to her about it — an attempt just to bring it to her attention so she could be aware of it and understand that I was on her side.

Believe me, I wasn’t anywhere near perfect. I suffer from childhood and adult complex trauma, which causes Anxiety, OCD and Depression. I am sensitive and emotional by nature, and it takes me a minute to get there, but when I’m angry — look out. You’re going to hear about yourself in no uncertain terms with no sugar-coating. I’m not great at communication, preferring to just drop it and move on. I have severe self-loathing and carry tremendous guilt. I’ll be the first to jump on the sword if something goes wrong because I’m a people-pleaser. I’ll take the heat — I’m sure I did something wrong to deserve it, anyway.

Eventually my resentment built up to explosive arguments. We would have it out, I’d speak my mind, she would be appalled that I felt the way I did. I’d apologize for losing my temper — always taking the blame because I was the one who’d escalated. I heard a lot of “I’m sorry you feel that way” and “I’ll try to be more aware of how my actions make you feel”. But hardly ever “I’m sorry” or “What can we do to fix this so we both feel fulfilled and understood?” I very often felt like a jerk for even having a reaction to whatever snide comment or chastisement. She went so far as to involve my Daddy and Stepmother in our disagreements so they could “talk some sense into me”. Not once do I remember her truly attempting to hear me with intention. She was perfectly content with me believing that everything was my fault. I honestly don’t believe she had ever been challenged to be more authentic and grounded in reality. Maybe she had, but to hear her talk about her previous relationships, she had never done anything wrong. It was always the other person’s fault when things didn’t work out. I tried to tell myself that she had never had anyone in her life that had suffered trauma and could sometimes be emotionally immature. Whereas I endeavored to give her grace, she offered me almost none in return. Eventually, I realized that any resistance on my part made her think I was ungrateful, and she considered me fortunate to be with her. We did indeed have some big arguments, but things very rarely became physical — regardless of my wife’s descriptions.

I struggled every day to keep going, keep it together, do better, try harder. The more I tried, the more she expected. It was just a vicious circle of my overwhelming inadequacy. Once our son was born, my wife stopped pretending she respected me altogether. I would try to point out things that I felt would make her life easier as a first-time parent, but she would never listen to me. Instead, she would confide in our friends. They would give her the exact same advice, which she would only then accept. I was simply not significant enough to matter.

During this time, I had — not one — but two breakdowns by attempting suicide. I’m not proud of it, and it was unforgivably selfish. I own that, and I do not make any excuses. I should have been stronger for our son, and that’s all there is to it. I’m working on forgiving myself through therapy and focusing on building a better relationship with God. I still have moments when I think I’m too tired to keep going, not necessary or worthy of love. But I take my medication, I go to therapy every week, I practice grounding techniques, and — above all — I give my troubles to God, who I know created me to be perfectly imperfect, loving every bit of me without condition.

Moving on, my wife and I opened the business. I was in charge of office operations, my wife the clinical operations. I was able to work 9–5 while she sometimes worked very late until the last patient was seen. I became our son’s primary caregiver, which drew us much closer. I woke him up, got him dressed, gave him breakfast, dropped him off at daycare, picked him up, ran errands with him, cooked him dinner, bathed him, played with him, read and sang with him until he fell asleep. He was usually in wind down mode when my wife got home. Regardless of his needs, my wife took this time to play with him and get him revved up — sometimes not going to sleep until 1 or 2:00 AM. I know she missed him and wanted her time with him. That’s completely understandable. But what should have been a “sometimes” thing a couple of days a week went like this every night. Of course, it affected his sleep time, which affected his mood, which affected rule following at daycare. I said something every once in a while, but most of the time just dealt with it.

Things continued like this, the resentment building, the fights becoming more frequent until I finally told myself that I could not live this way anymore. It got so bad that I literally told myself every day “I hate my life”, “I hate who I’ve become”. I had nothing. I worked for my wife. I moved in with her, so we gave my furniture away. My entire life had melded in with hers, my independence gone. I trusted who I thought my wife was. But I don’t even recognize the person she is today. We finally had a huge fight when she called my oldest daughter “ignorant”. That was the final straw. I have not once regretted leaving — even with the fallout I would endure afterwards. I packed my clothes and toiletries, my daughter picked me up, and I went to live with my stepmother.

After I left, my wife and I were cordial — nothing more. There was no discussion of reconciliation, but the clinic still had to run. Both of us decided that I would work until the end of the year so we could find someone I could train to replace me. We agreed that I would keep our son every other weekend and chat with him every night. I thought we were both trying to ease into a co-parenting situation that worked best for him. After all, my wife was 41 and I was 52. We could surely set ourselves aside to ensure he was not negatively affected by our separation.

The weekend of December 9, 2023, I took our son for his first visit with me. For the first time, I felt like I could be his parent without looking over my shoulder and walking on eggshells. It was a lot of fun, and I had high hopes for building a relationship that was authentically ours. We played with his outdoor kitchen, had a family gathering, spent tons of time snuggling and playing in the toddler tent I set up for him. We both had a ball. My wife did not call to check on him at all, which I thought was strange. But we were fine, so it was no big deal. We had met at the state line for the exchange, which went fine (you will understand why I point that out later) and agreed to meet back there for exchange on Sunday. I was literally on my way there, calling to make sure my wife would be there since I had not heard from her when she finally answered the phone. She told me she was dining with friends, and I would have to wait for her to be finished to pick him up. It was getting dark, so this would have been around 6 PM. I told her I had no problem keeping him another day so she wouldn’t have to rush, and I wouldn’t have to wait. She agreed, so I turned around and took him back home with me. No problem whatsoever, but I did find her behavior a little strange.

My wife and I had come to an agreement that I would work from home 2 days/week and in the office 3 days/week. When in the office, we were professional and cordial. However, I noticed that she drove a different car to work one day when I was in the office. I didn’t ask about it, but I noticed. It was the week of December 18, 2023 when I was working in the office and received an e-receipt from Kay Jewelers for a “girlfriend” necklace in my wife’s email. My wife and I were both signed in to each other’s email for business purposes, so I regularly checked mine, hers and the business email during my day — receiving alerts when a new email arrived on all three. My wife wasn’t in the office at the time. I went to the front office coordinator, who I was very friendly with and trusted to be honest. I asked her if my wife had mentioned seeing anybody. She looked at me as if she was going to cry and told me that my wife had been seeing a friend of ours for about 3 weeks and had told the entire office staff not to tell me. She had been so upset about it, but she didn’t want to lose her job and it had been weighing on her heavily. I was shocked, embarrassed, pissed, and horribly offended. She told me that she had been considering quitting many times before all of this because she couldn’t stand the way my wife treated me, but that she stayed for me. She said that she was appalled at my wife’s unprofessional behavior, but she needed her job. I felt so, so betrayed and so upset that our entire staff been put in this position. I walked outside, got my wife on the phone, and told her off in no uncertain terms. I then walked back into the office, got my business computer, took $200.00 from Petty Cash that I was waiting on for reimbursement of business expenses and I left. There was no yelling inside the building in front of patients, no slamming of doors. I was angry and you could tell, but I did not “make a scene”. The only thing I regret is that I told the office staff that they would be better off looking for other jobs, because I did not know how long the business would last without me. That was unprofessional on my part.

When my wife arrived back at the office, she called the police. I’m still not sure why. Her narrative was that I had broken a glass door and screamed at her in front of patients, etc. None of which was true, and the police took no action but to advise her that if she felt like she was in danger, she could ask for an injunction. After this occurred, the front office coordinator promptly quit. She and I talked after the fact, which is when I found out about the call to the police. I felt so awful for her, but she assured me that it had been coming for a long time and she would be ok.

The next thing I know, my wife blocked my phone number, my family’s phone numbers, my friend’s phone numbers and blocked all of us on Facebook. I had absolutely no way of reaching her. I tried to contact her throughout the Christmas holiday, receiving only a message here and there saying our son was fine. I begged her to let me talk to him, to make arrangements for Christmas. She had completely shut me out.

On January 2, 2024, I decided I would go to the daycare to see our son. After all, he was my son, too. My plan was to spend some time with him, then go to the clinic to ask my wife if we could make arrangements to talk. I was at the daycare for 30 minutes before my wife showed up with the intention of taking him home for the day. It turns out that she told the told the owner of the daycare that I was dangerous, and that if I were to show up, they were to call her immediately. Excuse me? They had my phone number — why did I not receive a call asking me about the situation? I still wonder about that, but they probably just didn’t want to get too involved. I followed my wife out to the parking lot of the daycare to try to get her to talk to me, but she refused. Eventually, one of the managers came out to the parking lot to make sure all was well, so we both left. I followed my wife home to — again — try to talk to her. She even called the police, telling them I accosted her in the daycare parking lot. Of course, no accosting occurred. The police came, and I offered to leave. I had no idea how far my wife had taken things already or I would have stayed and spoken to the police to find out what I could do protect myself.

The next 2 ½ years of my life would be a living Hell I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams.

I had no knowledge that my wife had already started building a case to support her completely false narrative. It started with an injunction being served to me on 01/05/2024. My wife submitted a 5-page diatribe to the police that I have attached. She was smart. She based the incidents on actual fights or disagreements that took place — but every single one of the descriptions were escalated and most she described as ending in physical violence. She included the police reports that she had filed — that until then I had no knowledge of. Court was scheduled for 01/17/24, but my wife did not show up to court, so the Judge dismissed the case.

Not to be deterred, my wife filed another injunction that I was served with on 02/05/2024. We went to court on 02/13/2024. Now, understand — I had not seen or spoken with our son since 01/02/2024. In that time, my wife changed his daycare, so I had no idea what was going on with him. She also moved her girlfriend into the home without ever discussing or communicating with me how we would all help our son with this transition.

By this time, I had met with a Victim’s Advocate lawyer with Jacksonville Legal Aid. This office would not normally agree to represent the Respondent in a Domestic Abuse case. However, after explaining what was going on, her supervisor told her to accept the case. Now, I had a lawyer to help me navigate this horrible mess.

We went to court on 02/13/2024. After a few minutes of looking through my wife’s submission, he looked at my lawyer and his exact words to her were “She’s posturing for the divorce.” When my lawyer agreed, he moved on, allowing my wife’s lawyer to question me. My wife’s lawyer asked me one question “Have you and your wife ever had a physical altercation?” At this point, I could have lied (in hindsight I probably should have), but being an honest person, I answered in the affirmative and explained the physical altercation my wife and I had a few years into our relationship. I slapped her because she insulted my family, she pushed me — knocking me to the ground, and we tousled for a bit, but it was very short-lived. We were very rarely physical, but I slapped her first, so I accepted the blame. The damage was done. Again, the Judge’s exact words were “As much as it pains me to do this, I am ordering a No Violence injunction.” However, he also ordered my visitation with our son, so I was overjoyed. I could finally see him! I was to have him every other weekend and a phone call every night. My wife and I were to set up communication through “Our Family Wizard”. Our first visitation was to start on 02/16/2024.

Upon our first exchange, my wife showed up with her friend, who was taking video. She took this opportunity to ridicule me by telling me that I was not our son’s mother. Meanwhile, my wife did everything in her power to upset our son with statements like “I know you don’t want to go with her.” and “I know you’re scared of her”. My wife continued to unnecessarily console him when it was she who was upsetting him further. I tried to intervene, by now videoing myself, when my wife snatched my phone and threw it. I’ve provided this video. This continued, my wife keeping up the ruse of her consoling her terrified son, while I attempted to strap him into his car seat. There was no grabbing, snatching, tousling — just me trying to move through the bullshit so he and I could be on our way. After I thought they had left, I took my screaming child out of his car seat and just sat on the curb holding him and rocking him, telling him that it was ok now. He had no reason to be scared of me, and that we were going to have so much fun together! It took all of 2 minutes for him to calm down. I put him back in his carseat and off we went. It was wonderful! We were so happy to be together. We played and laughed, went to the park, when to the bounce house, played with my granddaughter, visited with my mother and daughter, his sister. We sang at night, had big breakfasts in the morning with me making pancakes and sausage (his favorite). We had a ball. I thought we were finally going to be able to spend time together free from the constant onslaught of criticism and eggshell-walking.

Little did I know that my wife had contacted the police after the exchange to make a police report that I had grabbed her arm and bruised it (pictures show absolutely no bruising) during the exchange. Evidently, they did not find sufficient evidence to get a warrant for my arrest, so the report was simply filed with no further action. This did not satisfy my wife. Therefore, she decided to write herself a threatening email using my email account to send this to her own email address — something I would not know until much later. I have included the email in my attachments. With this, the police decided I had violated the injunction.

My first arrest was on April 12, 2024. I was waiting for my wife to arrive to drop our son off for visitation when an officer parked behind my vehicle, blocking me in. THANK GOD I had my mother with me so she could follow us to the jail in my car. I had never been arrested before, never been in any kind of legal trouble, so we were both terrified. At this time, I was 52 years old with absolutely no criminal record and no idea how to deal with the situation. My daughter helped my 77 year-old-mother bond me out the next day. I had absolutely no idea what had prompted the arrest, being told only that I was charged with “Violation of an Injunction”.

I contacted a criminal lawyer and met with him within 5 days of being arrested. I told him what I knew, paid his retainer and told him that under no circumstances would I accept a plea as I had done absolutely nothing wrong. I made that clear from the first visit. The terms of my bond included a “No Contact” order between me and my wife. The condition did not include our son, but since I was unable to contact my wife, I wasn’t sure how to continue with visitation. I knew so little about how to navigate the judicial system then, depending solely on my lawyers for guidance. Therefore, I did not see our son again until November later that year.

With the arrest, I was terrified that I would lose my job because of the background clearance I had to maintain. However, my boss and the HR Coordinator assured me that they would make an exception while I dealt with things.

In the meantime, my criminal lawyer was handling the criminal case, which was moving very slowly. I stayed in contact with him, often asking him if he knew what I had been arrested yet since I still had no idea about the email. I was told that he had asked for Discovery, but that he had not received anything from the State Attorney yet.

I was at work one day when I looked down at my phone and noticed that I was dialing my wife’s phone number. I had her number on my “Favorites” list. I never thought of removing it from my phone altogether, figuring we would eventually be able to communicate for our son’s sake. I was so naive about the depths of her depravity. When I saw that I had inadvertently dialed her number, I immediately hung up. However, it had connected on her side for 3 seconds. That was all she needed to file another police report and have me arrested again on July 27, 2024 when I went to a pre-trial meeting. I was literally arrested in the courtroom. This time, I had a lawyer. Apparently, he spoke with the State’s Attorney and/or Judge and was able to have me released the next day on my own recognizance. However, this was now another blight on my record, and another case to be handled.

When I was in court the day I was arrested for the 2nd time, my lawyer finally was able to tell me what I had been arrested for the first time. He showed me the email I mentioned earlier. I was shocked — yet again. I assured him that she must have used my business computer, which I had turned back in to her in January through a mutual friend. Of course, I was logged into my email address on it — along with my wife’s and the business’s. Again, it had never occurred to me to change my password and log out.

I had to meet with my boss and the HR Coordinator again to explain what had happened. They were shocked that I was arrested for a 3-second misdial and assured me they would continue to support me, so I was able to keep my job.

After this 2nd arrest, things became very frustrating with my criminal lawyer. Upon realizing what my wife had done, I offered him solutions to try to determine the ISP that the email originated from, which would easily prove that it did not come from me. He told me he didn’t think that would be necessary. I gave him a list of witnesses to depose, none of whom he met with. I offered him any assistance I could to provide him what he needed to prepare for trial. Most times, I was met with either no response or a message from his Assistant that he would call me when he got a moment. Then, I wouldn’t receive a call or had to wait 2 weeks for him to get back to me. It was very frustrating, but I did not have the money to hire another lawyer. I still had not seen our son, and I knew now that things would most likely never be amicable for his sake.

On 09/09/24, I received a call from my criminal lawyer telling me that the State had offered a deal. He told me it was to serve 12 months of Probation, pay court fees, continue with the therapy I was already taking part in, take an Anger Management class, and that the charges would be “Withheld for Adjudication”. He explained that this was not a guilty plea, and there would be no conviction. He also told me that the Judge was waiting for an answer, and I needed to tell him something quickly. I called my Civil Attorney to ask her how this would affect the divorce and custody case, but she was not available, so I left her a message. I then conferred with my boss to make sure I would not lose my job if I was on Probation, and she assured me that I would not. I never wanted to take a plea, but my lawyer told me this was a great offer, and his advice would be to take it. That teamed with the fact that I had absolutely no faith in his preparedness for a trial convinced me. I took the plea, thinking at least that would be the end of it and we could all move on.

I had absolutely no idea that by accepting the plea, I was basically accepting guilt. That was not how my lawyer presented it, and he knew the situation well enough to know I had done nothing wrong, and that my wife was a loose cannon. I would later report him to the Florida Bar Association and try to get the plea overturned — unfortunately, with no success.

After this was settled, I asked my civil lawyer if I could resume visitation. We met with the Civil Judge, who — because I took that plea — ordered Supervised Visitation. Imagine me — a now 53 year old grandmother — being relegated to Supervised Visitation. I was so offended! However, I wanted to see my son. I would have eaten nails if I had to. So, I started the process of setting up supervised visitation. Our first visit was scheduled for November 1, 2024 at 6:30 PM. I was so, so excited! Upon entering the visitation center on that first visit, my son’s exact words to me were “You’re evil and I’m not allowed to love you.” Wow. I responded to him that I loved him, I would never hurt him, and that I had missed him so, so much. He said “O.K.”, then allowed me to hug him and we started playing. Honestly, it was as if we had never been apart. He would ask me why I had been to jail and why I was mean, but I would answer him that he needed “Listen with his heart”. To remember how he felt when we were together. I asked him if he knew I loved him and reiterated that I would never hurt him. He had never experienced feeling afraid of me. Therefore, it was more an idea than an actual feeling of fear that he could remember. We were fine, and we enjoyed our time together. The notes of our visitations are available if you need them.

Things were going well, and — again — I thought we were moving in the right direction. I was seeing our son regularly. Sometimes I would stay with my best friend and her family when two visits were scheduled in one weekend. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving when my best friend’s family and I decided to go to Ja public Christmas Light Display. We literally arrived and were at the first display when I heard my son yell my name. I immediately looked around for my wife since we weren’t supposed to be near each other. I did not see her, but I saw her girlfriend’s mother. My son came running up to me, and I didn’t just pick him up. I literally asked the girlfriend’s mom if I could pick him up, first. She explained that my wife and her daughter were out of town for Thanksgiving, and it was fine with her. She even said that it was “Kizmet” that we had run into each other. My son and I were hugging and smooching, and then I asked if I could take some pics with my son in front of the display. She agreed, so we took a few pics. Then, we talked for a little while until the girlfriend’s mom said they needed to keep going. My son asked if I could go with them, but I explained that I would see him in “2 sleeps”, and to go on so they could see the rest of the displays. After they walked away, I was beside myself. I was upset that my wife and her girlfriend left our son alone on his first Thanksgiving with them. I was upset that I had to ask the girlfriend’s mother if I could pick up my own son. Finally, I was just sad that I couldn’t share this happy memory with him or take him to my house for Thanksgiving. I started crying, so we all left.

I did not know this until my next arrest, but my wife called the police that night and told them I was stalking our son and that I had tried to kidnap him. I was at visitation with our son on December 20, 2024 when I was arrested for the third time. This time for violation of an injunction and probation violation. I was also charged with possession of a drug without a prescription because I had a loose pill on me without the bottle. I always keep one on me because I never know if I will need it before I can get home. Of course, that was dropped when they saw my prescription, but it still exists on my record.

I was in jail for 18 days before the State Attorney realized that our son was not included in the “No Contact” order and I should never have been arrested in the first place. The charge was dropped, but the Judge also released me from Probation after only being on it for 4 months. I was released from jail, but the damage was already done. I lost my job, my home, had to leave the successful band I loved (something that also provided me with extra money) and move in with my daughter and son-in-law.

Now I have no home, no job, no money, no credibility and a criminal record that makes me look like a vile, horrific human being. I left my hometown, my mother, my grandchild and my friends. I have never, not one time, been questioned so that I could explain what was truly happening. Instead, being treated like a criminal with mental problems. I have no pride left, my civil rights have been grossly abused, and I will eventually have to pay thousands of dollars to have my record expunged. The judicial system has absolutely, unequivocably failed me. I hold out very little hope that I will ever be vindicated or that the Judges and Prosecutors will ever truly understand or care about my experience.

Moving on, the injunction was set to expire in February, 2025. I focused on getting a job and figuring out how to see my son again once the injunction expired. All was going well. I was able to get a remote job — but only part-time and nothing like the jobs I’ve had before. I knew by now that my focus needed to be on healing and rebuilding my life so I would not be consumed by the emotional pain. After about 6 months, I decided to move so I could be closer to my son. I was able to visit with him once before I was served with another injunction on September 10, 2025. This time, the injunction was granted upon request. This was a very, very sad day for me. I was finally recovering from the loss of my world, seeing my son again, and looking for my own place so when my supervised visitation was over, I would have a place for him. I tried to kill myself again, and I truly wanted to die. I would attempt 3 times before stabilizing. I spent 10 days in a facility, and immediately started their IOP program once I was released. I was trying so, so hard to find hope in a truly horrible, unfair and unnecessary situation.

Again, we went in front of the Judge for the injunction. He made it quite clear that he was to be informed immediately if my wife called the police on me again, and he ordered that I would be allowed to resume my supervised visitation. Finally, a solution to protect me! His order would eventually be ignored, and to this day, my wife continues to abuse the system for her benefit.

After my one and only visitation with my son, I received a call the same evening from the Director at the supervised visitation center asking me if I went home our visit. I think it was around 8 or 9 PM. I told her I was home in my pajamas and asked her what was going on. She told me that my wife had come to them telling them that I had followed her from the center, driven her off the road, tried to take our son, pulled a gun, just a bunch of outlandish things that they found very hard to believe. They had finally seen what my wife was capable of. She told me she was going to speak to the Judge to tell him what happened, but that never came to fruition. She did tell me that she would be happy to testify on my behalf if necessary. I thanked her, assuring her I would call on her if needed. However, we haven’t gotten that far yet.

My most recent arrest involved a woman I was seeing for a very brief time. When I broke up with her and refused to see her, she went on a rampage against me (does this sound familiar?). She continually put me in a position of having to calm her down and aqueous to her because she would do things like put my mug shot on Facebook, talk about me by name on Facebook. It was horrible. I tried to get an injunction against her early on, but I was arrested before I could file it. After I moved, she apologized to me and swore she was trying to get better. I was visiting home in April, 2025, and I decided to meet up with her. BIG mistake. She tried to trap me in her home and took my purse and phone away so I couldn’t leave. I managed to get away with my purse, but she ended up stealing my phone. She had access to all my contacts, my social media, texts with friends, everything. The phone was pin-protected, but she was able to get through that. She contacted my mother, my daughters, my friends, AND my wife, becoming Facebook friends with her. She threatened over and over to “put me back in jail” if I didn’t give her what she wanted. Eventually, that’s exactly what she did. I have no idea if she and my wife worked together to frame me or if she worked independently. But she sent my wife threatening texts posing as me, so I am now charged with a felony along with 2 misdemeanors. I’ve paid $4,500.00 for bond, I have an ankle monitor that I have to pay for every month, I can’t go to the city where my son lives unless it’s for court, and I have not seen my son since November of last year.

THIS is my truth. I have never been questioned by the police. I have never been questioned by the Prosecution or a Judge. I have never been given an opportunity to address the false crimes I have been accused of. I’ve simply been arrested and thrown in jail. I’ve been told over and over not to speak, so I haven’t. But, I’m tired of being treated this way. I’m tired of my wife having the ability to abuse the system with nobody questioning her or her actions. How is this justice? Where are my rights? Where is my voice? The fact is that my wife has been able to control the narrative from Day 1, and I have simply had no choice but to deal with the hits individually as they come. I’ve spent thousands of dollars, and I know that my wife has gone through 4 lawyers thus far. WHY HAS NOBODY QUESTIONED THIS? WHY HAS NOBODY STOPPED TO THINK THAT SOMETHING COULD POSSIBLY BE WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Where is that line in the sand? What if I didn’t have a loving family to advocate for me? What if I couldn’t advocate for myself?

Something is very, very wrong with the system when the criminal can use it to keep the innocent party silent. I will never be able to work in my field again now that I have a record. I will have to rebuild — again — for the third time because she has been allowed to repeatedly have me incarcerated. And the worst part? I will have to give up my son because co-parenting with her will only keep me in her crosshairs with absolutely nobody to help me and hold her accountable.

THIS is my reality every day — until this is over. Will it ever be over?