Part 2 of The Victim-Villain Deception Series
“There is no justice, here,” lamented Corrine, the very first contested custody client of my career.
Corrine found me on Google and scheduled a meeting. I was not happy to see her name appear on my calendar. The reason why was because her case traumatized me as a young attorney. Her case—an awful contested divorce—was the one I cut my teeth on as a newly minted attorney.
And it almost ended my legal career.
Corrine was a beauty. Statuesque, intelligent and attractive. Her husband shared a similar aesthetic appeal. They were a handsome couple. Their shared pursuit of the American Dream was quite fruitful. They shared four children. They established and ran several profitable companies. They were picture perfect and there was nothing that could stop them.
Until he cheated on her.
Being as gorgeous as she is, Corrine was mortified. Quite frankly, there were few women that could compete with her. And when she saw the other woman—a plain Jane who would not survive a round of “pop the balloon,” Corrine lost her mind. Literally.
Corrine began a legal campaign. She would destroy her husband for his betrayal and the embarrassment to their family. By the time she became my client, she had already obtained several family violence protective orders. I inherited this monstrosity of a case with years of litigation background, drama, and shenanigans.
And it was my introduction to the world of narcissism.
Corrine called me every day. She sent emails, pages long. She wrote in all caps, highlight, and bolded, underlined text. She wanted to terminate Gregory’s parental rights. She wanted him out of her and the children’s lives. She wanted his abuse to end.
Being a survivor of domestic abuse, I empathized with Corrine’s perspective, even though she got on my nerves most of the time. But I had an intimate understanding of domestic abuse. I ended up in a bloody bathtub and an emergency room as a result of my own adventure through victimhood. However, as sympathetic as she was, Corrine did not live in reality.
And for two years, I wrestled my own client against her unreasonable goals. She wanted to legally terminate dad’s parental rights. I told her it would never happen. She gave me lip service, that she accepted my legal advice. But she remained emotionally and psychologically committed to removing him from her children’s lives.
She was on a war path.
I delivered her a divorce decree which substantially limited dad’s access to the children. Given dad’s history of inconsistency, even the rights he had in the divorce were as close to a termination of rights we could get. This outcome was supported by the children’s guardian ad litem, their court-appointed lawyer who represented the best interest of the children as the third attorney in our case. This outcome was also supported by a highly regarded family therapist who conducted a thorough custody evaluation and report to the court. Dad was bad news. Mom was a drama queen. But mom was in the best position to provide consistency, nurturing, and care for the children.
Corrine reached out to me more than a decade after her divorce. Sadly, she reported the emotional and psychological deterioration of her children in the aftermath of the divorce. She still held tightly to her narrative of Gregory the Narcissist, the boogeyman who tormented their lives from a distance.
Nearly five years later, she was reaching out to me again. This time, to tell me that Gregory the Narcissist had “done it again.”
But this time, Corrine had absolutely no recourse to get him back.
To be continued….
Judge Char
Human connection disclosure: This post is 100% human curated and is not generated by Ai.
0 Comments