The Legal System Failed Me and My Abuser Won
By: Lesley Kim
Tags: Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Family Law, Single Moms, Financial Abuse

After an almost two year legal battle in an attempt to divorce my ex where he continues to remain self repped, I am worse off than when my journey began.

I mistakenly put my faith in the legal system because I believed that they would be my advocate. I desperately needed one because my ex is so good at wearing me down. I will apologise for things I didn’t do just so he can move on and we can have a semblance of peace.

On February 26, 2018, my ex sat myself and our children down at the kitchen table and told us that we were done being a family. When the children started crying and asked if this meant that they would have to move and change schools, his reply was yes. At the time, I didn’t think this would happen because our business and home had more than enough equity, that I should have been able to keep the home and he could keep the business. Our divorce could have cost $50,000 and would have been neat and tidy.

But, abusers who are out for revenge don’t play fair and my ex told me years ago, that if I was to end the marriage he was going to leave me homeless and tell the children that it was my fault. Two years later, he has succeeded.

The very next day, he asked me once again if I was ready to apologize for a wrongdoing that he had concocted in his own mind. I had explained for the hundredth time that I didn’t do what I was accused of. He then asked me if I was ready for what was coming. I had no idea what was about to begin but I found out very quickly.

That afternoon as I was getting my keys to drive my son to his baseball clinic, I discovered that my car key was missing. When I asked my ex where it was, he told me that he was selling my car as it was in his name. Luckily, I had a spare. I drove off and after dropping off my son, I went to text a friend and discovered that I no longer had data on my phone. I started to panic and borrowed a friend’s phone to text a few friends and let them know what was happening. I went to a grocery store, used their wifi and discovered that the money out of our joint account was gone. Now, I could no longer breathe.

Luckily, when I was texting my friends one of them told me to go to her house after my son’s baseball practice and so I did. When I got there, she told me of the plan my two friends made while I was hyperventilating. My friend was going to get my daughter over to her house and I was to leave without anything and take a ferry to the second friend’s house. This was decided because we didn’t know how far my ex was taking this situation. His behaviour had never escalated this far but I had never not apologized before.

Up until this point, this was the hardest thing I had ever done, telling both of my kids that we are driving to a ferry at 9pm at night because their dad is having a temper tantrum and we are taking nothing with us. We were all confused. I remember being in the ferry lineup and having a panic attack because a red truck was in the lineup behind us. I was convinced it was him and he was going to get out and start screaming at me. I even texted my neighbour to check if his truck was parked in the garage, that was how scared I was.

We arrived at my friend’s house at around 10:30pm as they live just a short ferry ride away. It was so humiliating and sad for all of us. No child wants to arrive at someone’s house like that as my friend had three children of her own. My ex sent emails that I was keeping the kids away from him. He acted like he did nothing wrong with his actions.

We stayed there for a few days and I made an appointment for a free legal consult with downtown court upon our return. My friend, who is a lawyer, went with me and the consulting lawyer was the first person who used the word abuse. I was in shock as no one had every used that word to me before. People just said he wasn’t nice to me. My friend cried.

I tried having a free lawyer from a women’s only legal clinic, but my ex remained self repped and because he is a commercial fisherman it was too challenging of a case, so I had to hire a lawyer.

My ex didn’t move out, despite telling the children and myself that we were done. He made my life a living hell and continued abusing me, both emotionally and financially.

Here is a small list of things he did in the seven months that he slept on the couch. He followed me around, screaming at me, name calling, swearing both inside and outside the home and didn’t care who heard him. He took my credit card out of my wallet and cancelled it. He cancelled our joint accounts, leaving me with no financial resources. He kept threatening to report my car as stolen or to cancel the insurance. I had to hide the car and then he kept trying to find out from the children where it was. When the insurance ran out, he refused to insure it, so I had to find alternate ways to get the children and myself around. He refused to allow me to get sentimental things out of the locker at the wharf, even going so far as taking my name off the list so it cost me thousands of dollars in legal fees to get them (one of the items was a cradle the kids slept in). He let himself into my car when I was about to drive off with the children demanding a ride and then screaming at me when I explained that I didn’t have time to give him one. He called the cops when I took some cash out of the home that I needed, so I ended up talking to them and they apologised to me when they phoned.

There was a lot more that he did while he was at the home, but basically my life was awful and I ended up living outside except for feeding the children and I went to bed when they did. I was always on eggshells waiting for what was coming next.

He took things too far one day by picking up tools, screaming at me, threatening to smash my car and pacing around the house in front of our daughter. I sent her upstairs and then the children and I fled again and I called the police. Two days later I received a protection order. One of the reasons I received a protection order was because he was always sober with these escalations and the judge was worried that even though he never physically touched me, that would be the next escalation.

I was so reliant on my lawyers in advocating for me. I trusted their advice and that they would fight for me and get what the children and I financially deserved. We knew how much he was making from the records I had and by the life we were able to live. I was a stay at home mom for twelve years. We had a nice life, a four bedroom townhome, we travelled the world and we didn’t need for anything.

Since Feb 2018, my ex has gotten away with remaining self repped and not disclosing any financial documents. He once sent a picture of a filing cabinet saying the documents are here. Even though we have four court orders for financial disclosure, he has ignored all of them. He has sent in a blank F8 form that he and a lawyer signed. He has secret bank accounts and uses safety deposit boxes as he deals a lot in cash. He has violated every court order we have received with no real consequences. We delayed trial twice, even though I didn’t want to and gone through several case conferences and judicial conferences and none of it was productive.

I jumped through every hoop my lawyer wanted me to and agreed with every piece of advice I was given. I kept being told that it would boost my chances of getting my legal fees paid by his obstinance and non-compliance. The lawyer’s office had never seen someone with such disrespect as my ex. He was sending them email after email filled with swear words and name calling just as he was with me.

We were getting expert reports on the business and even though he had arranged to meet up with the evaluator, when the day came, he stood the man up and I ended up taking the day off work. My ex ended up sending the man an email full of expletives for no reason as the gentleman had no skin in the game.

So, I kept saying yes and my legal bill kept getting higher and higher. They never put a cap on it or told me how bad it was getting and I never really worried about it too much because I thought they would recoup a lot of it in trial. But on the eleventh hour just days before the third trial date, my ex agreed to try mediation for a second time with the same mediator that failed in the past. We had already tried for one full day and had accomplished nothing. My lawyers pushed me into trying, so again as the people pleaser that I am, I agreed.

Picture this, my ex is in a separate room. The owner of the firm who is a large women in stature and presence is sitting across from me and the mediator is a white haired man who is in a three piece suit with several gold rings is sitting right beside me and my lawyer who is a mild mannered woman is about six feet away from me. I am shrinking in my seat and every time I speak, I am shot down by the two strong natured people next to me and my lawyer is silent. The two people are telling me to forget about everything I want. Their entire goal is to avoid trial in four days and to keep my abusive ex in the room. The special expenses I paid all on my own for the last 18 months, erased. The outstanding support? That’s crossed out. Legal fees? Gone. Now we are talking about $75,000 he owes me has just been erased away plus over $200,000 in legal fees is gone. I owe all of it personally plus all the debt I am in because of not having financial resources due to his financial abuse.

Then they write up a deal that has me selling the home that the children and I have lived in for 9 years in order to pay a loan shark loan that I was coerced into signing. I wasn’t allowed to read the deal at the time I signed it. I have had many conversations with my lawyers about this loan and they know that the home means everything to me. I stayed in this abusive marriage for three extra years because of this house. I am now crying ugly tears and my own lawyer is silent. I am feeling assaulted and they are telling me that this is the best they can do for me. My ex’s olive branch is that he is going to sell a boat that I know for a fact he wants to sell anyways. I tell them this and no one cares.

The mediator has to leave for another appointment. The owner of the firm says she will talk to my ex. They agree to reduce my support to less than half. I can’t stop crying because I know how much he earns and the kids and I can’t afford to live like this. They put in a clause that this will be for just 12 months and that they will do a free review and that this isn’t the end. This is supposed to make me happy somehow. They want me to cash in my small RRSP to get through the year and think positively. They tell me that I will feel bad for a few days and then I will see that this is the best they could get me.

I ask what happened to trial and getting legal fees? They give me some lame excuse and I walk out of their dumbfounded and in complete shock. I don’t understand how he gets his debts paid and also gets to keep the rest of the assets and I still have debts and get no assets. I also don’t understand how he got away with paying less than half in financial support for a year. I try to explain it to my friends but it’s hard when it makes no sense to me. My lawyer friend goes in with me to ask questions herself, she thinks that I should sign it but she also agrees that the lawyers failed me as well. She explains that she never does pro bono work and that tells her that they know they failed me.

It takes me several days to sign the deal and in that time the lawyers get angry with me. They phone and email me, first threatening to fire me and then they play good cop / bad cop strong arming me into signing when I send them an email explaining how upset I am in that I don’t feel that they were advocating for me at the mediation. I showed my lawyer friend the email and she told me that it was because my email sounded like I might sue them for coercing me into signing the deal.

I sent my lawyer and her boss another email. I explained that I was reliant on them and their advice. I was married to only one person but they have had several clients and when they realised that their strategy wasn’t working, they should have changed tactics. I told them that I went with every strategy they suggested because they told me it would get me legal costs but they they abandoned the trial and that I don’t see how things will be different in one year. I also said look at what he has done in three weeks after signing the deal. I have no faith in them and I don't think I have any recourse. I feel like they just want to be paid and to move on to the next case but we are a real family that have to deal with this legal failure.

Since signing the deal, I have cried every single day because I have realized it was a mistake. I haven’t been able to work full-time as I am severely depressed. Not only are the children and I losing our home, but if he ever does sell the boat, it is nowhere near enough for me to get out of debt or pay the legal bill. Since the deal has been signed, less than a month later he and his girlfriend went to London, Kenya and Nairobi. He told them he was too poor to pay what he was paying before, they believed him and then he stuck his middle finger up at all of us and went on a safari.

I did consult a non-profit credit counselling company and she told me to sign the deal as the house had to be sold anyways. Once it is sold, I will make another appointment and see if a consolidation loan or bankruptcy is my best option.

The legal system failed me and my abuser won. I thought by no longer giving my ex false apologies, ending my marriage and hiring a lawyer, my nightmare would end but it still continues. I don’t have an answer on how to heal but I hope to find one soon.