It has been a week.
I was served with an “emergency” motion in family court with only three days’ notice. To make it worse, it was filed in such a way that my lawyer had just ten minutes to respond if we wanted even the chance of an adjournment. We scrambled and filed in eighteen minutes. And then we waited. Hours before the decision finally came down that it had been adjourned—for three days, to Monday.
For once, the court system tilted in my favor. For once, it gave me the breathing space I needed.
Can you imagine how I felt in those hours of waiting? Thinking I might have to face my rapist in court and fight against his lawyer, with no legal training, no safety net, and the stakes being nothing less than my son’s future. He is asking for 50% custody. I am asking for supervised access once a week, no overnights. The difference between those two outcomes is everything.
And in that waiting, your thoughts spiral in so many different directions at once. A tangled mess of everything, unable to concentrate on anything. The lack of sleep, the nightmares, the need for sleeping pills just to shut it down. I’ve even dropped four pounds from not being able to eat with worry. A silver lining, maybe—but I’m always looking for them, because sometimes that’s all that keeps me upright.
Yes, I won in court before, when I fought for my daughter to fly overseas and the judge granted the order for consent to travel. But this? This is different. This is bigger. This is my son’s safety, and my trauma, colliding in a courtroom where the rules are stacked against me. They knew my lawyer wasn’t available. This is exactly what they were hoping for.
I dodged a bullet. If I had been forced to do it, I would have given it my all, poured every ounce of fight into protecting my son. But when I got the news that I wouldn’t have to, a huge weight lifted. I cried with relief.
If that adjournment hadn’t been granted, I would have been standing there by myself—me against a lawyer, with my ex sitting in the courtroom or looming large on a big screen. The thought of it was daunting, terrifying even. But the alternative—backing down and letting my son’s safety be swept aside—was never an option.
So, I did what I always do: I got to work. I prepared. I answered every single point in his motion. I pulled the documents, wrote the replies, and handed everything to my lawyer along with something extra: an attack plan. A plan not just to defend myself but to finally go after what he owes—every cent of back child support, every unpaid expense, every financial abuse tactic he has weaponized against me.
And then, by pure chance, I checked the court dockets.
Surprise: I was apparently scheduled in civil court to set a trial date. News to me—and apparently news to my civil lawyers too, when I called them. So now I’ll be in court at 9 a.m., just in case I need to stand there and ask for an adjournment on something no one even told me about.
Fun times. Love this court system.
It shouldn’t happen. And yet… I find myself saying that phrase a lot.
As if that weren’t enough, the “emergency” motion from my ex is an attempt to get more access to our six-year-old son—despite the fact that he is facing eight criminal charges, four of them directly related to child abuse. But, as the tired old line goes, “all dads have a right to see their kids,” right? That’s another story.
And then came the real gut-punch.
I discovered that the principal of my son’s school had written a character reference addressed directly to the judge, praising my ex as an amazing and involved father. My first thought? What the actual…
It left me shaken, highly traumatized. Because this isn’t a small slip. This is someone in authority, with full knowledge of the situation, putting her influence into the hands of a judge while ignoring the fact that the man she was praising is up on multiple charges, including child abuse.
But this week, I have been in fire-fighting mode. Instead of collapsing, I picked up the phone. I called the school board and asked for their legal department. They called me back, I explained what happened, and today they sent me an official letter addressed to the judge.
In black and white, the letter confirmed that board policy is clear: principals and staff are not to provide character references or get involved in litigation. Any views she expressed were personal and not endorsed by the board. I thanked them, forwarded it straight to my lawyer, and then asked the obvious follow-up: what action will be taken against this principal, and how will the board ensure all principals are trained and reminded why this policy exists—especially for parents like me who are fighting in high-stakes criminal and family courts where even one unauthorized letter can shift the balance?
My friend told me I’m a force to be reckoned with. And maybe she’s right. But I also know this: I was lucky that this week I was clear-headed enough to fight the fire. If I had been in one of my foggy, trauma-ridden states, I might not have caught it, might not have called, and that letter could have sat there, quietly influencing the judge against me.
Instead, it’s gone.
All of this while still being a mom. Four parents’ evenings. A sick child needing comfort. A dog injured chasing wolves—cleaning the wound with hydrogen peroxide, dosing antibiotics, hoping it heals without a vet bill. Meals, laundry, the daily grind of holding a family together while the legal system tries to pull it apart.
And in the middle of it all, I still showed up for the parade at my son’s school. It was the 50th anniversary of Franco-Ontarian Day. Kids waving flags, parents gathered to celebrate. And of all the parents there, guess which one the principal didn’t hand a flag to. A small thing, maybe—but in context, it said everything.
Yet through it all, I still managed to book my son into swimming lessons—an hour’s drive each way, but worth every minute. And if all goes well, he’ll start karate next week too. More hours spent waiting around for kids doing their thing, but that’s the good kind of waiting. Because they are worth it. Every bit of it.
And while juggling all of that, I even applied for two jobs. Hitting “send” on those resumes felt surreal, like I was looking at someone else’s accomplishments instead of my own. Years of abuse drilled into me that I was worthless, that I had nothing to offer. So yes, I still feel like an imposter. But something is shifting. I’m not quite at “I can do this” yet—but I can admit this much: I have a huge set of skills, and to the right employer, they will be worth their weight in gold.
On top of it all, I’ve spent hours pouring over legal documents, emails, texts, and evidence. I feel fairly confident in my family court reply—but the civil court side is going to take more out of me. It’s daunting, because every detail drags me back into my ex’s world, and even reading old emails can send me spiraling. Still, I am trying. I am fighting. And even though there’s been more chaos than last week, I feel better able to cope this week. I don’t know why—what’s different—but I’ll take it.
And maybe the silver lining is this: the emotions that threaten to overwhelm me also fuel my pen. They spill out into poetry, raw and unfiltered, and somehow transform into something beautiful.
Through it all, my friend has been there. She has held me when I cried, let me vent, reminded me I wasn’t alone in how horrific and unfair this all feels. And this week, she was served with her own motion in family court. His demand? To be allowed onto her driveway and into her house, because their daughter—on crutches from a bad accident—needs help. The irony? He made that same daughter carry her bags through his own house when I picked her up. Yet it gave him the excuse to file an affidavit full of lies and twisted truths, the kind that make a decent mother look like a monster to anyone who doesn’t know the real story.
That’s the playbook of narcissistic abusers: when control is cut off, they twist the system to keep their claws in. It’s unfair. It’s exhausting. And the system lets it happen.
I have faith she will win. She doesn’t. That’s the cruelest part: even when the truth is on your side, the process itself becomes another weapon of abuse. Abusers flip the script, painting themselves as the victims while blaming you for everything that is actually theirs to own. It’s horrific, and it wears you down, especially when the courtroom becomes the stage for their lies.
But I’m done being only on the defensive.
I’ve prepared my answers to my ex’s motion — and now I’m going on the attack. I’m pushing back for over $80,000 in arrears and withheld monies. That number is staggering, yes, but it’s real. It includes land he sold illegally during litigation (not “criminal,” apparently, according to the system’s strange definitions), funds he refused to declare, and money he has never handed over as required. Every withheld dollar has a direct impact on our quality of life — on me, and on our children.
Last November, I came frighteningly close to having to line up at the food bank just to feed my kids. That’s how real this fight is. That’s the cost of his manipulation. And that’s why I won’t let it slide.
Luckily, I managed to get the child benefit put back in my name and not his — and that has been the only thing keeping us afloat. That government payment is what has allowed me to feed the kids, keep the bills covered, and stop the bank from foreclosing on the house.
Speaking of the house: the mortgage is up for renewal. It requires both of our signatures. I’ve already looped in his counsel, making it clear that it must be signed by the end of the month or it will roll into an open rate at a crushingly high interest level. Of course, this doesn’t touch him — he doesn’t pay the mortgage. His obligations are half the taxes and the insurance, and even those he hasn’t been paying. So if the mortgage rolls over, it’s me left holding the bag, legally forced to pay it all at a higher rate. That’s financial abuse in action. And yes, I am adding this straight into my court motion, asking the judge to order him to sign.
So stand by. If I can’t add it onto Monday’s motion, I will be filing an emergency motion of my own. Because I am sick of always reacting, of always playing defense while he bends and twists the rules.
It’s time to move to the attack.
This time, I am not just surviving. I am writing, healing, fighting, and showing up armed with truth, evidence, and determination.
Bring it on.
