But the sad fact is that only a small number of divorces end this way and it may be utopian to expect that joint custody will be successful for the vast majority of parents whose marriages end with tremendous hurt and pain or those who divorce because of abuse. Can we honestly still call it joint custody if a judge or some court mediator who bases their decisions more on philosophy than reality ORDERS a "joint" custody agreement? Can we continue to allow courts to mandate such things when their reasoning has nothing to do with the particulars of our personal family situation and more to do with their personal philosophy or wishful thinking?
Research on the effects of abuse are very clear and the courts know it, so it is not particularly surprising that women are dismissed when they speak out about abuse in their relationship. Through some pattern of convoluted logic it is suspicious in the minds of judges and court mediators when women raise allegations of abuse during a breakup. Duh--what did they think caused you to break up in the first place but the abuse? Or does it make more sense to them that people get divorced for no particular reason?
So it makes more sense to them (or at least it is easier) to dismiss all allegations of abuse as merely a "ploy" a "strategy"?? Ok--so I am a bit cynical, but it is cynicism born of experience.
So what happens to the women and children mandated to joint custody who continue to be victimized by these types of fathers?
What happens to women and children who find themselves in what the courts euphemistically and dismissively call "high conflict cases"? Am I being cynical when I suggest that the use of this term "high conflict case" sounds better to them and soothes their conscience better than being honest and calling many of these cases what they really are--cases of abuse? It's just easier to order "joint custody" in "high conflict" cases than it would be if they called a spade a spade. Can you imagine how it would play in the media if the courts recognized abuse but ordered joint custody anyway?
Yet that is precisely what they are doing when they order joint custody in these "high conflict cases." Worse still, they are "sentencing" these women and children to a couple of decades of ongoing emotional, physical and financial abuse.
