055 Escaping Abuse and Winning a Custody Battle

In this episode we interview Renee Rodriguez, a custody strategist, who shares her harrowing journey of escaping an emotionally abusive relationship and fighting for custody of her son. Renee discusses the strategies and challenges she, and other victims of abuse may face during a custody battle in the hands of a narcissistic abuser, and offers insights and inspiration for others in similar situations.
She is now a Custody Strategist, helping, consulting and advising people going through separation and fighting to gain custody of their children.
Don't miss this powerful episode packed with information and useful steps on how to fight your custody battle successfully.

To contact her for any help or find her work: TheCustodyBlueprint.com,
and custodytemplates.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

He was especially cruel that day. There was this moment when I knew that I had to get out. You know, my son is five months old at this point. He's in a baby carrier. You know, I escaped.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hi guys, Danica here from Multispective and I'm here to share with you a new episode where I interview Rene Rodriguez. Really interesting story. She was in a very mentally abusive marriage and eventually had come to terms with the destructiveness of the marriage that she was in and decided to leave it. So she is currently a custody strategist where she helps individuals that might be going through difficult divorces or separations and how you can strategize to create a stronger case for yourself we've put in her links in the description as well so if you decide you'd like to reach out to her to get some advice on your separation or if you know anyone else definitely do listen in it is a really really interesting episode so can't wait to hear from you guys don't forget drop a comment below It's so lovely to have you on Multispective. Welcome to the podcast. Renee, why don't we start off the episode with you sort of telling us a little bit about you and your background.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So my background is one of, you know, I'm a woman of mixed heritage. What was instilled in me were these Puerto Rican values, very strict, very rigid. You know, you're raised in a certain way. At a who was amazing. I knew he was my soulmate. He was so doting. He was so attentive. He was finishing my sentences. He had almost every little thing in common with me. And we spent some time together and rather quickly, I would say about a year in, he started turning abusive. As a matter of fact, after about the umpteenth time of sitting and talking to a friend to say, you know, I need to do better? Can you give me some advice? How can I fix myself in this relationship? How can I do better? How can I do what he asks? She said, you know what? I've got to say this to you, Renee. I think you're being mentally abused. So after that, having that awareness really gave me the opportunity to take a look at the way I was being treated. And I ended up escaping. I ended up calling the DV hotline told them you know I'm not sure this is abuse he hasn't laid his hands on me I've seen him be violent but not with me he's doing this he's doing that they were finishing my sentences and they said this is severe emotional abuse we think you should just go while he's at work don't wait

SPEAKER_00 2:59

wow I mean here you know it's such a tricky thing because when whenever we think of abuse our brains naturally go to looking for the scars on the body to see if this person And if it's not, then, you know, sometimes the victim gets blamed for it too. Then it's like, oh, well, why didn't you have that strength to be able to stand up for yourself? Like you're a grown adult. And like, there's just so many directions it can go when it comes to something that's non-physical. And when it is a physical, that's when people start to sympathize maybe a little bit more or kind of can label it a little bit easier because, you know, it's a physical scar on a person. Can you tell us some of the scenarios that you were telling your friend that led your friend to give it the label.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Right. Nobody starts dating somebody who's cruel to them. They're wonderful. And then they become controlling and then they become blaming and then you're trying to fix things. And for me, the way that this manifested was, you know, there was one point at which I was putting together a rehearsal because at the time I ran a theater company as a matter of fact. And the rehearsal ended up being in a venue that what we had expected was not what we got. And my ex was and my, you know, boyfriend at the time was livid with me, livid. He blamed me for it. And he spent about three days not talking to me, giving me the silent treatment. Because of that, there was another time in which he came home and he slammed the door. And I said, Oh, hey, What's wrong? And he said, I'm very angry with you. To which I was at home. I was just doing my thing. What could possibly have happened? And he said, I lost my folder. And I said, okay. I'm kind of waiting for where I come into this. And he said, you know, I know where I lost it. I think it was at the grocery store. And I know why I lost it. And it was because I was thinking about you. And so because I was thinking about you, instead of staying focused I lost my folder and that was an important folder and on and on and on another two to three days of code of silence there was another time in which he bumped his shin and getting off the city bus and that was my fault too because he wasn't paying attention because I popped into his head I mean it was psychotic but when you're in it and when it starts happening slowly right one of the slower things being you know hey I'm going out with my friends we always go see a play together about once a month, to which his response was, well, you don't need to do that anymore. You have me now. You know, I'm the person who should be going to see shows with you. I'm the one who should be going here with you. I'm the one who should be. So I didn't realize I was being isolated, right? And I was being given a choice. If I chose my friends over him, then I wasn't really dedicated to the relationship. I wasn't really committed. I didn't really love him. These days, any website and take some sort of a quiz, look at some sort of, you know, set of checkboxes as to what defines narcissism. I was hitting most of them. And later when I took that quiz, it was nine out of every 10 things you could choose was what I was experiencing. You know, maybe he's right. Maybe I'm not being committed enough. Right. Or, you know, it seems crazy to me that he would be angry that he lost his keys, his phone, He hit his shin, you know, this, that and the other thing because of me. But, you know, am I am I infringing on him too much? Am I? What am I doing to stay in his mind too

SPEAKER_00 6:50

much? almost absorbing it on your own as well, because of the way he was saying it

SPEAKER_01 7:16

and the lead up to it. that love bombing is carefully watching that person and carefully seeing, you know, how cruel can you be? What kinds of things can you do? What kinds of things can you get away with saying? And then quickly apologize and maybe even take it on yourself that you did something wrong. They slowly, slowly indoctrinate you. And when they do do something where they see they've gone just a little bit too far, they've done too much, then they're quick to come back and say, you know what, let's go out to dinner. And then I think people picture flowers and all that type of thing, maybe, but often it's actually more a mental thing. It's more sort of like, you know, I want to share something with you I've never shared with anybody, but I feel like with you, I can finally say this. And so you're ensnared, right? This person needs you and they can be decent. And gosh, who would I be to just reject this sensitive, wonderful person when they just had a bad moment when they're just going through a

SPEAKER_00 8:45

rough patch of work. How can you draw the difference or tell the difference between a person love bombing versus being vulnerable and just trying to be honest?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

I don't think you always can. And I think the first thing you have to remember is that the red flags, if they're very good at what they do, which most of them are because they employ cognitive empathy, which is not empathy, then essentially they can spend a very long time with you not displaying any flags. And then if something does pop up, It does become a question of, gosh, everything's so wonderful. This one thing happened. Am I really going to reject this human being? We're all flawed. Am I really just going to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because I'm identifying this flag? The simplicity of just leaving somebody, I think that's absurd. There are so many things that are at play. Your upbringing, your religion, the voices of your friends, who you're around, the situation you're in financially And so, to make it as simple as leaving this person who, truth be told, is actually quite lovely and doting and attentive most of the time, I don't think that that's a realistic thing to put on most people. However, the other piece of it we have to consider is that most, but not all, of the people who are targeted by this type of insidious individual are people who have been identified as forced to leave. For whatever reason, not having strong boundaries, whether it's in this period in their life or whether they just were not built up because this person, you know, this target did have a childhood that had holes in it. Right. What was that for you then? I'm lucky to not have horribly abusive parents so much as parents who were in a situation that was economically very, very poor. Which then, of course, when you think about it, Jenica, leads to, okay, how do I make sure as someone who was with somebody who is abusive, how do I make sure that my own child doesn't take on these things, right? How do I make sure first that I am never taken in by an abuser again? And how do I make sure that my son doesn't pick up whatever these things were that my mother brought with her, that her mother brought with her, that I made be bringing with me, even though I am without a doubt, the most aware out of any of the generational women for me, of what is out there of who I am in it.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

And I get it exactly what you said about, you know, sort of the very first step towards sort of ending generational trauma is having that awareness of it. How long had you been with him before it really kind of occurred to you?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

So my friend told me I was in mentally abused after we had been together for two years. So I was lucky that it was only two years. Certainly when I'm working with parents now, it's much, much longer, six, 10, 15, 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Would you say that there is a timeframe for the depth of the trauma that an individual can have? How would you categorize the traumas of emotional abuse in a relationship?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I think what absolutely Absolutely be worse for the people I'm working with, because these are parents. And so one of the things that most of these parents feel that they can never forgive themselves for, even though obviously they should, but I understand, is that in this case, with this person who is crashing through their boundaries and treating them cruelly, they have created children. And so the court system is going to ensure that they are never free of abuse.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

So you noticed it. How did you escape? How did you get out of your situation? I don't know how to explain

SPEAKER_01 14:16

it other than there was this moment when I knew that I had to get out. He had blamed me because I asked for his help to Google something, to do a web search on something quite simple. You know, you open up a page, you look up something, but I was incapacitated at the time and just asked him for help out. And he happened to be uploading an important video for his job. The video would not upload, which I think we've all encountered again and again. But he decided to blame me because he had opened up a Google page to look up something for me. And he was especially cruel that day. And this was within two weeks of my friend having told me I was being mentally abused. And so the next day, I called that very same friend. And like I mentioned, I called the DV hotline. I'm frantically putting things together, you know, a bag to and I'm just, you know, I escaped. There was, you know, several feet of snow. You know, my son is five months old at this point. He's in a baby carrier. I'm, you know, got a suitcase that I'm trying to pull behind me on the Brooklyn streets. You know, my friend is holding two of my other bags. The majority of what I brought was, of course, for my baby versus me. And I stayed with her for a fury with which my ex responded was frightening. Absolutely frightening. I was receiving text messages with pictures of my possessions saying, just throwing things out until you come back. He showed me pictures of things that were precious to me from my childhood that were in our home. And he said, this is gone now. I still haven't heard from you. This is next. And it was just torturous for me to say, well, am I going to bring my child back into that home to get him to stop getting rid of my possessions? Or am I going to watch my life be thrown into the incinerator while protecting me and my child? And I did choose the latter. He was going through all different kinds of things to get me back. There was destroying my stuff and sending me pictures. There was threatening me. There was cajoling. There was promises. There was let's get into counseling, which I begged him for which I'm glad we didn't do because man let me tell you what therapy I now know with with an abuser is just a whole new level of abuse you know but there was a lot to try to get me back and I opted out of doing that I knew I'm grateful that whatever was inside of me was saying no this this is it this is it and then we worked our way from there into the court scratch

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Throughout the time in your relationship, looking back now in hindsight, did you ever feel like there were signs headed towards physical abuse? It's the kind of thing where

SPEAKER_01 18:01

you look at yourself as a matter of fact, and you say, well, why on earth didn't I leave then? Because there was a point at which I admittedly behaved a little poorly in a situation. There was this parking garage we had parked in. You know, there was this insane rate that they were charging. And at the time, we didn't really have a lot of money. And so you had to be out by a certain time or they would charge you another$30, which was at that time for us an insane amount of money because of where we were at. And so what ended up happening was we were in line just before our deadline, before they were about to do the charge. And there was one person, they were taking forever. By the time we actually got to the window We were past the time. So they were trying to charge us the$30. And I had this desperate moment where I was like, I don't have the money for this. So I realized I actually had a second key. And in my mind, it was worth it to just let them have the key. So I simply headed for my car to go get it. And they saw what I was doing. And they sent one of their people out. And this guy made and I mean, there was it was a series of mistakes, really. This guy made the mistake. of physically pushing me aside to, and it wasn't actually a big deal. He just like kind of pushed me aside. He wasn't even trying to push me. He was just trying to take my key out of my ignition. So it was this ugly moment. But what ended up happening went wildly over the top of this ridiculous situation in which my ex just grabbed his shirt by, you know, the him so far back. And immediately, because again, the whole situation was just ridiculous. This poor guy put his hands up, it was all like, no, no, no, no, that is not where I'm at with this. And my ex was just livid, like the look on his face. And it was frightening. And I remember we got in the car, and we started our long drive back. And I just couldn't say a word. And I was surprised I was driving because my hands on the wheel were the only thing that was the only thing that was keeping them from trembling from him seeing that I was just who am I sitting next to in this car? But then you have to look at, it's not as simple as let me dump him by the road if you're a decent person, but that love bombing. I'm an empath. Many abuse targets are, but I'm also an empath with, as I mentioned, the poor boundaries, who is a very smart person who was very successful. And so if you combine the fact that you've got poor boundaries and you don't know it, you're an empath and you you don't know it, but gosh darn it, you're smart, you're extremely successful, and everybody's telling you that, then you do trust what your brain is telling you. And if new information is shoving aside the violent episode you just saw... Yeah. Yeah. I think when we blame victims, we're basically saying, you got to stop trusting these people who are lovely and wonderful. And that does not make sense.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

You have left this relationship with your child. You're staying at your friend's place. You finally muster the courage to have that one conversation with him. Let him know that everything is fine. And, you know, you're safe, you're okay, but you're not coming back home. What happens then?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

I went through a lot of lawyers and, you know, but they all said the same thing. They all said, you know, basically you have two choices. You can pick up and run, which I know one lawyer told me, which later on I realized she could have gotten in a lot of trouble for telling me that. But she kind of understood. And she said, I understood what you're going through, but the courts are not going to. So this is your opportunity to go. You guys don't have an agreement. You're not married. But that didn't feel right to me. I did end up, you know, from the advice of many different lawyers, figuring out how, you know, do, how do we figure out some sort of a schedule, right? And what kind of visitation can we have here? You know, I got a nanny and we kind of started to put something together, but it was very loosey-goosey. You know, it was the type of thing where he would say, you know, I want to come by and I want to, you know, see him. I want to come by and I want to take him. And it's a very, very dangerous thing to be doing that, right? There's no, I didn't even realize this, but there's no custody agreement at the time. There's nothing on paper, which does allow, in most states and provinces, does allow for that other parent to quite possibly abscond with a child.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Would that not constitute kidnapping, though?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

If the other person is very good at saying, well, I had permission, this is why, this was always our plan, then I have seen several cases where, as a matter of fact, no, it did not constitute kidnapping. But don't get me wrong, the courts are kind of like, but sir, you must figure out a way for her to see her child. But there isn't a whole heck of a lot of follow-up with that. And the repercussions, there's a difference between genders for what the repercussions are for if you do take the child and decide that now you're the primary caregiver. So it becomes this fight for one of the parents and the other one, it becomes about protection. The child turns into possession. And it's no longer about, let's allow this child the stability they've had. The courts and abusers tend to argue that 50-50 is in the best interest of children. And it's simply not true. What is better for a human being is to have stability. This argument that we put makes it difficult for children to be protected, for the protective parent to simply continue to allow these children to have stability. to grow in a way that is healthiest for them.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah, that makes sense. You took your child away when he was about five months, right? So fairly young. And there was no agreement, particularly by court at this point. So at this point, your child was sort of going in between yours and your ex's place.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

No, not much. You know, I will say that luckily for me, Yeah, absolutely. And so that control that I had suffered in the relationship was still there, but it was manifesting in a different way. So luckily, there was a certain point at which I filed a petition. I waited until I found the right lawyer. And then we did move forward with it. And then once you are in court, once you filed a petition, that really kind of changes the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

How were they able to sort of like argue this case? then? And how were they able to put this case forward for you?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

When people are, you know, many of your listeners will kind of say, okay, you go into family court, you go before the court, everybody tells their stories, and then the court makes a decision. And family court is not like that. There can be quick decisions made, but they are supposed to be temporary decisions. Usually those decisions are not so temporary, but they're called temporary for the time being. But when you go in, you do Yeah, as long as both parties can

SPEAKER_00 27:29

agree to the terms,

SPEAKER_01 27:31

we're good. Yeah. Yeah, one. It's because the protective parent stood up and said, no, it isn't going to happen this way. Or if they did come to an agreement because the abusive parent didn't get every little tiny thing they wanted, they refused to sign. Nevertheless, the court still tries to get the parents to figure it out so that it doesn't go to trial. If it becomes clear that it's not going to happen, then often there are two professionals who are introduced. Some sort of a guardian ad litem, which is basically someone who is protecting the child, whether that's a lawyer for the child or some other professional who is representing the child's wishes or making sure that the children are protected.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

The

SPEAKER_01 29:27

other professional is a custody evaluator. But what's important to know is that 85 to 90% of judges will go along with whatever the evaluator recommends for custody.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

But that's so flawed in itself because Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

just over a year when they suddenly realize what the problem is. But by then, they have children with this person, right? The truth is, most of these evaluators are people who might be in the psychology profession. And there's not a lot of training about narcissistic abuse. You know, did they take abnormal psychology? And if they did, NPD, narcissistic personality disorder, any of the other cluster B personality disorders, are one lesson one day, one chapter, right? So Right. Right. who is abusive, because man, have they been through it. And many of them heartbreakingly have learned the hard way that

SPEAKER_00 31:24

they were fooled. is the most efficient and the most effective sort of method that

SPEAKER_01 31:50

can be done in the most fairest way. That's one of the fixes I would make. I would say that what we need to do is we need to train DV experts and we need to have the judges trained as well so that there is a conversation, so that there is a system that doesn't make it so that there's this seven or 10 day trial, finds a way to streamline it while still getting at the truth and being as effective as a seven to 10 day trial. Right? Yeah. And I think that would involve bringing in someone who can speak to the DV who can recognize the DB and come up with ways to ensure that these children are being brought up the right way and that these parents, these protective parents are also getting the protection that they themselves need. Right? I can't tell you how many parents have a restraining order that does not include the children, because the court has determined that he only beat her up, not the children. And it's kind of like, well, who do you think he's going to beat up when you remove Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

it like having all different kinds of parties involved

SPEAKER_01 34:48

no they do talk to or they should anyway if they're following if they're doing the right things then they are talking to the teachers they are talking to the therapists they are talking to the sitters and the neighbors and that type of thing unfortunately many of them don't or they'll only interestingly enough do it with that charming psychotic you know parent versus the neurotic parent who's all over the place they'll be talking to all of their collaterals but none of the protective parents collaterals almost right I think it goes Yeah. Yeah. that will give these children some respite from the abuse.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Okay, final, final, final question. Can you tell us if there's anyone here listening today that maybe is probably seeing signs and considering leaving a relationship that they feel is not serving them? What message can you offer? What advice can you offer them today?

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yeah, for catching people who haven't left yet, actually, the major piece of advice I can give them is get as much evidence as you can right now before you go, because it gets a lot harder to get evidence of what's going on in the household. Once you leave, you know, get copies of all the papers, you know, licenses and statements and stuff like that. You know, we focus on the custody piece, but, you know, get as much evidence as you can that you are the primary caregiver, because man, do a lot of these abusers like to say that they were actually the primary caregiver. And the other thing I would say is when you are working with core professionals, when you're working with even your own lawyer and they're saying, you know, we're going to have to go this way because this is what the court wants. You should absolutely speak up and say respectfully, I want to partner with you and not just receive what you have to say. I want us to work together. And for this, I'm going to say no. The reason I hired you was to achieve this result.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yeah, I imagine like a lot of people that are like on the verge of leaving are probably feeling pretty wired up and anxious and are not thinking about these sort of like, you know, the really practical steps that are going to be necessary and absolutely useful down the line when they are separated. So yeah, some really, really good points there. That's right. Thank you so much, Renee, for being on the podcast and sharing such wonderful insight with us today. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 38:05

thank you for having me here. If we have helped even just one of your listeners, I will be so grateful.

UNKNOWN 38:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

The

SPEAKER_00 38:42

show would be nothing without you. I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.