Until Further Order of the Court

Being in an abusive marriage is completely isolating. I ended up entirely alone. The friends and family I could have easily leaned on for support, I avoided. I was too embarrassed to speak out loud what was actually happening inside my home. I was afraid to admit to my family, and even in some ways to myself, that the man I had married was a monster. The signs were there early, but I ended up in too deep, far too quickly, to notice or maybe even care. I ignored the signs that my loved ones saw right away — they tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen. I stayed because I told myself it would get better. I stayed because I was gaslit to believe it would. I stayed because I was trapped in a psychological fog that made me question my own reality, my own thoughts, my own perception. Mainly, I stayed because the stigma of divorce scared me more than staying did.

When my marriage finally ended, it wasn’t because I escaped. I was discarded, traded in for a new model — a week after giving birth to my second daughter.

The decade that followed was more terrifying than the marriage itself. The man who so casually discarded me and our two daughters — as easily as taking out the trash — continued to act on his perceived ownership of me. My children were used as pawns, and the normal routine of child exchanges and co-parenting gave him the access to hold his grip. Systems that were meant to protect me were used as avenues to continue harassing and abusing me.

Over time, post-separation abuse felt like a way of life. I had nowhere to turn. Those systems were too overloaded to fully listen, not educated enough to understand, or he got to them first. He ran smear campaigns against me, alienating me from circles that never got the true story.

I kept quietly to myself, focusing on the one part of my life I had control over — the peace within my own walls and the ability to fiercely love my children. I poured into them, every day, year after year. I built a life for us from the ground up, while managing the chaos that came from every custody exchange or new and absurd filing.

Many times I answered my door to police officers and was treated like a criminal — even though my ex-husband, who called them, had a criminal record for domestic violence against me. I was repeatedly dragged through a family court system that refused to look at the entire picture.

After years of accepting my life for what it was, and the devastating notion that it would never change, I finally fought back, ultimately securing real protection for myself and my daughters.

Almost a year into what finally felt like a lasting peace — like the systems were at last working with me — an interaction with school administrators forced me, once again, to prove our reality.

I was invited to a meeting at my daughters’ school. My ex-husband’s name on the CC line sent me into a panic that the mere sight of a digital address should not induce. I immediately responded, requesting that the communication continue without him, and that his information be removed from my daughters’ contact list. Being the full custodial parent, I thought this was reasonable, and I didn’t feel the need to give more details than necessary. What followed was a surreal exchange with the school secretary, who demanded more, and then simply couldn’t grasp the legal reality that a restraining order and a suspension of visitation barred him from being in a room with either me or our daughter. A basic safety request quickly escalated. The school administration required tangible evidence to exclude him from the meeting. A regular afternoon abruptly turned as I was forced to abandon my work and dig up files long buried at the bottom of my closet. After an hour of sifting through hundreds of pages of paperwork and cursing myself for being so unorganized, I decided it would be easier to obtain copies directly from the courthouse — so the school’s scavenger hunt led me there. When I finally provided the entirety of the documentation — one order proving his visitation rights had been fully suspended, and another proving I was protected by a full, no-contact criminal protective order — the school responded by questioning the dates on the paperwork, entirely blind to what “until further order of the court” actually meant. “Yes, it’s been that long,” I responded. After losing a full day of work dredging up my past and arguing with administrators, I received a phone call from the principal the following morning, with her sincerest apologies. That night, I started my memoir out of sheer frustration.

I don’t talk about everything I have been through. Most can’t and don’t understand. Those closest to me know bits and pieces; no one knows the whole story. The night I opened my computer and began writing it, the words poured out, like they had been bursting to be told. Through my custody battle, I was often told, you should write a book. I knew the story was there — I just didn’t know how to start it, or maybe I never felt like there was enough peace to give it a happy ending. My interaction with the school ignited that motivation, and the realization that so many women live with the same anxiety and triggers, forced to share the darkest parts of their lives with people who have no business asking, simply to keep their children safe. Those women are motivation enough for me to share my truth, my story, and how I finally broke free.

~ Sophie