As I sit in my living room alone on a cold New York Saturday morning I feel a profound sense of peace. It has been 6 months since the custody agreement was signed. I have been indulging in my daughter, focusing on my career, spending time with friends, and doing a bit of traveling. I can’t help but feel a deep sense of joy in every day because I have the only thing I really need – my child.

Meanwhile, I am in the financial fight of a lifetime. My husband went from paying for our whole life to conveniently being “broke” throughout our divorce, and is fighting to get child support, alimony, and legal fees from me. Naturally, the judge is temporarily letting him get away with it until there is either a trial or a settlement. My savings are all gone and I am trying to figure out which credit card to sign up for next in order to keep up with my legal fees. But I am not bothered. All that matters is that I have my daughter.

One would think that my husband feels like a winner – he gets his daughter 50% of the time, a year of pure torture was inflicted on me, and he is being paid a large sum of money until trial or settlement. But his quest for power and control seems to be endless. I am receiving constant threats of being taken back to court for supposed breaches of the agreement.

On December 24, 2019 my grandmother passed away at 101 years old. She lived with me for 4 years, which is a large chunk of my daughters life. The 3 of us had become a happy little family, and my daughter learned that her great-grandmother was a constant in her life as long as she was with her mom. Luckily, the weekend of the memorial service was my weekend, and I booked a ticket for us to fly home to California so my grandmother could be laid to rest near my mother and grandfather. I sent my husband a note alerting him of our travel plans in order to stay compliant with our agreement, but he still seemed unsatisfied. After several emails back and forth I received the following…

Paulina,

It is apparent you still do not understand, therefore, I will explain it to you in a different way.

You are not allowed to make decisions regarding the health and well being of our daugher, on your own, without consulting me first.

It has become known to me you booked your flights on or about January 3rd.

I received notice from you of your travel intentions on January 9th, 6 days later and merely 24 hours prior to your departure.

It is more than apparent you intentionally delayed your notice of travel until the last minute, purposely did not discuss your intentions with our daughter in advance with me and made a conscious decision to circumvent the terms of our agreement.

Pursuant to the terms of our Parenting Agreement we are required to consult with each other regarding issues relating to Nicoletta regardless of who has final decision making in any particular area or sphere.

If you continue to make unilateral decisions, ignore my correspondence and/or breach any other terms of the agreement, I will immediately move for a change in custody and seek further legal fees and expenses due to your continued breach of the Parenting Agreement.

I truly hope that this will not be necessary.

He clearly wasn’t actually concerned about our daughter attending her great-grandmother’s memorial service, or he would have just talked to me.

I received the following email after I took my daughter to New Jersey to visit her cousins:

Paulina,

Today, at 1:24pm, I was speaking to our daughter on Facetime while you were on the train.

She told me she was going to her cousins house. When I realized you were in NJ, I asked her and she clearly asked you, “what town her cousin lives in” and also “what stop on the train she is getting off.”

Your answers to both of those questions were, “I don’t know”.

It is more than apparent you have been to their house multiple times.

Your answers to our daughter, were obviously meant to prevent me from knowing her physical whereabouts.

I remind you that as per the parenting agreement, Section 25, you are to at all times keep me reasonably informed concerning her physical whereabouts.

Please provide the address to where she will be.

Pursuant to the terms of our Parenting Agreement, we are to each keep the other informed about her whereabouts at all times. If you continue to purposely lie about her whereabouts and hide this information from me, I will move for a change in custody and seek further legal fees and expenses due to your continued breach of the Parenting Agreement. I truly hope this will not be necessary.

My answers were “I don’t know” partially because I actually didn’t remember since they had just moved, and partially because I as sure my cousin wouldn’t want my husband to know where they lived. We had been to their old house a million times without my husband knowing the address. Again, his concerns were clearly not real.

Everything was always 100% about power and control. He knew the things that mattered most to me – my child and my financial stability – and he was constantly coming up with new reasons to threaten me to take away both. It was exhausting to say the least.

My daughter had no idea. He was like Jeckyll and Hyde – sweet as pie while he was on the phone with her, while thinking of new ways destroy me as soon as he hung up. Half of me was relieved she didn’t know who her father really was, but the other half wished that she would learn the reality of the situation at an early age so there was no disappointment later on.

I tried to adapt to the fact that this would be my life for the foreseeable future. It seemed like an impossible task, but it was ok with me because all that mattered was that I had my daughter.

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