The Time Of My Life

Many years ago, in 1995, I became separated from my wife of that time due to her 'unreasonable behavior'. This term covers a multitude of sins that include physical abuse and infidelity. My ex-wife was guilty up to her armpits of both.

After separation I came to learn two new concepts in Spanish, ' Violencia de Genero' (Gender Violence) and 'Alienacion Parental' (Parental Alienation). My ex-wife used both of these as part and parcel of her arsenal of weaponry to destroy me, not only in the eyes of our lovely young son, but also in the eyes of the law, her family, friends, and society at large. And she used them to such good effect that to this day I am paying a very heavy price.

The term Gender Violence (more correctly called domestic violence in other countries in recognition of the fact that violence is not gender specific) came about as a response by the Spanish Government, trying with good intentions, to get to grips with male violence against women. Of course, it very conveniently ignored female violence against men. In the eyes of the law and society at large, that does not happen. Try telling that to the thousands of men, such as myself, who have suffered some of the most awful physical, emotional, and psychological abuse from their female partners.

This is not unlike Queen Victoria refusing to introduce a law against lesbianism, to match the one against homosexuality, due to Her Majesty's misconception that women do not do those sorts of things. So homosexual men got sent to jail and lesbian women got away with it.

The Spanish Government published pamphlets stating what exactly constituted Gender Violence. "It starts with ignoring the woman's feelings...." How many men could be falsely accused of doing that? Pretty much all men have been guilty of something that could be construed as ignoring their female partner's feelings.

Not putting the top back on the tube of toothpaste, failing to put the rubbish out, forgetting to send his wife a birthday card...I am absolutely certain all men have, at some time or other, committed such heinous crimes as those, without the slightest intention to cause offense.

This poor description of Gender Violence has opened the floodgates for thousands of disgruntled Spanish wives to denounce their husbands for such horrendous crimes against womanhood. It gave women something to beat the hell out of her errant hubby, or ex-hubby, to teach him a lesson, not to meddle with her feelings.

To make matters worse, the Government introduced special courts for the protection of women (not men, children, or senior citizens) and appointed judges with a predisposition to take the woman's side. Any man who found himself in such a court knew that just by virtue of being a man accused of male violence against a woman, he was in the eyes of the law as good as guilty before he had even had the chance to take his seat in front of the judge.

One or two wise judges publicly mentioned that nine out of ten cases were false. Those judges were accused of undermining the Government's attempts to get male violence under control. I heard from friends in the know that those judges had been censored by the Government.

Over many years in and out of court, I came across many innocent men who had not only been falsely accused but had also been sentenced to time in jail. If a woman scratches her own chest, leaves marks, and claims that her husband did it, he will in all likelihood end up in jail.

In my case, the very first trial I had to go to was for calling my ex-wife 'stupid' eighteen months previous, and for accusing her of having an extra-marital affair. Yes, I did call her stupid, in reaction to her beating the holy shit out of me. And I knew for a fact that she was having an affair. Yet the judge chose to ignore those explanations and found me guilty and sentenced me to three months of house arrest. As for her...

During my attempts to speak when it was my turn, she insisted on constantly interrupting me. The judge politely asked her to sit back down and be quiet so that he could hear me speak. The third time she stood up to loudly interrupt, the judge bad-temperedly yelled at her "Senora, sit down and shut up, or are you stupid?" And yet, in the end, he found me guilty of committing the offense of calling her stupid and sentenced me for it! Go figure.

When I came out of the court the woman was waiting for me. She said, "Aww, I felt so sorry for you getting a roasting like that from that horrible judge." I could hardly believe my own ears. "You're the one who put me there in the dock!" I exclaimed. She just stared at me vacantly, as if none of it was nothing to do with her. That was the sort of psychologically disturbed madness I had to deal with.

Overall, in my humble opinion, the new Gender Violence law has had a counterproductive effect. With so many false accusatory trials taking place all around the country, legal resources have to have been stretched to the point that the law has been unable to deal with very real cases of violence against women.

Also, if you go around pushing violence to the fore, that can act almost like publicity for the act and lead to a rise in genuine cases. In addition, all those false cases can undermine the authentic ones, which may lead to all cases not being taken seriously.

Last, but by no means least, the law runs the risk of disenfranchising men from law and order, if not mainstream society. In fact, already we have seen signs of male protest in the political arena.

The introduction of the Gender Violence law helped to give rise to a powerful new political party in Spain, called Vox. One of the main points on their political agenda was the issue of the new law.

After that court fiasco, my ex-tormentor resorted to other measures to alienate me from my son. She simply went to the courts demanding an injunction against me on the totally false, vindictive grounds, that she was afraid of me. The arch bully who physically beat me up, to the point of me being hospitalized, played the vulnerable female, trembling and in floods of tears denouncing me for making her afraid.

Neither the police nor the courts sought to ask me what was going on, they just served me with the injunction. That meant that for the following three months, I could not collect my son as I could not go anywhere near his mother. Evil objective achieved. That woman was scared of nobody, everybody was scared of her!

Sadly, I spent fifteen years (2005 to 2o20) of personal and legal persecution for a wide range of crimes I was totally innocent of. Plus, there were quite a few trials dealing with her physically attacking me. I am happy to report that I won every single case after that first one, which I appealed and won.

On a more positive note, I learned to speak Spanish fluently and I met the most wonderful people in the courts, administrators, and attorneys. I even met one attorney who represented me free of charge after I went out of business and ran out of money.

Of course, being in court week in and week out, month after month, year after year, had a devastating effect. I lost two businesses, two houses, and two cars because of it all. I was left in absolute ruins. In the end, my ex-wife fled the country and took my son with her (2014) with the help of one fraudulent attorney, and I have not seen nor heard from my young son since.

What I had been caught up in was a witch hunt against men, which made me a witch, deserving nothing less than total destruction. Objective achieved, on the part of my ex-wife and the biased, favorable to women, Spanish legal system.

***

"The term parental alienation was first coined by the controversial US psychiatrist Richard Gardner as "parental alienation syndrome". He claimed mothers in acrimonious divorces brainwashed their children to believe they had been abused by their fathers and recommended completely severing contact to "re-program" them.

The biggest problem with parental alienation is it is so insidious by nature. One of the first things my ex did in an effort to erase me from my son's life was to visit his junior school and demand that they wipe my name off his records. She even insisted that the school should erase my name from my son's school reports. They point-blank refused to comply with these unreasonable, odiously ill-intentioned demands, and she got angry with them and threatened the school with legal action.

At other times she put my son with a member of her family, with her not to be disobeyed instructions, under any circumstances, on pain of death almost, that they were not to let me see my son, even though the courts had set a legal order for me to have that time with him. This was a woman who believed that she was a law unto herself, and no court or judge, no police officer, was going to tell her what she could or couldn't do.

When it was time for my son's baptism, she insisted that I pay for his new shoes, the church donation, and his after-baptism party. There were about thirty adults at that party, plus a dozen children, and they were all eating and drinking on my tab. I went to the party, at her invitation, and truly wished I had declined the offer.

I went into the freshly cleaned-up barn, at the farm her parents owned and made a point of going around all of the tables to offer civilized greetings. They all reciprocated with civility, all but one. Her younger brother was drunkenly manning the BBQ, and as I strode across the barn to greet him with my hand raised, ready to shake hands, he called out very loudly for all to hear "I don't know what you are doing here, you are NOT his father."

Later on, what he had said shocked me to the core. What if the boy wasn't mine? Did her brother know something I didn't? They say a woman always knows if it is her child, her DNA. A man can never be too sure if it is his DNA, or if the child is the offspring of some other man. He has to trust in the woman's fidelity. And if a man finds out after the child is born that the mother has had an affair, who's to say she didn't have an affair before? To this day I really do not know who the child belongs to.

On reflection, I decided that even if I was not the boy's biological father, since I had brought him up from a baby in arms to a thirteen-year-old boy, I was to all intents and purposes his Dad.

What a nerve her brother had to say what he said. To say that as he enjoyed the food and drink I had paid for. I was speechless. The entire room went into a deadly silence. I felt angry and embarrassed, wishing I could just crawl away into some dark hole. I just turned and went out to my car and drove away as fast as I could, in tears of sadness and frustration. My whole day, my entire life was in ruins at the hands of these horrible swine. They didn't even give a shit about the effect of all of this on my young son, a boy who they all professed to love so much.

I had previously had to denounce the same brother for threatening me with violence, which he of course denied. As we left court he followed me to my home in his car and tried to run me off the road, without a single thought for other innocent road users and pedestrians who could have quite easily been seriously injured or killed.

I have often thought that I should have just left all those years ago when all the trouble first started. It would have saved me a great deal of money and an immeasurable amount of heartbreak. But I loved my son and did not want to abandon him to a crowd of uncivilized animals like that.

***

In the end, it was all for nothing. In the second to last trial, in late 2013, for my ex-wife yet again refusing me access to my son, the female judge was very fair. In my long experience with Spanish judges, the females are so much better at understanding how ex-wives behave than their male counterparts.

My ex-wife claimed that it wasn't her fault, the boy did not want to be with me. The judge told her that it was not his decision, she must encourage him to spend time with me. Of course, it wasn't the boy, he was simply being used as an excuse.

At the final trial, I tried to get custody and failed. That judge asked to speak to my son alone due to his tender years. Afterward, she told me that the boy said he did not want to be with me but would not say why. Which meant he was too afraid to tell the truth about his mother and was not prepared to lie for her either.

In Spring 2014 my ex offered me custody, and I smelt a rat. She was in cahoots with a corrupt attorney who prepared the custody papers for me to sign. However, he refused to let me show the agreement to my own attorney or even to read the document myself. I found out later exactly why.

The document claimed that I accepted that I was an unfit father, that I had a problem with alcohol (I am actually tee-total), and that I did not love my son and recognized that he did not love me. I agreed, the document said, to forego all parental rights of access or contact with my son forever. Thank the lord I refused to sign that pack of atrocious lies masquerading as a custody agreement in my favor.

About two months after that unethical and illegal debacle (for which I had the attorney banned from practice for three months) my ex-wife suddenly disappeared and took my son with her. I never saw nor heard from him since. It is now nine years later and I seriously doubt I will ever see him again.

In 2020 I moved continent to get as far away from that awful woman as I could. I have now taken the time to write this chapter of my memoir in the hope that one day my son may get to read it and discover for himself how much I went through out of my parental love for him. The chances are that it will not be in my lifetime since I am now knocking on the door of seventy years of age. However, at least he may get some benefit from knowing how much he was loved by his father and see through all the lies he has had his head filled with in my absence.

My one abiding memory of the boy was when we came out of my application for a custody hearing, I went out of the court first and waited to the left, sitting at a pavement table for a local coffee bar. Ten minutes later my son came out with his mother and her attorney. They turned right, and as his mother grabbed him by the hand to drag him away from me, the boy looked back at me with a pained expression that said "Dad, I love you and I know that you love me, but this mother of mine terrifies me, you know what she is like."