The Web of Lies

The web of lies is thick.  The lies are so engrained in him that I really think that he believes himself.  It’s hard to watch.  There are little white lies and half-truths and then there are blatant lies and elaborate stories.  I’ve had numerous people ask about the most recent lie in court and how he ended up with supervised visits.

On February 19, I went to the church that I’ve been going to for over three years.  I sit in the same section every week.  He brought my daughters to church that day but he paraded them through the main adult church instead of putting them in their Sunday School class.  He sat directly in front of me– on purpose or by chance– I’m still not sure.  The girls saw me and ran to me.  They didn’t want to leave with him and the end result was him screaming at us in the parking lot of church, my daughters both in hysterics and eventually, the police accompanying me to pick up my daughters because I was fearful of him and afraid of subjecting my daughters to another one of his tirades.  That is the short version.

In court on Wednesday, he spun his story and now it is a thick web that he can’t break free of.  In his version of the story, this was his church.  He attends this church every week and sits in the exact same spot.  I was there and I purposefully sat in his section.

I was dumbfounded.  I sat there listening with my mouth wide open.  I watched as the Commissioner raised his eyebrows in disbelief and the girls’ attorney shook his head in what appeared to be disbelief.  I couldn’t quite grasp what I was hearing.  There have been so many lies but this one was almost too hard for me to believe.  He was talking about my church.  He was lying about my church.  I was waiting for the sky to open and for lightening to strike.

He was talking about a place that has become a safe haven for me.  My home away from home.  A place where I am able to reconnect each week and find my strength.  These are the pastors who will pray for me on a random Tuesday morning if I send them an email about my struggles.  These are the people who have given me a bag of groceries when I was in need.  These people helped me to get into my first apartment after I left the women’s shelter.  These are the people who bought my daughters Christmas gifts this year when I discovered that my X had been fired from his job- again.

The judge pressed him further on the topic– he lives four hours away from the church yet he claims to attend every week?  I wasn’t the only one scratching my head.  He was evasive when pressed for the number of times he attends.  He was evasive as he always is when caught lying.  The judge stated, “I don’t care whether you go to church or not.  That is your business.  What I do care about is when someone lies in my courtroom”.  Then, the judge ordered supervised visits and set a new court date for April 10th.  He ordered the attorney to uncover the truth– if my X attends this particular church every week as he stated in court.  If he is lying, the order becomes permanent.

As suspected, my X called the church within minutes of court ending.  He wanted them to say that he is a member and attends regularly.  They can’t say that because he isn’t a member and he doesn’t attend regularly.  In fact, we estimate that he’s attended twice in the past year.  The people at the church know my story and they know the history.  They have been there since the beginning.  They know that I submit a written prayer request each and every Sunday– asking for them to pray for the protection for my daughters while in his care and praying that the Family Court System will work to protect my daughters.

They can’t do what he is asking because of one simple thing: it isn’t the truth.