When I was 19 years old I made the mistake of marrying the wrong woman. Soon after getting married she was pregnant and gave birth to our son. Shortly after we divorced. The reason for the divorce was that she needed her independence. Apparently financially providing for somebody for multiple years while expecting absolutely nothing of them is abusive. But all that's for different sub. The divorce was uncontested, and rather amicable. Despite her cooperation, the squadron of lawyers and many hours of filings and paperwork I came out of court with a verdict that was, at best, tolerable. Now you might be wondering why we even went to court if we agreed so much on the divorce. That's because in the state of Georgia if a married couple has a child they must go to court to get a divorce and there must be a child custody plan on court order. And there must be an order for child support.

Despite the fact that I raised my son from infancy by working night shifts, and my ex-wife both wanted nothing to do with the child nor did she help in any way, the best I got from the court was joint 50/50 custody. The caveat to that was even with joint custody one parent is awarded the title of primary, and the non-primary parent had to pay the primary parent child support. By default and impossibly to change my ex-wife was awarded primary. Even though I had paid for her to start her own company that did not pull in any revenue, since she had no income, my monthly child support payment was set at $1,000.

Years pass and everything is fine. I pay my child support on time. I see my kid every other week for a full week. Eventually I remarry. With much more experience and dating and partnerships, I actually found myself in the company of a fantastic woman. She had been raped a little over a year ago and decide to keep the child, so when I married her I formerly adopted her 6-month-old son. Everything was going well, my new wife was even expecting a new baby. I was excited to finally have a second chance at a proper family. And then, as life likes to do, shit hit the fan. In September of last year, my colon ruptured. This led to immediate surgery, where they remove all your organs clean as much of the shit out of your body cavity as they can and put your organs back. I was in an ostomy bag though it was expected to be reversed in the coming months. I suffered multiple infections and follow up surgeries. During this time my very pregnant wife ended up falling down a single stair and breaking her foot. With both of us being varying levels of medically compromised, we made the difficult decision to place her son with her mother and my son with my father until we both recovered.

During this time, CPS was called to our house, the accusation being that my home was uninhabitable due to the mess that had accumulated. And while it is true that my home was unfit for children, we had already come to that conclusion and removed the children from the home. Upon informing CPS of this, they immediately dropped the case. Because of the amicable nature and cooperation after our divorce, I didn't think my ex-wife was the one who called, however, given my mother was already suing me for grandparents rights, I was pretty confident and it took very little persuading by my ex-wife that my mother was the one who made call.

December ends and I have my final surgery. My bowel is reconstructed, I no longer shit in the bag, my wife's foot is healed and I'm ready to return to work. However, FMLA only protects your job for measly 12 weeks. So I returned to work to find that I was not employed. Scrambling, I used my networking to get a job as quick as possible, however this job was out of state. Not far, in North Carolina about 3 hours away. But obviously I would have to move to work there. I take the job pack up the wife and kids , and move up there. I didn't have time to sell the house so I rented it at cost for my mortgage, and we rented a new house near my new job. Everything was going well and spring break was approaching. I had made new agreements with my ex-wife in terms of time with my son. This new agreement fell well within the confines of our previous court order for custody. Instead of the whole week every other week I would simply come down on weekends and hang out with my son at my dad's place. And then I would have him for spring break and summer break. I intended, since my ex-wife was now a teacher, to renegotiate custody to where I keep him full time in North Carolina and she has him over the summer and all weekends. If you do the math on that she'd have more actual time with him but it would prevent him from having to go to daycare as my wife is a stay-at-home wife. Spring break comes and goes, my son and I have a great time and I even bought him a tortoise. But this is where the trouble begins.

On the last few days of spring break, my ex-wife asks if she can have my son early to take him to her mother's musical performance. I personally don't believe my 5-year-old son would enjoy listening to a sultry old fart play the piano for a couple hours, but like a good parent I ask him what he would prefer. He declines to go with my ex and instead wants to spend his last day with me. The next day my wife comes and collects him and they go back down to Georgia.

My next weekend is coming up and I'm coordinating with my ex to pick up my son. She informs me that because I have not yet paid child support, she's not going to allow me to see him. Even if I hadn't paid child support, you can't withhold court ordered visitation for any reason. The Idiocracy of her statement is the fact that I hadn't yet paid child support for the month that we were currently in. I had until the end of the month to pay it and as the end of the month was my next paycheck that's when I told her I would. This went on for the next couple of months, her using the same excuse, and me not getting to see my son. My only reprieve is that the court order states that I have the right to call my son and speak to him on the phone at any reasonable hour. So at least I still got to hear from him. That is until the summer was coming up. I finally had the funds to start paying child support in advance to get rid of her stupid excuse, I had done so and texted her to request my son that weekend and coordinate summer drop off. This is when she informs me that she will no longer be abiding by that agreement and I will not be seeing my son for the foreseeable future.

My only recourse to this is to go to the court and file a motion for contempt of court where they can give her a court order to obey the court order that she's already not obeying. Wow. Of course this costs money, you need a lawyer and a hearing. But it's my only recourse and so I was preparing to do so. However, before I got the chance CPS was once again called to my household. However, my ex-wife was the only person who knew my new address. This made me realize that it was My ex who was calling CPS the entire time. CPS again came and went finding nothing wrong. But now I was livid. As I squared up to start my motion with the court I had another bomb dropped on me. My ex would no longer answer any of my phone calls and I could not speak to my son. And then, as icing on the shit cake, I got slapped with a temporary restraining order. The charge? Harassment. My crime? Calling and texting her every day.

There were a couple legal issues with this TPO and it's the main purpose for my post here today. What I've gone through highlights the intrinsic bias of the system against men in particular fathers.

To start, the TPO was signed and issued in Walton county, Georgia. I live in and had at no point left North Carolina. I was not subject to the jurisdiction of Walton county. The TPO was erroneously written from the first page. Section two of the TPO literally outlines jurisdiction in which you have to sign an affidavit stating that I live in "blank address, Walton county." To which they wrote that I lived in 123 fake road name, city, North Carolina, Walton county, Georgia.

My petitions for a change of venue due to the lack of jurisdiction were summary dismissed. I then asked for a dismissal based on the grounds that the alleged crime violated a pre-existing court order stating I had the right to do what I did. Again, rejected. Unfortunately, my wife was coming to the end of a very complicated pregnancy and was scheduled for a 39 week induction. This cannot be moved up for the baby's health and it cannot be delayed for my wife's health. Her induction is the same date as my court date. As much as I did not want to prolong my inability to contact my son, I motioned for an extension on the grounds that my wife would be giving birth that day. Again rejected. I figured the issue was the fact that I was trying to represent myself pro se in all these motions, so I scraped together enough cash to get a lawyer. She submitted everything I had mentioned above again. If all else failed I could at least have the lawyer go in on my behalf so that I could be with my wife during her labor. not only was all of it rejected, the lawyer informed me that she would not be allowed to represent me in this case and the judge told her that he "better see my ass on that bench the day of court."

Did I mention that the district attorney for Walton county is the one who filled out the civil TPO petition? Because guess who was representing my ex-wife at my court date. I then proceeded to get absolutely railroaded in this hearing. Not only did they decide to enforce the TPO preventing me from contacting my ex-wife or child. The judge went beyond the scope of the hearing to amend my custody agreement to in I have no visitation rights whatsoever.

So now I have a son that I never get to see,and a woman I have to pay $1,000 a month to for the privilege. And no prospects for changing the situation.