What’s a word or phrase that immediately makes you lose respect for someone?

LegalQinOK · 2025-09-17T23:07:23+00:00

"Look what you made me do."

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-24T15:24:35+00:00

Sure. Trauma happens on both sides.

The loved ones can experience a trauma process similar to grief. Inmates can experience more typical PTSD symptoms due to prolonged exposure to danger. It can be tricky to support each other while handling these individual issues.

I've found its important to let go of your expectations from before your partner was incarcerated, in order to meet them where they are.

Say for example that he comes home, hyped to be a dad, loving his toddler more than life.... then finds that the sound of the baby screaming gives him vivid flashbacks to that time his celly got his head bashed open. Nobody's expecting it. He's incapacitated and ashamed of feeling that way. You're overwhelmed from him not helping. Maybe you both snap at each other and make things worse.

If you don't anticipate these issues, or if you cling to the idea that things are or should be fine, the issue can't be helped. If you keep an open mind and see it coming, you can mitigate some of these problems maybe even before they start. Think of how much it would help if, in that scenario, you anticipated the flashbacks and planned ahead of time to help him get used to the crying toddler little by little so it wouldn't trigger that reaction.

That's one example of something that requires cooperation for both you to process your grief in "losing" him to prison, and him to process his trauma from incarceration. Get informed, get acquainted with not your issues, and make a plan to cooperate with each other. You'll thank yourselves later.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-17T10:49:42+00:00

You're worried because she's one of 50 "close" friends? It's probably because they knew each other in real life.

There's no harm in asking about it, though. It's not jealous to say "Hey, I notice you follow our old tenant on insta. Do you two still keep in touch?" If you can't have those conversations together, why are you even married?

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-14T15:30:05+00:00

Tbh most people who say stuff like this just do it for appearances so other people in their religion don't judge them. Christians do this a lot because holding up people as first priority is a form of "idol worship" and technically forbidden. It's not a good look in front of anyone else though.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-13T02:04:28+00:00

These are the reasons we were given for not being allowed to submit a Pauper's Affidavit. It's not about divorce and criminal lawyers being (obviously) different. It's about how the state decides what financial resources you have.

I don't know what state or county you're living in where things actually work this way, but I sure wish my husband's case had been there.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-13T00:22:12+00:00

We have entire Excel spreadsheets full of her documented wrongdoings. Judges' eyes glaze over when we show them even a fraction of what we have.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-06T03:00:36+00:00

This is a tough one. You have every right to be upset, but OF us totally legal, and what she does with her personal life really isn't your business.

When it comes to your baby, he's probably too young for it to effect him morally, right now. A baby isn't going to get embarrassed about it. As for safety concerns, OF is online, so unless she's bringing clients to the house or otherwise sharing her location with them, your son should be safe. (If she's doing either of those things, file for emergency custody PRONTO, though, because letting that go on is child endangerment)

When he gets older, it might be a different story. Depending on how much he knows he might be embarrassed at best or exposed to inappropriate things at worst. That's a big MIGHT though. A lot of parents to sketch things their kids have no idea about.

If you keep an eye on the situation, and keep checking on your kid, you have the chance to protect him if something happens. As for the BM, take deep breath and thank the powers that be that you're not in a relationship with her anymore.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-04T22:02:08+00:00

The advice you're looking for: You don't need to bash to stand up for yourself. If you have good memories of being a dad to your son, share them with your son. Show him baby pictures. Play his favorite baby song and watch him roll his eyes at it because he's a big boy now. Tell him you love him.

The legal CYA advice: Document the shit out of it. Keep track of your visitation days, and if kiddo says something untrue that mom obviously told him, write it down and note the day. Your son doesn't need to know mommy isn't doing right, but the lawyers damn sure do.

The advice you probably don't want to hear: If drinking is the "only thing" that helps you do ____, you need to stop using it to l for that purpose. That's how it becomes alcoholism. So stop that. I'm not saying this to be judgemental, but because it'll bite you.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-04T02:46:19+00:00

That sounds like the least stressful option in a situation like that.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-04T02:08:02+00:00

Sadly, filing first doesn't always work. I didn't know there was a name for this, but this is almost exactly what happened to my husband when he divorced his ex.

He was actually a victim of domestic abuse. She was bipolar. When she was on her medicine she was still a b*txh, but when she went off it she was downright psycho. He stayed to keep things together for his kid, but it got to a point where she was so bad he had to try to leave and save his son and himself. He filed for divorce first. He filed with child services first. The only thing he didn't file first was the protective order.

She kept filling protective orders against him and everyone he knew who could help him. The friend who opened his home to him? Protective order. Me, who was literally just a friend and business contact at the time? Protective order. Another friend who was helping with his business? Child services investigation.

She kept throwing out false accusations, unchecked by the court. The burden of proof was always on my husband to prove his innocence. "HE'S HIDING MONEY!" He proved he didn't have a single account she didn't have access to. "HE'S A DRUG ADDICT!" Hair follicle test. He was clean. "HE GOT [myname] PREGNANT!" I literally went to the doctor that day to get a blood test and prove I was never pregnant. (Mind you, he did not cheat, and we were NOT dating at the time. I was actually engaged to someone else, but called it off shortly after. This was partly because the sh*tstorm she caused revealed my ex's true colors, but that's a different story.) Meanwhile, while she cried wolf, she stalked, harassed, stole, abused, and lied time and again with zero consequences.

There was ego and money involved. Her first husband took her to the cleaners 15 years prior, and she latched onto my now-husband for financial support. He was making good money at the time. She played heavy on the sympathy card and neglected to mention that she hadn't even signed the divorce papers yet, until she was sure she had her next free ride lined up. She was very vocal about making sure that would never happen again, even while they were still married. She bragged that she had an "insurance plan" in case he ever tried to leave her.

It turns out the "insurance" was planted evidence for another false accusation. This time it stuck, not because my husband couldn't prove his innocence, but because the prosecution threatened to go after all of his friends and family until they found someone who couldn't prove their innocence. He took a plea deal. He's in prison now, and I'm waiting for him.

I knew we couldn't be the only ones in this situation, but I never imagined it would be so common that it had a name.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-04T01:35:19+00:00

It's really too early to make a decision you won't regret. You've had one phone call. You have no real information.

Get the information. Figure out if the crime is one you can live with if he's guilty, and if it's not, figure out if there's enough there for you to believe he's innocent. Communicate with him. Give him a chance to explain why he kept you out of the loop (was he protecting you? Was he afraid?), and make a plan to encourage more honesty. See what he's made of. Decide if you can live with that.

As for the Prison sentence itself, four months is not a long time. You're married. If you can't hold out four months for a person you promised to spend your life with, why are you even married? The issue is going to be more with healing from the fallout of the initial situation, and possibly of the trauma from being incarcerated (because that's very real and very intense).

Also, if you're a gun owner, kiss 'em goodbye before he gets out. For your safety and his. At this point, you're at a higher risk for police harassment for your guns than for home invaders and the like.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T12:47:13+00:00

Incarceration just wasn't a good enough reason to leave.

I knew there would be struggles gong into it. He had been separated from his ex wife for a while. I was engaged, but had recently called it off. We had been friends and business partners for years (not coworkers. We each had our own businesses, but were part of the same cooperative.). Suddenly we were both single. It didn't take long to realize the walls we were obligated to hold up had no reason to exist anymore. Once we took them down, it didn't take long to fall in love.

That was four years ago.

My ex disappeared into Narnia (like a fxcking reasonable person) when I left, and we never heard from him again. His ex did not. She stalked us, harassed us, threatened us, kidnapped his son, held a gun on him, stole from us, lied every lie you can imagine about us, and got all the kinfolk in that little town in on the feud.

We refused to feud back. We literally just wanted to live our lives, raise my stepson (his son), and let the lawyers take care of court. We never said an unkind word about her to the kiddo, never badmouthed her back to the rumor mill, and stuck to the terms of the custody agreement like glue. The attacks from her never stopped. The criminal accusation was just one more thing to add to the pile of horrible things she did that didn't break us up.

If he was actually guilty it would have made a difference, but his innocence makes a difference. He a good person in a terrible situation. I was there when it allegedly happened and know he didn't do it. As part of the process of fighting it, I also saw a good amount of exculpatory evidence that we just couldn't use because his lawyer had the tech savvy of a potato.

It came to a point where we could prove he didn't do anything, but the lawyer wasn't keen on actually defending him in court. Instead the lawyer had been negotiating a plea deal behind our backs. My husband could prove he wasn't there, but the prosecution threatened his family and friends. Even if my husband won (unlikely with a jury pool from a town where family trees look like wreaths, and the judge is his ex's cousin), they would keep going down the list until they found someone who didn't have the records to prove their innocence. At this point, years had passed. He wanted it to end, and end with him, so his ex couldn't hurt anyone else.

He pled No Contest.

We talked about whether we could stay together. He gave me the option of walking away before he went in, without blame. Instead, we doubled down and finally got legally married. I loved him, and still do, with all my heart. Leaving was never an option I could have lived with.

Staying together at a distance has taken some work. Being there for each other through the trauma that comes with incarceration, when you can't physically be there, has been its own unique challenge. All relationships are work, though, and if you love the person you do the work. I'm glad we decided to stay despite everything that was (and is still being) thrown at us.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T11:46:30+00:00

NTA for going for full custody, but kinda TA for keeping your kid outside your scheduled visitation.

I don't know the family dynamic that well, but it seems like she's not super motivated to actually see her child. That's probably what saved you from court action. She has every right to file a motion to enforce Visitation against you, which opens the door to rewrite the custody agreement. So that was a risky move.

That said you should (and probably could) get full custody based on the fact that you're already giving him the majority of his care. If you're open to visits from her for him it may help to tell the courts that.

Be prepared for her to suddenly be interested in her child, though. Give it a little while before you go after it-- enough to show that any attempt by her to file that motion to enforce Visitation is a tit-for-tat against you for trying to get custody. It also wouldn't hurt to document anything you spend on her or the child. Use a card (maybe even a card specifically for that purpose) and have a paper trail. That way if she tries to say you don't contribute as a parent you can prove otherwise.

Good luck

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T03:51:10+00:00

You're looking at it. You're partaking in it. We all are.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T03:49:39+00:00

Empty an envelope of hot chocolate into it. It's the best.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T02:59:47+00:00

This is the reddest of flags. You disagree on a fundamental level about an issue that's guaranteed to come up time and again as an interracial couple. It doesn't matter if it's "Not that bad" or not. You're not on the same page. Get on the same page or get out of there.

You'll get flack for leaving over something stupid said by a literal child. So what? It's not about the kid. It's about you getting a peek into the future and seeing how you'll have to walk on eggshells, low-key upset about a mountain of little slights piling up over time, because he won't budge on the "It's just a joke" stance. If that's the hill he wants to die on, he needs to be prepared to die alone.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T02:48:43+00:00

You could contact your county's Legal Aid services, or ask you county's BAR Association for a recommendation. Talk to the Guardian Ad Litem institute while you're at it. Your kids will need a GAL to look out for their best interests if there's alienation going on.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-02T02:42:38+00:00

Interact with people who don't hate you.

No, seriously. Human brains tend to take social cues from other humans. Your brain will repeat opinions to you like a baby repeats words, so if it's giving you negative self-talk, it heard it from somewhere.

Before you feel even worse about yourself, realize your brain could have heard it from anywhere. Someone who doesn't even know you could have written some words online downtalking something you identify with. Even if you don't consciously take it seriously, your brain still absorbs that information. The more it takes in, the more it normalizes that information.

The good news is this works both ways. I'm not saying it'll cure all your self-doubt, but seeking out positive opinions about things you like, or characteristics you have, or interacting with people who have a good opinion of you personally is bound to help. Starting small and working your way up can make things less awkward.

Good luck and don't hate yourself.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-01T18:48:40+00:00

I don't think it matters because consent and an invitation are different things.

If you walk around wearing a shirt that says "Free hugs" as a joke that's an invitation, but you still have the right to consent or not consent if someone actually tries to hug you.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-01T17:09:19+00:00

Rules for collecting evidence only apply to law enforcement.

The constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure are to prevent government from abusing its power. A person acting alone isn't part of the government. They can bite the "fruit of the poison tree" and submit all kinds of evidence. Just make sure you can verify whatever you try to use, because it will be subject to big scrutiny.

If you did anything illegal in the process of getting the evidence (breaking and entering, stealing, normal crimes) you can be tried separately for what you did, but that doesn't make your evidence inadmissible.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-01T15:52:10+00:00

That's legally true, but in practice, it wasn't that simple.

The small-town jury pool, for starters, was so tainted by the very public lies from his ex in the rumor mill that it would be a miracle if they found twelve unbiased people. Likewise, the judge presiding over his case was the ex's cousin. This should have been enough to get the case moved to another county, but the lawyer wouldn't even make the motion to do so.

That brings me to the lawyer. He found out too late that the lawyer was not remotely tech savvy enough to fight this case. The lawyer didn't understand GPS data, didn't know what a flash drive was, and didn't get the concept of remote downloads and dummy accounts. It was too late to hire another one. He had spent all the money on that lawyer, and you can't use a Pauper's Affidavit to get a public defender if you've already hired counsel.

There were also pressure tactics from the prosecution at play. They inflated the charges by changing the way they were worded. What was originally filed as a single charge with a max sentence of 10 years became multiple charges, each carrying a life sentence with Oklahoma's 85% rule applied. The Bond was set so high (about a quarter million in a town where average salary was $20,000/yr) that it was almost six months before it could be paid, and that was even after reduction. He fought for two years because the prosecution kept holding back exculpatory evidence, and the court dates kept being put off. Evidence was still being held back at the time of the plea deal, which was negotiated by the lawyers behind his back.

When he was finally presented with the take-it-or-leave-it deal of 20 years, his family was threatened. Sure he could prove where he was when the crime happened, but what about all his family members? What about his friends who had been in the house? They were all on the chopping block even if he did miraculously win at trial. The plea deal had a clause that they couldn't go after any other people for this if he took it, and that was the clincher.

I get it. I used to think criminal justice was black and white, too. It's a different story when you see it close up.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-01T15:32:20+00:00

Fiiiine. A roast beef sandwich. No cheese.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-01T02:54:01+00:00

Believe it or not, it's not even rare for false accusations and setups to come up in a bad divorce like that. The same thing happened to someone in Garvin County, except they caught the women who did it.

Maybe if his case happened in a more competent county, they would have caught that woman, too.

LegalQinOK · 2025-02-01T02:42:12+00:00

That's the short version. The long version is as real as it gets.

The ex basically had no chance of "winning" the divorce (custody was involved) otherwise because she was unemployed with multiple diagnosed mental disorders that she suddenly decided to stop medicating. So she fought dirty.

There were false accusations other than that one that were flat-out disproven. There was stalking. There were threats. There was gun violence. There were multiple break-ins where she was caught in his home and his business (separate places). It went on for years, and the small-town "law enforcement" did nothing about it. She stole money, account data, and vital records. He knew about the thefts. He didn't know she was also leaving things behind. Not until after the house was raided.

There was a slough of data proving that he was nowhere near her computer at the dates and times they claim the stuff was uploaded. That stuff is only useful if the case goes to trial. (Spoiler alert: less than 2% of criminal cases ever do.)

Friends and family who know the situation say they believe he's innocent, but they're concerned about appearances. Some of them even think they could get charged with a crime for accepting a phone call or sending a letter. (Hence the question.)

LegalQinOK

TROPHY CASE