🦚The court blamed HER for his choices

Tina Swithin’s regular Lemonade Wisdom 🍋 newsletter landed in my inbox right after I’d finished writing about the responsibility frame versus the situations frame, with yet another example of how the responsibility frame is commonly weaponized against victims of post-separation abuse.

Tina described a court evaluation that was 99% in her favor. But 1% of it stung:

What was really going on here was that Tina was trying to keep her children safe. But the evaluator wasn’t looking at it from that perspective. In his attempt to appear unbiased, he had to find something to criticize both parents about. So, he applied the responsibility frame to this situation, making Tina responsible for police intervention.

A similar thing happened to a friend of mine recently. An expert was appointed by the court to evaluate her and her ex-husband.

The evaluator concluded that there was no parental alienation on her part (yay!) and that the children’s reaction to their father was directly as a result of his behavior. BUT the report also criticized her for keeping evidence of unexplained injuries and of acrimonious exchanges with her ex-partner. Here again, the evaluator stayed in the “what’s wrong with Mom” frame instead of asking what situation could possibly justify this level of documentation

What was actually happening here?

The children were returning from their father’s home with unexplained injuries, and the mom was constantly being threatened and intimidated in messages from her ex. She was doing what every family court professional tells protective parents to do: document everything.

Ultimately, supervised visitation was imposed by the child protection authorities because a mandated reporter (not the mother) reported him for hitting them with implements after one of the children told that person about it. So, what was really happening here was that the father was criminally assaulting the children (where my friend lives, this is against the law).

Yet, her documentation of all this was framed as evidence of HER DYSFUNCTION.

Do you see what just happened? The expert took evidence of the father's violence and made it about the mother's behavior. Instead of asking “What’s happening that requires this level of documentation?” the expert made the documentation itself look suspicious.

There’s a name for this pattern: in political analysis, it’s called Murc’s Law—the tendency to treat harmful actors as natural forces while scrutinizing how others respond. In family court, it looks like treating an abusive parent's behavior as fixed reality (just how he is) while making your protective responses the problem.

How experts flip the script

Watch out for patterns like this in expert reports of professional observations. They come up time and time again, partly because experts feel they need to find something “wrong” with both parents to avoid seeming biased. But it’s also because protective mothers are held to a higher standard than abusive fathers. This happens in court too.

This pattern takes several forms. Maybe you (the protective parent) are blamed for a child’s awareness of things that directly affected them. The expert might criticize the fact that the child knows about court proceedings when the child’s medical care, school decisions, or extracurricular activities were weaponized by the abusive parent and led to court battles.

Or, as my friend experienced, the professional describes your documentation of concerning patterns as “keeping track” or “being unable to let go” rather than recognizing it as necessary evidence collection.

Your truthful, age-appropriate communication with your kids could get framed as “exposing children to conflict” while the other parent’s behavior that created the conflict goes unexamined. Or, even worse, and all too common, you’re accused of letting your anxiety infect your children when you’ve never said anything to them about the person who is abusing you and them and causing all of you anxiety.

When you read these things in a report, you’ll likely spiral into self-blame as you accept the writer’s interpretation, or be enraged at the expert because you know it’s a load of bollocks.

What you can say back

Instead of spiraling into “What did I do wrong?” or burning energy on rage, ask yourself “What was really going on that required my response?” This shifts you from the responsibility frame (what's wrong with YOU) to the situations frame (what dangerous situation were you responding to).

If an expert has blamed you for a situation the other parent created, here’s how to address it:

Acknowledge the factual observation. “Yes, I did document the children’s unexplained injuries.” Then reframe it from evidence of your dysfunction to evidence that you were responding appropriately to a dangerous situation.

That’s what my friend plans to do if she is cross-examined about this part of the expert report. “Our daughters came home with injuries that I couldn’t explain. None of these injuries were ever voluntarily communicated to me, and when I asked him about it, his responses were dismissive. His refusal to openly communicate left me no choice but to keep track of injuries that just made no sense.”

Then connect it to a pattern: “This behavior that I was documenting / responding to is exactly why [child protective services/previous expert/guardian ad litem] recommended [whatever protective measure].”

If this feels too much to say out loud, even just practicing it in your head or on paper is still a way of shifting into the situations frame.

If an expert has written something like this about you, I know how it feels.

It eats you up. As Tina Swithin said, it lodges itself in your nervous system. You’re going to replay it over and over, seething with anger, or wondering if maybe you really did mess up.

When professionals blame you for doing what you need to do to protect your children and yourself, they're using the same responsibility frame your ex has been using on you for years. They're just doing it with a PhD behind their name or “The Honorable” in front of it.

Don't let it work.

This is how my friend reclaimed the narrative for herself:

Want to know how I can help you?

If you’re staring at an expert report that makes you the problem for protecting your children, or you’re preparing for an evaluation and terrified they’ll twist your protective actions into evidence against you, I know how isolating that feels.

If you need a space to be heard and get clarity on your situation, you can book a 30-minute consultation, free of charge, where we can explore what's happening in your case and what outcomes you're truly hoping for.

During our conversation, we’ll identify the specific challenges you’re facing with evaluations or court professionals. I’ll help you distinguish between the responsibility frame experts are applying and the situations frame that reflects what's actually happening.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

“Write Your Divorce Story” Template

I recently discovered Dr. Stephanie Han’s techniques for writing your divorce story. It’s a powerful way to reclaim your narrative and gain clarity on what happened. I adapted her framework into this free template, designed specifically for post-separation abuse survivors.

Use it anytime: early divorce, custody battles, or years in. Organize patterns, your thesis, and custody concerns for attorneys, evaluations, or personal clarity (distinct from daily logs).

Start with whatever section’s easiest for you; it's a living document, so add more as you feel able to or as memories surface. Download the template here.