I’m having a lot of trouble coping with what’s in the Epstein files. I mean, I’m sure most of us are. But I’ve had to dig a little to see what my own personal disgust is all about, rather than just, of course, the general disgust and horror with the whole thing. What I’ve come to has to do with how the violence and this grand abuse of power is mirrored in so many places in our society, in our institutions, and even in our personal lives. And lately, when I reflect on the struggles with my coaching clients and in divorce circles online, I see that the abuse of power found in the Epstein files is, in a lot of ways, similar to the abuse of power that can be found in the family court system.
What we are seeing is how wealth and power exempt people from the rule of law. So far, these men and women who have done these horrific things are still walking the planet, freely, with little to no consequence. And their victims are no safer than they were before; no institution offering the healing that only justice can bring. If Epstein’s sick fucking life is the macrocosm, then family court is just one of the microcosms—where the wealthy, more powerful person has the potential to be able to control the other, less powerful one. The flaws of the family court system enable a wealthy and powerful parent to control whether the other parent has access to financial support to raise their children, or even to the children themselves. Since the wealthy, more powerful parent can hire a more expensive, conflict-driven attorney who exhausts the other, less wealthy/jobless/stay-at-home parent’s emotional and financial resources, court cases get drawn out, lies, false accusations, and post-separation abuse continue even in court, and sometimes the children and the money end up with the more wealthy and powerful parent whether or not they are healthy or even safe people. You see where I’m going with this?
I don’t know how many of you spend any time in divorce support groups, or if you follow any “divorcing a narcissist” people on Social, but I spend a good deal of time there, offering whatever support I can to parents who need help that they can’t get from their lawyers, parenting coordinators, or therapists. Not gonna lie, some of the shit on there is so disheartening—the powerlessness of parents to get their ex to pay child support, to bring their children back to them at their scheduled time, to communicate with them about their children’s health. All these areas where family court should have or could still provide families a forum for children of divorce to have the safety, support, and the raw materials they need to thrive, but it doesn’t. In fact, the system is set up so that, if powerful people are crafty enough (parents, judges, attorneys—whoever is focused on personal power more than the people involved), the children’s well-being doesn’t get supported at all.
This is why, I think, I can’t stop feeling so disgusted about the Epstein files.
Here we are in our towns, however small or large they are, trying to just, y’know, get our kids to school and stop by the grocery store to grab some bananas for the week, simultaneously witnessing lawlessness, injustice, dehumanization, and cruelty on the grandest scale. We’re like, calling to check on our moms or our sisters, sending one last work email before bed, making sure we paid the water bill. We follow the rules, we take care of our people, and if we’re divorced, we’re generally grateful to have the opportunity to spend some extra quality time with our kids and to be able to pay those bills by ourselves. Meanwhile, in their weird fucked up sicko stratosphere, these people are using their money and their power to get whatever they want, not caring that the people they are destroying are human. No awareness and certainly no remorse. In fact, they feel justified, emboldened by their power. It’s an insane, overblown reality and yet here some parents are, in the microcosm of divorce, dealing with a kind of similar situation. They ‘ve lost custody of their kids, or their kids go back to their abusers every week, or they can’t pay bills because their wealthy-ex doesn’t have to pay child support, or their abusive ex relates to them with contempt, and lords their power over them so they remain fearful. The wealthy and powerful use the system to get what they want; they use a corrupt, broken institution to further their own corrupt, broken needs. And everyone else in their wake suffers.
It probably goes without saying that sometimes we all feel hopeless that this institutional violence will ever end. I have no solution, but I am trying to change the narrative in whatever way I can.
When I work with clients, one of the ways I recommend they start transforming some of the difficulties they experience with their ex is to donate something (time, money, advice, whatever available resource) to a group or cause in the divorce space. There are plenty of divorced parents who, if you can believe it, are in a worse place then you might be. That’s one of the reasons why I participate in those spaces—to offer some advice when I can, and to cheer for the parents who are lucky enough to fight the power. Being a part of the larger divorce community and offering your wisdom, experience, and support is a good way to change the energy of the system. We become, in our own way, part of the resistance.
The only other advice I have is to soak up the joy with your kids. I have so much gratitude and appreciation that my kids are with me and that they are safe, especially since there was a time when they were not. It took a lot of courage (and frankly, work with my own divorce coach) to get me to stop fighting against a system that would never make my co-parent the person I wished he would be for his kids. If we are doing both—putting our energy into the places where we CAN make a difference and turning our attention towards the safety and well-being of our own loved ones, then we’re building communities where the violence and abuse of power is hopefully less likely to infiltrate.
