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The US Census Department revealed that marriage rates in 2009 were the lowest in more than 100 years. While they attribute it to the economy, those of us who have seen what it is like to have children and marital conflict in the US know that the government’s anti-family and victim-persecuting policies are major disincentives to marrying.

Given the lack of psychological education for children, many suffer badly from child abuse with no help coping. Many of these abused kids go on to become abusers themselves.

Few know how to identify these abusive adults until after they marry them and discover they are being emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abused on a frequent basis. It is far too easy to inadvertently marry a sociopath.

Even when you figure out you have married an abusive person, the courts will often, perhaps even usually, not protect you from these people. Instead, they take the abuser’s side and help them commit even more abuses. “Take the kids, take the house, it’s your reward for terrorizing your spouse” is the common refrain of the black-robed bandits in American family law courts.

Is it any wonder why more and more people are wondering whether marriage in America is even safe any more?

Further Reading

Donald Bren’s $3 to 9 Million in Child Support Enough, Says Jury

Escaping Sociopathic Abuse Almost Impossible When Children Are Involved

American Judicial Terrorism May Lead to Widespread Violence

Stopping Parental Alienation Requires Family Court Reforms

Census data: Weddings in 2009 at record low level

The recent release of Davis Guggenheim’s film Waiting for Superman has contributed to a flurry of discussion over how to fix failing American schools. I’ve read quite a bit on thoughts regarding school reform and find that there is a striking absence of discussion of American family policies and the abusive family law courts as major contributors to poor student performance. Yet studies show that divorce has a major negative impact on student performance.

(from More Studies Show Divorce Hurts Kids’ Education)

Adverse impact of divorce upon education has skyrocketed as divorce has been more common. Divorces in 1920 caused a 3.6 month loss of education, but since 1970 they have blown up to about a year in lost education. This timeframe roughly corresponds with the rise of “no fault divorce” in Western nations.

Multiple divorces had an even worse impact on high school graduation rates. While students who parents stay together average a 78.4% rate of graduation from high school by age 20, one divorce drops the graduation rate to 60%, about the same as for children whose mother or father died. Divorce and remarriage did not significantly change the graduation rates for children versus divorce with no remarriage. But with divorce-remarriage-divorce (two divorces), the graduation rate drops further to only about 40%, half of that for children whose parents remained married.

Parties as diverse as social scientists, economists, and national security experts point out that America’s under-performing educational system is a threat to the future of the nation. The United States has long maintained the economic and military superiority over its adversaries that lead to a secure and prosperous nation in large part due to the educational opportunities available to American children. Universal K-12 education means every child is supposed to have access to the knowledge and skills needed to get a start in life. American universities attract the best and brightest students from around the world. The inventiveness of these students is immense. They often become scientists, entrepreneurs, and other major contributors to the advancement of knowledge and wealth of the nation.

America’s academic performance has been on a steady downward slope for decades. This decline parallels the destruction of families via no-fault divorce that has made divorce far more common as well as the laws and court behaviors that create conflict and place children into traumatic and contentious custody battles. Often these children are stripped of most or all contact with one of their parents due to wrongful sole custody decisions and the courts enabling and encouraging parental alienation child abuse. The two phenomena of poor school performance and poor family life are directly related. While parents do make their own share of mistakes, failed government policies are the glue that binds together these interconnected disasters into a destructive spiral.
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Personality disorders are a growing problem in the United States. Recent NIH studies indicate that 20% or more of Americans suffer from one or more personality disorders. Author Bill Eddy points out that in his experience about half of “High Conflict Personalities” (or HCPs) involved in destructive divorce and child custody battles probably do have one or more full-blown personality disorders. The other half may not meet all the criteria for a full-blown personality disorder yet still show many traits consistent with troublesome personality disorders such as BPD and NPD.

(from Don’t Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce)

I believe that about half of HCPs have a personality disorder and about half have some of these traits, but not a full personality disorder. This means that they are still difficult, but may respond more easily to approaches designed for people with personality disorders.

It helps to understand some of these traits, but it is important to not tell someone you think they have a personality disorder. They may become very defensive and angry with you, as defensiveness is a common characteristic of those with personality disorders and those just with traits.

I fully agree with Eddy’s advice about not telling a person they may have a personality disorder. To be clear, this is not because it is better for them but primarily because hearing this news seems to turn them into even more destructive abusers than they were in the first place. Even if you are only trying to help, they will probably interpret your words as dire threats and redouble their efforts to destroy you. There is also a substantial risk that you will be ridiculed for your reasonable beliefs by divorce industry “professionals” who have an agenda that does not make room for unpleasant truths unless they are stated by an expensive paid expert.
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A common problem that many parents in child custody battles experience is the malicious false police reports generated by the nasty ex exhibiting sociopathic behaviors. Such people may suffer from a personality disorder associated with pathological lying such as BPD or NPD, but not all people with BPD or NPD will resort to filing false police reports.

You might think that when the police investigate and find that the ex lied or can’t keep her or his story straight, that will be the end of it. But for many target parents, that is not the case at all. Instead, the nasty ex takes those reports and uses them as the basis for spreading defamation that looks very official and credible looking to the average naive person on the street. With a little effort, she or he can have dozens or more people believing the lies by using the police reports to deceive and manipulate them.

Sometimes, false police reports even get people arrested wrongly. Look at what happened to the father in the article Ben Vonderheide Exposes Pennsylvania’s Abusive Child Profiteering Racket. He was falsely arrested and his son taken from him. Later, his falsely accusing ex and her new boyfriend were convicted of filing false police reports in a criminal court with its far higher evidentiary standards than family court. But he is still suffering from the damage caused by the false police reports even years later.

More often, false police reports and the resulting “official looking” papers generated are used to defame and harass the target parent. This is a common element in the distortion campaigns practiced by Borderlines, Narcissists, and other abusively dishonest personalities.
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Ben Vonderheide of Daddy Justice is well on the way to assembling a documentary film of his experiences dealing with the abusive courts and government in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We summarized his story in our article Ben Vonderheide Exposes Pennsylvania’s Abusive Child Profiteering Racket last week. While Vonderheide particularly identifies with these abuses being done against fathers, he’s clearly aware of the state attacking and destroying mothers, too, as evidenced by various videos he’s produced and put on his website.

Below is what he has been calling a “trailer” for his movie. At over 21 minutes, it’s much longer than the typical trailer. It features Vonderheide, his son Quinta, and many of the dirty players in the Lancaster County courts and government, and his ex Wendy Flanders and her new boyfriend, Ted Yoder, both of whom were convicted for filing false police reports to get Vonderheide falsely arrested. Video that Ben recorded was important evidence for obtaining the convictions. Flanders then was given probation, rather than jail time, and sole custody of their son. The message is that false accusations pay in Lancaster.
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One of our readers has alerted us to a San Diego fraud story involving “Doctor” Lawrence Stowe of Stowe BioTherapy in La Mesa, California, and his allegedly fradulent practice of medicine. The reader has likened it to the case of San Diego’s Stephen Doyne, Ph.D., the psychologist in ill repute for his dishonest credentials from diploma mills as well as his alleged violations of California family law and abuses against children and parents. While Doyne has many San Diego area judges and lawyers helping to protect him and their alleged collusion to commit fraud on desperate parents, Stowe had no such powerful government criminals helping him and themselves to the profit from fraud on desperate patients.

Stowe has been responsible for conducting sales pitches for “blood stem cell therapy” for serious illnesses, including ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He talked potential patients into $100,000+ treatments that have no scientific legitimacy in part by misrepresenting his credentials and affiliations as well as the scientific basis. He would get them to agree to go to Monterrey, Mexico, to be treated by “Dr.” Frank Morales. Morales never completed his residency and his medical diploma from a failed Caribbean medical school that was shut down for selling diplomas. The hospital where he was “treating” patients was not aware he was using unapproved treatments at the time 60 Minutes conducted an in-depth investigation.
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Parental alienation child abuse is a worldwide problem. As most of our news-oriented coverage is focused on the United States and Canada, some may not realize that parental alienation and destructive family law courts are plentiful outside of North America, too. This story highlights one troubling alienation case in Singapore.

Parental Alienation in Singapore

Wee Cheng of Singapore, one of our many readers worldwide, is a divorced father of a young boy named Adriel Cheng. His limited 8 hours of contact per week hasn’t been honored in two years. The courts will do nothing but reward the mother’s contempt for their orders. Adriel hasn’t seen his father almost half a year because of interference being enabled and enforced by human rights violators in the Singapore schools and family courts.

While Singapore has a fine reputation in many areas, Mr. Cheng’s experience shows that the government of Singapore is engaged in human rights violations and is intent on enabling parental alienators to abuse their children. In Cheng’s case, the courts and schools are directly involved in access blocking and interfering with the parent/child relationship. They have even threatened police action against him for attempting to spend time with his son at a school carnival.
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A few weeks back, we published an announcement about the Canadian Symposium for Parental Alienation Syndrome. The regular registration fee is $195 per person. However, ACFC (American Coalition for Fathers and Children) supporters can get a discounted rate of $150 and bring along a second person (new spouse, friend, grandparent, etc.) to the conference for free. Here’s the full announcement from ACFC:
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Rob’s recent comment pointing out the Ben Vonderheide case in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania made me curious. After all, it’s not often that you see the government actually prosecute somebody for making malicious false reports to the police to terrorize a father and block access to a child. On the surface, it looks like the government got it right in this case. Dig deeper, however, and you find that Ben Vonderheide is a poster case for government-backed terrorism against a parent who has been repeatedly abused by the government. The government is now using his son, Quinta Xavier Vonderheide, as a pawn in its vindictive battle to hide its crimes against the state’s children and families and attack those who attempt to expose them.

Alienating Ex Convicted of Lying to Police Gets Sole Custody

Quinta’s mother is Vonderheide’s ex-girlfriend Wendy Flanders. She has systematically alienated her son from his father and engaged in access blocking, denigration, defamation, and false police reports to destroy the child’s relationship with his father. She is unable to accept that their son should have time with both his parents and is willing to break the law, scheme, manipulate, and conspire to ensure that he will never see his father again. As is typical, family law courts reward such behaviors unless a parent can afford to bring contempt of court charges against the abuser.

She even attempted to change his name to Quinta Xavier Flanders, a common stunt for alienating parents who alter their children’s names to remove all mention of the hated ex.

This is nothing new for Flanders as she is a serial parental alienator. She has engaged in this child abuse not only involving Quinta, but also regarding her daughter Bryna Elizabeth Flanders-Harris and that girl’s father John Harris. In that case, she used false allegations of child sexual abuse among other methods. There are also reports that she attempted similar family terrorism against another previous ex, a Mr. Caruso who is no longer alive to defend himself and his child Emily from the sociopathic Flanders.
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California billionaire Donald Bren had two children with former girlfriend Jennifer McKay Gold. They had a 13 year long affair, but they never married and he had little involvement with the children. Gold claims that Bren promised he would be involved in the children’s lives and that his failure to do so is a violation of agreements between them. Therefore Gold and the children, David Bren, age 18, and Christie Bren, age 22, decided to sue Donald Bren for $134 million in back child support.

Donald Bren is Rich

Bren is very secretive and media-shy about his life, income, and assets. Estimates are that his assets may be worth around $12 billion, largely derived from real estate development in Southern California. Forbes Magazines has placed him 16th on its list of the 400 richest Americans.

He and his attorney claim he paid about $10 million in child support, vacations, cars, and other payments and gifts to Gold and the children during their childhood. He felt obligated to ensure they would receive advanced education through graduate school if they wished, received luxury German cars when they started to drive, and live in an upper middle class standard of living well beyond that of most of the US population. Clearly these children were not in need of more money.

Is Gold a Golddigger?

Gold disagrees on the amounts. She and the children also claim that he owes far more because he didn’t stay involved in their lives.
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