'Services Required'

Knowing that my family was doing just fine and 'Someone' was actually Jeff, I did not seek out counseling. Of course, Someone wasn't through with us yet, not by a long shot. A fourth allegation was filed exactly the same as the earlier ones only in addition my older four children (my oldest daughter had grown and moved out) were now being accused of physically abusing the younger noes. Wow.

iSide note: During our divorce as we suffered through the previous allegations, Jeff approached me offering to 'leave us alone' if I would simply hand over custody of our two youngest. (His children.)

You see now my older children could no longer defend me to Child Protection because they too were accused. Jeff's reasoning was simple. If we were all guilty of abusing the two youngest he would be 'available' to assume custody of them.

Here's the part that really stunned me. I actually had an attorney at this point and she came with me when the 'investigating' social worker was looking into Someone's initial report. J.P. (we'll call her) told both my attorney and I that the allegations were suspicious to her! Why? Because both my younger ones (four and two years of age) claimed we all were abusing them on all parts of their bodies by committing all types of abuse. (ie: hitting, slapping, pinching, kicking, punching...) J.P. told us that in actual abuse scenarios there would be a specific part of the body abused by a specific person in a specific way. I was relieved that Child Protection had seen through Jeff's ploy.

-Then I was given a finding of 'Services Required'. And there went the rest of our lives.