As many of you know, it's been almost eight years since I walked out on an emotionally abusive and controlling woman. She tried to continue her abuse after I left her on two occasions. First, when I had her son arrested for hitting me several times, she retaliated by having me framed up on false charges that I made a girl staying with us watch X-rated movies and threaten to beat her up if she told anyone. Then, around the time I could legally file for divorce, she sent me obviously fake divorce papers after conning her way back to Washington--thus exposing me to potential charges of bigamy had I gone along. Fortunately, I didn't--and I petitioned for and was granted a divorce in 2007. It's taken a long time for me to heal--a period made longer when I ran up against some community property laws in North Carolina that are badly in need of updating.
When I finally left my ex in 2006, she browbeat me into letting her "borrow" my car until the next day. I called the police to try and get help in getting it back--only to be told that in North Carolina, vehicles are community property. Apparently, a husband or wife in this state has such broad rights to use his or her spouse's car that if he or she decides to just take off with it, there's very little the police can do. I had to head back to our old apartment and take my car back the next morning.
If I heard that right, it means that if you flee an abusive marriage, your abusive spouse could potentially be able to legally steal your car and leave you high and dry. That prospect was one factor that ultimately forced me to change churches--although my friends there were 1,000,000 percent supportive of me, it got to the point that I was looking over my shoulder every week in case she tried to take my car again. I didn't want to have to go through that rigamarole again.
In the rush to get out, I realized my debit card had fallen out of my wallet. I only realized this hours after I got to my mom's house safely, and called to cancel the card. A few days later, when I checked my bank account, I discovered my ex had run the account negative by making large purchases on LimeWire and Amazon. My bank put the money back into the account, but told me that I had to press charges against her in order to keep the refund. But when I called the police, I was told that I couldn't file criminal charges because your spouse has every right to use your bank account even if his or her name isn't on it. When I notified the person handling my case at the bank, she was stunned--normally your spouse isn't allowed to have any information about your account if his or her name isn't on it. Under the circumstances, they didn't claw back the money.
This discovery later came back to haunt me when my ex sent me those fake divorce papers. I was thisclose to asking about charging her with mail fraud. Not only was I outraged that she was potentially exposing me to bigamy, but the off-chance those papers were real kept me from even talking about the pain I was feeling at the time. But then I remembered that in most cases, mail fraud isn't something for which you get jailed without bond. That could have left her free to legally suck my bank account dry. I would have essentially had to be on cash only, possibly for several months, and possibly in an area where I didn't know anyone. I found it hard to put it past her--after all, this was a woman who tried to get her autistic son and a 15-year-old girl to lie under oath. Although I had no doubt I would have sent her to prison, the risk to my safety just wasn't worth it.
I've learned about at least one other potentially backwards law. If you have life insurance, your spouse can legally take every penny of it when you die, even if you designate someone else as the beneficiary. I suspect that these and other laws were written in a time when divorce was almost unthinkable and domestic violence was not nearly as well understood as it is now. But these laws need a major rewrite. Simply put, the current situation puts battered spouses--both men and women--in very real danger.