Ask Amanda: Can I Lose My Children If I Go to a Domestic Violence Shelter?

Q: I need to escape my abusive husband and am thinking of going to a nearby shelter with my two young children. I’ve put up with my husband’s abuse for years now, and his threats have gotten even more terrifying. He says that if I ever leave him, he’ll take our kids and never let me see them again. He’s also threatened to find me and kill me if I leave. I don’t think he’d hurt the children, as he hasn’t before, but I’m still scared for all our safety. I know his actions are obviously affecting the kids (they can’t sleep, they’re not doing well in school, etc.). It’s time to go. My big fear is that if I go to a shelter, he’ll try to use that against me in court and try to say I can’t take care of our kids. But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have any family I can move in with.

A: First and foremost, the most important thing is that you and your children stay alive. A domestic violence shelter can help you do that. Abusers who threaten homicide should be taken seriously. The same applies to abusers who threaten suicide. In too many cases, abusers who feel like they’ve lost control in an intimate relationship will not only end their own lives but also the life of their partner and sometimes children as well. Somewhere around 38 to 40 percent of abusers who murder their partners kill themselves afterwards, says renowned domestic violence expert Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD. 

Please think about your immediate safety first. In most cases, once you get to a shelter, advocates there can help you connect with legal resources or a nearby Family Justice Center, which has legal experts and law enforcement on site to help you secure an emergency child custody order and an emergency order of protection, both of which you will want to ask about. They often can help you find transitional housing, which is a more stable type of housing until you can make permanent plans for a living arrangement. 

Now on to the bummer reality of our family court system. Can taking your children into a shelter be used against you if your abusive husband feels like he wants full custody of the kids? Unfortunately, yes, says Nour Acosta, senior legal clinic supervisor for the Civil Justice Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. It greatly depends on how long you need to stay in shelter, however. Hopefully, by the time you have a court date, you’ll have found a stable housing situation. Unfortunately, domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness for women. This is why it’s so important to not go at this alone. Find a support system through a shelter, advocate, Family Justice Center or other community resources. If the first organization you turn to can’t help, don’t give up. Keep calling places, because there will be someone who is able to help. 

Additionally, a domestic violence advocate will screen you before providing services. They should be able to testify to the court that you are, in fact, being abused by the children’s father. 

Check out “Important Questions to Ask a Shelter” to help you find the place best suited for you.

“If the survivor of domestic violence has to seek shelter for a long time and the other parent is in stable housing and has not actually abused the child, that could be used against the parent who sought shelter,” says Nour. 

The argument can be made, of course, that any abuse he inflicted toward you is also abuse of the child. Childhood domestic violence includes seeing or hearing violence; witnessing consequences of the violence, such as injuries; observing damage to the home or belongings; and police involvement. Unfortunately, our criminal justice system doesn’t define abuse in the same way. 

“If the abuser is throwing things in the vicinity of the child and putting the child in harm’s way, that could be seen as a strike against the abuser,” says Nour. If all the abuse is happening behind a closed door, she says, a judge may not believe the child is at risk being with the other parent. 

Too many judges that we’ve heard about through survivors are still stuck in an outdated belief system that says abusive partners may harm their partner but leave the children alone and therefore are still safe parents. This is simply not true.

In fact, trying to get a court to grant an abusive parent full custody of their children is often a power move by abusers to torture the survivor. Abusers know that nothing will hurt a protective mother quite as much as threatening to take away her children. Your husband may use this threat as leverage to try and convince you to come back to him where you can “be a family” again or may position living with him under his control as an alternative to your own murder. Dark, I know, but this is how some abusers operate. 

“People who abuse their partners may continue to control them through their children for years after they separate or divorce, sometimes referred to as domestic violence by proxy. Abusers who have demonstrated little interest in the children during the relationship sometimes enact a vengeful strategy of seeking shared or even full custody, using the children as pawns to harm the protective parent,” write domestic violence experts Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD and Christine Cocchiola, LCSW in “Post Separation Abuse Harms Children.”

Please consider the situation carefully if you think about going back. While some survivors do return to an abuser, feeling like they have no other choice if they want to keep their children safe, this can be a very risky move. His abuse can escalate, even turn deadly, despite his promises to the contrary. You and the children are at an especially high risk if he has access to weapons, specifically a gun. It may be harder for you to escape next time. The physical and emotional damage to both you and your children will be compounded as the weeks or years pass. 

5 Steps to Help Keep You and Your Kids Safe and Together

So, the question remains: What do you do? How do you get out and not give your abusive husband any more leverage to use against you? Nour recommends the following steps; these may vary depending on your state’s individual laws. However, as they say, throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. 

1. Get an order of protection and ask to put the children on the order. Depending on the judge, they may or may not include the children if they’re not being directly abused but try to make the case anyway. If your husband has guns, you may also want to ask about an Extreme Risk Protection Order, or ERPO, that requires someone who is at risk to themselves or others to turn over their firearms. 
2. File a temporary restraining order. Depending on what state you’re in, this can be a separate filing from the order of protection that Nour says will prevent both parties from hiding assets, canceling shared bank accounts or draining an account. Most abusers utilize financial abuse to control the survivor, often making sure they don’t have access to money, since money can mean independence. 
3. File for an emergency custody order. Nour warns that without an order granting you temporary full custody of the children while you’re escaping abuse, there’s nothing stopping your husband from going to their school and pulling them out and taking them somewhere. You want to reach out to an attorney to see how you can get this order as soon as possible. 
4. Gather as much evidence as you can showing that the children have been affected. This can include eyewitness statements; testimony from a doctor or therapist; police reports; proof that your child’s grades in school have been affected by the stress of their dad’s abuse at home; screenshots of text messages, copies of emails or voice recordings where your husband has threatened you and the children; photos of damage to the home; or photos of injuries.
5. Work on becoming financially independent. You want to show a judge that you have the financial means to support yourself and your children. If you already have income, great. But in many cases, abusers will prevent a survivor from working in order to keep them financially dependent. In that case, you’ll need to work fast. Read up on some ideas in “Finding Your Financial Footing After Abuse.” Consider taking a completely free upskilling certification course through an Alliance for HOPE International and Verizon partnership which could help propel your career. 

Hopefully these steps will keep your children with you, while also helping you to get away from your husband and find a new, safer future. 

When it comes time to co-parent with the abuser, if he should unfortunately be granted partial custody at some point, make sure to take every precaution to keep you and your children safe. Read “Ask Amanda: How Do I Co-Parent with an Abuser?” for more information.  

Have a question for Ask Amanda? Message us on Facebook, X or email AskAmanda@DomesticShelters.org. 

Ask Amanda is meant to offer helpful resources and information about domestic violence. If in crisis, please reach out to your nearest domestic violence shelter for the guidance of a trained advocate.