Our coverage of the cost of family court continues with the story of a mother's journey through family court.


Maryann Petri is a mother of three and said, "Family court destroyed my family".


When she and her husband at the time decided to divorce, she said they had a good co-parenting relationship of their three children until he began dating again.


"We had been co-parenting very well until a third-party inserted herself in between the relationship of the co-parents and the relationship I have with my children and that's when family court started", said Petri.


Petri said from there things took a turn for the worse.


"My ex had used tactics of a child psychological abuse where one parent turns a child and teaches a child of fear and hate the other parent", said Petri.


She said her ex-husband called county officials and made false accusations about her. She eventually lost her job and had to spend five days in prison for not paying child support. This stress led to her having a heart attack.


"I always wonder why this had to happen happen to begin with because we had been co-parenting very well", said Petri.


Since this ordeal happened, she said she doesn't have a good relationship her children, one doesn't speak to her or her ex-husband.
Petri speaks her youngest and his working to rebuild a relationship with her middle child.


Petri said she learned a lot about herself through it and has worked to build a new life.


"I had to take this and turn this around, so I wrote the book "Dismantling Family Court Corruption: Why taking the ids was not enough", which was essentially 150 pages which is a handbook for any parent going through family court", explained Petri. She said there's talks to make the book into a movie.

Petri also has a podcast and works to help others going through what she went through and her biggest piece of advice is simple.

"I really try to advise people to stay out of it if you can mediate with each other which which my ex and I did beautifully in the beginning and I think I know I've told people that do not ever let a third-party interfere in your co parent relationship if it's going smoothly keep it that way", said Petri.


Petri said that when it comes to family court, accountability is key whether it's for the parents, the lawyers or judges.