All of the above. She's from the Philippines and did it as a pathway to citizenship. She admitted to me and my family that her mother and sister had wanted her to do it sooner to expedite the process and she didn't want to do it initially because she said she loved me.
I was the one who initially wanted the divorce. I naively thought that even though we were going to separate, my relationship with my son would be unaffected and that we would share time with him.
In order to help corroborate her claims of emotional, physical, and mental abuse she went to a battered women's shelter with our son for 4 months. I had no idea where she or my son were for 4 months and that was the hardest time of my life, not knowing if I would get to see him again.
So I filed in court saying that she had kidnapped him. When we arrived, she said that she hid at the women's shelter because she was scared. They granted her full custody and I wasn't allowed to see him until I completed drug testing (which I passed) because she claimed that I was a marijuana addict.
After a few months of testing and another court date, I finally got to see my son like a year later. It was supposed to be only a few hours of supervised visitation but at this point she finally threw me a bone and gave permission for me to see him by myself.
Eventually, it was over a decade ago so I don't remember how long it took, I had my visitation extended to 2 days out of the week, Friday night to Sunday night, which was great. It's a long story, maybe I'm leaving some stuff out. I can fill in details later if you want. Point is, she kidnapped our son, said she was scared and suddenly I was the bad guy. She kicked me in the chest once in a fight. I never retaliated.
Apparently, this is not uncommon:
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/loc...s-falsely-claimed-abuse-to-stay-in-us/202644/