Through my own experiences dealing with parental alienation and with talking to those that experience first hand and others, I have come up with some thoughts of my own. I would like your feedback as well.
I had a conversation the other day with a young adult, age 23, whose parents are divorced. She has no idea of my situation. I do not believe that parental alienation played a huge part in her parent's divorce, although there could have been some naive alienation going on by both parents. What struck a chord with me, was a comment that she made. She did not want to know about her parent's divorce, did not want to know the cause, she just wanted to be able to love them both without feeling she had to hear anything of the past. I got a sense that now, both or one parents wanted to tell their side of the story. She stated this divorce was not about her. She is right.
In my previous post about what does love have to do with it and letting go, I think I hit upon something. Something that seems to make more sense as time goes on. I think the degree of parental alienation is directly related to the age of the child, time spent with the child before alienation became apparent and the level of the alienation employed by the alienating parent. This is not to say that some cases are easier, because any parent that experiences this can never recover the lost years.
If you are a target parent, never ever give up hope. Please keep contact, even if you are the one doing all the contact. Develop a thick skin and let the hurtful comments slide off. Keep a log, diary, online blog, something that chronicles your contact and love for your child. Get a facebook page or a myspace page or whatever the social networking pages that your child may have. You nay not be friends with them, but post pictures of them, let them know you love them. Someone will see them and tell your child this. Call on birthdays, holidays and more. Leave a message, it may not be returned. Gather a box and place cards, gifts, whatever you have to into, that one day your child will see you never gave up. Don't stop being a parent that loves a child that can not do things just because the courts and your ex spouse has made it seem this way. You are just being the silent parent for now. I truly believe that these children taken away from the target parents will one day return.
Parental alienation is abuse! Stop the abuse!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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I am mom of a 13 year old girl named Zoe. Unfortunately she has lived with her dad since she was about five years old. When she was just a year old, I ended my seven year relationship with her dad who was very abusive physically, verbally, and emotionally. I also turned to drugs and alcohol to escape such guilt for having my daughter in a broken home ( without her "Daddy"). I met her dad when I was just 15 years old and he was 28. What in the world was he doing with a teenager!!! As much as I love my daughter, her dad has done everything in his power to undermine the little authority I have had as her mom. He has done nothing but twist everything around and manipulate the system to where he is the good guy and I am the monster. Even though I have had to overcome my own personal demons, the love I have for my daughter has never faded since the first time I held her.
ReplyDeleteWhen Zoe was two, he remarried and Zoe had to call me "Rebecca (instead of mom) and refer to her new stepmom as "mom." Since her young age of two she has been taught that I am not "good enough" for her and that she deserves "better". As it turns out, it was discovered that Zoe's stepmom was physically abusing Zoe, but there just was not enough evidence for the court to rule that my daughter was in danger. And since I had a drug problem, The court ruled that her dad was the more stable one. Shortly after the court ruling, Zoe's dad got a divorce from the evil stepmom.
Seven years later, I find myself having to go back to court to enforce visitation. He still insists that the love I have for my daughter is not one that she needs. I feel so bad for my daughter because she is constantly being reminded that her mom is a "junkie". He just won't let the past stay in the past. Now I understand that since I made terrible mistakes in the past I am going to have to prove myself, but when will I ever get the chance to even do that? I just feel like my daughter has been torn apart because I know she wants a relationship with me, but she just can't express this to her dad, since she knows he hates me so much. Since I don't know where they live, I visit her at school. But now he has even put a stop to that. Now Zoe won't even speak to me. The other day I went to her school and when she saw me, she turned the other way.
Can anyone relate?
I feel your pain. My ex has not let me see my daughter since the divorse when she was only 12. I had asked him for a divorce when I discovered he was having an affair with his coworker, whom he later married. Once I aired my thoughts, he stabbed himself and called the police, having me arrested for a crime I didn't commit, and after 8 months of court, it was dropped. The children were then in a stable home with a new mother and entrenched in their schools. What chance did I have?
ReplyDeleteThen, my ex had a restraining order against me and alleged child abuse even though there was no proof. I was going through a criminal case and had to have a court ordered visitation worker. My ex instructed the children that he would wait for them in the parking lot and if they needed help to call him on the cell phone he gave them for that purpose.
My daughter told me her new mom is the only mom she needs. She said her dad would not have had to be with her "mom" if I had been a better wife to him. She has consistently refused visits. She insists that I tried to drown her in a pool, when actually, I took her to 2 years of swimming lessons. My husband travelled constantly, and I tried to be the best mom I could be.
The new mom is an attorney, and she wrote a letter to the school alleging that there was a restraining order against me to prevent me from seeing the kids, so I had to hire another attorney to contact the school ... all the while, they were withholding my daughter's grade reports. Every step of every day was a battle, and with her caught in the middle, I no longer wanted to fight!
I found out the "mom" also filed paperwork with the hospital when my daughter had a mental breakdown and told officials that I was bipolar and an alcoholic. Although I was a respectable professional, I was not an attorney, and all the adults surrounding my daughter treated me like garbage. I did not have the resources to fight ... plus my daughter was so hateful to me.
My son came to live with me after his father said, "I want to put the final nail in your mother's coffin. I want you to testify that she tried to have sex with you."
After my son moved in with my new husband and me, my ex would not allow him to see his sister.
My daughter is 22 now and no longer lives with her father and "mom". I will be sending her a copy of a book on parent alienation. I'll let you know what happens.
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ReplyDeleteI understand the pain. My ex has custody of our three children. I trusted him at a very low point in my life and he took advantage of that trust and forced me to give him custody. It's been almost 6 years and he has used them to control everything I do in my life. Including having the kids live with me off and on for months at a time, even though I was ordered to pay child support.
I tried taking him to court a couple of years ago because he was not taking care of their medical needs (one is diabetic), he was leaving them home alone all day and they were not enrolled in school. He lied his way through court and the judge chose for the kids to stay with him. I didn't even get to see them at all during the year we spent in court and he moved and didn't even tell me where my children were.
Once he realized he couldn't control me anymore, he started turning them against me. He never answers his phone when I call, and tells them that I never call. My 13 yr old daughter hates me because of all the lies he has filled her head with.
The hardest part is that I have no money to visit now, I can't afford to pay the child support and spend over $100 every weekend on gas and to entertain them. He moved over an hour away and my court ordered visitation is for 6 hours every weekend. I can't even bring them to my home (although he was letting them stay with me at my home for the entire weekend for the past few months). Then my diabetic sons school reported him to cps for medical neglect and he assumed I did it. I tried calling my son on his birthday, and as usual; no answer. I ended up going against him in court because I really hoped that for once, somebody would catch him in his lies... and oh did he lie. They even had proof that he lied, and yet cps still dismissed the case as soon as he hired an attorney. Now I'm back to the court ordered visitations and him ignoring me.
As much as I want to be in their lives and make sure that they know how much I love them, I really think that being in their lives is doing more harm than good right now. I can't call them, can't visit more than once every couple months and I have no way to communicate with the boys. My daughter is on facebook but she has made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with me and it breaks my heart.
My boys hear what their dad tells them, but they still love me; I just don't know how else to communicate with them. I am so frustrated with all of this, I don't know what to do anymore :( The GaL for the cps investigation suggested that I just give up and hope that someday, when they are older, they will realize that I wasn't this horrible person their dad made me out to be and that I should just wait until then...