PAS: Thank You to Everyone!

Thank you:

– To all of you who have seen fit to take a moment to share your past experiences, your present experiences, and your fears of future experiences involving parental alientation. We know it’s very difficult and certainly your stories are the tip of the iceberg. To those who may not see their stories today, it’s no slight, expect that you will see them in the future.

– To all of those who cruise by to read and contribute to the site. The feedback (both positive and even negative) is welcomed and almost entirely meaningful.

– To DW for all of her help with this effort.

– To work, for not catching me clicking over to upload a new story every 15-minutes.

I’m worn out. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to keep up with the 15-minute intervals, even with a fair amount of preparation. (Of course, it *is* a work-day!) I hope that everyone who is reading here today and in the future gains something from the personal experiences shared by those who sent in emails. We’ll continue to shine a spotlight on this and other issues as we continue on this path.

Wishing everyone experiencing such trials and tribulations the most positive outcome.

Sincerely,
LM & DW

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PAS: I Fear I’m Losing Them

I’m not even officially divorced yet. I’m afraid that my STBX (soon-to-be-ex) is turning my kids against me and making them think I don’t love them. The custody battle is very high conflict and I have no doubts that the children would be better off if they were with me primarily.

My daughter is 7, and my son is 10. Not only does my wife have a new boyfriend – he has already moved into the house that I built for our family! The new(est) lover is taking my kids to their sports games and other activities and my children ignore me when I’m there. I strongly believe that it’s because that they are afraid to upset their mother. I certainly don’t want to cause a scene in a public place (or any place for that matter), but she’s already threatening to file abuse charges against me and get a restraining order. She even mocks me that doing so is actually “way easier” that what we’re going through now. She KNOWS the system is set-up to very easily push me out of the children’s lives for an indefinite period of time.

On top of all of that, whenever I call, she’s always making some excuse for the kids not to come to the phone. If they’re in the tub, they’re watching TV, or sleeping, or out playing “somewhere.” I’m really worried that they’re being brainwashed against me. I’ve read about the Parental Alienation Syndrome, and I think it may be going on. I want what is best for my kids, and I really fear that I am already losing them!

What can a dad do?

~GZ

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PAS: When Having Them Every Weekend is Cutting Into Her Parenting Time

I have been separated now for about a year from my ex. Let me take you back one year from now…

We argued on just about everything, from what we wanted from each other to what we needed for our kids. We attended couples counselling, parenting classes and was even dealing with child and family services. The problem with child and family services was the fact that our worker had the stereotypical view of her being the vicim and me being the “bad guy”. This went on for about two months. The bickering about not needing a $700 stroller and $200 on pictures while I’m borrowing money off my boss to pay rent. Yadda Yadda.

On Thursday June 7, I came home from work as usual and found no one to be at home. I had first thought that maybe they were out shopping or something. Later on that night I became worried and called a couple of friends. I found out that she had left to live with another guy, who apparently was just a friend giving her a place to stay. The following day I took off from work to talk with her. We came to an agreement for child support and parenting times. I would pay her on the 15th of every month starting that June and the kids would live with me every weekend starting that particular weekend. This went on for a month, as well as the bickering every Friday and Sunday.

In July, about 3 hours after I got home from work, two peace officers served me with an EPO (emergency protection order aka restraining order) and an ex-parte interim parenting order. The previous weekend to that, I had the kids and her first born that she was baby sitting for the weekend (my ex’s parents adopted her). She had asked if I could watch her as well because she and her live in “friend” wanted to go to a concert at the Stampede. I then had to find a lawyer.

Legal aid turned me away so I was stuck paying full price for legal representation. After about 3 or 4 court appearances and 6 weeks, I was granted supervised access, by anyone, not less than 3 hours a visit and not less than twice per week. And that’s all she would give me. The only problem with that was half of the supervisors were her good friends. Nothing but bad reports.

My sister was getting married in August and our daughter was supposed to be a flower girl. My ex would have nothing to do with it and made sure that our kids could not attend. Later on it was asked by the courts why this happened and she had said that “(he) could’ve taken the kids with (him) but (he) never asked.” I had asked about 6 times prior to me leaving for BC.

In September, we had another court appearance and I was then granted both supervised and unsupervised public access. This whole time, every visit was tough because both me and the kids would be crying, yes I was crying, when the visit was over. They would be saying things like “no, not see mommy, see daddy” and “stay at daddy’s house, no see mommy, stay with daddy” and so on. After the last episode of supervisors, I found someone who was neutral in the whole situation. She supervised all the nessessary supervised visits after that.

At the end of October we had our first trial date for custody. I wasn’t expecting to have my name ran through the mud as much as she had done. I was everything from a child abuser to a spouse abuser to an alcoholic to you name it. To clarify things, I hardly ever drink, I have never abused my children in any, way shape or form, and I never once abused my ex in any way. But, as it would happen, only her side was presented that day. The judge felt like he couldn’t make any decisions on parenting time so my kids and I were stuck only seeing 5 hours of each other each week. More time was allowed by courts but that was the minimum. We were also ordered to go to mediation.

We had 3 mediation appointments. In each appointment she would say that I needed anger management class and she would not let me have anymore time with the kids unless I took a course. The mediator had said that he would make the determination if anyone needed anger management class. We had discussed many things such as parenting times and materialistic things she left at my place and debts that we left each other. On all three things mentioned she had gotten very upset at the fact that I wouldn’t succumb to all her demands and stormed out of the appointment screaming “this s^*t is over!” I had only offered what I thought was fair (the mediator happened to agree with me on a few of the topics). Again, this whole time our kids are the ones who are losing the most. Our next trial date was in January, so I had asked if I could have the kids for some time on Christmas with them. My ex, again, wouldn’t allow it. And, again, said that she had offered me to have them for some time but I never accepted.

The day before our next trial date I sat down with my lawyer and disscussed many different aspects of our trial. We could stoop to her level and smear her all over the court and present very incriminating evidence, which would have felt great, or we could make her an offer that would benefit the kids the most. And much cheaper, no lawyer fee on a whole day (approx $2500). The offer was that for January and February, one weekend Saturday morning to Sunday night, and every second weekend was a full weekend, Friday night to Sunday night. Specific dates and times for those two months, and after that full weekends, extended on long weekends.

To my surprise, she agreed. A week later she was already trying to change the agreement. She wanted the kids for a whole weekend for a birthday party that had been planned spur of the moment. I would have been more than happy to give her the kids for the party if it wasn’t for the fact that she wanted the whole weekend and I already had plans for another b-day party that was planned months in advance. As well the dates and times were stated and agreed to the previous week.

Again in March, our sons birthday was coming up and my sisters and their kids were coming out for the party I had planned. My ex knew that they were coming that specific weekend and my kids hadn’t seen their aunties or cousins in over 4 months. They had come here to visit during the time of unsupervised visits, after the first trial date. Our sons birthday was in the middle of the week. When she had asked for the Sunday following his birthday, of which my sisters were her, I had said “no, my sisters are coming out, you know that. I will give you the Sunday prior to his birthday if you would like.” That never happened, it wasn’t what she wanted.

Since then she has stated that she will be going to work soon and wants to change our final and consenting parenting order. At this point our kids live with her Sunday night to Friday night, and with me Friday night to Sunday night. She is suggesting that the weekends be shared. In other words I get every other weekend. She says that because she will be going to work that her parenting time is getting drastically reduced and she feels like the parenting time wouldn’t be fair. (If you figure out the math, we get equal parenting time if she starts working).

Thats my situation so far.

As a side note, my children’s developments throughout this whole separation have been slowed. Because of the issues between their mother and I and our parenting styles, our children have been developing very slow. I guess what this has to do with alienation is because one parent has been keeping them from the other it has caused our children to be slower in their development and very dependent on one parent or the other. I say this because every weekend my kids are such daddy kids. Daddy’s girl and daddy’s boy, such a wonderful handful! 🙂

~Ryan P.

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PAS: Two Sides of the Same Storm

Rain

When SD (step-daughter) was one, her parents divorced. Because SD didn’t talk, BM (biological mom) didn’t start using her as a weapon right away, focusing instead on denying DH his court-ordered parenting time. When SD was four, the alienation attempts began. She began by telling SD that she (BM) cried all the time when SD was with DH and other gems that put a great amount of pressure on SD while at DH’s house.

Then she pulled out the big guns and said that DH might not be SD’s real father and they’d have to go for paternity testing. SD told DH’s mom that she’d hate any doctor who told her that her daddy wasn’t her real daddy. Shortly after, BM got her husband to petition the court to adopt SD and BM said that DH would be willing to terminate his parental rights. She had SD interviewed about being adopted without DH’s knowledge/permission. DH took BM to court and got primary custody.

BM’s excuse for telling SD all this? She, the four/five year old child deserved to know “the truth.” This loss of sole custody certainly did not teach BM a lesson. Indeed when she went home from court, she told SD that it was all SD’s fault that BM lost custody and that SD was not allowed to speak of BM/BM’s house ever to DH or any of us. SD is now eleven. Over the years BM has let SD know that we take rotten care of SD, that we are bad people, that we practice witchcraft (aka: trick-or-treating), that they are her real family and we’ve taken her away from them. Nothing has changed, and based on the last ten years my prediction is nothing will change.

Sunshine

DH always has put SD first. Her well-being, mental and physical, has always been a priority. He walked away from BM without any bitterness and even though she’s used his daughter to attack him, he’s able to not let her get to him. Because of his great attitude, the alienation has never taken hold of SD. She trusts DH implicitly because he’s never used her, never lied to her, never spoken poorly of her mother. While alienation has not affected DH’s relationship with SD, it has affected the relationship between BM and SD. SD cannot trust her own mother. It’s like the old “I’m rubber you’re glue…” saying. BM targeted DH, but he’s the rubber by not participating or retaliating.

~A Mom in CA

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PAS: Things Were Fine – Until the New Man Came Along

Initially, she swore to me that she would “never” stop me from seeing my daughter. In the first 6-months after our divorce, I had the joy of having her staying with me for a several nights each week. Boy did I feel lucky considering what other men go through just to end up with every other weekend!

Oh, but the ex-wife bounced back rather quickly, she did! Right at about the 6-month mark, she had herself a boyfriend. Very soon thereafter he had moved into her house. It was then that things went quickly downhill. Two overnights every week soon were chopped to one night. Even that didn’t last long. Soon, that one night was chopped down to me taking her home to sleep at mom’s after I provided my daughter dinner.

Foolishly, I reluctantly agreed so as to not upset the apple-cart. I didn’t want to wage a war with my beautiful daughter stuck in the middle. It was important for her to have a good relationship with her mom. I thought for sure that my time would increase because after all, wouldn’t she want some private time with her new beau? Alas, that was not to be. In fact, it got worse with sudden accusations of my not caring for my daughter properly. I was now a bad influence on her. I was left with no choice but to try the legal route. What an eye-opening shock I was in for. All the court did was listen to mom and “generously” allow me to have 1 overnight every TWO weeks!!!

For mom, that was apparently too much for she would just be “out” whenever I drove by to pick up my daughter for my rare visitation. The destruction of my heart was complete when my lovely little girl began called the new boyfriend “daddy.” I could see the confusion in her eyes when I would manage to catch her at home for a visitation night.

Out of money and out of work due to the stress of my ordeal, I moved away from my long-lost girl. Even though over the course of the next decade I sent monthly letters, cards, gifts on special occasions – I never heard word one.

I won’t stop trying to make some contact and maybe when she turns 18 I’ll give it another shot and see what has become of her. Until then, I keep the visions of her happy face burned on my soul for the rest of eternity, hoping that some day those letters and gifts will merit a reply.

~WTR

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PAS: Threats to Cut Off Phone Contact

I am a non-custodial parent of two young girls. My ex and I split a few years ago. I gave up primary custody of my own free will because I didn’t want him to fear that he would lose his children. He was a loving dad. While he and I did not get along, he was always loving and affectionate towards his children. He demanded custody and and said so in no uncertain terms. I knew that if I tried to fight, it would mean court battles and emotional scars for the children. So, I let them go, trusting that by giving him what he wanted, he would respect my need for a continued relationship with the children. Big mistake.

It wasn’t long before he moved out of state and now I hardly ever see my kids. Though I’ve have made several trips to see them, but it’s barely a weekend per month. Toss in the exploding costs of gas, I’ve not been able to get there as much as I wish to. For the summer, I’ll have primary custody.

What’s the problem? I call my children twice a day after school and at bedtime. The conversations only last about 5 minutes. Sometimes the younger one doesn’t want to talk and that’s okay. However, it wasn’t long before the ex decided that wasn’t going to work and the kids would call me “whenever they were ready to talk.” From there it was telling them that [my first name] was on the phone when I did initiate a call. The heartbreaker is that he has a new girlfriend and they already calling “mom” after a couple of months of dating!

My ex had never really come to grips with my leaving him. Until he decided to he was serious with this new gal (as “serious” as any couple can be after a few months, anyway), he was still begging for me to come back. Now, whenever we disagree he starts to insult me and threatens to stop the phone calls with the children on top of everything else. He always seems to have their favorite cartoon on or movie in and they don’t want to talk on the phone. Even when I have asked him to kindly turn it off when we are talking, he won’t do it. That is, if he even answers the phone in the first place.

I will continue to make the effort to keep regular contact with them, even if they don’t want to talk. When I talk to them, it’s never about their dad or the other woman. It’s always things centered around or focused on the children – about school, or plans for the summer. It’s so important until things change. Hopefully. I’ll keep trying.

~Tina V.

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PAS: She’s a Self-Centered Control Freak

It is amazing how our society has been set up to protect a female just because she says so. I am caught up in a custody battle that will know no end. I fear that it will not even end when my youngest son turns 18 and the ex-wife should technically no longer be an issue.

My two son’s so-called loving mother is the most self-centered control freak I have ever encounterd. I am embarrassed and saddened that I ever married the woman. I had dreams and she destroyed them. Even now she does so by using my two innocent sons against me.

She took it upon herself, even though the custody plan orders state differently, to take our 10-year old to a psychiatrist, stating he had problems because me. She attends every third session giving her biased scenerio of the situation. She told him that he was adopted. (I adopted him at age 3 when I married his mom.) He was told not to tell me because the courts would get mad. He was afraid that I wouldn’t love him anymore if he knew. She tells them both that they can’t play summer sports this year becasue I won’t take them to their practices and games. They were told that they can’t go on a Disney Cruise because I won’t sign passport papers although I asked her for more info since she has lied several times about taking them out of state. Now she wants to take them out of the country! And all these trips and vacations (ski trips etc) are all done on $18,000 year she reports and she states to the boys can’t afford things. She nickles and dimes me to death yet tells them she “strapped.”

Both the boys have been told not to tell me that her boyfreind lives there with them. Even though I hired a private investigator to prove she was lying, she still lied in court, NOTHING was done. She berates me as a father in front of them. She has taken them and “hidden” them and told my oldest not to tell me where they were. She grounds my oldest from his cell, which is fine if he deserves it, but that grounding includes not calling me, which means I don’t get to talk to my 5-year old. She puts them in bed at early and then tells me they are already in bed I can’t talk to them.

My ex has filed domestic assault charges on me when I was bending down to pick up our 5-year old son, she was yelling at me and I wanted to get him and myself out of the situation. When I went to pick up our son, she came forward and bumped the top of my head. I had a ballcap on. She took steps back and said I head butted her. So now I go to anger management, my children are told I am abusive. She even had it set up so that I would be arrested at drop off so the boys would see the whole affair. Luckily, the officer realized the situation and didn’t allow that to happen. My anger management counselor has stated I am normal and don’t have an issue except for the fact she is mean and manipulative and using the kids.

If there are support groups to be recommended tell me now!!!

I have finally met an honest woman who is fighting this fight with me. She documents everything. She’s a teacher and a mother of older children and keeps me up-to-date on situations like mine trying to give me ideas to help us and my two sons.

I feel for all those kids and dad’s out there! The system is really against us.

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PAS: Stole Passports and Fled With The Children

Well your problems sound very similar to my own. Currently I am looking for very good online resources on how to deal with my sociopathic ex in regards to our custody case.

This is a nightmare. Outright lies, manipulation, etc. I do not need to go through it all in detail as I am sure you are already too familiar with all of this from your own experience. However, one thing I would like to add is that he has a strange habit of sending me faxes. Very bizarre faxes that accuse me of all kinds of things, tells me my behavior is harmful to our children, says that I owe him and his girlfriend money (she was his mistress at the end of our relationship), oh and the list goes on and on.

At first, I wondered what the hell was he doing putting such bizarre comments into writing! Well he was inputting these faxes in with his “evidence” to the court. He seems to think that if he puts something in writing no matter how bizarre, then the court will believe it and it will make me look bad.

Actually, I received one of those charming faxes today outlining what a bad mother I am, my cooking is not as good as his, that I told my daughter I did not like her drawing, that I harass and interrogate our children, do not show up for visitation (all lies) and the best part well that must be the sex video of me that he says is now online (there isn’t one)!

I am dealing with a sociopath who is making my life hell furthermore this battle is not being fought in the U.S. (where perhaps I would have more rights) but in Spain where I am a foreigner. And this is being fought in Spain because my ex stole the children’s passports when we separated and I have been unable to replace them because you need both parents signatures to replace a child’s passport! Sorry to give you so much info (once I got started my anger would not let me stop) but do take some small consolation that you and DW are not alone (sorry – I know that is not really much consolation). Good luck to you both. For a sociopath there is NO sane reasoning for what they do.

~H.

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PAS: He Set Out To Poison My Mind

My parents divorced when I was 9. Even then, I was hoping to have equal time with them. However, my dad was a heavy drinker and set out to poison my mind against my mom.

Worn down by his bully tactics and violent threats, she gave up custody to him. Even though my mom had visitation with me, I was primed to be his spy on everything that she did. From shopping, to phone calls and with whom she was speaking, how clean the house was, what she did (or didn’t) buy for me and herself. It was awful

After years of this, I pretty much believed everything he told me about her. None of it was true. Of course, I was in no position to realize it at the time because the alienation was such a pervasive part of our “broken family dynamic.” I didn’t see her for many years after a while. I was convinced mom didn’t want me. It also didn’t help that he would threaten suicide if I “left” him. How horrible to put that on a young boy.

As things progressed through my teens, I began to realize something was amiss. Ultimately, I reunited with my mom, but my experience forever altered the way we related. The damage was deep. Therapy helped a lot and still continues today in my 20s. How sad that I still discover new truths even after my mom’s recent untimely death.

I feel horrible for the parents who experience these types of situations. I feel even more deeply for the children.

~Jeff

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PAS: The Neighbors are the Guardians

Hiya LM & DW. Love the blog.

Not only does my ex alienate me from the kids, she has her entire family and circle of friends doing it as well.

Her family makes up sick and demeaning songs that they sing about me and my girlfriend. That’s completely inappropriate for 6 and 7 year olds. She has 3 of her neighbors come out on their porch when I pick them up to “make sure they are safe,” obviously implying to the kids that I’m unsafe. She has her friends watching my every move and reporting back to her from the bus stop, boy scouts, sporting events, and school functions. I feel stalked!

I had disallowed him to play on the playground with the scout troop one night after a scout meeting because of his being disruptive at school and her friends decided to make sure that she knew that I was “mean” for singling him out like that and “embarassing” him. While he was disappointed, he certainly wasn’t embarrassed. It’s not like I made a big announcement that he was punished and what for. We discussed it going in and he simply and politely declined the extra play and said we had to leave early that night.

As a result, of course, my kids believe that I am unable to parent them alone because I’m unstable and that I am mean just because I want to be, not because I’m trying to teach them appropriate boundaries and personal conduct. It will never end, she must be in control whether it’s positive for the kids or not.

~Matt S.

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