Category: Parental alienation

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Dejan

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Dejan

I was being emotionally and physically abused by my partner. I am not one of those guys who would be typically seen as a victim: I am nearly 2 metres tall, strong, athletic, enthusiastic. However, recently I have lost a significant amount of weight; I barely laughed anymore.

From time to time, our mutual friends tried to reach me, but I never answered my phone. What they didnt know is that my girlfriend made me erase all our old friends from the contact list.

On more than one occasion I had to leave the house and sleep on my friend’s couch.  I was afraid of her — she punched me so hard, resulting in my losing a front tooth.

Just over Christmas, my girlfriend’s brother gave me a Christmas present — a calendar depicting attractive women dressed as Santa’s helpers. It was supposed to be a joke. But my girlfriend got so upset that she made her brother leave the house along with my friend. She ripped the calendar into pieces.

I should have just left her.

But the issue is that we have a baby together and I am a devoted father — so I stay and suffer. I also fear her — she can do anything and everything to destroy me if I dare to leave. She has told me this on multiple occasions.

I fear losing my child. I love my child.

Because let’s be honest, who believes men nowadays? Courts don’t — children are given to mothers even when the mothers are neglectful.I am trapped, like many men out there. I won’t report the abuse because I feel embarrassed, and I know that they won’t believe me even if I report it in my country.

Society just can’t accept the truth that perpetrators can be wives, girlfriends, the closest ones. Anybody and everybody! Society doesn’t want to see and acknowledge that some women can be vicious and dangerous.

I just kept going along with everything she says and does.

She made me install a tracking app so she can know exactly when I am in the office and when I will be coming home. But after a few months, I decided it would be best just to stay and try to work from home — to please her.

My work performance has dropped. I was belittled and humiliated on a daily basis. Once I gathered up the strength to tell her that I was leaving her; she pulled the most ruthless card out on me — she threatened that if I leave, I will never see our child and that she would report me for physical abuse.

That’s when I knew that I must act.  I now make recordings of her harassment and keep records of the frequent, belittling phone calls and text messages.

You see, she is in the charge of the money. She is on maternity leave and is reluctant to go back to work. She would rather spend money on manicures, pedicures, Pilates, and expensive handbags and make-up. She checks bank statements every night, just to make sure that I didn’t spend any of “her” money on something that she would not approve of, such as a kebab.

To help me capture the abuse, my closest friends came together and bought me a special baby camera. The camera will provide evidence of everything that I have been experiencing for months – and will show that all this abuse happened in front of a little baby. Hopefully, that will help me when the time comes to act.

Who would the system believe? I hope someone believes me. I hope I will be able to see my child. I hope I will become a survivor.

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MamSouth

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MamSouth

I am an alienated mother who was alienated from my children in South America. I grew up in Ireland and emigrated to South America in my early twenties. I met my husband there, got married and we had a son and daughter.  I can, like many people who are separated or divorced, say that we were happy at one time, enjoyed life and had children together. But as one knows, life can change and rearrange. Over time my relationship with my husband began to deteriorate. It is one thing to split up but to be deliberately and vengefully alienated from our beloved children is an entirely different matter. I had a woman helper in our home. One day she came to me in the kitchen and said,  “Your husband is saying bad things about you to the children in the living room”.

I have witnessed separating parents who do not alienate the other parent. They are able to part and still be good  co-operating parents. These children play, go to school knowing that both parents love them. The benefits to the child are huge.  They remain being loved by their extended families. This benefits the extended families who are not torn from their nieces, nephews or grandchildren. This leads to more peaceful communities which in turn leads to more peace in society. Our reactions to being an alienated parent are not always what they should be. One is thrown into new territory that one couldn’t imagine or plan for. There is shock, disbelief and anger. We are thrown onto a rollercoaster that we were not expecting. It’s full of troughs and very few rises. We are thrown around like sand in a dust storm.

Why does this happen? It happens because many legal systems in many countries are not set up to deal with this situation. Alienated parents are hurled into legal systems where there is little knowledge or training of what Parental Alienation is, or how to identify it, or how to deal with it effectively, or quickly. The alienating parent knows this and presses the button on the rollercoaster. There is little or no accountability for the alienating parent in many of these legal systems.

They cannot be arrested for drowning the natural love and affection a parent has for his or her child or children so that they can grow and develop into decent citizens in society. 

From my research and personal experience, alienated parents can be dragged into court again and again costing money they can ill afford. In the meantime, children are growing up. These children can be asked to make adult decisions while their young, growing and developing minds are trying to find their own identity as humans, sometimes within a home war zone. These are children without fully developed personalities or life experience being asked to make adult decisions they are totally ill equipped for. With a vengeful, alienating parent pulling the strings, these children are sometimes asked to choose which parent they want to live with but then they can- or may be forced to– choose to alienate the other parent who can become isolated not only from his or her children but also from in-laws who side with the alienator.

As a result, the alienated parent cannot stop it,  cannot control it, cannot change the legal system on their own. They have to go through it. I know of some alienated parents who have walked away in despair. The fight is too hard,  too exhausting.  A friend of mine in South America committed suicide when her three children were alienated from her. The youngest child was a four-year-old girl. I knew this woman and often visited her when our children played together. I witnessed a very good mother who loved her children. This was long before I knew what Parental Alienation was.

I am now retired and live here in Ireland.  I have not had a relationship with my son for twenty-two years. My daughter has kept in touch on and off over these years. We have had a rocky journey and at this distance, it is harder to repair. However, we have not given up on each other for which I thank God. My Christian faith has sustained me in this horrible journey where one struggles to find meaning when one has lost the love of one’s beloved children.

My two adult children live in South America. They are in their thirties now and they are both married. Here, I give two quotes from my adult daughter in two particular phone conversations over the last few years. “I have to keep both your secrets,”. This comment refers to the fact that my ex-husband refused any contact with me over the years because I divorced him. On another phone conversation, I brought up the fact that I had been alienated from her, and my son. Her reply was “Who did that to you?” When I realised she had blocked out what happened. I changed the subject. There have been times when I thought my heart would burst out of my chest in the agony of losing the love of my children.

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Anndrej

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Anndrej

I’ve seen too many women alienate children from their fathers. My ex-partner was one of them. I asked myself why? It too me years to understand that the reasons is that they wish to hurt their ex-partner for leaving them. These partners focus only on their own wishes and needs — they are driven by an obsessive desire to punish the other parent. They don’t understand that children need both parents to develop into healthy adults.

I am struggling to co-parent with my ex. I tried for years to keep the communication open, positive, and productive. I engaged in countless, nonsense communications with my ex to keep in touch with our children as I feared that the ex would cut me out of our children lives.

But I am a parent too. I parental responsibility and my ex can keep up causing issues but I have the right to be involved in our children’s lives. This year I finally secured a court order.I hoped that things would become easier but they didn’t. The ex continuous to engage in toxic behaviours such as:

• Intervenes and limits the communication between me and our children.
• Tells lies, badmouths and belittles me in front of our children.
• Speaks poorly about my family.
• Undermines my authority.
• Disregards the court order — visitations and contact arrangements.

I’ve realized it’s nearly impossible to to co-parent with a toxic parent who does the above things. Co-parenting is teamwork. It’s a mutual effort to do things in the best interest of the child.

But I understood after few years what I can do to protect myself and our children:

“I got a court order.”

You can’t negotiate with terrorists. You need to have a plan and know what you want to accomplish. Go before a judge with a plan, ask for visitations, create the timetable when and where you will be seeing your child. Add also online contact — phone communication. How the ex should keep you up to date with school issues, medical emergencies or anything else related to the child. Keep the communication in one place, ideally via email. If she the ex-partner starts making mistakes and creates issues, you can take them back to court. Get the most detailed court order that you can.

“Wait…”

The best thing you can do is wait: wait for your ex to mix up the court arrangements, show hostility, forget to pick up the child. You should also wait for your child to grow older to be able to make their mind of their own. Waiting doesn’t mean giving up — on the contrary, waiting means being there for your children when they need you and they will need you very soon.

That’s why keeping your distance and focusing on building your life for you and your children is the best thing I and you can and should do.

“In the Meantime, Live Your Life”

I can’t change your ex. I did all you could. Now I need to focus on myself — this way you I am helping my child. I took time for myself and to improve my mental health, sought therapy. Every time I come by to pick up children — I come with the biggest smile.

“Keep The Focus On Your Children.”

I call, text and am present in my children’s life. Even if my ex hides the phone and tries to cut contact I have the evidence that every day I texted your children goodnight. One day you I will be able to show all of these messages to my kids.One day, my children will come back to me because they won’t stay children forever. From now on I only focus on today and tomorrow, for my children.

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