Parental Alienation

[mafitz]

I looked for a subject on this but found nothing.  I started looking in the Father's thread because this tends to happen to dads more than moms. 

I separated from my ex back in 95.  We have two daughters, now 20, and 15.  Our divorce came in in May of 1996. 

Ok, so I did the divorce pro se, worked up joint custody, and got him to agree to $300 a month in child support.  It should have made him happy because his issue was about control, and he didn't want to pay the $600 the state caculator came up with. 

Well it didn't. He wouldn't do his visits, and then he wouldn't pay his child support.  I told him I was going to modify the child support and send it through child support enforcement if he did not do his visits.  I didn't do it to make him unhappy, I did it because our oldest was unhappy and having problems in school and I knew it was because of the impact the divorce and all the changes with my life and her dad's life  had had on her.  She needed her dad.

I married my current hubby in May of 98.  We became friends when I was separated because he was separated too and we both worked together.  So, we started sharing war stories.

Well so the kids go to a summer visit that ends with him taking the girls to his grandmother's for the whole summer.  My hubby was on orders to move across the country that October.  So I agreed in writing with my ex to have the kids stay with him/his grandmother until we had to leave which was October 4.

On October 3 I get a certified notice from a smalltown court in Virginia (the state their great grandmother lived in).  My ex's grandmother and mother filed an emergency order for custody accusing me of drug abuse and physical abuse of my girls.  They had no evidence whatsoever, and I had my girls' medical records, school and daycare records, cancelled checks everything.  But for whatever reason this judge granted them temp custody.  I was also accused of abandoning my girls.  They went there in June and I had weekly phone contact with them.  HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

I was in a bind because my new hubby who was also Army had to sign out of the post we lived on, and move us across the country to sign in to his new post by October 9th.  I was also 4 months pregnant at the time. 

So, I freaked fell apart and went about doing what I could do, which was get us moved across the country to get my hubby signed in to his new post and duty station by the date specified.  I then went about trying to figure out how to fight this.  I had the homestudy done, but I had NO MONEY for an attorney and psychologist to help me fight this.  I had all contact with my girls cut off.  And when I hit that wall of having nowhere to turn, and realised there was nothing on the planet I could do, I went into a depression that was worse than anything I can describe.  I did not leave my house for five years, wanted to die every minute of every day, didn't sleep, didn't eat, just lived in a state of constant anguish.

From there it was a waiting game.  We had to wait until my hubby was out of the Army and we had the tens of thousands in the bank account.  It took five years.  I filed back in court but found out they had moved to another state.  So I filed in that state, hired the lawyer and got the court appointed  psychologist involved (that we paid for).  By that time my oldest was 13.  I fought and went through every hoop they required of me to see my girls and have contact with them again.  I spent every penny we had saved up on this case. 

Our case had all the earmarks of classic PAS and the psychologist testified to it, and the judge talked about it.  So, my oldest would have nothing to do with me, and refused to go to the psychologist after the hearing that the psychologist testified in regarding the PAS and the actions of her dad's family and hated my guts after that.

Well I still see my now 15 year old daughter, but I waited with my oldest until she was out of their home to talk to her.  She was 18 when we started talking.  It was great at first, we talked every single day about everything, but then a couple months ago, I read a blog from her that has her talking about having this abused childhood and being saved from hell by her grandparents.  So I confronted her about it and she stopped talking to me.  And now my 15 year old is barely talking to me.

There is no answer to our situation, I am just in need of an outlet.  I can go back to court and battle over the contact being nearly cut off but would it do more damage than good?  For me it would be the all encompassing vindication that I do matter as a parent, and its not okay to keep badmouthing me against the judge's orders etc., but for my 15 year old it would just make her life miserable because it would force her into the same position that my oldest was forced into.

I probably should have just done what so many others do and just cut my ex off from the kids.  None of this would have happened, but at the same time it would have been the wrong thing to do.   I know what is right when it comes to the best interests of the children, and that is all I ever cared about.  The best interests of my kids.  But it can backfire and make the life of one parent a living hell.

I am still hanging in there and waiting in the hopes that things will change with time and age.  I took the abuse allegations personally because they went beyond just cutting my heart out.  Had I been even a half arsed parent maybe it would have been different, but I was obsessed with being a great parent to my girls, and I was so obsessed with it that being accused of something like this just pulled my world apart.

My hubby and I have weathered the storm with what we dubbed two psycho exes, and have been married for 12 years now.  We have two wonderful girls from that marriage.  He was going through hell with his ex at the same time my nightmare came down, and was alienated from his daughter from his first marriage too but more because of the fact that his ex tried to accuse my now 15 year old of molesting her daughter when they were both 4. 

It freaked him out and he cut off contact.  Child support gets paid and we maintain the health insurance that never gets used for them and we just keep living each day and thinking that in time it will all work out when it comes to our other kids.

Neither of us got divorced because the marriages fell apart so much as the people we were with were so unbalanced that life was miserable with them.  So I guess it should have been expected that the divorces would be a living hell. 

[MixedBag]

It happens to both moms and dads -- when there are other adults that WANT it to happen.

Believe me.