Alienated

[FatherTime]

Well, it's been two months since I've seen my daughter.  The last time that I saw her was on my birthday over two months ago.  I am thinking of just giving up on her.  I'll still fight for father's rights, but I think I'm out of luck and soooo tired of trying to be a father.  I'm just a paycheck.

I have gone above and beyond what any other father in my circle would do to stay in their childs' lives.  I got a felony trying to stay in her life.  I ran into a judge's chamber in California and yelled at the judge.  It was because of a moveaway (kidnapping). I thought that it worked out for the best because my daughter and her mother moved back here after I got out of my jail time.  But she only moved back here because she thought that I couldn't leave California.  She even stated that she thought that I couldn't leave California in the court papers here.  The mother has done so much to show that she was trying to alienate me and the courts were mute.  

For the last two years, I have had minimal phone contact (1 phone call) with the mother.  Whenever I call, the mother doesn't answer the phone.  She has my daughter call me back.  I have had to plan all p/ups and drop/offs through my now 12 year old daughter.  But now she, my daughter,  just doesn't want to see me.  It's funny but the words that she used when I spoke with her were words that an adult would use and she caught herself and tried to reword it in her own words.

This is too hard to talk about.  Anyway, here is my question:

What do I do?  File for change of custody or quit?

FatherTime

[Fueledbyjava]

That is awful. That is my worst fear that I will become just a paycheck as well, against my will of course. I wish I could give you some sort of advice but I am in the early stages of a custody battle so I do not have the experience to back up any advice I would give. I empathize with you graetly as I have already felyt the pain that seperation from your child can bring. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to hear those words come out of your daughter's mouth and know that she has been brainwashed and coached through two years of alienation from you by her mother. I can only say that you should not blame yourself, if you honestly have tried everything you could legally do then you cannot beat yourself up. One day your daughter will know how hard you fought, it may not be for 10 or 20 years but it is all public record and she will know that her father did not willingly step out of her life, but was rather alienated and forced out by her mother. Please don't blame yourself, the system is severly flawed, especially in California. It is totally biased against Fathers and you basically have to proive that the mother is a crackhead or a criminal to gain custody in CA, and I mean seriously prove it! All she has to do is show up. It all disgusts me.

[MixedBag]

go back and READ Divorce Poison AGAIN.

And if you haven't done so before, it won't hurt to get it now.

It's not too late.

You two still have some good years ahead of you potentially....

[FLMom]

I feel for you as a parent. It sounds like you have a lot of hurdles . My thoughts would be to break it down into increments and see if you can overcome your daughter's reluctance to see you.

First of all, I can't help myself and I have to ask this: Did you undergo anger management counseling during or after your tirade with the judge? If not it could be an avenue not only to negate some alienation excuses and maybe help you find some peace somewhere in this mess.

Always remember that teenagers. . . and your daughter might as well be she's so close. . . are fickle creatures. They will do what they have to do to get through a situation. Since she spends the majority of the time with her mother, she's not going to want to be on her mother's bad side so she'll say whatever to keep mom happy. For that reason, you should NEVER give up. Remember that pushing you away is how she's surviving right now. Keep trying. I've heard some of the worst stories from adult children who felt one of their parents gave up on them. And it's solace for you that you never stopped doing everything you could to be a parent to your child.

At age twelve it's not the child's decision to not see a parent unless there's an order of protection. Baby steps. If you have a court order for visitation, exercise your visitation. Send a letter of when you'll be picking up, and do it consistently. If daughter balks and you back out of the visitation, she won't view it as "whew, dodged that one". . . it's more like, "see, he doesn't want me anyway". Know what I mean? Send that letter every time you have a visitation due and stick to it.

You know what? It may take months or years for your daughter to come around. But heck, what else are you going to do? It's a lot more fufilling going through life knowing you are constantly trying then just making an attempt once in a while, or worse, not at all.

ETA: I have three teens right now. I so feel your pain. They are WEIRD and I finally feel "old".

[FatherTime]

Yes, I underwent anger management for 1 year.  It was part of the plea agreement.  The felony occurred when my daughter was 2 years old.  Because the crime occurred in California, I had to abide by their rules.  In Washington I would have only had six months anger management.  I went through the same class twice.  BTW, anger management made me angry at times, because the anger management wheel was gender biased and I noticed all gender bias in the class.  The counselor gave me a rave review, which shocked the heck out of me when I read it.  I pulled no "proverbial" punches in the discussions during the anger managment classes.

" If daughter balks and you back out of the visitation, she won't view it as "whew, dodged that one". . . it's more like, "see, he doesn't want me anyway". Know what I mean? "

Yeah, I see what you mean.  But, she knows that I want to see her.

Thank you all for posting replies.

FatherTime

[Kitty C.]

I know how long and how hard you have worked and stressed about this.  Only you can know in your heart if you need to stay in it or walk away.  The only piece of advice I can possibly recommend is that, if you do decide to walk away, start a journal....like an open letter to her.  Write in it as little or as much as you want to.  Tell her how you feel about her.  Tell her how much you miss her and of all the times you wished she'd been by your side, the things you wanted to show her and teach her.  Tell her of the ordinary daily things and the special events in your life.

Then hopefully some day, when she's an adult and able to decide for herself if she wants a relationship with you, give it to her.  Tell her it's all you can give of the past, but if she's open and willing, you can give of yourself so much more in the future.  Hopefully, it will open a door to a new relationship with her, one that NO ONE can take away or undermine.

I wish you and your daughter all the best.............

[Ref]

I feel so much for you. After 14 years of fighting to stay in SD's life Dh has thrown in the towel. It really got much harder when SD turned 12. She started repeating things her mom said and acting out. BM told her she was old enough to make her own choices about when to see DH and SD like being treated like an adult. When DH stated that she was a child and had no right to make decisions like that it dug him further into the PAS hole. He was now, in her mind, not respecting her as an adult and her mom was, so he was the a**hole.

It has been almost a year that DH started giving up. I have to tell you, even though it breaks his heart and he thinks about her all the time, he has been able to move on. It is like the mourning period that had been going on for 14 year is over. He still grieves the loss, but not in the same way.

Now that he has surrendered, his ex says "see! you never wanted to be in her life and this proves it". Well, she is wrong, but it doesn't matter because she says this to SD and Sd believes it.

He is just a checkbook right now. For years before, he was just a checkbook and a punching bag. Although I do believe in fighting for it as long as you can, sometimes there is no way but to lose.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but I have to tell you that good fathers give up. DH is a million times better than my dad and I loved my dad. He had to give up.

Best wishes
ref

[dsm]

And I'm here to tell you that even with getting custody, the child can turn on you in a heartbeat and return to the alienating parent....but now it's so completely different.  We don't have to deal with PB and her antics....except that my SD has turned into a version of PB that sometimes is worse if you can imagine that.

We got custody when my SD turned 12.......and the last 6 years have been a roller coaster.  

My DH has loved having her here and I've done my best to support both of them and teach her how to be a young lady.  She's just not in a place or frame of mind to embrace that and likes that her mom gives her free reign to do whatever/whenever and no consequences.

You have fought a long and hard battle.  And like Ref said....only you can know whether it is time to throw in the towel.  But don't have it be the "end".....you can still keep in contact with her; make attempts to be involved in her life; and definitely keep a journal/write to her etc.


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dsm - 37; DH - 41; SD - 18; LO - 12; BB - 5
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It's time for me to do for me and mine.  The others can worry about themselves for awhile.

[KatieJJ]

We finally requested a custody change.  It's been over 2 years since DH last saw his sons.  Denial of access, multiple moves, changing phone numbers.  Been there, done that.  The only reason DH was able to request a custody change is because his ex decided to file for an increase in CS since he hasn't exercised visitation.  We are going to burn her in court, too, because we enlisted the help of her last two ex- husbands to put together proof of all the changing addresses and phone numbers.  She just remarried the 6th guy.  #5 and #4 helped us.  DH was #2. Anyhow, we went down the gradual alienation road to the point where we are today.  Our court date for her increased CS request and our request for a change of custody due to denial of access goes to court Nov. 10.  I think it will go well because not only has she obviously denied access, but unfortunately the boys' school records (attendance, grades, disciplinary record) are abysmal.  The older one dropped out of HS one month before graduating.  The younger one has been in school for all of 2 weeks and already had in school suspensions twice.  She should have just kept moving and changing numbers instead of getting greedy.  And, BTW, I have found out that if she moves again in the future, we can go through the courts to find out her address through child support services.  We didn't know this, as they tell us they can't give us that information.  Apparently, they can if a judge orders it.  Hope this gives you perspective.  We honestly aren't getting our hopes up, because the courts have always sided with her single working mom martyr image.  But our ace up our sleeve this time is the testimony of her two adult children, my DH's ex- stepkids (Children she had with her 1st husband.)  My DH has always continued to be a loving dad towards those kids the past 15 years even though he was only their stepdad for the 3 years he was with their mom.  They are going to court with us to explain how their mom attempted to alienate them against DH, and used the fact that they weren't his bio kids to deny access when it suited her.  (Not to mention a host of other testimony against her to prove her unfit- drug and alcohol abuse, etc.)  Unless you have some really strong evidence against her as a parent, or really strong evidence of alienation, you probably won't win custody.  Read Divorce Poison, and if you still think you have a case, explain your situation to a good family law attorney and see what he or she thinks.  Good luck.

[FatherTime]

I think that I do have a good case.  I am just fed up with the court system.  More than likely they will just tap her hand and say "bad".  Then back to the status quo.  

I was able to use Child Support enforcement to locate my daughter before when her mother fled to California and hid her from me.  You have to fill out a form and wait 30 days for a response.  VAWA works to assist the concealment of children.  

I just know too much to continue wasting my time.  My daughter is fine being without me.  That is according to her.  She is 12. It only took her mother 10 years to alienate my daughter from me with the aid of the family law court systems of California and Washington.

I have done nothing further.  I still haven't seen my daughter since may.  She doesn't return my phone calls.  

So, I will continue to fight for father's rights.  But I have come to grips with the reality of my situation.  It's too late for me.  I will not however, let the courts treat fathers in the manner that they do today.  I am considering running for office in my local area.

I have a tremendous amount of information as to the mother of my daughter and her acts towards alienation.  One of which is to ground my daughter for calling me without her permission when my duaghter was in the first grade.  She set it up well.  

The courts, liewyers, and pigs have some splainin' to do.

SadDad
(my old name from years ago)