My husband and I were sat talking last night, something we do every night once our son has gone to bed and we're getting a moment or two to wind down, and he told me of a photograph his friend had received from his ex wife; the photo was of her and their little boy, both of them smiling so you would presume it was sent in good faith to let him know the little boy was ok but no you are wrong, written on the photo below the little boy were the words "Happy Without You!". Yes, I was disgusted and heartbroken for my husbands friend, he loves his little boy and never wanted to be apart from him, mommy had other plans though, she had met someone else and her parents actively encouraged her to leave her husband for the other man. So she took the little boy and left to go home to Italy to be with this other man, my husbands friend on the other hand, was left with a huge child support payment and no way of ever being able to see his son again.
Now I know many women will say Parental Alienation doesn't exist, that it is just a man playing with women's emotions, that men get what they deserve, or that if the wife left the man must have done something really wrong, but I have to disagree.
89% of single parents are moms, leaving dads, if they are lucky, as visitors to their children may be four days a month and as I said if they are lucky. As much as people want to say that men don't want to be a part of their children's lives, statistics show that dad's are alienated from their children's lives almost from the start of separation and in many cases even before the separation begins, as was the case in my house as a child.
So here my husbands friend is, his wife divorced him because she cheated, she has taken more than half of his monthly salary and has taken away the bond he had with his young son, the courts of course allow and perpetuate this, they see the dad as the primary financial provider for the child and less of an emotional provider, even if the daddy has been the sole emotional and financial provider since birth. The courts are helping moms every day to commit Parental Alienation, they are helping moms force the daddy's of their children out of the children's lives for financial gain, they are allowing moms to get away with emotional abuse and alienation of affection and still we blame men on not being with their children.
My mother threw away birthday and christmas cards from my dad, she blocked his phone calls, ensured we only got to spend 8 hours a month with him and prior to her demanding he leave she did everything she could to belittle him to all and sundry and no one ever stopped her.
My husbands ex wife, had a man living with her whilst my husband was deployed to Iraq for a year. While he was gone she removed all traces of my husband from around the home and this man, the one she was cheating with, became the children's father, the morning my husband returned home the man left the residence and returned to his own base, shortly after that he returned to the US and my husbands ex wife took the children back to the US saying she was taking them on vacation and then never returned. Even before she had taken the children away she was speaking ill of my husband, she was telling the children and anyone who would listen that he was a bad etc etc, when it all came out in court that she lied she lied some more and has continued to do so for the last 10 years. My husband has sent his children cards and presents on birthdays and christmas, the children never received them, he tried calling and doing court ordered web cam, but he was refused and blocked. My Mother in Law sent writing paper, envelops and stamps for them to write to her, they were put in the trash. The children have been told that daddy doesn't want them and he doesn't love them, that he was abusive, yet we have so much proof to the contrary, from other military members and their wives, from the children themselves, from DSS saying she had them living in violent situations, yet my husband is the bad parent, we at least according to her and her family.
My husbands daughter recently got in touch on FaceBook saying how wrong she was about him and how she forgot how much fun they had had together and she missed him and couldn't believe she had found him, my husband has made a FaceBook page just for his children with photos and videos of them, she made him promise not to tell anyone that they were talking, she was just happy to be in touch again. Low and behold her FaceBook page is gone now, mommy found out and once again my husband is back to not having contact and this time it is hitting even harder because his daughter reached out and wanted him to be a part of her life.
Whether you know a parent that is blocking access of the children to the other parent, or whether you are the parent blocking access you are no better than each other and in my honest opinion the person that see's it going on and chooses to ignore it is even worse because you could try and step in and block it. I have a friend who split from her husband, neither one of them very nice to each other, but now all I ever hear from her is rubbish talk about him, how he is just the little boys sperm donor and how she hates having to hand him over to daddy on a weekend. She berates her ex husband to everyone and anyone, she made sure he got bare minimum visitation rights and hates the fact after two years he has moved on and she hasn't. She got annoyed at me when I chose to remain neutral and told her off for referring to the child's dad as a sperm donor and a few other things I choose not to repeat here, she thinks that I should support her decision to remove the daddy from their child's life, needless to say I rarely speak to her now as I can't condone that kind of emotional abuse.
Yes, I am sure there are some men that commit Parental Alienation too, my husband, my dad and my friends husband are not those men. Even now after all these years my dad still asks about my mom and won't let there be any bad talk about her, my husband just refuses to talk about his ex wife as she is the mother of his eldest two children and my husbands friend just wants to be able to see his son. None of the dads I know ever wanted to remove the moms from the lives of their children, when my husband saw his children, he actively encouraged them to call mom every day even when the children didn't want to talk to mom. I only got fours hours every two weeks with my dad so not long enough for him to encourage me to call my mom without taking away the precious moments we had together and my husbands friend just wanted to be able to get a long with his ex wife for the sake of their son and raising him in a healthy environment.
Now you tell me, if Parental Alienation doesn't exist, what would you call it hen a parent sets out to totally remove the other parent from the lives of their children? We are seeing estrangement and alienation of affection, we are seeing children lose the love and support of one of their parents, we are seeing what was once a close family unit totally dissolve and any bonds between the non custodial parent and the children are shattered often beyond repair and it needs to stop, NOW!
Parental Alienation has far reaching effects, the feelings of loss, of feeling unloved, of feeling undeserving can last a lifetime, trust me I know, I'm am the adult child of a maternal parental alienator and I've struggled many years to deal with my emotions.
Parental Alienation is very real and its on the rise, we need to fight the system of allowing mothers to have sole custody and making dads visitors in their children's lives, we need to fight for our children's rights to equal and unrestricted access to both parents. 50/50% Shared Custody should be the norm, not the exception.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Are you a Parental Alienation enabler?
Recently a second cousin of mine got in touch, to say I was shocked and surprised is an understatement of massive proportions, after all I hadn't seen her since she was about 5 years old.
I have to say I am only 9 years older than my second cousin and we lived just across the road from each other, I had been her babysitter and her playmate, especially due to the fact that neither her nor I had any other cousins close by.
So why did we lose contact for so long, why was that relationship halted all those years ago? Well, my cousin is the niece of my dad and you would think after my parents divorce my mother would stop me having contact but at least this one time she is not to blame for broken down relationships, no, that lay squarely at the feet of my adult cousin.
My young cousin would often ask me why my dad was married to someone else and not my mom, she would ask why I didn't see my dad, she was 5 and her family were still together and happy and for her young mind it was hard to comprehend, so I tried to explain it as best I could without adding more confusion to the situation. I told her my parents were divorced and now lived in separate houses, that my dad had remarried and was very happy and I never said more than that. Now here's the kicker, my cousin hated that I spoke about my dad, she said it wasn't fair to her children that I speak of him, so she forbade me to talk about him or ask about him.
My cousin had been my only link to my dad, she had been the person I would go to to ask if my dad was ok, now she may have had other reasons as to why I couldn't talk about my dad other than the confusion to her children, namely she thought I was asking questions so that I could pass on information to my mother, but I had learned to never talk about my dad in my mothers house, so I kept all information about him to myself.
Now with my second cousin getting in touch it has brought all the emotions of that time flooding back.
All I had ever wanted was to be a part of my dads family, to know that he was ok and still thought of me, I still wanted to be a part of him. I remember feeling so alone and lost at not being able to ask about my dad or talk about it, it was bad enough my mother had banned any talk of him, but for my cousin, my dads flesh and blood to do it as well was the worst feeling ever.
Now my cousin is now divorced and I have to wonder if she stops her daughters from talking about their dad, I wonder how she would feel if someone told her daughters not to talk about her so as not to confuse their children, I'm guessing she would be hurt and angry.
To this day I am still hurt by what she said all those years ago, my anger toward her has long since subsided, but I have to wonder why women seem so hell bent on destroying relationships and lives?
I loved my dad, I love him now, but after 16 years of not knowing anything about him, his whereabouts and if he was ok has certainly taken its toll. Its hard to rebuild relationships after such a long period apart, you have to learn to trust again, and in my case, I hope that my dad will be a part of my life well into the future.
I'm older now, not one to be pushed around, I have my own opinions and thoughts and I will never again let another woman get in the way of a relationship with my dad. Adults are the ones children look up to, surely we should be setting them an example of love and family, not destruction and selfishness, not complete disregard of others feelings.
Without knowing it, my cousin had helped my mother to commit Parental Alienation, she had helped support my mothers efforts to remove my dad from my life.
Parental Alienation can be stopped if we all follow one simple rule; children come first, not mom, not dad, but the children. In my honest opinion more needs to be done to raise awareness regarding Parental Alienation, there needs to be classes about how to spot it before its too late and also the effects it has on the children, not just as children but as adults. Children have rights to a safe and loving environment and they need that even more once mom and dad split, 50/50 custody is the only way to achieve that but without the support of many people we are going to see a society of fatherless children. Please support 50/50 custody, if you see a father or mother being pushed out of a childs life, please stand up and say its not ok, please fight for that childs right to having both parents in its life.
I have to say I am only 9 years older than my second cousin and we lived just across the road from each other, I had been her babysitter and her playmate, especially due to the fact that neither her nor I had any other cousins close by.
So why did we lose contact for so long, why was that relationship halted all those years ago? Well, my cousin is the niece of my dad and you would think after my parents divorce my mother would stop me having contact but at least this one time she is not to blame for broken down relationships, no, that lay squarely at the feet of my adult cousin.
My young cousin would often ask me why my dad was married to someone else and not my mom, she would ask why I didn't see my dad, she was 5 and her family were still together and happy and for her young mind it was hard to comprehend, so I tried to explain it as best I could without adding more confusion to the situation. I told her my parents were divorced and now lived in separate houses, that my dad had remarried and was very happy and I never said more than that. Now here's the kicker, my cousin hated that I spoke about my dad, she said it wasn't fair to her children that I speak of him, so she forbade me to talk about him or ask about him.
My cousin had been my only link to my dad, she had been the person I would go to to ask if my dad was ok, now she may have had other reasons as to why I couldn't talk about my dad other than the confusion to her children, namely she thought I was asking questions so that I could pass on information to my mother, but I had learned to never talk about my dad in my mothers house, so I kept all information about him to myself.
Now with my second cousin getting in touch it has brought all the emotions of that time flooding back.
All I had ever wanted was to be a part of my dads family, to know that he was ok and still thought of me, I still wanted to be a part of him. I remember feeling so alone and lost at not being able to ask about my dad or talk about it, it was bad enough my mother had banned any talk of him, but for my cousin, my dads flesh and blood to do it as well was the worst feeling ever.
Now my cousin is now divorced and I have to wonder if she stops her daughters from talking about their dad, I wonder how she would feel if someone told her daughters not to talk about her so as not to confuse their children, I'm guessing she would be hurt and angry.
To this day I am still hurt by what she said all those years ago, my anger toward her has long since subsided, but I have to wonder why women seem so hell bent on destroying relationships and lives?
I loved my dad, I love him now, but after 16 years of not knowing anything about him, his whereabouts and if he was ok has certainly taken its toll. Its hard to rebuild relationships after such a long period apart, you have to learn to trust again, and in my case, I hope that my dad will be a part of my life well into the future.
I'm older now, not one to be pushed around, I have my own opinions and thoughts and I will never again let another woman get in the way of a relationship with my dad. Adults are the ones children look up to, surely we should be setting them an example of love and family, not destruction and selfishness, not complete disregard of others feelings.
Without knowing it, my cousin had helped my mother to commit Parental Alienation, she had helped support my mothers efforts to remove my dad from my life.
Parental Alienation can be stopped if we all follow one simple rule; children come first, not mom, not dad, but the children. In my honest opinion more needs to be done to raise awareness regarding Parental Alienation, there needs to be classes about how to spot it before its too late and also the effects it has on the children, not just as children but as adults. Children have rights to a safe and loving environment and they need that even more once mom and dad split, 50/50 custody is the only way to achieve that but without the support of many people we are going to see a society of fatherless children. Please support 50/50 custody, if you see a father or mother being pushed out of a childs life, please stand up and say its not ok, please fight for that childs right to having both parents in its life.
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