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How Many have Experienced Parental Alienation

AVR1962's picture

Would like to hear from those who have dealt with a spouse that tried to alienate their child or step child from the parent or step parent. What did you do about it, and have you had any success in salvaging the relationship?

My situation....ex was having an affair, when I caught him he filed for divorce, told me that his GF didn't want to have the responsibility of our girls who were 1 & 6 at the time, said he would not be one of those that pestered me for visitation and he never did. I had 100% custody and he had visitation that was not specifically stimulated.

After the divorce he started telling my friends/our friends/his family that I had been cheating on him and several more things that were not true. I believe he was trying to cover his own actions and could not admit that he was the one that had the affair and left the marriage. He then left town and made no contact for 2 years. No child support. I was trying to locate his employer. The man left me with a huge debt with his business and I was just barely making ends meet. He and his lady friend break up, he had also been unfaithful to her and he jumps to a girl half the age of is older affair lover.

The young girl wanted to unite ex with his children and so husband came back into the girls' lives. I extended my friendship to his new GF, I actually felt very sorry for her, she was so young and naive. He and I talked and I told him that I wanted our kids to know their step parents as a 2nd parent and that they had 2 dads and 2 moms, he agreed and the relationship my girls had with his new GF was good and the relationship I had with her was also good, infact I preferred dealing with her.

Then when the girls would spend time with their father they'd come back saying that their dad told them the reason he left was I was doing drug, had lived with another man while we were married, was taking them to the bars and leaving them in the car while I partied. None of this was true which I would explain to my children. I talked to ex and he would then tell me that he didn't say these things. Years of this has continued right into my children's adult years. Ex has been determined that he is going to make me the bad guy and he was the poor victim. My ex is very convincing, very manipulative but not much of what comes out of his mouth is the truth.

He cheated on his second wife and they divorced. My children watched and were very aware of what he was doing. He went thru several more GF and some how he figured out ow to justify his behavior with each additional GF, just bizarre.

My oldest daughter is daddy's girl and totally sees anything her dad does as acceptable and I am the bad guy in her book. Years now too she has told a variety of lies, just like her dad, about me and how I have treated her. Good thing is that my daughter has not been nearly as convincing. Her target audience is her step brothers who support all the lies and the nonsense my daughter tells them which is no surprise. Sad thing is she has worked my my grand children to fill their heads too with lies of how awful I treated her. This daughter was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (which I have little doubt my ex has too) when she was 18 an it has been a nightmare to say the least.

I have been with my second husband for 26 years, he too had full custody of his sons. Bio mom left their sons behind when they were 2 & 4, I met them all 3 years after their divorce. She had done the same, left to start a new family and made no contact til she was remarried and had another child which was almost 2 years. Once she found out someone was in the picture (me) she then wanted her sons back. There was no befriending her and that was made clear. I think she felt she was the only capable parent. The boys started making visits and we had the same issues as with the girls and their father....she too was filling the boys' heads with lies. She told them that they didn't need to listen to me, on and on. She kept telling the boys she was going to get them out of our house. My husband wouldn't talk to her, I tried but if anything it just made it worse.

All these years I was the main parent to all 4 children, we had full custody and I tried to make it as much of an intact family as possible. The bio parent on both sides were not good about making regular contact and basically only seen them for a few weeks out of the summer and sometimes a visit at Christmas. I always felt that eventually the kids would see the destructive ways of their bio parent that had abandoned them and they would see thru their lies and see what we dealt with but that has not been the case. Of those 4 children, now age 30-34, only one has contact. The other 3 support the parent that told the lies to alienate them from us.

Anyone have a similar experience? What have you done?

Rags's picture

Though we were the custodial side of our blended family adventure we had to battle attempted PAS from the shallow and polluted Sperm Clan end of my Skid's gene pool. Primarily from the Sperm GrandHag who was of the mind that her POS useless serially out of wedlock breeding waste of skin son was someone who we should respect and who our son should put on a pedestal. Fortunately the facts were present to counter her PAS bullshit and to show anyone with eyes to see that the Sperm Idiot and the entire Sperm Clan were wastes of skin. Our son (my SS) eventually started researching the facts to be able to protect himself from the shallow and polluted end of his gene pool. For some reason they took exception to his calling them on their manipulative lying crap.

Eventually he wrote them off and asked me to adopt him. Now he has the family name, and I am on his birth certificate. The Sperm Clan is not too happy about that.

So, do not tolerate your adult skids playing their crap. Bare their asses with the facts. That may just give them clarity. Tolerating their bullshit unconfronted is solving nothing.

Good luck and take care of you.

Own their idiot asses. And have fun doing it. }:)

AVR1962's picture

Yes, I have given that consideration that. BPD is not bipolar. I have done plenty of looking inside myself.

Snowflake's picture

They have only heard one side of he story. Have you ever disputed this. You shucks set them straight and too them your side. If they don't accept it then perhaps you have no choice but to write them off.

Unfortunately when you are dealing with someone who is mentally ill, you have no choice but to write them off. You will not be able to reason with a bpd person. A person with Bpd usually has attachment issues, could it have been the a adornment from her dad in her early childhood that contributes to this ? Focus on the one that you still have contact with.

AVR1962's picture

They have all dealt with abandonment issues but oldest two have seemed to have the hardest issues, and yes, I do think the BPD was a result of the abandonment.

Disillusioned's picture

If you want to hear from the stepchild point of view, I grew up in a home where my Mom bad-mouthed and alienated us from our bio dad constantly. She cheated on him and left him, then filled our heads with lies that the was cheating on her all the time (he never so much as introduced us to a girlfriend after their divorce but spent months in hospital in a deep depression)

Initially most of us believed everything our Mom said - kids will believe the lies as who would think their own parent would lie to them, deliberately ruin your relationship with your bio parent, or wrongfully destroy someone's else life - when you are the one in the wrong all along!

Well it may well catch up on the bio-parents doing this. It did in my mother's case. Not all of us, but some of us, wizened up and recognized her for what she was. A liar

Not all my siblings have realized this. Some still to this day blame my father and believe all the terrible lies they were told about him. But the rest of us, we see through her, and she knows this.

If my father were still alive today I would no doubt prefer him over my mother - and that would drive her crazy.

What I respect about him the most is he never put her down in return

The advice I can give you is always be honest with your kids about what really happened, but don't succumb to tit for tat, it'll catch up to him one day all on its own!

AVR1962's picture

THANK YOU! I have never met someone who has experienced and realized this and actually saw thru the manipulative parent. My husband and I have genuinely hurt thinking that truth would prevail but what we have seen has been exactly the opposite. I did have a tough role as the main role to all these kids while the parents that abandoned their children and told them lies to alienate us have been very powerful. I have been so dumb founded. When accusations come I have no clue where they are coming from or why.

still learning's picture

My mother did the same thing to attempt to alienate me from my bio father well into my 40's. Father was no angel but the hate my mother spewed about him for decades eventually ended the relationship between her and I. My dad never spoke one ill word about my mother and my mother never spoke one kind word about him. It's unattractive when someone is so hateful and eventually it gets old. My rule with my children is to never speak badly about their father.

My father passed and is now at peace. I have no idea how my mother is doing because as far as I'm concerned she's dead to me and I've already mourned her loss.

The kids may or may not come around. I wouldn't count on it but life is full of surprises.

Disillusioned's picture

If a person is low enough to lie about those things, they will lie about other things in life. My Mom lied and still does all the time about anyone who pisses her off, even if she herself is the one all in the wrong. I never understood that about her and it's hard to admit your own mother is that way, but we've all seen it enough time for most of us to put two and two together, and who really was at fault for our broken home

Sounds like your ex is a lot like my mom ha ha. He lies to everyone and is really good at it (my mom is too, she seems so innocent no one would think otherwise) but if it can catch up to her, believe me, it will catch up to your ex too!

AVR1962's picture

At times I get so angry because I always felt that truth would prevail and when I have seen the lies have prevailed instead it makes me quite upset. I try to not concentrate on that, otherwise it would make me an incredibly angry person. My husband were the parents, we had the responsibility of caring and disciplining these children. The missing bio parent were not parents to these children so it is almost like that grand parent to run to for comfort that the bio parents served to these children. Yet because they are the bio parents they had a great deal more emotional pull.

stepfrancy's picture

Oh..is there another side to a story? Thought only one side and that is the step daughter in laws. She tells it all and everybody believes her when it comes to my story, even my own family and she narcissistic, not me!