You are here

Reunification after bioparent witholding child

violetforest's picture

Our family has for the past several years has been blocked from visitation with our son 13. BF has repeatedly driven the 1 1/2 hours one way to gain access to ss13 for court ordered visitation, court ordered therapy, midweek visits, IEP meetings, school conferences, sporting events, band events ect, only to have his ex refuse to allow him access to his son (recently ss13 has begun to refuse on his own, the GAL brought up the term parental alienation)
The court has ordered that BM participate and allow ss13 to participate in all of the above. Court is coming up on the 29th and the GAL last week told BF that both Bm and ss13 were told that they both were to cooperate or they could risk ss13 being physically removed from BM's home for court ordered activities or placed in foster care. Per the GAL ss13 was polite but was not moved by the information that she provided to him. BM only expresses concerns over the younger of the two ss's, the oldest being 16 and who lives with us fulltime, he was the same age as the youngest ss13 when this nightmare began. BM only seeks to "protect" ss13 from what she claims is abusive situations within our home.

There have been 7 professionals involved all have at least a master's level education and one (who was hired by BM, information below on the concerns with this therapist)that has her bachlor degree, who has stated that there is abuse. All of the rest have made very clear statements that they do not have any concerns for abuse including the parental assessment that has been completed.

With the court date coming up the family tension is rising. Do any of you have suggestions on how to handle things when SS13 returns for vistits and or is placed back in our home? I am open to any ideas and I will not be offended. I am very concerned with false alligations and how to help the rest of the 5 children adjust to ss13 being back in the picture.

We do have a court ordered family therapist in place who is a Dr. level, he is very willing to provide services but has been unable to clarify his concerns because we have been unable to gain access to SS13 for sessions needed to evaluate ss13 for parental alienation (which is not a legal diagnosis).

BM's therapist has refused to follow the court order that states that she must communicate with both parent's.
She is to provide both parents of a schedule of sessions and allow both parent's to participate in sessions with SS13. Bm participates with SS13 during almost every session.
This has been going on for 3 years now and she continues to refuse to allow BF to participte in sessions with SS13 "too upsetting for SS13, he is not ready for interactions".
She has claimed that there is significant abuse and in court claiming that I have threatented to Kill my ss13 (UNTRUE).
She told the court that SS13 stated to "her" that he was going to kill himself if he had to visit his BF but in her records it stated only that BM had reported that SS13 was going to kill himself (when asked about this in court her only response was that she must have remembered things inaccurately) SS13 told all of the other therapist involved that he never made that statement.
Law enforcement was contacted during this situation and their report shows that ss13 denied that he made the statement.
This therapist has only met with me alone on one occassion it lasted less than 10 minutes in which she accused me of abuse, stated that I had no business being involved with either of the boys since I was the one who had an affair with BF (UNTRUE, never happed, I did not get together with BF until after his divorce was final! there is proof in BF and BM's therapy statement from their marriage therapy that BM was having multiple affairs - we got the records to show in court, just a very small example of what BM will say to turn the boys against us.)
BM's therapist agreed to do family threapy in court but than refused after the court hearing (admitted to it in a proceeding hearing).
Bm's therapist has met with BF only 2 times and both times she accused BF of telling lies about ss13, not telling the truth about having an affair with me (said that ss13 remembered it - he was in preschool! and when asked who his teacher was he couldn't tell the assessor), during that session the therapist allowed BM to stand up and scream at us, Bm threw court papers at the both of us while (therapist was in the room, looking for her copy of the order), therapist was claiming that I was not allowed to have any contact with ss13 (unture, thank goodness we had a copy of the court order with us, along with the assessment and the GAL's letter allowing contact).
This therapist also physically blocked BF from ss who was sitting in the waiting room, she refused to allow BF to see and speak to his son and she refused to allow BF to take ss13 to his court ordered therapy session because it was "too upsetting to BM and SS13 had homework".
To say the least we have NO faith in this therapist and are hopeful that the court will "block" BM from taking SS13 to her for sessions.

TheOtherMom's picture

I don't know what state you are in but as a student of Psychology and someone who hangs out with a couple of therapists (not therapy though, LOL!), this is unethical and is grounds for license revocation. HOWEVER, a therapist does not have to converse with both parents if there is a point of interest - for example, SS9's therapist tried to speak to BM but she lashed out at him when he asked her for background information - he will not speak to her now for fear of retribution against SS9 (actually that is pretty valid). So maybe there is a reason the therapist isn't talking to BF - but if the judge said they have to then well ... it would behoove your BM and your SS and your BF for the therapist to comply.

Hope he finds a solution.

violetforest's picture

That very topic came up for discussion in court under oath: Therapist stated that she had background information from biomom and did not feel that biomom had any reason to be dishonest. Therapist also confirmed that BF had been polite and respectful on the phone during conversations they had. Therapist did state that she felt "threatened" when BF left a voice message that unless he recieved information and notice per the order and that he be permitted to engage in the therapy to provide background and ongoing information that he was going to request that she be removed from the case. The therapist response was to the attorney questioning that was that "per BM BF was capable of causing harm to others". Everyone is but he works law enforcement and has never been charged or accused of this ever.