This should not be pushed under the rug…..

I was unsure if I was going to write about this here. At first I didn’t want this to cloud up my blog, but the more and more I thought about it, I want people to know at least part of the story. There is not enough space to possibly talk about everything here in this blog. After thinking about it there are things in life that people push under the rug and don’t talk about . They conveniently ignore and if they are not ignoring it they are blaming you for what happened. I wanted to put it all out there so there are no longer questions of us. There should be questions of the other party involved and they should be held accountable. So after reading this if you have any sort of confusion, anger, etc, you probaby should talk to the other party involved. They have yet to be held accountable.

1. I met James in 2005. Yes we met online. When you think of it is not such a scary place because you could go home with someone in a bar and they be corrupt. People are always scared of what they don’t know and unless your meeting someone in church, then I guess anything is up for debate. Anyway like most online relationships you get to know the person before you decide anything. When James and I formally met , in both our minds we had already loved eachother. Our relationship is and still is great and I really feel like we are best friends.

2. We both had kids, we waited awhile before we started introductions. Max had never met anyone that I had dated before intentionally. Max was very young ( just 3) and very impressionable. His adoptive dad Jason was in and out of his life. He didn’t see a male figure on a regular basis. I didn’t want him attached to someone and then that relationship end and he suffered another lost. James had two girls, one a teenager and one a pre-teen at the time. He too was cautious, wanted to wait until the right time to introduce everyone.

3. However the relationship progressed and we knew that there were some life altering changes that were going to happen. I was going to move and we were going to get married. We got married for the following reasons

A. We love eachother and we wanted to make the commitment

B. LIVING TOGETHER IS NOT THE BEST EXAMPLE WE WANTED TO SHOW THE CHILDREN.

C. We wanted to make the commitment formal. For us living together is not a formal commitment.

I was excited about gaining stepdaughters, max was excited about gaining stepsisters. The girls on the other hand weren’t so excited and issued their father an ultimatum: Either lose us or don’t get married and keep us. James was distraught. He never saw this coming, he never felt the girls would be like this. We read lots of books when this started to happened and consulted a therapist on how best to set up our home. The worst thing to happen that the therapist said was to let the children have control. If we let them dictate our life, we are creating monsters.

It has almost been two years that we have been married…let me give you a quick snynopsis in list form.

1. The girls have tried every possible way to pit themselves between their father and me. I think the girls actually believed that if they acted as unhappy as they possibly could be, their dad would change his mind and get a divorce.

2. The girls have become master manipulators. They would issue demands and when their demands were not met, they would use those as excuses for not coming over. One of the demands inlcuded that we did not buy their mechanical pencils when asked.

3. The girls do not live in reality. They refuse to accept that I am in their life or that Max exists in their life. I have never said anything negative to the girls. I am a teacher and understand teenagers more than most and to be honest only wanted to have a great relationship with the girls.

4. They have lied, taken without asking, etc. They lied in a court document stating that our four year old son at the time was physically and verbally abusive. They said that I was abusive, and that their father was bipolar. They believed these accusations so much that they refused for me to be in their presence for a while and we went along with it in an attempt to smooth the situation.

5. They have reaped the benefits. We have given them gifts, trips, etc. Many times without thank you and in return telling us that none of the things we offered were ever good enough.

6. They refuse to get help to deal with their feelings.

7. They have estranged their father completely and family. The oldest one graduated high school and there was no invitation to her dad or her 75 year old grandmother. They would show up for Christmases in years past, accept the gifts and then run off. Their father had emergency surgery this year and they were aware of it, but never called to ask why or if he was ok. Many father’s days and birthdays have gone by without even a hiccup. We haven’t seen the oldest in five months, almost seven months since she voluntarily came over, the youngest left in February. We probably will never see them again. The excuse in February was that we don’t do enough fun things in our house, and it doesn’t feel like a home.

6. The last time we tried to pick up the youngest, we had to call the police beforehand, because we were honestly worried about a confrontation.

7. We were not even allowed to talk, or parent in our home. The girls held themselves hostage any time we wanted to have an opinion or even said no.

For the past two years we have seen a therapist who pretty much told us that we had to be strong, that our parenting wasn’t coroporal punishment ( even though we have been accused of not kissing the girls’ asses by many different people), and that these girls are snakes and have been brainwashed.
We have:

1. Tried to fight through the legal system to no avail. We have wasted time and money doing this.

2. We have talked to the girls directly… they run away (literally)

3. We have tried to make things positive in our household and everytime it was turned around into something it was not. They have even set traps for us and waited for us to try to walk into them so they would have something else to accuse.

4. Never stopped caring about them or loving them. This has been hard for all of us but especially for their Dad who spent a lot of time not really understanding to being really hurt that his own flesh and blood would do the things they have done. ( You are reading just really the tip of the iceberg)
There is a term for what we have been through……

Parental Alienation: Here is the definition

1. Form of Relational agression from one parent to the other parent using the children. Though it is not limited to just parents ( friends, other family members can be just as guilty of this)

Here’s an example:

1. Why does your dad do that? That is so stupid, I am so glad I am not with him.

2. You don’t really want to be away from me and spend extra time with your dad. Come on its more fun over here.

3. Do you want to spend Easter with you dad or do you want it to be exactly the same way as last year?

4. Hurry home because we are going to order Chinese food when you get here.

Those are just some verbal examples that the alienator might say, there are a ton of ways to alienate that don’t include being verbal, like scheduling birthday parties on the other parents’ time. Purposely not making the child available for their time with the other parent.

Some other symptoms

1. brain washing

2. character assassination ( your dad is really sick, he’s bipolar, he doesn’t know what he is doing by getting married to another woman and leaving you)

3. false inducement of fear.

4. unconscious alliances with the children against the target parent. ( I cannot support you in your decision to marry Becky, I can’t let you hurt the children).

5. Using the children as spies.

There are many different types of alienation but in our situation it was the obessed alienator ( the worst type)

1.have a fervent cause to destroy the targeted parent. Frequently a parent can be a blend between two types of alienators, usually a combination between the naïve and active alienator. Rarely does the obsessed alienator have enough self-control or insight to blend with the other types. These three patterns of alienating behaviors are not intended to be used as a diagnosis. Wait this describes it better:

“I love my children. If the court can’t protect them from their abusive father, I will. Even though he’s never abused the children, I know it’s a matter of time. The children are frightened of their father. If they don’t want to see him, I’m not going to force them. They are old enough to make up their own minds.”

Last time we tried to pick up the youngest, their mother said….. I understand it is your time to be with her, but I’m not going to force her to come see you anymore, no one is going to force her. I understand what being in contempt of the court order means but not even the court is going to force her to see you.

If you are still not convinced I suggest you read more on the topic of parental alienation…though some of what happened was also due to permissive parenting.

This type of parent simply wants the child to like him or her at the end of the day and will do anything the child requests to do. The resulting children are rarely (if ever) punished and are generally immature. They seldom assume responsibility for their actions.

We had a parent who and still does support whatever the decision the kids make even if they know it is wrong. In fact this parent believes if they get an F in math it really is the math teacher’s fault even if the math teacher says the reason they are failing is because of not paying attention, lack of trying, etc. For some reason the child is not liked by the math teacher.

Deep down…. the mother of this situation knew it was deeply wrong to let the kids make their own custody agreement or estrange themselves from their other side of their family, but not only did she allow this to happen, she encourages it and I think to be honest it makes her happy.

What is required of you:

1. To understand and sympathasize with the situation.

2. Not to comment on what we should have done or what we are doing wrong.

A. I have been working with adolescents for five years ( some who have had horrible hands dealt to them like losing both their parents to violence). I think I have an inkling of what I am talking about.

3. Respect my husband and I’s decision:

a. To no longer chase the girls. We have stopped calling and emailing because they told him to, but also because it opened us up for the hurt that we would feel when they refuse to return calls, the attitude they give us when they call, and the ransom demands.

b. To no longer put ourselves in an immediate position of getting hurt or hurting Max. ( we started seeing a family therapist because he was hurt by the lack of acceptance he felt by the girls.)

c. If the girls decide to come back the only way we will accept them back is in front of a therapist. The trust has been 100% completely broken .

d. To no longer waste money through the court system. The girls and their mother do not mind being in contempt of court and have made it perfectly clear that they will be in contempt of court if there is an order to see their father.

e. If you talk to the girls, tell them what they are doing is wrong. This is something they need to hear. They will never hear it from their permissive mother. Tell them they should talk to their dad, their grandmother, that they need to accept reality. Encourage them to stop what they are doing.

We are moving past all of this and starting our life and good things will happen. We try not to think about it, but it is always there. Please don’t take this as an attitude that it does not bother us or upset us. It most certainly does but we have reached a point as a family where we are moving on. There is too much life to waste here.