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  • How to deal with the start of Parental Alienation

    My ex has started down the path of parental alientation since she's not winning. She has started telling the children the parental schedule and now my son told me that "you are a bad dad if you don't bring {daughter} to daycare". I spent the day with her instead of taking her, my ex protested.

    Today this series of text messages happened:

    Ex: I'm concerned about the freezing rain warning. What do you think?

    Me: I'll pick the kids up at my normal time.
    Ex: I know u don't want to loose time with the kids but I don't want to put them at risk. You could get them earlier next weekend.
    Me: No
    Ex: Ok I'm trying to work with you but clearly you can't be reasonable
    Me: You are not being reasonable, this is Canada, it snows. It is not a big deal.
    Ex: Sorry for caring about the kids

    *we have shared custody, my time is Sun to Wed.



    How do I nip this in the bud? We have a mediation session this week and a case conference in January.

  • #2
    Lets face it mostly all children feel separation/divorce their fault in some way.
    What puts the emphasis on them is when a parent puts down the other parent.
    In my way of thinking that's telling the child that half of she/him is BAD.
    To me that's one of the worst kinds of abuse.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by minefield View Post
      My ex has started down the path of parental alientation since she's not winning. She has started telling the children the parental schedule and now my son told me that "you are a bad dad if you don't bring {daughter} to daycare". I spent the day with her instead of taking her, my ex protested.

      Today this series of text messages happened:

      Ex: I'm concerned about the freezing rain warning. What do you think?

      Me: I'll pick the kids up at my normal time.
      Ex: I know u don't want to loose time with the kids but I don't want to put them at risk. You could get them earlier next weekend.
      Me: No
      Ex: Ok I'm trying to work with you but clearly you can't be reasonable
      Me: You are not being reasonable, this is Canada, it snows. It is not a big deal.
      Ex: Sorry for caring about the kids

      *we have shared custody, my time is Sun to Wed.



      How do I nip this in the bud? We have a mediation session this week and a case conference in January.
      This isn't PAS. This is just bad parenting by the other parent possibly.

      If there is an agreement or court order in place, you should be flexible but, the reality is that the agreement and/or court order trumps what either parent "want" or "feel" is best.

      Court orders and agreements are put in place to govern BOTH parents.

      Yes, weather does happen and this is Canada and the other parent should be aware of the weather conditions and make every effort to insure that the order and/or agreement is met. Leave early, plan your day accordingly etc...

      Applying logic to the situation, schools rarely close due to extreme weather conditions. You get maybe 1-2 closures at most a year on average. To try and use "weather" as an excuse to disrupt the access schedule would not be an argument I would recommend anyone bring forward to the court. It only demonstrates that they can't resolve issues and only focus on problems.

      What would the other parent in this matter think the court is going to order? That they have sole custody and you have supervised access because of the "weather"?

      The harder question for the court to ponder is why the parents, in a joint residential situation and joint custody don't live close enough to the school/daycare/each other to facilitate the concept of "maximum contact" which the court expects.

      The questions the court will ponder is... Who created the divide on the habitual jurisdiction of the children? Why don't both parents live close to their habitual school and daycare? What is the motivating factor for that parent to not want to live there? Is their reason rational and reasonable?

      Also, the court has to consider what can be ordered to improve the children's - not the parent's - best interests. If a parent chose to leave the habitual residential location, move away from their school catchment, continued to move further away... They will have to on a prima facia basis demonstrate a significant "material change in circumstance" that their residential location is better and in the children's best interests to change that.

      Furthermore, the stability of their living arrangement, their family situation and other important factors will be weighed by the court.

      If you OP are the moving parent and don't live close to the children's school it will fall on you to explain to the court why you don't and to provide a VERY solid reason as to why and how not living close to the school is in the children's "best interests" etc...

      The utterance that the children are "in danger" due to weather conditions and that an exchange cannot happen is irrational and should the other parent go to court with this... They won't have a smiling judge at the stand but, one who will lambaste them with strong statements and possibly one that will call them "paranoid" for even bringing this to court.

      It is hard being on the receiving end of the "its all your fault" (you are putting our children in danger) allegations like this... Rational and logical though is often absent when a parent makes these statements. Hopefully over time the other parent in your matter will figure it out and the court won't have to get involved to assist in their "figuring it out".

      Also, stop with the SMS messages. They are the plague of family law... They are instant gratification for highly conflicted people. They often don't think about what they are writing and just use them as an "emotional garbage can" to project blame and be irrational at times unfortunately.

      What the other parent may want is for you to engage, create more conflict and fight... Realize that the other parent's only connection to you after seperation and divorce might be the conflict that they created with you throughout your relationship and the only "connection" they have to you. They may be alone, feel alone, or going through other problems and using you as a lighting rod ("target of blame") for other things going on in their life.

      They may be used to blaming you for everything that goes wrong in their life. In fact, the premise of your whole relationship may have been that they were in need of protection, that everyone they ever met was so mean to them, and that you "saved" them. They may not realize that all their past relationships, friendships and other relational problems the have experienced are resultant from their own conduct.

      There really is nothing a court can do to fix the problem. Only therapy can help them get over their failed communication style... Friends stop talking to them, they threaten people with litigation, threaten your lawyer, threaten you with lawsuits and attempt to use anyone they can to paint you as the "all bad" parent / litigant in the matter.

      Suffice to say... The court is not this stupid and most judges in the major jurisdictions see enough of this garbage litigation to be able to call it for what it is... a "tactic".

      Good Luck!
      Tayken

      Comment


      • #4
        Thanks Tayken. I know this example isn't true PAS, yet, hence why I want to put a stop to this behaviour now. My ex has cPTSD (diagnosed and medicated) but she can be very high conflict. I have no doubt that she will escalate it if I don't stop it. We've been to mediation 4x in 20 months, each time she claims I've broken the agreement or she wants things changed. The mediator is starting to see her as the problem, and my ex see's the mediator as "black" (the whole splitting thing) hence the push to go to court, the judge is a new person to convince that she has been wronged by me.

        The text message, in her eyes, is to prove that I am uncooperative and she'll bring that to mediation this week. If I don't answer SMS she'll claim I'm not good at communicating. I try to keep things short and simple.

        We've talked about the PTSD a year or so ago and you gave me some great advice, and I've stuck to focussing on the kids, but my ex just can't accept things.

        Comment


        • #5
          quit being pussy-whipped... she says "jump" you say "how high"

          who care what your ex accepts or not.. you're not together anymore... get a grip or at least a bib to catch your drool on

          Really!

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by arabian View Post
            quit being pussy-whipped... she says "jump" you say "how high"

            who care what your ex accepts or not.. you're not together anymore... get a grip or at least a bib to catch your drool on

            Really!
            Yes Arabian, really. He comes on her for help and you attack him like that? I never picked up on anything that gave me the impression that he is "pussy-whipped" The last comment about the drool, what the hell do you mean about that?

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by minefield View Post
              Ex: Ok I'm trying to work with you but clearly you can't be reasonable
              sigh...lol. I've seen this before. With this same situation. (the weather is too bad, and how dare I endanger our child, for my own selfish reasons. Something a judge would be very intersted in seeing...blah blah blah).

              Just re-iterate, that you will be picking your child up at usual time, and if the weather does become bad, you will of course excercise caution while driving).

              My experience, and observation is, that when an ex states in their exchange to you "you clearly can't be reasonable" in their txt/email to you, in these cases, they had this "dialog" planned from the start, and think this is some "evidence" they can use against you, to show you are an unreasonable parent. (rolling my eyes).

              Comment


              • #8
                Thanks dad2bandm, and yes my ex tends to do these things at specific times (i.e. before mediation). The weahter wasn't even bad, it was just a weather statement to use caution.

                I'm still not sure how to deal with this in mediation. Do I bring it up or just ignore it. I would like to discuss it with the mediator, more to stop the behaviour than to actually complain about it. Should I just speak with my ex directly? I realize that this is all about the children, and if we all got along with out ex's we'd still be married.

                Comment

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