PAS: You've Done Nothing Wrong, Don't Behave As If You Have!

Psycho-bitch (PB) has an affair, and then divorces Hubby #1 with allegations that he is an alcoholic. They have two daughters, and she PAS’s them to where they refuse to have anything to do with their father. PB never refers to him by name, only as “The A**hole” or “The S***head”, and continually reminds the girls, as well as anyone else who will listen, that she was forced to leave the alcoholic, abusive evil man, and she and her two precious little girls are poor, innocent victims. PB gets a fantastic divorce settlement by threatening Hubby #1 that she will have him arrested for being drunk while he was with the kids (which was not true, but he didn’t know how to fight it). PB tries to break up the marriage of the man she had the affair with, but he finally answers the clue phone and realizes what a PB he was shagging, and runs for the hills.

PB works part-time, and uses the workplace to pitch her pitiful sob story about how she was forced to “escape” her alcoholic ex-husband. One sorry sap at work falls for the perils-of-Penelope routine and ends up becoming Hubby #2. He even foots the attorney bill to have parental rights removed from Hubby#1, because PB wants Hubby #2 to become “the father of her children”. Mostly, PB has slandered Hubby #1 so effectively that he cannot get a decent-paying job anywhere in their community, so he has the awful choice of either moving away from his daughters or being unable to support them well (he did pay all court-ordered support, but PB couldn’t get the court to order enough $$$ to support her champagne budget). So PB saw prospective Hubby #2 as a nice economic leap for herself and figured if she could get him to adopt the kids, then in any subsequent divorce settlement and support order would go against a much higher paycheck. Hubby #2 falls for it and adopts the kids, all attorney fees paid for by himself, of course.

Meanwhile, the children are exhibiting all of the awful behaviors that you would expect of kids that are being jerked around like this. D#1 is rebellious, mouthy, disrespectful to parents and teachers, and gets into trouble at school constantly. D#2 is into pre-teen smoking, shop-lifting, and promiscuity. As soon as the legal paperwork is complete for Hubby #2 to officially adopt the girls, PB suddenly starts blaming him for all of the behavior problems of the kids. Naturally, it couldn’t be her fault. Hubby #2 starts to smell a rat when he realizes Hubby #1 not only does NOT exhibit any behavior of an alcoholic, but when he learns that Hubby #1 only terminated his parental rights because PB was threatening to have him thrown into jail if he didn’t. Eventually, D#1 grows up to become a brainwashed member of a crazy cult, and D#2 has a baby out of wedlock, declares bankruptcy, and establishes her own porn site to pay for her drug habit.

Of course, now that her two meal tickets are nearing their adult years, PB talks Hubby #2 into producing more children. Hubby #2 is slow enough on the uptake to copulate and produce more children with PB. And then, history repeats itself. PB has an affair, (actually, had two, but didn’t get caught until the second one), and then files for divorce with allegations that Hubby #2 is a pedophile. She never refers to him by name, again using her favorite monikers of A**hole and S***head. She tells the kids constantly that they deserve to know “The Truth”, which is, that their father is an evil pedophile who does heinous things to little girls. And, that he has “abandoned the family”. One more time, she attempts to break up the marriage of the man she had the affair with, and this one heads to Mexico to get away from her. PB threatens Hubby #2 with jail time, and attempts to clean him out financially and get a huge support order as well as a lopsided share of the $1.5M marital estate (even though she hasn’t earned a penny herself since the day she managed to hook-and-land Hubby #2).

And this is where history changes course. Because Hubby #2 happens to be my best friend. And I happen to know a little bit about PAS, being a psychologist. So, with my constant coaching, I helped Hubby #2 and his children avoid becoming yet another PAS statistic. And I will share these tips with any single parent who is in danger of being PAS’d. I can give details to every one of these, but here they are in a nutshell:

1) Stay in contact with your kids, use every means available to you, and continue to pursue it at all costs. Call them, go to their school activities, show up at church, scouts, soccer practice; write them notes – send them Certified Mail about 1/2 the time, and regular mail the other half; remind them of your phone number, remind them that they can call you at any time, even from the phone at the school nurse’s or counselor’s office, or from the phone in the hallway at church, or from a friend’s house. Now, if you actually have court-ordered joint custody, then don’t turn into a stalker, if you are seeing your children on a regular basis. Only do all of this if your ex is denying you access, and do it during the time that the children should be with you.

2) Continually remind your children that you love them, that you are there for them, that you will never abandon them; give them evidences of this, such as having their pictures on your fridge and in your wallet, asking to keep school papers or projects that are special, and show up for everything; listen to them, really stop, look them in the eye, and give them your absolute full attention, and then commit whatever they say to memory so you can refer to it later.

3) Never never never go into the reasons for the divorce, do NOT make allegations against your ex, do not PAS your ex or return tit-for-tat. Insofar as you are able to do so, make them realize that they have your full support in their right to love, respect, honor, and have positive regard toward their other parent.

That’s it, three steps that will take you and your children miles and miles down the road to better emotional health.

In the case of my best friend, the kids have easily been able to see what their mother is doing – and he doesn’t have to say a thing. They know he is there for them, and they exhibit all of the confidence and joy of well-established, emotionally-secure children. They regularly turn to him for emotional support, school help, social help, pretty much everything. His consistency is Exhibit-A against their mother’s phony allegations. At first, he didn’t want to show up at their soccer games, because he knew what all the other parents had been told about him. I said “If you don’t show up, and hold your head up high, then you give PB’s b.s. credibility. You have done nothing wrong, so don’t behave as though you have.” He took my advice, and eventually, PB was the one who looked like the idiot. That’s just one example of course, and everyone’s situation is slightly different. But truly, the three steps I outline above do work.

~JB

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