The Psycho Ex Wife

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From a reader, HG:

Hello,

I am a reader of your blog, and I was hoping I could enlist your assistance for my cause. I am going to be petitioning the Governor of my state, Virginia, to proclaim April 25th Parental Alienation Awareness Day, and I have started a petition in support of the proclamation. I am trying to get as many signatures as possible, especially Virginians - but I am having a really hard time. (Which, I guess, is why awareness is so important!)

I am hoping that you might see fit to make your readers aware of the petition.  If you would like to sign, or post the link, the petition can be found here:

Petition to have Parental Alienation Awareness Day recognized in Virginia

Thank you - and keep writing! Your blog has been a huge help to my husband and I. Especially the low/no contact.

~HG

Let’s help HG see her project through to successful recognition by officials in the state of Virginia. Sign the petition.

Last year, we here at thepsychoexwife, shined a spotlight on Parental Alienation Awareness Day 2008. Many, many readers submitted their own experiences with parental alienation. Some involved their offspring. Some were children of alienators.  On April 25, 2008 - we posted a story approximately every 30-minutes for 24-hours.  It was tough, because I was using software that didn’t allow me to schedule posts… so DW and I split up our sleep times and post times to make sure we honored our commitment.

They were all heartbreaking stories that were shared in an effort to make sure that spotlight shined bright!  I thank again all those who found the strength to share their story.

This year, we would like to do something very similar… only without the specific time interval!  So, if you have a story that you would like to share, send it to us.  As always, names will be changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty.  The important part of this exercise is to share the story and show the world that parental alienation exists… it hurts children and parents… and needs to be accounted for in court, as we’ve seen occurring more and more in the news, not just in the United States but beyond, too!

Visit the Parental Alienation Awareness Day Organization Website for events in your town, your city, your state, your country!  If you are sending a submission to us for posting on April 25th, 2009 - please include “PAS STORY” in the subject line… and thank you for even considering doing so.  Spread the word.

And it’s about frigging time!

I’d like to see more of these cases whereby a parent who engages in such behavior suffers serious consequences for their actions.  My only hope is that it doesn’t take 10-years for someone to take action!

Link: Mom Loses Custody for Alienating Dad (from the Toronto Star)

In a stunning and unusual family law decision, a Toronto judge has stripped a mother of custody of her three children after the woman spent more than a decade trying to alienate them from their father.

Stunning indeed. Based on the information in the rest of the article, the campaign of chaos and terror this woman perpetrated on the persistent father was very familiar. Many who read this blog have experienced similar situations, though few of those I “know” are 10-years into such an effort. I’m sorry for this man that it took 10-years of hell but - his persistence paid off. This man was given sole custody!

McWatt stipulated that [the mother] is to have no access to the children except in conjunction with counseling, including a special intensive therapy program for children affected by “parental alienation syndrome.” The mother must bear the costs.

Oh, look out! They used the term “syndrome” and I’m sure that the rad-fems of the world will be screaming their lungs out to see this “travesty of justice” overturned for poor mom! I’m sure that they’ll claim that she was doing what she thought was best for the children, too.  Has hell frozen over?  Not only is she ordered to attend the counseling, she has the sole responsibility for the costs associated with same.  I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day!

Pray for that therapist. I’m certain that the malicious mother’s first efforts in counseling will be to bad-mouth the father and try to win him/her over to mom’s side. They almost always do that. A  person who engages in a 10-year effort is not easily changed and I’d bet a lot of money that her efforts continue through this intensive therapy.

Harold Niman, the father’s lawyer, said the decision serves as a wake-up call to parents who, “for bitterness, anger or whatever reason,” decide to use their children to punish their former partners.

Parents who have had to endure efforts to be alienated from the children that they love and care about should only be so lucky. Spread the word, maybe the world will start to sit up and take notice.

“Having said that, there are some people – and I think some of them are suffering from personality disorders – who will not respond to therapy and will not respond to directions from judges.”

You don’t say!

The article is worth the full read. The efforts this malicious mother had undertaken will be of no surprise to many who read this blog. They certainly weren’t to me. What is a surprise is that a father was awarded SOLE CUSTODY of his three children as a result of mom just choosing not to change her ways after being afforded many opportunities. (The latter comment also did not come as a surprise.)  I wonder if she’ll be ordered to pay child support?  If so, I wonder if she’ll actually pay it?

You want to read heartbreaking stories - check out the submissions that people made for our Parental Alienation Awareness Campaign in 2008. That was a small sample of the stories we received over the course of a few weeks.  Maybe this is just the beginning of the kind of hope we need in order to see situations like this addressed more swiftly, with real and meaningful severe consequences.

Thank you:

- To all of you who have seen fit to take a moment to share your past experiences, your present experiences, and your fears of future experiences involving parental alientation. We know it’s very difficult and certainly your stories are the tip of the iceberg. To those who may not see their stories today, it’s no slight, expect that you will see them in the future.

- To all of those who cruise by to read and contribute to the site. The feedback (both positive and even negative) is welcomed and almost entirely meaningful.

- To DW for all of her help with this effort.

- To work, for not catching me clicking over to upload a new story every 15-minutes.

I’m worn out. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to keep up with the 15-minute intervals, even with a fair amount of preparation. (Of course, it *is* a work-day!) I hope that everyone who is reading here today and in the future gains something from the personal experiences shared by those who sent in emails. We’ll continue to shine a spotlight on this and other issues as we continue on this path.

Wishing everyone experiencing such trials and tribulations the most positive outcome.

Sincerely,
LM & DW

I’m not even officially divorced yet. I’m afraid that my STBX (soon-to-be-ex) is turning my kids against me and making them think I don’t love them. The custody battle is very high conflict and I have no doubts that the children would be better off if they were with me primarily.

My daughter is 7, and my son is 10. Not only does my wife have a new boyfriend - he has already moved into the house that I built for our family! The new(est) lover is taking my kids to their sports games and other activities and my children ignore me when I’m there. I strongly believe that it’s because that they are afraid to upset their mother. I certainly don’t want to cause a scene in a public place (or any place for that matter), but she’s already threatening to file abuse charges against me and get a restraining order. She even mocks me that doing so is actually “way easier” that what we’re going through now. She KNOWS the system is set-up to very easily push me out of the children’s lives for an indefinite period of time.

On top of all of that, whenever I call, she’s always making some excuse for the kids not to come to the phone. If they’re in the tub, they’re watching TV, or sleeping, or out playing “somewhere.” I’m really worried that they’re being brainwashed against me. I’ve read about the Parental Alienation Syndrome, and I think it may be going on. I want what is best for my kids, and I really fear that I am already losing them!

What can a dad do?

~GZ

I have been separated now for about a year from my ex. Let me take you back one year from now…

We argued on just about everything, from what we wanted from each other to what we needed for our kids. We attended couples counselling, parenting classes and was even dealing with child and family services. The problem with child and family services was the fact that our worker had the stereotypical view of her being the vicim and me being the “bad guy”. This went on for about two months. The bickering about not needing a $700 stroller and $200 on pictures while I’m borrowing money off my boss to pay rent. Yadda Yadda.

On Thursday June 7, I came home from work as usual and found no one to be at home. I had first thought that maybe they were out shopping or something. Later on that night I became worried and called a couple of friends. I found out that she had left to live with another guy, who apparently was just a friend giving her a place to stay. The following day I took off from work to talk with her. We came to an agreement for child support and parenting times. I would pay her on the 15th of every month starting that June and the kids would live with me every weekend starting that particular weekend. This went on for a month, as well as the bickering every Friday and Sunday.

In July, about 3 hours after I got home from work, two peace officers served me with an EPO (emergency protection order aka restraining order) and an ex-parte interim parenting order. The previous weekend to that, I had the kids and her first born that she was baby sitting for the weekend (my ex’s parents adopted her). She had asked if I could watch her as well because she and her live in “friend” wanted to go to a concert at the Stampede. I then had to find a lawyer.

Legal aid turned me away so I was stuck paying full price for legal representation. After about 3 or 4 court appearances and 6 weeks, I was granted supervised access, by anyone, not less than 3 hours a visit and not less than twice per week. And that’s all she would give me. The only problem with that was half of the supervisors were her good friends. Nothing but bad reports.

My sister was getting married in August and our daughter was supposed to be a flower girl. My ex would have nothing to do with it and made sure that our kids could not attend. Later on it was asked by the courts why this happened and she had said that “(he) could’ve taken the kids with (him) but (he) never asked.” I had asked about 6 times prior to me leaving for BC.

In September, we had another court appearance and I was then granted both supervised and unsupervised public access. This whole time, every visit was tough because both me and the kids would be crying, yes I was crying, when the visit was over. They would be saying things like “no, not see mommy, see daddy” and “stay at daddy’s house, no see mommy, stay with daddy” and so on. After the last episode of supervisors, I found someone who was neutral in the whole situation. She supervised all the nessessary supervised visits after that.

At the end of October we had our first trial date for custody. I wasn’t expecting to have my name ran through the mud as much as she had done. I was everything from a child abuser to a spouse abuser to an alcoholic to you name it. To clarify things, I hardly ever drink, I have never abused my children in any, way shape or form, and I never once abused my ex in any way. But, as it would happen, only her side was presented that day. The judge felt like he couldn’t make any decisions on parenting time so my kids and I were stuck only seeing 5 hours of each other each week. More time was allowed by courts but that was the minimum. We were also ordered to go to mediation.

We had 3 mediation appointments. In each appointment she would say that I needed anger management class and she would not let me have anymore time with the kids unless I took a course. The mediator had said that he would make the determination if anyone needed anger management class. We had discussed many things such as parenting times and materialistic things she left at my place and debts that we left each other. On all three things mentioned she had gotten very upset at the fact that I wouldn’t succumb to all her demands and stormed out of the appointment screaming “this s^*t is over!” I had only offered what I thought was fair (the mediator happened to agree with me on a few of the topics). Again, this whole time our kids are the ones who are losing the most. Our next trial date was in January, so I had asked if I could have the kids for some time on Christmas with them. My ex, again, wouldn’t allow it. And, again, said that she had offered me to have them for some time but I never accepted.

The day before our next trial date I sat down with my lawyer and disscussed many different aspects of our trial. We could stoop to her level and smear her all over the court and present very incriminating evidence, which would have felt great, or we could make her an offer that would benefit the kids the most. And much cheaper, no lawyer fee on a whole day (approx $2500). The offer was that for January and February, one weekend Saturday morning to Sunday night, and every second weekend was a full weekend, Friday night to Sunday night. Specific dates and times for those two months, and after that full weekends, extended on long weekends.

To my surprise, she agreed. A week later she was already trying to change the agreement. She wanted the kids for a whole weekend for a birthday party that had been planned spur of the moment. I would have been more than happy to give her the kids for the party if it wasn’t for the fact that she wanted the whole weekend and I already had plans for another b-day party that was planned months in advance. As well the dates and times were stated and agreed to the previous week.

Again in March, our sons birthday was coming up and my sisters and their kids were coming out for the party I had planned. My ex knew that they were coming that specific weekend and my kids hadn’t seen their aunties or cousins in over 4 months. They had come here to visit during the time of unsupervised visits, after the first trial date. Our sons birthday was in the middle of the week. When she had asked for the Sunday following his birthday, of which my sisters were her, I had said “no, my sisters are coming out, you know that. I will give you the Sunday prior to his birthday if you would like.” That never happened, it wasn’t what she wanted.

Since then she has stated that she will be going to work soon and wants to change our final and consenting parenting order. At this point our kids live with her Sunday night to Friday night, and with me Friday night to Sunday night. She is suggesting that the weekends be shared. In other words I get every other weekend. She says that because she will be going to work that her parenting time is getting drastically reduced and she feels like the parenting time wouldn’t be fair. (If you figure out the math, we get equal parenting time if she starts working).

Thats my situation so far.

As a side note, my children’s developments throughout this whole separation have been slowed. Because of the issues between their mother and I and our parenting styles, our children have been developing very slow. I guess what this has to do with alienation is because one parent has been keeping them from the other it has caused our children to be slower in their development and very dependent on one parent or the other. I say this because every weekend my kids are such daddy kids. Daddy’s girl and daddy’s boy, such a wonderful handful!

~Ryan P.