Part of my story

A couple of months ago, the United Nations requested a call for inputs to inform the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls’ report on the nexus between custody and guardianship cases, violence against women and violence against children, with a focus on the abuse of the concept of “parental alienation” and related or similar concepts.

Our experiences as survivors and protective parents in the legal system are typically complex and lengthy, so writing a condensed version can be challenging. I am posting my submission here in hopes it will offer encouragement for others of you who have personally experienced something similar. Truly, there are few other experiences in our lives that have as great an impact long-term as abuse does - whether through individual relationships or public institutions.

We here at the IPPA offer our support and empathy for the pain and suffering that you and your children have endured.

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For the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences Call for inputs – Custody cases, violence against women and violence against children December 6, 2022

I had never heard of the term “parental alienation” until 2016, when I was accused of committing it by my ex-husband’s attorney and the GAL assigned to our seven children during our divorce process.

After reading the GAL’s report to the court, I searched online for information about what parental alienation meant. I stared in open-mouthed horror at the description given for the term. The horror I felt wasn’t because it was something I was actually guilty of perpetrating, but because many of the behaviors given as examples were behaviors my own children were displaying. In stark contrast to the internet’s explanation of why they were behaving as they were, (because I was an alienator) was the real and true reason why they were behaving as they were: that it was the natural response to the relentlessly abusive and coercively controlling way their father had long been treating them.

Despite my best efforts to point out to court professionals the lack of logic in the theory and to request legitimate evidence of any behaviors on my part to give credibility to the term, the label stuck. I repeatedly gave examples of his abusive and intimidating behaviors toward the kids, which were carefully documented, but none of these valid examples seemed to matter to the court professionals – the GAL, the child psychologist, or my ex-husband’s attorney.

He stalked the kids in his white pick-up truck when my 18-year-old daughter drove them to church, to McDonalds, and even the movie theater. He bullied and threatened them at home, glaring at them while they played outside and videotaping them with his phone, taunting them as they played with their toys. He restricted their access to food – not providing enough and taking their food away when he was angry with them. He sent them intimidating and bullying emails and texts. He refused to allow them to see their friends or even go to the park without him during his parenting time.

He also stalked me at parenting time transitions and sent intimidating and subtly coercive emails and texts on a regular basis. He set up a home monitoring system to listen/watch the kids and me when we were in our home, so we put black electric tape over the cameras and talked in whispers or outside. He restricted my access to our finances, transferred all our money to a private account, and lied and smeared me to the court, our friends, and our families.

A couple of months into our legal separation, CPS was called against him by an outside party. Although I had nothing to do with this, I was accused by the GAL in court of spearheading the call as an effort to falsely allege child abuse against him. Again, no evidence or proof seemed necessary to substantiate that I had done such a terrible thing. The GAL had spent less than two and half hours with my kids in the four months she was assigned to them. She had not responded to any of their attempts to communicate with her through email or telephone. Yet, it appeared the GAL could be believed simply on the basis of her own opinion. That her opinion was not based on anything remotely factual wasn’t questioned or considered. She was an attorney, not a mental health professional, but this didn’t matter at all.

As my ex-husband’s post-separation abuse behaviors toward the kids and me intensified during the divorce process, the kids’ resistant responses toward him likewise heightened. My children were terrified of him. During his parenting time they would hide in one bedroom for most of the weekend, afraid to even go the bathroom alone. After several months, the conflict between him and them was extreme and undeniable to all who had any contact with our family.

His unceasing intimidation and psychological abuse took a terrible toll. Three of my teenage children were considering ways to end their lives and almost all presented with hallmark symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD. No matter how hard their friends and I tried to provide peace, safety, and comfort during my parenting times, there was never enough time for them to recover emotionally from the trauma he enforced on them before they were required to be with him again.

The GAL and child psychologist agreed together that I was an alienator and needed psychological help. My MMPI results and the professional therapist I had been seeing for several months showed quite the opposite – that I was a healthy parent. But these results added no counterweight to the biased opinions of the court professionals. The plan they devised and recommended to the judge was for my six younger children (ages 10-18) to be removed from any contact with me or their father.

For four months, 126 days, my kids and I endured a complete physical separation and zero contact. It was, as the court appointed therapist later said, severely psychologically traumatizing for us. I have endured many grievous things in my life; marriage to an abusive and controlling man, six miscarriages, and the life-threatening medical condition of one of my twin daughters. But I have never experienced the loss, pain, and trauma of anything comparable to that of losing custody and contact with my beloved children.

The child psychologist resigned from our case and the judge appointed a new therapist. Amazingly, this therapist had decades of experience with abuse dynamics and recognized the true nature of our situation after meeting with the kids, their father, and me over the course of the no-contact period. On December -, 2016, all six of the kids were placed into my sole custody, while their father’s ability to have supervised time with them would be determined by the therapist. When asked by the therapist who would be willing to meet with their father, my eighteen-year-old daughter and fourteen-year-old son reluctantly, though bravely, volunteered. Their sessions with him in the therapist’s office validated the therapist’s opinion that the kids did not feel safe with their father and were terrified of him. None of them had another visit with him.

My divorce was final in 2017 and I was awarded sole legal and physical custody of the five minor kids. As part of the final hearing for custody in 2018, the judge apologized from the bench for taking the children from my custody and said that if he could do it over, he would not have made that decision. He also agreed to speak with my kids in his chambers, where they courageously articulated their pain-filled feelings about their father and revealed him as the cruel person he truly is behind closed doors. The judge’s decision was that my kids would likely never reunify with their father and that due to the emotional harm he foresaw it would cause them, their father could not have contact with them, or even photos of them.

The past several years have been ones of healing and discovery for us all. Healing from the trauma of our experience with the legal system and the injustices and abuses it caused.

Yet, we have so much gratitude. We are safe and free – and that is worth more than words can express. Our trauma and pain have been a vehicle to understanding more about ourselves and about healthy relationships with each other and with others.

Our lives are forever changed. But we have been given an invaluable resource of lived experience that enables us to offer more empathy, compassion, and help to others who experience similar things as we have. We have come to realize that one of the most important things we can do for others is simply to believe them. The value in this is truly priceless.