Replies to '12/26 "Brainwashed by My Parents"'

Quote From: helptopreserve

 I'd like to say after reading some of these posts that Dad's don't always get the raw deal.  I am a single mother of three children ages 9, 4 and 1. My youngest and oldest are boys and the middle is my daughter. I have been in and out of the family court system for three years. The last of my visits was a full blown custody trial that lasted two days. In the county I live in I have found that if nothing else the court system has more of a tendancy to have custody orders look fairly equal on paper no matter the costs and often with very little rhyme or reason. I am in a very difficult situation and this would be the very first time I am speaking or writing on a message board that would be available to the public. I have stopped looking for anwers because it has a tendancy to  make me only feel even more helpess when I don't get any. But today I will share my story. I was in an extremely psychologically abusive relationship for much too long. I have three beautiful children and that was the only good thing I can say I walked away with. Everything else tends to be a blur and there are so many things I don't like to recall. When I say pyschologically abusive I am talking about to the point of my ex hiding things in the house, throwing my sentimental things in the garbage, stealing grocery money, accusing me of stealing household items, and the never ending accusations of being unfaithful to the point of emotionally torturing me through my pregnancies implying that the children were not his. My children suffer this same fate and I will get to that. I knew all this time that what he was doing to me was damaging, but I thought being a woman of some intelligence that I could not possibly be abused. Years later and through therapy I have learned that it indeed was abusive and more damaging to me than I ever realized until I was away from him. We were never married. We lived together not until our first child was 5 months old. It was then that things got out of control. He became what I call obsessed with my son and obsessed with the relationship that my son would form with his own mother, my son's grandmother. He would methodically sit in front of my son before my son could speak and repeat the grandparent's names over and over again for sometimes a half hour at a time. I was so thrilled to have a child. I couldn't wait for him to be born, but at the same time I thought that it was only the right thing to do to make sure that he had a mother and father in the same home and he would be raised with both of us there together and at the time I guess I figured that would have to be at any cost to my emotional well being. Through the years this PAS as it is being labeled sprialed out of my control. All of the sudden I didn't feel like I was getting to be a mommy. Instead I felt like I had to take a back seat to everything decision being made, and I was torn from the very bond I couldn't wait to have with him. My ex spent a great deal of time making sure that I had very little to no time alone with my son. I couldn't take him to the grocery store by myself. I couldn't take him to family functions and when I dared to I had hell to pay when I got home. My son witnessed so much trauma in our household while his father lived here that he never did see anything functional until now. Through the years that passed I got to take care of his needs, and do his laundry, and bathe him, and pack lunches, and financially support my child, but never did I just get to be his mommy without his father stepping in and making it a memory not worth remembering. EVERY SINGLE TIME. I was afraid to leave him. I knew what I was facing if I did, but then if I didn't leave there would never be the chance to be my son's mommy. I finally mustered up the courage to even think about finding a way to get him out of the house. I filed for child support while he still lived with us. Did I mention that he withheld any form of financial contributions to the household? I knew that if he was ordered to pay child support while he lived in our home for free he'd surely get out quickly. And that he did. He is extremely manipulative and has found an attorney (his third one) who buys his garbage, and obviously needs the money. I have a wonderful attorney who has been an absolute blessing to my family. While he lived in our home he continued his crusade against me by constantly bashing me verbally in front of our children and behind my back and badgered my son daily about who he would rather live with if mommy and daddy ever separated.  My son loves his father, but has grown to recognize his father's need for him to hold him up, and be the oxygen in the air he breathes. It is a lot of pressure for him and unfortunately that comes out on me because he would never dare let his father know the turmoil and anxiety that he causes. I can't use up 10 pages of post here so I'll skip towards the end- Since our separation my son has grown even further from me being that as per the court order he was speding time with his dad every day while I was at work in the summer and every day after school until I got home from work. That has since changed through trial, but nonetheless, the PAS continues. My ex has accused me of physically abusing my child to the point of my son believing that he has been abused and apparently the ex just accused me of this again. Just found out. My child has been through therapy and has been evaluated three times for the presence of abuse and it was unfouned.  And further more the treating therapist turned to his father in a family session and told him that it was her professional opinion that my son was being coached(THANK GOD someoned picked up on this) It was about one session after that that my ex revoked his consent for my son to receive any further therapy from this provider. And being that we were in the middle of litigation and on the way to trial at that time the court would not entertain any efforts I made to have it court orderedd that he be able to return to therapy. And how was that in the best interest of my child? His father has called children and youth services on me three times so he testified in court. I've never had the pleasure of having them come to my home because they tell him he doesn't have enough of a case. And he never will because he is lying. These parents who participate in this kind of psychological abuse should absolutely lose their parental rights on the legal custody which is usually 50/50, and on the physical custody it should be supervised. My son's father has personality issues which were detected by a pyshcological evalution that would ulitmately set the stage for him to be this type of abuser. However, my son loves him and he is his father and no matter what I respect the love he has for him. So I would hurt for my son to not see him at all, but honestly, you give these parent's even 30 seconds a day unsupervised and they can do years of irrepairable damage. I have lost years of a mother/child relationship with my son. Time that I fear I will not be able to make up for at this point. It's difficult to sit back and watch day after day and it has taken years to find the right professionals to be involved to make the call whether or not there is apparent emotional abuse and parental alienation going on. IT IS A LONG haul and tiring and financially draining. And he does not do this with the other two children YET. I know he's a narcissist and my son is his supply and those people tend to stop at nothing to make sure their supply is never depleted or so I've been informed. His problems should not be mine or my son's. So through trial not even a sentence of the order referred to my children's emotional well being and he got a slap on the wrist for other little things he did or didn't do, but was able to manage to keep his 50/50 legal custody and he's dragging me back again to trial and filed more contempt charges on me. Just about everytime he takes me back he actually loses more time with the kids for one reason or another, yet his sense  of entitlement is so great that he doensn't even realize it. So dad's don't always get the bum rap. At least not here they don't. But we aren't  done yet and I won't give up on my son.