Messages By: hutchinsd2031

In my situation, My ex husband was aggressively emotionally abusive.  When he started and I asked him to stop, he would get worse and not stop until I was devastated.  When I finallly, after 13 years, started to divorce him, he started the alienation in full force.  During the 13-year marriage, he paid little to no attention to the children, 3 boys, but they did hear him put me down many times and they heard him tell them they didn't have to listen to me as a part of his emotional abuse of me.  During the divorce proceedings, he took the two oldest boys without my permission and knowledge.  After I got the boys back, they were totally out of control.  The ex was telling them to break things in the house with the explanation that the things were his and it was ok to destroy the property, and this included my car.  The children's behavior became horrible and I had to involve the police and even invoke the help of a mental inpatient facility for one of my boys.  At court a year later, the judge said they should all go to their father to live.  The children talked about a fear they were going to be poisoned by me.  The evaluating psychologist said there was alienation happening and that the ex should stop.  I was granted visitation which eventually stopped for the two older boys because they said they didn't want to ever see or talk to me again and the ex refused to make them.  From evidence I have gathered from phone conversations, the ex was alienating them from me in full force constantly and I suspect that the children couldn't handle it. They constantly said they hated me, didn't want to visit me, didn't want any presents from me (one of them even threw a present in the garbage can right in front of me), and generally wouldn't receive any love from me, much less give it out.  I never stopped trying.

I also suspect, from information I have gathered about the disease, that my ex is narcissistic but undiagnosed.  He needs to be the good one.  He needed to be the best parent, the only parent, to make himself feel ok. Nothing can be his fault.  He lies to make himself look good.  He stretches the truth to make himself look like the one who is the victim.  The children felt like he needed to be taken care of. 

The legal system in our state (MD), requires there to be a custodial home and a noncustodial parent who pays child support.  The parent who wins custody wins, according to my ex.  He won because he got my money and the house, he got to control the children, and through the children, he got to control bits and pieces of my life, thus holding on to some sort of control over me.  We all know abusive people are all about control.  I suspect that it would not have been so bad and my relationship with my children would not have been so damaged if the system required joint custody with parenting plans and mediation, with the stipulation that the parent who isn't cooperating would lose their rights.  That would take most of the money factor out of the equation and give each parent some sort of consequence for not following the rules.  My ex got no real consequences even though he was found guilty of contempt of court for not following the child custody orders twice.

As a post script, my two older boys are 20 and 21, live apart from their father by choice, saying they don't respect him for their own reasons that have nothing to do with the alienation.  They don't speak of the alienation except for one of them saying he wished things had been different.  I'm not sure they fully realize what happened to them but they both want to have a relationship with me.  I have to be very careful with what I say to them as our relationship is very delicate.  My 17 year old has come to live with me last week.  Father has kicked him out of the house and he won't go back.  There is still lots of drama in this situation and we have not gone to court on it yet.