My dh walked away from his children after fighting to see them for six years - AMA

[Katypp]

Family courts about 12 years ago - things hopefully will have changed by now

Well it's not possible if you don't have a contact number is it? Did you miss that? And yes, maybe I'd try but it would be absolutely pointless as we both well know.

Thanks. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and the sacrifices some
people make for their kids.

I am not much use to them in the future dead, and that is where the family court process would have ended up.

Pumper it's how they begin to alienate the kids. Discredit anything to do with the other parent. Make the kids begin to view everything at the other parents as worse. Soon that starts being the status quo in the kids minds and it's incredibly hard to challenge without saying 'your mum is a liar and a horrible person' which would be an awful-if true -thing for a child to hear.
A good parent doesn't do that-a spiteful one does.

There is so much written about parental alienation tactics and this is a classic one.

Some women (and men of course) use the child to further abuse their ex, using the child as a weapon to emotionally manipulate and hurt the other parent. Thankfully my DH was strong enough to withstand this but not everyone is and some people just don't want the abuse anymore and so walk away. Men are not as protected from abuse as women are, they are very often not believed and are in fact accused of being the abuser for simply wanting to see their child.

Exactly, if you say 'your mum is lying, that is not true', you would then be accused of alienation and manipulation too.

@Katypp
I’m sorry you’ve both had to go through this.

It’s controversial but I believe that DC are often better off with one parent than living between two in a high conflict situation.

I can 100% see where your DH is coming from in not putting the children through it again.

It must be so hard for you both 💐

If you can’t see the significance of that, and how a seven year old would go to being excited about something to talking negatively about it having been home and told her mum how happy she was, then I don’t know what to say to you🤷‍♂️

This is very clearly a subject you know absolutely nothing and about and (luckily for you) have no experience of.

But you could so easily have said ’no, I’ve got these special curtains to block out the noise from the road and these fairy lights to make it cosy’ or whatever. I don’t understand why her mum slagging off your house means anything more than her being a crap parent.

No, you’re wrong about that. I have two family members who don’t see their adult children.

@Pumperthepumper it's psychological manipulation. It's slowly implanting into the child's mind that dads house is a place to be worried about and the child will likely start aligning their views to their primary carer in order to get their attachment needs met. Therefore, the child will start to become hostile towards the father and not want to go and stay.

Well I hope you're not so deliberately obtuse to them.

@warofthemonstertrucks thank you for believing me.
This was 12 years ago and mothers held all the cards back then.
It is really upsetting being accused of lying and my dh being criticised for not doing enough after fighting through the courts for six years and spending £25k to do so. He started to think twice when his ex ran out of legal aid and started to apply for funding on behalf of his son. The final straw was the judge suggested the fresh start when it became apparent that sanctions were the only way forward.
Those on here who say they would never walk away and criticise him for doing so have no idea, really they haven't

No, they would (and do) admit they made mistakes though.

Ha yeah righto. It’s a single example
of an ongoing bombardment that the child faces trying to discredit everything the other parent does.

Its incessant, and when the child is with that parent all but four hours a week eventually the child starts to believe it.

Then, when the court look at “the child’s wishes” you haven’t a hope of seeing them again. Unfortunately what the child is describing isn’t their wishes at all, it’s those of the alienating parent.

interestingly when the older sibling spent three years telling CAFCAS, social workers etc that he want 50/50 the “child’s wishes” were suddenly made out by his mums government funded lawyers to be entirely down to me trying to manipulate him.

Guess what he did when he was 16? Told his mum to do one despite muggins here STILL trying to encourage him to maintain a relationship with her.

Been through the court system twice. My DH spent thousands on legal fees to try and gain access to his children. He was granted regular access in court, but his ex thwarted the order regularly. She handed the children over on more than one occasion claiming she couldn’t cope. We got both children into school and settled only for her to take us back to court, telling the judge we had kidnapped them. How you kidnap anyone with absolutely everything they own, I don’t know. The children were weaponised to the extent it was making the eldest child in particular ill. They were made to come to the door on pick ups and tell their father they didn’t want to come, using words beyond their reasonable vocabulary. He always paid over his CM payments and paid a lump sum an extra 4 times a year to help with costs such as clothes etc.
After a heart to heart with his eldest, it was decided that he would step back for a while to help to protect his child’s mental health. He now has a very healthy relationship with both children, who are now adults with children of their own. They both chose to have no contact at all with their mother, including whilst she was dying of a brain tumour.
My son split from his partner 6 years ago. She withdrew the children from our family. He tried to go to mediation as per the system today, she refused, so it went to court. His ex was allowed in court to allege very serious domestic violence. No evidence at all to prove her allegations. CAFCAS were instructed to interview the children, their mother insisted on being present. The report stated that both children had experienced an element of alienation. They believed the children had been influenced and that my DGD was very distressed when asked about her father and stated that she missed him. Despite all of that, my son whoever had never laid his hands on any of them, was granted letterbox contact, mainly because it was felt that the mother would suffer a decline in her mental health if he was granted any form of physical access.

Both children are now teenagers and contacted their father a year ago and very carefully together they are forming a relationship.

@nunsflipflop whilst this is appalling to read, it is not at all surprising that the mothers needs came before the child's. Seen it all before.

In our case it's every single nice thing that gets sabotaged. Everything the boys say they are happy or excited about gets slated. And it's now coming through in the boys behaviour towards us.

We were due to move into our new house. Boys told their mum they were excited. She withheld contact, with no explanation on moving in day and for ten further days

Dh's family were having a party to celebrate a big family anniversary. It was her day but he asked her to swap as a one off. The boys asked her to. She said no as they had plans. It later turned it the plans were to go swimming in the morning at the local pool. Ds1 came back and when ds2 asked about the party sneeringly said 'well it would have been boring anyway' something that two weeks before he'd been excited about. Where do we think that came from?

The boys love our dogs. Adore them. Yet ds1 has now started getting changed at the door way as he says his mum doesn't like him getting 'all
The dog hair on him' -they are cockapoos and don't shed (plus his mum has a dog that very much does!)... it's a slow discrediting of things in their lives with us...

There are numerous more examples.
We can see it happening... but we don't know how to stop it.

To the op and others here that have been through this-sending love. And empathy

And for those that insist it's not possible-educate yourselves before commenting tbh .

I might not know about a lot of stuff, but I will not be told I know nothing about the Family courts.

This in spades.

Yes we also experienced things said that were well beyond years, sometimes word for word of the threats we were sent via message.

Thats bizarre given that CMS is a set percentage and its under 20%.

Well you clearly know nothing about the many reasons why a decent parent might walk away from years of battle that has been detrimental to their children’s health and their own, because the system is screwed and you will never win if a Mum really decides she wants to break you.

We had the same thing…”daddy, mummy said you’re a wanker and she hopes you die soon” He was 5 when he came out with that gem at the dinner table