I am seeking some advice for my partner. He divorced over four years ago and shared custody of both his children which was agreed. One child is now independent and lives abroad. The youngest who is now 15 lived mainly with him as he didn’t like his mothers new partner and their home life, I suspect that there may have been a bit of jealousy as well. During lockdown he started to see more of his mother which we were pleased about as we wanted him to Maintain a relationship with her, we have never discouraged him from going and always encouraged him to when he didn’t want to. We’ve both listened to him when he has wanted to chat and always tried to find the reason/ justifications of why she’s behaved in certain ways when he has been upset, after all despite her pitfalls she is still his mother. For example : said she was at work but went away so as not to take him, he’s been privy to drunken rows and an attempted suicide by the BF after she found texts from another woman and SS visited as a result .
My partner has always said that she has never disciplined the children and always wanted to be their ‘friend ‘ rather than a parent because she had lots of rules as a child and didn’t want to be like that with her own children. My partner is the opposite ( probably a contributing factor to why they divorced) he thinks that if you misbehave you should be punished ie x box taken away . His mother during Covid has been unable to continue with her job that takes her away from the family home so has been at home since last year, my partners son started to see and stay there more often which we were pleased about as we thought finally they had made amends. Fast forward to now, he has been there for just under 12 months visiting us as well until recently . Now Since he has been back to school he is late everyday, we get letter from the school about his behaviour in class every week now and he is on track to get one gcse next year and also on report.
His is by no means academic but was on track to get more. He will no longer see my partner, has said that he lives with his mother and doesn’t want anything to do with him because he speaks to the school about his education. The mum has told him that it doesn’t matter about his exams, there’s more to life etc, refuses to acknowledge emails that my partner has sent about him failing at school and attitude at school but we get no response . We do however get texts in the early hours telling my partner that he’s a control freak etc and that their son wants him to leave him alone, she also shows the son everything ... texts emails and bad mouths my partner in front of their son .
We have received a text today from the son which says leave me alone I no longer wish to see you amongst other stuff. The way is has been written is far too grown up for him, it certainly is not his style of writing ( this is a child who will not pass English gcse anymore ) I think it’s been written by his mother . There will be no response from us, my partner has always explained that he loves his son and has his best interests at heart, I would Love to text back to both but I am not going nor have I ever gone to that level as it’s not worth it ! You’d be better banging your head against a wall .
I would like to know if anyone has any experience of this ? And Parental alienation and if you’ve managed to go through court ?
We don’t know what to do , we had a reasonably nice teenager who has become the child that everybody dreads because there are no consequences or boundaries where he lives . HELP ☹️