Advice on parental alienation

[UniqueRedTiger]

Hi,
I was just looking for some help and guidance about parental alienation and not following a court order. For background I am the step mum to 2 girls - (R 10yrs and G 8 yrs). Their parents have been separated for over 6 years and we have been together 4. At the start my partner had limited contact due to bad mediation and being forced to agree just to get to see them. There were several increases in him seeing them but this was taken away the second CSA payments decreased - due to shared care.
About 8 months ago my partner tried to reach out to increase him seeing the girls and was met with hostility so had to go through the courts. It ended up with them agreeing (not the courts) and he got to see them more.
Both girls were happy initially to be with us more but “R” quickly started developing negative behaviour and throwing wild untrue allegations around about my partner and began to refuse to come on the “extra” days and was adamant that they wanted to go back to the “old agreement”. Her behaviour got worse and she would refuse to come - stating that her mum had told her she doesn’t have to come etc and would scream and shout abuse at us, quoting things her mother had said to her. She recently told us and her grandmother that she has been told she doesn’t have to come and if she doesn’t come her mother can go to the CSA to get more money and they can go on holiday together. Believe it or not my partner got a reviewed request from the CSA the next day.
we are deeply concerned about the mental toll this is taking on her and we’re beginning to see similar things with “G” - saying she doesn’t want to come for one reason then when we pick her up from school she’s happy and said she didn’t want mummy to be “lonely as she’s on her own”.
Does this form the basis of a refusal to comply with a court order? And also how do you tackle the alienation in a positive way?
Bonus advice if someone has experience with the CSA as she has submitted a 0 night claim even though the court agreement is 145 nights a year and due to the comments “R” made can we contest this? TIA

Can't help but I suspect you will need legal advice on some level. When a friend went through this it got costly. However, as the children get older they will be able to voice their wishes more (even if being manipulated) so I would make sure everything is documented.

Also I would advise editing your post to neutralise the initials to A and B.

We’ve been documenting everything and were debating the legal route as it got so nasty last time but I do think there’s no other option. I’m just conscious of pushing them further away as things will get said.
Oh thank you, they aren’t their initials I just picked random ones

We are four years into this. Dh’s ex wife and her new partner (who seems even worse than her incredibly) have waged a war of parental alienation since the day after the court proceedings concluded. DH was awarded 45% time with DSS’s as opposed to the two nights a month their Mother suggested he have for no other reason than ‘they should be with (her) more as she is their Mother’. She has never accepted it or forgiven it.
She has convinced the boys their marriage ended as Dh is some sort of abuser (it ended, by her own admission in her court statement, due to her two affairs). She has told them Dh is ‘not allowed’ to drive down their street and wound them up to the degree that if even I drive past the end of it they panic (Dh has never abused his ex wife, and I certainly haven’t-there have never been police allegations or anything else). She has convinced dss1 that all the friends he had whose parents were their mutual friend and still friends with Dh now, are horrible and bullied him-and moved his school as a result (none of which is true). She has accused Dh and myself of being cocaine addicts. I’ve never taken drugs in my life. Dh used to, with her when they first met, but not since, for about 15 years. Her new boyfriend registered the kids under his surname at a new football team and told the coach dh ‘wasn’t allowed’ to be on the watsapp group and repeated all the lies to the other team parents. As a result dh found it hard to know where to take the boys on our weekends for games and was largely ostracised by everyone at football. We get horrendous messages weekly about what awful parents we are and how the boys are scared of us and hate us and my DD’s and how we are not a family like they are . They are not scared of us. And don’t hate us. Yet. But they do seem to believe everything their mum is telling them and it’s causing huge issues and a lot of distress for us.
what can you do about it? We have found, not much unfortunately. Record everything. Try and make sure the kids are having a nice normal family life with you. Point out that the things being said about Dad aren’t accurate (whilst trying not to be condemnatory about mum- sort of ‘and what have you experienced in such and such situation, as opposed to what someone who wasn’t there has told you’ kind of thing). And hope that one day they see through it.
you can go back to court at great expense if and when you get a court date but it’s worthless as they can’t control narratives being given in the children’s other home.

how are you feeling about it all Op? I find it awful tbh. I feel desperate for dh, and spied on in my own home as everything we do or say is twisted in some way. It’s exhausting.

and just a warning-prepare to be told on here that your Dh is in the wrong, that whatever the mum is saying is probably true and you have just been misled by him as the second wife. It’s standard on any step mum thread where there is a complaint about the Mum, the Dad is often said to be wrong on here and that can add to your distress.

Evidence Evidence
You need a Solicitor that understands PA
You need a Mental Health Professional Psychiatrist, Psychologist or Psychotherapist that understands Parental Alienation
The Alienated Parent will probably need therapy as PA is a form of emotional abuse on the Parent and more so on the child
This is an informative website on PA
https://alienated.ie/http-alienated-ie-solutions-for-parental-alienation-professionals-and-parents-webinar-6/
https://parentalalienationuk.info/?v=d2cb7bbc0d23
https://paawareness.co.uk/

All of which costs a lot of money, and takes a lot of time and is not guaranteed to be successful. Because whilst those processes are started the PA gets worse. Plus in most cases you can’t sign a child up for therapy without the agreement of the other parent. Which in cases of PA they will not give.

piscofrisco - thank you for your message. Seems your situation is very similar to mine. The allegations she’s throwing around even include that he headbutted me and gave me a black eye - I think I would be aware if I was headbutted and had a small bruise on my face because of my dog who smacked me in the face with his rope toy 😂but trying to explain that to her is difficult - everything her mum says is true to her - she’s just getting lies pushed on her and it’s really upsetting.

It’s draining if I’m honest. We care so much about them and tried taking R to counselling when we noticed a decline in her behaviour, we got activity books to help her work through how to talk about her feelings etc and it’s hurtful seeing this happy girl turn into an angry anxious stranger. I’m on the receiving end of a lot of abuse from her - telling me everything her mums said about me when “R” was originally the one who told my partner to propose to me. She would make him give me haribo rings until he got me a “real” one and was involved in the planning of the proposal.
It takes a massive toll on us both and I’m just so worried about her.
Oh lovely. Well I know who he is and that’s enough. So sad to hear you’re going through this as well.

My dss’s are a little older-pre teen and early teen now. When you throw teen hormones into the mix it’s quite the thing. It seems
this is very common. But not understood by people that haven’t been through it. Some of the lies are so outrageous that I can see people don’t believe me when I tell
them what’s going on. And I don’t blame them
as it’s inexplicable and inexcusable behaviour. Best of luck to you OP. It’s not easy at all.

I so wish parents could grow up when I read these comments. (This isn’t at you)

My husband has needed counselling and now is LC with his Mum. But still also has a fractured relationship with his Dad due to his Mum alienation.

His Mum spent years drip drip poisoning.

Husband has had to deal with multiple feelings of rejection but also guilt for wanting to see his Dad while his Mum would be in floods of tears telling him how he left her for the OW and he doesn’t actually care for him. His sister wasn’t his real sister as she wasn’t the Mum. She tried it with the grandchildren and swiftly we went LC much healthier for all.

I don’t think parent realise the damage they do when they shift their pain and the need to be in control impact the children,

Nottodaty -
I completely agree. When we first started dating I had envisioned a happy co-parenting relationship where the kids come first. As a child of divorce myself and being used for monetary gain I’m very aware of the damage it can do.
We say nothing bad about the other parent as why would we? It’s their mum and they deserve to have healthy relationships with both parents - it’s just a basic right of theirs. But instead they’re in the middle and being messed with and it’s so upsetting. It can take years to resolve, if it ever is, and causes so much emotional damage. We even had them telling the children that my partners parents weren’t real grandparents as they’re the only real grandparents leading to them being terrified of going into their house.
Im sorry your husband went through this and still struggles with it. Finally after 20 years my parents have reached a mutual respect for each other now that the anger is gone but the damage is done to me and my siblings.

The family court has recently published guidance on how the court should approach allegations of parental alienation. Summary: parental alienation is not "a thing" in the majority of cases and the bar is very high to establish this. www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Family-Justice-Council-Guidance-on-responding-to-allegations-of-alienating-behaviour-2024-1-1.pdf

Thank you