Living with an alienated parent - blog by Karen Woodall

[WakeyCakey45]

For those of us for whom this is everyday life;

karenwoodall.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/living-with-an-alienated-parent-lessons-for-husbands-wives-and-partners/

Thanks for that wakey. Very interesting.

Thanks wakey

It's the approach I wish I could take, but can't due to having to protect my dd

I understand what you mean conned and I used to feel the same - that by protecting my DD I was somehow failing my DSC.

The more I've read and longer I've considered and discussed it though, I am beginning to think that the one actually supports the other. By protecting my DD from the DSC's drama by insisting on certain boundaries, I am maintaining a stable family home with DH, and I am protecting the "normality" that Karen describes.
If the DSC brought the behaviour that stems from the alienation into our family home, then it would become an extension of, not an antidote to, their life with their mum. The impact of their behaviour and our responses would influence the family dynamic even when they weren't here and impact on my and DHs relationship with DD. Our family would be chaotic and unstable.

While I may be willing to ignore anger, frustration or cruelty from the DSC, the involvement of another DC (my Dd) requires additional boundaries to be put in place; boundaries which will disrupt and disturb the "safe haven" that alienated DCs so desperately need.

So, I support DH to provide that "normalcy" away from my DD, and at the moment, away from our home. That way, the antidote is provided (all be it in diluted form), yet my DD is protected. When, and if, they are ready, there is a "normal" family home here which will welcome them. But, in the short term at least, that family home will not include my DD.
(I appreciate that in the case of half-siblings rather than step-siblings, this is not a workable solution).

It's not a case of failing my DSC because I'm protecting my DD. It is that our family cannot provide the "normalcy" needed through the integration of the DSC into our household. We have to provide normalcy in another way. I just wish I'd realised it sooner.

Thanks wakey. A weaker relationship than mine and dh's would have certainly ended. We are now at 3.5yrs alienated and have found a new normality which is very happy and includes my other dsd who is beautiful inside and out. We had to go through a kind of bereavement to get to this though and are no closer to reinstating contact. The difference is we no longer have much desire to either.

Well I'm definitely doing my best to keep a calm normal home. Dd is sad about it but her behaviour is improving day by day. She's started saying please and thank you again (which she stopped for quite some time), she's more kind in the way she treats me and DH. We have a mostly calm, peaceful environment at long last. I wouldn't have dsd included in that again for a very long time. And not just time, I'd want proof that she'd changed.
DH and I talk a lot. But I know he stills "wants her back" and I can't allow that so I don't think I'm following the advice in this article, although I understand the principles

Connedbird, I tend to agree with you. I wish I could adopt the principles in this article and to be fair I did, for the first few years but 3 and 1/2 years on from a petty "her or me" ultimatum from then 17 yr old step daughter there's no contact. None beyond sniping texts at her dad and unkindnesses passed on via her siblings so, I have drawn a line. My own DS has suffered from this alienation by SD and it has at times brought DH and I close to ending our marriage. I'm NOT in a position to offer SD anything now. DH must do as he wishes, she's HIS daughter but I have never been hated for my mere existence before and I will not have it. All avenues and options have been used and for me, it's finished.

Even if you did agree with your DH and welcome her back, you still couldn't offer the calm normal life this article promotes because her presence in your home would undermine it.

I find it incredibly hard, knowing that when DH sees DSS, he does talk about and share details of our family life. It feels like an invasion of privacy, volunteering that information to him (and by association, his mum). As the article says, it is totally counterintuitive to share intimate family life with someone who has behaved in the way he has. I feel resentful - why should he be allowed to share in the family humour of funny stories about our dogs, or the success of growing our own veg, when he has been so cold and distant and has opted out of our family? But, I bite my tongue and accept it, because it does remind DSS that there is an alternative, life isn't just his mums way, and while it may not make any difference now, it will create memories that he will take into adulthood.

This has made me cry again. This is the exact conversation I had yesterday after my OH dropped off his child.

We had the most horrific week the last one of the summer holiday, culminating in DSD screaming for 3 hours in our faces refusing to go to bed (she is 9!). The day after this we switched up to tackling it with cuddles and saying why are you so sad, tell us what you are thinking. We will never become angry at a feeling you have so it's safe to tell us. We found out about the latest batch of horror stories about how awful we are that her mum has been telling her.

All week we've had a barrage of texts about how contact should reduce because DSD is so sad here, we have been refused Christmas contact even though we have a court order. My blood pressure is sky high, I even developed a twitch above my eye that won't stop. In the end OH said to me Robot, you have to stop worrying about this. I will deal with her this is my responsibility you have to let it go and let me deal with it. So he stood up to her about Christmas, and received the most shocking tirade of vile emotional abuse, clever stuff implying he doesn't understand his child and his child secretly tells her this and that. He allowed it through because he suffered years at the hands of her abuse talking him down, he got really depressed about it, starts doubting himself. I've heard that line myself so many times, I wonder if it's worth it, is it just making DSD sad? I told him don't listen, just focus on the goal of contact you DO know your child and she needs you to never loose faith in that. I told him about this blog and told him to read it.

On Friday DSD actually SPRINTED to him across the playground, would not shut up excitedly chattering all evening, grinning, kissing us, cuddling us all weekend, talking excitedly about our lives. We had such a happy weekend. OH said to me, I can't believe how wrong her mum has this, she is just so happy here so content. I told him EXACTLY what it says in this, if we had risen to the barbs and been sullen all weekend or grumpy then we become the bad guys we are meant to be. When we listen and hug and are a relaxed normal household we completely disarm it. Not only do we disarm it but it makes it clear where the misery originates. Mum is the only one always shouting and moaning and saying mean things, we only say happy things about mum, and we are just a happy home where she knows what firm but consistent discipline to expect. I told him now more than ever she needs this calm space where she can just be herself and have fun without worrying about if the adults feel angry about what she's feeling.

I have to say that we read this after we did it all, and it seemed like the most crazy thing to meet a furious child with calm love but it was all we had left and it worked. It genuinely does work and in fact it's the only thing you can do. Being the angry or sad household just lets the abusive partner with their mind games win. Being everything they say you are not makes your child, and therefore you win. Leaving his mentally abusive partner has meant that DSD doesn't grow up with a broken man, seeing that mum is all powerful and you have to do what she says and it's ok for her to scream at you and dad. It means that she see's that mum screams at people and acts badly but it makes you feel bad. Talking about things and being kind and showing love is a happier family way to do things. I believe OH's sacrifice of not seeing his child every day is only for this one reason, that we have to teach this it's vital and we have to believe in it.

These blogs are really great and it's helped immeasurably to be backed up by reading that this professional says to act just as we have and has seen it work time after time, I want to say again thanks so much for sharing this it has helped my family and most importantly my beautiful child. If anyone else is having this pain please read it and try it patiently and I hope it helps you family.

I can wholeheartedly relate to most of the blog post but IMO her advice with how to deal with it is so difficult to do when there are siblings involved.

packoff yes it is - the ideal isn't always possible when other DCs are caught in the crossfire.

I had a bit of a revelation about the advice given in KWs blog and from similar professionals in consultations, books and workshops earlier this year.
The penny finally dropped for me that these professionals can't give people like me and DH what we are looking for, because they don't have a solution.

I'd been under the misapprehension that if I did what KW advised, then it would all magically get better - but I've finally realised that it won't. We spend hundreds of £ on consultations, workshops and therapy - all of which have us similar advice but didn't seem to be working. It was only this year I realised that our expectations are unrealistic.
The advice being given by professionals maximises the chances of the DC reconnecting later in life - but it won't prevent the alienation affecting them while they are DCs. Nothing can do that.

Definitely Wakey, DH went to several courses - going on the advice that it can really help the situation. If anything, things have got worse not better. How on earth can such courses help you when the other parent is hell bent on their way or no way and isn't afraid to get it - even if it hurts and damages the kids in the process. How do you seek reason with someone who doesn't want to and isn't willing to be reasoned with? They always say they're doing what they do because it's what is best for their child/ren. In reality it's really the best solution for them. The children come second.

All the NRP can do is try and limit the damage from their end because there is such high conflict at home. However, damage limitation is hard with siblings as there's a ripple effect that you also have to deal with.

You're right packof, you can't change the RP. If the NRP could make the RP see reason they would not have split up. I also told OH this; his ex believes that what she is doing is what is best for their child, no matter how misguided that is. Imagine what you would do for your child if you believed it was for their best. You wouldn't stop and neither will she.

It is a complete sentence to deal with, you have to get through it. All we can do is register in writing that we don't agree with the 'evidence' she claims she sees and why, just in case she tries to keep defying the order and we have to take it back to court.

I can't imagine how to deal with it with other children around. We took a choice not to have another child, part of the reason was to focus on DSD and getting her situation to the best it could be. I appreciate this isn't available or right for all families just how it happens to be for us so I'm afraid I don't have any experience of how to prevent an impact on them. If DSD screams we can understand why and work through it. It must be near impossible for a young sibling to understand and deal with, and they in turn become the abused in that situation. Gosh isn't it all so very sad.

Robotroy, I hope you're not too awfully sad to have had to make that decision. I honestly don't think DH and I would have had another baby either for the same reason. My dd was 1 when she met dsd so now at 8 she's never known any different. My biggest regret was encouraging their relationship because now dsd has gone dd feels abandoned.

You really can't change the ex. I personally think there are mental health issues there so it's not just stubbornness that makes her insist she's doing the best for her dd.

So terribly sad all round

Oh forgive me, I didn't mean that it was awfully sad I didn't have a child. I meant it's sad for these children. I get very sad for DSD that her mum and dad don't live together happily, that these kids have such unhappy things said to them, all of those things.

I do have a child, I have DSD, I couldn't love her more if I had carried her myself and she knows that. I used to occasionally feel a mild pang of regret that we would never have a little version of the two of us, but not enough of a feeling that it was sufficient to justify bringing a human into the world. Over time it's become that DSD IS a small version of us! She looks identical to her father, and she has so many characteristics of his, but also of mine which she has picked up in all the time we spend together.

Ironically the love you develop for your step children makes you also very vulnerable as the partner of their parents going through these things, because now when her mum blocked her contact I realised crushingly that someone could try to block me from seeing my child - that someone being their mother. It was very crushing and made me very ill.

It blows my mind really. Children will happily accept any living situation delivered them by loving confident adults. It could be so easy, sometimes it is, but then at the whim of someone with a personality disorder the whole family is caused crushing upset and disturbance. For no reason other then some imaginary plot of the world against them.

Exactly robo. Dsd still says to this day that DH "destroyed her life" when he divorced her mum. It was 8 years ago now. She is 100% oblivious to and disbelieving of the fact that plenty of children of divorce lead normal happy lives and that this is possible if both parents present it as an okay thing and keep their heads.

I just feel incredibly sad for what "might" have been. There really was nothing more DH and I could have done and we both made excuses and allowances for her.

DSD was wrestling with the concept that mum gave her that we were 'baddies', but has formed a little gang of friends who also come from 2 homes. Recently another child's parents split up, and they explained to their child that they just didn't love each other in a marriage way any more, but everyone still loved her. This seems to have helped her process her own situation. What was lovely was that she has assured the friend and lots of others how it's completely fine having two families and homes. She tells me none of her friends have 'evil stepmums', they are all lovely. it's amazing how 9-10 year olds can process things more maturely than their parents..........

robo It's good that your DSD has such a strong support network - what does your DSD mum think of her friends, do you know?

We've noticed that DSS mum keeps him socially isolated, and he feels unable to discuss issues about his homelife with his school peers. She's what I as a child would have called a "snob" - she tells DSS that he shouldn't mix with particular classmates because of where they live in town, what their parents do for a living and ironically, even that they are from a broken home.

My dsd's friends mostly don't have together parents but the dad's all appear to either be completely feckless, or complete doormats.

Thank you, Karen!

karenwoodall.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/waving-wands-and-making-magic-supporting-rejected-parents-and-their-families/