Reaching out to alienated kids?

[MM1972]

I have three older kids. I have not seen them since before the first Covid lockdown when the other parent wanted to claim on my insurance to get a new kitchen and bathroom.

When I refused they said they would have to choose between a family holiday or house refurbishment. They said they were going to tell the kids that there would be no holiday that year because of me.

Within a minute I had angry texts from all three. One said never to call him and he'd blocked my mobile and work numbers.

Prior to this I had been taking them to school most mornings. This was annoying my ex as they frequently told the kids I was always late. It was also in addition to agreed contact. Me getting them to school on time after they'd missed the bus went against that narrative.

My gran died recently. My ex brought the kids to the funeral but they left without speaking. My ex later phoned my dad to say that they left as my son was going to hit me.

I've not seen him in 5 years but have been sending birthday and Christmas presents and inviting them to all family get togethers. I normally don't even get a thank you. But he is increasingly angry?

I think my ex is obviously telling the kids things. I don't know exactly what. I assume it is money related.

I am self employed and used to do quite well. Things have been difficult but I have given my ex my house mortgage free plus paid their debts. I also took on the house we had jointly owned which is in arrears and in need of repairs.

I had to borrow money to pay of the other mortgage including from family members. I am still paying this as well as trying to clear arrears on my own mortgage.

There is a narrative being fed that I'm loaded and the ex is poor. It actually the other way about. Following the divorce (when I first saw financial disclosure) I worked out they had almost 500k more than me during the period from separation to divorce.

This extra income was used on takeaways and expensive holidays. 2 of the kids are very overweight now. There are no savings unless they lied in the financial disclosure.

I have never once complained about lack of money to the kids. It was not a worry they needed.

Should I tell them now? Two will be going to uni and I have no way of supporting them.

From personal experience kids (especially adult ones who aren’t so easily influenced) do not alienate themselves from their parents over a singular mishap, it is a long series of incidents and emotional trauma over a lifetime that leads to this. Are you telling the full story, OP?

They have not become alienated as adults. The oldest is an 18 year old adult now. In spite of having had zero contact for 5 years was still angry enough to want to hit me at my gran's funeral.

He has refused all contact from me. So I can't have done anything (in the past 5 years). But he is still being supplied with something to fuel this. Don't you think?

My ex always appeared to have a nemesis that made their life a misery. First it was their mother. Then it was their supervisor at work. I was angry with both those 'targets' in spite of never even meeting the work boss. The supervisor eventually left work on stress.

I think my ex enjoys the sympathy that comes with being a victim of persecution. I now don't believe the persecution was ever real. I think I am now assuming the role of arch nemesis and persecutor.

You are right. There wasn't just one incident. But this appears to be the final one that broke the camel's back.

They have not become alienated as adults. The oldest is an 18 year old adult now. In spite of having had zero contact for 5 years was still angry enough to want to hit me at my gran's funeral.

He has refused all contact from me. So I can't have done anything (in the past 5 years). But he is still being supplied with something to fuel this. Don't you think?

My ex always appeared to have a nemesis that made their life a misery. First it was their mother. Then it was their supervisor at work. I was angry with both those 'targets' in spite of never even meeting the work boss. The supervisor eventually left work on stress.

I think my ex enjoys the sympathy that comes with being a victim of persecution. I now don't believe the persecution was ever real. I think I am now assuming the role of arch nemesis and persecutor.

You are right. There wasn't just one incident. But this appears to be the final one that broke the camel's back.

I suspect a lot of this is deriving from the back story.

Were you married? Were there assets shared fairly and visibly fairly?

What happened before Covid?

There is a big difference between

"The police made me leave the house as I regularly hit my children and now as teens they don't like me"

And

We got divorced and I was fair but have been struggling with the relationship.

Your ex spent half a million pounds on takeaways and holidays?!! I assume 500k a typo?

I’m also slightly confused about your ex wanting to claim on your insurance for a new kitchen and bathroom. Was there an incident covered by insurance that caused them to be damaged? If so, and you refused to claim, that is pretty bad and controlling. I’m not surprised your DC are angry. Why were you insuring their home in your name if you gave your ex the house?

You need give your DC more credit, they are their own people with their own brains who have come to their own decisions. You said it can't be you fault as you haven't seen them in 5 years, maybe that's the problem. You did fuck all. You wasn't there, you wasn't a parent to them. Stop trying to blame others for your lack of a relationship with your children and take responsibility.

The 500k included the house I handed over which was worth 200k.

During the separation our incomes were roughly equal for most of it. Latterly mine has been much lower due to a struggling business. But i paid both mortgages, rates, home insurance and paid extra child maintenance and roughly half of first communion and confirmation expenses. I could have paid more than half but was never shown receipts. I also bought shoes at the start of the school year.

My ex falsely claimed not have enough money to buy oil, claimed to be struggling to buy uniforms and books etc. This was mentioned to me with the kids listening. At the time I believed it. It was only on seeing the financial disclosure (they lied about how much they got) that I realised they were royally taking the piss.

There was another incident when I didn't have money to buy shoes and was sarcastically told I thought I was 'parent of the year' for buying shoes.

There has never been any acknowledgement of my paying both mortgages etc. It has been an immense struggle and I'm still a year behind on the mortgage. Unlike my ex I have never told my children I was struggling nor blamed my ex for the struggles. I don't mind telling them now that they are a little older and I'm hopefully coming out of all the debts.

How could I be there? One minute I was taking them to school most days. Then they never wanted to see me again. As I said I have always got them Christmas and birthday cards, invited them to family events etc.

For context this happened when they were 11, 12 and 13. Arguably I could have gone to court but every penny I had was going towards paying the mortgage on my house in order to transfer it to my ex. I was maxxed out on credit cards, personal loans and family tapped for loans. On top of this my income was falling. At its worst I couldn't pay myself anything for three months.

So you mean they got a bigger settlement than 50:50? Clearly the court thought that was appropriate.

You haven’t answered my question about the insurance claim. Why wouldn’t you let them claim on the insurance if there was a genuine reason to claim?

I don't think there was any damage. At the time I was still paying both mortgages and rates and home insurance. I had never made a claim and didn't want to. I think my ex just fancied a new kitchen and bathroom for the house that I would be shortly handing over to them.

I left the marriage. I had been unhappy for a long time and I had checked out years earlier when at another of my grandparents funeral my ex had a tantrum and forbade me from going to the family meal afterwards. It was noticed that I wasn't there as I was the oldest grand child and only absentee.

They literally said if I went to the meal that would be us finished. We were finished then but I decided to stay for the kids.

We had been supposed to meet at my dad's after the church service. They went somewhere else and were uncontactable. They were upset because I attended the graveside service without them.

Interesting that you haven’t spoken to you children in 5 years and when you see them at the funeral your first thought is they are now fat. Nice.

Ok. Thanks for answering. It doesn’t really make sense though. If there was no reason for claiming on the insurance, how did your ex think you could make a claim? Surely there must have some conversation where either you explained you can’t claim for wear and tear or she suggested making a fraudulent claim? You must have asked why she wanted to make a claim.

To answer your question, no you don't contact them to bad mouth their mother and tell your side of the story. They aren't interested in that. They don't want to hear you bitching about the woman that brought them up. You contact them to say 'sorry, I messed up, how can we fix things?' Anything else will make them angrier.

I would say therein lies the issue. Or one of them.

You didn’t “want to make a claim” so you didn’t but you don’t actually know whether there was a legitimate claim or not.

No the court did not award any settlement. Basically i gave my ex exactly what they asked for. Not for love of them and certainly not because I respected them. It was just that fighting it would have cost £40k in legal fees (a figure plucked from the master of the court). I found the solicitors and barristers to be almost parasitic. I actually had been in a better financial position years earlier and could have settled then. The only people that benefitted by prolonging things were solicitors. I thought rather than paying more legal fees it would be much better the money benefitted my kids even if I had to struggle to do it.

However I had no way of paying the mortgage outright. I had planned to borrow half the money from my business and my dad lent me the other half.

My dad came through. Unfortunately I was unable to raise capital from my business. Probably due to my defaulting on many other debts as I struggled to pay two mortgages. I was only saved by the government bounce back loan which wasn't means tested. I'm still paying both loans back and getting a handle on other debts.

No there was no prior conversation. I was basically ambushed. IIRC they got one of the kids to call me about it then came on the phone themselves when I starting asking questions.
As far as I was concerned it was a fraudulent claim. I wanted nothing to do with it and the house and insurance were going to be in their name shortly anyway.

On mumsnet the alienated parent is generally the cause of alienation - as you can see from previous posters.
In my experience this is most certainly not always the case. It is also an extremely difficult thing to navigate - especially for children.
I would suggest you reach out to a specialist in adolescent psychology and family dynamics to help you navigate this period rather than rely on mumsnet for advice.

The kitchen is still the same kitchen. Or at least was 4 years later. Albeit with a coat of paint on the unit doors.

Had there been a catastrophic damage (which there certainly wasn't) then I could have made a claim. But getting a 12 year old to cold call me to ask to put in a huge insurance claim would not have been the way to do things.

They never once left the house at you might expect you would had there been a catastrophic incident.

i think my ex simply wanted a new kitchen and bathroom.

I wouldn't be bad mouthing the other parent.

They believe I have not contributed financially. They believe the other parent was struggling financially.

I think it's clear my son still must be getting fed hatred if he wanted to punch me at my gran's funeral. It's not coming from anything I have done.

I get that. I won't get any sympathy. But I'm finding the questions people are asking somewhat helpful.

they wanted a new bathroom and kitchen. Simple as. There was zero discussion. Zero information about any damage. Just a call out of the blue from my 12 year old to discuss it.

Not at all. They started putting on weight after I left. I tried to get them to exercise when I had them, walks, bike rides nerf battles, hide and seek outside etc.
The only time the ex did anything was when the school nurse said they were overweight. They attended a dietician for a few weeks. During which time my son took pictures of the food I was giving them.

One of my daughters is morbidly obese. There was no need for her to be like that.

In my ex's house the children were responsible for feeding themselves and my ex.

My ex did not like cooking and everything would either be ready meals or takeaways. I do like cooking and would always have made the kids their dinner.

This speaks volumes

Kids of that age do not alienate themselves from their parents without good, personal reason - not just influence from the other parent. My suspicion OP is that you are leaving out a lot of details in this story or you are just oblivious to them, I’ve seen it before with my now ex-H. He can’t figure out why his adult children refuse contact with him when to the rest of us it’s blindingly obvious.