When a child’s affection for a parent has been effectively poisoned, the result can range from sad and emotionally devastating to severe tragedy. Some cases of divorce poison leave a parent bereaved at the total loss of a relationship with a child. Less frequently, divorce poison leads to the ugly cases that make the evening news: suicides and homicides.
Somewhere in between these tragic consequences lie the cases where a child’s mind is twisted to make bogus criminal accusations against a parent. When the court sees these as credible, a parent is branded for life. Just punishment for parents who are guilty of horrible deeds, but a severe miscarriage of justice for those falsely accused.
On April 29, 2011, a New York City court righted such a wrong more than ten years after Melinda Bronson was accused and subsequently convicted of attempted sexual abuse of her eleven-year-old boy. Her son, now twenty-three, told the court that the abuse never occurred and that he made up the allegations to please his father and stepmother whom he thought were “looking for something” of which to accuse his mother.
When the judge asked why he was so “willing to bring . . . false charges” against his mother and whether he “considered how that would affect her life,” the young man gave a textbook explanation of a divorce poison victim: “I definitely took his side in all issues that he would tell us about regarding my mom taking him to court. . . . I was mainly focused on helping my dad to ease his financial burden regarding the court cases.” He was afraid his father, who died in 2007, would regard him as a “traitor” if he did not give false testimony at his mother’s criminal trial.
The mother’s other son, now twenty-one years old, admitted that he, too, gave statements as a child that implicated his mother as an abuser. In the recantation hearing, he testified that he “wrote or made the statements while he was “under extreme duress” as he was living with his father and stepmother, who “instructed” him and “coerced and almost forced” him to write or say things “that weren’t true” in his letters or during meetings with “lawyers, social workers and counselors.” He said that his father and stepmother regularly “prompted me to lie” and “prepped me to say what they wanted me to say” and that if he did not “satisfy them . . . I would have to pay the consequences,” meaning that they “could make my life miserable.” He added that as a child he would refuse contact with his mother because his father and stepmother made him choose between his parents and ostracized him when he agreed to see his mother.
When the older son was asked why he came forward after all these years, he said, “This is a horrible thing I did to my mother. And it’s something that for me to really go forward with my life, I need to at least know that I tried to have it reversed because I know in my heart where the truth is.”
While the father and stepmother were “probing and prodding” and “prompting and prepping” the children to dish up dirt on their mother, did they realize how it would haunt a child to brand his mother, a teacher, with the career-ending stamp of a registered sex offender? Did they care about the children’s souls? Or were they focused only on their efforts to delete the mother from her children’s lives? Perhaps if this father had known how poisoning his children’s affection for their mother poisoned the children’s souls, he might have shielded them from his anger.
Bronson’s children could not have known, while in grade school, how their accusations would shatter their mother’s life. Particularly when allegations are as unlikely as these (mom inadvertently touched her son’s genitals while removing a bed-wetting pad), investigators need to explore the possibility of coerced statements as they do the possibility of genuine physical or sexual abuse. For, in the end, both scenarios constitute child abuse.
False abuse cases damage more than the accused and the accuser. Uncovering one false accusation unfairly contributes to a climate of doubt about other abuse accusations and gives ammunition to those who prefer to deny the reality of widespread child abuse.
It is too late for Melinda Bronson to recover the years missed raising her children and the years banned from working as teacher. It is not too late for all of us to learn from this tragic case and do a better job of protecting children whose parents draft them in a war that is not the children’s to fight.
Dr Warshak, thank you for bringing this case to my attention.
I described our situation on this blog some months ago: http://warshak.com/blog/2010/11/08/stop-divorce-poison/#comment-68
As Dr Warshak suggested then, we are assembling material in the hopes of demonstrating to my husband’s son that not all allegations of sexual abuse are true. We will add his case to the list. If anyone knows of any similar cases where an allegation is made by a pre-teen or teenager and later recanted, please post a link.
There has been a little movement in our situation recently. My husband sent his son a small birthday gift and received a polite response, although a followup email was ignored. A cousin asked the son on Facebook to call his paternal grandmother in Europe on her 89th birthday, and the son did so, although he also unfriended the cousin. And the son has now made arrangements to visit his grandmother this summer. My husband is wondering whether he should arrange to be there himself, or rely on family members (such as the aforementioned cousin) to promote a more realistic view of him, or simply allow his son and his mother to enjoy their time together (which could be their last) without any attempt to address the issues. Any thoughts, anyone?
Irene
Hi Irene,
You asked if anyone knows of cases where an allegation was made by a child and later recanted. Since few of the people involved in my divorce believed it was easy to convince a child to lie, I created a list of supporting evidence from the psychological literature (scientific and popular). Below are quotes from the references I found (it’s four Word pages long—hopefully, it will all post). At the end is the list of references. If you have the time, it would be helpful for you to look up each of these articles/books. I did this in 2008, so nothing more recent than 2007 would be here. This isn’t exactly what you’re looking for (some are cases but most are just quotes from professionals), but it might help. I don’t know if any of these cases involve testimony being later recanted, but they are all reported as being false testimony.
In the end I won my child back, but it wasn’t because the legal system did the right thing (although I had an excellent attorney). It was because my ex-wife lightened up.
Best of luck in your situation. I know it can be painful.
Shawn
“Reflexive support of the alienating parent in the parental conflict.” One of the “primary symptomatic manifestations of moderate and severe PAS” (Table 1 in Gardner, 1999).
“They [Johnston et al., 1989] indicated that the ‘typical’ response of an older child was to be negative toward the other parent to some degree and to perhaps reject that parent or refuse to visit. In another paper, Johnston and her colleagues (Johnston et al., 1987) noted a tendency of children to become protective toward a fragile parent…” (as seen in Dune and Hedrick, 1994).
“The child’s position seemingly lacks ambivalence” (Gardner, 1985).
“The child supports and feels a need to protect the alienating parent” (Major, 2007).
“More often, alliances arise in older school-age children in response to the dynamics of the separation, involving children’s moral assessment and judgment about which parent caused the divorce” (Kelly and Johnston, 2001).
“…alienated children often idealize or speak glowingly of the aligned parent as an adult and parent. They refuse to consider any information that might undermine this viewpoint of their perfect companion and parent” (Kelly and Johnston, 2001).
“Fifth, there is an almost automatic, reflexive support by the child for the loved parent” (Cartwright, 1993).
Clawar and Rivlin (1991) tell of “Amy,” 12, who falsely testified against her father (p. 54-55).
The following are from Warshak (2001).
P. 9: Twelve-year-old daughter was gradually convinced that her mother had beaten her with a belt when she had not. One day her mother lost her patience, the girl ran into the bathroom and cried, “Don’t beat me!” The mom became reluctant to set reasonable limits because it make her look like a bad parent in her daughter’s eyes. This story is concluded as follows: The daughter “was thinking exactly as her dad and step-mom wanted her to think, yet she insisted that her negative thoughts and feelings about her mother were her own.”
P. 66: Sixteen-year-old Janet: “When her dad insisted on some minimal contact, Janet said she was scared of him, although she admitted that he had never physically hurt her or even threatened to hurt her… Here was a man who had dedicated himself to her welfare all of her life, and she claimed to feel safer in the presence of strangers than with her own father.”
P. 112: Despite years of a good relationship, 11-year-old, Marsha said she no longer wanted to see her dad. The judge ordered Marsha to spend time with her dad and her mother responded by telling authorities false stories of sexual molestation. The G.A.L. determined that the girl’s negative attitude toward her father was completely a result of her mother’s programming and Marsha’s wish to be her mother’s ally.
P. 168: Nine-year-old Jeffery was told many times that his grandfather had forcibly detained him. It never had happened but Jeffery finally believed it.
P. 171, “It is fairly easy to confuse children into doubting their own perception of reality due to the high regard and awesome power most parents hold in their children’s eyes… When I interview child victims of divorce poison, they usually give me a revised history of their relationship with the rejected parent.”
P. 172: “In a clash between reality and an alienating parent’s distortions, the distortions usually win out, unless groundwork has been carefully laid. One cannot reason with an alienated child until the child’s mind is open to reason.”
P. 198: “Parents will even coach their children to lie in court under oath.” He goes on to tell a story of a father who accused his wife of an unhealthy relationship with her twelve-year-old son. He talked the boy into testifying falsely on the witness stand.
“…the child begins to demonstrate that he or she shares the attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and, ultimately, the behavior that the programmer/brainwasher desires” (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991, p.12).
“Many children do reflect a parent’s emotional framework, whether it be relaxed or anxious, positive or negative, fearful or in control and resourceful. In other words, parents may not be doing anything to consciously control a child’s mind, but nonetheless, the influence is strong on a child to behave in ways that will please a parent and meet that parent’s needs. In a great number of cases, we have found children behave the way their parents want them to and tell parents what they want to hear or believe. Since these parents may already believe that the other parent has significant problems, the child’s development of fear toward the other parent further confirms that fact” (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991, p. 79).
“[Alienated] children are taught to not trust their own perceptions and feelings about the other parent and, instead, are told to trust and believe in what the alienating parent says about the targeted parent” Darnall, 1998).
“Even after investigations establish the innocence of the target parent, the children and the favored parent may cling to the charges of abuse” (Warshak, 2001).
Additional notes:
“Even professionals who are experienced in conducting custody evaluations and enjoy excellent reputations in their community are often weak when it comes to identifying the process of parental alienation” (Warshak, 2001).
“Many parents form an even closer bond with their children after divorce, becoming intensely enmeshed” (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991. p. 30).
“The legal systems need to be clear on the distinction between physical access and social-psychological access” (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991. p.164).
“Ample evidence exists, and has received widespread acceptance among mental health professionals, that some children develop an irrational alienation from their parents that is not warranted by the history of the parent-child relationship and that should be considered a deviation from normal functioning” (Warshak, 2003).
“It is unusual for a child to have a global negative assessment of a birth parent without significant input from a brainwashing parent” (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991, p.13).
“Children who have been indoctrinated over time probably will not be aware of the inception of the programme.” (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991, p.72).
Warshak (2001) stated, “If a parent conveys anxiety about an upcoming separation, either by tone of voice or by too many reassurances, the child will ‘absorb’ the parent’s anxiety and have more difficulty with the separation,” and “Often the most potent divorce poison… relies on suggestion, innuendo, and implication.”
“She [Johnston, 1992] found that a portion of the children in the 9 to 13 age group, having been exposed to the inter-parental conflict for several years, began to ‘make strong alliances’…” (Johnston, 1992).
REFERENCES
Cartwright, Glen, F. 1993. Expanding the parameters of parental alienation syndrome. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 21(3), 205-215
Darnall, Douglass. 1998. Divorce casualties. Protecting your child from parental alienation. Taylor Trade Publishing, New York.
Dune, John and Marsha Hedrick. 1994. The parental alienation syndrome: an analysis of sixteen selected cases. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Vol. 21, p 21-38
Gardner, Richard, A. 1985. Recent trends in divorce and custody litigation. Academy Forum, 29 (2), 3-7
Gardner, Richard A. 1999a. Family therapy of the moderate type of parental alienation syndrome. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 25:195-212
Johnston, J. 1992. High conflict and violent parents in family court: Findings on children’s adjustment and proposed guidelines for the resolution of custody and visitation disputes. Final report to the Judicial Council of the State of California, Statewide Office of Family Court Services, San Francisco, CA: Judicial Council. As seen in Ellis, Elizabeth M. 2005. Help for the alienated parent. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 33:415-426.
Johnston, J R., R. Gonzales, and L. G. Campbell. 1987. Ongoing post divorce conflict and child disturbance. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15(4), 493-509.
Johnston, J. R., M. Kline, and J. M. Tschann. 1989. Ongoing divorce conflict: Effects on children of joint custody and frequent access. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59 (4), 576-592.
Kelly, Joan, B and Janet R. Johnston. 2001. The alienated child: a reformulation of parental alienation syndrome. Family Court Review, Vol. 39 No. 3, July 2001 249-266.
Major, Jayne, A. 2007. Parents who have successfully fought parental alienation syndrome. http://www.paskids.com/articles/Major.php.
Warshak, Richard A. 2001. Divorce Poison. Harper Collins Publishers Inc., New York.
Warshak, Richard A. 2003. Bringing Sense to Parental Alienation: A Look at the Disputes and the Evidence. Family Law Quarterly, 2003.
OMG,,,, You just told my story,,,, When I left my ex, he did EXACTLY the same thing. My babygirl, (she was 10 at the time), became his new confidant, and he literally “bought” her — with all of the toys, gadgets, and things that kids these days “need”. Ten years later, he continues to do the same,…
I pray everyday, that one day she realizes that it’s not about material things,,,, It’a about unconnditional love, hugs, laughter, and not “stuff”…. Gd willing, I’ll be around to witness this miracle.
Thank you…
Susanne Kalinski
This site is an eye opener…. My Ex Wife does many of these things… I don’t understand how the court system can allow children to be abused in this way. My Ex was arrested for beating our daughter until she bled. The police took pictures, called me and I picked up the kids… several months later a judge gave the children back to their Mom…!
Their Mom had convinced them that I made the whole thing up, even though it took place at her house…
I pray more people are made aware of this site and of the work that Dr. Warshak has done to help our children.
Oh — I wasn’t accused of sex abuse — I was accused of “burning my daughter with a hair dryer”… I did no such thing….Having grown up in an home where my father regularly took the belt to us, I SWORE that I would never lay a hand on my child…. and I never did,
But she wanted to “please daddy”, so she lied….
Thank Gd that I wasn’t branded a sex offender, but I still suffered all of those lost years with my baby, that I’ll never get back….
My heart bleeds for what Melinda had to endure,all those years, and am THRI\LLEDt that she has been vindicated.
~~~~Susanne
\
The family court context in which it all unfolded is instructive, too, as is the fact that the prosecutor opposed vacating the convictions and argued that the sons’ recantations were false.
Although he had primary custody the father apparently felt he should and could smear the mother with criminal accusations, but then didn’t parent conscientiously himself, and the two boys spent considerable time in foster care.
All in all, it’s also strikingly reminiscent of witchcraft prosecutions in earlier times, mainly in Europe but especially the infamous Salem Massachusetts episode—as has been pointed out in connection with other contemporary false accusations of child sex abuse scandals.
One twist and complication worth noting is that, especially for younger children and for family court cases, the testimony that the child is impugning or repudiating the parent often comes from a third party, which may be the alienating parent or a supposedly responsible appointee such as a therapist or GAL, and may not accurately represent actual statements of the child.
My ex partner used to tell my children that I had abused them however on reading this story luckily he never made any allegations. I couldn’t imagine going through that on top of being separated from my children, I haven’t seen them in 8 years now.
It is unbelievable what vindictive ex spouses choose to do when you don’t want to be with them any longer. They want to “Win at All Costs” even if that means the cost of the children’s emotional and physical well-being. Oftentimes I wonder, ‘How can he sleep at night? How can he look at himself in the mirror?” But as the years progress and he gets worse I’ve come to the realization that he absolutely has no remorse, nor does he consider what he does “WRONG”. He feels justified, just as he felt justified in putting our beautiful children down and in the same breath telling them how GREAT HE IS and how they will never compare. I used to believe he Loved himself; until I realized just how insecure and puney he is and how he literally must LOATHE HIMSELF, yet is not MAN enough to find HELP. So, each of us have been his target victim at one time or the other. And each time he had a new fling, I thought, “Finally, he will have a new dog to kick.” Unfortunately for the kids and I, the attacks continued in our direction. As he lavished his new flings and their children with attention, adoration and gifts to the dismay of his onlooking and distraught children.
It is time for this to all STOP! And it must begin in the courts. However, this is where the perpetrators are allowed to continue their abusive behavior on the innocent victims as the INJUSTICE SYSTEM VICTIMIZES THE VICTIMS FURTHER while Facilitating EXTREME PARENTAL ALIENATION. Unfortunately for the children and the victim parent, money is the source and the key. It is what perpetuates and rewards the hate which also continues on cases for attorneys, 730 evaluators, judges and CHILDREN’S “court appointed” counsel; which means MORE MONEY in the pockets they line with CHILDREN’S TEARS and LOST CHILDHOODS.
Thank you Dr Warshak for the absolutely brilliant ‘Divorce Poison’, your fantastic work on PAS and all of you for making others aware of what can only be described as PURE EVIL. Although it doesn’t change my situation, it gives me strength to know that I am not alone and not going insane. I haven’t seen my beautiful boys for 5 months and 5 days and the pain is sometimes too much to bear. I often feel like screaming to the ‘professionals’ who have been charged to ‘help’ when in reality they unwittingly facilitate the abuser’s campaign of alienating my children against me . Why can’t they see? Why are they so absolutely blinded to what is so obvious to my family and friends?
Just over two years ago, I asked for a divorce and almost immediately my ex became intent on the direst of campaigns of destroying me and more importantly my relationship with our children, seeking to annihilate me from their lives. He tried every trick in the book to wipe me out but one of the darkest times was being falsely accused of causing actual bodily harm to our youngest son who was eight at the time. His father had been goading him to attack me on a regular basis. Amongst many tactics he bit me hard on my arms and legs causing severe bruising. He attempted to stab me and told his closest friend that his Dad has shown him how to kill me. The list goes on. During one of the attacks I accidentally scratched his face whilst raising my hand to protect myself. His Dad contacted the police and I was accused and subsequently arrested for causing actual bodily harm. Luckily the police were brilliant and although they had to go through the motions, the case was dropped after only five minutes of deliberation and completely thrown out.
The extent to which some ‘parents’ will go to alienate seems limitless. It’s almost like it becomes an addiction, an all-consuming force engulfing their existence.
The only thing that keeps me going is HOPE, that one day the courts, professionals and society will understand and accept that PAS IS CHILD ABUSE. It is a crime and the perpetrators must be stopped and punished. Our children’s future depends on making them LISTEN and ACT before society is full of brainwashed, damaged adults with severe psychiatric problems who will further perpetuate the cycle of PAS.
I have experienced the same allegations which seemed to be unending. I have not seen 4 of my children in 8 years and my middle child has now seen me by her own request twice since December. I was accused of physical abuse through DCFS and although the charges were dismissed it was only after appeal and by then our relationship was severed beyond repair. Multiple attempts to obtain restraining orders were made before that, which were extended and postponed to make them last as long as possible. Even though these were also dismissed, the damage was also unstoppable. I appeared in court 34 times as an almost “professional respondent” within the 3 years it took to become divorced. At that time visitation had ended and the courts told both parties visitation would be at our own discretion which basically meant never to my alienating ex husband.
At one time I was actually so depressed and angry at my children for not being able to think independently I though it was almost as if they were a “herd of sheep”. Now that I have had contact with my daughter now 24 I realize that they had those thoughts but they were just unable to relay anything while with their father. They were his caretaker and he is still extremely needy; only recently have they been able to break away fom his influence. He has made attempts to manipulate their relationships with significant others and this has sparked a defensive mode which they weren’t able to use when they were dependent on him. Time has been in our favor, along with a whole lot of praying.
Your observation that your children did not feel free to express their true thoughts while they were with their father is a lesson judges, guardians ad litem, and mental health professionals need to hear. Too often a child’s stated preferences during custody litigation are taken at face value, with an inadequate investigation into the roots and meanings of a child’s statements. I elaborate on this issue in my lecture on Benefits and Hazards of Involving Children in Custody Decisions, and in my article on Payoffs and Pitfalls of Listening to Children.
As I observe it, the court and its appointees usually do not take the children’s statements of abuse by a parent or custodial preference at face value, though it often looks like they do. They rather see that there’s high intraparental conflict, and following accepted practice need no more information to decide that one parent will accordingly be given all the power—as in this case the father was presumably awarded full custody and discretion over any visitation or parenting time for the mother.
What the courts and the therapeutic community need to think about is that the court can order each parent to respect the other’s parenting, and punish a noncompliant parent.
Can somebody please explain to me why, even after my children were found by the court to have been “severely alienated” by their father against me, they continue to be represented by the same law guardian? When my X brought charges against me (last week), this person (who still backs the father, even though the court took his custody away as a result of the PA) told the judge she ought to fine me $10,000 (and implied the money should be given to him!). If this is not corruption, what is?
As was said by so many others, it’s like listening to my husband’s story all over again.
My husband’s ex tried to accuse him of emotional abuse and have visitation terminated because he left his 12 year old at home by herself for an hour. When the court denied that, she then came up with a story of my husband supposedly “beating” his oldest of three daughters. This the court bought and we were made to go through DHR visits and supervised visitation for six months. Through the diligence of DHR to do a thorough investigation and the testimony of many friends and family, we were able to prove that my husband couldn’t have done what he was accused of. He was given back full visitation rights, although the oldest two daughters have refused to see or communicate with their father in over three years. They even have two younger siblings that they’ve never met. Although we could legally force the hand for them to come, we are so scared that he will be accused of something else for which we don’t have evidence to refute that we don’t push the issue. I wonder if the will ever come back to a relationship with their father. Although I love them and miss them, it kills him.
What gets us the most is how his ex was able to use the court system, the guardian ad litem, and most especially a licensed counselor to help destroy my husband’s relationship with his daughters. These are girls that adored their father and even begged to come and live with us, and in a matter of two years or less his ex was able to completely alienate the relationship between them and their father. The mother continues to take us back to court (five different cases in the last five years) in order to sever my husband’s relationship with their youngest daughter. I pray everyday for her strength to withstand what I know is enormous pressure, and I worry what will become of two teenaged girls that through coercion lost their relationship with their father at such a critical time. Statistics aren’t good, but I pray that they come back to a relationship with him. Although it doesn’t help our situation, it is nice to know that we’re not alone in this. I wish I could hear that sometimes there are happy endings in these types of situations.
Olivia
I really hope things get back to normal for you and your family, for whatever normal is. I sympathize with your’s and your husbands struggle to maintain a healthy relationship with your girls. Your ex, unfortunately, will find out the hard way the value of having a co-parent in the girls lives. Hang in there. Everyone tells me to hang in there, they are totally worth the fight and you don’t know how much I’m hanging on to that right now. Best wishes.
This information is very much needed, but no courts will listen to you just telling what the ex does to alienate you from the children. Parental alienation is very difficult to prove because the children side with the parent they feel sympathy for. My husband tells the courts that we supplied the children with a phone. He produced phone records that show the phone is turned off and when we do call our calls are not returned, nothing at all happens. The judge won’t do anything at all about it. She goes in to the courts and says we blocked her from our house phone and cell phones, but produces absolutely nothing to prove her statements. No phone records, no test videos, nothing. The next thing we know we are being ordered to unblock the phones, they were never blocked. We even had photographs of 69 text messages in one day from their mother. They bad mouth my husband over and over again, but the courts don’t want to see it. If the courts don’t want to hear it, then don’t we wind up with cases like this one? A child grows up sometimes incredibly warped in their way of thinking, never having a real relationship with the alienated parent until it’s sometimes too late or their lives are totally screwed up for trusting in and believing people they shouldn’t all because someone lied to them or manipulated them into screwing up one of their parent’s lives. Does anyone have any ideas on how to prove this?
Proving that alienation is occurring, and that it’s harmful to the affected children, is not the problem, which is rather that the courts have a framework for decision making and criteria or priorities that essentially ignores it, even while most judges usually glean more or less what’s going on.
In some situations it can help if you can formulate your pleading to extinguish the alienation within the court’s scheme in which intra-parental conflict is decisive, but the real fix is going to have to be to start a broad discussion involving all players, from therapists to legislators, and change both the practice and underlying legal foundations of family courts.
More evidence—volumes of taped conversations, surveillance videos, e-mails, screenshots of the other parent’s social networking pages, etc.—isn’t going to help, is barking up a wrong tree, and giving in to distraction.
It is such a shame that adults who are to lead their children by example have the willingness to basically discard the child/children’s childhood all due to the absolute need for vengeance.
My daughter appeared on Dr. Phil [identifying information withheld by admin]. The show mainly addressed a case in southern California where the judge did not grant a restraining order and the father ended up taking his child’s life before committing suicide. My daughter was prodded to go on the show by her mother in hopes it would somehow provide her something to use in her battle of custody against me. My child was 17 at the time. To see that as well as the numerous court actions my daughter was coerced to become involved in is heartbreaking. My daughter has become so indoctrinated, I do not see any time in the future that there will be a reconciliation. It is mind boggling how a mother could do this to a child. When my child was a toddler she would tell me how she would cry for me when she was with her mother and that her mom’s response would be to lock her in the closet in the dark until she stopped crying. During the many visitation exchanges, my little girl would brace herself in the back seat begging me not to make her go back to her mother…I always would. My little girl always seemed to have a connection with me and as she got older she would talk about how her mom was always trying to control her feelings about me.
I have never been charged or convicted of any of the accusations and each and every investigation determined that no abuse had ever occurred.
Sadly the mother’s chameleon like abilities allowed her to adopt two children as well as the one from her current marriage. Even worse is as the mother was prodding and pushing my child to attack me via numerous internet sites include a radio program, the mother would have her little children in the room listening to the mother and my child discuss the allegations.
It took the mom 14 years to accomplish her goal and my heart aches.
As far as I’ve seen none of the terrible, tragic, unconscionable cases in which a parent has murdered a child or the other parent, has involved that parent having cited parental alienation or PAS in the child, in seeking visitation or parenting time, a fact and debating point that’s usually missed when they are invoked to `prove’ that parental alienation is a bogus and dangerous concept.
When I went to court, my wife testified on the stand that she had in no way shut me out of our kids’ lives. She denied saying that she would call the police if I came into our marital home to see our kids. While these lies were still hanging in the air, my lawyer said, “Ma’m I’d like you to hear this audio tape of a recent conversation with your husband…” The secret tape proved her allegations completely false. Although I was exonerated from the false allegations, the judge did absolutely nothing to punish her for perjuring herself, attempting to destroy my character, and trying to take our kids away from me.
Thank you for this important insight Dr. Warshak. Even years after knowing that my sisters and I were lied to about our mother by our father and step-mother, even after the realization that I had been abducted and alienated by my father, and finally understanding how that affected my life, the lies we were told still hold an amount of ‘truth’ when I tried to talk to my mother about it. What I mean is that no matter what she says I wonder if it is true, (that doubt lingers like a bad aroma) or was what my father and step mother said true? Even though I know they have lied to others about many things to protect themselves during and after the custody battle, I still to this day wonder. I will never know the whole truth as my mother is no longer with us on earth and I never knew about PA before her passing but in order for my healing to continue I need to try to let this go. It is very difficult as my memories are not that good of either parent. My doubts come from not knowing if my memories have been twisted by what we were told about her or if they are real….it truly makes a mess of a child’s mind, and takes years, if ever, to sort it all out and move past it to free ourselves from the bad and alleged bad parent and furthermore the guilt for those who do realize the accusations they made against a parent. I don’t think it is possible to ever truly overcome this guilt when one realizes the pain and destruction false allegations caused a parent…not ever.
I appreciate you for sharing your difficult experience with the Plutoverse community. You have given words to some of the very real negative consequences of being subjected to divorce poison. False perceptions, like some optical illusions, can continue to exert their influence even when we have been given the information that allows us to know better. Scholars who study how memory works have come to understand that memory is more like a construction project than a photograph or videotape. So it is understandable that you have difficulty sorting out accurate from inaccurate memories. We may sometimes remember an event, but not remember the source of the information. Was something bad you remember about your mother an event you personally experienced, or something told to you that you have since incorporated into your memories? Psychologists call this a problem with source attribution. One thing that may help is to speak with your mother’s relatives. They may be able to give you photographic evidence and recollections that document your mother’s love for you and help you evaluate the bad things you were told about her.
It is important for child victims of divorce poison to cut themselves some slack when it comes to judging their past harsh treatment of a rejected parent and other relatives. Some children who make false accusations against a parent do so in a kind of trance. Just as captors find ways to bypass a victim’s critical thinking and get the captive to do and say things that they would never normally endorse, some children feel caught in a bind that allows them little freedom to oppose a parent’s pressure and manipulation. In a very real sense these children are tricked and coerced into mistreating a parent. (Anticipating critical reactions I hasten to point out the obvious: These remarks do not apply to cases where children’s allegations are true.) When you grow up and realize the mistakes you made, the most reasonable approach is to remember the context in which the mistakes were made, do what you can to atone and make amends, and then, as you are doing, let it go and move on in your life. Any loving mother whose children rejected her will know at some level that the children were not acting independently. It would compound your mother’s suffering if she felt that you were continuing to suffer guilt over your past behavior. She would want you to be more forgiving of yourself, and use your past mistakes to help you avoid repeating them with others.
Leaving a note on this web site will not change a thing for my two children, my heart is broken. Their mother took them away from me, their father on the 28′th of November soon to be a year ago. Perhaps I should say, she took away their father, their home, their pets, personal belongings, family traditions and the greater part of their family. It happened so fast I was left completely bewildered and lost. Then their ages were ten and twelve. My ten year old son’s pet gecko and red tail boa are still in his room. His bed is still made from the time he slept there last. His Christmas gifts from last year are still on his bed unopened along with many of his toys, a red Christmas stocking still full and his clothing in his dresser. My daughter’s pet guinea pig is in her cage on the floor next to me as I type this. Her pet rabbit is still in his hutch in back of the garage. I checked his food and water just a few minutes before I sat down and googled Dr. Warshak’s web site. I raised those two children with so little help from their mother it should have been an embarrassment. Their mother and I were never married nor lived together. At one time she tried to force me to move in with her but I refused because of how she treated my four older children from a previous marriage. I was a single father. My previous wife would often get drunk and beat me as I held my hands over my face to avoid having visible bruises to make excuses for when I went to work. I never called the police out of fear they would only laugh as I’m 6ft. 6in. tall and she was more than a foot shorter. I was left thousands in debt and with four children ages 6 through 13, when my wife moved in with her boyfriend. Then I met this woman who seemed to good to be true. She helped me with my children and helped me out financially as well. It all began to change though, as soon as an unplanned pregnancy came. This wonderful person became so controlling and frightening I can’t describe. Over the years it became only worse and worse. While she rarely became physically violent until the last year or two, the whole of both families, seemed to live by one rule “Don’t make mom mad”. She had three children from a previous marriage as well. So to cut things short and not ramble so much, I ended up raising our two children. She would watch them on her days off if she felt like it and I could drop them off for her to do childcare while I worked. I did their well baby checks and signed them up for kindergarten. I knew all their school teachers and their pediatric doctor as the children were on my insurance and I made and kept their medical appointments and paid for the balance. I did all their dental care. My children and I lived a whole life their mother knew little about. She didn’t know the names of our children’s pets, Shiloh the gecko or Molly the guinea pig. She hadn’t spent a night at my house since our daughter now 13 had just turned 8. Often she would drive right by within a block of our house as many as eight times a day (that was four trips to the gym) and we knew she would never stop. Her dogs seemed more important to her than people. She seemed to have so little interest in our children I couldn’t believe she would ever take them as she did. It seemed like only a matter of weeks when my children started to make what seemed like complete personality changes. They became very quiet around me. My children became verbally abusive toward me. My daughter one day out of the blue shouted at me “You know mom would never go to court and take us away from you”. It was something a twelve year old girl couldn’t understand or should even know about. It was a threat not a promise. One I had heard many times before from her mother. I still can’t wrap my mind around it. One day I got a call on my answering machine from their mom that she was bringing our children over to my house around eight, because “the children wanted to talk to me about something”. I knew from the tone in her voice it would be ugly. I also knew she “could care less” if the children had ever wanted to talk to me about anything. Not knowing what to do I called the local battered women’s shelter, catalyst, an 800 number I found in the phone book. The counselor told me if I didn’t feel safe I should get out of the house and stay with a friend. I left immediately and when I came home at six in the morning there was a note on my door written by my children saying they were “ashamed” of me and that I was “hurting” them. It also said they wanted to stay at their mother’s house for the next month and not see me. I was numb with shock and not knowing where to go I had someone drive me to Catalyst. I didn’t know at the time that Catalyst even provided services for men. I pleaded with e-mails to their mother. I took a leave from my job and documented every insurance claim ever made on my insurance from the time they were born. I obtained every school record from kindergarten to present and all of their dental records as well. I got letters from local business people who knew my children and I. And I also obtained letters from their doctors and all of our neighbors who had watched them grow up as well. Being an avid amateur photographer and a single dad with six children, guess who my favorite subjects were? I photo documented everything from working on school projects at home to school events, parent volunteering on school field trips, swimming in the river, snow sledding, weekend road trips… it was endless. I went to the school counselors at both my children’s schools and child protective services. To date I’ve gone through 9 different social workers 3 PhD. psychologists, and two attorneys. I’ve borrowed $20,000.00 against my retirement and gone through it all. It took 9 months and a court order to get my children into counseling. Recently their mother’s attorney came up with a letter from the counselor stating my son claims he “would rather run away from home than be forced to visit his dad because of the beatings and whippings”. My children both claimed sexual misconduct and physical abuse. They both claim their mother did not influence what they told the court mediator. I had their mother served at work to be sure she was away from our children when she got the papers. It did no good. Four hours after the papers were served when mom should have been at work a frighteningly angry e-mail came from my young daughter saying things such as I had tried to force her mother to get an abortion when pregnant with her little brother. What a horrible thing to tell a ten year old boy or his sister. I found an old personal journal I had kept years ago, where it was written that I had actually dreamed about our son before he was born, the complete opposite and I sent that to the court too. I lost complete physical and legal custody of my children and was court ordered to get counseling, take parenting classes, and anger management. It was ordered that I could only visit my children with structured visitation and only if my children wanted to see me. They have only expressed hate and no desire to see their father. I have a “stay away order” from their schools. I don’t go near their house for fear I will be accused of stalking and face a restraining order. It’s so overwhelming some days I feel I can hardly breath. Having my daughter claimed on her mother’s tax returns took away my head of house hold status and put me in a single much higher tax bracket. I’ve used every emotional and financial resource I have to try and protect my children from their mother, and in combination with the child support I pay (nearly half my expendable income), I don’t know how much longer I will be able to live in my home. Just last week my attorney called and my child support will be going up because their mother purposely took a lower paying job. Another irony is that their mother disowned one of her older sons some months ago, he was 23 and out of work. With no place to go I took him in and helped him get a car and hunt for work. He’s not a bad guy but for some reason he could “never do anything right or please his mother” and even stranger his older brother could “never do anything wrong”. His older brother now 26 who’s “perfect” has free reign to sex, drugs and alcohol, has never had a full time job and still lives at home! Now my two children will have not associate or have anything to do with their brother who lives with me! I’m paying cash $100.00 an hour to a psychologist who specializes in childhood trauma and personality disorders to help this young man deal with his mother too! Now that “I’m out” as it were, and standing up to my children’s mom instead of trying to placate her, I’ve been able to see things I was just to delusional to understand before. When she told me stories of how abusive her ex-husband was, I believed them. Now I know I was the fool. For example she told me her Ex. had one time forced her to have an abortion. An old journal of her’s I had run onto stated theses exact words “Scott wanted junior, Scott ran his hands over junior at night”. She got the abortion anyway! It was not what he did to her. It was what she did to him. When she borrowed a short double barreled 12 gauge shotgun from a friend “to protect herself and her children” from her abusive Ex. I should have run right then but instead I believed her. (The person who owned the gun wrote a letter on my behalf, that what I said was true and to no avail, I used it in court too.) Now in hindsight, I see that the man was an emotionally and financially dependent house husband. Not long after having his three sons taken away he became very depressed, was unable to find work, and began drinking. His emotional and physical health failed, and when the call came that he was in the hospital with a severe pneumonia and had asked the doctor to let him die, I now understand the sad bewildered look on that man’s face when I took his three young boys to say good-by to their dad. Yes, it was I who took those boys to see their father the night he died. Their mother had given me consent to take them but refused to come along, She had actually cracked a joke about taking his body to the local landfill. He died at 47 and never got to see his sons grow up. The only adult witness I had to this event was this man’s sister, who unfortunately was murdered by her husband who then committed suicide a year ago last May.
It is my hope in writing, and sharing this that perhaps anyone who reads it may feel better that there are others out there who know and feel the same agony and understand. The pain and loss can be unbearable at times. Bad-mouthing a child’s other parent and brainwashing, encouraging children to make completely false accusations in court truly can and does destroy lives and does unthinkable harm to the children involved.