Why Parental Alienation is the Act of an Emotionally Abusive Bully

to missymae6

I came come to the understanding that it seems to that this Mostly happens the men in these many cases .I have read,watched these Horrible tragedies .. and have ran into mare males dealing with this. For some reason in some injustice horrify way society has excepted this horrific criminal act of injustice. When My Ex husband first took my daughter away from me it was his first week to be with her after out separation of 18 year marriage. His own family warned me not to ever let him take her. But I then let him come over to our home to visit our daughter. But that is when I realized that he was just interested in me. He said that… He would say well.. if I can’t be with you then their isn’t any reason that I should come around anymore. What he wanted was to have affair behind his new girl friend that I caught him cheating on me so I kicked him out of our home. But my ex husband wanted BOTH” worlds.I wanted our daughter back on 2008 when this happened to realize that her parents loved her but were no longer together. I wanted her to have a relationship with both of her parents. I didn’t want to be that kind o person that pulled a child around like a tool’ or weapon to use against each other.So after being split up from our relationship after 3 months. I decided that maybe he should start having her for the week-ends she was 4 at the time.HIS very first week-end with her is when it all started back early summer of 2008. I went to visit my mother in Michigan came back … she was gone. He said he called social services on me for abandonment of my daughter that when he was bringing her back home No one was there..that he had no choice but to keep her. He started all this with lies. He had my numbers in fact all that week-end when I was at my mother’s home. He never answered his phone at home or his cell phone. The police said since we weren’t divorced there was nothing that they could do about it.
So we still had one daughter left at home age 15 that he couldn’t control. My ex husband said when I got back on my feet I could have her back. ALL LIES.. in fact the first real visit that I got with her is when he was getting married to his mistress that he was cheating on me for 6yrs.So I lived in Mississippi at the time of all this. He called me up because he had no one to watch our daughter after his marriage so he could go on a Honey moon to Florida (which his mom paid for) So I agreed to make the trip down if he promised to be there. for my new husband and son to pick her up.In fact in the past I have been fight more fighting in court to see my daughter he has had contempt’s after contempt’s not letting me see her or talk to her. So anyways we left to get her summer of 2010. When we brought her back home we got settled in .. She begin to bite,hit spit.. wipe poop on the bathroom wall.. put a pillow on her baby brothers head, he was age 3 months then. later she came out to my MOM one early morning that her dad was touching her.I didn’t want to say anything at first to anyone ,, but she was crying so much. And her own grandma didn’t believe her ( my ex husband mother) but it was reported. After that I enrolled her in school in Mississippi ,, after we reported this they still let him walk into the school and take her out. He has been playing games with the court before this visit I have only seen my child briefly few phone calls here in there that were always recorded. My letters never given to her.. It always seemed like he was hiding something. He was the abuse to my daughter. After he came and took her away again from me she was age 8. September 09th 2010 was the last time that I got to see her touch her talk to her. His own family knows where she is at but they said that they didn’t want to get in the middle. This is crazy to me, he now has a warrant for not bringing her tp court. And he will lose custody of her. But the courts said that he needs to be found and served. All this is complete nonsense to me how does a child fall through the cracks of justice like this. Then I read up on this it is so out of hand what is going on. why aren’t their any law to protect the children. Thing is until recently people were judging my character wrong. Thinking well, you must of been on drugs violent for a man to take away your baby. He even fooled the courts for a while with his lies. The sad thing at the end of the day the children pay the price in this ridicules legal kidnapping that is going on. How does the Justice system lets our future kids fall through the cracks. My new husband and I moved to Indiana to be closer to my daughter after he took her away. My daughter’s father wasn’t even in this state for to long when he withdrew her in December 05th 2010 ran out the the state without any return address or contacting the courts. I found him once before after that in Florida. The courts sent him a paper stating that he had a warrant and to return the child. He fled states. other states really don’t care about this kind of warrant they won’t go after him at all. Even if he is pulled over he won’t go to jail over this in other state. If you have any adive on how to help me please feel free* to contact me. Malissamaehill@gmail.com

I agree with you snowflake.
It is heart-breaking for any parent to go through. Divorce is a time for parents to reassure their children that they are loved dearly by both parents. It is not a time for children to feel like they are living in a war zone.
I wish you and your children a brighter future.

I see that there haven’t been any posts here for a while, but I just had to respond.
I am a mother experiencing this issue, and I have been trying to explain it to minor’s council., judges, probation officers, etc. What a relief to have found at least a name for it. I don’t care what person argues against it: PAS is real. I know, because this is my life. Call it what you like:alienation of affection, parental alienation; doesn’t matter because it is what has happened to my family since I left my ex-husband 3 years ago.

Thank you so much for talking about it.

Tara, do you realize you are supporting the theory of a man who makes the claim that incest is a natural thing and is normal? PAS is unsubstantiated mumbo jumbo created by a doctor that had unscrupulous practices to make himself rich. Maybe before you go making claims and trying to make money off false pseudo science theories you should do your homework. My stepdaughter is being emotionally and physically abused by her mother and thanks to people like you my husband is being accused of PAS and now may loose his daughter to the hands of her abusers. I don’t doubt that some parents may try to alter their childrens affections in fact when my parents divorced I was caught in the middle of their many disputes and bad mouthing of one another but I didn’t not turn against one parent. Now people like you are trying to make money off bad science practices furthering escalating this idea of alienation when in 98% of these cases these children hate the other parent because they are actually being abused. Good job! My suggestion to all of you who read this, do a little research on Dr. Gardner, the creator of this theory before you jump on board with these ridiculous ideas. And when a child comes to you with a story of abuse, take it seriously and fight for that child and be wary of this pseudo science CRAP.

And just a PS — if it does end up that PAS is a real condition, I will bring my daughter to you to have it diagnosed so we can sue the judge and Arizona court for putting her into the situation in the first place to have it — and maybe she can qualify for SSI due to her disability — her father makes a good sum so hopefully she can get a nice monthly check from Obama. ROTFL. End of discussion (from my end anyway).

And just to respond to this one: No I don’t suffer from “PAS” at all. What I suffer from is the result of a patriarchal judge who thinks that a man with multiple domestic violence issues, probation, restraining orders, alcohol abuse, and factual based child abuse (mostly emotional) with various testimonies should still “have visitation.” This has caused emotional problems in my daughter because she was forced to have a relationship with an abuser, and go to repeated visitations at his home — so that she developed a very unhealthy emotional attachment to the abuser not far different from the emotional attachment women suffer in the “Cycle of Violence.”

I don’t “hate” men, I despise the court system, a system that pretty much gives county judges godlike powers with no real system for appeal of any of their decisions, many of which are armchair and arbitrary opinions that have no relation to the legislature enacted in their states, or precedent (unless the “precedent” is Roman law, where a man could kill anyone in his family if he choose to)or maybe a watered down version of that “precedent.” Certainly no relation to domestic violence or even child custody laws pertaining to domestic violence, in fact these “GODLIKE” judges seem to think they are above the “law” at all and can make their own laws, which they do — constantly.

This not only upsets ME but a lot of other people, apparently. The Dr. Phil show I am referring to in another post was about men who got and maintained these visitation rights and then KILLED THEIR CHILDREN because they “wanted the woman” back. They used visitation as a weapon against the mother and ultimately killed their kid and themselves to punish her. And over and over again judges give these guys “visitation” no matter what the hell they do, threaten or whatever their history is.

My problem, mylady is not “PAS,” my problem is that everytime my daughter goes to her father’s house I have a deep, abiding fear that she may never come back. I wouldn’t put it past this guy to do this stuff, he has PTSD from being in the war in Iraq, and suffers from a long time alcohol abuse which seems to stem from his own parental problems (divorced parents who fought all the time and used the kids as a weapon) as well as just being a deeply depressed and troubled individual ever since I met the guy.

This abusive individual accused ME of “PAS” and printed out a crapload of b.s documents off of the internet and attempted hard to get a judge to give him custody because it was (in his mind) “my fault” that my child didn’t want to visit him or had a bad attitude around him at times, an accusation I was found innocent of. However I will be on my death bed to testify that ANY “negativity” or “alienation” he may think I have done with regard to my daughter is only about protecting her from the type of abuse not only myself was subjected to at the hands of this guy but 2 other women were SINCE my own case with him in 1998, both of which obtained restraining orders.

He still has visitation.

And if anything happens to my daughter on one of these visitations (god forbid and I pray with all my heart that it won’t) — then I guess all you quacks will eat your words. Then again — maybe not. Probably not, you are too set in your beliefs to accept science and reason above your PAS religion.

Best wishes,

Kelli H.

One person said this:

“If our legislative and justice systems fail to act on PAS in the near future, I fear we shall see far more dead women due to domestic violence as women try to power up on men using SAD.”

Are you friggin serious? Everything people say here to rant and rave that PAS is an actual “ailment” just further proves my point. This is an invented “ailment” no different than accusing women of being witches, accusing women of being weak and having “fainting spells,” accusing them of being “hysterical” etc. etc. I think I saw one interview with a woman from the 60s saying a woman should never be president because they are too “flighty” or something. The web owner here said that this is not a male/female issue: in fact it is, if you read all the literature on this load of crap, it primarily says WOMEN HAVE THIS “disease” by and large, far more than men. Just like the witches hung at Salem!

The fact of how absolutely un-intelligent people are to post the things here, not view history factually or in context and to look at this from their own personal angry emotions clouds everything and it is scary that you could add another psychiatric illness that “mostly women” have to justify taking away their children, is just SAD. And, further proves my opinion that women against women are a FAR WORSE tragedy than anything a man can do to a woman. I’d rather be beat daily than deal with the legislature caused by jealous, women-hating women who want to take other women’s children away.

I have done a LOT of research about this and had to read a lot of historical books about women’s rights with regard to children and domestic violence laws. You people sound like the uppity Christian women trying to take Italian and Irish women’s children away in the early part of the century for being “bad parents” because they had to work, because they weren’t rich and well off by these loving, caring Christian do-gooders.

There is a lot of literature out there, before ranting off the cuff because of your own nasty custody battle, maybe you should research it.

Kelli Holloran

Re. Dr. Tara: –

To reply to you: since the American Psychological Assn (sorry for my typo on that) does not consider this a “syndrome,” then I fail to see why you as a Ph.D. holding psychologist or whatever continue to act as if it exists.

There are certainly abusive parents in the world, but I don’t think “abusive parent” is a syndrome either. Why does everything have to be some kind of syndrome (where what, some medication like Prozac will cure you)? This is just the horrible situation our country has come to, medicalizing everything.

“Abusive parents” (whether verbally, physically, emotionally, whatever) HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED. PAS is a highly psychologized idea that is not in fact a syndrome but just another way to explain certain abuse one perceives being done (to children). IT IS NOT HOWEVER A MEDICALLY RELATED SYNDROME. In fact, I don’t think it is a syndrome AT ALL but is a willful act done by one individual that can be self-controlled. A “syndrome” implies it is a medical or psychologically related illness that cannot be controlled and some cure should be found for it.

If you are actually calling it a syndrome then you are taking responsibility away from the perpetrator of “said abuse” by giving them a syndrome. What’s next? This parent will use this as an excuse why they aren’t even responsible for the behavior at all, and get medication for it? This whole thing is LUDICROUS.

A “right winged” person should actually be appalled at this — whoever did the “alienating” or abuse (constant barrage of negative statements about a child’s other parent for NO VALID REASON but to manipulate the child to hate the other parent) is fully responsible for that behavior and should just be called a verbally or psychologically abusive parent — not diagnosed with a syndrome.

Have a nice day,

Kelli Holloran, M.A., GCWS

@ Kelli

Good luck with your custody issues. It seems as if you’re suffering from parental alienation perpetrated by your ex, but then, how could you be? It doesn’t exist according to you.

What about degenerate’s story? He experienced parental alienation and hostile aggressive parenting as a child at the hands of his mother and still has to deal with this kind of abuse from her. Is he fabricating his story? To what end?

This is a big world with lots of people with lots of different experiences—some far worse than your own. Just because you don’t have firsthand knowledge of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

The Diagnostic Statistician’s Manual is currently on it’s 4th edition with multiple revisions of each edition and its 5th edition is due out in 2013. Just because the last edition didn’t recognize PAS doesn’t mean it won’t in its future incarnations.

Furthermore, what makes it into the ever-evolving manual is a VERY political process. There are practitioners who have vested interests in what makes it into these manuals—for example, research grants and political and gender-based ideologies. This is common knowledge in the field, which is rarely talked about for various reasons.

Best,
Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

The Family Law court whores make tons of money on Parental Alienation everyday the Marble Mansions are open for business. The only way to stop this abuse is making 50/50 placement a rebuttable presumption. 50/50 placement is indeed the law according to the Constitution, and many states statutes, but in the hands of money raking Family Law attorneys and judges, the rules and the law are mere putty in their hands. And they would rather money than putty!!

I wish I had known about this when I divorced my husband 20 years ago. I am now trying to find away to not have this kind of abuse passed onto my children. Any suggestions?

I am all too familiar with efforts at parental alienation, having lived with it for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories in life was my mom throwing me, and all my belongings, out of her house because I “loved my father too much”, which meant, I suppose, that I “didn’t love her”. Through the years, we had every ill thing my father had ever done while they were together, with plenty more made up, screamed at us on a regular basis. One of her favorites was to go on and on about how terrible our dad was, how he didn’t care about us, how him treating us well was a sham, a conspiracy to get us to live with him so that he didn’t have to pay support, how bad living with him would be, and then she would threaten to kick us out and make us live with him. Of course, hell would have frozen over before she allowed that; to this day (I’m 18) she gets irritable about me seeing him, and says that I should cut off all contact with him, as my sister did. Another was to go on and on about how terrible dad was, and then talk of how I was “just like him”. 15 years after they divorced, and being a student in college, I still get this crap. For example, she last went off on me a few months ago, during my finals week; later on, I get this email from her saying that I might as well kick, punch, and throw her, “like my father did” (and yet she still tells stories of when she first “beat him up”), because “what I was doing to her” (I have no idea what…) felt “just like being abused by your father”. Oh, and then there was the fun of being accused of plotting to “never see or speak to her again”, because I bought my own cell phone, independent of her plan, because she had blocked my father and I from communicating. Such fun…

Dear Dr. Palmatier:

Good article. Thank you for your efforts to raise the visibility of an issue that is affecting countless parents, children and extended family members every year.

For what it’s worth — the emails and phone calls we receive in response to our articles and book indicate that Moms and Dads are the alienator and the alienated in equal numbers. Sadly, we believe neither gender has cornered the market on the emotionally unhealthy issues that lead to parental alienation.

In any event, thanks again for the article and keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

mike jeffries
Author, A Family’s Heartbreak: A Parent’s Introduction to Parental Alienation

“Original research found women to be the perpetrators of this abusive behavior in 90% of reported cases. Recent research indicates both genders equally engage in parental alienation.”
—–

Sentence 1 and sentence 2 are not mutually exclusive since women get custody roughly 90% of the time. To suggest that male and female custodial parents engage in this practice in EQUAL NUMBERS would be to suggest that fathers are especially prone to alienating since they get custody much less.