r/ParentalAlienation

my parents divorced when i was a small child. After years of a custody battle my narcissistic mom finally manipulated me into cutting my dad off even though he was the nonabusive parent. I eventually realized who my mom was and have gone NC with her on and off in my adult life but now permanently since i recently became a mom. Ive been remembering my dad recently and feel the desire to reconnect even though its been 20 years. He reached out ten years ago but i ignored/blocked him since my mom was still bullying me about being disloyal to her if i talked to him. I feel a lot of guilt even though i was a kid being manipulated but i really want to reach out but have no idea what to say. Its a lot considering ill be telling him hes a grandfather too. I still have his number and looking for advice

I want to share my experience with what I believe is parental alienation over the last five and a half years. This is a long text, but I hope someone takes the time to read it.

I met this woman through someone at a bar. At the time, she was unemployed and presented herself as a victim, saying she was depressed. Initially, she seemed like a caring and good person, but the more I got to know her, the more I realized that wasn’t really the case. She was very self-centered and dismissive, and over time I started to believe she had narcissistic traits. Because of this, I ended the relationship.

However, she continued to show up at my home. I was living as an expat and felt quite alone, so I allowed her back into my life. Eventually, she became pregnant. I take responsibility for that, but her behavior didn’t improve. She remained defiant and disrespectful—criticizing my language skills, insulting my mother without knowing her, and speaking negatively about my home country. She would get annoyed if I approached her when she was with friends, and during COVID times, she even coughed in my face.

In public, she acted like a kind person, but in private, she was very different. Because of all this, I was not very present during the pregnancy. I also asked for a pregnancy test at the time, as she was known for dating multiple people and I had doubts about paternity, but she refused and became offended. Her behavior only got worse.

After many discussions and even a call from her family, I agreed to be present at the birth of the child, but I refused to sign the birth certificate because of those doubts. Her attitude continued to be controlling and disrespectful—she would boss me around and bully me. I told her this needed to change, but it never did. The constant conflict made me believe it was better for the child if I minimized time around her.

Despite this, I still spent time with my child and we developed a bond. However, the mother was always present, constantly criticizing and creating negativity. At one point, she even said in front of my child that she would find another man.

I work in healthcare, and this situation became extremely difficult for me psychologically. I wanted to see my child more often, but she controlled everything—when I could visit, where, and for how long. She frequently blocked my calls and limited my access. She also traveled abroad with my child without informing me, ignored my attempts to contact them, and posted pictures online while I had no idea how my child was doing.

There was also a moment that had a strong impact on me. I called my child’s grandmother using a private number because I suspected my child was there. During the call, I could hear my child crying and calling for me, his father. I immediately rented a car and drove to the house, as I knew where they lived. When I arrived, they refused to let me see my child and ended up calling the police on me.

This situation deeply affected my mental health. I became depressed and started struggling at work. I lost several jobs and had to move homes while dealing with severe psychological stress. At one point, I even felt like I was being stalked and gaslighted by a group of people, though I’m not sure if that was connected to her or her circle.

Eventually, I became suicidal and had to return to my home country to take care of my mental health. After months of blocking me, she suddenly decided to bring my child to visit me there. When she came to my parents’ house, my family treated her with patience, but I had reached my limit. During an argument, I slapped her.

After that, she left, and for the past year and a half, I have had no contact with my child. During this time, my father passed away. My mental health deteriorated further, and it has become very difficult to work or rebuild my life.

Right now, I’m in a very difficult situation. I don’t have my own home, and my child lives in another country. I feel completely blocked and isolated from being a father. Her mother and her family control everything and have ignored me for over a year and a half.

They wanted me to submit to their control, which I refused. As a result, I lost my role and experience as a father. This situation has lasted for six years, and I don’t see a clear way out.

Now I find myself in the same position she was in when I met her—unemployed and depressed. After years of struggle, losing time of my life, this is where I ended up.

My Fears: My historical fear was that I was stupid, incompetent, weak, or a weirdo. Yes, I grew up reading comic books, playing d&d, and avoiding sports. So that was my weak spot that my ex could hit me with in relationship to establish dominance.

N Abuse Story: After she really fell out of affection for me, when the lovebombing was /over/, she started to claim I didn't love her because I would forget things. Like, she would ask me to get milk on the way home, probably the night before, or start the potatoes boiling when I got home from work so we could serve when she got home -- and I'd forget. She would tell me that these things meant I did not think of her all day and I did not love her - after all, I remembered things for work. This would continue, on and off, for years. To be fair, at least once or twice, I had an appointment with a friend to work on something in grad school, and I would ask her if I should remind them, and she'd say "no, they either want to go or they don't, don't annoy them." And, of course, a couple of times, the friends forgot. So she was consistent in her unrealistic expectations -- if she said it once, she couldn't be deigned to remind someone, if they forgot, it was their fault.

Eventually I made similar mistakes at work and told her about it. Then slowly I went from "smart but don't love her" to "she doesn't love me" to "dumba-s who she does not love." Eventually I filed for separation (not divorce, religious) my priest talked me out of it but she had seen a lawyer, so she spent 6 months isolating me from the the kids then filed for divorce. The court determined she was dominating and controlling and awarded me the youngest full-time to prevent the destruction of relationship that had already happened with the older two.

TODAY: A half-dozen years later, my youngest is starting to do the same things. She's an early teen now, and earlier in the week wanted a specific item from the store. She was in information-hiding mode, so she only two me a few words, so, for example, "It's kind of frozen vegetable they will have at wal-mart." Then we went to get it on our way to mom's dinner visit, which is ~40 miles away. I asked her to remind me, and she wouldn't. Eventually she told me "frozen vegetables", and I thought "oh wait, if we get them before the visit they'll be sitting in the car for four hours. Let's not do that." and we agree. Later I told her if she wants me to remember things, tell me a story - who suggested it, why, when, what you wanted to do with it, what makes it unique, that kind of thing. She said "why would I do that, when you can't remember two words?"

She later told me she believed I was intentionally forgetting in order to "rage bait" her. And that my forgetting was "feigned incompetence." The night before that, my daughter told me that I was a narcissist and I should look up "SPECIAL ME", which is a nemonic to remember the diagnostic criteria of NPD.

Eventually I told her that she knows she is being disrespectful and that no, she could not watch a TV show on her phone in the car, and if she kept it up I would call her friend's mom and cancel the friend-over she was planning friday. Suddenly her behavior improved.

In my words: She is perceiving my appropriate, loving, boundaries as abuse, and someone is inappropriately teaching her therapy-language, coaching her to be my peer or superior, and to see my parenting as narcissistic abuse. (It's a covert tactic)

Bottom line: I can see this a couple ways. It could be a strategy - provide very limited information, criticize the person when they forget. But I think another aspect of this that narcissists are constantly asking "what's in it for me?" Explaining in depth to someone else, reminding them doesn't benefit the narcissist specifically -- unless they get worship and positive supply out of it.

Another aspect, I think, is rigorous boundaries and unkindness - Their way of being really is that they told you once, if you don't show up, that is your fault, they TOLD you. I'm actually running into this in other areas, where a really complex situation is boiled down to five words, and if I don't remember then I am "gaslighting" them. Again, if they actually invested the time to remind me in any detail, I might remember - and did once, when I got my youngest to actually tell me what she meant, instead of jumping to gaslighting.

It's all very confusing to me. I am hoping some people here have some insight into what might be going on.

My daughter broke her arm over the Easter weekend.
I wasn't there.
I was informed via WhatsApp.
I'm not going to call it what the courts call it. I'm just going to tell you what it felt like.
I sat at my desk and read the message, re-read the message and felt a lead weight drop into my stomach. And then the anger came. It swelled up and started seething out of my eyes.
I closed my eyes and felt that rage welling up.
Boiling, bubbling, frothing.
I then took a deep breath in. And a looooong slow breath out. And then another…
And then I had to do some box breathing.
In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Four times through.
By the end of it I realised the rage and the anger wasn't about how I had been informed via WhatsApp.
It was never about the WhatsApp.
It was because I was scared.
My daughter was hurt and I wasn't there.
I tried calling. No answer. Eventually I got through to Ophelia via video call. She wanted me to come through, the hospital was an hour away.
I messaged her mother: "On my way. I'm an hour away."
The response: they'd be discharged in thirty minutes.
I'd miss her. I wouldn't get to be there for my daughter.
I spoke to a man this morning in one of the Facebook dad groups. He said when his son isn't with him, he gets depressed. That he just sinks.
I know that man. I was that man.
In the beginning it felt like something had been taken away. The flat was too quiet. The evenings were too long. It felt like a chunk of my life had been cut away as a cruel punishment for my failure.
The thing I didn't realise though was that I had been drifting through my life.
Grazing, not hunting.
Through my marriage. Through early fatherhood. There in body, but my mind elsewhere.
The separation didn't take something from me.
It showed me that I hadn't been giving, not in the way my family needed me to.
So I started using those empty days.
Gym. Meditation. Reflection. Building the case I needed to defend myself against allegations that should never have been made.
Building the version of me my daughter actually deserves.
The time without her didn't make me any less her father.
It made me realise how sacred the time I do get to spend with her is.
It started to make me into the father she actually deserves.
Back to the weekend.
I couldn't reach Ophelia in time. She was discharged before I got there.
So I sat down and I wrote this post. Because if I couldn't be there for her in that moment, I was going to build something that might reach every dad who ever found out about his kid's broken arm via WhatsApp.
That felt like the right use of the "empty" time.
Ophelia is seven. She'll leave home when she's eighteen.
Eleven years. Fifty-two weeks. Split down the middle.
I've got 286 Tuesdays left.
How many do you have?

First a little background .....

I've been estranged from four out of my six adult children Since 2016 and 2019. They range in age from 39 to 22.

They've told lie after lie about me. I've had a friend from highs school disown me because of their lies.

I have a son and a daughter that aren't estranged. The daughter is 22 and lives with me. She is my live in aid. I am disabled so she cleans our apartment. She won't get a regular job and only works 5 hours a week for me. But the state of Wisconsin pays her to being a supportive home care person. She gets $14/hour. Her pay checks are $129.29 every two weeks. She is borderline autistic and has anxiety. I've asked her to apply for disability but she won't. I think it's because I'm on disability And her sisters who are estranged from me said that I was lazy and that I'm not really disabled. So I think she's afraid to apply.

Anyways... I pay for all of the bills. Rent, Internet, gas, electric, and my cell phone. She uses a cell phone from the state of Wisconsin that we got for free for being on disability and foodshare. So she doesn't have any thing to pay for.

She has over $3,000 saved in case our animals need to see a vet. I have a dog and a cat. And she has a cat. All are emotional support animals.

We split the foodshare 50/50.

About 95% of the time we get along great. But lately she's been yelling at me. I always just ignore the disrespect but I can't do that anymore.

I'd been using her ps5 to play an video game that I love. I had to buy my own controller because she didn't want me to use hers. Totally understandable. My controller isn't an official controller so it had to be plugged into the ps for a few minutes before it recognizes the controller.

I got a PS5 yesterday and the controller that came with it doesn't have a charging cable. so I texted my daughter when she woke up and asked if I could borrow her cable for a few minutes just to get my PS5 to recognize the other controller. she got mad. then later on, I asked her what her email was because ps signed me out of the accounts. she screamed at me upstairs "No! I'm not doing that now!".

I know that yelling is abusive behavior. one of her sisters whom I'm estranged with used to yell at me all the time. it was so bad that I'd spend 80% of my day in my bedroom on my computer instead of being downstairs.

I think that my 22 year old daughter knows that I'm afraid of becoming estranged from her and so she tests the limits.

What would you do??

Long story short my narcissist mother has alienated my 2 kids. I should’ve seen it coming since when she’s with them she picks my parenting through to pieces. 18YO fine she’s an adult and she’s not living with her, she’s with her boyfriend so I also know she’s away somewhat from the unhealthy behaviours. But omg my son.

Since leaving he’s suffered multiple daily panic attacks which he did not before. I’ve informed in on 3 occasions gently over the last 6 weeks since he left I’m here if he needs me. On the final attempt he told me to stop texting so I did to respect his boundaries. I’ve cut contact with my mother as contact with her is being twisted and fed back to my son. Even positive contact so it’s not worth it. Social workers were involved after a break down at school but closed the case and in their words “if he was younger we could’ve removed him and brought him home”. He’s a big lad so there’s no way I could keep him here and it would just cause further conflict.

I am so up and down. One minute I’m thinking he’s made his own choice he can come back whenever, the next I’m thinking my poor baby going through this, next minute I’m missing him like crazy, next minute freedom from the shackles my narc mother has had me in for 40 years. It’s just all over the place and intense. Did you go though this? Did it go away or calm down?

Will your guilt ever disappear about not seeing your child grow up?

My son is 10 years old and I have been turned against him. I see him barely 15 days a year. I am simply exhausted. I come home every day feeling empty and depressed. Everyone says: yes, you have to make the best of it; if you get your life in order, it will be better for your son. But I continue to feel that emptiness and sadness every day, along with constant guilt. I am unable to enter into a new relationship because of this; it constantly races through my head. I feel guilty constantly. Friends recommend psychological help, but I don't see how they can help me. I just want to see my son more; that is the solution. I certainly cannot stand seeing other children with their parents. How do you deal with this?

I’m going to keep this fairly vague. I had a horrible divorce from a woman with a cluster B personality disorder. We had two children together. I married someone else and we attempted to blend our families but the ex-wife worked hard to ruin things. Even then I didn’t know how bad she really was. If you can think of a dirty trick someone would do to cause a schism between people she did it. Along with a few things that are less common, like trying to have me committed, stalking me and my wife, false claims of abuse to DCF, and even having friends of hers stalk us. I had to call the police several times, and although I believe this stopped some bad things from happening, it was made very clear to me that any bad behavior on her part would be referred back to probate court unless she assaulted one of us physically.

Through all of this I worked hard to maintain my relationship with the kids. Her household was chaotic with random men coming and going, a really disgusting hoarding situation that some unknown party referred to the authorities and constant disparagement of me and anyone close to me. The trash talking made no sense…my used vehicle was a “luxury sports car” when she wanted more money and “a broken-down deathtrap” when she wanted to paint me as an unsafe parent. I was either a feckless playboy or a strict hardass, depending on the day of the week.

Unfortunately it can be easy to influence children, and although it took many years, she was eventually able to convince them to cut off contact with me. A few years ago I decided to stop begging for a relationship they obviously didn’t want. I stopped trying to communicate and, with many tears and a daily Zen practice, moved on with my life.

This year both my now-adult kids reached out to me and we have been having polite text conversations, sharing memes and getting caught up with their lives. I was prepared for one of three things…either

1)      The kids would maintain no contact and wouldn’t speak to me for many years

2)      The kids would grow up/have a change of heart/feel remorseful and come to me with a new attitude

3)      They would show up acting nice and then would pivot to someone needing money/stuff/material assistance/an organ donation.

This has been none of those things…it’s been sort of a tepid fourth option where we are having innocuous and very superficial conversations. Almost entirely about them.

Part of this is good. My ex’s family is, by and large, a total trainwreck. A lot of addiction, incarceration, religious fanaticism, MLMs, unemployment…the works. And a pretty profound history of violence. But my kids are leading pretty good lives, hitting age-appropriate milestones. The older of the two has a steady job, long-term partner and a nice apartment. The younger one is doing well as a student. This is an incredible relief and makes me and my wife feel good about our efforts.

On the other hand, even though I haven’t been asked for a kidney, the kids have basically asked no questions about my life, how I’m doing or anything about any of the rest of the family, all of whom were cut off as well.

In the course of these conversations, speaking very delicately, I learned some things about my ex and it appears that she has recently done a very horrible violent thing. The kids buy her explanation and don’t see what I see, but if my wife and I are correct it’s the kind of thing people get incarcerated for and would be a major escalation into psychopathy for her.

The other night I had a full-blown panic attack. I’ve never had one before. I was afraid I was having a heart attack but it was a textbook, according-to-Google panic attack. Part of what led to it was a concern that my ex would do something violent to me or my family, as retribution for the kids breaking that hold and restarting contact with me.

Since trying to mess with my marriage was a part of my ex’s tradecraft, and something the kids were recruited into, we are also obviously very alert to any of that stuff restarting and I can foresee my contact with the kids causing issues with my marriage if not handled properly. I have no idea what “properly” is in this case. We are in unknown territory.

This was half to vent and half to seek commiseration or advice. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.

I wondered if my story might be useful to some of you. Just to know that even in the darkest of these corridors there can be light, sometimes completely obscured by tears and unimaginable pain. But it's there if you hold on. Nothing will ever be the same, but there is an opportunity to rebuild.

We'd been together over 24 years. Five kids. My ex had a long history of mental health issues, some of them serious. After about ten years it became very obvious she wanted nothing to do with me in any intimate way — unless it was entirely on her terms. By intimate I don't just mean physical. I mean any form of warmth or recognition that I was more than a carer and provider.

After our third child was born there were huge concerns that she would take her own life. There were also concerns she might harm the children — there was always this undercurrent that she was the *only* one who could care for them.

She refused all and any suggestion of mental health support — for herself or the children. I had to fight to get the kids medical help when something wasn't right, sometimes with serious repercussions. One of my daughters, eleven at the time, developed tiredness to the point where she was listless and sleeping twelve to fourteen hours a day. I tried for weeks to convince my wife to take her to the doctor. She would lie and tell me she'd been, that the doctor said she was fine. After another week of watching my daughter deteriorate, I asked my daughter about the visit. She told me her mum never took her. I was working twelve-hour days at the time, but I took time off and we went together. She was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease and needed thyroxine immediately.

She told lies about everything. To me, to the kids. I remember one day there was a knock at the door. Our neighbour was standing there holding our children's pet rabbit. My wife said it wasn't ours and closed the door in the neighbour's face. The kids were standing right behind her. They knew it was their rabbit. Nobody dared say a word. Not because she'd scream and shout — but because any challenge to her would send her into a deep depression, and we'd all be back to fearing she'd take her own life.

After 24 years, I dared to say I wasn't happy. I didn't ask to split up. I didn't ask to separate. I just said I wasn't happy.

It was like a plan she'd been preparing for years suddenly unfolded.

I had to go abroad for two weeks. While I was there, I was served a restraining order. I remember it clearly because it was my birthday. I was utterly shocked. I tried to call her. When she picked up I just asked what this was about, why she was doing this. Her response chilled me to my bones. She hissed down the line: *"I will destroy you. You will never see your kids again."* Then she hung up.

At the time my two eldest daughters were at university. Within two weeks she had blocked them from coming anywhere near her or their siblings. Then the most despicable part of her plan unfolded. She accused me of unspeakable things and began pushing these stories into the minds of the three younger children — the youngest was seven. She surrounded herself with social services and the police to convince the world I was a monster. She demanded a "safe house." The kids were ripped out of their home and placed in sheltered accommodation. She forced them into a siege mentality — continuously telling them I was outside, that I was going to kidnap them, that I was going to kill them. She would shout at them to come away from the windows and they would hide behind the couch.

During all of this, I was 2,000 miles away. After the shock of the restraining order and that phone call, I knew my kids were in mortal danger from her — not from me. So I stayed where I was, hoping that the distance would at least protect them from physical harm. I wasn't allowed any form of contact.

A family court hearing was scheduled. The closer it got, the more she ramped up. She had three children still in her direct care. When the eldest of them began challenging her narrative about who I was and what I'd supposedly done, she engineered a police intervention to have him removed — over a play fight with his brother. He was fifteen. She literally had him thrown out of the house with a bag of clothes. The court order stopped me from having direct contact with him, so I had to get a family friend to take him in until I could sort things out.

To show you the depths of this — she decided to prosecute him. She forced the younger two to be interviewed by police and coached them beforehand so that the central story was that the violence happened because *that's what he saw his father do*. My son was at least physically safe, but I wanted to bring him to where I was. His mother had taken his passport and refused to give it back. It took me six weeks to get a replacement, then bring him safely to me.

The court process was still going. The closer it got, the more I feared she might hurt the two children still in her care. Her own family — who were also dumbfounded by what was happening — let me know she had said she would rather they all die than have them with me.

So I backed off completely. I let her have her day in court. I wrote to the judge explaining why I had stepped away, but because I wasn't present, he had no choice but to rule in her favour. As painful as that was — to be validated by the court system as a vile and dangerous man — it was better than risking my children's lives. I hoped that backing off would give them some respite.

It didn't. Things got much worse for them. She pushed and pushed until my other son was placed in a mental health facility. She'd fabricated stories about his behaviour, told the psychiatrists things he had done that were just lies. He'd started questioning her narrative about me too. He was a threat to her reality, so she manoeuvred him out.

Then she made a disclosure to social services that she would take the children's lives rather than have them anywhere near me. And for the first time in this entire nightmare, someone actually woke up.

All the professionals finally got together and cross-checked their information. They realised they had all been told something different. They realised the only source of all their information was her. And incredibly — in all that time, through everything that had been said and done — not one of them had spoken to me. Not one.

The two children still with her were immediately placed in foster care. The second I knew they were safe, that she could no longer hurt them, I applied to have the original court order and findings overturned. I was told this almost never happens in family court. But the inconsistencies were so extreme that there was felt to be a chance. Finally, a judge looked at everything and ordered a new hearing.

I remember very clearly wondering whether I should even proceed. By then the two youngest believed I was the monster their mother had made me out to be. There was one report where my youngest had said: *"If he was dead, I would dance on his grave."* She was a child when she said that. A child who'd been told every day for years that her father was going to kill her.

During discovery, everything came out. How she'd lied to every professional involved. Detailed fabrications about the children's behaviour fed to doctors, social workers, police. They found a notebook where she'd been working out with the youngest — day by day, on the run-up to the hearing — exactly what they should say in order to "get me." Every day my solicitor was sending me more of this stuff. Page after page of it.

The hearing lasted a week. Four sets of solicitors and barristers — because the children were in care, the local authority had to represent their interests too. It's far too long to go into detail here. During the hearing, after my ex gave her testimony, she tried to take her own life — though she told people beforehand she was going to do it and where. This was an attempt to frighten the children who were due to give evidence and stop the whole thing. She was found and placed into forced psychiatric care. The proceedings continued.

At the end of it, I was completely exonerated. Social services were forced to accept that they and all the "professionals" involved had behaved in a catastrophic manner. The judge ordered every service to review their processes so this could never happen again. My ex was banned from having any contact with the children, especially the youngest. She was in a mental institution for over a year.

---

I got my kids back. That was incredible but also heartbreaking. They were not the same children I had last seen. We were all broken. The whole thing had taken around four years.

I was in a relationship that had been incredibly restorative for me, but it couldn't survive the onslaught of what the kids were dealing with. So it had to end, for their sake. I wasn't allowed to take the children out of the country — we owned a house in the Mediterranean — so I had to give up my businesses and connections to care for them full-time. I couldn't work. I was a single dad.

Very slowly, they began to recover. Very slowly, they went back to school. Then when they were ready, we moved to our house in the sun, and they rebuilt themselves there. I rebuilt myself alongside them.

Today, fifteen years after this nuclear bomb went off in our lives, all five of my children are doing amazingly. Four completed master's degrees and are thriving. The other lives an incredible life in a beautiful part of the world with his wife.

My ex has never stopped trying to poison them. She gets into their heads by being overtly "nice," waits until they let their guard down, then uses their vulnerability to hiss her narrative at them. It often takes them weeks to recover from a single exchange. They're all thousands of miles away from her now, so at least there's some protection in that.

As for me. I never gave up. Hoping, waiting, screaming at the injustice of it all. At the pointlessness of the pain my kids went through. We are all changed. We are all somewhat broken. But we hold each other while we try to build the best life we can.

Don't ever give up. Ever.

When he abused me I did not contact the police.
I did not want my daughter to see the police arrest her father.

When he convinced my daughter that I was crazy I did not do anything to change her mind.
I did not want to involve my daughter in our fights.

When he left with her I did not try to stop them.
I did not want my daughter to have to choose.

She was 15yo when she left. She is now 20yo and I have no idea of where she is.

I battle with severe depression and receive absolutely no joy from life.
I force myself to get up and go to work but hide in my bedroom as soon as it is over.
Every time I try to take steps to divorce him, I shut down in a complete panic.
He turned all of my "friends" against me.
I came from an incredibly abusive family that I had to walk away from 30 years ago.
I have no emotional or family support in my life.
I have so much debt that he left me with that my credit is shot, I barely live check to check.
I don't kill myself in hope that she might come back to me.

My ex has always come to my house to see the kids(8 years, 6 months), coming every single day morning until night (he has no job), even staying often hours after they went to sleep to use my internet to watch movies/shows because he doesn’t have any at home. I never mentioned it and just let him. He’s unemployed and has been for years so I let him stay here during the day, eat the food I buy and cook, use my internet, and have full unrestricted access to our kids as much as he wanted. Then I found some stuff on an online fetish site that was quite concerning. I told him I no longer wanted him in my home but that I wouldn’t keep the kids away from him, and I haven’t. He left the country for 2 weeks and made no attempt to call to talk to our 8 year old at all. Today he takes her for the evening and when she gets back she’s against me, she is running from me, saying she’s mad at me, refusing to brush her teeth, refusing to go to bed, saying she doesn’t want to go to after school club anymore, which she previously loved. She is normally a very well behaved child. When he dropped her off he was recording, I could see on his phone as he held it. He was egging her on to become emotional and amp up her emotions, saying he wishes she could stay the night but I won’t let her. It’s Monday so she has school in the morning. He was also telling me to tell her what’s going on, that he doesn’t care how badly I talk about him, just explain it because he “tried to” and it “isn’t working.” Very obvious attempt to make me talk badly about him to/in front of her for his recording. He told her that I won’t let him come over anymore because I got mad at him, he told her that I’ll call the cops on him if he comes to our house, he told her it’s all on me. I didn’t say anything negative about him this evening or at all before this, I have never said anything negative about him to my kids. When he got back to the country a few days ago she was asking when he would come over and all I said was that he won’t be coming over but that she will see him soon. I also met up with him today while our oldest was in school so he could see the baby, but our son is exclusively breastfed so it’s not feasible for him to take him alone and he also doesn’t seem to care at all to fight for a relationship with him. Likely because he had no relationship/very little contact with our daughter for the first 3 years of her life, and it obviously didn’t affect their relationship because once he started coming around consistently he was able to build up the relationship and she doesn’t remember that time from 0-3 when he wasn’t around.

Calm Is Not Passive — It’s Your Power Move in High-Conflict Co-Parenting

When things get chaotic, most people react louder, faster, and harder. But in family court, that’s exactly what works against you.

Calm isn’t weakness.
It’s strategy.

Staying regulated protects your credibility, conserves your energy, and keeps the focus where it belongs — on your children. Reactivity may feel justified in the moment, but it often becomes evidence that can be used against you.

Real strength looks like:
• Letting calls go to voicemail and responding on your terms
• Choosing facts over emotional reactions
• Saying “no” to instability
• Breaking the cycle instead of feeding it

Calm is quiet — but it’s powerful.
It shows self-respect, discipline, and control when everything around you feels unpredictable.

You don’t stop advocating.
You just start doing it from a place of clarity instead of chaos.

If this resonates, grab the Free Starter Kit with calm resets and filing tools here: https://sitars-newsletter-winner.beehiiv.com/

#CoParenting #FamilyCourt #HighConflict #EmotionalIntelligence #StayCalm #ParentingStrategy #SelfAdvocacy #HealingJourney

Hi everyone — I’m preparing for my first parent interview with minors counsel and could really use some guidance from those who have been through this.

(For some context, my ex-husband has kept me from our girls since November 2023, when I finally found the strength to leave a physically and emotionally abusive marriage. We’ve been in the court process since then. I had an emergency DVRO against him for a physical altercation that led me to the ER for stitches in my head &&& he filed one against me with fabricated stories and claims that I’m an alcoholic & drug addict, provided letters from his sister and best friend. Same courthouse and two different judges granted the ROs. So we had dual restraining orders… what a mess!!!

I was screwed over by my 1st attorney by him agreeing to should settle on a temporary order without seeing a judge because the ex’s claims seemed strong, even though there was zero evidence provided, just he said, she said on his end.)

Anyways, after 1 1/2yrs of battling this temp order, and the ex filing several continuances, Nov 2025, we finally got in front of a judge, she basically took what he said at face value and ordered for my 2 girls to enroll in indiv therapy, reunif therapy w/ me and minors counsel.

We were supposed to have hearing end of March this year, but minors counsel filed a continuance because the ex did not do any of the requested orders!!

After 5months, my girls finally had their very 1st reunification therapy appt 2 weeks ago. Per reunif therapist, so far, they’ve been showing strong resistance and emotional reactivity, and I’m deeply concerned about the impact of parental alienation.

I want to approach this interview in the most constructive, child-focused way possible, while still clearly communicating my concerns and experiences.

For those who’ve done this before:

What kinds of questions did minors counsel ask you?

How did you prepare beforehand?

What helped you come across as credible, calm, and focused on your kids’ best interests?

Are there things you wish you had said differently (or avoided altogether)?

How much detail is appropriate when discussing concerns about the other parent?

Any insight, advice, or even lessons learned would mean a lot. I just want to make sure I show up in the best way possible for my children.

Thank you in advance 🤍