Parental alienation refers to the actions, often planned and malicious, that one parent takes to isolate or move away the child from the other parent.
Divorce and Parental Alienation
The controversies generated by parents who start the war over the custody of their child are among the most difficult situations to handle in the therapist’s office.
Many times, each of the two parents is sure that they should have custody. And almost as often it happens that a parent resorts to “subtle” tactics of parental alienation to win this dispute.
The most dramatic cases are those where one parent sets out to erode the child’s affection for the other parent.
I find it extremely difficult to understand an adult’s inability to calculate the devastating long-term emotional consequences such a choice has on a child.
The child becomes a kind of guardrail. You know, like the hockey one. A guardrail is hit with force. The ricochet has trajectories that you cannot predict.
Adina is 48 years old. She chose to leave a marriage in which he “lasted” for 20 years.
– Mihai is an intelligent man, very well socially positioned. Quite absent, in his life, rigid, with predetermined norms from which he never abdicates. He has ideas and opinions about everything. Oh, and makes no mistake. He is never wrong. Consequently, he never apologizes. And by the way, I am the only one to blame for the end of our marriage.
Their daughter, Ioana, is 17 years old.
Mihai is very hurt. He does not understand the choice Adina made. Ioana told her mother that she feels “owed” to spend more time with him, now that he is so alone.
As often in such situations, the child becomes the parent of the parent. The parent of the fallen parent. She has “the most beautiful relationship in the world” with his mother. But dad…
Dad throws all the emotional ballast he wants to pour into Adina’s arms. He is not doing it to hurt his daughter. He just hopes that all the words will reach Adina and make her suffer as he suffers. He knows what punishment would be for a mother if her daughter stopped talking to her.
What about Ioana? What does she feel? The words hit her soul with the force of the puck hitting the guardrail.
Children carry, genetically, a part of each parent. Every time you tell them how “selfish”, how “treacherous, heartless” their mother is, or what a “bastard” their father is (I chose the mildest ones ever heard in my office), you tell the children that a part of them is like that.
Our suffering often blinds us to the suffering we cause to those we love most.
Intentional Distortion
– Mihai called me this morning. He asked me if I wouldn’t like to surprise Ioana tonight and let the three of us go to the theater. He had already bought the tickets. I told him that every Thursday night I have therapy. “And you can’t give up one evening to make Ioana happy?”
A long line of arguments ensued. Adina came to therapy on Thursday.
The message that reached Ioana was: “Your mother does not want to spend time with you. What kind of love will this be…”
It is quite easy to discredit, to sabotage the relationship of a parent with his child by the truncated, one-sided presentation of a situation.
Children often mask the pain of rejection by a false alliance with the belittling parent. Under these circumstances, it is quite possible to avoid an open relationship with the alienated parent and to maintain a hidden relationship with them.
The desire for revenge, and the feelings of anger and frustration, stop the parents from having a healthy perspective regarding the relationship between the child and each of the two parents.
As a result, they engage in behaviors and actions that prioritize their own needs over the needs of the child.
The Denigration Campaign
Once the campaign of denigration is started, the actions are either direct, almost aggressive, or extremely subtle, like a blade that slowly splits and penetrates the deepest layers:
- the inoculation of excessive devotion: “From now on it’s just the two of us, for each other.
- complicity with the child and creating a secret zone: “We don’t tell him/her this, it can be our secret.”
- use emotional manipulation and persuasion techniques to reinforce the addiction: “I would be so lonely without your presence, you ease my suffering.”
- creating the impression that the other parent is dangerous: “I think there are some mental problems, otherwise why would he/she leave us.”
- deceiving the child about the other parent’s feelings, and intentions: “He/she always says he/she loves you, but he/she doesn’t act like a parent who loves a child.”
- withdrawal of love as punishment for rebellion, “betrayal”, and alliance with the other parent: “It makes me very sad that you agree with what he/she says.”
Conclusions?
There are many materials dedicated to parents who feel or claim parental alienation. I would like to refer to the parents accused of alienating.
If you’re accused of parental alienation, ask the other parent to describe specific behaviors they’ve observed that make them feel like you’re alienating them from the child.
Don’t get angry, don’t retaliate, just take time to reflect on what you’re reproached for. Ask yourself if things are like this. If the answer is Yes or To a great extent, try to move past the resentment and consider what a beautiful relationship with both parents means to your child.
If you, the parents, already live apart, encourage your child to keep photos or things that belong to the other parent in your space. Even if it comes very hard for you.
In whatever action you take, keep in mind that the mental and emotional health of the children, and even the incidence of anxiety and depression in adulthood, essentially depends on the quality of the relationship between the parents.
Making joint decisions, and interacting with the child’s other parent may seem impossible. But look at your children, and for the sake of their happiness, if nothing else motivates you, don’t disparage his parent.
What if it was you?
What would it be like to know that someone is talking bad about you in front of your children? That you can’t defend yourself and those words could ruin your relationship with them? That they suffer and struggle to find out the truth?
Separate your relationship with your former partner from your child’s relationship with the other parent. It may help to start thinking of your relationship as a whole new one – one that is solely about the child’s well-being and not about either of you.
The marriage is over, not your relationship: you have children together.
Children need to feel that they are far more important than the conflict that ended their parent’s marriage. Children need to feel that love for them will prevail, no matter what circumstances parents are going through.
