I opened my email this morning to find this question from a reader. “If I have proof that my ex is manipulating my child and using her against me what should I do?
Dealing recently with a situation in which my ex has manipulated not only my child but a situation involving my child I can only reply with what I felt was best for me to do in such a situation.
I think it is important that, as parents we refuse to play the game some angry ex spouses seem hell bent to play. I also know that, as parents our first instinct is to fight for our children and fight fire with fire.
If you stop and think about it though, fighting fire with fire only puts our children in the middle and makes them victims of a dispute between their parents.
When it comes to my son there is one thing I know for sure, he has been victimized enough. His father went five and one half years with no contact with him. He was given ample opportunity to have a relationship with his son. I have emails I wrote him encouraging a relationship, my mother called him on two occasions and pleaded with him to give the boy some of his time. On top of that there were four different therapists over the years that offered to work with him in a counseling setting to help rebuild his relationship with both his sons. He chose to stand back, do nothing and accuse me of parental alienation.
Now that he has his son in his life again he is withholding information from me. He is making decisions about our son’s health that are damaging to our son and obstructing my ability to communicate with our son per a court order.
There was an incident recently and my first reaction was to hire an attorney, file a motion with the courts and do whatever I could to get my son back home and away from this person who I feel does not have my son’s best interest in mind.
After talking to an attorney and writing a big check I came home and started thinking. I put my emotions to the side and put some thought into what another legal battle with his father would mean for our son. Someone who didn’t want to go live with his father in the first place.
Over the last five months my son has been forced into a situation he didn’t want to be in. He had to adjust to a new home and environment. He was pulled out of the school he had gone to for years and would have graduated from this year. He was pulled away from friends and family who had been a part of his life and comfort zone for years.
After thinking about it I realized my son has been through enough. He has settled in with his father, is now back on his medication and the last thing he needs is more upheaval in his life and the stress of knowing his parents are battling each other legally.
When we see an ex doing something we feel is damaging to a child we need to be able to take a step back and put thought into what striking out at an ex will do to that child. Unless a child is in immediate danger and you fear for their safety my advice is to consider your child’s needs first and not your need to make an example of an ex spouse.
I could have taken my ex to court and won. In the end my son would have been the loser and I’m not willing to put him in that position just so I can win against my ex. I will continue to show my son that I love him, that he has a place to come if he ever wants to come home again.
You see, I know this much…children grow up, they become wiser and in the end will see clearly how their parents used them. The one thing I don’t ever want my son to be able to say to himself was that I used him against his father.
At times life puts us in the middle of situations that call for patience and the use of good common sense. If you are in such a situation with a child and an angry ex, just sit back and wait. Don’t play the game and your child will one day realize who had their best interest in mind all along.
yeah I’m going through the same thing with my sons mouther, and now she’s moved away curtsy of the government, I never known her to have full time employment , yet she has moved seven times, each time she moves the government foot the bill and pay her rent.
I have a hard time following your story. It doesn’t make sense in a lot of areas, perhaps skewed to make your point.
As a parent, you have to weigh the cost of fighting “the good fight”. The lawyers tab, toll on the kids, yourself, and even the dreaded ex, which must flow down to the kids. I found that by changing how I dealt with my ex-wife, she had to change how she dealt with me. She’s still a deadbeat, but I’m no longer a potential villain for taking money from her.
I wonder if your son can Google…
Jason, my story may seem skewed because there are details left out that, out of respect for my son I will not discuss here.
I wish in my situation that it was as simple as changing out I deal with my ex. I’m an expert on the subject. I know first hand that if you want to illicet change in someone else you have to first start with yourself.
I’ve tried everything with my ex. NOTHING changes his response to me. Now I have to let go of my need to civilly co-parent with him and as always put my child’s best interest first.
And yes, my son can google. I’ve written nothing here that I mind my son reading. He knows his story and if he googles and finds this blog he now knows that I chose to not pursue his father legally out of concern for him being put in the middle.
The good news about my son is, he has very little interst in what his mother does for a living.
At this time in his life he is wrapped up in his girlfriend and his car. I doubt seriously he spends any time googling me. If he does though, he won’t find anything that will do him harm.
In theory I agree with you, but how do you get over losing all that time with your son? My ex manipulates like you have never seen. She is pure evil and the court system does nothing about it. It drives me crazy. Something is wrong here. This bitch of an ex is crazy, out of her mind. I wish I had the guts to just forget about my son and move on.
Great Advice with children without learning disabilities. My Ex has had our son (19 years old)declared an incapacitated adult (high funcitoning ADHD), in order for me to pay child support forever. I was a stay at home Mom for 15 years. I am now struggling at 50 YOA to find a job. My Ex enjoys a $100,000+ an a top notch attorney. My EX has perpetuated his abuse through the AZ courts.
My heart recently got torn into a situation where my fiance’s daughter is with a horrible 22 year old woman and a felon convicted drunk boyfriend whom she’s having a another baby with. She constantly skips out on work and tells him he has to pay her obscene amounts of support (mostly to pay for her boyfriend’s court bills when he gets arrested)..
It’s heartwrenching to me because I have no choice but to sit here and just wait. I’m not legally anything to this except someone that his daughter runs to when she sees me and always just wants me to hold her cause I actually show her love unlike her mother that yells and cusses at her. It’s so hard when they’re only 3 and so innocent and you have to just sit and watch everything go on and be an hour an a half away and constantly watch your partner be accused of not caring when he goes to bed crying every night just missing his daughter and I do to. I miss her so much.
We have come to the conclusion that we will not fight with heresay but if she messes up and goes back to drugs like we know she will, we will be RIGHT there to break the fall and take care of his daughter.
She’s a little angel and I never thought I would love a child that wasn’t my own this much. I’d be perfectly content not having a child and just giving her the childhood I had.
What you stated might be best in some situations, but I do not beleive there is always just one plian and simple way to solve everything. Some people if they have good proof that their ex is taking their child around things that could harm their children ti might be what is best for that child to go to court. If you don’t have proof ya what can you do, but hope and show your child what is wright and hope they see the difference, but if you do have proof then would you rather your child be raised around drugs, drunks,criminals, and manipulators or would rather just leave them in that situation so you don’t have your child see a court battle that could possible protect them. Which you know is probably waht a lot of parents are wanting to do. That is their instinct.
My husband and I have been together for 2 1/2 years, married only recently. His ex of almost 5 years is very manipulative, but she puts on a show for everyone that hasn’t figured out what she is and how she is. She has used the kids and still does. She walked out on them, she was drinking all the time, do drugs, sleeping with every man that walked the streets, and the only reason my husband didn’t fight for custody was because of his job. He was unable to find someone to care for them at 4 am and until 8 pm sometimes. He had to drive 2 hours to work and 2 hours home. She wants to control him still to this day. She did used to have him wrapped around her finger until he realized things, but now he is having a hard time punishing the kids when they get in trouble because he is so afraid his ex will make it to where they won’t want to see him at all. They get by with everything there….she is a deadbeat mother; she hasn’t worked in 12 years, broke him, she still doesn’t work and she is very capable. She wants more child support, she is crazy. She wants to tell him how to run his house and how to take care of the kids when he was the one there taking care of them when she was out getting drunk or high or having sex with someone else. Let me tell you she is a piece of work. She also has a daughter from a previous marriage that a few years ago decided she was not going back to her mothers. She stayed with her father and told her mother she didn’t want to live with her. Recently the daughter was assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend and her mother, her father pressed charges against the boyfriend, he was arrested and her mother bailed boyfriend out the same night, we tried to get my husbands’ kids and there was nothing we could do because it didn’t happen to them. Then we the boyfriend went to court the prosecuting attorney dropped charges even though there were pictures and statement. I don’t get it. she doesn’t want anything to do with her mother at all. She also used to lock make the kids go to their rooms when her boyfriend was over, before they lived together and after they started living together. My husband feels sorry for the kids and used to get them whatever they wanted even if he didn’t have the money. He still wants to do that. I have kids of my own which have respect for others and good all around kids. His are not that way. Help!
Parental Alienation-I hope more people start to take this seriously. ITS NOT JUST HAPPENING TO MEN!!! Once upon a time, the mother automatically got custody of the kids (not that this was always the best case scenario). No blanket decision or precedence can be used for these types of cases. There are too many variables. Now, to make up for lost time, the pendulum has completely swung the other way. In Amarillo, TX the courts have gone absolutely psycho (only 2 judges) with taking away kids from the mothers SIMPLY for opposing sole custody to the father. My ex was a drunk and beat me up the night he left. I have pics of bruises that were even made fun of by his attorney in court 2 weeks later when they awarded custody to him and kicked me out of the house. My boys were 10 mos. and 22 mos. old and were kidnapped from their mother. That was 4 years ago. My ex’s new wife has decided that she is their mother now and I have no rights to them. My ex tells me that I am just a “brood mare and only gave birth to them”. I have to pay child support and I have not seen my boys since April 2009. My ex knows people and his family has $. His attorney is the wife of the family court judge, so the case has been heard by the criminal court judge with no representation for the boys. I understand that kids grow up and will “see the light” but what to do in the meantime while he is raising them with the same kind of skewed values that he was raised with? My boys have no other choices, I have been eliminated from their lives with the assistance of my own attorney and the courts simply because my ex does not like me anymore. When does this stop and who is going to stop it? Am I supposed to sacrifice my kids to an inbred sociopath and his narcissistic wife just to keep from hurting someone’s feelings or self esteem? People keep saying, “the boys will see the truth someday”. And so continues the never ending cycle of generational abuse. No thank you. I will call you from jail if I have to but my boys will NEVER think that I abandoned them or did not love them. I am their mother and I will continue to fight to protect them whether I can see them or not. I don’t care if I have to stand on the street corner and wave and holler as they go by, I will not be eliminated from their lives. Which is worse? Seeing their mother fighting for them and never giving up or never seeing their mother at all?
Im going through a battle as we speak. My ex took me to court and won Temp. Custody of our son almost two years ago. I though of my son and what he wanted, which was to live with his father, and I also thought he might benefit from living with his father. About 6 months agao I started noticing my sons weight going up and my son not being able to be as active as he was at my home. Then right before mediation I received his report card and his weight, he is failing 4 core classes and he is 12 weighs 286 lbs. My line to cross was when his health is an issue. My fear is more than just an ex being scorned, my sons health is a major concern, as well as his education. My son is not the same person he was when he left almost 2 years ago. Not to mention our relationship has diminished. In mediation I changed my position to settling to fighting for my sons life.
Although Im trying to fight, my ex has cost me over 25,000.00 in other litigations over this. Now my attorney wants another 25,000.00 to pursue this. I think that it is really unfair that I can not get my son back because I dont have that kind of money. My ex owns two companies and gives our son everything plus allows him to eat three times a day at fast food resturants. This is why many PARENTS have to give up on their kids because litigation cost so much, and there is not many people out there willing to do the best thing for the child without money. It really upsets me that I have to sit back and allow my ex to have our son and his health is no concern. I pay child support and provide insurance, so why cant he get him to a specialist or a weight management program, because he tells me its his son and he will do what he wants.
If anyone knows anyone out there that might think child obesity is important and willing to help, I will take suggestions!
What about if a parent has brainwashed the child into believe it is their dissusion not to have anything to do with the other parent. now the parent wants the other parent to sign away their rights. should they sign away their rights? I don’t think the child truly feels the way he/she says.
My son is 4 and a half.His father tried to make me mis carry putting the breaks on hard in the car,demanded an abortion untill I was six months,at 8mnths he thought he snapped my neck killing me and our son in my belly.After my son was born in dec 2005 weeks later the abuse continued.My son witnessed the abuse indured it.My son never became attached to his father and wittnessed abuse my ex would grab our son from his crib while sleeping or in it cause I put him there to get him away from my ex to call police my ex would grab our son from crib son screaming and crying as my ex held him tight threatening our lives so I would not call police untill well still now.My son still wittnesses abuse between my ex’s new girlfriends goes threw abuse by my ex.Is now again having night terrors,rage fits,depression,sais he wants to die.He has been diagnosed with ptsd at 4nhalf.My ex psych eval. shows narsicism,anti establishment,pathelogical lieing,personality disorder along with 3 more.Our son was never attached to his father father never wnted anything to do with our son untill after having to pay child support drug charges and then finally moving in with his girlfriend she knew she was sleeping with him at the same time I was.Then my ex wants custody.Two years I have been trying to get the courts to finalize me having full custody and his father supervised visitation due to our childs mental well being and physical.THE COURTS HAVE DONE AND WILL DO NOTHING,THEY CONTINUE TO LET MY EX MANIPULATE THE COURT SYSTEM.After I file a protection order the Judge pulls out the file and complains how this case has been going on for 2yrs and how thick the file is!I ASK MYSELF THE SAME WHY?WHY? and WHY will NO ONE HELP PROTECT MY CHILD I HAVE WILLINGLY RAISED WITH LOVE AND SACRIFICE>SO my child is going to have to go threw another weekend of torture his father and girlfriend making up songs about how I am a bully,bad mean etc so my son will tell his therapist this!NO ONE IS WILLING OR HELPING ME KEEP MY SON SAFE!Right now he is crying in his sleep due to seeing his father today,he is missing school is coming home with notes due to his behaviour from the abuse.What do I do pack our bags and just go?
This is very sad reading..
How on earth any judge comes to a decision on these cases is a mystery to me, as in every case it is only ever the lawyers – attorneys – that win.
Here is a thought – if as a car mechanic, you provided a service that was so incompetent that your customer’s life was ruined, you would be fined and/or imprisoned. Does nobody monitor outcomes in family law?
I have been in the Family Court System dealing with the same judge for the last 4 yrs. I have been fighting for my 2 little girls whom their father threatened my life and their lives and their brothers lives and the rest of my family in 04. This is while he was seeing his now wife. I have a report of domestic violence against their father. I even moved over 1300 miles away only for the father to lie to the court and say I am not giving him his parenting time. When before I even left the state we made arrangements for him to have the children for 1 week and me to have them the next he chose not to do so, and I had proof of it. .
When we first went to court he hired a high priced attorney who got everything he asked for and my legal aid did nothing for me and my children. You see my 2 older boys were beaten by this man while I was at work and locked in closets and the oldest one is now deaf in one ear due to the beating he substained from this man. Only to be told in court by the fathers attorney if it was not reported it NEVER HAPPENED!!! But it did things are still comming out with the boys 6 yrs later of what this man threatened he would do to them. This is the same man that I saw beat his 2 little girls for potting their pants while potty training. This is tha same man that waanted NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS OTHER 4 CHILDREN 1st marriage. Then a yr later after our first court hearting in 07 he kidnaps the girl and the courts do noting to him. I am blackmailed by the judge to drop all charges against the father or he will take my girls away from me and give them to their father. I am told by the judge that he does not want to HEAR or SEE MY EVIDENCE AND TO SIT DOWN AND SHUTUP! I followed the court orders and was place in jail NO charges against me, but the judge called my work and jepardizes my job. This man has went after my oldest son, myself, my now husband, saying we have harmed the girls and it has been unsubstantiated all 3 times. The has commited purjery and has choosen not to follow the court orders. He even has tried to change and make up new court orders, even had them changed after me leaving the court ( I was never notified, as I am acting as my own attorney due to the cost of an attorney). When the father was to have his summer visits I notified him only to have to wait for 2 months for him to reply and say I will be taking my summer visit at this time and it was when he was to have the girls back and it was our time to enjoy what was left of summer and our planed vacation time.
This has went on for the last 2 yrs and then when he does get the girls he does not alow me and the girls to talk in any form, comes up with excuses, ( out of cell phone range, locked keys in car, on texting avaible, or I don’t have to text you I will be late untill you are ready to leave, lost track of time, brings children home at 11pm when it was aggred on 6 pm) but in the court order we MUST MAINTAIN texting capabilities. This has gone on for 2 yrs so I choose to go back to court because the girls did not want to go with him and the 2 yrs of councling has told the girls THEY DO HAVE A CHOICE!!!!
I ask the court for clarification of the court orders because it was confusing to both parties to have more then one court order open at the same time. This is what happened the fathers 3rd attorney in 3yrs said I did not want him to have his winter brake with the girls so that is what the judge put on the books I never got to speak it was not so. We then went back to court 10 days later and was told to have the girls there to which I did, only to go thru 2.5 hours of the fathers lies and my rebutting of what I could ( without an attorney) to have the judge come back yelling at me saying the father gets the kids for winter brake when will he have them back?
The father stated by 8 pm 8 days later it was oked I asked if it could be an earlier time due to the children having to be up for school at 5 am and we would still have to drive home 40 minutes and then showers and the judge said NO. I then receive in the mail 2 days later that my children were taken away from me the judge gave the father custody of the girls and I now have supervised visits in the internet every Sun for 30 min if allowed by the father and his wife. Then there is a no CONTACT ORDER FOR THE FATHER my ex boyfriend and his wife against myself ad my husband we can not contact them in any way fashion or form. Yet they are suppervvising the visit every week to which they asked for and then any other visits I have to ask the court and the father and his wife if and when I want to visit is ok and agreed appond by then is ok with the court and the father and his wife but I have a NO CONTACT ORDER WITH THE FATHER AND WIFE????? I can not talk about anything peer the rules that the father and his wife have set up for me and the children I am told the children and I do not have CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS by the father and his wife, my visits are for only 5 mins. not the 30 mins if the girls cry because they miss me or their pets or any other family members that they have been around for ever. Oh yeah when they kidnaped the children just 2.5 yrs ago the children were told they were FAT only allow ONE MEAL A DAY, forced to clean the whole house and after the wifes part time children forced to give everything to the wifes daughter, and to cater to her son, and then to top it off the my youngest daughter had to and still does have to share underware and clothes and they have to sleep in the same bed together. Well in the state that their in it ias against the law but I have had no help there either. The only THING IS THAT I FEAR EVERY DAY FOR THE SAFTEY OF MY GIRLS !!! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MINE WOULD GIVE SOMEWONE WHO THREATENED TO KILL THEM CUSTODY OF THEM?
I DON’T DO DRUGS, DRINK,SMOKE,MY ONLY VICE IS THE SAFTEY IS MY CHILDRENS LIVES. Like so many put it before I will fight for my girls and my boys ( who are of age now) as I am the one who finished giving them life, it took their father and me but it was I that was there for 42 weeks feeding, nurtureing a new life as that life change me into being a protector and I will die for that life that I helped create. I will go to jail but I will let that life fell and experience life, with out a dought. AS I FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES EVERY DAY THEY HAVE TO BE IN THIS HOME ! Oh yeah did I forget the fathers wife at 32 has had 14 babies and 10 of them are DEAD 3 WERE TAKEN AWAY FROM HER SHE DOES NOT HAVE CUSTODY AND THEY POST DEAD BABIES ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!
IF ANY ONE CAN HELP I WOULD LOVE IT FOR THE CHILDREN I have tried every where and nothing no attorney will touch it !!! Or can’t help me This is not for me it is for the saftey of my children that I ask
Well as a parent KNOWING that the ex isn’t the right person I will fight till the end. Even if my child thinks that he is in the right place, that is where He is a child and I’m the parent. If the other parent is a manipulater then why would you ever give your child over to them? Even the stupid courts. I ‘d NEVER let my child be manipulated and brought up in a situation that as a mother I left in the FIRST place.