We have been married for almost 10 years. She has a 17 year old daughter and a 13 year old son.
I may or may not go into the details, but the bottom line is the father has waged a decade long brain washing campaign that we just never could compete with. The kids basically told us they don’t want to have any more contact.
There is no abuse, no neglect, no substance abuse, just the messiness of a 12 year old divorce that has been masterfully manipulated by her ex. We made our own share of mistakes, to be sure.
We have 2 kids of our own who adore their older siblings. I don’t know what to say to them.
First, from a victim of a divorce when I was 2, it caused a lifetime of pain. Fuck me. Only in the last few years have I even understood how much it affected me. I feel sorry for the kids.
Second, When those kids grow up a bit, they will form their own opinions and they will see more of the truth then either the mom or the dad will ever admit to them. If Dad is really slime, they will figure that out. give it time.
newcrasher, my sympathies. My boyfriend is going through almost the exact same thing. He has 3 boys, ages 11, 13, and 14, and their mother has completely brainwashed them against their father, and they recently told a therapist doing a custody evaluation that they want to have no contact with their dad. We can conceive no rational reason for this, other than the bitterness and hatred their mother has for their father.
This type of brainwashing by one parent against another can be considered a type of disorder, parental alienation disorder.
The situation is heartbreaking for us, to know that these boys whom we have loved and cared for want nothing to do with their dad, not even telephone calls, for no rational reason.
Our only solace is thinking that surely, when they’re adults, they’ll be smart enough to figure out what really happened. But will this really happen? I have my doubts. I know of a lot of adults who decades later hate their fathers because they weren’t there, and ignore the fact that it was possible/probable that it was due to their mother’s brainwashing or interference.
It happened with my friend. Her ex had turned the oldest child against her, but she hung in there, didn’t give up, refused to badmouth the ex, and eventually the kid came around.
My parents split up when I was 7 and my sister was 10. We hated going to visit my dad and begged and begged each time (we had an every other weekend thing) to not be made to go. My dad later told me he was convinced that my mom was talking shit about him behind his back and that she turned us against him.
I informed him that, actually, nothing could have been further from the truth. Mom was always very, very careful to never say anything negative about dad in front of us. When we formed our own opinions and would talk shit about him, she wouldn’t even agree with us. She didn’t defend him, either, but she didn’t encourage us to be dicks to our dad. She’d tell us, “That’s your father you’re talking about and it’s the only one you have.”
I had to explain to my dad that it wasn’t about Mom projecting any post-divorce bitterness. It was about our stepmom and how she appeared to view children as little slaves. I was 7. I didn’t want to go visit my dad so I could clean my stepmom’s house for her. She could never just let us play or play with us or take us to do fun stuff. We had to dust, vacuum, do her dishes, mow her lawn, fold her laundry. She couldn’t stand to just let kids be kids; we had to be put to work. Well, that’s no fun and that’s no visit with your dad. That’s just being pimped out to do housework.
This may not be the case at all with the OP. I just wanted to throw out a data point that sometimes kids know their own minds and often, their opinions have very little to do with the custodial parent’s issues. There may be other issues afoot that you don’t know about.
I should also add that it was my stepmom who was constantly talking shit about my mom, always implying she was a terrible mother who alternately spoiled and then neglected us. Who wants to go clean the house of some lady who thinks your mom is an asshole, and who has no compunction whatsoever about telling you all about it?
It happened with my friend. Her ex had turned the oldest child against her, but she hung in there, didn’t give up, refused to badmouth the ex, and eventually the kid came around.
All I can say is to keep lines of communication open - send cards for birthdays and Christmas, call once a month, let them know you love them and will be there for them. Continue to do so as long as you can. They will either come around, or they will find a way to disappear. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
Good question. I am able to read my dad well enough to know not to try to have that kind of conversation when things are good between them. IIRC, for that particular conversation, he’d just been in a terrible fight with her, so he’d grabbed me and we went for a motorcycle ride. My best conversations with my dad have all happened on that bike. I was much older by the time we talked about it – in my late teens at least – so he understood that I had the perspective of maturity behind my comments. So basically, he listened and acknowledged that he couldn’t blame two little girls who wanted to be taken to Sea World, but instead were made to clean some lady’s house.
Had I tried to have that conversation at some other time, when he thought she was awesome right then, he may have brushed aside my feedback. Maybe. He once told my sister – who was morbidly obese, but has recently lost about 140 pounds – that he regretted not paying more attention to us clamoring for clothing that was in style. We were made to wear my stepmonster’s kids’ hand-me-downs. They were 10 years older than us. So, back in the 80’s, I had to wear 70’s bell-bottom jeans to school. When tight pegged legs were in style. And Nikes with the blue swoosh? Nope, I had to wear cheap $10 Keds. We were bullied a lot because we looked different. My dad blames my sister’s obesity on the bullying (completely blind to my stepmother’s bullying) and said he wishes he’d let us get some newer clothes so we’d have felt better about ourselves. I wished he’d thought of that back then, not ten years later. Again, he never acknowledge the damage my stepmom did, so him admitting to me that he could understand why two little kids didn’t want to come over and clean her house instead of playing with Dad on the motorcycle, that was HUGE. I think he finally got that my Mom was never the Bad Guy through all that.
