A Reunification Therapy Horror Story
She agreed to reunification therapy on the guidance of her attorney. What resulted was a costly nightmare for her and her children.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I searched through your archives and was unable to find anything on the topic of the fallacy of reunification therapy post-D day.
So, I wanted to share my highly stressful experience/nightmare with the process, in hopes that it may help someone else out there with children who discover infidelities.
I have 3 teenaged children (aged 13 years, and 17-year-old twins). Long story short, in a span of 2 years, they discovered 6 dating apps on their father’s iphone in the cloud, heard him on an explicit phone call when they connected to a Bluetooth speaker, and found him on a date when they tried to locate him using “Find my Phone”. (A preview for those chumps who are just now finding those dating apps.)
Since the ultimate D-day, two of my kids refuse to speak with their father, blocking him on their phones, social media, etc.
My divorce lawyer suggested that we ask for a Guardian Ad Litem and Reunification Therapist, to get their relationships back on track. Of course, sounded reasonable to have a third party take the reins in that area given my complete and utter disgust with their father. WRONG.
Reunification Therapy is typically court-ordered, usually with a 50-50 split. It’s not covered by insurance, has no measurable goal metrics or predetermined end-date. And it comes with a built-in reluctance to submit Motion to Dismiss for fear of “appearances” to the court. For me, this meant FOUR sessions per WEEK at $350/hr, one for each child as well as one for the FW. (Objections to financial strain/bankruptcy were swiftly dismissed in court as it was in the “best interest of the children”.)
In my experience, reunification therapy has been “blaming shifting” to the HIGHEST DEGREE.
(And I have been through marriage therapy 3 times.) As it has not been traumatic enough to recover from the humiliation, betrayal, health-risks, and financial insecurity of infidelities (and divorce); now I have the additional burden of being told that as the “favored parent” it is up to me to facilitate reunification with the FW. (“Maybe you can send him photos so he feels more connected?”)
What happened when the children eventually walked out of their sessions and said that they didn’t want to reunify? I was told that I was not encouraging enough, not giving enough “consequences” to them, and that my children were “intractable.” (Actual word used in court!) True story. I was court-ordered on the recommendation of the reunification therapist to write letters to the children detailing my support of re-establishing a relationship with their father, and was even given feedback that extra “good dad” details be inserted.
My 13-year-old child was told by the reunification therapist that the FW should be forgiven as “Desperate people do desperate things.” (Seriously!!! I am not making this shit up! Rationalizing his crappy behavior so that it can cycle through to the next generation!)
So, this is the fallacy of reunification therapy post-infidelity.
I am on constant high alert for accusations of “influencing”, and can’t even write the many court hearings on the calendar. God forbid that the children see and it impacts reunification. Like missing all of the ballet, taekwondo and guitar lessons for reunification therapy because it’s all in the “best interests of the children”. But they say, the time spent rushing to/being in therapy instead of at home having dinner as a family and doing homework is all in the “best interests of the children”. But they say, that $20,000+ investment in reunification therapy instead of college is all in the “best interests of the children”.
As the reunification therapist drives away in her Porsche Cayenne. True story.
Thanks all that you do. It means a lot.
Sincerely,
Staying Strong
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Dear Staying Strong,
I’m so sorry. God, this is more of the pernicious Reconciliation Industrial Complex, only with the force of a court order. Utter Orwellian nightmare.
The reason you’re not finding anything in my archives about reunification therapy is because I haven’t written about it. I’ve only recently become aware that this is a for-profit THING.
Of course, I’ve experienced these forces of Every Child Needs Both Parents No Matter How Horrible That Parent Is.
During the multiple custody trials I endured years ago, I was sued pro se by a mentally ill man who owed me thousands in back child support. Good times. I was strongly advised by my lawyer to never, ever appear as if I had any ill will towards my son’s father.
The language had to be couched in non-judgmental scripts. Did I want to send my child to a hoarder’s home? Hell no. This had to be expressed as: “It’s a balancing act between concern over my child’s safety and his right to have a relationship with his father.”
His RIGHT. I’ve come to question that “right” to a relationship crap. If I could do my life over, upon divorce I would’ve asked that man to terminate his parental rights. I wasn’t going to get the paltry child support anyway. And he spent the next 15 years making my life a hell in court. While simultaneously being inconsistent or utterly absent in my son’s life.
Of course, I didn’t know that then.
I believed we were going to be coparenting friends united in what was best for our son.
I drank deeply of that Koolaid. He might be a shit to me, but he’d never be a terrible person to our kid!
I’m fortunate that I had full physical custody and decision making. But I still had to do the kabuki theater of involving a FW in my childrearing. Which I why I am so adamantly against the aspirational narrative of being friends with your ex. (FOR THE CHILDREN). Some of us don’t have the raw materials for such bonhomie. We’re dealing with addicts and abusers.
Once I was a lifetime away from that family court trauma, I learned that litigation abuse and coercive control were THINGS. Holy heck! There was a name for this experience. I thought just these were my personal problems, I didn’t realize these were systemic problems.
It seems we’re at the confluence of two different forces — greater awareness of abuse and greater pressures to comply with reconciliation narratives.
I am always skeptical of therapy zeitgeists. We’ve committed some societal atrocities based on the conventional wisdom of experts. I’m not talking vaccinations and science. Believe science. Be wary of social workers. Once upon a time in the 1960s, before Roe v Wade, we used to consider single mothers unfit. The American Academy of Pediatrics called unwed mothers mentally ill. The standard advice was to separate these women from their newborn children. Google Baby Scoop era. Such misogyny dies hard.
Staying Strong, I applaud you for speaking up about your experience. Other than my lame “I feel your pain” story, I want to leave something in the archive for future chumps. Please take heart, there are activists confronting this bullshit. So, here’s some solidarity reading.
Resources on reunification therapy
- Olivia Gentile
- Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld
- Tina Swithin: One Mom’s Battle
- Emma Katz
Olivia Gentile
Investigative journalist Olivia Gentile covers the intersection of abuse, “parental alienation”, and custody. Check out I Was Forced Into Reunification Therapy to Bond With My Emotionally Abusive Father. The Next 3 ½ Years Were Hell. Her website (linked above) connects to all of her articles and videos.
Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld
Psychologist Dr. Christine M. Cocchiola and investigative journalist Amy Polacko cowrote Framed a collection of stories documenting gender bias in family court. Reunification therapy works from the assumption that that we need the force of a court order to combat women’s scornfulness. Bitter bunny bias infects our courts. Framed lets you know what you may be up against and how to combat such narratives.
I interviewed Dr. C and Amy in the Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast.
Tina Swithin
Blog friend Tina Swithin of One Mom’s Battle has been documenting her experience of narcissistic abuse and coercive control. Her blog is a terrific resource for anyone going through the family court system. She’s also been on the podcast here.
Dr. Emma Katz
Dr. Emma Katz is in the UK and doesn’t write about reunification therapy per se, but she tackles the larger issue of recognizing coercive control as a form of domestic abuse. I’ve also interviewed Dr. Katz for the podcast and you can follow her Decoding Coercive Control with Dr. Katz Substack here.
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I hope this helps, and please let us know how you are your kids are doing. This is the sort of issue that should be discussed at every family law division of every state bar association.
Dear lord, this is awful, just absolutely reprehensible and unimaginable! This is so Handmaid’s Tale. I cannot believe this is happening in our modern world and society. WTF is wrong with people? My heart goes out to this woman and her kids. I hope they can get out of this court ordered abuse soon!
Thank you for your support!
Oh. My. Lord.
I don’t have enough hugs to send you. Staying Strong – please do. Medals, trophies and applause from Chump Nation.
Systemic!!! How many misogynistic patriarchal systems – made insane via capitalist profit motive – do we have to endure and watch our children stagger under? (Unwed mothers mentally ill – and there were kids being autistic because “refrigerator mothers”)
Of COURSE reasonable chump types would’ve chosen to stay friends for the children. Would’ve chosen to coparent with another sane decent adult. But as CL points out, the raw materials for such are TWO reasonable, mature parents. Can’t do it without the raw materials. No court can do that alchemy.
I’m so sorry that you and your children are suffering because of a systemic delusion that if only you would submit they CAN turn a piece of shit into a golden father.
I’m old enough to remember when homosexuality was caused by “strong” mothers. It never ends – mothers and women in general bear the brunt of blame for everything.
You’ll probably appreciate this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCXA-gKOO4k
Sophie Robert, maker of the banned film Le Mur, takes another stab at critiquing the largely misogynist underpinnings and influences (Lacan) of psychotherapy in France. I wrote another comment on that general subject but it’s heavy on links so is stuck in mod for the moment.
This is horrifying.
The “System” seems to trying to force a relationship with the Father that completely ignores the effect that his decisions and actions have had on the children, as well as their right to be able to control/articulate an opinion on what they want the relationship to look like. As regards the reunification therapist describing the children as “intractable” ….. one might ask whether whether the therapist has considered, given their Father’s actions, whether this is an entirely reasonable and logical response to the situation that the children are faced with.
I can only hope that Staying Strong stays strong enough to guide her children through this; the twins (7) will soon be adults and able to exercise their own free will vis a vis their father, but the youngest has a much longer (and likely bumpier) path to follow.
LFTT
The twins are 17 not 7; sausage finger typing!
LFTT
This is 9th Circle of Hell stuff…and the cost of this crap – agh !!! I hope that the kids in this story didnt blame the mom for the mess they were all thrown into.
Thank you for telling this story – it will help someone.
I have never wanted to talk to a letter writer more. I am so sorry. The very very worst thing of all the really awful things that happened when my ex walked out on the family (he began accusing me of parental alienation before he’d even left!) was the dawning realization that all the lawyers and therapists and specialists ignored my concerns and forced this false assertion that he was a loving, well-intentioned dad on me. “In the best interest of the children” was a club they used. The very worst gaslighting. I understand what you mean about the Kabuki theatre. After the first months of betrayal by all the “family” specialists, I knew what I had to do. I walked the line, said the right things, and trusted noone. The courts did not protect my children at all. I knew I was completely on my own until my youngest child reached age of majority. I realized it was a choice between doing what the courts demanded performatively, or protecting the actual best interests of my children. I rejected all attempts by my ex to weaponize the system. He wanted to bring in social workers to “assess” me at the very beginning. Thank god I said no. He abandoned them in the cruellest, most extreme way, and it meant nothing to these people, who only cared about billing hours and making money. We lived beneath the poverty line for years after my savings went on a lawyer that did nothing after the first year. The lawyers and therapists and counselors without exception would listen to me pour out my heart and confide to them, then turn around and parrot the same lines about how he was a thwarted loving father. The facts didn’t matter at all. I will never forget my lawyer lecturing me that it wasn’t enough that I helped him visit him, I had to *encourage* them to see him. How can children make sense of what has happened and develop a sense of self-preservation and discernment when adults around them gaslight them at their most vulnerable time? About the person who has betrayed and hurt them so utterly? I am so sorry, I went through this. The loneliest.
Wow, you really went through exactly the same thing. I got the same exact lecture from my lawyer. Next week he is taking me to court to ask for a Social Investigator. Because you know, he has to investigate how I work full-time and take care of 3 kids and their dog and our house and go through a divorce he initiated. Makes total sense. Obviously I am the problem here and I am sure that it will improve his relationship with the kids.
To you both: I am so, so sorry. Institutionalised, socialised, normalised abuse. Mindfuckery of the highest order. And then there’s the “mental health crisis”. That sprang out of nowhere!!!
I’m so sorry you went through that. I think I was lucky my son was a young adult at the time of our divorce. I experienced the gaslighting though.
Friends and even family telling me “well of course he cares about you” and then rolling their eyes at me when I pointed out he was talking about killing me. I had a literal shrink say to me “Your husband would never do anything to hurt you.” WTF? He’d never even met my husband (that I know of). And he was so offended when I told him that was an incredibly stupid thing to say because husbands hurt their wives all the time. Even the first church group I joined, a woman pulled me aside and smugly told me that I would be friends with my ex again someday. Because she’s friends with her ex and the woman he cheated on her with. The only thing she knew about my divorce was that I was divorced. That’s it! Nothing else! But she assumed I’d “get over” whatever it was I was bitter about and want to hang out with them. Yeah, no, I don’t associate with pedos at all, much less those who want me dead.
It was so insane. And that doesn’t even touch on all the “well, what was your part in all this?” Suggesting i must have done something to make him and his girlfriend want to screw children. Barf.
“I had a literal shrink say to me “Your husband would never do anything to hurt you.” WTF? He’d never even met my husband (that I know of). ”
Shrinks and Therapists are humans and as such, some are great and some are terrible.Iam sorry you dealt with that particularly bad one. That is absolutely insane that he said that. I am afraid of my STBX. He hasn’t been physically abusive, but he has several of the markers indicating he is capable of it.
There is a that one can take The Danger/Lethality Assessment. It’s used in DV situations to ascertain what the chances of the perpescalating to violence. It takes into consideration several factors. My FW who never lad a hand on me scored an 8 out of 10. I operate with that in mind. Hopefully, the longer we are apart, the more likely he is to move on and lose interest in me. But my point is, how could any lawyer just say he’d never hurt you? The news is full of FWs that hurt their spouse.
Ugh! Again same thing happened with me! Yep, extremely difficult to co-parent after infidelity and impossible after attempted murder. Therapist refers to all of us as “the family” in court (as in “I am just trying to help the family get through this time together”) and it is so triggering. No. More. Family.
Again. Stats on violence and so often murder in domestic situations where there is so much lip service.
Women die. Kids die.
And that’s just the visible, dramatic tip of the iceberg. Under the waterline is damage damage inter generational damage.
My heart just hurts for you, having to sit in rooms with these clueless but systemically powerful layers/therapists/social workers/“experts”. Some of them are probably 20something with degrees etc who genuinely think they are doing the “right thing”.
That’s completely horrifying. It reminds me of threats I heard about grandparent’s rights that used to scare the shit out of me. My ex and I both had f*cked up parents but I did believe some people can be lousy parents and good grandparents. My son does have fond memories of all of them. But they all threatened it at one point. I remember how it felt like my body just shut down when I heard those threats. I didn’t want to do things like remind him to call grandma and tell her happy birthday anymore. I didn’t want to take him to visit. I was painted as the malicious, evil wench who stole their grandchild. It’s like well, I had been helping you foster a relationship with him until you threatened me and now my heart just isn’t in it anymore. Why would I want to give you more ammo to try to take him from me by letting you establish yourself in his life?
I know parental alienation does happen but abusers happen too. The kids heard his sex call! That’s not mom doing anything. They’re grossed out because they found their father’s actions and they are teenagers. It makes no sense that mom is held responsible to fix that. She wasn’t even involved in the teenagers finding dad’s crap on the cloud and catching him at a date. He damaged the relationship! This is so gross. I can’t even imagine how hard that would have been to deal with on top of everything else. God, I am so sorry Staying Strong. This just blows my mind.
I don’t know the statistics but a therapist told me that the chances of recovering a parent-child relationship after discovering parental infidelity is extremely low. And having grandparents that side with FW is the absolute worst. I think that there could be a whole other thread on that topic.
You bet
My first thoughts when reading this, were of the all-too-frequent stories of a child who’s taken out of foster care to be reunited with a birth parent, only to end up tortured or murdered. The warning signs were there but people want to believe in the happily ever after ending. In this case it’s the torture of three teenagers knowing that their dad is a despicable human being, but being gaslighted into pretending that he’s really an okay guy and that there should be no consequences. The kids should be respected and listened to.
I’m so sorry for what you’re going through, Staying Strong.
Thanks – I keep hoping that their voices can be heard in court, but apparently this can be waived, especially when a Guardian Ad Litem is involved because that person is supposed to speak to their “best interests” but not necessarily what the kids want.
Whaaaat?
Dudette,
I’d go a little further.
It’s not just that the three teenagers are being gaslighted into pretending that their father is an OK guy and that there should be no consequences; it’s that they are being told that they are wrong for having an opinion about their father and for wanting to put boundaries in place to protect themselves from him, and that their mother is being wrongly held accountable for something that she cannot and should not be expected to control.
LFTT
For sure. They were specifically told by the reunification therapist that “it doesn’t matter to the court if they like him, they just need to feel safe with him”. I was like “Wouldn’t it make sense to try to have the kids LIKE him?” The response was “that is not required for 50-50 timesharing”.
Wait — this was your divorce lawyer’s idea? It wasn’t even court-ordered? And now there’s no way to terminate this shit-show without looking like you’re alienating? Man oh man, I’d have some words for that lawyer.
I was told that this had to be the trade-off if contesting 50-50 timesharing. When I pressed for ending the therapy I was told “it ends when 50-50 timesharing has been achieved”. So logically this means that a crappy therapist (or unmendable relationship) will go on until the end of time.
I’m wondering if she shouldn’t file a state bar ethics complaint. If more people made it costly for lawyers to recommend this shit, I bet there would be less incentive to engage in “reunification”.
Correct
Especially when the 17-year-olds, in particular, are old enough to make up their own minds.
I mean, I don’t know what the cut-off age is for kids to have input into their own custody arrangements (12? 14?), but why wouldn’t the same apply to this mess? If a 13-year-old can say, “I wanna live with X,” then they sure as hell ought to be able to say, “I don’t need reunification.” That goes double for the older kids.
My lawyer is telling me that kids have no say 13yrs and under, 14-16yrs is a grey area, and 17yrs they should be able to say what they want. (I really don’t know how a parent can force a child into a car to sleep over at another person’s home after about 10-11yrs old.)
I had my then 12 yo climb over verandah railing and threaten to jump to concrete 5m below. His terms for climbing back? “That I never have to go to Dad’s again”
I honestly didn’t know what to do. Happily/sadly, soon afterward I received an email saying “I think it’s best for our children to be with you full-time. For their mental health”
Translation: they’re cramping my style, new Ho (former loved and trusted friend of mine) doesn’t want a bar of them.
We were lucky. I mean that. Doesn’t mean the father then didn’t then live his best life holidaying all around the world etc, while I brought up heartbroken traumatised teenagers on my own. The one on the wrong side of the verandah railing ended up being involuntarily hospitalised twice over the next few years.
And I still say – compared to your experience – I’ve been lucky and my kids spared.
I wonder if these rules and laws vary state to state, and where Staying Strong lives. Is this kind of thing a red state thing? I’m showing my prejudice here, but honestly, what is this all about? Besides the billing hours that is. It’s crazy.
It does sound like it’s straight out of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
My state is Florida. I am told no fault divorce, and those with children have default 50-50 timesharing and 50-50 decision-making without additional evidence presented in court.
As a flaming lefty, I wish I could blame this kind of shitshow on red states. But, in my experience, shallow liberals tend to be suckers for anything presented under the aegis of science– particularly anything “sciency” that makes shallow liberal misogynists feel less hypocritical for supporting patriarchal policies or makes shallow corporate liberals feel less hypocritical for supporting neoliberal policies.
Case in point is how the parental alienation syndrome bullshit grounds itself on junk science (Google Harmon and Lorandos’ False Critique of Meier et al’s Family Court Study to see how junky alienation proponents’ science is) very much the way the now disgraced and defunct False Memory Syndrome Foundation created its own in-house junk science questioning victim memory in order to make a cottage industry out of expert defense of rapists and child molesters.
The FMSF became so powerful and entrenched in academic and legal arenas that its experts and their crap science were constantly being cited in research and on the airwaves. Still, though the organization crashed and lost credibility, it seems like proponents of the Parental Alienation Syndrome Industrial Complex don’t like to see moldy old victim-blaming theories go to waste so they’re is still recycling citations from some of the FMSF’s star shills like Elizabeth Loftus.
As impossible as it seems (because what could be less groovy and humanitarian than defending kiddy rapists??), many of the FMSD’s loudest former promoters and defenders identified as liberal. But this particular weakness among lefties (maybe the dumber ones) apparently goes back to Plato who, according to political philosopher Karl Raimund Popper, cynically used this tactic to hoodwink the “democratic and humanitarian elements” (ancient Greek liberals) into supporting piecemeal policies which, over time, would erode democracy and usher in totalitarianism. Plato even bragged about making up sciency sounding bullshit and slapping it like wrapping paper on undemocratic policies, a practice Plato called “the noble lie” because he believed that preserving the dominance of the ruling class was divinely ordained.
Another really interesting convergence is that the FMSF was founded by the parents of Prof. Jennifer Freyd– the coiner of the “DARVO” acronym that’s been so helpful for many types of survivors from political underdogs to abuse victims– for the express purpose of discrediting their daughters’ claims that their father molested them as children.
The main convergence is the whole thing seems to be a narrative war that’s all about silencing victims. It’s pretty clear which side the parental alienation shills are fighting on.
I am in a ruby red state. However, there is a lot of poverty here (actually, yes, there IS a correlation). Judges are not very likely to mandate expensive therapy because most people can’t afford it.
You will be outraged to know that the first reunification therapist brought to the table was $500/hr. Judge said that $350/hr therapist was more “reasonable”.
I’m so very sorry this is happening. Do these people know that your kids heard their sperm donor’s sex call? It is not in the best interests of the children for them to go through all this shit.
I, too, had to do the kabuki dance of appearing to encourage a relationship between my teens and their sperm donor. Fortunately, I found some good online advice. In one-on-one discussions with my boys I told them what the law and court required and what was expected of me. And I also told them that there would be no consequences from me for so-called “bad” behavior toward their “dad”. In front of other people I was all about telling them to spend time with him.
My boys were also in therapy, but it wasn’t that expensive, thank God. I got them started on the advice of my attorney even though it wasn’t court ordered. The therapist was actually not bad and he facilitated a meeting with my older son (who was 17 at the time) and sperm donor. I don’t know the details because I wasn’t in the room. But after that my older son refused all visitation. Around here, the courts don’t try to force 17 year olds into visitation because by the time it actually gets to court they are usually adults. I know that in some jurisdictions Mom can get in big trouble up until the child is 18, so consult your attorney.
My younger son continued to see dad until he turned 18. During the last visit, the ex brought him home and then wouldn’t let him out of the car. Every time my son started to get out, the ex would move the car a little bit to keep him trapped. This son has autism. The whole thing was horrifying. I have had the experience of being trapped in a vehicle with the ex while he says horrible things, too. When I realized what was happening I went out and the ex finally let him out. It was right around my son’s 18th birthday.
I also have older children who were over 18 when I got divorced. The kids are all in their 20s and 30s now. Of the 5, one is now no contact with me so I don’t know if she hears from her father, and the other 4 are no contact with him. (Yes, it’s sad that one of my kids doesn’t talk to me. However, she’s a lot like her father, and I don’t miss the chaos she brought to my life.)
So, that’s my experience. Staying Strong, hang in there. It’s horrible and expensive and not in the best interests of the children, but the twins won’t be “children” for much longer. Make sure you have one-on-one conversations with the kids to let them know your position on all of this. Tell them that when you say things in front of other people it’s because you are trying to satisfy the court. Frankly, I always said that I wanted my kids to have a healthy relationship with their father. Which was true. I also knew that he was incapable of a healthy relationship, so it wasn’t going to happen.
It might be a good idea to encourage your children to do their own Kabuki dance. If they give the appearance of not fighting visitation and tone down the conflict, the Porsche-driving therapist can declare therapy a success and release them from therapy. In my experience, assholes like your ex enjoy the thrill of conflict. When the kids are boring he may not be as interested in spending time with them. However, you know your kids best. Could they learn to go “Gray Rock”? Are they mature enough to bide their time until they turn 18 and then cut him off completely?
Well played, Elizabeth Lee, and excellent advice.
Wait…stop…checking my notes here…
Your divorce lawyer recommended this shit?
Get a new divorce lawyer. Like…I dunno. Now.
I am very very concerned that there’s a conflict of interest here. Here is why.
They called the thing “therapy.” But it is somehow not covered by insurance, doesn’t have measurable goals, and…if I am reading this right…no predetermined end/goal date? And this HAPPENS to be a dubious solution? If it was his lawyer I’d just shrug. But yours?
And it’s not working?
How, pray tell, did your divorce lawyer come upon the information that such a service is available and why are they as somebody that is supposed to be looking out for your best interest advocating for your legal opponent? Perhaps there is a nuance here I am missing-forgive me, it’s early and it’s Monday.
Hoo boy. Personally, I think you’re getting conned to the tune of $1400/week out of pocket. That despite the fact that you have a fuckwit (and ostensibly that is what is driving the divorce) that YOU have to pay for? Even in the world where I think this is on the level (read: I don’t)…at a bare minimum I’d think that you’d at least have to split it, if not he’d be in charge as he sundered the family system/is the one that need the reunification. I do not understand how ethically that falls on YOU. Hell, even MY fuckwit ponied up for our (ill fated) couples counseling session.
I mean, my own feelings on fuckwits and marriage counseling not withstanding…am I the only person that thinks you’ve suffered enough BEFORE this goofiness?
I confess that I am not familiar with EVERY managed care environment in my profession-but in my part of the field we need…you know…all of those things to be acting something called “ethically.” Or to, in fact, bill insurance. While I am aware that there really aren’t good, all inclusive was to quanify something like a bond…this does not feel right at all. I get very very squicky when I hear things like this coming out of my field.
If you are in something called “therapy” and are not presented something called a “treatment plan” with something called a “clearly defined, achievable goal statement”(and bonus points for steps and benchmarks), run. Put a mountain in between you and that thing unless you like spinning your wheels and writing checks.
On the bright side, you may have a malpractice suit on your hands. If you involved a Guardian At Litem as you know you can’t deal with this idiot, “you aren’t trying hard enough’ is a pretty flimsy rationale for continued treatment.
At absolute best you simply did not get a good match for this “therapist”(and I am using that term very loosely based on what I am hearing).
I am sorry that you all went through this on top of the betrayal. I feel bad for your kids-you don’t block your own parent and want to be in their lives. I have a fuckwit for a parent myself-it is not fun having to keep somebody you are supposed to love unconditionally at arm’s length.
Have a Mighty Monday!
There is so much conflict of interest in the Reunification process it is really mind-blowing. In general, there are no controls against extortion. I won’t even get into her billable hours to write emails, make phone calls, and do other “tasks related to the court case”.
Is this Reunification thing court ordered? It sounds like you are being taken for quite the ride. I would demand breakdowns of how they are using their billable units. This sounds an awful lot more like “lawyer playing therapist in 6 minute billable units” than ANYTHING effective. Shady as hell.
Again, I’m sorry that you’re going through this.
I have co-worker that has Children and Youth courts involved-and that was long, long after their relationship is over. And all of that was proctored by the courts, not some third party. Which is why when the phrase “wants nothing to do with dad” came up it was pretty well honored.
You wrote, “How, pray tell, did your divorce lawyer come upon the information that such a service is available and why are they as somebody that is supposed to be looking out for your best interest advocating for your legal opponent? Perhaps there is a nuance here I am missing-forgive me, it’s early and it’s Monday.”
I think the answer to your question is that some lawyers are more regularly representing FWs and abusers than chumps and might have internalized an ethical perspective that leans in the direction of their bank accounts and professional status.
To quote Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
That is what (I think) I was implying. Sounds like they have quite the racket going. I had a mechanic that used to try the same thing. He was not in business for long.
I think you’re right that, even if someone was initially motivated to be skeevy out of greed, for most people and in the long run, this plan isn’t profitable. Yet they may keep throwing good money after bad in an ethical sense.
This is what makes me suspect bonafide “zero empathy” psychopathy can’t be that common because most people who work on the morally iffy side of things seem to have a problem with cognitive dissonance. It appears to prevent them from effectively feigning integrity even if they’re being paid to do it (like legally representing a domestic abuse survivor when they usually work for the abusers). So guilt/stigma may be the glue locking people into patterns and beliefs and, even when it sabotages their own profits. Some part of them still wants to argue for Team Shithead and see the latter win.
I remain fascinated by even the most ethically impaired individuals and their fear of judgment. There’s a certain…paranoia to them. In a world where accountability might as well be a commodity, the court of public opinion is alive and well. All our friend here has to do is make a well placed Google review and problems end.
If this “practitioner” really is in my field, I’d be very curious if it’s greed so much as trying to pay the bills. The famous time I went to couples counseling with my fuckwit I described to my most recent therapist as “I think he knew that it was too late…but brother was just trying to make his billable.” The only clinician that ever seemed to say that us being there making sense happened to be, you guessed it, that selfsame person. I bet there are good ones out there…but…yeah.
“I remain fascinated by even the most ethically impaired individuals and their fear of judgment.”
Maybe you could borrow the term a friend coined for himself (and, by extension, me): “misanthropologist.” People do weird shit and it’s really interesting.
Speaking of the weird things people do to avoid stigma and rack up billable hours, I think it’s clear from the curious ascent of mediocrities like Esther Perel that there’s a market out there for anything that rationalizes or whitewashes heinous behavior, particularly anything framed as sCiEnCe. For instance you can read about how the parents of the originator of the “DARVO” acronym, Prof. Jennifer Freyd, founded an entire organization– the now disgraced and disbanded False Memory Syndrome Foundation– solely to discredit Freyd and her sister’s claims that their father molested them as children and their psychologist mother turned a blind eye.
But I’m not sure even FMSF founders and early board members (a parade of incredible freaks) predicted that silencing victims with sciency-sounding nonsense would be so massively profitable in an age when laws and policies are sometimes based on scientific theory. The organization grew into a monstrously powerful hub for star expert witnesses that cranked out their own in-house junk science exonerating rapists and child molesters, eventually branching out to defending serial killers, war criminals and government criminals. Eventually the FMSF came up against the “Peter principle” and crashed under the weight of their own bullshit.
It was fun reading about how FMSF’s Elizabeth Loftus was “ginsued” by the DOJ in her defense of Scooter Libby and also had her theories scoffed at and dismissed by a Hague judge when Loftus testified on behalf a Serbian commander who employed rape as a weapon of war. But, despite her fall from grace, I guess Loftus’ junk science is still useful because, as I learned yesterday when reading about one of the central figures profiting from the “parental alienation syndrome” nonsense, Loftus’ theories are being cited to back claims that children who resist having relationships with abusive parents are just making stuff up or suffering from “false memories” of experiencing or witnessing abuse. .
And then there are these idiots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCXA-gKOO4k
“…why are they as somebody that is supposed to be looking out for your best interest advocating for your legal opponent?”
Good catch JW! And early on a Monday too! I hope Staying Strong can get some intel on what exactly is going on here. The whole thing stinks.
I’m so sorry, this sounds horrific! So your lawyer actually harmed you more than helped you?! The whole reconciliation racket really is all about money & not about “the children”. Yes, there are cases where parents withhold children from the other and court-ordered visitation makes sense, but having to pay for a therapist to initiate a relationship (no need for it if dad had been an upstanding dad in the first place) & write encouraging gaslighting notes? It was like your lawyer thought the worst of you and signed you up for it.
I protested about the 50/50 payment, particularly his individual sessions, but she said that “it is only fair because it is in the best interests of the children”. It really has been horrific. Expecting like 4 sessions and now going on 10 months.
Dear Strong,
This is horrifying and I’m so sorry this is happening to you and your children. Please lean on us here. We know how abusive this is. We know how hard you’re working. We know how dehumanizing this whole experience can be. When you are feeling like the system is too much to handle please come here and read others’ stories. It has helped me get through the worst parts of my experiences with a FW. We are here for you.
Sending you love and support.
TYSM!
Dear Staying Strong:
I am horrified and furious about what is happening to you and your children. I thought there was little worse in the FW world than the Reconciliation Industrial Complex, building their empire on the backs of distraught chumps, but this is worse. This is child abuse on an industrial scale and needs to be recognized as such. This is taking the inborn moral compass of a child and setting it to spin crazily, no true north anywhere. For cash that the chumpy parent can likely ill afford to lose.
When a parent abuses their child/children and as a result the child no longer wishes to interact with the abusive parent, that is a consequence and a healthy decision for the child. To force the sane parent to encourage interaction that harms their child is cruel and unusual punishment, and unconstitutional, inhumane and violative of human dignity and civil rights.
Fuck your lawyer for suggesting it and fuck the Porshe-driving whore who inflicts this abuse on your children. I am glad you are here, amongst sane people who understand what it is like to fight injustice and fight for a child’s right to a happy, sane and principled life.
You are the best. Yes, I spent my whole motherhood trying to teach my kids to speak up for themselves and now have the court telling me to tell the kids that their voices/feelings do not matter. Not until magic age of 18.
While writing the comment below, I discovered something creepy and relevant and decided to lead with: one of the primary influences behind many of the more toxic and sexist core precepts of the “Reconciliation Industrial Complex” as well as the “Parental Alienation Industrial Complex” appears to be the late psychotherapist Salvador Minuchin.
If that doesn’t ring a bell, Minuchin, who died in 2017, is credited as the “pioneer” of structural family therapy which has been repeatedly criticized for promoting and normalizing traditional gender based roles and structures within families at the expense of women and nonbinary individuals. In other words, Minuchin’s influence might have something to do with the frequently reported misogynistic bent of family therapy.
So what that has to do with blaming chumps and threatening their custody due to parental alienation charges? Everything apparently. Here’s an excerpt of a study that heavily cites Minuchin regarding how to approach chumped partners in situations involving adultery and child custody (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284068213_A_Family_Affair_Examining_the_Impact_of_Parental_Infidelity_on_Children_Using_a_Structural_Family_Therapy_Framework)
… Once parental infidelity is discovered in the family, triangulation may occur with the involvement of the children (Afifi, 2003). This may lead to one parent intentionally or unintentionally encouraging their children to form cross-generational alliances with them against the other parent (Minuchin, 1974).
How’s that for a junk science nexus? But it just keeps getting better. The way I discovered this was by digging into the history and training of one of the key figures in the whole “parental alienation industrial complex”– Susan Gottleib, founder of the infamous Turning Points for Families (featured in the harrowing Pro Publica story. https://www.propublica.org/article/family-reunification-camps-kids-allege-more-abuse)– is connected to Esther Perel through their mutual “trainer” and “mentor,” Salvador Minuchin, who, before he died, wrote a recommendation for Gottleib’s crusade and book on parental alienation syndrome:
“With your book, you’ve created a niche for PAS in family therapy. Bravo! Congratulations!” (4/16/12)
It might also be important to note that Minuchin is originally from Argentina, one of the countries that, aside from France, is still disturbingly influenced by the theories of Jacques Lecan, the controversial psychotherapist whose work influenced the Spanish dictatorship under Franco and then the Argentine Junta under Vidella, both of which wove Lacan’s theories of the “psychopathic influence of mothers on children” and resulting “feminization of culture” into political justifications for mass removal and displacement of children from political opponents (and sometimes the murders of their mothers). I’m not saying Minuchin supported the Argentine reign of terror in the same way Jacques Lacan buddied up to the Franco regime but I’m saying that his view of women and mothers has some interesting overlaps with Lacan and both dictatorships.
It’s also worth noting that Minuchin had appeared on clinical boards and discussion panels with disgraced child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, the coiner of the term “parentectomy” who believed– like Lacan– that autism is caused by toxic mothers, making child removal a first line of treatment (a practice that still continues in France). But this isn’t the main controversy that trails the career of Bettelheim. Instead it’s the fact that he fabricated stories of having been imprisoned in Auschwitz and furthermore allegedly raped some of the children he removed from supposedly “toxic mothers.”
Anyway, I think Staying Strong’s story is horrifying though I sense it’s one that has been a long time coming. If my little discovery above is any hint, the reunification camp controversy is merely the latest face of this particular beast which, at risk of being reductive and blunt, seems to involve a common theme of getting mothers out of the way in order to hand the control of children and families over to abusers (i.e., the whole range of abusers from mercenary or dangerous helping professionals to totalitarian despots to domestic abusers).
When I was hired by a group of advocacy attorneys in 2007 to research financial and ideological incentives in state child removal, I learned that dependency courts are being given terrifying enforcement latitude due to the partial privatization of so-called child protective services (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sag37aAf1WU).
At the time I came to believe that one of the deeper problems in dependency courts is the privatization/neoliberalization of public services and resources. In short, money is being made from holding children hostage. But the more I dug around in the issue, the more I came to understand that, in a political sense, holding children hostage has always been the most effective tool of repression and control, what novelist Vladimir Nabokov dubbed “the lever of love” in the introduction to Bend Sinister:
While a system of holding people in hostage is as old as the oldest war, a fresher note is introduced when a tyrannic state is at war with its own subjects and may hold any citizen in hostage with no law to restrain it. An even more recent improvement is the subtle use of what I shall term “the lever of love” (applied so successfully by the Soviets) of tying a rebel to his wretched country by his own twisted heart strings.
So money may make the world go round but I suspect repression and control are the bigger drivers here. Even if the profits involved give unethical policies such as arbitrary child removal for the literal sale of children on the private adoption market and the “parental alienation industrial complex” footholds in the justice system, make these policies harder to retract and make the enriched and empowered entities profiting from them much harder to investigate and fight, I think “parental alienation” is a case where the profitability actually follows ideology more than the other way around.
The ideology– which, by many accounts, is distinctly “patriarchal” and related to the “father’s rights” movement which formed in backlash to a past increase in criminal enforcement against domestic abuse and an increase in domestic abusers losing child custody (https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/jgbv/aop/article-10.1332-23986808Y2024D000000051/article-10.1332-23986808Y2024D000000051.xml)– just happens to be creating profit opportunities.
As another side note, I know there have been several cases of “parental alienation” filed by abusive mothers against protective fathers but I’ll make the same argument I always do about “dah patriarchy”– that it never really minded cracking a few guy eggs to make a misogynist omelette. Take for example the especially high rates of deaths and injuries among male children caught within domestic violence situations which are, statistically, overwhelmingly male-perpetrated. It would seem that male children are being sacrificed to adult male entitlement. In any case, I believe male victims of parental alienation bs– both the protective fathers who are being unfairly run through the legal gauntlet as well as the male children being destroyed in the system– are being hoisted on a petard primarily designed to disempower women and mothers.
So to sum it up, I think ideology is driving the dangerous trend but neoliberal policy and profits are locking it in place so both things have to be contended with.
Though it’s become harder and harder to research money trails since search engine results are increasingly skewed by financial interest and since the incredibly useful financial and political influence mapping site Muckety was shut down in mysterious circumstances in 2018, as far as I know, family courts do not receive direct kickbacks from privately owned “reunification” services and camps. But for-profit “reunification” services such as Turning Point for Families are still providing perks to family court systems by relieving aspects of case loads in exchange for courts sending these services captive paying clients. That “relief” arguably has a quantifiable value in terms of man-hours and money. And, again, the power of family court is given teeth by partially privatized child protective services and foster care apparatuses.
Take a look at the affiliated organization icons on the page of Linda Gottleib, founder of Turning Points for Families. https://lindagottlieb.com/
Then look at the donor page for one of these sponsors, the supposedly “left leaning” American Association for the Advancement of Science (https://www.aaas.org/programs/srj/past-and-present-funders). It may not be apparent but more than half a dozen of the companies listed on the above sponsor page are major investors in private prison and private foster care corporations as well as some of the private immigration detention facilities that have been so much in the news lately.
I could probably be accused of being (love this word) “pareidolic” because I’m arguing for connections in things which the individuals involved would probably vehemently insist have no connection at all. But there you have it: the same sexist clinical troll who originated the “silence chumps by threatening their custody” approach trained both Perel and Gottleib, both of whom have played heavy PR roles for mercenary and toxic factions within family therapy which are currently using their financial clout to promote junk science to influence laws and policies that largely disempower mothers and women.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this is spooky given the current political climate.
This sort of thing makes flames shoot out of my ears. My daughter found out about my then-husband’s infidelity, and she was (naturally) upset. He absolutely flipped out, following her around the house screaming at her that she was being a bad Christian because she didn’t forgive him immediately. He stood in her room staring at her until she yelled at him to leave her alone. When all that failed to convince her that he was a nice guy (if you can imagine), he tried to get her admitted to a psych facility, saying she needed meds. This all happened within THREE DAYS of her finding out he was cheating and planning to leave her mom. She wasn’t even being aggressive about it–just quiet and a little sad. Finally, he told her to wash the dishes one evening, and she rolled her eyes at him. He lost his mind–said she couldn’t live with him if she was going to be so disrespectful. He literally kicked her out of the house, signed over sole custody to me, and went on a Caribbean cruise instead of coming to the custody hearing. Then he got mad about child support and said he wanted full custody. I gave him a little more money in the asset division instead, and he signed over custody of her AGAIN. Now he tells everyone that I alienated her from me and that she is forced to choose between me and him, blah blah. He wants her to have counseling for reunification. Nope. He can f— right off.
So after my kids found out, he stopped paying for them and took their money and their dog. Sounds like the same type of insane control freak. Good luck with the counseling, I can predict how that one ends.
Oh my lord what an abusive freak. Nice touch with the puritanical hypocrisy too. I hope your daughter has recovered and become philosophical and meh about the sperm donor who used to be her father and that you’re all happily moving forward.
A therapist told me that it’s often teenage girls who find out about affairs even before the chump parent does. My then tween daughter found out shortly after me but I hadn’t said a thing yet and was still mulling over if and how to tell the kids. She smelled a rat all on her own.
Something similar happened in a relative’s family. The cheater’s 12 year old niece nosed around on the cloud, discovered her (very mean, abusive) aunt’s multiple affairs and ratted her out to my second cousin who, like me, always hated his stepmother so that was a very satisfying explosion.
But it left me wondering what it is about adolescent girls that makes them particularly telepathic about infidelity. I’m wondering if it’s because, on the one hand, they’re developing a maternal extrasensory radar but, on the other hand, don’t have the same blinding attachment to cheaters that partners typically do towards mates.
I didn’t experience this, but boy can I comprehend this at a basic level. The level of sick control is just absurd. They will get anything they can, even sacrificing the wellbeing of their children if it means they “won.”
I probably stayed in my marriage too long in some ways, but the positive was that I had no custody issues. We did have to discuss having their dad help with college tuition and health insurance. I explained how insane he wanted to make that process and how they would have to interact with him. Nope. They said to cut it out. So we did. Both kids scrambled and graduated debt-free, no college help from dad.
The system is insane.
Ah the college, health insurance, and car insurance is keeping me up at night. Thinking I will have to do the same. He will pay $100k to take me to court but $0 for ballet lessons. It is sick.
Exactly. He always said that he wanted college for them, but after he left, he claimed that was my problem. Yes, the former SAHM who was barely getting by. The lowest level of health insurance through the college was reasonable in the scheme of things, and they both found different ways of covering the bills. The older one helped the younger one after he graduated. It was rough, but the long-term side effect is that they are both very good at budgeting and are frugal where it counts.
His actions completely said that he didn’t care about them at all. So when he finally invited them to visit four years after he left, they had zero interest. I told them that I’d drive them to the airport and all, but no.
Good grief. I wonder if these scammers only pull this shit on folks with money. There is no way most folks with children to support could afford that.
To add, I am so glad my son was grown before my cheater was exposed. I don’t know how folks with young children get through it all.
I agree! Not sure how I am going to make it through 4 more years. I don’t know how those with young children do it.
I would suggest engaging a new attorney (free consultations of course) and fire your current attorney that has put you into this untenable position! That attorney is supposed to be protecting YOU not the fuckwit! My children now adults (were minors at the time) no longer have any contact with the womanizer. They saw the mask slip and know his real face. The kids and I were forced to have joint custody and that shitshow pushed them even further away. Once they were 17 and they didn’t want to go any more, he threatened to take me to court. I told him go for it as I knew the judge would ask them what they wanted and they had no problem standing up for themselves. I told him “you know the judge is going to ask them what they want and will most likely honor their request, not yours. So go pay your lawyer and mine because I will demand that you cover my legal costs for this charade.” He didn’t reply and just let it go. I know he probably yelled at his lawyer and she told him he would lose!
get another lawyer. Your lawyer is not representing your best interest
Would love to know the percentage of people who got their legal costs back!! I dream of that as a possibility.
The Reunification industry has been on my radar for some time, and is one of the reasons I stopped listening to Queens of the Stone Age. It stems from the pedophile who invented the idea of “parental alienation” which was used by Woody Allen to gain access to his children. And there are even “reunification camps”, which involve the kidnapping of children who do not want to be with said parent, who then are brainwashed with propaganda videos. The entire industry, like that of the newly “anyone can do it” use of “guardianship” (look at Wendy Williams, or the movie I Care A Lot, there is also a piece on the New Yorker about this), where our justice system, corrupt as hell, makes money off the vulnerable, and abuses them as well!. Make no mistake – judges and attorney get a cut of all of this. I cannot say how much this development upsets me. And yet, here we are, having access to Tracy Shorn, whereas in the past- we had nothing. IDK. Sometimes I have to see a silver lining in the madness.
Honestly I don’t know how much of the legal system is even legal. We have had 3 different judges in the past 1.5yrs and I was forced to do mediation twice so far because the “new judge wanted us to start over”. So how do I get my $9k back??
Pure corruption and I have no advice but you are sadly not alone. If you could find someone and want to dedicate yourself to this, there most likely is a money trail that leads to this judge. There is nothing legal about what they all are doing.you are not crazy, they are criminals.
Thanks for pointing this out. For anyone interested in the particulars, Richard A Gardner, the clinical troll credited with creating the whole Parental Alienation Industrial Complex and whose theories guided Woody Allan’s legal team, often appears in the same victim-blaming junk research citing Salvador Minuchin, the psychotherapist who specifically tied adultery to parental alienation but dubbed it “cross generational coalitions.”
Clearly there’s a big market for sciency-sounding bullshit that frames abusers as victims of their own victims and a never ending supply of science whores or (as my daughter hilariously calls it), “STEMbos” to supply it.
I am a chump and a former State Child Protective Caseworker for 25 years (retired). When you said to be wary of Social Workers, I realize you meant the reunification therapy types, not so much those in my branch of the profession (I hope).
Having testified in Court hundreds of times, often on behalf of women (& men) who were victims themselves along with their children, in my experience it was the confirmed Narcissists who did the most damage, not only through infidelity and gaslighting, but threats of physical violence & in a some of our cases, murder of their spouse, partner or child. Narcissists cannot be reasoned with & have no emotional tools to feel empathy or take accountability. For anything.
My point is that all cheating is a form of Narcissism. Carry it to an extreme and this is what you can get. Court Protection Orders are paper thin.
Thanks for confirming my thoughts!
I am so glad this was posted today as I am going through a horrible time with my lawyer.
First let me say that i have learned, attorneys do lie. They may not have your best interests at heart.
My story:
A few months ago, after several ddays I learned I had an sti after some suspicious behavior from my Ex.
I interviewed attorneys. Went with one with great reviews and I liked his interview. I signed my complaint. Then after several weeks I learned he was laying out the most contentious path to me without giving several options. Then my husband threatened to harm me. Threatened to harm himself. And tied up a noose. I called my attorney who wouldn’t do anything. Claimed it wast enough. So I fired him and hired a new attorney. Who claimed her first gial was to ask for a settlement. She claimed she did and his attorneys weren’t responding. 6 weeks later I learned that was not true. When I confronted her via email she wouldn’t respond. Then said in person she didn’t like to ask for settlements because it makes you look like you have a weak case. Then she didn’t want to submit my admissions by the due date. Which obviously would have me admitting to several things in favor of my spouse.
In the mean time I have learned from multiple women in my area that this is common. The attorneys have some of the worst reputations by other attorneys in my area. And the information and horror stories of other women in my county is absolutely heart breaking. I hope I can slowly make a difference.
This is so frightening. I have lost a lot of respect for the legal profession since this nightmare began.
I filed eight months ago, and am still nowhere near the finish line, because my lawyer has not pushed the case at all, despite me explaining over and over that Pennywise is not going to cooperate with ANYTHING, as his only goal is to hurt me as much as possible.
He’s in no hurry to divorce, he has his new home and his new schmoopie, while our marital home sits empty and he refuses to sell unless I agree to pay him alimony.
My calls and emails to my lawyer go unreturned, all I get is a bill every month for hundreds of dollars because she says she’s “negotiating “ with opposing counsel.
What has happened to the legal profession?
I have learned so much here about my corrupt legal system. Go see my comment somewhere on here:
1. Find out if your county has a standing order. My attorneys didn’t want me to know about it. And didn’t want to explain the deadlines within once I found it. Basically out county says things have to happen by certain dates.
2.i learned that any negotiating the lawyer does, isn’t legit until one person sends over a settlement request.
I learned this the hard way because my second attorney kept doing that. How this played out for me was my attorney said she was going to call his and ask about a pendente lite. When she called me she said “oh I didn’t even ask because if they agree it has to be in writing anyway”. Which then got me to asking questions about how it’s enforceable if one person agrees over the phone
She at first wouldn’t acknowledge and kept trying to ask questions or tell side stories. Which i realized was a tactic to keep me on the phone but not answer me. And finally when she realized she had already confirmed that the negotiation was useless unless it was in writing, she acknowledged it.
I ask learned it was my lawyer making things more contentious and drawing it out, not his.
I say all that to say:
1. Find out if you have a standing order
2. Send over a formal settlement offer.
3. It might be worth finding a different lawyer.
Thanks for your advice. My lawyer says that she is “trying to save me costs by not responding to things that don’t really matter” but it will drive you nuts and often times create more stress and problems. When interviewing, I never thought to ask about turn-around time or her regular case and trial load.
I just made an account to comment on this story, which (being aro-ace I’m not a chump myself and likely never to be) I never felt comfortable doing, but I’m learning a lot from these articles (and good entertainment). I cannot imagine the hell these children are going through and I think back to my own childhood. My parents divorce was not related to cheating, but even so I can relate to this. I was often (by my mother, who I understand probably had pressures for doing so, I don’t blame her) encouraged and at times pressured to keep up a relationship with my father during periods when I didn’t want to – but at the end of the day it was still my choice whether to do so. I gave my father many chances, because as children you do want to give your parents chances and I gave him a lot, but I also had the full right during periods I did not want to visit. My mother had to come pick me up many times because he had (emotionally, never physically) hurt me during my visit. I cannot imagine the hell of having a court force me to not only spend time when I don’t want to, but actually blame my mother for me not wanting to do so. This is some legit hell.
Sad. But the absurdity that folks are missing is this: there is an ideology behind the system. Why can’t that be challenged? Do you really think more laws or more feminism or more bureaucracy is the answer?
It was ok when the system got weaponized to destroy a few good, loving and hardworking fathers? At least our kids got helped so. We didn’t mind when the lawyers drove off in porsches but we won, did we?
I say this as a woman who lost it all. Out of all lawyers, judges and GALs I encountered, men were 80% fair and decent, women were 100% pure evil.
Staying Strong,
Your story is my ultimate worst nightmare.
My oldest discovered the cheating. They didn’t say anything, as they were not sure and didn’t want to believe it. So instead, they went to bed at night grappling with whether they should tell me, if it was even true and what would HE do if they did tell me. They never told me this until AFTER he moved out.
He is not just a cheater but also extremely emotionally abusive. Just angry and screaming all the time. So imagine the kid’s dismay at being treated like that while knowing what he did?
Oldest does not speak to him, and refuses to see him despite 50/50 custody. FW doesn’t like this scenario but hasn’t done anything to get legal help with it. He does feel that it is my job to encourage reunification. I have struggled with this so much. On the one hand I do believe that a child does best if they have a healthy relationship with both parents. HEALTHY being the key word. As Tracy said, we simply do not have the core ingredients for that here.
And believe me, I DID try to be coparent of the year early on. We did many things as a family. But he continued to be a FW. He would expect things of me and mytime that were unreasonable. He thought he could still be abusive and cointrolling of me. So I cut that crap out. He blames me for the kid doing the same.
So what exactly are my choices? I can LIE and tell my kid “oh your dad is great, he’s really trying to do better, you should give him that chance to show you how he is trying” when I know that the kid is right, given the chance, he would play nice for some amount of time but he is still who he IS at the core so that mask will slip soon enough.
Or I can support my kid in their choice to set a boundary with a FW and be accused of alienation.
I am absolutelty appalled at what you are going through and it just seems so insane to me. I absolutely believe you, but at the same time it is so backwards and crazy that it doesn’t sound real.
Paying $1400 a month to change your kid’s minds over something that they aren’t WRONG about to begin with? Being told you have to encourage them by writing letters filled with lies? I understand that alienation DOES happen but my god, your situation is a massive over-correction to that concern. How can the courts force you to say things that you don’t believe? I’m horrified for you. Also, your twins are 17. In a year they can choose for themselves, that you are paying out all this money now seems so wasteful on top of everything else.
Allthe support and love to you.