I was a judge on the divorce bench for 20 years, and I watched the wreckage of the corrosive legacy of parental alienation and visitation interference play out over decades. We have no statistics for measuring this group because the number of victims is too vast. But the concentric circles include the children, the grandchildren, and the extended family as well. The declaration of war by one parent on another creates radioactive fallout that contaminates the family for generations.
The alienating parent treats the target parent like a disease in the child that must be removed. They make the child’s survival contingent upon such removal. So the child must extricate the parent without the privilege of grieving the loss. These are crippling circumstances.
I have witnessed impassioned declarations of love for a child by an alienating parent to masquerade the venom he/she feels for the other parent. Parents who do this are not interested in mere control. Their stakes are higher: total annihilation of the target parent’s bond with the child. Little by little, alienation in a divorce case starts to take root. And when it fully takes root, I see the child’s boundaries collapse before my eyes. Soon the child forgets how to protect him or herself, and must align with the alienating parent as if life depends on it – because it does.
Perhaps curing this degenerating influence may, in the future, be addressed by therapy. But for now, we can and we must do better. I want to tell you how to be proactive in court, and how to fight against the inclination to give up like so many hurt, alienated parents – who are, frankly, not always welcomed in the courts.
Why Cases Involving Parental Alienation are so Difficult
Here are some reasons parental alienation cases are so difficult, and why judges often have no love for them:
- Combative parents present conflicting stories of “he said / she said,” and make it very difficult to determine who is telling the truth. Often an alienating parent comes to believe what he or she is saying, and their presentation seems authentic.
- When targeted parents present their side of the case, they are often angry and frustrated – and as a result, they don’t present very well in court. Judges often consider attitude as influential as content.
- The children often support the alienating parent by telling the judge, their attorney and mental health professionals how they have been treated badly, and of their dislike, for the target parent. The reasoning skills of alienated children are often compromised, as is their ability to choose freely.
- Alienated children often won’t cooperate with therapeutic intervention, and courts have difficulty enforcing these orders.
- Judges like to believe that what they do works and it is the right decision. When their decisions don’t work, they often get exasperated with both parties.
What You can Do in Courts
Despite these difficulties there is plenty that you can do. Here are some suggestions for handling parental alienation in the courts:
- Create an alienation map or chart for the judge, which shows him or her in five minutes what couldn’t be said in five hours. This map should include all missed visits, and a list of all the denigrating phrases made by alienating spouse to the children, including the friends and/or extended family of the hated parent (if they are admissible in evidence). If you know how to make a graph, you can show the increase in missed visits in a very compelling and impactful way.
- Most judges aren’t warm to the phrase “Parental Alienation Syndrome”. Instead, ask the judge to please keep an eye open for visitation interference as the case progresses, and describe for him or her the maligning behavior.
- Get a court order for parenting therapy as soon as possible.
- If orders are violated, go to court on a “Rule to Show Cause” for violation of the order as soon as possible. If you can’t afford an attorney, then do this yourself. Write a “Petition for Rule to Show Cause” for a visitation violation, for family therapy, or for makeup visitation. Your local courthouse should be able to supply you with a sample form or even a packet showing you how to fill out this Petition.
You may be among the many alienated parents I have known, who have grown weary due to the repetitive stress fracture on your heart. Each time your visitation is interfered with, it has a cumulative hyper-sensitive, which easily magnifies your emotional response.
Because your emotions are flooding your ability to reason, writing and rewriting a petition with your attorney is a rational thing to do and gives your thoughts “breathing time.” If you immediately act upon your anger, you are just going to make things worse – and perhaps run the risk that the other parent will get an order of protection against you. Reflect upon the past consequences of your amped-up anger. Did you write nasty emails, make hostile phone calls, yell at your child, become overly aggressive, or decide to retreat and do nothing?
The way to tell if your anger serves you is to always ask yourself the following four questions:
- Does this anger further my constructive goals?
- Does this anger further degenerate my relationship with my children?
- In what ways does this anger help me?
- In what ways does this anger help my spouse?
If your reactions are based upon what has been done to you, you can only respond with hatred. When you do this, you give the alienating parent the “upper hand,” because he or she has provoked you to become the hateful person who they are portraying you to be to the children. Don’t let someone else provoke, influence, and therefore control how you behave. you run the risk of actually becoming as miserable and dysfunctional of a person as they’re trying to portray you to your children. When you react with hatred, you not only play into their hands, you’re letting them steer your ship, letting them determine your present and future.
When Your Children Come Home, Who do You Want Them to Come Home to?
As you read this, you may be on the edge of giving up. You may be starting to feel that nothing can work against your former spouse’s devotion to destroy your relationship with your children. Even though you may be physically invisible to your children, you will always be visible to them through stories, gossip and second hand reporting from all sources. When we lose a loved one, we often decide to live the way that the departed person would have wanted us to. In the same spirit, when you lose a child to alienation, you need to live as if he or she is watching you. Your long-term goal is to become the person your child wants to come home to.
Michele F. Lowrance was a domestic-relations judge in the Circuit Court of Illinois for 20 years; she is now a practicing mediator. A child of divorce who was raised by her grandparents, Judge Lowrance has been divorced and has devoted her professional life to helping those similarly situated. She is the author of The Good Karma Divorce (Harper Collins, 2010) and co-author of the Parental Alienation 911 Workbook (Parental Alienation 911, 2012). www.michelelowrance.com
Thanks!! Great article. Much appreciated. Best wishes to you.
I do recommend the book “An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation: Foundations”. He has got some GREAT insights into parental alienation. And no, I don’t profit from sales of the book.
As a victim of this scourge, I have found that judges are a big part of the problem. As the person with the power to stop this damaging and illegal behavior, the author should be spending her time educating her former colleagues as well as providing advice to targeted parents
Thanks you so much, this is my portrait, i can see my self in those words and i am working hard in the dark to see and know what should i do or say to prove to the judge what my ex partner is doing right now !
I have to go back to courts again to show the lies, now i have to get this right and control my emotions! And keep my brain clear !
Thanks !
Wow, so much of that is so incredible, I wish it also had a lot of arabic people, cause that family togetherness needs to be felt and seen. Some people just don’t know how much there needed. Iam so tired of monsters taken over the courts and agencies. It’s like not being able to sleep at night. Not knowing when the boogyman will show up.
One question that I have is what to do when the parental alienation rises to the level of child psychological abuse, DSM-5 diagnosis code V995.51, where a child displays significant developmental pathology, personality disorder pathology, and delusional psychiatric pathology as the result of the influence of the alienator.
My understanding is that traditional family therapy only works in mild or moderate cases, and then only if one is lucky to have a therapist who understands parental alienation and who realizes that, as Brian Ludmer Esq notes, “there needs to be stated goals, timelines and milestones, with the authority to return the matter to court if progress stalls”, with no room for the traditional therapeutic alliance. Traditional family therapy is easy for an alienator to sabotage.
By contrast, the structured intervention programs take a much different approach and often come with studies that prove their effectiveness.
This happened to me and my son ( the other parent sabotaged the therapy session) and after the second session things continued to get worse. The therapist, and the child’s appointed attorney, and the judge had a hard time making a “just” decision. After paying for all the session (court ordered, more victimization) I finally walked away from the situation, and have not seen my son since. Why put myself, and my son, through the alientor’s drama and chaotic stories, I would never have a sane relationship with my son.
As the targeted parent, here in the California courts, I have been treated as the “suspect” of outlandish accusations, and dealt with more like a disease than a human. Respect was out the window, and I became more victimized as it went along. The judge in my case was frustrated after talking with my son for 30 mins, and would not budge on the claims made against me…even when CPS (Child Protective Services) investigated the issues and determined the case to be “fictional” and non existent.
I am glad there are people that have some faith in the system, and I have even witnessed some good within the system. However, the alienating parents still run amok and judges seem to be afraid to make ruling or judgement against them, for fear of “bad press”. I am not so optomistic, and have little faith in the system, and saw that I would be continually victimized should I maintain a relationship with my son, and my son would be drawn and quartered (much like the story of the two harlots and King Solomon, in the Bible). I was the one that would rather see my son whole and not cut in half and gave him up to the other parent. Does that make me wrong, a bad parent, a quitter…knowing that if I continued with the case it would be my son that would be harmed…while the other parent would be unscathed (she never signed the complaints, and had my son sign all legal documents…her hands were clean).
I applaud those that continue the fight to “do good” when I see things as getting worse. I pray for change. I wish those hope, always take the high road, do not slander the other party/parent, and stay on the course of good will and stay on the ethically sound path.
In California a child at age 12 can file a” visitation modification order” as well as a “domestic violence order”, a double whammy towards the targeted parent. Even when CPS investigates and declares the incident in question as not happening (no factual basis), judges are reluctant to award the targeted parent any recourse. The targeted parent will be ordered to pay for all the therapy sessions, even when he/she did not create the legal chaos for which they find themselves in.
This is a well written article, with hope and good intentions, but I feel there is not enough being done to bring out the alienating parents and to hold them accountable. Good luck, and I respect the authors opinion and viewpoints, while I do not see the family court system ever recognizing that such chaotic harm exists in the alienating parent.
I’m experiencing the same thing. My son is 16. He hasn’t been living at home for about five months. I am thinking that I want to take his father to court for visitation interruption. Also parental disparagement, after reading these articles and reading some of these comments and videos and everything I’ve been educating myself with. Its discouraging. I don’t want to put my child through stress but I also know it’s incredibly important to his mental development and for his identity that me and my family remain as consistent in his life as we always have been since the beginning, as well as his father. Any advice? Do we fight? I’m so torn.
You state to create an alienation map or chart for the judge but don’t give an example. I’ve tried googling for an idea, but I only get links back to this page or, of all things, Chernobyl. Can you provide one?
I am a victim of alienation of affection! It was calculated, vicious, cruel! One side of a seriesof stories about me; told in a twisted way, to make me the devil, and break my bond with my son. I believe his reaction was visceral and caused psychiatric damage, inability to leave home for college, drug use, lack of social skills. I hope the man I used to know can see what he has done, he has destroyed his son! And of course I blame myself as well! My defensive position made me look bad. I should have seen that side of him, but I was in love and I did not see. It’s a bleeding current in a dark ocean of grief. My child is in a life boat, while I cling to a buoy.
Anonymous
18 Jul 2018 at 12:37 pm
Memories fading fast
Of a life we shared not built to last
Hoping you’ll remember me
The good times we used to have
For now your dad will finish raising you
Don’t hate women it’s not our fault
Dominated by men with jealous hearts
I wish you well my baby boy
Mom loves you more and more