Parental Alienation(Grandparents Too!!)

Getting Divorced is never easy. It is bad enough knowing that the person you chose to marry is not going to be in your life going forward. When you have kids together, they are often used as pawns by the spouse who feels abandoned, aggrieved, or just flat out wants to see their ex spouse suffer as much pain as possible. A child is blameless for why people divorce and one of the most ignored facts in custody cases is the blatant act by one parent to destroy a child's relationship with the other parent. This behavior is called parental alienation and while it is designed to start with the ex spouse, it is often done to the ex spouses parents(grandparents) to destroy the child's relationship with them as well. This scorched earth behavior can have long lasting effects on every person in a family relationship and men must learn to recognize if their soon to be ex spouse is the type of woman who will try to alienate the kids from him.

Women are the primary perpetrators of parental alienation. Their self loathing, hate, and insecurity that jumps to the forefront of their mind when change occurs causes them to act in a way to make others pay for their failure as a woman and a wife. This behavior may be part of an overall personality defect that only shows itself after conflict begins. Once divorce even becomes a hint of a possibility this behavior starts in a subtle way that men need to recognize and handle before its too late. Once you see your kids being alienated from you, you need to take action to move the custody process forward. Anything less than equal custody is going to increase the chance your kid will be alienated from you. 

A man needs to be aware of the behavior by women that will start once the relationship has gone bad but before the details can be arranged to separate and get a permanent custody order in place. Women who have the alienation mindset first want to reduce the amount of time you spend with your kids. You might have the stay at home wife who gets to spend all day with her kids while you work hard to support the family. She sees so much more of their growth. The man comes home and gets a small window just to sit on the couch with his kids and bond. The woman will go from encouraging this to literally pulling kids out of a fathers arm so put them to bed rather than see them enjoy time with their dad. The man sees this and cannot believe his eyes yet what are his choices? He either gets into an immediate conflict with his wife in front of the kids which can lead to nothing good or he backs down and allows his kids are put to bed. If your kids are young when the divorce happens, this is the primary way women will begin to destroy the relationship with your kids.

If the relationship goes bad when the kids get older, in addition to depriving a child of time with the other parent, these women will blatantly and openly talk bad about the father to the point the child thinks dad is a piece of trash that has no place in their life. This behavior goes beyond the occasional expression of anger many parents express about their ex spouse but is instead a day to day assault on the child's mind to get them to hate dad. This is especially true when the man leaves the relationship and asks for the divorce even if he didn't cheat or do anything to betray the relationship. Over time if a man is not paying attention, he will notice his kids don't want to see him and ask that they have their custody to be exclusive with their mother. They are alienated and repairing this is often near impossible. The mother has now hurt the man by getting his kids to see him in a different light and not want to see him but has also damaged her kids with the kids never even knowing that is what happened long into adult hood. The desire for increased child support that comes with primary custody is just another reason this behavior is acceptable. Courts want women to have primary custody when the man is stable economically.

As much as a woman wants to alienate your kids from you, don't think this behavior is limited to hurting you. A man who is close to his own mom and dad will often have to witness their suffering when a relationship goes bad. Grandparents can go from being close to grandkids and basically being used as on demand babysitters to not being allowed to see their own grandkids with the same regularity. There is little to nothing they can do about it and it can be just as heartbreaking for them to lose contact with their grandkids. Kids can be taught to dislike or not even want to see their own grandparents. Women will have no problem during a custody trial to say negative things about the ex spouses parents and how they don't want them to see their grandkids. Suddenly the wisdom and freedom that are valued with age to help the kids learn and the family avoid babysitters etc are now liabilities and your spouse will say her ex parents in law are too old or fragile to see the kids or drive them places. Women who loved the fact grandma would pick a kid up from school so she could go to the gym is now not fit to drive the kids anywhere because of their age.

Men are also trained by women soon after the birth of a child to not allow his own parents to see his kid. An insecure man on many occasions will alienate his own parents by not bringing his kid to see them because his wife objects and he does not want conflict. This attempt at control by a wife is more prevalent in society than you think and the suffering of grandparents who never get to see their grandkids is off the chart. Any father of a child that allows this to happen to appease a wife is a child abuser himself and the fact he stays in such marriage is beyond pathetic.

While too many women deal with deadbeat dads who are not involved in their kids lives with any type of consistency and most women recognize their ex is a good father and encourage those relationships, men need to be able to spot the type of women who following an end of a relationship will do all they can destroy a child's relationship with their father and even their grandparents. Courts ignore this behavior so you as a man need to fight it and this is best done by documenting it and making sure you get as much custody of your child as possible. If you unfortunately married such a woman, getting equal custody will not stop these women from their behavior and you will likely face regular motions to change custody and a lifetime of mental abuse to get your kids to want to be out of your life. If you as a man roll over and take the every other weekend custody schedule that your accommodating ex wants you to take(remember if a woman will not agree to equal custody, she is not a quality woman or mother), expect to have real issues with parental alienation if you married the type of woman who thought you were a great man and father until you got divorced.