The destruction of parental alienation accusations: one woman’s story
When asked to write an article on the impacts parental alienation accusations had on me and my kids — I jumped at the chance. Telling my story proves to be healing each time I do it — largely in part because when all of this was happening, no one seemed to hear me or my kids. Being able to speak now and know that my words will at least be heard by some helps to mend all the fractures in my soul that have been left by my ex and the post separation abuse I’ve endured.
As I sat down to write, I quickly realized how challenging it is to convey the countless events and experiences in a way that makes logical sense. The intricate web of circumstances, compounded by layer upon layer of abuse — not just from my abuser but also from the professionals involved — creates a tangled mess. It feels impossible to distill it all into a short, concise narrative.
I could literally fill books with examples of the abuse my daughters and I endured. I have example after example, day after day for nine years of shockingly horrible behaviour and situations that occurred. I have been tasked with writing an article though, not books and books. Which left my mind in scrambles – how to choose which examples to use? Which are the most impactful? Was that situation more harmful than this other?
Then — lucky me (cue sarcasm) — my ex launched yet another court proceeding, the fourth this year. As I began drafting my legal responses to his latest application for my children to attend family reunification counselling, I found myself sifting through past emails and notes I’ve meticulously kept over the years. This unwelcome trip down memory lane offered a fresh perspective on the sheer volume and intensity of everything we’ve endured. Here are two examples that best illustrate the impacts of parental alienation accusations on myself and my daughters.
My ex left me nine years ago. Prior to his leaving, he did not show any interest in the kids. He worked, did tai chi, and had a thriving social life based on craft beer making and meditation. I stayed home and cared for the kids. Since he left, he has relentlessly pursued more and more custody of the kids, while simultaneously seeking to pay less and less in child support — despite me being on disability and unable to work.
For the past two years, I’ve had full custody and decision making of my girls. But it was a long, terrible battle to get that — and it was the bravery of my daughters who ultimately created the conditions that forced their father to offer a court order that ensured their own safety.
Prior to me getting full custody was the period where he had finally won 50/50 parenting time. Despite this he had booked a ten day trial seeking decision making authority over the children and an order proclaiming me a parental alienator. After my kids ran away, he adjourned the trial and shockingly, offered me primary care of our daughters.
But I need to explain why the kids ran away. The violence at his house had been getting worse. The last three visits were especially bad. One time, he threw my daughter and her backpack out of his truck while it was still moving. Another time, he dragged her through the house by her arm, eventually forcing her into the shower and dousing her with cold water, even though she was fully dressed. Afterward, he took her to the ER for a psychiatric evaluation. All this while my other daughter watched, helpless to help her sister. All of this was predicated by my daughter refusing to empty the dishwasher.
Finally, one of these violent episodes pushed my children to run away — not the kind of running away where you pack your bags with snacks and stuffed animals, but the kind where you sprint out the door, barefoot and coatless, into the dark and rain. The kind where you knock on a stranger’s door and ask to use their phone, desperate for safety. My daughters were 8 and 10 at the time.
In the months following their running away, my children still tried to maintain a relationship with their dad. Partly because they still thought the relationship was salvageable — it’s no small thing to cut ties with a parent. But also because they knew that not talking to him or seeing him at all would result in retaliation by him, and serious trouble with the courts. By this time, they understood well that his position was that *I* was the reason they ‘didn’t like him’ and knew that if they didn’t continue to appear to have a relationship with him, it could possibly result in him winning full custody or even worse — I could end up in jail.
During these months, I had no choice but to stick to the current parenting schedule. I took the kids to his house for every single one of his scheduled parenting times, and insisted that they call him every day that they weren’t with him. My obligation to the court order, and fear of losing custody all together resulted in the heavy-lifting of the situation falling on my daughters shoulders.
Repeatedly, week after week, they got into the car, and drove with me to his house. There, they would refuse to get out of the car, or sometimes, would stand and talk with him in his yard but refuse to go into his house with him.
I had been told by professionals that in situations like mine, the *children* had to be the ones refusing parenting time. If I failed to bring them to his house, I would be confirming his accusations and demonstrating the alienation he had been accusing me of.
My kids were so used to ‘having’ to go there and me ‘having to make them go’ that they no longer asked why they couldn’t just stay with me. They didn’t ever ask not to go to dads house anymore. By that point, we had already done the hours and hours (and years and years) of sitting in the car or standing on the sidewalk outside of his house while they cried and begged not to go and I repeated over and over that it would be ok. “He is your dad. You HAVE to spend time with him” I would say as my heart broke.
Having been coached by my lawyer at the time that I should never say ANYTHING bad about my ex, I constantly walked the impossible line of validating my kids experiences and feelings, while not speaking negatively about him. At that time, I found a middle ground of explaining that every person has a different ‘version’ of love and not all love feels good. I explained, ‘your dad loves you, this is just his way of showing it.’
Were it not for the constant threat of parental alienation accusations, I would have been able to tell my kids — “That is wrong. Control and abuse are not love. No one should hurt you that way. You don’t have to go over there anymore.” But that is not an option I had. The fear of losing my kids was so strong, and the pressure from all the professionals involved was so great, I took them there and made them go week after week, year after year while telling them what was happening to them was some alternate version of love.
But back to the period right after they ran away — the interactions between my ex and my kids during this time are hard to describe because they are so confusing and fraught with manipulation.
My ex’s narrative of their running away and the episode that led up to it was that he and his partner were assaulted by my then 10 year old daughter. He insisted that he and his partner were the true victims, even claiming they were receiving support from victim services. He went so far as to say they had been advised to remove all the knives from their home for safety — a bizarre and alarming statement, given that knives had never been involved in any way.
In an email to our parenting coordinator, he explained that because of my daughter’s supposed mental instability, she was too dangerous to have in the house with the rest of the family. He proclaimed that my kids were welcome in his house — but that they would have to stay in the basement anytime they were there. They were forbidden to go upstairs where their step mom, step brothers and pets lived.
Further adding to the complexity of the situation was the fact that he ran an Airbnb out of the basement and because he couldn’t ‘just sit around waiting’ and because ‘he has a life to live’ he booked the suite for the upcoming months. This meant there was no access to a bathroom or kitchen in the basement where the kids were supposed to live. If they went to stay with him, they would have to use a bucket as a toilet and the hose outside for water.
Our parenting coordinator was fully aware of these facts. And yet, during meetings at that time, the focus remained squarely on what *I* was doing to “block” the children from spending time with their dad. I was scrutinized for the words and phrases I used to talk about him and questioned about how I was addressing my children’s supposed mental health issues.
Not once was it discussed that my kids had run away in terror to escape violence. Not once was it brought up that my ex had tried to press assault charges against his 10-year-old daughter. Nor was it acknowledged that he had relegated them to a basement without access to a toilet or running water.
The sole focus was on how *I* had supposedly failed to promote and support their relationship with him, completely ignoring the realities of the abuse they had endured and the lengths they had gone to protect themselves.
Adding insult to injury was the fact that I was paying thousands of dollars each month to engage in these meetings where I was blamed and my ex was exalted as the brave victim of alienation trying to do the best for his daughters.
This brings me to the current court case where he is seeking reunification therapy, or failing that, court ordered parenting time with my kids. (And yes, you got that right. He is once again litigating to change a court order that he himself wrote.) His legal argument is parental alienation. He says that the kids are rejecting him because I won’t let them call. Because I don’t give him the packages he mails, and because I brainwashed them to be afraid of him. Which brings me to the other example I found recently while preparing my arguments for court.
What I found is an email that I sent to our divorce coach at the time. We had engaged her as part of the court-ordered process, hoping her involvement with the Parenting Coordinator would finally put an end to his constant litigation. (Spoiler: it didn’t. He continued to drag me back into court, which financially crippled me and left me self-representing in legal battles ever since.)
The idea was that all conflicts and issues would first go through the divorce coach. If she couldn’t resolve things with coaching or joint sessions with my ex, then the parenting coordinator would step in.
At the time, my kids had just returned from five days with their dad. My seven-year-old had severe scratches on her face and ears, and my nine-year-old had a toe so badly burned it was nearly unrecognizable and wouldn’t fit into any of her shoes.
My seven-year-old had been attacked by one of her stepbrothers—a situation that had become somewhat common, but never before had his outbursts caused such significant damage. She told me that neither my ex nor his partner intervened during the violence. When she finally managed to get away, she went crying to her father, who dismissed her injuries, saying it “didn’t look that bad,” and told her to get her sister to help. My nine-year-old confirmed her story, sharing that she had cleaned the wounds and calmed her sister, but didn’t know what to do when the bleeding wouldn’t stop. The band-aids weren’t big enough for the cuts and wouldn’t stick to her sister’s ears.
My nine-year-old’s toe had been burned during a wart treatment at a walk-in clinic. When I finally got to see it, it was so badly blistered it didn’t even look like a toe anymore. For weeks it peeled and oozed painfully. It took over three months to finally heal. She said — and I could see for myself — that the doctor applied liquid nitrogen to the wrong part of her toe. She screamed and begged him to stop, but he forced her down and continued the treatment. My ex was in the room and did nothing.
Afterward, he wanted pizza, so he forced my nine-year-old to walk six blocks each way to pick it up, despite her limping and crying in pain. She repeatedly begged him to go back to the truck, but he ignored her, telling her, “It isn’t that bad. You’re exaggerating. Stop crying, you’re embarrassing me.” When they got home, my ex’s partner insisted on covering my daughter’s wounded toe with duct tape, making fun of her tears, calling her a wimp and a baby.
These events occurred during the first few days of my kids’ five-day stay with their father. According to his rules, they weren’t allowed to call me or have any contact during that time, so I had no idea what had happened until they came home.
As soon as they returned, I took my nine-year-old to a different doctor who diagnosed second- and third-degree burns, prescribing cream to help with the healing. I filed a formal complaint against the original doctor, and he was found responsible for clinical malpractice, receiving a temporary ban from practicing by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC.
In my email to the divorce coach, I wrote: “Abby, I’m not sure if this is something I should bring up — or if it’s important enough — but there were a few distressing events at Sean’s house during his parenting time this week.” I went on to describe what had happened, using neutral language. I attached photos of the injuries, but maintained a high level downplaying and dismissiveness including statements like “I don’t want to be an alarmist” and, it might not even be worth mentioning.“ Reading it now makes me sick.
The divorce coach — like everyone involved in this process — is supposed to advocate for the children’s best interests. They are supposed to be neutral third parties who prioritize the safety and well-being of the children above all else.
The way I hesitated to even bring up these deeply disturbing and explicit examples of abuse is, for me, the clearest example of how the accusations of alienation have impacted both me and my children.
I had been so conditioned by my own lawyers, the judgments of masters and judges, and the suggestions of counsellors and professionals involved in our case that I was unsure whether these events even warranted discussion.
Now that my kids have been safe with me for a few years and I have done some healing, I can access the parts of me that know -had I not been constantly bombarded with alienation accusations, I would have been screaming and waving red flags. “Look at what he did! Look at what he stood by and did nothing about! Look at the harm done to these kids!” Instead, I tiptoed around it, downplaying it all, and accepted yet another fruitless meeting where he minimized his responsibility. I swallowed the suggestion that I was overreacting. I was so acclimatized to not being able to speak the truth, that I wasn’t even sure if examples like this were ‘bad’ or if I was just ‘making too much of things and overreacting’.
(Because everyone knows, judges don’t respond well to dramatics and over-emotional people.)
So much of the past nine years has been about suppressing my own voice while swallowing his distorted narratives. Learning how to speak out again, how to reclaim the truth, is a daunting, gruelling task, and I’m not sure I’ll succeed.
The way my hands remain tied even now, in speaking out about what happened to my children, what happened in my family, has damaged my soul and my very core in ways I know will never fully heal.
Watching, day by day, event by event, and being unable to say anything is a special kind of torture. The isolation it created was devastating. The fact that, even today, I don’t trust my own perceptions, constantly second-guessing myself, gaslighting my own experience, and making excuses — telling myself, “It probably wasn’t that bad” — has left me feeling empty.
It has also impacted every relationship I have. I can’t ask for what I want. It doesn’t feel safe to speak my truth. Complaining about anything feels insane and dangerous.
In preparation for this article, I asked my kids — now 11 and 13 — how the accusations of alienation affected them. I was shocked by their responses.
Both of them agreed that, very early on, they learned that speaking about what was really happening at their dad’s house would put me in danger. They learned that admitting anything “too bad” would lead to questions about whether “Mom had ever told you to say that.”
They shared multiple examples of disclosing abuse at their dad’s house and, especially, asking counsellors not to tell him what they’d said — only to find out that the counsellors did tell him, immediately after the session. This led to yelling and punishment on the drive home for “spreading your mother’s lies.”
“Now everyone is going to think I’m an alcoholic or that I hit you, and it’s not true! I’m a caring, loving father. It’s your MOTHER who has caused all of this!” he yelled at them after they told the counsellor about a violent episode that occurred when he was drunk.
Even after they ran away from his house, they knew better than to call me from the stranger’s house they ran to. They called my mother instead, because they knew that calling me would “make everything worse.”
Now, I use my experience as a self-represented litigant in family court to help other women navigate the system and keep their children safe. The constant threat of parental alienation accusations is something every woman I’ve encountered faces — unless their ex is dead. Even in cases where the abusive father has had no involvement with the child, creating a paper trail that reflects her attempts to engage him in the child’s life is crucial should he return and demand parenting time.
To say this reality is terrible is an understatement. The failure of most professionals in the system to recognize family violence and abuse — and their willingness to blame the protective mother for perfectly understandable reactions to abuse — continues to cause harm and destruction in the lives of women and children. If professionals involved in the family law system knew this one thing: Parental Alienation claims are made by abusers to deflect inquiry and attention from their own behaviours — the impact on keeping women and children safe, and helping them recover from abuse, would be immeasurable.
Veya Clarkson’s services can be found at Casebycasedivorce.com.
