Welcome.


Hi everyone and welcome to Bristol Grandparents Support Group blog. Although we are Bristol based we have grandparents from all over the UK and beyond as members.

It is estimated that over one million children in the UK are denied contact with their grandparents due to family breakdown which may have been caused by divorce/separation, alcohol/drug dependency,domestic violence,bereavement or family feud.
Every child has the right to have contact with their grandparents
if they wish and unless proven unsafe for them to do so. To deny contact from a parent or grandparent has to become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.
I hope to keep you up to date with what is going on in BGSG and I shall continue to campaign for the rights of children to have a loving and meaningful relationship with both parents and their extended family. So please join in as good to hear your views, not just mine!
I also will support via Skype.
There is no membership fee to be part of Bristol Grandparents Support Group.
Esther Rantzen says, " To every grandparent, links of love can never be broken in our hearts."

Please contact during office hours.
07773258270


Thursday, 2 January 2014

Real Life Stories of Parental Alienation.

As I promised we are going to focus on Parental Alienation and its effects, here is the beginning of case studies, no locations or names will be given.
These are real families who are devastated and desperate as a society we can not allow it to continue.

Case Study 1:


" I'm an alienated father of four !!!
Two boys aged 18 & 17
And two little girls aged 10 & 8.
I was fighting against a person using the art of PA.
And worse kind of !!!
A court process that doesn't seem to care or get it !!!!
After around a yr,
I came across PA,
Then every thing started slotting
Into place,
I wondered why the resident parent was doing this and I kind of started to see what was coming round each corner.
I even had two very false and very late allegations’ made against me by the alienator and my now 18 yr old son.
He even came to court to lie against his own father.
At that point I thought this is now really bad when you get an 18 yr old to lie in court, !!!!!!!!!
My contact has now all been closed down in sep of 2013.
I'm told I cant apply to see my girls until 2016.
PA is a real thing that go's on.
It is a crime,
It is abuse.
For me it's the worst thing I have ever had to deal with in my life.
so my dear children are still being abused by the alienator and also by the very process that is meant to protect our children !!!!!!!!
Never in my life did I believe such evilness could be so,
And never for one minute at the beginning of this sad saga.
Did I believe, that this process would act against the father.
The male. !!!!!!
But it does and did !!!!!!!!!
I am an equal parent/father
I am an equal human being as my children are too."


Case Study 2:


" We had a wonderful relationship with our grandchild for 7 years, until one day when she told us she had been told to 'dump her family in ........'
From that day on we have had no contact at all with her, my son has had no contact with her our whole family has lost someone very dear to us.
What do you do when you receive a letter from a solicitor saying that your daughter/granddaughter no longer wants to be part of your life?
How can anyone know what that does to a father and his family? 
One of the worst things is that you think that your granddaughter believes that she is not loved by the family that somehow they have just stopped caring about her.
We know that Parental Alienation has taken place, that she has been told horrible things about us and we can do nothing about it.
There are very bad days when you wonder how you can carry on, but you do, just. "

Case Study 3:


" First, a little history:

X came into my life as my teenage son's girlfriend. She became pregnant at age 14 and gave me my first grandson,  Y now aged 18. X and I had a very tumultuous relationship for the first couple of years. She moved into my home when she was a teenager and pregnant and it was an extremely difficult time for my family, to say the least! Beside my son, N -now age 36, I also have a daughter, who is 6 months older than X.
Their firstborn,Y, and I were very close, closer I think, than a typical grandmother/grandchlid relationship. X and N eventually married and had another son together ,almost 13 years old. They have since divorced and N married a woman named G. As I said, X and I had a very difficult relationship but have both grown and matured into what is now a very loving mother/daughter-like relationship - she calls me her "faux" Mom! 
When my son first met G and it became clear that they were in a long term relationship,she seemed like a loving and wonderful young woman and I often told people that I thought that she fell in love with my grandsons before she fell in love with N. Now in hindsight, I see that her love (infatuation?) for them was not healthy. She quickly became very possessive of them and of my son. We had a couple of "fallings out" over her monopolization of my family. For example, every holiday, or day of importance such as a birthday, was spent with her family with little or no time  for us. Before N and G married, they were living together and X had custody of the boys. I believe that, legally, N & A had "shared custody." Y was having some behavioural issues and, it was decided that he go to live with N & G. I believe that this is when the alienation went into full swing: G took Y to register him the local public school and on the admission forms, listed herself as his "mother" (they weren't yet married, mind you!) and listed her mother and sister as emergency contacts, not even mentioning X! (or mine considering I had always been listed and lived about a mile from the school) I knew then that we were in trouble! I had been having an on again, off again relationship with my daughter, son and soon-to-be daughter in law. G overheard me talking to my daughter about my feelings about her. (ie: that I felt that she was selfish by excluding me in any get together plans etc.). I was "talked to" about it as if I were a disobedient child by my son and G. There were other difficulties; things I did or said that displeased them (her) and issues they were having with X. Just prior to N & G's wedding, I was given an ultimatum: I either cut off my relationship with X ("She's not your family anymore, G is!") or I will not be allowed to have any relationship with them, which included my grandsons. My daughter, who in my opinion, has some social adjustment issues; has held on to her own teenage insecurities and jealously as far as X is concerned and had joined "their side". In their ( N, G and my daughter) opinion and warped sense of reality, I have abandoned them for X, have made my "choice" and so now have to pay the "consequences" (again being treated like a disobedient child) of being divorced from the family!!! So at this point, I do not have a relationship with either of my children or with Y, who has been brainwashed against his mother and me. Fortunately, X has a wonderful relationship with H with whom she has "visitation", I hate that word as it applies to a child's time with a loving parent - sounds like visits to a penitentiary! It is a constant struggle for X because they, of course, are doing their best to alienate  H and not only don't miss an opportunity to try to bash her down, but quite often fabricate (lie?) issues in which to allow themselves the opportunity to spew their vile hatred!  
N & G have a 4 year old daughter, K and I have been deprived of a relationship with her as well, of course. At a recent football game of H's, my daughter was walking toward me holding K's hand. I looked down at her, smiled and said, "Hi K!"  my daughter obviously reported this to G because by the time I returned home I had a nasty email from G with a veiled threat to not ever again make any attempt to interact with her daughter!!! 

Backtracking a bit, there was a custody hearing for which I helped X retain an attorney. My son has, in his adult years, been very verbally abusive to me, and verbally and physically abusive to his children and X . Long story short, the judge, without ever hearing our testimony to those facts, awarded full custody to N because J didn't want to have anything to do with his mother and she didn't want to split the boys up.... the boys had gone to lunch with N,G, my daughter, their attorney and my ex and immediately after the lunch recess, met with the judge in chambers. Of course they were coached and with his big brother in the room and his bully of a father in the next room, H, of course, could not be honest or truthful about his feelings! The judge's horribly wrong decision has only added fuel to the fire of PA...

That 's our story and it goes on and on, I'm afraid. My son is in constant contempt of the court orders and we do not have the funds to fight him! From what I've heard, not an unusual scenario: the alienators count on bankrupting the alienated parent financially and emotionally. The only thing that has saved H is his bond with his mother, her devotion and love for him and her tenacity to not give up on him. J is now, "legally" an adult and is at college and out from under their roof. I want so much to contact him but have been advised to give him time.... I have hope that he will figure things out as his world ( and experiences) broadens... As the mother and grandmother, my heart is broken and torn....I will forever love my misguided "children" and grandson and pray that someday, they will come to their senses and remember the unconditional love I have for them." 


Thank you to those who have shared their stories, there will be more.

Jane

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