I recently had a privately funded family report done.
Up until last year, my 13.5 year old son lived with his Dad and spent 5 nights a fortnight with me. We have always had a great, loving, wonderful mother-son relationship for the past 10 years since my ex and I split up. He lives majority of the time with his Dad because of the work commitments and a lot of traveling I had to do at the time we split up. When we separated, I was seeing him 2 nights a fortnight.
My work situation changed about 3 years ago though and I asked my ex for more time with my son. He said no. Flat out. At this time also, my income decreased significantly due to my work changing and therefore my child support payments to my ex decreased too. I started hearing the rumblings from my son about how they were going to struggle now that I "wasn't paying Dad what I should be". Months of negotiations and me initiating proceedings, saw us sign consent orders where I would have my son 5 nights a fortnight.
The past 4 years have not been great. I met and married someone who also has a son. That part has been great. My son and my husband got along amazingly. The 3 boys were always doing things together - camping, fishing. My son initially loved my husband and his step brother very very much. But, clearly the child support money and my son having another father figure in his life has really rubbed my ex up the wrong way.
Seeing my son more and building a relationship with him has been tough at times because of the blatant alienation from his Dad against me. Dealing with a co-parent who is toxic is exhausting. If things don't go his way, he accuses me of being a bully. If I ask for a small change to arrangements with our son, I am demanding and threatening. My son is constantly saying comments here and there about money, about me being mean to his dad etc. He even started distancing himself from my husband and telling him "Dad says you are not my Dad and can't tell me what to do".
After a normal weekend with my son - a weekend where we had a couple of mother/teenage son arguments - that we worked out and I thought were no big deal, my son's father decided that even though we had court orders in place, that my son was too scared of me and didn't want to come and see me anymore.
Got a Dr to write a letter saying my son was too anxious to come over anymore. Took him to a Psychologist who diagnosed him with Major Depressive Disorder (after 3 sessions), told me I wasn't allowed to be involved in any of his medical appointments, my son refused to answer any of my phone calls or respond to texts, the father told me that my son didn't want to see me or my husband anymore and I should respect what he was saying. Then, to make sure I had no power to try and contact my son at all, he took out an intervention order against me, sighting threatening and bullying behaviour (Lawyer says the case and "evidence" he provided was so weak, but given the way people are with family violence at the moment, I would have a 3% chance of contesting it successfully so I consented without admission and put all of my effort into family court proceedings). The IVO (much to my horror) also stated that my son has expressed suicidal thoughts if he is forced to come and see me.
My son blocked his step brother from all social media and from playing XBox live with him.
2 days after the last time I saw my son, his Dad called child support and changed the level of care, so of course, my payments increased.
I initiated proceedings again (what choice did I have?) and we both agreed to therapy and the family report. I was not given any time with my son because of the IVO and his suicidal thoughts. Consent orders were signed on that day. We saw the therapist from the initial meetings and he put together a proposal for treatment to try and reunite my son and I.
Suddenly, my ex has no money to pay for half of it, (despite consenting to paying for half in court), doesn't believe the proposal is in my son's best interests and is fearful of sitting in a room with me and my husband to possibly work things out. Flat out refuses to take part. But there is no consequence for him? He can just refuse what a court order says?
I could go on but I am sure you get the picture.
So here we are today. I haven't seen or spoken to my son in more than 10 months. I can't even describe how and why this has happened. I shake my head every day and feel such dreadful loss.
We had a family report done and are days away from getting his recommendations. I didn't have an opportunity to even see my son that day as the reporter said it would be too upsetting for him after all this time. WHAT?? Can no one see that time away from each other is clearly what is making this so much worse??
But during the appointment with the family reporter, he's like, oh these cases are the hardest, when one parent is so against the other for reasons that are so blatent (mostly child support and jealousy in this case) and where there is no abuse but where the child has unfortunately been so alienated that they start to believe that the parent's lies are actually their truth.
Sometimes things are so bad, that all contact is refused and the reaction of the child is so dis-proportionate to what has actually happened that there is no coming back from that. Sometimes in these cases, right or wrong, the child needs to be given space and not forced to see the parent if they don't want to. Its sad, but it happens.
I was flabbergasted by this statement. I have literally done nothing wrong but I am the one being punished. None of this makes sense to me. Apparently you can't force a child to do what they don't want to do, even when what they don't want to do is because the other parent has told them as much.
I await the recommendations of the report, but I think its clear that time with my son is going to be at "his request", which, while he is still living with his Dad, will be NEVER.
What hope do any of us have? Alienated parents are just collateral damage it seems.
Up until last year, my 13.5 year old son lived with his Dad and spent 5 nights a fortnight with me. We have always had a great, loving, wonderful mother-son relationship for the past 10 years since my ex and I split up. He lives majority of the time with his Dad because of the work commitments and a lot of traveling I had to do at the time we split up. When we separated, I was seeing him 2 nights a fortnight.
My work situation changed about 3 years ago though and I asked my ex for more time with my son. He said no. Flat out. At this time also, my income decreased significantly due to my work changing and therefore my child support payments to my ex decreased too. I started hearing the rumblings from my son about how they were going to struggle now that I "wasn't paying Dad what I should be". Months of negotiations and me initiating proceedings, saw us sign consent orders where I would have my son 5 nights a fortnight.
The past 4 years have not been great. I met and married someone who also has a son. That part has been great. My son and my husband got along amazingly. The 3 boys were always doing things together - camping, fishing. My son initially loved my husband and his step brother very very much. But, clearly the child support money and my son having another father figure in his life has really rubbed my ex up the wrong way.
Seeing my son more and building a relationship with him has been tough at times because of the blatant alienation from his Dad against me. Dealing with a co-parent who is toxic is exhausting. If things don't go his way, he accuses me of being a bully. If I ask for a small change to arrangements with our son, I am demanding and threatening. My son is constantly saying comments here and there about money, about me being mean to his dad etc. He even started distancing himself from my husband and telling him "Dad says you are not my Dad and can't tell me what to do".
After a normal weekend with my son - a weekend where we had a couple of mother/teenage son arguments - that we worked out and I thought were no big deal, my son's father decided that even though we had court orders in place, that my son was too scared of me and didn't want to come and see me anymore.
Got a Dr to write a letter saying my son was too anxious to come over anymore. Took him to a Psychologist who diagnosed him with Major Depressive Disorder (after 3 sessions), told me I wasn't allowed to be involved in any of his medical appointments, my son refused to answer any of my phone calls or respond to texts, the father told me that my son didn't want to see me or my husband anymore and I should respect what he was saying. Then, to make sure I had no power to try and contact my son at all, he took out an intervention order against me, sighting threatening and bullying behaviour (Lawyer says the case and "evidence" he provided was so weak, but given the way people are with family violence at the moment, I would have a 3% chance of contesting it successfully so I consented without admission and put all of my effort into family court proceedings). The IVO (much to my horror) also stated that my son has expressed suicidal thoughts if he is forced to come and see me.
My son blocked his step brother from all social media and from playing XBox live with him.
2 days after the last time I saw my son, his Dad called child support and changed the level of care, so of course, my payments increased.
I initiated proceedings again (what choice did I have?) and we both agreed to therapy and the family report. I was not given any time with my son because of the IVO and his suicidal thoughts. Consent orders were signed on that day. We saw the therapist from the initial meetings and he put together a proposal for treatment to try and reunite my son and I.
Suddenly, my ex has no money to pay for half of it, (despite consenting to paying for half in court), doesn't believe the proposal is in my son's best interests and is fearful of sitting in a room with me and my husband to possibly work things out. Flat out refuses to take part. But there is no consequence for him? He can just refuse what a court order says?
I could go on but I am sure you get the picture.
So here we are today. I haven't seen or spoken to my son in more than 10 months. I can't even describe how and why this has happened. I shake my head every day and feel such dreadful loss.
We had a family report done and are days away from getting his recommendations. I didn't have an opportunity to even see my son that day as the reporter said it would be too upsetting for him after all this time. WHAT?? Can no one see that time away from each other is clearly what is making this so much worse??
But during the appointment with the family reporter, he's like, oh these cases are the hardest, when one parent is so against the other for reasons that are so blatent (mostly child support and jealousy in this case) and where there is no abuse but where the child has unfortunately been so alienated that they start to believe that the parent's lies are actually their truth.
Sometimes things are so bad, that all contact is refused and the reaction of the child is so dis-proportionate to what has actually happened that there is no coming back from that. Sometimes in these cases, right or wrong, the child needs to be given space and not forced to see the parent if they don't want to. Its sad, but it happens.
I was flabbergasted by this statement. I have literally done nothing wrong but I am the one being punished. None of this makes sense to me. Apparently you can't force a child to do what they don't want to do, even when what they don't want to do is because the other parent has told them as much.
I await the recommendations of the report, but I think its clear that time with my son is going to be at "his request", which, while he is still living with his Dad, will be NEVER.
What hope do any of us have? Alienated parents are just collateral damage it seems.
