‘Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family’

Los Angeles, CA–“Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family and help other families with what we are learning. It has been quite a process, unraveling the web of lies that I had spun. I apologize to our kids and now work to tell the truth to them and others.” I recently received this amazing letter from Gaye, a reader, about Parental Alienation. She is a former Parental Alienator who turned her life around and is now trying to make amends. I salute her.
Nine U.S. states and the British territory of Bermuda have declared April 25 “Parental Alienation Awareness Day.” To learn more, visit www.Parental-Alienation-Awareness.com. To learn more about Parental Alienation, see my co-authored column Protect Children from Alienation (Providence Journal, 7/8/06) or my blog posts on it here. Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family by Gaye My husband and I met while in college and married shortly after I graduated from college. After our 2nd child was born, my parents came to visit. My husband was still finishing college and was working also. I rarely saw him and there were some problems, although minor. I made the mistake of sharing those problems with my parents when they visited. Their solution: “We”re taking the kids, you can come if you want.’ So I left without saying goodbye and fled across country with a 20 month old and a 1 week old. It was very much like a kidnapping. Once we settled, my parents pressured me to divorce my husband, based on a 1 year separation. My parents then proceeded to try to destroy my relationship with our kids. They projected all of the behaviors they had onto my ex and myself, saying we were abusive, crazy, horrible parents. Out of my pain, I in turn then worked at destroying our kids” relationship with their dad. By that time, he had moved across the country to be near us, got a job, bought a house, and established himself in a community so he could see the kids and pay child support regularly, which he did. This went on for 16 years. My life disintegrated drastically because of all of the anger and bitterness that I harbored and manifested towards my ex. I only thought I was hurting him by working at destroying his relationship with his kids. I didn”t realize I was hurting the kids. By 2004, I had been in the hospital 4 times with life threatening illnesses, lost my job at a law firm, gained so much weight that I was morbidly obese, and was addicted to Methadone, prescribed by doctors for the extreme pain that I was experiencing. Unknown to anyone but our kids, my parents had also been abusing me for years…physically, verbally, and sexually. The turning point began when our daughter called the police the last time my mother beat me. We got out of the house. A former boss and a family member got me into detox and rehab. By that time, I was on 18 different prescribed medicines. During the detox and rehab process, I was introduced to the 12 step program, through which I studied one of the steps that talked of thinking of ways you may have hurt others and God. Another step talked of asking God to forgive you and to make amends, where possible with others. I also received extensive counseling one on one, small group and large group while inpatient and outpatient. I was able to realize that I was wrong in keeping our kids from their dad. I decided to apologize and ask his forgiveness. I tried to contact him by phone first and he ignored me. I drove to his house and he wasn”t home. I left a note spelling out the apology and left a phone number. We had not seen each other or spoken to each other in 10 years, except at our daughter”s high school graduation. He was very wary of me at first, not trusting me that I had honestly changed and would not take him to court anymore or lie about him. Over a period of several months of talking on the phone and dating me, he could see I was genuinely sorry and that I had begun the process of changing and telling the truth. We remarried. Then I began the process of reuniting him with our kids. I was shocked to discover it was not that easy. That was when I realized all the damage I had done to our kids. It took some time to figure out that also my family continued to work to destroy our relationship with our kids and still do, to this day. But, I persist and our son now calls his dad “dad,’ which he never did before and tells him he loves him. Our daughter is starting to ask questions about her dad, but still will not talk to him. Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family and help other families with what we are learning. It has been quite a process, unraveling the web of lies that I had spun. I apologize to our kids and now work to tell the truth to them and others. I have a real burden to help others that are now targeted to give them hope for reconciliation and healing.