For of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
—JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, “MAUD MULLER”
This chapter, the saddest in the book, is one I wish I did not have to write. If it applies to you it means that my advice has been insufficient in helping your children recover from alienation. It means that you have exhausted all efforts to reclaim your children’s love. Perhaps we were too late. Their alienation is too severe and entrenched. Your ex is unable or unwilling to stop the bashing and brainwashing. Your attempts to get the court to intervene effectively have met with failure. Your ex has abducted the children and you can’t locate them. Or some combination of the above. As a result, you may find yourself considering the option of giving up, for the time being, active attempts to renew contact. And you may be encouraged in this direction by the mental health professionals who evaluate or treat your family.
I am sure it is clear by now that I am very conservative in recommending that parents throw in the towel and accept defeat. As I see it, some therapists have an astonishingly casual attitude about leaving children in the home of a brainwashing parent and terminating their contact with the other parent. These same therapists agree that the brainwashing is a form of emotional abuse. What puzzles me is why they are so willing to leave children in what is clearly an abusive environment when they would be the first to want to remove a child from a parent who is physically or sexually abusive.
I recognize that there are some families in which the children, particularly older adolescents, are thoroughly brainwashed, and all avenues of help are exhausted. In such a case, the parent may see no viable option other than to let go of active attempts to overcome the problem. I just urge all alienated parents and relatives, and all therapists who work with these families, not to wave the white flag of surrender too soon. Again I draw on the study published by the American Bar Association that reports numerous cases where children’s alienation was reversed “by making radical changes in their living arrangements—often with appropriate legal interventions.” The study warns, “Caution must be exercised in judging that the point of no return has been reached.”
At some point, though, the sensible thing to do may be to withdraw your efforts, or at least postpone your efforts, to reunite with your children. Here are seven reasons why a loving parent would reach such a difficult and painful decision:
No one can make this decision for you. I have seen parents who were ready to quit when I thought they should continue to pursue reconciliation. And I have seen parents who persisted in their quest when I thought they were being unreasonably optimistic. They are your children. You must reach a decision that you can live with.
If you do decide to let go in the present, here is some final advice to increase the odds that your decision will pay off in the long run. You should announce your decision in the most constructive manner possible. You want to leave the door wide open for your children’s future return. If and when they eventually change their minds, you want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for them to act on the change. You don’t want their anxiety or uncertainty to keep them from reaching out to you. The best way to do this is to let them know clearly and definitely that when the time comes for them to reunite, you will welcome them with open arms. You will celebrate their return, not castigate them for their absence. The reunion will be a joyous occasion, not a time for recrimination.
The announcement of your decision is best made in person. Although you may have no contact with your children, if you let them and your ex know that you want to meet just one more time in order to properly say good-bye, they may agree to the meeting. Some children will agree to attend a last meeting if it takes place in the presence of the therapist. As a last resort you can request a meeting in the attorney’s office, in the judge’s chambers, or in open court. If feasible, videotape the meeting and make a copy of the video for the children.
No template exists for the perfect parting session. But it should include the following:
Whether or not you have the opportunity to say good-bye in person, it is important to say good-bye in writing as well. Your children should have something to hold on to, to look at from time to time, rather than have to rely solely on memory. Your letter should be handwritten to emphasize its personal nature. And it should be on nice stationery, in accordance with its importance. This is a document you hope your children will retain. Be sure to save a copy of your letter. In the future your children may deny ever having received it. In fact, there is a good chance that your note will be demeaned and ridiculed by your ex. If so, the children may feel obligated to demonstrate their loyalty by similarly dismissing the letter, and even destroying it. Because of this possibility, you might want to mail a copy of the letter each year along with a card wishing your child a happy birthday.
If you do not get the chance to say good-bye in person, consider preparing a farewell video on tape or DVD. In addition to including the points from your letter, the video can show photographs of better times and objects that have special significance for your bond with your children. The video can also include messages from other relatives who have been rejected. Be sure to send your material by some means that allows you to verify that it was received. You do not want there to be any ambiguity about whether or not it was delivered.
Pay careful attention to the nuances of your communications. Sometimes words convey an impression different from the one intended. Have someone review the letter and video and make suggestions for improvement. If you or your children have been working with a therapist, ask the therapist to read the letter and make suggestions for improvement. One father wrote a letter with the phrase, “You know my number if you want to get in touch.” The words suggested an indifference that was light-years apart from the father’s intense pain and longing for his child. After our discussion he changed it to, “My heart aches for the day when you decide to call me.”
The letting go letter may produce unexpected positive results. One mother, whose daughter blamed her for the divorce and treated her horribly, wrote a brief letter incorporating my suggestions. The note included specific memories of good times, reaffirmed the mother’s love for her daughter, acknowledged the sadness of their current situation, and held out the hope for a better future. The surprise is that, rather than marking the end of their relationship, the letter touched the girl’s heart and was the catalyst that stimulated the restoration of a positive relationship. When the girl received it, she called her mother, thanked her, and said, “Love ya Mom.” You can read a copy of the letter at the Divorce Poison Control Center at www.warshak.com. It is an example of why alienated parents should never give up hope for a better future with their children.
The Question of Gifts
Alienated parents ask whether they should give expensive gifts to their children in an effort to maintain some tie. This is an individual matter. There is no clear-cut right or wrong answer. I generally recommend giving small thoughtful presents and greeting cards to mark an occasion and to let the children know you are thinking of them. Such signs of your ongoing love may be reassuring to the children, notwithstanding their overt rejection. It certainly reminds them that you are still waiting in the wings for their return and have not counterrejected them.
The problem with expensive gifts is that it gives the children an opportunity to exploit you. They usually will not even acknowledge receipt of the gifts and certainly will not express appreciation. By continuing to give presents to children who show no gratitude, and in fact cruelly reject you, you may be encouraging and supporting an unhealthy sense of entitlement.
Should You Pay for College?
This is another difficult question. If your children want to forgo a relationship, they ought to be prepared to forgo the financial benefits of the relationship. What does it mean if they want to have nothing to do with you, except to have their hands in your wallet? What lesson do you teach if you fund their college education, knowing that you will not even be welcome at the graduation ceremonies? On the other hand, if a child regards a college education as a necessity of life, like food on the table, withholding the funds, if you can readily afford it, may create so much more animosity that it dashes any hope of a future reconciliation. If there is a renewal of bonds in the future, it may be too late for them to attend college. So you might want to fund the college education, hoping that your children eventually will understand this as an act of love and caring. There is really no one right course of action. You will have to do what seems right. I do recommend that if you contribute to college expenses, it should be for the barest essentials—tuition, books, and lodging—and not extra frills and luxuries. After all, by this time your children will be adults and should expect to experience the reasonable consequences of unreasonably rejecting you.
STAYING IN TOUCH AFTER LETTING GO
Severely alienated children usually resent any attempt by the rejected parent to have contact with them. They regard phone calls as “harassment” and claim to be very upset if they spy their parent in the stands at a high school football game or in the audience during graduation.
Sometimes, though, after their parent has agreed to cease efforts to see them in person, the children will agree to take phone calls and read rather than tear up letters. Whether or not the children agree, I encourage parents to make periodic attempts to reach out to their children with phone calls, cards, and letters, unless the court has prohibited such contact. How often you do this depends on the response you get. If the calls are tolerated, keep them up. If you attend your child’s special events, such as athletic games and school performances, send a note of congratulations with attention to specific aspects about your child’s performance. When you acknowledge specific details, this lets your child know that you really paid attention and that you are not just going through the motions of offering praise.
Also, I suggest reaching out to your children during significant milestones in their lives, such as birthdays, graduations, weddings, and the birth of their own children, your grandchildren. There is a good possibility that you won’t even know when such events take place. But with luck, the benevolent emotion surrounding such events may leave your child receptive to “burying the hatchet” and renewing ties. The downside of this recommendation is that severely alienated children will resent such attempts and feel that the rejected parent is intruding and spoiling their happy occasion. If the alienation is irrational, I regard this as one price the children pay for their cruel and unreasonable rejection of their mother or father.
Consider maintaining a personal website or a page on a social networking site such as Facebook on which you post photos from your current life, along with old photos of the family together. Send the address of your website to your children. They could then “visit” you without the discomfort of having direct contact. Eventually these visits may chip away at their armor.
In chapter 7 I discussed using another person as a bridge between alienated children and parents. If you have decided to let go, I assume your attempts to use such bridges have proved unsuccessful. I urge you to encourage any friends and relatives who still have relationships with your children to maintain them. They may be your only link to the children, keeping you informed about them and delivering your messages and gifts to them.
As your children grow up they will form new attachments. The new people in their lives may have more success facilitating a renewal of bonds. This is especially true of your adult child’s new spouse and in-laws. They may sense that the reasons given for the complete absence of a relationship fail to justify such an extreme outcome. They may see the pain behind the anger or indifference your child displays when you are mentioned. Not having been a party to the past conflicts, they may bring more objectivity to the situation and realize that there may be more to the story than they have heard. You may find that these people have sympathy for your loss and will become your ally. They may hold the key to healing the relationship between you and your children. Certainly you should appeal to them for help.
In most cases your children have either not spoken much about you or have presented a horribly distorted image of you. Even without that image the in-laws might assume that you must be a very bad parent to have alienated your children. So your first step after making contact with them is to disabuse them of this false idea. Open their minds by educating them about parental alienation. Share this book with them to help them understand how children could come to so totally reject a parent without good reason.
Ask them to tell you what they have heard about why, for example, you were not invited to the wedding of a child. If the reasons are the trivial ones usually given by alienated children, emphasize the irrationality of disowning a parent over such trivial matters. If they have heard that you were abusive or violent, offer to provide evidence disproving the accusations. Point out that such accusations and innuendos are common weapons in a custody battle. Most important, show them how it furthers their own interests if your child overcomes the alienation.
Irrationally alienated children harbor hatred for a parent that is dissociated from their earlier love for that parent. Their internal mental state has a rift that cannot heal until it is acknowledged. Psychologists call such rifts unresolved feelings or unresolved relationships to signify their unprocessed state. Most alienated children have not come to terms with their feelings for their parents; they have merely parked their feelings on a mental shelf and tried to ignore them. Their lack of ambivalence toward the target is the tip-off.
Adults who have truly suffered at the hands of inadequate parents and subsequently resolved their feelings are able to express a wide range of feelings about their parents: love, sympathy for the parents’ own early deprivation that contributed to their deficits as parents, regret for what was missed, anger for the mistreatment they suffered. This is something a pathologically alienated person is unable to do, and it handicaps them in their most important personal relationships.
Psychotherapists know that, in general, adults who are more aware of their loving feelings for their parents have more love to give their spouses and families. They make better husbands and fathers and sons-in-law, or mothers and wives and daughters-in-law.
Let me use the example of a son alienated from his father, with the understanding that the same principles apply to daughters of fathers and to sons and daughters of mothers. A man who is out of touch with his loving feelings for his father has more difficulty promoting the highest-quality loving relationship with his own children.
The saddest consequence of divorce poison occurs when a rejected parent or grandparent dies before the child has come to his senses, given his love, apologized for his mistreatment, and expressed regret for the lost years. It is at this point that a child is most apt to resent the brainwashing parent whose efforts deprived the child of a relationship that cannot be recaptured.
When alienated children, as adults, eventually realize what they have missed out on and the immense magnitude of the hurt their behavior has caused their loved ones, they suffer an unbearable guilt and sadness. This suffering has a direct effect on their marriage and on their children. This is one more reason why the new spouse and in-laws have a personal stake in fostering a rapid reconciliation.
One of the unfortunate legacies of divorce is that the children of divorced parents are more likely to have their own marriages end in divorce. No one knows for sure why this is so, but one factor may be the example set by walking away from a problematic relationship rather than effectively managing conflicts.
If children of divorce are more likely to end a marriage rather than work out conflicts, this risk is multiplied for children who have totally rejected a parent. They already have experience treating someone they used to love as dispensable. Their spouses have a personal interest in impressing upon them the importance of maintaining important relationships. Adults who overcome their alienation from a parent and who learn that obstacles in a relationship are to be surmounted and not avoided will have a greater commitment to the sanctity of family and are more likely to maintain their wedding vows despite the inevitable hassles, upsets, and hurts that all couples experience.
RECONNECTING WITH ADULT ALIENATED CHILDREN
I work with many parents of adult alienated children. In direct contradiction to the advice of many well-meaning therapists, when a child is out of touch with a parent for a long period of time this can raise formidable obstacles to ever achieving a reconciliation.
To increase the likelihood of recovering the relationship, it is important to get a message to your child, either directly or through a mutual contact, that you regret the pain the divorce has caused and that you have never stopped loving the child and would welcome a reunion. Avoid negative comments about the other parent. You do not want your child to expect an uncomfortable confrontation when first seeing you, or recriminations for past behavior. Most alienated children who reconcile do not want to discuss the past or acknowledge their shabby treatment of the parent. When I coach alienated parents I emphasize the importance of helping children save face when reuniting. We do not ask children to revisit their past mistakes, acknowledge wrongdoing, or apologize for mistreating the parent. This principle is counter-intuitive to rejected parents.
Traditional wisdom holds that acknowledging and taking responsibility for problems are the first steps toward recovery. Often rejected parents expect that the same applies to their children. But, demanding such acknowledgment is not only unnecessary, it is usually counterproductive. Acknowledgment and apologies carry more meaning when they emerge naturally and spontaneously. Many children simply recover a positive relationship and act as if nothing unpleasant had occurred in the past. Psychotherapists generally favor discussing past conflicts and facing them openly. In the case of a parent and child reconnecting after years of estrangement, though, it is better to focus on rebuilding the relationship than on rehashing the past. In some cases, once a stronger relationship is established, the past can be talked about in a gentle and noncritical manner. This occurs when the children reach a point in their lives where they can understand their behavior in a wider perspective, often when they become parents themselves.
To help parents resist the impulse to discuss the past, and to let the child dictate when, if ever, such discussions take place, I remind them that their children are casualties. In reconciling with them, one goal is to spare children unnecessary guilt and shame while offering them a face-saving way to reconnect and to begin expressing benevolent feelings toward a parent whom they have treated with contempt.
If there is any crisis in the life of the alienated child, this can be an especially effective time to reconnect by offering assistance and caring. Teenagers, in particular, are likely to reach out to a formerly rejected parent in a time of crisis, provided that the teenager is confident that the parent will be receptive to any overtures.
In cases where there seems to be little hope of achieving a successful reconciliation, I have sometimes recommended sending a copy of my book to an adult child with a note that you found the book helpful in understanding what has happened to your relationship and that you hope it will open up the child’s eyes enough to give you both a second chance at a rewarding parent-child relationship. It may help for the spouse or a good friend of the alienated parent to write a note to the child expressing an interest in meeting the child and expressing the opinion that, “Your Dad is not the ogre you seem to think he is.” Remember, if you have no contact, there is little to lose by making some attempt to reconnect. I have been gratified that my book has served as a catalyst for the restoration of many relationships. In two cases that I know of, after reading my book, the spouse of an alienated parent realized that her own alienation from her father was inappropriate and she promptly called him and reestablished a normal relationship.
Reconciling with alienated children is a delicate process and the relationship is especially fragile in the early stages of the reconciliation. One misstep or an ill-considered remark can torpedo what had been a promising beginning. For this reason I recommend that parents get assistance from someone who can coach them through the process. Working with an experienced coach can make the difference between success and failure. (But beware of some non-professionals who advertise services as a coach or consultant. If you contact me I will do my best to help you locate a competent professional.) If a coach is not available or affordable, choose someone whom you trust to be wise and objective, and confide in this person about how things are going in your efforts to repair the damaged relationship.
It is important to realize that, even if your efforts are unsuccessful, you may have planted seeds that will bear fruit some time in the future. Divorce poison and its aftermath cause so much anguish and suffering. It is my hope that the media will give increasing attention to this problem and that this will make it easier for adult alienated children to recognize and face what is missing in their lives.
The death of one’s child is said to be the most difficult loss to accept. Eventually, though, most bereaved parents do accept their loss and complete a healthy process of mourning. Their pain, though still present, exists in muted form. Some people believe that the bereavement of alienated parents is more complicated and drawn out and difficult to resolve. Their child is gone, but they cannot be sure the child is gone forever. Not having directly experienced either tragedy, I won’t attempt to say which hurts more. But I can say that therapists who work with parents who have lost children to divorce poison note the searing grief they encounter in trying to help these parents accept their loss.
In his book Father and Child Reunion, Dr. Warren Farrell writes about the grief suffered by divorced fathers whose children reject them. He compares their situation to that of grief-stricken relatives who cannot begin their mourning process until the body of the deceased is located. The lack of finality keeps them in limbo—heartbroken yet unable to complete a mourning process. My work with alienated mothers has taught me that the pain is no less intense for them. In addition to the loss of contact with the children is the agony that comes from knowing that your children could be living three minutes away yet be no more available to you than if they lived on Mars. The children are alive, yet the future is uncertain. Psychologists call this an ambiguous loss. It is a grief that defies closure.
One mother, a child psychologist with years of experience treating children and their parents in high-conflict divorces, wrote: “For all my education, friends, close colleagues, and personal therapy, I can’t seem to find solace for the deep state of mourning I’m in. I’m grief-stricken, heartbroken at the loss of my daughter. My tears are too close to the surface and I’ve said for some time that for me it is worse than death. It is an unresolved, needless loss. But the worst part isn’t even about me. I mourn for my daughter who will never again have her sense of delight in the world.”
Parents in this situation must learn to live with the loss, even as they hold on to hope. They must hover between unrealistic hope and despairing hopelessness. The parting communication—whether in person, by letter, or by video—helps in the mourning process because it forces parents to publicly acknowledge that their children are, at least for now, gone. Like a memorial service, this formal ending unleashes the expression of grief and the acceptance of loss.
Healthy mourning requires sympathetic listeners to whom the bereaved can express their pain. As a rejected parent, though, you may have trouble getting this sympathy. You are in such a unique position that those around you may not fully comprehend what you are going through. They may lose patience with your grief and urge you to get on with life. Of course they are right that you should not wallow in your pain, but the timetable of when to move on, and the manner in which you do it, is yours to determine.
Many parents ask me about support groups for people in their situation. Check my website for help in locating support or in forming your own group. People who have traveled the same painful path will be most sympathetic to your loss and most understanding of what you are going through.
It is important that you do not let yourself become mired in anger and bitterness. Indeed, such bitterness will be mistaken by others as the reason your children avoid you. Instead find a productive outlet for your anger. Some parents find solace in promoting greater public awareness and understanding of divorce poison. Perhaps in concert with other parents you can work to get laws passed that provide sanctions to discourage parents from violating custody orders, just as the law discourages parents from avoiding child support obligations. Or you may help set up local facilities that offer transitional sites for the reunification of alienated parents and children. Or perhaps you can raise funds to provide educational, therapeutic, and legal services to needy families in these situations. A convenient way to help is to support the work of the Pluto Center (www.plutocenter.org) described in the Afterword.
Do not let the trauma of your loss keep you from achieving gratification in other areas of life. Do not let your awareness of the fragility of relationships create barriers to close emotional investment in others. If you have a spouse, other children, or stepchildren, bask in their love as you allow them to reap the benefits of yours.
Therapists who encourage alienated parents to acquiesce to their children’s demands for an end to the relationship usually attempt to console parents by raising their hopes for a future reconciliation. Many, many alienated parents receive advice to back off and give their children time, with the Pollyannaish prediction that eventually the children will drop their angry stance and renew their ties. The problem is that we really don’t know if this is true. No one knows the prevalence of such changes of heart. What we can say for certain is that even if a child eventually reconciles with a parent, nothing can make up for the lost years. Nothing can make up for what both parent and child missed: hugs and kisses, shared laughter and shared tears, pride and poignance of special occasions—communion, bar mitzvah, graduation—all the everyday interactions and all the milestones that form the fabric of a relationship.
It is not wrong, though, for victims of divorce poison to hold on to hope. Some children do change their minds. Some children do come to a realization that they have been brainwashed. Some children do come back. We have yet to identify the factors that can help us predict which children will eventually return and which will stay lost forever. But we can take some comfort in knowing that there is reason for hope.
To prepare for the possibility of their children’s return, some parents keep a diary or scrapbook filled with thoughts about the children and clippings of things that would interest the children. Such a project brings your absent children into your daily life. The hope is that someday when your children return and see the scrapbook, they will know that they have never been out of your heart, never been absent from your thoughts. The drawback to this project is that it could keep you focused on your loss and steal your attention from the many positive things life has to offer. If so, this exercise is not for you. But if it allows you to integrate the tragedy in your life while freeing you to affirm life’s value, it could be a most elegant solution to your grief.
Victims of divorce poison who await the return of their beloved children might take comfort in the words of Rudyard Kipling from his great poem, “If”:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating…
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools…
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
Finally, I hope that any alienated children old enough to read this book will recognize themselves in it and exercise the wisdom and courage to reach out to the hearts that yearn for them. Nothing could be more important. Nothing could make me more thankful for the years I invested in writing this book.