Parental Alienation
Something that's had a huge impact on my life & my mental health.. Something that I feel is a major issue & rarely gets addressed in family court.. When the other parent no longer feeds the narcissistic parents needs then they tend to create a backup plan while holding you basically hostage (if you are not with me then you can't be with your child) as they know you want to be in your child's life. They'll typically start spreading rumors and creating false allegations of abuse to try and gain as much attention and support as they can to somehow mentally justify what they're doing. They'll try and find another party to speak for them in order to avoid cracking under the pressure. They'll go as far as falsifying information given to therapists and coaching the child. These are just some symptoms of "parental alienation syndrome". Our daughter is now 5; my ex and I split before she even turned 3. I haven't had her for one night outside of a visitation center since September 2015. I filed for custody in that same month September 2015. Once I finally got my court hearing and everything finally got heard after numerous visits to the courthouse with Judge Ackerson out of the Hibbing courthouse in Minnesota he had stated that he'd like to see visitation and parenting time increase after a short time using the visitation center.. The visitation Center I was forced to use for the first two visits with my child was through Lutheran Social Services. It costed me $36 an hour to be supervised, followed around a basement and every single word of our (my daughter and I's) conversations were documented. Eventually after many missed visits and excuses the mother agreed to use the Duluth visitation center because that center was free. It was also more family friendly and welcoming. After using this visitation center consecutively for over 6 months, I asked for weekly visits instead of my bi-weekly and I was met with nothing but excuses and lies. I forgot to mention that every visit I had in Duluth I was expected to hand the mother $20 cash to compensate for her "gas" money; that's ten dollars an hour, the amount one would be paid at a minimum wage job! Keep in mind I was making the best efforts possible to make sure my child support was being paid. There started to become a problem once I said I refuse to be extorted any longer and said I'd only pay the $20 is towards her but only if it goes towards my child support. She agreed; then a day or two later she cancelled our visit and retracted her agreement and now I've been forced to go back to the visitation center that costs $36 an hour on top of my own gas money and wages. Her free lawyer Robert Carl Friday out of the North Eastern Minnesota Legal Aid Service has done a great job helping assist in parental alienation and making sure yet another child is raised without their biological father. Fast forward through all these years of false allegations and drama and she married a man on probation who was originally charged with Domestic Strangulation and Battery for assaulting his previous ex-girlfriend who was 8 months pregnant with his child at the time. The family courts don't really care about these issues, sadly, as they're just trying to get cases in and out to increase efficiency. The more cases of child support and displaced children equals more federal money for the state of Minnesota. The mother claimed she couldn't travel to the city that the free center is located in due to financial issues but works full time and makes frequent trips to Duluth to pick up and drop off her now husband's other children. I don't see how we cannot have communication and a steady parenting time schedule between her frequent trips to Duluth and my willingness to do anything to be in our daughters life. How does one do this to their child? Why do they deny their child tons of love? Parents who do this have some real problems deep down. Maybe they are just participating in a cycle they picked up from their parents. PUT KIDS FIRST
