Mary's Story

Personally experience incidents are highlighted in purple
My comments are in red.

Mary's story:

I have been involved with a PAS situation for the last 7 years. The alienation started with the birth of my child and my husband's decision to move back to Kansas to be closer his daughter. After the move, my stepdaughter's mother, her family, and even my husband's paternal grandmother began badmouthing us, including my daughter who is now four.

They did everything to alienates us including lying about me on court documents (indicating child abuse), showing up late or not being home when we were supposed to drop off my step daughter. It even escalated into a physical confrontation between the ex wife and myself. She filed charges that I had to fight. It has been a long exhausting trip. My husband and I have been close to divorce over it numerous times, yet she still continues to harass and lie.

Of course all of it isn't a lie and can be just as harmful to a child who is too young to know facts about happened years ago. Now her mother repeats these stories to further degrade us. At this point, she did whatever she could to interfere and stop visits. Finally we ran out of money to pay for a lawyer, so we got rid of him and began putting paperwork together ourselves to enforce visitation. A year and half later, in fact just last week we finally succeeded and got a one week visit. Of course my husband had to drive the full six hours to pick her up because the mother will not assist in any way.

While my husband's daughter was with us, we had a long talk. We learned that his daughter is an intelligent nine-year-old and understood what is happening. We were not aware that for a long time my stepdaughter was not getting our mail and her mother would listened or taped our phone calls. This summer we are supposed to get four weeks visitation. We don't have it in writing yet from the judge so we aren't counting any eggs, but that is what is supposed to happen.

My husband himself was a child of severe alienation from his own grandmother (the same one who is doing it to his daughter now) against his mother. He always felt his mother didn't want him, which was so far from the truth. When his mother, who did not get custody, came to see the kids at the grandma's house (granddad was never home) she would turn off the lights and tell her that the kids weren't there. Or she would pack them up in the car and leave. After years of lies and betrayal his mother finally gave up. It had been 24 years since my husband had talked to his mother and I now, after I got a hold of her, they are talking. My husband's siblings still won't talk about her but his mother is now thankful that someone finally took the time to hear her. She loves being a grandma to my daughter and even though she and my husband aren't rehashing the past, they enjoy talking about the future.

So that is my story. It is a success because we are still fighting and will continue to do so. It is a success because my stepdaughter knows that after one and half years, we love her enough to fight to see her. It is a success because my four-year- old knows that if there is a wrong it is possible to correct it with enough persistence and determination. And finally it is a success because my nine-year-old stepdaughter can go to school and say; "hey my daddy is trying like hell to see me." Of course sending flowers to her school for her birthday made her feel very special.... It only cost $30... Thank you and you may add my email address for responses or whatever....

My comment:

The point of Mary's story is that persistence can make a difference. I don't know all of the particulars about what went on between Mary, her husband and the ex-wife, but it sounds that her stepdaughter is happier having a relationship with her father and his new family.