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As someone who has gone through something similar to this, it was heartbreaking to discover that parental alienation is quite common. Child raising is too deli

As someone who has gone through something similar to this, it was heartbreaking to discover that parental alienation is quite common. Child raising is too delicate and nuanced to be relegated to process level decisions. It’s too late for my situation but family court with children involved is something I hope gets revamped sooner rather than later. Many of the family court laws are a relic from a time when the roles of men and women were very different from the standard of today and unfortunately many women use this to their advantage (which I suppose is the rational thing to do). Now, whenever I see a woman claiming to be a victim in a family matter I look way more closely than I would have in the past and I hope society as a whole starts to do this too. Of course, I’m not saying only women use victimhood to their advantage but I am saying that there is a very clear incentive to claim to be a victim in todays society and in family court especially. As long as a woman is ok with lying, it’s almost foolish for her to NOT claim to be the victim. The incentive needs to be removed.

300bps 4y ago
(which I suppose is the rational thing to do) I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said but this. I understand why you said it. But for any mother, it is never rational to attack your children's father in front of your children. By doing that, you are attacking 50% of your own children. The more successful you are at getting them to hate their father, the more successful you'll be at getting them to hate half of themselves. The damage done to children from this is incalculable to the point that any parent that engages in it is a bad parent regardless of any other redeeming qualities they may have. I'm sorry for what you went through and hope things have gotten better for you.
- mrsmee89 4y ago
  Thanks for your kind words. Things have gotten slightly better but only because of my personality of persistence. I’ve met with many fathers who didn’t have the same capacity for persistence as me and their situation is much worse. I agree, it feels kinda gross to say it’s the rational thing to do but in my experience incentives always win and it seems like it’s difficult for some mothers to see their childrens father on the same level as them as a parent. It’s toxic but I think it’s much more common than people realize. And this is even when the parents are still together, once a separation is initiated, I think it’s natural for this feeling to grow. I can see my childrens mom rationalize what she did very easily. She had to keep her babies safe etc… when your in the process of breaking up a family long term thinking is much harder, survival is the goal and I think for many moms the thought of losing access to their children part of the time is unbearable. Of course that thought (and reality) is unbearable for me too but I don’t have the family court on my side because I’m a man, if I did, I’d probably make the decision to keep their their mom in their life but it would be a very difficult decision to say goodbye to my children half the time. It’s emotional torture which makes rationalizations very very enticing. So yeah, I think long term you’re right, but in practice it’s really hard to be purely rational in the moment.

300bps 4y ago

(which I suppose is the rational thing to do) I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said but this. I understand why you said it. But for any mother, it is never rational to attack your children's father in front of your children. By doing that, you are attacking 50% of your own children. The more successful you are at getting them to hate their father, the more successful you'll be at getting them to hate half of themselves. The damage done to children from this is incalculable to the point that any parent that engages in it is a bad parent regardless of any other redeeming qualities they may have. I'm sorry for what you went through and hope things have gotten better for you.

mrsmee89 4y ago
Thanks for your kind words. Things have gotten slightly better but only because of my personality of persistence. I’ve met with many fathers who didn’t have the same capacity for persistence as me and their situation is much worse. I agree, it feels kinda gross to say it’s the rational thing to do but in my experience incentives always win and it seems like it’s difficult for some mothers to see their childrens father on the same level as them as a parent. It’s toxic but I think it’s much more common than people realize. And this is even when the parents are still together, once a separation is initiated, I think it’s natural for this feeling to grow. I can see my childrens mom rationalize what she did very easily. She had to keep her babies safe etc… when your in the process of breaking up a family long term thinking is much harder, survival is the goal and I think for many moms the thought of losing access to their children part of the time is unbearable. Of course that thought (and reality) is unbearable for me too but I don’t have the family court on my side because I’m a man, if I did, I’d probably make the decision to keep their their mom in their life but it would be a very difficult decision to say goodbye to my children half the time. It’s emotional torture which makes rationalizations very very enticing. So yeah, I think long term you’re right, but in practice it’s really hard to be purely rational in the moment.