You never thought it could happen to you. Divorce is difficult, but losing the bond with your children is excruciating. You may be the emotionally available parent who has done the bulk of the “real” parenting since your children were born, and your bond has always been strong. Yet, your kids are suddenly cold and rude to you. They avoid being around you and refuse to tell you anything about their life. When you ask if your co-parent is behind their treatment, they become irate and refuse to even speak to you. It is soul-crushing.
Although there can be many reasons for a child’s withdrawal from a parent during a divorce, there is a certain type of co-parent who intentionally undermines the opposite parent’s relationship with the children. Often, it starts with a co-parent who is emotionally immature and cannot lose face. They strive, always, to protect their ego. Their image means everything to them, so after a divorce, they must come out on top. In addition, this parent, who may lack emotional availability, is often exceedingly jealous of the parent who is emotionally available and who has an authentically close bond with the kids—so they seek to sabotage it. Parental alienation is insidious. So, understanding how it works is critical when attempting to salvage your relationship with your kids.
How Alienation Happens
Picture yourself on the back of a boat in the ocean with your child and co-parent. Your child holds the only life preserver. You and your co-parent are thrown out of the boat in different directions. Thrashing in the water, your co-parent begins to wail to the child, “I am not going to make it! I’m not going to make it! Help me!” Although you are also struggling, you tell your child, “Stay in the boat, honey! Don’t let go of that life preserver. Stay where you are.” But your child is completely panicked by your co-parent’s screams, so they jump in the water to try to help them.
As your child and co-parent climb back into the boat, your co-parent says to your child, “I would not have made it without you. I would not be here without you. What would I ever do without you?”
In this scenario, a couple of things are happening. First, your co-parent is playing the victim, and by doing so, sends your child into an intense panic. Kids are psychologically, neurologically, genetically, physiologically, and emotionally programmed to protect their attachment relationship, so when an attachment figure says they do not know if they are going to make it, the child instinctively dives in to help them. The child may ignore their own health, well-being, and emotional needs to take care of their parent, so they do not lose this parent. Second, when the co-parent and child get back to safer ground, the co-parent says something that makes the child believe that they are the only one who can help this co-parent in difficult times, just like they did. That they are this parent’s “lifeline,” so to speak.
Alternatively, you strive to be your child’s protector, not the other way around. You can take care of your own emotional needs and would never burden your child with them. This may be additional evidence that you are an emotionally healthy parent.
Consequences for the Alienated Child
When your child is alienated, they lose their innocence and ability to be a kid because they are consumed with worry about the parent who acts as if they will not survive the “mistreatment” that you are inflicting. This child is burdened by the responsibility of holding your co-parent up. And guess what? Your co-parent exploits this. When the child is disloyal to you, the co-parent acts as if their mental health is repaired, and everything is right in the world. The child feels unburdened from worry for a moment. Naturally, the child then looks for more opportunities to display and discuss their rejection of you so they can continue to relieve themselves of the anxiety that comes from feeling responsible for a parent’s well-being. Your co-parent rewards the child and continues to inappropriately confide in the child about how “unfair” and “devious” you are, improperly sharing adult information.
You are locked out of their life, and it may be the worst pain that you have ever felt. Yet, the more you try to get your child to see the manipulation, the more your child sees you as the “bully” that the co-parent has mischaracterized you as. You feel helpless and hopeless.
You collect data about your co-parent’s emotional mistreatment and negligence, yet every time you bring something up in court, your co-parent denies it and accuses you of worse. The battles in court last for months and years with no real progress. So, what can you do?
Demonstrating Emotional Availability to Your Child
One option is to let your attorney work from the outside in, while you work from the inside out. Focus on rehabilitating your bond, not stopping your co-parent. As an emotionally available parent, you may have important parenting skills that your co-parent seems to lack. You can empathize instead of sympathizing. You can understand a different perspective and honor it. Flexibility comes easy to you, and so does constructively working out conflict. And, most importantly, you can follow through with a boundary or limit in a calm and loving manner.
Additionally, if you are the emotionally invested parent, you may remember the endearing, hilarious, and adorable moments when your child did something incredibly special at a very young age. Your co-parent may not. Patiently waiting for a natural moment to retell a story about your child saving a baby bird when he was 3 or standing up to the neighborhood bully to protect her younger sibling are ways to prove to your child that you have always been there for them and that you have always seen them.
Seize every moment to do the emotionally intelligent things that your co-parent usually cannot do, and never point them out. Allow the child to feel the emotional safety that you provide when they are with you. They may be able to begin to discern how different they feel when they are with your co-parent. Most importantly, never ever give up. You can find more information on this topic in my book, How to Outsmart a Narcissist: Use Emotional Intelligence to Regain Control, at Home, at Work, and In Life.
