7 years ago (June 2017) my wife abandoned our marriage under the false pretense of a summer visit to her family in another part of the world. After leaving, she successfully turned our adult children against me to the point of getting them to file false declarations against me in our divorce case including allegations of sexual abuse.
It was classic parental alienation. I was the loving parent and she was the abuser. In case you’re wondering how the abusive parent becomes the preferred parent, here is a quote from a paper published by the American Bar Association: “It is remarkable that abused children frequently remain attached to their abusive parents…a maltreated child may have ambivalent feelings toward the abusive parent; however, the alienated child almost always has highly negative attitudes toward a non-abusive parent.”
However, if there is any blame in this matter, I will take it. The one thing I did wrong that I wish I could do differently was go out of my way to “keep peace in the family” when my wife would “lose it” and abuse the children, usually emotionally and verbally, but sometimes physically.
I knew that my wife really wanted to fight with me but I wouldn’t, so she attempted to draw me into altercations by abusing the children. I didn’t want to fight in front of the children so I would wait till things calmed down and try to do something to be nice to the kids, but I never confronted their mother.
That was wrong.
By letting my wife abuse both the children and myself without standing up to her in their presence, they ultimately took me for a weak father and discarded me in favor of their “strong” mother when she abandoned the marriage and then tried to destroy me in every possible way: financially, emotionally, psychologically, and physically.
I wasn’t weak. I was just misled by all the modern gobbledygook about the need for men to be more sensitive and caring, in other words, less masculine. I thought I was doing the right thing by being kind and understanding. It was the wrong thing. My children needed to see me stand up for them and myself. In the words of my mentally disabled adult son: “Why didn’t you stop her, Dad? Why didn’t you stop her.” (She used to beat him worst of all.)
After she left and stole 3 of our minor children, I decided to be strong and act strong through the legal system and was able to restore relationships with my minor children including getting full custody of my disabled son and all the assets of the marriage including our home. But nothing can make up for the years of weakness that brought disaster to my family. All I can do now is be who I was supposed to be all along and let providence take care of the future.