Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Family Court Q&A: Parental Alienation, Abuse Claims, and When to Stop Fighting
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those involving high conflict personalities. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Speaker 2 (00:22): Hi everybody. Speaker 1 (00:22): We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, coaching classes, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict since 2008. Today we are going to listen. We've listened to your questions, we've asked you for your questions, and today we're going to answer a few of those. So thank you for sending those questions in. But before we get started, as always, if you have questions, please send them to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or through our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links. And if you like our podcast, if you enjoy it, please give us a like or subscribe and even leave a review about what you like about it. We'd love to see that. So thank you in advance. All right, bill, we are ready for our first listener question. Speaker 2 (01:23): Great. Speaker 1 (01:24): About parental alienation, and it starts with this. An author who writes quite a lot on this topic is a huge promoter. That parental alienation syndrome is based on junk science. This author claims that children favor the protective and safe parent. Another recent book claims that abused women statistically lose custody of their children if they bring up abuse in court. I'm so confused. My stepson heavily favors his biological mother, but she's truly high conflict and has an extensive history of arrests and evictions. She lost custody after she made multiple false claims of abuse and sexual assault. But there is no denying my stepson favors his mom over us. They really do have a deep emotional connection. She has limited time with him. So he is spoiled beyond belief and states he never gets in trouble. At mom's house, he has a DHD and emotion, emotional regulation challenges. Speaker 1 (02:30): We do lose our patience with him. And yes, we do sometimes yell we aren't perfect, but we do set limits and have rules at our house. Based on the myriad of writings and opinions on this, we often feel like we are the bad parents. And it seems like there is a big protective mom's movement in the family court system toward children having more of a voice and that mothers are not being believed. Please help. So Bill, we are with the eternal question of alienation and what to do about it. It's confusing and sometimes a controversial topic probably unnecessarily. But let's start for our listeners by defining parental alienation and maybe some of the other terms that are often used to describe this. Speaker 2 (03:20): Yeah, let me use three terms and define those and have people keep in mind we're high conflict institute, so we address all things high conflict. So all three of these terms I'm going to use tend to generate high, high-conflict situations. The first is refuse and resist. And this is a term, it's helpful term because it describes the behavior when a child refuses contact with a parent, usually after separation and divorce or resists contact, but still has some. So think of this as kind of the umbrella for a problem that's very confusing in family courts and it comes and goes as controversial, but currently it's controversial again. So yeah, so one Speaker 1 (04:15): Of the trending controversial way. Speaker 2 (04:17): Yes. So one of the terms parental alienation is basically defined as when one parent's behavior around the child like badmouthing the other parents saying your dad or your mom is a jerk interfering with their contact scheduling activities, fun activities when it's the other parent's time or scheduling doctors and dentist appointments. So interfering with the other parent's time and badmouthing the other parent and the child absorbs that emotionally and resists or refuses going to that dreaded other parent. So that's parental alienation. Now the term syndromes been basically rejected because it isn't that simple, but there are cases where this occurs. Some people say maybe 10 to 15% of divorce cases, a higher percent of disputes in family court. I think 20 to 25% of custody disputes in family court have concerns about parental alienation. But this is one side of the problem. So we've got resistant refuse. Speaker 2 (05:39): One form of that is parental alienation, which is real and occurs and people lose their relationship with a child sometimes for several years, maybe even permanently. On the other side, if you want to look at that or other aspect of these is estrangement or realistic estrangement. And this is when a child resists or refuses to go with a parent who has engaged in domestic violence and the child knows that, whether they've seen it or just heard it or engages in child abuse, maybe he's hit, knocked down. The child tends to be physical punishment a lot and the child's afraid of that parent. One child said, dad kicks me in the stomach, he knocks me down and kicks me in the stomach. So I'm really afraid to be around him. And child sexual abuse, which is a pretty small percent of cases in family courts, maybe two to 5% of cases in family court of parenting cases have allegations of child sexual abuse. Speaker 2 (06:50): But I must say close to 50% of disputes, parenting disputes in family court have allegations of domestic violence. And the research I look at says most of that's true, not a hundred percent. People need to keep in mind that there's a lot of lying in family court because it's like a stage, it's a platform. And he said, and she said, which makes it very hard to figure out these cases. So those are the three terms, but the most important part I think is estrangement is because of a parent's own behavior towards the child and alienation is because of a parent's bad mouthing and blaming the other parent and the child absorbing that. Speaker 1 (07:41): It's such a nice simple way to get that boiled down and understand the differences. I like that. Speaker 2 (07:47): Yeah. Now I must add that many professionals say there's other potential factors and there's a child's age. Maybe they develop mentally, like girls tend towards their moms, boys tend towards their dads. But personally I have not seen a resistant refuse case where the child is emotionally rejecting a parent where it hasn't been either alienation or estrangement. So the question is what's going on in this case? Now, some people have presumptions, and I think you suggested that some people say alienation is junk science doesn't exist. It's a made up thing to counter allegations of domestic violence or child sexual abuse or other forms of child abuse. Speaker 1 (08:43): So is it based on drug science? Speaker 2 (08:46): No, there's a lot of science now about it. There's a lot of research. I've read articles, thick books, et cetera. I think when this first came out in the 1980s, the mid 1980s, it just came from nowhere. And the mid 1980s was when domestic violence was starting to really be recognized as a concern. And the 1990s with the OJ Simpson case, there was a lot more attention to domestic violence. The Violence against Women Act, VAWA act, I believe started out soon after the OJ Simpson case in the 1990s, but also child sexual abuse finally got a lot of recognition in the late 1980s, early 1990s. So you have a whole lot of momentum around domestic violence and child abuse. And then this idea that kids are alienated by the other parent gets kind of dropped into the mix. I'm sure there were some cases where someone said, the child's been alienated by the other parent and I shouldn't be held responsible for my domestic violence or child abuse, but I'm not convinced that there's a huge percent of these. Speaker 2 (10:09): And that gets into the research on how prevalent this is. Sadly, a lot of the research is done by one side or the other side, and so it's hard to get the big picture. But being exposed to this for 40 years, really, I was a therapist in the 1980s family lawyer for 30 years, since the early 1990s I believe. And I would say majority of family law professionals believe both of these exist. Both of these are powerful issues. If there's domestic violence, child abuse, and that parent gets the child, some of the stories of violent death of the child have come from that. So these are concerning issues, but they're muddied together and that's where I think a lot of our work is to try to sort this out, things to look for and to consider Three theories of the high conflict case. You always have to do that. Speaker 2 (11:15): One is that let's say mom says Dad's acting badly, you have to consider that real possibility. The second is that that's not happening at all. Dad's not acting badly, mom's acting badly and she may honestly believe it or note for manipulative purposes, but what she's saying is not true. And then you have to consider the third possibility. There are both acting badly and you can't trust what either one is saying. So that's kind of where we land in this is you got to have an open mind and look for the evidence of the specific case. That's the only answer, Speaker 1 (11:55): Right? Yeah, you don't know it isn't a female or male problem. This is not a male or mom or dad issue. This is the behaviors, right? What's happening? So keeping that open mind and having a healthy skepticism and exploring just getting data, getting information. Speaker 2 (12:13): I have consulted on cases and represented clients on cases where there was child sexual abuse, where there was domestic violence and where there was parental alienation. And I've been involved in cases where it's been the wrong conclusion by the court. So they've thought, oh, this is a domestic violence case when it's really an alienation case and also when it really is a domestic violence case and it's been determined to be an alienation case, which I know at least one or two cases where I believe that was wrong. So that's why this concern is so big, but it's looking at the evidence that's the key and not having a presumption. All the bad cases were because someone had a presumption for or against estrangement or alienation. Speaker 1 (13:10): So you've read a lot of research on this, do abused women statistically lose custody of their children if they bring up abuse in court? Speaker 2 (13:21): I've been looking for research on that. And there was a study done that came out of a professor in Colorado, I believe in the past year, and she and some colleagues studied 200 cases in Canada. First of all, finding a case where both are alleged, it's not that common. My recollection is that there was about 200 cases, they found about six cases where domestic violence and countering that was alienation was alleged, but the court did not determine that it was one or the other. And most of these cases there was not actually a change of custody. Now I'm aware that there are like 500 cases of child murders in the last 15 years, something like that related to family courts. And the cases I've been able to get the details on were a person argued that the other parent is dangerous, but the other parent didn't argue that this is alienation and the court simply didn't believe that the parent was dangerous. Speaker 2 (14:38): Child went with that parent and the parent murdered the child and sometimes themselves. So it isn't this direct correlation as common as people think. I'm sure there's some cases, especially because I know of one, but the percentage of this is really hard to grasp. And as I said, the research is mostly done by one side or the other, and that's a presumption. When you have a presumption or one hypothesis, you have confirmation bias. And that's why this field is so controversial because you have people on both sides, parents and professionals saying that the other side doesn't exist or isn't a big problem because there's alienation, people that say domestic violence is really overplayed in family court and I don't believe that either, but I believe there are cases that aren't true. So how big is the problem? How big is each of these? Hard to say. Speaker 1 (15:38): Yeah. Is it common for the other parents? Our listeners question being the other parent to feel like the bad parent, oh, I yelled at my child and now I'm the bad parent. Or the court sees me as the bad parent, the other parent is making me look to be as just a horrible person, horrible parent. Speaker 2 (16:02): Yes. If a court is looking at the case as say a domestic violence case, then they see the other person, the perpetrator as in a sense a bad parent. The court may be angry at that parent, other people may be hostile towards that parent. Likewise, if the court's thinking and some of the professionals are thinking it's an alienation case, then they're to some extent demonizing the other parent who may be a protective parent and may be wanting to protect the child from abusive behavior that hasn't been recognized or acknowledged. So it's not unusual in controversial cases that people feel like they're really despised or hated even from professionals and sometimes from the judge. And that's the one thing we teach judges is if you can, don't let the parents know which side you're on until you make your decision so that you're really empathetic with both parties. Speaker 2 (17:10): And we should be empathetic with both parties. We need to set limits, have consequences, restraining orders, some perpetrators need to go to jail, but they usually were messed up when they grew up. And so we keep the cycle continuing if we don't have empathy for people who act badly and need limits and consequences, but are human beings who in many cases can improve their behavior, although in many cases they can't. But I think we've got to have empathy. These are human beings and they're going to pass your behavior them to their kids. So that's why I really against demonizing either parent in these awful cases. Speaker 1 (17:58): I mean there are some really awful behaviors in human history and it will always be however I agree. We have to have start from a place of empathy. And if you have a hard time getting there, if you can just imagine that this person today is standing here as a recipe of everything that has occurred in their lifetime. And a lot of times what's going on has never been addressed either through counseling or just personal growth and improvement and things. So our new Ways for Families program is helpful in that regard where we can try teach skills that are necessary for communication to occur between parents and how to manage emotions and things like that. And so it is possible we've seen it, we'll put that link in the show notes Speaker 2 (18:51): And new ways is for both parents. So if it's a domestic violence case, the victim survivor gets some skills as well. And if it's an alienation case, the not alienating parent, the target or rejected parent can also learn skills that will help. So yeah, we approach people as human beings in need of skills and yet we have our eyes open. Like I said, some people need to go to jail, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, some people need jail time. Some people may protect society by just a long term. That's criminal law, not family law. Speaker 1 (19:32): And just a quick last question before we take our break and move on. Is there a big protective mom's movement in the family court system toward children having more of a voice? And also is it kind of a known thing that mothers aren't being believed in the court system? I know. Tricky challenging question. Speaker 2 (19:51): Yes. Once again, the extent of this I don't think is that large. I think part of the estrangement people, there are groups and support groups, primarily mothers who see that they're not being heard the way they would like or that the children should have a voice. The children are saying what they're saying also, and in some cases it's because that's what's really happening. But on the other side, there's cases where that's really not what's happening and fathers are being targeted. Now, parental alienation is, I've represented moms and represented dads in those cases and it really is not a gender issue. It's much more a personality issue. And domestic violence is primarily male, although there are maybe 15% or female perpetrators, and I've had those cases too, which are hard to convince people, Hey, this guy's really being abused, stabbed in the back with a mechanical pencil cans throw at his head in the kitchen, things like that. Anyway, so I think the big message today is don't have a presumption, don't go with the idea. There's this group of people or this individual that's really doing something unfair and unreasonable. Yes, there are the extent of, it's hard to say and there's judges and professionals on both sides of this divide, but I would still say the majority of family law professionals, lawyers and therapists, mediators and judges recognize both these exist and we need to figure out each case Speaker 1 (21:36): Case by case. Alright, so let's take a quick break and we'll come back and we're going to talk about when do you give up the fight or do you give up the fight? We'll be right back. We are back. So this is a question from the east coast of Australia, so we're grateful to our Australians of course. Thank you for listening. The listener's question is when does one give up the fight with a high conflict ex-partner? My husband's ex-wife is a textbook case of a high conflict individual. Since I moved in 2020, this person who was initially welcoming and kind has withheld their sons contravened orders on multiple occasions denigrated us consistently on social media. And even after my husband was granted sole parental and medical responsibility of his children in 2022, the mom withheld the eldest in late 2023, brainwashing him in the process. Speaker 1 (22:43): She claims government benefits and this has cost her nothing but has cost my husband and I, tens of thousands of dollars. We filed a contravention order recently, we couldn't afford to initially, and the court has seemingly disregarded all of her contraventions. We have been advised to pay for another family report we paid for one three years ago and are looking at close to $10,000 plus the $20,000 this time for the legal fees. How is this just what recourse do we have? She doesn't stop. The eldest son has just been put onto a chronic health plan even though there is nothing wrong with him, although she does receive a cares payment for that too. Now I was a single mother with four children who put myself through university all for this. My husband and I are a team, but we cannot stand what she continues to put us through. We need your guidance, please. So I guess we need to first describe what the words contravening or contravention order, which is familiar in Australia but not a familiar term in the us, which basically just means a contempt of court order. Is that right? Speaker 2 (23:50): That's what I understand. It's very similar in the United States and I believe Canada, that contempt of court orders is when someone doesn't follow court orders, you prove the case like not paying child support, something like that. And you prove the case and the judge can order consequences a fine usually and sometimes even jail time, although that's very rare and I've never seen that with parenting issues, although I've seen it with child support issues like someone's $150,000 behind on child support, but it's pretty rare. So it's contempt of court orders is the idea. Speaker 1 (24:31): Okay. So is there any recourse to address the ongoing legal battles and all tens of thousands? I mean people spend so much money on these legal battles. Is there a way to address this without spending breaking the bank? Speaker 2 (24:50): This is a problem. We don't have research on this, but in many ways people spend a lot of money. People talk about legal abuse. Sometimes antisocial personalities use the court system to attack and destroy their prior co-parent and they may find ways to afford it or maybe just not even consciously. That's one of the problems with high conflict personalities. They don't always understand their own behavior and they often distort reality. And that's in the DSM for personality disorders is distortion of perceptions of themselves, events and the others and others. So this was very hard in court systems. In court systems are really not a good place to raise kids. The consequences you may get after a year of hearings and finally it becomes clear, but the adversarial court process actually makes it harder to figure out what's going on. I've often thought coming as a mental health professional working in psychiatric hospitals, in outpatient clinics, that there should be more of a team approach to figure out a case the first two weeks that they're in court, that this dragging on process is just counterproductive in so many cases. Speaker 2 (26:19): Now, I haven't done this and I'm thinking about it, how to propose this, but the idea that when we had people in the psychiatric hospital, like kids, I worked in the children's program, we had two weeks to figure out what's going on and what the treatment needs to be. And a lot of these court cases just get worse and worse. And like they said, you feel abused, feel demonized, your bank account gets wiped out all of these. So when do you give up My recommendation, and I included this in my book splitting. I say fight hard for two years in family court and then stop. You're not going to get further after two years maybe there's some bad decisions that get corrected, but when you're going more than two years, you're just really losing ground. And also the children are growing up and they're caught up in the court battle and sometimes it's better to just avoid the fight. So the child doesn't go through that anymore with hopes that when they're adults you'll reconcile, but it's not guaranteed either. So that's just a rough estimate from my point of view. Speaker 1 (27:36): A quick question on that. In some jurisdictions the judges rotate from different benches like family bench to criminal or civil. So you might have a new judge and let's say the rotation is every two years. What would you say? Okay, you got a new judge, should we give this another go? Speaker 2 (27:52): Yeah, let me just say this is very fact specific. So you need to pay attention to the facts of your case. You may have a new judge that's made some decisions without much background, and then you get an experienced judge, you go, okay, this judge is going to really figure this out. Sure, go to that judge. One of the things I recommend is getting a transcript of every court hearing because especially when bad decisions are made and when the other party lies or exaggerates, and then you do get a different judge or sometimes even the same judge, you can show point out this and this and this. Were false, this and this was highly exaggerated. A lot of my cases, I'd say it took two years to straighten out the case when a bad decision was made at the start. And usually within those two years, the court finally understood what the patterns of behavior are. Speaker 2 (28:52): They realized somebody really is lying who was very persuasive at first, but false. So it's really personal. But the other thing is kids alienated kids will say to their parent, let's say, mom, I never want to see you again. And mom's like devastated and dad's been badmouthing mom for a year and now the child blames mom for the divorce and everything and child support and all of this. And the parent thinks, should I really just drop out of the child's life? If you decide it's time to back off, like I said after a couple of years is don't back off completely. Send notes, send cards and tell your child, I'm going to back off some, but I'm not going to stop loving you and I'm not going to stop sending you notes and cards and things and I don't think it's healthy for you to do this. You may not understand right now and I have a lot of empathy for the position you're in, but know that I love you and I'm not ever going to drop you from my life. Speaker 1 (29:59): Good enough, good enough, bill. Complicated, complicated family situations and not easy for the courts, not easy for the families, for the attorneys, or any of the other professionals involved. I know we have a lot of listeners who are experiencing things like this and we know it's hard. There's never a super clear answer on this, but just keep trying. So thank you for listening today. Thanks for submitting those questions. We'll put all the links to the books we mentioned in the show notes and the new Ways for families course as well. We will talk again in the next episode. We'll take some of your questions again, and if you do have questions, feel free to send them to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. Until next time, keep learning, keep practicing, be kind to yourself and others while we all try to keep the conflict small and find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuel's, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. 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