Parental Alienation - The Ultimate Hate Crime

 

as told by Gaye Trettel

 

My husband and I met while in college and married shortly after I graduated from college. After our 2nd child was born, my parents came to visit. My husband was still finishing college and was working also. I rarely saw him and there were some problems, although minor. I made the mistake of sharing those problems with my parents when they visited. Their solution: "we're taking the kids, you can come if you want". So I left without saying goodbye and fled across country with a 20 month old and a 1 week old. It was very much like a kidnapping.

 

Once we settled, my parents pressured me to divorce my husband, based on 1 year separation. My parents then proceeded to try to destroy my relationship with our kids (as you can see - I came from a family of alienators - so I learned it well). They projected all of the behaviors they had onto my ex and myself, saying we were abusive, crazy, horrible parents. Out of my pain, I in turn then worked at destroying our kids' relationship with their dad.

 

After a period of time, I encouraged Mike that we might be able to reconcile.  On the hopes of a reconciliation he moved across country to be near us, got a job, bought a house, and established himself in a community so he could see the kids and pay child support regularly, which he did. I changed my mind and continued my alienation behavior.

 

This went on for 16 years. My life disintegrated drastically because of all of the anger and bitterness that I harbored and manifested towards my ex. I only thought I was hurting him by working at destroying his relationship with his kids. I couldn't stand the thought that they might love him more than me so I had to destroy the relationship and him in their eyes. I didn't realize I how badly my selfish behavior was hurting my kids.

 

By 2004, I had been in the hospital 4 times with life threatening illnesses, lost my job at a law firm, gained so much weight that I was morbidly obese, and was addicted to Methadone, prescribed by doctors for extreme pain that I was experiencing. Unknown to anyone but our kids, my parents had also been abusing me for years…physically, verbally, and sexually.

 

The turning point began when our daughter called the police the last time my mother beat me. We got out of the house.  A former boss and a family member got me into detox and rehab. By that time, I was on 18 different prescribed medicines. During the detox and rehab process, I was introduced to the 12 step program, through which I studied one of the steps that talked of thinking of ways you may have hurt others and God. Another step talked of asking God to forgive you and to make amends, where possible with others. I also received extensive counseling one on one, small group and large group while inpatient and outpatient.

I realized that I was wrong in lying to our kids and keeping them from their dad, I decided to apologize and ask his forgiveness. I tried to contact him by phone first and he ignored me. I drove to his house and he wasn't home. I left a note spelling out the apology and left a phone number. We had not seen each other or spoken to each other in 10 years, except at our daughter's high school graduation. He was very wary of me at first, not trusting me that I had honestly changed and would not take him to court anymore or lie about him. Over a period of several months of talking on the phone and seeing me, he could see I was genuinely sorry and that I had begun the process of changing and telling the truth. We started dating again and were remarried.

 

I then had the tough task of reuniting him with our kids. I was shocked to discover it was not that easy.  I had always put it in the box that my kids were resiliant and that my behavior wasn't hurting them. During the reuniting process I realized all the damage I had done to our kids. But, I persisted and our son now calls his dad "dad", which he never did before and tells him he loves him. Our daughter is starting to ask questions about her dad, but still will not talk to him.  I have since realized that my family continues to this day, to work to destroy our relationship with our kids.

 

Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family and help other families with what we are learning. It has been quite a process, unraveling the web of lies that I had spun. I have had to repeated apologize to our kids and work hard to not fall back into old habits.  I have a real burden to help others that are now targeted to give them hope for reconciliation and healing.