More parenting ... stuff
This is mainly a vent - not sure there's anything constructive I can actually do about this situation:
Background: married to alcoholic for a couple of decades, separated/divorced a few years ago, one kid now almost 13, ex has been getting steadily worse and is currently awaiting trial on two DUIs.
Kid was cranky and unco-operative this evening. As is often the case, eventually it comes out that she's brooding about something. It was something her father told her, I'm not sure how long ago: he told her that I didn't care about her when she was a baby/toddler, that I wasn't interested in doing anything with her, and that for several years he kept a journal of how few minutes per day I spent with her, which he offered to show Kid to "prove" what a s****y and uninvolved mother I was. Oh, and his buddy is willing to corroborate all of this, Kid just has to ask buddy "was my mom a good mother?". And of course "don't tell your mom I have this journal".
What kind of jacka** tells a kid something like that? What kind of person tries to poison a child against a parent, going as far as making up a "journal" of the other parent's supposed neglect? Why on earth would anyone try to manipulate a child like that??
This is only the latest in a series of "secrets" Kid has been told she can't tell me about, include ex's meth-addict girlfriend from rehab, his desire to change his gender, his relapses and binges, and on and on. It's all part of "I'm going to share something really major with you but you can't tell your mother - you and me know but she doesn't". Ex has no appropriate boundaries in the parent-child relationship, and he lies and lies and lies. Kid has been told repeatedly that she can't trust me, that she shouldn't want to be with me, that I am trying to keep her away from her father because I'm malicious and I hate him. I don't know what she believes and what she doesn't. It is deliberate parental alienation and I do not understand what I did to deserve this.
(I know the answer is "I didn't do anything - I married a very sick individual").
At the moment Kid only sees her father for short visits under supervision, because of a recent series of drunken escapades that ended with his arrest. I am really glad about this, because the supervision limits his ability to feed her more poison.
Everything I've read about parental alienation tells me that the only thing the parent being targeted can do is to be stable and consistent and children can perceive the difference between what they're told about a parent and what their firsthand experience is of that parent. So I am trying to be stable and calm and not trash-talk ex to Kid, while at the same time saying that she should not have to be in the position of keeping one parent's secrets from the other one. She's in Alateen and sees a counsellor, but is very reserved and doesn't like talking about this crap, so I am concerned that feelings are getting stuffed. She still loves her father, so her denial is very strong.
I am angry, sad and exhausted by the amount of his crap that I still have to deal with. Kid deserves so much better than this.