The Three Crimes of Parental Alienation Syndrome
An upcoming book, Hugs to Heartbreak: A Parent's Journey Through Parental Alienation Syndrome discusses Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) from the perspectives of a severely alienated parent (Jeff Opperman) and a clinical psychologist (Dr. David Israel).
The book's introduction explains that PAS involves three crimes against the child:
- The first crime is that the alienating parent doesn't acknowledge that every child is one-half of each parent. Every time the alienating parent tells the child how horrible the other parent is, the alienating parent is telling the child that half of him (or her) is horrible.
- The second crime is that the alienating parent teaches the child that cutting off contact with people is an acceptable way to handle anger, hurt, and disappointment. The world is full of people. One day the child will be an adult. The child will grow up without the appropriate coping skills to have normal, healthy relationships with other adults.
- The third crime is that one day the child will look back on the alienating parent's behavior from an adult perspective. He or she will then realize that the alienating parent robbed the child of something very precious - the love and attention of the other parent. The child-turned-adult will realize that the trust placed in the alienating parent was misplaced. He or she will feel betrayed. At that point the adult will not just have one damaged relationship with a parent, but damaged relationships with both parents.
Source: "The Three Crimes of PAS" posted at the Just Another Disenfranchised Father blog.
This is really a question:
I've been divorced from my wife for 3 years now. I am military, and when I was deployed in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom, another member of the military formed a relationship with my then wife. At the time, we had a daughter who was around 16 months old. For the first year or so of the separation, things went OK in regard to spending time with my daughter, and I had what I thought was a mutual understanding with my ex-wife and her new husband (they were married a grand total of 8 days after our divorce was final.) Over the last 18 months or so (since I met and married my current wife) my relationship with my daughter has deteriorated to the point to where spending time with her is stressful for me, my wife, my step-daughter, and also my biological daughter.
I'm given the impression that my daughter is made to feel uncomfortable with my new family, and has acted out accordingly. At first I felt it was due to the fact that there was a new "mommy" figure at my house, but one would think that would heal over time. However, it has gotten to the point where I feel it is best for her not to see me.
The reason I feel that I am a victim of PAS is because when I do see or talk to my daughter, she repeatedly regurgitates statements such as "you don't love me because Toddy (her step-father) said so. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. I don't feel that her mother is putting these things in her head, but that her step-father is.
My question is this: Are comments/thoughts/statements made by my duaghters step-father affecting my daughter, and does this qualify as PAS. Should I build a case or let it go and hope that one day my daughter will realize what's going on and want to voluntarily form a relationship with me. This is a source of great sadness with me and would like to know if I have a legal leg to stand on. Do I have to have proof? Can I record phone conversations with my daughter to build evidence?
Thank you, and my apologies for such a lengthy comment.
Mark