How much should I push for kids to contact their mom?

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

It's been a while since I've posted here but for a quick recap: 

- the ex-wife went totally crazy last year when I said I wanted a divorce (kids were 10 and 14 at the time). We're talking about multiple tantrums and suicide threats with kids in the house which resulted in a ins/outs of the psych ward (5 or 6 weeks total), criminal convictions (death threats, harassment, assault) ,...
- She was part of their life before that but the kids and I now recognize that she did damage (we were all walking on eggshells without knowing it).
- The oldest is the scapegoat, the youngest the golden child.  She wrote/told them some really nasty stuff, she split on them
- Visits were on and off but stopped last summer, after her last psychotic episode/breach of conditions after which I requested supervised visits and I refuse to change my mind on this. Even the kids want that because they were quite scared during the last episode..
- They feared kidnapping during one of her psychotic episodes.. and during the last one, I feared worst (paramedic assaulted while trying to evade the psych ward that night but she was released a day later)...
- Lots of damaging messages and conversations with the kids throughout that year (amongst the good ones), she would even spam them with messages (ANSWER RIGHT NOW! YOU BABY!)
- Kids sent her gifts by mail yet she never sent them their Christmas or birthday gifts...
- The kids have been doing great with me since last year. They are happy, eat well, sleep well. 

So... no visits since last summer because I want them supervised following the last psychotic episode. I don't have anyone to supervise (thanks to a nasty smear campaign and her psychotic episode on the street) and she's not making any effort to find someone but there is a temporary court order for 1 weekly video call which the kids do after whining, to be followed by an evening of the kids bickering at each other (since they were stressed), the youngest one falling asleep late (memories from the last year coming back, such as the psychotic episode, her bloody knuckles after the punching bag) and the oldest having cramps due to stress (and likely memories).

While in general these calls are ok, they are afraid of saying much because it frequently ends up with:
- Of course your dad is doing <this> and <that> for you. He does everything you want.
- I don't have anyone, I am alone. You are lucky to have someone
- When I was living with you you never wanted to do this with me
- Why don't you think about how I feel?
- That's not how I raised you
- I'm guessing you now have to go eat? of course, you never have time for me

Now here's where I'd like some advice...

After this week's phone call they received a few text messages such as "If you have good or bad news, please share them with me, I find it difficult to not be part of your life. I would like to hug you in my arms" which is not bad at all right? Except that it was followed by "I am sorry that you don't want to see me but I understand".  My oldest one also got "I'm trying to make you understand how I feel, I haven't seen you for almost a year. I'm still there for you even if you make me sad". Definitely not as nice.. 

My youngest one misses his mom yet doesn't want to write to her more, talk to her more, but he'd like to see her if it was supervised.  I'm sure my oldest one might miss her a bit but he doesn't really want to talk to her either.  Yes it's their mom but the damage was done and she's the one who did it.  It seems like the latest messages might be another round of push/pull but I don't know, maybe she was protecting the kids before by pushing them away but is now better due to her DBT?

I've asked the kids if they wanted to respond to her message and got the following from them:
- "I want to tell her she's crazy, we never said that we did not want to see her"
- "it might just be manipulation"
- "maybe we should reply because if we ignore it it will be worse next week"
- "no, I'm not really sure I want to respond"
- "she's likely saying this so that we say that we want to see her and then she'll use that"

Fear plays a big role in there and honestly, the kids seem to have learned her game much faster than me..   or could any of the above be true? Maybe she wants to fix things?  Or is it just another round of manipulation that is about to begin?

Honestly, I'm not sure what to do with this.. yes kids ideally need their mother but I'm not sure how much pressure (if any) I should put on them to respond to their mom. Maybe they should just ignore these messages and just keep the regular video chat schedule.  Or do they need help to overcome their fear after which they'll stop living with this fear?  But maybe I have a lack of judgment to some remnant of guilt from the FOG since my divorce triggered everything and caused the kids to lose their mom?

Any thoughts on this?   Thanks

[mart555]

It's been a while since I've posted here but for a quick recap: 

- the ex-wife went totally crazy last year when I said I wanted a divorce (kids were 10 and 14 at the time). We're talking about multiple tantrums and suicide threats with kids in the house which resulted in a ins/outs of the psych ward (5 or 6 weeks total), criminal convictions (death threats, harassment, assault) ,...
- She was part of their life before that but the kids and I now recognize that she did damage (we were all walking on eggshells without knowing it).
- The oldest is the scapegoat, the youngest the golden child.  She wrote/told them some really nasty stuff, she split on them
- Visits were on and off but stopped last summer, after her last psychotic episode/breach of conditions after which I requested supervised visits and I refuse to change my mind on this. Even the kids want that because they were quite scared during the last episode..
- They feared kidnapping during one of her psychotic episodes.. and during the last one, I feared worst (paramedic assaulted while trying to evade the psych ward that night but she was released a day later)...
- Lots of damaging messages and conversations with the kids throughout that year (amongst the good ones), she would even spam them with messages (ANSWER RIGHT NOW! YOU BABY!)
- Kids sent her gifts by mail yet she never sent them their Christmas or birthday gifts...
- The kids have been doing great with me since last year. They are happy, eat well, sleep well. 

So... no visits since last summer because I want them supervised following the last psychotic episode. I don't have anyone to supervise (thanks to a nasty smear campaign and her psychotic episode on the street) and she's not making any effort to find someone but there is a temporary court order for 1 weekly video call which the kids do after whining, to be followed by an evening of the kids bickering at each other (since they were stressed), the youngest one falling asleep late (memories from the last year coming back, such as the psychotic episode, her bloody knuckles after the punching bag) and the oldest having cramps due to stress (and likely memories).

While in general these calls are ok, they are afraid of saying much because it frequently ends up with:
- Of course your dad is doing <this> and <that> for you. He does everything you want.
- I don't have anyone, I am alone. You are lucky to have someone
- When I was living with you you never wanted to do this with me
- Why don't you think about how I feel?
- That's not how I raised you
- I'm guessing you now have to go eat? of course, you never have time for me

Now here's where I'd like some advice...

After this week's phone call they received a few text messages such as "If you have good or bad news, please share them with me, I find it difficult to not be part of your life. I would like to hug you in my arms" which is not bad at all right? Except that it was followed by "I am sorry that you don't want to see me but I understand".  My oldest one also got "I'm trying to make you understand how I feel, I haven't seen you for almost a year. I'm still there for you even if you make me sad". Definitely not as nice.. 

My youngest one misses his mom yet doesn't want to write to her more, talk to her more, but he'd like to see her if it was supervised.  I'm sure my oldest one might miss her a bit but he doesn't really want to talk to her either.  Yes it's their mom but the damage was done and she's the one who did it.  It seems like the latest messages might be another round of push/pull but I don't know, maybe she was protecting the kids before by pushing them away but is now better due to her DBT?

I've asked the kids if they wanted to respond to her message and got the following from them:
- "I want to tell her she's crazy, we never said that we did not want to see her"
- "it might just be manipulation"
- "maybe we should reply because if we ignore it it will be worse next week"
- "no, I'm not really sure I want to respond"
- "she's likely saying this so that we say that we want to see her and then she'll use that"

Fear plays a big role in there and honestly, the kids seem to have learned her game much faster than me..   or could any of the above be true? Maybe she wants to fix things?  Or is it just another round of manipulation that is about to begin?

Honestly, I'm not sure what to do with this.. yes kids ideally need their mother but I'm not sure how much pressure (if any) I should put on them to respond to their mom. Maybe they should just ignore these messages and just keep the regular video chat schedule.  Or do they need help to overcome their fear after which they'll stop living with this fear?  But maybe I have a lack of judgment to some remnant of guilt from the FOG since my divorce triggered everything and caused the kids to lose their mom?

Any thoughts on this?   Thanks

[livednlearned]

the kids seem to have learned her game much faster than me..  

That's exactly how I perceive my son's powers of perception. He seems to see things clearly so much faster than me.

Meanwhile, our kids have to figure out how to be safe with family members who aren't. And that work does fall to us in many ways.

When I have the skills to deal with something, my son seems to be better prepared to deal. So I picked up some tips from books and therapists to help me make sense of how manipulation works on me and what I was doing to allow it.

What do you think about talking to the kids about what they expect will happen, what parts they don't like. And ask them if they feel comfortable with two specific skills: one is to tell mom before the visit that they want to spend time with her with one caveat: no mention of _______. It might be easiest to pick one thing as they practice this.

And then walk through with them what they will do when (not if) she mentions or says that thing.

Honestly, that one is a bit of black belt, at least it was for me. It takes a lot and the kids might be too young to do it, although having gone through what they did, maybe they have the strength?

Another skill is something I do with my mom (no BPD traits but emotionally immature). This example is more benign that what your kids are dealing with but hopefully the example helps.

My mom is self-absorbed but kind. I couldn't figure out why I would get off the phone with her and feel so angry. I realized that she would ask one question about someone or something in my life (a short sentence), and then I responded (two sentences), and then she would go on for six paragraphs about someone or something that had nothing to do with me or our relationship.

Once I figured out what was happening, I started to change my behavior. She would ask her question, I would answer, and then she would go into her paragraphs, and I would stay quiet. Once she was done I would tell her I had to get back to _____. Essentially, no reward for focusing on her and not our relationship.

There are other small things. I have a uBPD brother and it's painful for me to hear about my nieces because of how they're treated. When my mom brings up problems in their lives, I change the topic  or listen for a few minutes or wind the phone call up. Essentially, no reward for talking about problems I have no ability to solve.

My mom also uses weeping to solicit sympathy. When she does this, I make a reference to therapy in some way, having let her know in the past that there are skilled professionals who can help her with _____. No reward for tears. The message is that I hear her, I want her to feel better, I'm not the person to do it, she has the ability to call someone who can help.

These specific examples might not work for the kids but they're examples of how to feel safe and empowered in relationships with emotionally immature family members.

I think you're lucky to start this kind of thing when your kids are young. Maybe it would help them to say no to mom for now, but that they're thinking of how to do this in a way that works for everyone and will let her know when. In the meantime, they can practice these things on lower stakes relationships and talk about how things went, what worked and what didn't.

The one thing that was tough in my conversations with my mom is that I was already angry at the beginning of the calls. I had to take a long break and to be honest, use a little avoidancy so that I could do a reset first and not carry so much baggage to our conversations.

[worriedStepmom]

If the messages are abusive or manipulative and are consistently bothering the kids, can you stop them?  We blocked uBPDmom from texting SD12 because there were too many messages like this.  We also supervise their twice-weekly phone calls.  The first few weeks of that, we ended the calls early because mom was being very emotionally manipulative.  mom eventually stopped saying those things. 

SD12's visits with mom aren't supervised right now, and they've been going okay. 

SD12 has a therapist who works with her on boundaries, with reinforcement from us.  Like LnL said, SD started with one boundary - she would not pass messages from mom to dad.  We talked about this with her, and we told her she could blame us ("Dad says I can't do that"), but she changed it to "I'm not going to do this."  SD has pretty strong boundaries now to deal with many of the poor behaviors that she recognizes; she really is better at this than my H.  She's still young, though, and doesn't recognize all of the emotional manipulation.  That's where we/I come in to say "Not acceptable.  Stop."

[GaGrl]

Your children might be more receptive to the calls with their mom if there were some rules in place, as suggested above. Topics allowed should focus on the kids' school and other activities, plans for the summer, funny things then pets have done, etc. -- keeping it light. Topics off limits should be any discussion of you, the father, assumptions of the kids' emotions, blame, manipulations, or oh-poor-me riffs.

You can monitor the video chats by being in the same room without hovering. As long as the chat is going well, no intervention is needed -- they have a good chat, say goodbye, hang up, the evening continues. When she starts up, perhaps she gets one warning -- "that's not an allowed chat topic" -- and the chat gets back to an even keel. She does it again, you walk over and end the chat.

How do you communicate with her? You can clearly lay out the terms of the weekly chats -- which you are putting in place to protect your childrens' emotional health and their relationship with their mother -- in an email or via your lawyer. She can choose to comply or not, but right now, those calls aren't productive at all for your kids.

[mart555]

Thanks for the feedback folks.  It might not have been clear in my long really late night post but:
- yes, I used to block the bad messages but lately they are ok, except for the little flares here and there but we might be seeing them this way since we know the background story (ie: messages might look fairly normal who isn't aware of the emotional manipulation)
-  I am inside the house when they are on their call and listen in here and there

I'll now address the specifics..

What do you think about talking to the kids about what they expect will happen, what parts they don't like. And ask them if they feel comfortable with two specific skills: one is to tell mom before the visit that they want to spend time with her with one caveat: no mention of _______. It might be easiest to pick one thing as they practice this.

Before every call we usually go for a walk and develop a game plan.  Come up with stuff they can tell their mom so that there are not too many awkward silences during the call.  

If the messages are abusive or manipulative and are consistently bothering the kids, can you stop them?
...
SD12 has a therapist who works with her on boundaries, with reinforcement from us.

Yes, the bad messages are usually blocked but there hasn't been a need to really do that recently.  They are also developing nice boundaries and like you, I've offered them to blame me but they don't want to do this because as they've put it, if she could she would likely kill me..  they fear that.  So that's another stress for them..

Your children might be more receptive to the calls with their mom if there were some rules in place, as suggested above. Topics allowed should focus on the kids' school and other activities, plans for the summer, funny things then pets have done, etc. -- keeping it light. Topics off limits should be any discussion of you, the father, assumptions of the kids' emotions, blame, manipulations, or oh-poor-me riffs.
...
How do you communicate with her? You can clearly lay out the terms of the weekly chats -- which you are putting in place to protect your childrens' emotional health and their relationship with their mother -- in an email or via your lawyer.

There is no communication between me and the ex. My lawyer proposed "our family wizard" but she refused, likely because she knows that at one point she will not be able to control herself and this will be more evidence. She is walking on a tightrope..

During their calls, the topics are usually about the kids but these kids are really walking on eggshells due to past behavior and I don't know if (or how much) I should push them to overcome this.  I even joked to the kids when they weren't sure what to talk about that they can say that a roofer woke them up early while fixing the roof and my youngest one said "we can't say that, mom will say that we're lucky because you bought us a new roof" in a semi-sarcastic way.   During another call she asked them "Do you guys want to know how I feel?"  and he said "How do you feel?" which she answered with "My fridge is empty and I can't go to the grocery store due to the virus, I have no one to talk to, and I am alone" to which he said "ok but besides the stuff that doesn't go well, how are you doing?".  How brilliant is that for an 11yo boy?  I was quite surprised.


Honestly, the kids are doing great but they still have a fear and I'd like them to be able to get rid of it hence why I'm not sure how much I should push them towards communicating with their mom.

[MeandThee29]

Honestly, the kids are doing great but they still have a fear and I'd like them to be able to get rid of it hence why I'm not sure how much I should push them towards communicating with their mom.

I don't have custody issues, but I just wanted to say that I'm impressed with how you are trying to help them with this.

A friend once commented that if you are investing more than enough into a relationship and the other person really isn't investing much, you need to either accept it for what it is or move on.

It sounds to me in this limited forum that you're doing what you can. That may be all there is. You may not be able to do much more other than validating the kids and watching out for them. At some point they may have more contact with her if she pushes that legally, and one day they'll be 18 and in charge of deciding if they want a relationship with her or not. So you need to keep equipping them, which you are.

My kids are older (no custody), and I was very careful not to badmouth their father. I listened and validated their feelings. We talked in a general way about drawing boundaries and choosing who to be close to and who not to be close to. I left the decision up to then. I'm not one who believes that kids over 18 have an obligation to a parent that effectively abandoned them. I think there are important lessons there.

[livednlearned]

the kids are doing great but they still have a fear and I'd like them to be able to get rid of it hence why I'm not sure how much I should push them towards communicating with their mom.

I'd say no pushing, my 2 cents.

They're recovering from trauma. They may be doing great (you are a big part of that, what you're doing), but they witnessed trauma and trauma lingers (it takes a lot to make sense of it, it takes language). We may not see it so clearly having been exposed to the same thing. Meaning, we are able to help heal the parts that we understand. Other stuff might not be so clear to us, and so it won't be so clear to them.

For me, I found it was important to see someone who specializes in trauma because the language is so encompassing, allowing survivors to go into the weeds and zoom way back out without getting lost. That's if the kids won't/don't see someone on their own for any reason.

[ForeverDad]

A friend once commented that if you are investing more than enough into a relationship and the other person really isn't investing much, you need to either accept it for what it is or move on.

I hope you don't mind if I relate an example that came to mind, pardon me if it's a bit out of the ordinary.

Years ago I registered my DNA with a health and ancestry site.  It says I have over 1300 relatives.  Problem is, how to find a connection with the ones who are not obvious close relatives.  Besides many not knowing much of their own ancestry, many don't register their grandparents' surnames or general residences nor all the surnames they're connected with.

Also, of those who do list their names, very few will have surnames that match mine.  Mathematics demonstrates that.  For example, if I know an ancestor's family from 1800, generally half their children will be female and their surnames will change.  Next another 50% will change surnames.  And so on.  Each generation will be larger in numbers but fewer and fewer will have my original surname.  50% of 50% of 50% ... The principle of diminishing returns.

Finally my point.  Today I awoke to a response from a 5th cousin, the only person with a certain surname (that appears twice) in my genealogy records.  He's one of the few males with an identifiable surname today.  We have a common ancestor back probably in the late 1700s.  We would never have found each other without the weak DNA link.

To apply in your case, lots of odds are against your children finding a way to have some limited positive contact with their disordered parent.  They'll have to have solid boundaries and be insightful and perceptive with communication, but hopefully what they find, however little, will help them preserve their sense of family connection.  Rather than some distant problem relative it's a problem parent yet better to accept whatever little good there is than focus on the rest that is lost.

Teach your children how to continue growing their perceptions, insights, maintaining good boundaries and by the time they're adults they will have solid skills to find the wheat among the chaff.

[mart555]

Thanks again. 

Yes, I recognize that there is trauma and it will take time to heal.  Sadly the mom doesn't seem to realize that..  because you know BPD: Once the crisis is over you're supposed to forget about it within a few minutes.  My kids aren't keen on opening to therapists, sadly.  They did a bit (10  sessions each maybe?) in the past but my youngest one said that "I was only talking and it didn't do anything" while my oldest was able to end up in a comfortable place with all of this. 

I had another chat with them about boundaries and the fact that if their mom (or anyone else) gets mad because of something they say or did (within limits..), it's not their problem because they cannot control how the other person feels.    That I'd also like them to not be stressed when they go to bed and not be stuck with the combined feelings of fearing/missing their mom at the same time.   That I want them to reach a state where they do not have anxiety before/during/after a call with her.

My oldest was clear, he's ignoring her messages because he fears she'll lash on him and I told him "why not write her that? if she gets mad she gets mad. That's her problem. I'll block her messages.  You'll then stop feeling guilty and living in the unknown".  What might be the source of his fear then came out... "I still want supervised visits" he said.   I told him that no matter how good the calls may be and for however long, the visits would be supervised at first.  Maybe that was it after all... he feared that it would lead to him meeting with her.    He even said "she wants us to say we miss her then she'll use that to try to see us without supervision".  He's likely right.  That's what she'll try but it won't lead anywhere.   

Will he respond or not?  I don't know.. but I won't force him.