Life W/o My Children

My heart goes out to you so much. The same thing has happened to me . Iam a mother of 4 children , they were 10, 8 , 7 and 1 1/2 year old when he got full custody, a battle in court .He had an affair and I was the worst person in the world in front of everyone.He did everything he could to make sure he won at all costs even hurting his own children . Today My kids are 16, 14, 14 and 8 my youngest sons birthday today not twins but very close in age.Iam painfully missing them and has been hard to move forward i feel as if im in Limbo , I work and self supporting , I send my children gifts, pay child support faithfully, I work hard to keep in touch with texts , letters gifts with a response from my ex saying thank you . and texts with love songs at odd hours of the night .He is very angry and has alieanted my kids from me . He always wanted to get back together again it was either all or nothing , and told him NO!! so he cut me out of my kids life. Today is my sons Birthday and I didnt send him a gift , all the gifts I would send would be rejected, so I started sending 100.00 gift cards instead. They kept them for sure , but sometimes I feel they are being kept by my ex so for the first time i didnt send anything , Im just keepin all the court orders for now.Any extra stuff I will have to contemplate.

I know how you feel i have 2 boys and I have been through something very similar. LONG story short... I had custody of my boys. My ex left us and my boys and I had not heard from him for 2 years. He met a girl and they wanted to see the boys. After years of trying to prove me unfit and being unsuccessful with it my ex finally convinced my son of 12 to tell the court I was a bad mother and that he wanted to live with his father. I didnt want my son to have to be dragged into court and I didnt want to split the boys up so I let them both go. I was suppose to have them every weekend and 2 days a week but very quickly sports, appointments and anything else they could possibly come up with interrupted the visits. Along with the interruptions my boys disliked me very much and they weren't afraid to show me how they felt. Needless to say the visits became less and less. I have not seen or spoken to my boys in 3 1/2 years. I have also come to the realization that I have to protect myself a little and with that I have also decided to begin living again. I miss my boys more than anything and the only thing that keeps me going is the hopes of one day being able to talk to them again but until that day I must push myself to move on. You should do the same you deserve to live your life! Good Luck!

This is a terrible situation.You married your husband and had kids with him,yet he is so ungrateful.His infidelity doesn't just ruin your marriage.It will probably ruin both his (and in this case your) relationship with your kids.So getting a divorce is really the right thing to do.

you are one of very few women i have heard of that is going through this. what i dont understand, is if you are paying support, then why is he not in jail for contempt. what he is doing is very wrong. i have two women i am fighting. and the kids need to go through counseling, just to understand. you can request this to happen and have him pay for it. its child abuse, and mental cruelty towards you. dont give up sweetie, i and many others are behind you. good luck

I am so sorry you or any of us are going through this. I've been going through it for 12 years now. It's criminal and the courts are the accomplices. Unfortunately, there's only one cure for PAS and that is to silence the alienator(s) and stop the rhetoric and then begin a systematic, therapeutic reunification of the relationship between the child(ren) and targeted parent. There needs to be people who will challenge the children's hatred or distrust and support the alienated parent with positive rhetoric and make them realize that it is ok to love both parents. Our children need to know how important it is for their own well being to love and be loved by both parents.

I just went thru the same thing with my ex. He is on a pedestal with my daughter he could do no wrong, but was he there when she was sick, or needed rocking at night. Where was the father who was going to read to her every night when I was pregnant with, he has yet today to read a story to her,and if he was such a damn good dad and father why is our marriage and family gone. but since my divorce my daughter was 15 she went back and forth between us and played us both, she had learned well. I tried to be friends with her dad and recommend good sites and therapist we could all go to but there was nothing wrong with him of course, just me. Even tho my daughter went with me one year i made her have a relationship with her dad, did he do the same for me that next year when she left me out of her life NO. He is what he is I can't do anything about that but my love for my only child with never die and maybe someday she will see that he too has alienated her against me and her only uncles and aunts and family she could have had a relationship with cause my ex's own family has deserted him. HE just wants her all to himself it's so unhealthy. Now she is 18 and gone. I feel alone but how do tell a child that her own father is unhealthy for her also. So don't feel alone ladies. Allot has been written about how destructive mother's are against their husband in a divorce but it happens to us ladies too. I didn't get to see her graduate from high school, I haven't walked proudly by her at her college or gotten credit for all the years of abuse from my ex with antisocial behavior, his alcoholism, his avoidance of love and affection for his own wife or know any of his friends or family for 20 years. Now I know why they avoided him. But I wait for that moment when she will see the light. And realize that both of us love her equally and this not some game where you can put the child in the middle and toss her around like an emotional toy it will destroy her and your relationship with her.

I know how you feel i have been through the same thing except i had custody of my kid until just recently January 2009. My ex convinced my son of 15 to make up lies about me and try to have me put in jail the court case is going on still. Even thoe i was cleared of criminal charges. He did it all for a 500.00 dollar shopping spree and to be into 2 athleteic sports. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Iam sorry but it has been proven over &over it only takes 3 months to brainwash an adult much less for a kid/ child/young adult. anyway i do wish there was an agency for this cause to help out for adjusting & ongoing legal fee's it is riduculus. Try to stay busy & get a new hobby, pray & stay involved in the community. Do not move to Fayetteville ,Ga if you got on going legal problems with your kids / other because there is no justice here. But to be honest i don't think the court system has caught up with Mental abuse no matter which spouse its from. They honestly don't know how do deal with this issue even thoe its' been going on for years.

This wasn't your fault. I know what it is like because my husband did the same thing to me.He didn't leave me for another woman but was angry I broke it off with him. I was his third wife. We fought too much and I felt it would be best for everyone if we get a divorce. So in order to avoid paying child support and to get back at me he convinced everyone, including my children, that I was a bad mom. I haven't seen them in two years and trying to divorce him but he refuses to give it to me. My children are 11,7, and 5. I know how hard it is. THIS WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. I also know how it is for you to tell your story. You have to deal with people's assumptions that you had to do something to have this happen. That isn't true. I feel bad for you and know it's hard to try to get over it. You can't get over it but you can take care of yourself and hope your children will figure out who was in the wrong.

sweetie you are so right. there is nothing you can do to change their minds and its a shame he did this to his own kids that he could not share them because he is such a bitter man. this is not easy for you but i will pray they will soon see the light but this probably wont happen til they have a family of their own and grow up. which in the meantime you all loose memories. its good you are reaching out to other children and trying to help someone else believe me it will help. praying things will get easier for you

I have been in the same situation you have been in after being married for 14 years my ex left me for another younger woman and my children were 9 and 12 at the time. They are now 16 and 20 and I haven't spoken to them for about 5 years now. I try to call them on their own cell phone and they won't take my calls. My older one my son is now in college and away from the home and I still cannot contact him. My daughter is still here in the same small town that I live in and when I see her out in public she doesn't even come up to me or even talk to me. I go to her school events and sit way in the back and get all kinds of dirty looks from my ex and his wife. I truely love my children but I believe that they believe everything that their dad has told them and even made up stores about me that they don't want anything to do with me. It was their dad that had the affair and left me and wanted the divorce. It has been 8 years now and I still have a problem with it and really wish that my kids will come around and I really wished I could have been their for them during their high school years. When my son graduated from high school I never even got to enjoy his graduation and wasn't able to share in this experience with him because of what his dad has done to me and I even pay him child support and continue to on my daughter.

I am so sorry. I wish my mother was like you...honestly, I do. my father lost his temper once and beat me up so hard he sent me to the hospital. my mother said I deserved it. I hate her but I don't know why I still love her.

I wish you were my mom. you sound like a great one :/ I'm sorry about your kids...they don't know what they're missing out on....a mother's love is different from all other kinds of love. I can't believe they'd just leave you like that. your ex husband sounds like a douche! men like him...argh. Good luck!

You are a good mother. I don't think this was your fault. He is an a$$ to have done that to you. Keep your good attitude and positive thinking.

You're going the wrong way about getting your sons' respect. I don't know the ins and outs of the situation but it's actually pretty difficult for a parent to 'brainwash' their kids against the other parent. Also in my experience the kids generally stay with the mother, which makes me wonder whewther their were some serious problems within the relationship before your ex-husband left. Giving their xmas money to someone else was petty and hurtful, you can't buy their love or respect and you need to be there, if you're a good mum to them they will love and respect you regardless of what their father says, make sure you send them birthday/ christmas presents, set up a savings account for each of them and DON'T GIVE UP ON THEM. When they're ready, they'll forgive you. And there's nothing more important than a mother's love. don't forget that. Happy Holidays!