Last week the chair of Fathers for Justice published an excellent post entitled Parental Alienation is Child Abuse. I say excellent because it provided an understandable overview of what exactly parental alienation is and also how it should be classed as child abuse.

Children are alienated through the abusive conduct of the primary carer who deliberately and cynically attempts to alienate the child in order to deny the other parent contact.

Additionally, the article detailed how in the past actually mentioning or even alluding to ‘parental alienation’ caused that parent to be ‘shot down’ in the courts. Luckily this is now starting to change with the first debate in parliament on parental alienation led by Simon Danczuk on the 15th March this year. Though as Mr Danczuk has been banned for standing under the Labour party banner in the general election this year let’s see if this was a one-shot wonder.

These are all positive developments, PA is starting to become recognised both in the legal system – importantly in the lower courts, and is also becoming known to larger parts of the general public. But I would like to go further.

Parental Alienation is not only child abuse – it is the abuse of the absent parent.

Let’s take a simple case. I was walking through Munich city centre at the weekend with my new wife and my eight-year-old step-son. I passed the Apple store just off Marienplatz, and then it happened as these things always do – I started to think about my children who loved going to the Apple store, or the ‘Daddy Toy Store’ as they called it.  I didn’t cry or have a breakdown, but I did ‘zone out’. I started to think about the children I cannot see, that do not want to see me because of PA. I thought of the good times, what they might be doing now, the memories came flooding back. My wife knows when this happens as I invariably become very quiet, and she gives me a big hug to bring me out. In today’s parlance, I believe what happened is that I was triggered.  I get over it, and I carry on with my new life.

What my ex-partner has done, the situation she has created is abuse – she is emotionally abusing me, and using my only blood relatives as weapons. What she has done has had a profoundly negative effect on not just the life of my children now and in the future, but on my current and future life. This is not right, and for this crime, she will not have to serve time, or even be fined – it is all passively sanctioned by the state.

It is time this type of abuse was recognised, and that steps are taken to stop it.

I am one of the ‘lucky’ ones – I have built up a new life, with new loved ones. But what about those that unfortunately cannot for whatever reason? They are destined to live in a semi-permanent state of being abused, where for some there may only be the ultimate exit.

I still keep hoping that these problems will become known and that they will eventually be addressed. More has happened this year than in any other, and perhaps there will be a time where PA and abuse to children and absent parents will be regarded as what it should be – morally repugnant and simply not done in a civilised society.

Here is the original article – please take the time to have a read.

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