This brings tears to my eyes

[LittleBlessings]

My DH has a DC 3yr from another relationship. In the past few months there has been a lot of parental alienation going on from his EX. It started out little like "your daddy does not want to talk to you" and now she has put it in to the child's head and was able to convince DC that she is being physically, and emotionally abused at daddies. This is very disturbing. DC use to love coming over and visiting and has once a few weeks ago asked to go home during a visit. The things his EX is doing seems to be working and slowly the strong bond daddy and child had is withering away and yet NO COURT can help

[VK1987]

I am SO sorry to hear this! It really makes you wonder how some people can be so evil...
I'm sorry I don't some advice to give, but I had to reply.
You and your husband should just remember that you aren't hurting her, that everything being said is NOT true, and that if he ever winds up in court (God forbid) there will be no evidence against either of you.
It doesn't sound like his ex is the type of person who can be talked with, but hopefully he finds some way to find out why she is doing this, and if she realizes the awful consequences.
I hope things get better for you.

[VocalMinority]

Very sorry to hear this, as we suffered the same, for years.

#1 - How do you know what the mother is saying to the child?

#2 - If a mother is so bent on alienating a child from his father that she tells the child things as extreme as "Daddy's abusing you," things may very well escalate as the child grows older. If Mom feels threatened by the child's bond with the other parent and wants to dominate and control things even when the child is so little, she may feel even more threatened as the child goes to school and branches out into other relationships. It may be important to her to feel she dominates and controls those relationships, too - and to try to guarantee that all new people in the child's life (teachers, friends' parents, soccer coach...) see her as the "good" parent and your husband as the "bad" one. So if you can't prove what she's doing to the child now, if it continues, in the future there may be more concrete examples of her effort at alienation and adults who could be called to testify about it, if needed.

#3 - You might consider a custodial evaluation. You'd want a private (translate: costly) one, so the person really has time to ponder your situation. (Here, there are public service agencies which perform them under court order, but they're swamped and therefore I wouldn't rely on them to recognize or have time to deal with subtleties.) An evaulator might be able to recognize:
* A disconnect between the child saying Daddy's abusive and her not being able to give any actual examples of abuse. That's a hallmark of a kid who's just parroting negative talk.
* The mother's negative attitude toward the father.
* That the child seems more comfortable and affectionate with the father when she's alone with him, but then speaks ill of him when she's with the mother - which suggests who's manipulating whom.
If there's not enough evidence at this point to convince a court to change custody, the evaulator probably won't recommend that - but he/she might very well recommend giving your husband more visitation, to offset the negative messages the child gets about him from the mother. And such a recommendation would definitely be helpful background evidence, if things escalate in the future and you DO fight for custody.

#4 - You might also experiment with communicating with the ex through e-mail, so there's a written record. Your husband could raise the issue with her - not in an accusatory way, but one good parent to another, discussing a concern about their child: "Our daughter is saying disturbing things like 'abuse'. I can't fathom where she'd pick up such ideas - or such terms - at age 3. If you do understand this, could you enlighten me? Has she been exposed to some age-inappropriate things on TV or at daycare? What do you think is going on?" If Mom is so bitter toward your husband, she may write him back and vent about all the things she thinks he does which are abusive and her belief that the child shouldn't/doesn't want to be around him. That would be a concrete indication of the thinking that influences the child, at her house, which you could take to a custodial evaluator or possibly to court. Keep in mind: there's no need to respond to such vitriol, point-by-point (although it's tempting). He should only say, "Of course I don't abuse our daughter and it's shocking and upsetting to me to know that you think such things and evidently send this message to our child." After that, it should be handled with objective, third-party help.

[VocalMinority]

Originally Posted by Jeannine

#3 - You might consider a custodial evaluation. You'd want a private (translate: costly) one...

Let me clarify, to be safe: I mean with a private psychologist as opposed to a local-government agency of some sort. You'd still need to petition the court to order ithe eval. and Mom would be an equal participant. (She might also be ordered to pay half the cost.) I definitely DON'T mean "private" as in taking the child without the mother. Any "custodial evaluator" who would agree to that is not worth spit anyway. Besides, your husband would look like the alienator, trying to get a psychologist to speak ill of the mother without ever seeing her around the child. (My husband's ex tried to go this route and get "her own" custody evaluation after the court-ordered, well-respected evaluator recommended my husband have custody.)

[mandib50]

i am so terribly sorry. my sister had been fighting this in the courts for almost 5 years trying to get any kind of access to her now 10 year old son. it is devastating.

[LittleBlessings]

Originally Posted by Jeannine

Very sorry to hear this, as we suffered the same, for years.

#1 - How do you know what the mother is saying to the child?

We do not know everything that she says to the child but on some of the issues we have heard her in the back round coaching the child on what to say and also the child has said things during visits that have lead us to believe this and lastly
the child's enthusiasm to see daddy has changed

[VocalMinority]

Originally Posted by LittleBlessings

We do not know everything that she says to the child but on some of the issues we have heard her in the back round coaching the child on what to say and also the child has said things during visits that have lead us to believe this and lastly
the child's enthusiasm to see daddy has changed

I wasn't asking because I doubted what you originally said. When you know a child well, you have a sense of what comes out of her naturally and what she is influenced to say or think, even when you don't have "proof". I was just wondering if you had anything concrete to present to a court or custodial evaluator. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like it. The ex would, of course, deny coaching the child; attack the credibility of your husband's claims about what a 3-year-old said; and insist that if the child's less enthusiastic about visiting Daddy it's because he's abusing her.

But, again, read my previous post. Don't give up. These things are long wars and you're only at the beginning.

[LittleBlessings]

Originally Posted by Jeannine

I wasn't asking because I doubted what you originally said. When you know a child well, you have a sense of what comes out of her naturally and what she is influenced to say or think, even when you don't have "proof". I was just wondering if you had anything concrete to present to a court or custodial evaluator. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like it. The ex would, of course, deny coaching the child; attack the credibility of your husband's claims about what a 3-year-old said; and insist that if the child's less enthusiastic about visiting Daddy it's because he's abusing her.

But, again, read my previous post. Don't give up. These things are long wars and you're only at the beginning.

Thank you very much for your advise and you are right when you say it sounds like we do not have "proof" because we do not. I hope as DC gets older DC will be able to see the truth