My sister in law convinced me to let her friend’s husband be a mediator so that we could save money by not hiring a lawyer

I agreed because I was afraid of what my ex would do if the court made him pay money for lawyers

Long story short, I agreed to meet with the conman mediator to draft a rough draft of divorce decree

The he found a sleazy lawyer to type it up and present it to the court

I didn’t read it that closely

I agreed on shared custody even though I knew that my 4 kids
(Teenagers) would never spend one night under their Father’s roof because he went to live with his Mom and Dad.

After the divorce I wondered why my neice received more child support per child than I did even though her ex had s blue collar job

Years later I looked at the divorce decree in detail

It spelled out in detail when the children would be staying with him.

Eureka !!!!!!!!
I realized that when the judge saw this schedule he assumed that the children really would be with my ex and do I was given only half the childcare that I should have been given

One of my children was very upset when she wanted money and I didn’t have it

I told her to ask her Dad , who had money , but she refused.
He lied to her about his finances.

From Dorothy Capalit

I didn’t date anyone until we were separated for 2 years
My children were 12, 14, 16, and 18 at the time.

My boyfriend lived in an apartment on the other side of town .
I convinced him to move to an apartment around the corner from me
I wanted to be close to my kids while also spending time with me at my house.

My ex was a religious fanatic telling everyone that he was my husband even after the divorce

I changed the locks and told the kids not to let him in the house.

My boyfriend was taking a nap on the couch when my ex got into the house, screamed at him and threw water on him.
( My ex was a screamer and it was like living on top of a volcano when we were married)

So my boyfriend said he would not come over until the divorce was finalized
It dragged on for another year until our conman mediator convinced my ex to sit down and draft the divorce decree.
( I was afraid to rush the issue because he was violent, having taken a hammer to 4 TVs in my house when I was at work)

After the divorce I would come home from work to find my ex sitting in my living room . My difficult daughter let him in so he didn’t have to wait in the car when she was running late ( always)

So I just left and went around the corner to my boyfriend’s.

Our “shared custody “ consisted of my ex dropping by a few times a week and taking my kids AND all of their friends out to dinner.
Other than that the kids were at my house 24/7.

I take blame for not being there as much as I should have , spending too much time at my boyfriend’s.
I rationalized it was telling myself that I was just around the corner.

I worked from home for awhile , being downstairs all day, and came upstairs to a sink full of dishes because they would not agree to each spend 30 minutes a day helping out , AND my ex sitting on the couch.

So I left for more than a few hours
( I shouldn’t have, I know)

For awhile I had a job working from 4:00 to 8:00
I prepared a dinner for each kid and put it in the fridge for them to microwave

When I got home the meals were still sitting there.
So I stopped cooking

My one difficult daughter said , “you should hear what Aunt M and Aunt C said about you at Grandma ‘s house
Then she wouldn’t tell me what she said
Who knows what lies they and my ex and other in-laws told her.

So she says I was extremely abusive and has held a grudge for 26 years.

I apologized time after time but she won’t even listen to my side of the story.

They all know his abusive my ex was when we were married
He threw my other daughter’s bed from the second floor to the basement, and so many other things I

My difficult daughter runs hot and cold

She pays for my phone and arranged for my kids to each give me $25 each month

I helped her when she had postpartum depression with her second child and she had anxiety and trouble sleeping
For 6 weeks I stayed up with the baby at night and slept on the couch during the day so she could have uninterrupted sleep.

At first she was very appreciative but later acted like it was nothing

When my kids were growing up I was a stay at home Mom and was always there.
I read books to them every night when they were in grade school. She seems to forget all if that.

Today she is extra busy at work , but she won’t even answer the phone or respond to my texts.

My 3 other children are not like that

She is the third of 4


She is seeing a psychologist and so he or she only hears her side of the story

I wonder if her psychologist is convincing her to go no contact or extremely low contact

I researched this online and it appears to be a trend

Parental alienation syndrome