When divorce plagues a family, we're hit with the realization that not everyone may leave the situation unscathed. It can be particularly harrowing for people who have a soon-to-be-ex spouse who is committed to making the process as painful as possible.
A father says that his ex maliciously "poisoned" his kids against him, and now that they've reached out years later after learning their mother lied, he still wants nothing to do with them.
When his children were 6 and 5 years old, the man's wife cheated on him, he says. His wife got the weekdays for custody while he took on weekends.
"For a while there it seemed to work, I thought we could be civil enough to co-parent the two kids," the dad explained. "But she got together with the man she'd cheated with and slowly started to turn the kids against me. Suddenly every time I'd have my time with the kids little trips and picnics would be organised. Of course, if I'd insist on my time with them I'd be turned into a bad guy.
"She started telling them lies about me too, and it slowly but surely made them hate me — bit by bit," he continued. "I tried to sue her for parental alienation and to have the custody agreement properly enforced but it didn't go anywhere, and she used the lawsuit to breed further resentment."
After his attempt to sue his ex for parent alienation, things went downhill fast between himself and his children.
"It got so bad that they stopped wanting to see me at all," he claimed. "Many weekends I'd drive to her house only to be turned away at the door. Maybe I should have forced them to come with me or something, I don't know. Maybe it was a mistake to not have done that."
The dad said that his poor relationship with his children even turned his other relationships sour.
"I even ended up breaking up with my girlfriend for them. And it was the last serious relationship I had. Their mom told them lies about her, said that I was going to start a new family with her and they'll be pushed aside, which was ironic because that was exactly what was happening to me," he wrote.
"On the rare occasions that they did come visit me they'd get into fights with her and flat out told me they are not going to come at all if she's around. They forced me to choose. I chose them (big mistake, I know). I ended up being ignored anyway."
This brings us to the final time he saw his children in person.
"The last time I met them was on my son's 16th birthday," he recalled. "He said he was sick of me and just wished that I would leave them alone. I asked my daughter if she felt the same. She said yes. I told them that I wouldn't force them to come anymore but if they wanted to get in touch with me I'd be there. They didn't even so much as call me. For years. It broke me."
Recently, his ex was cheated on and she turned "to the bottle" for comfort. His kids are now in their 20s and are realizing the lies they were fed.
Now that they are ready to resume a relationship, the dad just … isn't.
"I just can't anymore," he admitted. "I had them late in life and now I'm close to retirement. The last two decades of my life were just full of anxiety and despair. I don't want that for the last stage of my life. I've grown to live without them. I'm finally feeling some semblance of happiness again. I don't want to try to fix things — the very thought makes my heart sink in my chest. I want nothing to do with them."
He wrote that his friends think he should give them one more shot, but he doesn't think he's ready to. So he wants to know if he's being unreasonable.
Redditors consoled the man, saying that he wasn't wrong for how he felt but to remember his kids aren't at fault either.
"This is really tough," one user sympathized. "The kids are not at fault here. Many kids that have been alienated from a parent start to figure it out in their early 20's. I also understand the heartache you must have experienced while they were growing up and wanting to avoid going through that again. However, I think a relationship with your adult children can be very different. I think fear of getting rejected is preventing you from trying again. I think that would be a mistake."
Others encouraged him to seek therapy to help him deal with the heartbreak and the pressure this situation puts him in.
"You have all been victims of abuse and it will take its toll on you all," wrote another reader. "They have seen through the lies and want to try and have a relationship but I completely understand that you have trepidation about this."
A few survivors of manipulative parents shared their POV.
"I'm in the same situation as your kids," related one reader. "I was fed lies about my father, and believed them. I had 0 contact growing up and believed he was bad. Shortly before cutting contact with my mother, i began to realize she was lying to me about him. I moved out and reached out to him, and now we talk every day and we're repairing the bond that was broken and never able to fully grow."
Although the dad may be scared to get hurt again, we hope that things can work out for this family — especially at this late stage in his life.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
