Open Letter From My X-Husband

INTRODUCTION: This letter was written by my x-husband  during a moment of clarity, when we had a crisis concerning our son Geoff. After that he denied writing it. To this day he absolutely refuses to talk to me, or tell me why he won't talk to me about it ("I'm not going to talk to you about that!"), and avoids "the past" at all costs.  I believe this is an extreme example of what's known of as Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS. This is a catastrophic problem in people's lives, especially when going through divorce with someone with 'alienator' characteristics and behaviors.   I plan to write much more about it as I go along with the story.  I hope my experience will be somehow helpful to those who need to know what's happening to them before their own life is taken out of their hands.  Please feel free to write.  Warmly, Liz Webb

SUBJECT: Open letter to the family of Beth and Tim

FROM: Tim
DATE: December 23, 2007

 

Dear Family,

It has become clear that the ongoing conflict between Beth and I over our marriage and divorce has resulted in negative impact on our children, including a recent episode of depression for Geoff. During this time, Geoff told me that it seemed to him that people who knew me had a low opinion of Beth, while people who did not know me thought his Mom was the greatest....

While Beth and I began with the best of relationships, chronic illness may be one of the hardest issues to come to grips with, especially when it affects someone when they are very young, such as in Beth’s case. During the stages of Beth’s illness, I experienced a loss of our partnership which resulted in me having a lot of anger, distrust and disillusionment. This spilled over to our children and our family.

The illness and losses we faced in our relationship, greatly affected my ability to cope. While, I did not realize then, I realize now, that I blamed Beth for her illness and without malicious intent, that blame was transferred to our children, family, and friends.

Over the years, while I came across as cool, in-control and handling the situation, in fact, I was in denial and I was not able to handle the situations that arose. I often lost control of my temper and fought to maintain control. To assist in controlling Beth and seeking help (in my mind for Beth) I was actually seeking support and validation for myself.

When we divorced, I had lost my ability to cope and told Beth to leave so that I would not kill her. She did not have any place to go and little money. She went to Drew’s, feeling it was the only place she could go as she was carrying the idea that she could not burden anyone else in the family, as I had always told her not to.

When I called family members to ask for help for her during this time, I realize that I did it in such a way that may have made her look even worse than was actually the case.

Then I filed divorce, and left Beth in a position that she could not return to our house and was stuck with an abusive person. Then came the fire in Peoria and the bankruptcy, all which caused Beth to loose her belongings and her credit, all the while being stuck with a person who was abusing her and I did not help her. I may have made it sound that the financial difficulties and bankruptcy were Beth’s fault, but they were not.

Over the years, my comments have caused so much alienation for Beth from her family, that she was not able to get support in her greatest time of need. For this I apologize to her deeply. You may be denying this, but please open your mind and your heart and understand that in my defensiveness I have said terrible things.

Such a case is when I told Doug that Beth had been physically and mentally abused by her stepfather. I apologize for this and know that it is not true.

Blaming Beth

Over the years, my comments influenced negative feelings within family and friends towards Beth. And while Beth freely admits that she behaved badly at times towards the family, much of this was driven by a panic in her to desperately try to understand the loss of her family and her daughter. The practice had terrible effects on Beth, including what is known as “crazy making”. This occurred when I upset her, then I acted rationale. The more I upset her, the more rationale I would appear, and was able to point to her actions as ‘crazy’.

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, I am ‘just saying these things’ and that I don’t believe them, but I do and these actions have had harmful and lasting effects. I am seeking to clear this up so we can move forward in a positive direction for our children.

Blaming the Family

I also often felt that when I asked the family for help I did not get enough, even though many members did at times give of their time and money, I still occasionally blamed the extended family for not helping enough. My blame of the family was transferred to the family as if Beth was blaming everyone else, and of course she ‘felt’ the absence of her family and so was made to feel ‘crazy. Thus, I perpetuated the idea that Beth ‘blames everyone else’ for her problems.

I often told her not to burden other people with her problems as they had their own lives, jobs, family to look after. Yet, it was ok

The truth is, Beth continues to persevere through hardships that no one else would every dream of going through, and now I feel now that must free her from this burden that I have placed upon her and our children. It has affected them more than I had ever realized.

Working Towards Resolution:

We are committing to working together as a unified family to slay the past and move forward with making a safe and secure future for our children. As we do this, part of the healing process comes with my acceptance of what part I played in the past and making a commitment to stop doing the negative and hurtful things that I did.

Epilogue

By now you may be saying to yourself ‘poor Beth’, and feeling those old feelings that this is just another episode of Beth blaming everyone for her problems… remember that I helped instill those thoughts in your mind.

Please take a moment to open your mind and your heart to what I am saying about my responsibility. In the research on Parent Alienation, there is information on how those that are involved become in collusion to support each other which strengthens their alienation.

I believe this occurred with my daughter and I which kept her from being able to pen up to Beth. The panic that often set in with Beth as Kristen and others stopped talking to her, escalated and became another excuse for everyone to stop talking to her.

There was a time that all of Kristen’s friends stopped talking to her in High School and it hurt her badly, causing her at the time to switch high schools. Beth does not have an option of switching families, so it is my hope that by hearing and understanding what I am saying, it will lead to introspection on your part as well.

The ultimate goal is to get closure on our arguments and criticism of Beth so she can take establish a loving home for Geoff, without him needing to feel as if he has to defend her all the time and is able to enjoy high school, which most important time in his life.

Lastly, we talked together to a counselor today, he asked me - “Why do you still have contact with her family”? I answered that originally, that it had been due to the fact that I had possession of Geoff at the time of the divorce (not ‘primary custody’ as I had said to family members). However, over time, I realized that I had maintained contact with her family as a form of a support network for the validating my anger and alienation towards Beth.

The counselor made it clear that I should end communications with members of Beth’s family now. I know that some in Beth’s family may want to call me to discuss all of this, but I am serious about putting closure and do not wish to be contacted. Also, I know in reading this, you may want to call Kristen to get her perspective, but for her benefit, I ask that you not put her in the middle of this and do not discuss this as it can only continue the pattern of alienation. She needs her mother and hopefully she can get back together with her sometime. I also know Kristen is confused by all of this this and may call you to discuss it, if that happens I implore you not to discuss it with her and encourage her to talk to Beth, Geoff, and I.

So, if anyone on Beth’s side wants to know how Geoff or Kristen is doing please contact Beth, not me.

While there is no expectation that you will immediately drop your negative perceptions of Beth that I helped instill. Over time, I hope you are able to find resolution with her, for the sake of our children.