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The universe has good news for the lost, lonely and heartsick.
Sugar is here. The both of us speaking straight into your ears.
I'm Sheryl Strayed.
I'm Steve Almond. This is Dear Sugar Radio.
Come and sit down with me.
Share some bittersweet days with me.
I check my bell rides everyday.
Oh and the sugar, you send my way.
Hi Cheryl. Hi Steve.
So I want to tell you a story that I don't think you're gonna like very well oh well no I mean you'll see what I mean it was just terrifying.
I went out to the West Coast and visited an old friend of mine who I knew was struggling with marriage that was failing and it turns out that they had separated and that they were sort of trying to adjust the family to this new normal.
He had two children a son who's a little older than my son and a daughter and one day the My son essentially announced, I'm not going to visit you anymore.
I don't want to have any contact.
And it went even further than that.
He refused to refer to my friend as his father.
He refused to even call him he, he called him it.
And was verbally abusive and essentially was trying to say in every way that an eight or nine year old kid can say, you're dead to me.
And I was listening to this story.
My friend was just wrecked by it.
I mean, literally, I've never seen him so sad, and I was terrified, because Sheryl you and I both know, this is, as parents, we get that sometimes kids push away their parents in a way that's developmentally appropriate, whether it's a tantrum from a three -year -old or a teenager slamming the door in your face.
There are certain kinds of alienation quote unquote that are appropriate.
They're trying to individuate, push their parents away.
there's fight it's that but this was something altogether right this was the dread fear that lives inside a parent that you will have that door slammed on you for good by a child yeah that bond that we take for granted it's such a deep strong bond it seems like not even up for grabs but it's terrifying to imagine that it could be right and it turns out that this is again something that is not widely discussed but there is a kind of technical academic term parental alienation, which is the situation where not only is there a divorce or a marriage that comes apart but in the process of that one
parent is either actively or passively manipulating a child or children to push the other parent out of their lives.
We're really gonna dig into this today and we're gonna do something a little different.
We're gonna read two letters back -to -back and then we're gonna discuss them together because really it's they're both asking the same question and we're gonna talk to a a national expert, somebody who's done a lot of research and work on this issue.
Why don't you read the first letter Steve?
All right. Let's do it.
Dear Sugars, I'm a middle -aged father of one teenage girl, within the last year I ended my 20 -year marriage after slowly coming to the realization it was a co -dependent relationship.
It had been an unhappy union for the last decade, and in the last few years, it had turned emotionally abusive.
I knew it needed to end as far back as ten years ago, but as so many do, I hung on.
I'd like to say I did it solely for the benefit of my daughter who was young at the time.
But if I'm being honest, I stayed because the price of leaving seemed too dear.
When a serious health scare shook me to my core, I knew I could no longer go on.
As you once pointed out in an earlier podcast, I had to save myself.
I ended my marriage, but in so doing I paid a terrible price, worse than I had imagined all those years ago.
Sugars, it has been nearly half a year since I have heard from my teenage daughter.
She is angry and blames me entirely for the discord between her mother and me.
She has that right.
I resolved early on that it is wrong for a parent, either of us, to involve our child in the terrible game of he said she said.
I kept my side of the story to myself.
My daughter has blocked me from all communication since leaving her mother.
Emails remain unanswered.
I cannot call. She's blocked me from her phone.
I love my daughter dearly.
I'm trying to give her the space she needs, but the silence kills me slowly, day by day.
Sugar's, how do I recover from this?
How do I move past the immense guilt I bear for staying longer than I should have in a marriage that turns so sour and vicious.
How do I repair a relationship with a daughter who refuses to even talk to me.
I played an equal part in a failed marriage, but I was a good and loving father and yet, I'm left with nothing.
Signed, Broken Dad.
Wow, that is a sad, hard letter.
Yeah. Can you imagine your kids not speaking to you?
I'm devastated when they won't talk to me for 30 seconds.
I'm devastated when they slam, you know, Josie's just gotten to the age where she will close her door and it's clear that I'm not allowed into the room and that levels me.
I mean it's every parent's nightmare.
So here's another letter, a variation on that, that theme.
Dear Sugars, I'm a 55 year old recently divorced mom of four wonderful children.
I married way too young, making all the Freudian mistakes possible.
I finally managed to get out from under the thumb of a strange and hate -filled man for whom I could never measure up.
The ex has filled our eldest child's head with lies and revised history that would be funny if it weren't being taken as gospel.
She and I were formerly so close.
Now, her only words to me are yelling that I'm a bully, and a cheater, and a liar.
I've done none of the things of which I've been accused.
It's just her father's way of saving face.
I adhered to my angles philosophy.
Leese said soon as mended.
So I did not respond to the allegations as they were lobbed at me, just shook my head and said, you know, that's not true.
How do I help her pull herself out of this hate hole so she can gracefully reenter my giant loving extended family from whom she has extracted herself with great drama because they were quote on my side signed missing my child you know this is this is the the nightmare here is that they're in a fight they don't want to be in both of these letter writers as people do more than half of the people who get into a marriage you know eventually leave that marriage and if their children involved the hope is you can hear on the undercurrent of both of these letters, I don't want it to be a conflict.
And I especially don't want that my side, their side, he said, she said to filter down to the kids.
And in both these cases, that has happened in really radical ways.
Right. So, yeah, in the first letter, Broken Dad says that his daughter is a teenager.
In the second letter, she doesn't say but it sounds like a teenager to me.
Yes. And so I wondered, too, as I read these, what I'm hoping is this alienation is temporary.
And also, you know, obviously both of these families are at a time of great turmoil.
And the kids, also, you know, as we know teenagers, I love them.
They're beautiful. They're powerful.
They're creative and interesting.
They're well, they're going through so many hormonal changes and they're volatile even often in, you know, in families that are not coming apart.
and so I do wonder also how much age plays a contributing factor.
Oh, I'm absolutely sure it does but I'm equally sure that any kid who is existing in a in an ecosystem where one parent has left, there's a divorce, is suddenly consciously and unconsciously under a certain kind of pressure to decide who was right and who was wrong and why it happened and the fundamental condition of childhood, whether you're a teenager where they buck against it a lot or younger, is helplessness.
You are the charge of your parents and as much as you want to feel you have power, this is right at the age where Rosalie's throwing tantrums, and it is the distillation of the fundamental crisis of childhood which is you do not have the power.
And in the most radical way you don't have the power to keep your parents from separating but you do have the power to decide who's right and who's wrong, and sometimes as in these systems there is one parent who is pushing for that to be a matter of conflict and for the other parent to be punished for leaving the marriage in the worst possible way, in the nightmare scenario which is, I'm gonna take the kids too, psychically.
Well it's, I mean, this is the beautiful thing about having a family and also the the really complicated and difficult thing.
I've seen this come into play actually in my own marriage is that, you know, I think I think most of us think, okay, a marriage is between two people.
What they do is their business.
And you try to sort of stay out of your friends' relationships and so forth.
And yet when you have kids, they are inevitably part of that relationship.
They have a front row seat to your love and romance or lack of it, right?
And so this divorce, you can't help but take it personally.
It is hard not to choose a side probably if you're a kid in the midst of that divorce, right?
I mean, I can see psychologically what my feeling is without knowing the other of these daughters that these letter writers are talking to us about is that, you know, they're hurt.
And so they're lashing out with anger, they're involved in a relationship that they're not a direct player in but they're so enmeshed with that bond, that pair bond, that they're part of it, really.
Absolutely, and what makes these letters so particularly thorny is laid over that tumult, and sort of psychic schism is an agenda.
And in both of these letters what they share is that there is a clear sense in the first and a pretty clear implication in the second that there is one parent who is fostering ...
In fact, both of them say that there are accusations that aren't generated by the kids in their internal struggle, but that are actually coming from the other parent, and this is why we are calling in an expert to help us with this it's dr. Richard Warshak who's the author of a couple of books he's a psychologist who's the author of the book divorce poison and also welcome back Pluto understanding preventing and overcoming parental alienation I think he's the guy who's gonna help us navigate on these rocky waters so I think we should give them a call.
Let's do it. Hello.
Hi is this Dr. Warshak?
Yes it is. Hi this is Steve Alm and I'm here with Cheryl Strade.
Hi both of you. Hi so you know we're calling you because we are faced with a couple of letters that are really tough for us to try to because they are so extreme and not just in the breakup of the marriage but in this active fostering of the conflict.
I assume you read both the letters.
I did. What are your thoughts?
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about the idea of what parental alienation is?
Well, parental alienation in the clearer sense of the term means a situation where a child, even a grown child develops a feeling of feeling disconnected emotionally from apparent and in some cases there's a good reason for it if the parent really has wronged the child who treated the child in a harsh uh...
or abusive matter uh...
but the kind of pr diversification that i thought that i'd like about the type of situation where a child rejects a parent without which justification that the child becomes involved in disputes between parents, and takes sides with one parent against the other parent, and really succumbs to efforts on the part of one parent to undermine the child's love and respect for the other parent.
And both of these letter writers are really asking the same question, what do I do in the face of not just a child who's alienated from me, but a former spouse who is inciting and fostering that hatred.
Exactly, and what I found interesting with these two letters, one is from a father, one is from a mother.
In one case we're dealing with an adolescent girl and in the other case with an adult child.
And so it really shows that this problem affects all types of families and that both mothers and fathers are at risk for this.
And I think your letter writers have both made the same most common mistake that parents in this situation do, which is that they're sort of hoping that time will heal the wound, and that taking the high road means to say nothing about what they see going on.
When they see the child succumbing to hearing only one side of the story, they leave the child in that situation as the mother said you know Lisa to be suspended and she was quoting my angles but my uncle's daughter Laura says it is still best to be honest and truthful and that's great and that's the problem here is that that if children hear only one side of the story then they're left to cope on their own with incomplete information that's resulting in the destruction of such an important relationship.
So I'd rather than rather than take a passive approach in order to try to maintain or rebuild some harmony.
I think it's important that parents in this situation step up and find some way to communicate the message to their children that I simply cannot accept being marginalized?
And so I suggest a more active approach, but one in which you're careful not to put down the other parent, but find a way to communicate, look there's another side to the story.
You don't have to tell your side of the story, but you do need to introduce the idea that there is another side to the story and that if you had all the facts you would think differently...certainly reminding the child of the relationship you had in the past, of all the things you've done for the child, reassuring the child there's nothing she or he could say that will ever end the relationship or keep you from loving the child.
It sounds like both of these kids are pretty volatile and angry.
Do you recommend face -to -face or letter writing, or how might you specifically reach out in these two cases?
In the case of the broken dad, his emails aren't being answered and his words blocked him from communication.
So one approach would be to try to use an intermediary if there is anyone in the family who recognizes the terrible price that this girl is paying for her parents' divorce and will intervene and to try to help the a child realize that she doesn't have to take sides in this, and it'd be better for her not to, that the divorce is between the parents and there's no reason why she needs to lose a parent as a result of the divorce.
So if there's a relative who has the ear of the child, that person can act as an intermediary.
Otherwise the father may need to use opportunities, for example, where his daughter does need something from him, a permission slip signed, auto insurance paid, anything like that, where he can say that's fine but I need to see you, make sure this is being used correctly, it's my responsibility as a father to make sure you have what you need and so we need to meet.
And although she'll maybe come to the meeting with a chip on her shoulder, it's still a beginning.
My His concern is that just as Broken Dad says that the silence is killing him slowly day by day, the relationship is dying as well.
The absence of contact is not allowing his daughter to see her dad and to be confronted with his love for her and basically to be able to see him through her own eyes, that she's seeing him through the eyes of her mother who's angry and who did not want to break up and and and the dad's taking all the heat for this when in reality we know that most relationships that fail each partner has some responsibility for the end of the relationship and in this case broken dad's daughters blaming him entirely, but if he accepts it and hopes that with space, you know, she'll come around, in the meantime,
he's missing out on a lot of important events in her life, and she's missing out on having dad there, he's not going to be in the photographs for graduation, for prom, those sorts of things.
And I think the message has to be both with words, but also an action that our relationship is too important for me to allow you to cut me out of your life." What happens when there is a divorce that's clearly like, let's say, the husband had an affair and a secret life was revealed, and then the marriage comes to an end, and when one of the partners is really angry, does feel betrayed, has reason to have those feelings, what happens in those cases when the kids feel, take a side because it's reasonable to defend one of the parents?
Well, that's right Cheryl.
That clearly, when the relationship ends, for example, as a result of an affair, then at least the precipitating event is the discovery of the affair.
And that parent bears responsibility for having betrayed a spouse and then with all the ripple effects that that creates.
Even then though, we wouldn't want children to identify the parent only with the worst mistake they've made.
It should not wipe out in the child's mind all the investment that the parent has in their child, all the things they've done, the entire history of the relationship, should not be wiped out by one behavior or one set of behaviors.
And in most cases, it actually isn't.
In most cases, despite the fact that one parent might have been more at fault for the failure the marriage than the other, children don't take sides, they're not expected to.
And they find some way to manage a relationship.
Our parents aren't perfect and, you know, we all learn to accept our parents and continue to love them despite things we might learn about them that are not, you know, what we would have liked to hear.
It's a matter of balancing the benefits versus the drawbacks of the relationship even, for example, even if your father has had an fair.
And that has resulted in a sudden and traumatic disruption of the family." That doesn't relieve the children's need for a father.
Right. Of course. Yeah, no, I think it's, I was curious about that because the mother who wrote the letter, the missing missing my child letter, I think you're right, that this eldest child probably is an adult if we, if she didn't say that the age, but she's 55, and she said she got married young.
What is, what's a different dynamic with the child who's, you know, a grown up him or herself?
Well, the interesting thing is that in that family, the mother speaks only about the eldest child as having become alienated.
And so this underscores that not every child reacts the same to the same circumstances.
And when it's an older one, the older one oftentimes feels that she has to be loyal to her dad.
But again, she's only hearing one side of the story, and we know that it's very easy for adults to be persuaded to a particular point of view if they only hear one side of the story.
That's what propaganda is all about.
That's why politicians are always running ads that only tell you the bad things about their opponents, with the idea of trying to sway your mind.
And psychically, kids also naturally are very tuned in at any age to their parent's weakness and sadness and they have a desire to protect a parent who is weaker and sadder.
You know, that's part of what's happening here, is that, especially in the letter from missing my child, this is a dad who sounds like he was, you know, controlling and full of anger and underneath that was a she says he wanted to save face and, you know, one suspects that this oldest child might be trying to, you know, kind of protect a dad who's suddenly been revealed as very weak.
Yes. That's, that's, that's a good point.
And ironically a child who's sort of very respectful and generally described by others as very loving and one whose heart goes out to a father who's suffering, uh, because he didn't want the breakup.
Um, ironically this child can actually be very cruel to her mother.
And part of it, though, is, as Steve points out, that she may feel that mom's strong enough to take it.
And she may, another part to this, though, is that she may feel more reassured that no matter what she says or does, mom will never stop caring about me.
Whereas dad's love may be seen as more conditional, that he needs me to side with him.
Right, you can act out with the safer parent.
Well, this has been so interesting.
I think that you've offered our letter writers a lot of great insight and advice, so thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
You're very welcome.
I have one other thought, which is that sometimes it does help just to educate children about this problem, to help them see it with a bit of distance.
For example, if there's a TV segment about it to direct the children's attention to it or even for Dear Sugar to let the children know that this problem that we have in our family is now being discussed.
I had created a video to help younger children and teenagers learn more about this problem and try to help them, encourage them to keep an open mind.
Where can they watch this video?
They can go to my website which is warshack .com, just learning about the problem can help them see another perspective about it.
Yeah, and certainly Broken Dad and Missing My Child, I know that you're alienated from your kids right now but, you know, maybe one of the things too, a way to reach out is send them a link to this podcast. You know, listening to this conversation that we've had with Dr. Warshak is like a, you know, might just open up some avenues of conversation to begin to mend this bond that's been not broken, but certainly temporarily severed.
And we'll also list that video in our show notes as well, link to how to find that.
Absolutely. But it's so important that parents not to give up.
Yeah, well, thank you.
Yeah, thank you so Thank you so much, Dr. Warschack.
You're very welcome, and nice speaking with both of you.
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I'm so glad that, you know, who knew that Dr. Warshak was also a little house on the prairie addict you know that he was able to say it's not Ma Engel's philosophy.
Lee said soon as men it's the response that matters right when Laura says still best to be honest and truthful and that's the the the counsel you could hear you know these are parents who wisely do not want to fight with their exes.
They do not want to fight, but they do need to fight for the love of their kids and their kids need to see that.
Yeah. In some ways, it's almost as if broken dad and missing my child, they receive that message too well, that message, never say anything negative about your child's other parent.
I think that that's a great value to hold and to honor.
But I want to say I think that there's also a way to speak plainly about some of the truths of your own life.
people always ask me how is it possible that your mom was able to talk to you about a father who was abusive and in the wrong without condemning him right and you know I was witness to that violence so when I what happened is what as I was growing up at various points along the way I needed to talk to my mom about it so that I could make sense of it right and my mother would she didn't deny those negative experiences.
She didn't say, no, no, you're not remembering correctly.
Your father's great.
She also didn't condemn my dad.
She didn't speak of my dad.
She would explicitly say, yes, your father made bad choices, he had an anger problem, but here are also the good qualities he had, here are the reasons that we fell in love with each other, here are the reasons we tried to work it out.
She tried to sort of help me get a balanced view of what a relationship might be, which is full of positive and negative.
Even my own parent's marriage had some positive attributes.
She also explicitly said to me, even really in the final days of her life, you can love your father, please don't think that you need to turn away from that relationship in order to be loyal to me.
What's interesting is I did feel loyal to my mother.
I do feel angry that my father hurt my mother, but my mother excused me from that loyalty.
I didn't reject my father because my mother wanted me to.
I rejected my father ultimately because I needed to make a healthy decision about my own life.
But I tried to have a relationship with my father.
I explored that relationship well beyond my mother's life.
And so I think that that's, you know, something for these letter writers to really think about, is that there are going to be ways that you can speak truthfully about your marriage without condemning your spouse, but yet also saying, look, life is more complicated than you might be, you know, seeing right now.
Right. You know, the overriding message is that if you're not fortunate enough to have a parent as gracious as your mother, Cheryl, well, if there is a parent who wants to make that marital discord essentially get in the way of the relationship, the parent who's being alienated has to impress upon the child, even if it doesn't take root immediately.
This is not about the marriage and the marital discord. It's about my love for you and the moment, and the moments when you're ready to love me back.
The one thing I can say that is quite beautiful and sort of redeeming and all this is that story I mentioned earlier about my friend who was devastated by his, you know, son pushing him away in really extreme ways.
That dad refused to go away, and he said to his son over and over and over again, I love you, I'm here, I love you, I'm here, call me this, do this or that to me, hurt me, stick the dagger in as deep as you want because you feel wounded, but I'm not going away and I love you and miraculously enough, he said, it's been repaired.
He's come back to me.
And it doesn't mean everything's perfect, but they are, again, like love prevailed.
Yeah, well, and these are bonds, they don't die easily.
And it's because it's a primal bond.
Those relationships we have with the mother and the father are essential to us and they, in so many ways, especially early on, define who we are and what we think of ourselves and what we think of the world and of others.
It's so important in this moment, for missing my child and for a broken dad, to get the message across by email, by an intermediary, directly, however you can do it.
My love for you is sacred.
It's permanent. It's not going away.
And I am eagerly awaiting with an open heart the moment where you are ready to enact that love with me.
Good luck. Please write to us and let us know how things progress.
Yeah, please do. Dear Sugar Radio is produced by WBUR.
We're produced and edited by Lisa Tobin.
We're recording in Portland, Oregon.
Our engineer is Josh Millman of Talk Back Sound and Visual.
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