Parent Alienation
Excerpt from The New Divorce Paradigm –Transitioning Your Divorce with Integrity
by Moreah Ragusa

My first marriage, which I entered into when I was just 17 and seven months pregnant—with another man’s child—lasted four years. Together, my husband in that marriage, then aged 19, and I produced two daughters. We were parents to three girls under the age of four and, still being children
ourselves, were ill equipped in many ways to do the difficult work that is required of the partners in a marriage.

The marriage was brutally painful, as it was laced with infidelity and psychological and emotional cruelty. My husband had never really wanted to marry me in the first place. Consequently, the same pain that thrived within the marriage visited us in our divorce. The divorce process and the custody battle took over three years to complete. And to this day, the emotional scars resulting from the court decision to give him the primary care of the girls remain on all my children, particularly my still alienated daughter. After 21 years, she remains largely absent from her siblings’ life and from mine. It was this divorce experience that caused me to become so passionate about working with, and facilitating healing between, separating and divorcing couples. It was this heart-wrenching divorce that has made me an expert on the impacts of custody fights and, in particular, Parent Alienation Syndrome and its lifelong effects. My daughters, two of whom were under the “spell” of Parent Alienation Syndrome for 14 years, as well as the daughter who still is under that spell, are deeply scarred.
The impact of this syndrome will forever shape their futures and the way they would handle a divorce and any future custody decisions that may result from their ending any parenthood relationships they might enter into. Children who have been influenced by Parent Alienation Syndrome are also difficult to integrate into new marital unions.

Parent Alienation Syndrome is a label given when children have been prevented, emotionally, psycho
logically, and geographically, from having a loving relationship with one of their parents. One of the
parents is making the children feel guilty for loving the other parent. Some children are punished
psychologically for wanting a relationship with the alienated parent. This was what my daughter
endured. Normally when this occurs, one of the parties of the divorcing couple is using the child or
the children to hurt or manipulate the other parent for unresolved pain they are harboring. In my case, it was the new woman in my first husband’s life who was the instigator of this syndrome.
Although some parents feel justified in sheltering or alienating the child, or removing the child’s other
parent from their life, this is often done under the mask of some perceived or imagined abuse that the
non-custodial parent is being accused of and thus punished for. All this is accomplished under the
pretext that the parent is protecting the child from the abuser. All cases of Parent Alienation Syndrome
emerge as a result of deep hatred that is felt by the custodial parent towards their former spouse. If abuse were, in fact, happening, the abusive parent should still be permitted to have a relationship with their child; the relationship would just need to be supervised to protect the child.

Once unrecognized by the courts, Parent Alienation Syndrome is now widely acknowledged for its long-ranging impact on the relationship between a parent and their child or children.