Welcome to Always & Forever

Welcome.

If you are experiencing parental alienation, you have found the right place. Always & Forever is here to help you cope through your estrangement and prepare for your child's "light bulb" moment when they realize they deserve to have a relationship with both parents once again.

My name is Tiffany Redden, and I am a formerly alienated parent.

This being my first post, I am including a short version of my alienation experience below, but rest assured that the purpose of this blog is sharing methods and resources for dealing with this excruciating situation and staying the course back to your child.

My Story:

After eighteen years of marriage, my husband and I separated in 2012. He had been largely disengaged from our family unit for a long time, so I was encouraged by his new-found interest in our two adolescent daughters, Emily and Sydney. I actually remarked to my mother that it was hopeful that he spent more time with them in those first two weeks of separation than he had in the past two years.

Little did I know those words would later haunt me.

As our divorce proceeded, our children's behavior changed. As you might expect, they became angry, defiant, and argumentative. Schoolwork suffered. My normally close relationship with my daughters suffered.

But, they weren't just upset about the changes and loss. They began to glorify my ex while vilifying me. I later learned that this is a sign of splitting, a psychological defense mechanism that is often associated with parental alienation. Parental alienation is defined as the result of psychological manipulation of a child into showing unwarranted fear, disrespect or hostility towards a parent and/or other family members.

Despite my efforts, including attempts with mediation, counseling, and legal assistance, the alienation became extreme and comprehensive. My daughters refused to come to my house, answer my phone calls, or reply to my texts. If they saw me in public, they would scream hysterically and run away, slam doors in my face, and refuse to address me as a person, not to mention as a parent. I was blocked on all social media. I missed out on Mother's Days, birthdays, and holidays.

This alienation lasted nearly two years, and eventually extended to family members and friends who were associated with me. It was absolutely brutal. Most mornings, I had to literally talk myself into getting up out of bed. Yes, I mean out loud. I told myself to do each motion -- to sit up, move the covers back, put one foot on the ground, then the other...

I learned how to slog through the agony, how to hone in on my unwavering goal, and how to set a pace that I could maintain until I reached that goal. I learned how to foster a constructive mindset, despite the mayhem and emotional pain.

Our reunification began when my older daughter Emily sent a reply to one of my texts in August 2014, after over a year of phone silence. I was at work, and about fell out of my office chair!

Emily ended up moving in with me, which gradually paved the way for reconnecting with my younger daughter Sydney. The journey back has been slow, with plenty of twists and turns. But, having my daughters back in my life is worth everything to me.

If you are currently in a parental alienation situation, you can get through this! I am just a regular person. I am not a psychologist or an attorney. I didn't have significant resources or any special ability. I was just a parent determined to have a relationship with my daughters again.

Let me help you get there.

Subscribe to this blog. Find me on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Send me your questions. I will do my best to address them in future blogs and videos.

Until next time, hang in there. A parent's love for their child is always and forever, no matter what.

What's Love Got to Do with It? -- Part One: When Moving On Motivates Alienation

Yes, I am going there.

Today, I am tackling the dreaded topic of your love life. Actually, this elephant in the room is such a humdinger, it deserves TWO articles.

This is Part One: When Moving On Motivates Alienation. Make yourself comfortable, and let's dig in.

When I separated from my husband of 18 years, I researched the best way to go about it. I read articles about how to have a "good" divorce. How to part ways as peacefully as possible. How to avoid traumatizing your kids through the process.

I printed the best ones and gave them to my ex, naively believing he would gravitate towards the same page. Let's just say that didn't happen. < Cue laughter from Captain Obvious.>

For several months, we did have a workable 50/50 schedule, albeit with plenty of growing concerns: deteriorating communication, lack of schedule compliance, and increasing hostility from my girls.

One day, I received an invitation to a grown-up birthday party. It happened to fall on a kid-free weekend, and I finally felt ready to go out and be an adult. Let's go! Woot, woot!

I got dressed up, grabbed an old friend to come along, and went to enjoy some great company, live music, and sangria. I smiled and laughed. I danced. I met fun, new people.

A couple of days later, I learned that photos of the event had been posted online. My ex was enraged to see evidence of my moving on. Looking back at that conversation, I can now recognize early threats of alienation, but the concept was so foreign and unfathomable to me at the time, I didn't understand what was to come.

My daughters' anger at me skyrocketed immediately afterwards, suggesting that my evening out had been shared with them in a derogatory manner.

A short time later, my ex brought a date and one of her children to my older daughter's ballet performance. While it was a surprise to me, I was determined to weather the situation with a smile. But, the bigger surprise was my own kids shunning me in public for the first time.

I was home doing laundry and chores the following day, when my younger daughter burst through the front door and ran to her room without saying a word. She frantically grabbed a pile of clothes and ran back out to my ex's car idling on the driveway -- refusing help, refusing to explain what was wrong. She didn't come back for two years.

And, just like that, I was erased.

The new girlfriend promptly moved in with my ex, along with her two young children. By Mother's Day, social media was decorated with shiny pictures of their new combined family unit.

Meanwhile, my stunned heart bled.

So, how can good intentions spiral into a hideous nightmare so fast?

NEWS FLASH:  It only seemed fast. I was hosed from the start. I just didn't know it.

If you are experiencing any significant degree of alienation from your children, we can assume that your relationship with your ex had no shortage of dysfunction. The groundwork for alienation began a long time ago. It was woven into the fabric of your family dynamics, well before your divorce began.

When I talk with other alienated parents, our stories are eerily similar -- filled with boundary issues, enabling, imbalance, acceptance of negative behaviors, tolerating chaos. Your children have been raised in that environment. They understand deeply that you are either on your ex's team or you are the enemy.

Alienation isn't a sudden turn in the road, even if it seems that way. It is a lifetime campaign of your ex versus anyone not on their side.

Parental alienation typically amplifies when you or your ex moves on.

If you move on, your ex may feel jealous or threatened. Your becoming a separate entity is a personal offense, a blow to their ego. They may chafe at the reminder that you are no longer on their team or the feeling that they have lost influence over you.

If your ex moves on, your existence may become inconvenient for the new "perfect family" script. They may no longer have use for you. Your ex might use negative stories about you to gain alliance with their new partner. Your ex's new relationship will likely be as dysfunctional as yours was and may involve jealousy, control, and anger management issues.

Your child will be drawn into this dynamic, which will seem familiar and "safe," while your own burgeoning independence will seem foreign and scary them. You are now an outsider.

Remember that it is entirely normal to move on after divorce. Ideally, it is handled in a respectful, mindful manner with regard to your children. With alienation, you don't have that luxury. Articles and mainstream advice will not adequately prepare you for a successful experience.

As always, I encourage you to employ any legal resources that are reasonably available to you to preserve contact with your child. Beyond that, one of your best investments is exploring and healing your relationship issues behind alienation and the deterioration of your relationship with your ex. Work with a counselor. Read books. Join support groups. Do the work.

You originally selected your ex for a reason. Things went sideways for a reason.

Making progress with your child depends upon solving those issues for yourself. Avoiding another dysfunctional relationship in the future depends upon solving those issues. New chaotic relationships will move you away from your child and drain your energy. Make your personal development a priority.

Allow me to state clearly: This is not your fault. It isn't fair. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand. Keep your focus on progress that is under your control.

What's Love Got to Do With It? -- Part Two: Dating During Alienation

The Challenge of Childless Parenting

During my alienation, I leaned into my yoga practice to help me cope with the ongoing trauma and to develop the mental and emotional discipline I needed to navigate the chaos. It wasn't unusual to find me at yoga class after work.

One evening, I was running a little late, so I quietly found an open corner in the front of the darkened room for my mat. When the lights were turned on after savasana, I discovered that my younger daughter -- who hadn't spoken to me for over a year -- had attended the same yoga class in the back row!

In shock, I approached her. She ignored me altogether, collected her things without a word, and walked away, refusing to make eye contact. I was crushed. I texted her after she left, to which she replied that I was merely her "birth mother" and meant nothing further to her. Ouch.

While she was certainly not the first angry teenager to make a harsh declaration along those lines, her words were sadly symbolic of how my role as a parent had been completely eroded by alienation.

Not only did I have no parenting time, contact or updates about what was going on in my girls' lives, there was also no way to listen to their daily ups and downs or offer guidance, support, advice and perspective. I couldn't say yes or no to any decision or activity. I didn't even know what those events might be.

I had no voice. No function. No role.

I wasn't notified when my daughter took a fall off of a horse that fractured a vertebra. I hadn't been told that she was taking riding lessons in the first place, who the instructor might be, or where the stables were located. I couldn't check on how she was feeling, express my concerns about the type of painkillers prescribed, or push for the diagnostic imaging early on.

I also didn't know when my older daughter graduated a year early from high school. I couldn't hug her and tell her how proud I was of her or take her out to dinner to celebrate her accomplishment. I couldn't express how impressed I was that she had accepted a full-time contract with a professional ballet company at the tender age of seventeen.

Mother had become a painfully empty, meaningless title. Allow me to be blunt: Being a parent at this point was dismal and depressing. At best.

I managed to find a few ways to funnel my restless parenting instincts:

• Dialogue -- I talked aloud to my kids -- even though they weren't there -- usually when I was driving in my car, alone. I would express that I missed them, share stories about what life was like when I was their ages, muse about current events that I imagined might be impacting their lives. This helped me process my thoughts and feel like a parent for a moment or two. And, I felt I was sending them my love from a distance.
• Borrow -- I spent time with my friend's kids, as I could manage it. This was a bittersweet experience. At times, it was a great distraction to go trick-or-treating, play at the park, or attend birthday parties with rambunctious little ones. At other times, it would smoosh me emotionally to attend a baby shower.
• Journal -- I found it helpful to dump my emotions and thoughts onto paper and release them by destroying my writings later. Some parents create journals of advice with the intent of giving them to their child when they return and the time is right. I love this idea, but would caution you to make any content for your kids positive and non-accusatory.

After the yoga class that night, I met up with some old friends who were familiar with my alienation. I shared my difficult experience with them, but they had an enlightening perspective. They concluded that my daughter likely came to this particular yoga class on purpose, knowing it was a class I attended regularly. 

Oh. Even though it was a seemingly negative, hurtful interaction, it was actually a covert act of reaching out on her behalf. One that was safe, given her situation. 

Parental alienation is ugly, unnatural, damaging, and just plain wrong. If you are being extensively alienated from your child's life, you very well may have little to no active role for the time being. Your child's attempts at contact with you might look like the opposite.

But, once a parent, always a parent. Your child still needs you. No one said parenting was going to be easy. You just happen to need to develop ninja-level skills. Find ways to keep whatever connection you can, while also developing and growing as a person.

At the very least, you can demonstrate that a person can thrive despite being outside of the alienating parent's team. You can show loyalty, resilience, and longevity. You can exhibit patience, unconditional love, and healthy boundaries. Healing and developing yourself increases the chance of your child reconnecting with you one day.

Staying power is everything.

My dad first introduced me to the concept of staying power, or the ability to maintain an activity or commitment over time. Those many years ago, he used it as a business reference, a company having the reserves to keep the doors open until it reached a stage of profitability.

Staying power ended up being a critical consideration for me when I found myself in the thick of parental alienation. I was exhausted, discouraged, and my resources were depleted.

I had tried legal assistance, mediation, and various types of counseling (all expensive ventures). I was paying copious amounts of child support each month, yet had zero interaction with my two teenage daughters.

I was also operating in a severe emotional deficit. Repeatedly reaching out into the dark only to be met with rejection bruises the soul. And, yet, I could not, would not ever stop. My rejectors were my own children, and this situation was not of their choosing.

To say I was exhausted is an understatement, and my go-to coping activities (hiking, racquetball or cardio kickboxing, with a yoga chaser) weren't working enough anymore. My cousin Cheryl, an avid runner, helped me see that I had passed the "sprint" phase of my plight and was now in a marathon. I needed to adjust my pace for the long run.

Keeping the door cracked open with your child during alienation, to whatever tiny degree is possible, is essential for the possibility of reconnecting one day. Your effort makes you that much more accessible when their "light bulb" moment of realization happens, and they are ready to consider that you may not be the enemy. Attempts at contact, even if each gesture is rebuffed, are counter-evidence demonstrating that you are NOT an evil monster who doesn't care.

At one point, I was so entirely cut out of my daughters' lives that my only source of information about them was the grapevine -- random comments, screenshots and updates via friends who still had some level of contact with my kids and were brave enough to share a few details with me.

This is how I learned my older daughter Emily graduated a year early from high school. While I was leaving my office one evening, I received a text from a friend who had seen Emily's graduation mentioned on Facebook. The news stopped me in my tracks. Being left out of this landmark moment brought tears to my eyes, much to the awkward dismay of a young coworker who immediately regretted asking if I was okay.

I was fairly certain that my daughters were still receiving my texts, although many months had gone by without any sort of response at that point. My texts had admittedly become pathetic, between my lack of knowledge about what was happening in their lives and a massive communication black hole. I was also keenly aware that everything I did was "wrong" and used to campaign against me. Stretches of unanswered "I love you" messages seemed desperate, so I interspersed them with remarks about the weather and current events.

It sounds a bit ridiculous to someone who hasn't experienced alienation, but I began to notice that the simple act of sending a one-sided text -- which had become hugely important to maintain -- had developed a weighty emotional price for me. To set a pace that I could maintain for the long haul, I had to mindfully observe what frequency of black-hole texts I could send without feeling overly defeated and risk losing momentum.

If you are experiencing parental alienation, start evaluating your efforts and whether you are able to continue them over a long period of time. Financial considerations are important, but don't underestimate less tangible resources, like time, energy, and emotional stability. Your goal is long-term staying power, setting a pace that you can maintain for an undetermined length of time.

Hang in there. If you have questions for me or suggestions for related topics that you'd like me to address, send me a message.