I recently was in the hospital and one of my nurses (male) is going into a divorce. Left church, TBM wife forced him out. Kids now hate him for causing the divorce. It has been decades since my divorce so any suggestions I make are not reality now.


Any suggestions for this father how to rebuild relationship with kids. It is so sad how tscc can cause corruption in the family unit. I gave him website to look for support.

My suggestion is not to give him any advice except to direct him to a qualified marriage counseling service.

Be there to listen but don't give any advise.

Mormon marriages are ticking time bombs with built-in parental alienation.

I would suggest counseling too. I'm not sure how well it would be accepted by kids who are brainwashed to think secular counseling is bunk. Still, it's worth a try. Divorcing families really do need counseling by a real psychologist, not, say, a veterinary psychologist.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XFdwLNiZq7M

I divorced in my early 40's. Drove away with a car full of clothes and a few personal items. However, I refused to budge on splitting up the assets. Fifty-percent was mine, period. In the end thats how everything split, I let her keep all the stuff that continued to give the impression that all was good in TBM land.

Then I just lived as normal, had a few bad moments for the first few years, but I got over them. As my kids grew older, they discovered Dad. On visitation days we went to movies, ate out, spent lots of hours in the local arcade, had my head stuck inside an engine compartment with one boy and his jeep. We went to California, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Paid for one mission and never complained. The priesthood treated my boys like crap (which I knew they would), because I was now divorced They all figured out Dad was not the person mom or church leadership described. Mom just sat at home, lived in a filthy house with several dogs, and complained about me all the time. House was so dirty, one of my boys told me he never sat on the carpet or took off his shoes.

Now my kids visit me often, the grandkids love staying at my house. Nobody wants to go to mom's\grandma, because all she does is complain and yell, and of course never cleans anything.

So tell him to live, and prove them all wrong.

I forgot to add:

Outside of just saying "live". Don't get involved, he has to run his own course.

Agreed. I went through this, just take the high road, eventually kids will realize what the truth is.

Thanks for the responses. I don’t intend to get into it. Just an idea.

I agree with Silence is Golden. Play the long game. Get a good lawyer and don't back down on 50/50 asset split or custody. Give the kids time to SEE that dad is still a good man. The church's biggest error is believing that verbal indoctrination will overcome what children can actually see happen in reality. Fight the legal battle early and hard, and play the long game in winning the hearts and minds of the kids.


HH =)

My husband and his ex wife divorced in 2000. At the time, they were both fairly new Mormon converts, and she was taking her son and their two daughters to church. She used the church as a parental alienation tool, then remarried and had two more kids with her subsequent husband, who also converted to Mormonism for her.

As the people on this message board who know our story can attest, she went to great lengths to alienate my husband from his ex stepson and two daughters. My husband eventually resigned from the church, and she used that against him. Although he paid plenty of child support, she made it impossible for him to be in touch with his daughters. They had virtually no contact at all after 2004, when he had his last visit with them, and 2006, when they sent letters demanding that he sign adoption papers, which he did not do.

BUT… we have had a somewhat happy ending. Older daughter is still estranged and, at almost 32, still lives with her mother as kind of an indentured servant. Younger daughter moved out at age 18, went on a mission, got married, and reconnected with her real dad, my husband. She has turned out to be a wonderful, kind woman. She has three kids, and she lets us be in their lives (albeit from afar, because we live in Germany and she’s in Utah).

We have regular video chats, and we get to see the kids that way. My husband visited in person in March 2020, just before he couldn’t anymore. And his daughter knows that her mother is frankly nuts… It actually has little to do with the church. She just used the religion as a tool.

I definitely would recommend legal help if your friend can afford it (we couldn’t). But I would also recommend playing the long game and realizing that kids grow up and are a lot smarter than some adults realize. And even when the alienation was at its worst, life continued to be worth living.

It is wonderful to have my husband’s daughter’s family in our lives, even though they are very active church members. I never thought we’d see the day. And his ex wife now just looks like a huge fool. She treats her kids the same way she treated my husband; so now, the two of them who managed to escape have very little to do with her anymore.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2023 01:30AM by knotheadusc.