I don’t know if this is the right forum for this story. I hope that someone can provide insight or advice…please!

A mother of four wonderful, bright, energetic children, all under the age of 15, loves life but her strength is waning. She is bright, involved, strong, a fourth-grade teacher and holds as her highest priority the health and well being of her four children. She is more than three years divorced. Being the parent of primary residence she is responsible for the care of her children most of the time. She wishes she did not need their father’s help in any way. That would make things easier; much easier. The stories of their father’s penchant for creating a miserable environment for the children are too numerous to list here, but the children don’t want to spend anymore time with him.

There seems nothing more to do. The kids tell stories of how their father tells them in a derisive tone that their neighbor, the children’s friend, is gay. He routinely reminds them that their mother is an awful person. He sits them down for “family meetings” to show them cancelled checks to their mother. He makes fun of their cousins and tells them that their aunt, his sister, is not to be trusted. He involves the children in his adult matters and uses the children as messengers to their mother. When the children ask not to be in the middle of matters concerning mom and dad, he and his new wife tell them that they NEED to know these things. The two oldest girls have it the worst. They understand the ugly words he uses to describe their mother and they are now old enough to ask him to stop. He refuses to let them attend friends’ functions seemingly for the sole reason of crushing their spirits. They sometimes secretly call to say goodnight to their mother in a whispering voice so that dad won’t hear and yell at them for talking to mom. They have written him letters trying to share their feelings; isn’t that what young adults are supposed to do? They attend counseling and share their thoughts with the hope that someone can make it so that they don’t have to go to their father’s home anymore. His mental abuse is more than they can handle.

So they cry. Since the courts were not able to see through his lies, now they cry. Last week was the last of their two-weeks vacation with dad. They spent most of that time waiting for it to be over. Now they have to go back to dad’s for one last long weekend and they don’t want to go. Last night was hard. What do you tell a child who has not hardly smiled in two days because she knows she will have to return to her father’s home in the morning? Their mother feels helpless. So they cry. Their mother has tried the remedies that the courts define to no avail. It seems it has only made him more angry towards the children and her. His feelings now of distrust for his children make it so that none of them are allowed in his house alone…ever. If the youngest has soccer practice on a beautiful Saturday, the oldest, now 15 years old, must go, too. She has been denied opportunities to finish homework and school projects because he does not trust them home alone. So mom receives a text that usually says nothing more than “you have to get me out of here!”

When mom asked the courts to enforce their divorce decree due to his nonpayment of shared expenses, he countered with pages of unsubstantiated and ugly lies that he presented to the courts asserting that the children are in constant physical and mental harm due to their mother’s actions. He has plenty of time to dream up such lies since he has not worked in over 18 months. Even unsubstantiated, the court felt it necessary to deliver a warning to her that those were very serious allegations and that she should change her ways. The court then turned to her ex and wished him good luck in finding a job in this tough economy.

She never speaks badly of dad to the children and speaks of nothing in front of them. She tries to console her children and tell them that everything will be okay. What if it will not be okay? What if the only predictable outcome of his actions continues to be his unpredictability? The children speak of dad’s shelf of medicine bottles in his office. He tells them that there are cameras in the house and they can be seen. What if dad’s unpredictability and anger is from the bottles in dad’s office?

What can be done? Who do you turn to in these situations? I’ve only scratched the surface here. How does a mother listen to their childrens’ pleas through the many tears and feel there is nothing more that can be done? Their mom’s strength is waning yet there seems no end to the tears.