When you start hearing words like gate-keeping, alienation and reunification in connection with your divorce, understand that the ride is going to be getting rough indeed. These words signal a high conflict situation to the professionals involved. If you are new to this arena, you may be asking what these terms mean.
The distinction between gate-keeping and alienation can be thin. Gate-keeping essentially involves one parent (say, the mother) appropriately removing the children from the other parent’s presence. When parents are living together in an intact relationship, gate-keeping may occur through the everyday division of labor and no one bats an eye. If, for example, mom notices that dad is unwell or not in a great mood, she may take the children to the playground for a few hours. In this way, she restricts the father’s access to the children. This example shows how gate-keeping is often presented in custody litigation as arising from good intentions. The mother in this example is allowing the father time to recover physically or to do something for himself to improve his mood.
When gate-keeping presents in the context of separation and divorce, it can quickly be alleged to have been undertaken with nefarious intent and with the active desire to preclude one parent from having a relationship with the children. In such a situation, the mother’s actions would become alienation of the father from the children. In some instances this is exactly what is going on. For whatever reason, the mother is desiring to have more – or all – of the parenting time. The difficulty lies in discerning the true intent behind mother’s actions. Dad’s attorney will allege alienation. Mom’s attorney will argue gate-keeping. And conflict will rise.
In my past experience as custody evaluator, in cases where alienation was alleged, I would sometimes see a series of escalating allegations. First, there would be allegations of neglect on the part of the other parent (ie. dressing the child improperly for the weather, failing to properly feed the children during access time). Then there would be allegations of physical abuse (ie. striking the child and leaving a mark) with, interestingly, no formal action by the Department of Social Services in response to any reports. Then, finally, there would be allegations of sexual abuse (ie. inappropriate touching, co-sleeping with an older child). The fact that there were enough cases with this pattern would lead me to question the validity of the underlying claims. And that’s unfortunate, because sometimes the claims were likely true. In other instances the claims were, at a minimum, anxiety and suspicion allowed to run amok - and other times downright intentionally embellished versions of the truth.
In my current work as a divorce coach working with adults who are experiencing separation, I am finding allegations of alienation to be almost commonplace.
I tell my clients that, in my opinion, one of the most difficult aspects of separation and divorce – and one that, in my own opinion, contributes significantly to these allegations of alienation that I see so frequently – is the sheer grief associated with no longer waking up every morning and seeing your children’s sleepy faces. Most separated parents awaken, at least some of the time, to a lonely breakfast table.
Once these high conflict cases with allegations of alienation wind their way through the court system, I am sometimes asked to serve as a reunification therapist. In my experience, this is a thankless job. The parent who has not been spending time with the children just wants to take them home and put them to bed, safe and sound. The other parent often does not feel an obligation to participate and does not feel the “alienated” parent should be reunified with the children. The children are caught in the middle and weary from all of it. Nobody wants to go therapy. And resolving – reunifying – is hard work, indeed.