Parental-Alienation Playbook and Three-Quarters Custody: A Father Speaks Out

By JULIAN ANDREWS

Custody of children becomes a major issue when a couple divorces. Worse, these issues can linger long after the settlement in the form of parent alienationwhen one parent seeks to keep the other parent from being active and involved with the children they share. In Parental-Alienation Playbook and Three-Quarters Custody, author Julian Andrews presents an overview of parent-alienation syndrome (PAS), how you can recognize when its happening to you, and how to speak out to defend you and your children.

Based on his personal experiences with his ex-wife and their three children, Andrews illustrates how the outdated court system facilitates PAS, but also shows how an alienated parent can directly speak out through the legal and court systems.

Andrews proposes the concept of three-quarter shared physical custody as a national solution and a bridge against parental alienation forces in the twenty-first century. Parental-Alienation Playbook and Three-Quarters Custody promotes momentum toward three-quarter custody arrangements so parental alienation can become a condition of the past, and children and parents can be free of the divisive nature and consequences that PAS creates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462063420

JULIAN ANDREWS

Julian Andrews is a noncustodial parent who has experienced seven and a half years of parental alienation. He has worked as an engineer in the US auto industry since 1996. Andrews lives in Michigan and graduated from both of its Big Ten Universities during the 1990s.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

About the Author

My 16,000-plus words show just how seven-and-a-half out of fifteen years can begin and end with parental alienation. At this midpoint of my children’s youth, I dedicate this text to Matthew L., Madelyn R., and Michael E., and to all PAS parents.

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Introduction

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This book is a guide and a case study on how to recognize when parental alienation is happening to you and how to speak out to defend your children and yourself against it. Parental alienation may be motivated by one parent’s fear of losing child custody or desire to destroy the other parent’s (noncustodial) relationship with the child.

An alienating parent seeks to keep the other parent from being active and involved with the children they share. The general tactic is to disagree on the simple logistics of shared parenting. This can be done by refusing to commit or respond to any requests from the noncustodial parent. It’s a subtle way of shutting down opportunities for the other parent to gain positive time and to create inroads into the lives of the children.

Unfortunately, court systems are often blind to these techniques. When an alienating parent denies using these particular strategies, courts may simply decide to pick a side and favor the custodial parent because it is more expedient to create a simple winner than to address apparent alienation issues. Judges and courts would like to not acknowledge that parental alienation syndrome (PAS) can in fact be promoted by the outdated custody laws that exist across the nation today.

The inspiration for this book comes from seven-and-a-half years of living with and experiencing this syndrome. My three children and I were divided by a highly contested divorce in 2004. Being now halfway through the entire process of support payments, which will total hundreds of thousands of dollars, and now with my youngest child just reaching teenage years, this is an ideal time for me to reflect on recent experiences and to transfer a great deal of knowledge to those who will be (or are now) experiencing a similar custody-access alienation.

The names of people and places in this book have been changed for anonymity reasons and for generic descriptive purposes. The events are true to my personal experiences and reflect an alienated parent’s point of view.

The recent prominence of the PAS issue and increased activism by Jill Egizii and Alec Baldwin have shed light on the fact that this is a national issue that affects even the more affluent and not just the middle class and poor in our society. There has been much said about the antiquated winner take all family court system that makes it easy for one parent to alienate the other for power and control.

Parental alienation can be accomplished simply because an alienating parent is given the right by a state and/or county government to do so. To an individual citizen and parent, this can become a powerful and oftentimes divisive right. It is long past time to recognize and address the problem of parental alienation; systemic reforms and fixes must be put in place.

From my view, the root cause of parental alienation is the outdated court system’s lack of opportunity for parents to effectively mediate upon right of first refusal for shared parenting time and custody issues. Right of first refusal is utilizing the other parent as the first caregiver of choice. Daycare or childcare, outside of the will of both parents can often be a financial failure. Instead of 100 percent physical custody or 50/50 joint custody, courts should now consider an option that is called 75 percent physical custody or three-quarters joint physical custody.

Three-quarters custody is a system whereby a non-custodial parent pays 75% of established child support and receives 25% increased parenting time in return. It is a bridge between non-physical custody and joint physical custody. This three-quarters system still allows for one parent, usually the mother, to exercise the majority of physical custody, which is by nature desired; however, it also affords the other parent (most often the father, but in much smaller percentages the mother) a court-recognized option of 25 percent physical custody with full right of first refusal. Right of first refusal means that the co-parent is given access and most importantly first opportunity to have the children rather than employing the use of baby