Would like to hear from those who have dealt with a spouse that tried to alienate their child or step child from the parent or step parent. What did you do about it, and have you had any success in salvaging the relationship?

My situation....ex was having an affair, when I caught him he filed for divorce, told me that his GF didn't want to have the responsibility of our girls who were 1 & 6 at the time, said he would not be one of those that pestered me for visitation and he never did. I had 100% custody and he had visitation that was not specifically stimulated.

After the divorce he started telling my friends/our friends/his family that I had been cheating on him and several more things that were not true. I believe he was trying to cover his own actions and could not admit that he was the one that had the affair and left the marriage. He then left town and made no contact for 2 years. No child support. I was trying to locate his employer. The man left me with a huge debt with his business and I was just barely making ends meet. He and his lady friend break up, he had also been unfaithful to her and he jumps to a girl half the age of is older affair lover.

The young girl wanted to unite ex with his children and so husband came back into the girls' lives. I extended my friendship to his new GF, I actually felt very sorry for her, she was so young and naive. He and I talked and I told him that I wanted our kids to know their step parents as a 2nd parent and that they had 2 dads and 2 moms, he agreed and the relationship my girls had with his new GF was good and the relationship I had with her was also good, infact I preferred dealing with her.

Then when the girls would spend time with their father they'd come back saying that their dad told them the reason he left was I was doing drug, had lived with another man while we were married, was taking them to the bars and leaving them in the car while I partied. None of this was true which I would explain to my children. I talked to ex and he would then tell me that he didn't say these things. Years of this has continued right into my children's adult years. Ex has been determined that he is going to make me the bad guy and he was the poor victim. My ex is very convincing, very manipulative but not much of what comes out of his mouth is the truth.

He cheated on his second wife and they divorced. My children watched and were very aware of what he was doing. He went thru several more GF and some how he figured out ow to justify his behavior with each additional GF, just bizarre.

My oldest daughter is daddy's girl and totally sees anything her dad does as acceptable and I am the bad guy in her book. Years now too she has told a variety of lies, just like her dad, about me and how I have treated her. Good thing is that my daughter has not been nearly as convincing. Her target audience is her step brothers who support all the lies and the nonsense my daughter tells them which is no surprise. Sad thing is she has worked my my grand children to fill their heads too with lies of how awful I treated her. This daughter was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (which I have little doubt my ex has too) when she was 18 an it has been a nightmare to say the least.

I have been with my second husband for 26 years, he too had full custody of his sons. Bio mom left their sons behind when they were 2 & 4, I met them all 3 years after their divorce. She had done the same, left to start a new family and made no contact til she was remarried and had another child which was almost 2 years. Once she found out someone was in the picture (me) she then wanted her sons back. There was no befriending her and that was made clear. I think she felt she was the only capable parent. The boys started making visits and we had the same issues as with the girls and their father....she too was filling the boys' heads with lies. She told them that they didn't need to listen to me, on and on. She kept telling the boys she was going to get them out of our house. My husband wouldn't talk to her, I tried but if anything it just made it worse.

All these years I was the main parent to all 4 children, we had full custody and I tried to make it as much of an intact family as possible. The bio parent on both sides were not good about making regular contact and basically only seen them for a few weeks out of the summer and sometimes a visit at Christmas. I always felt that eventually the kids would see the destructive ways of their bio parent that had abandoned them and they would see thru their lies and see what we dealt with but that has not been the case. Of those 4 children, now age 30-34, only one has contact. The other 3 support the parent that told the lies to alienate them from us.

Anyone have a similar experience? What have you done?