I'll go first — my story

Introduce Yourself
1

I’ll go first — my story

Hey everyone. I’m Malcolm, and I guess I should start with the hardest part: I haven’t seen my daughter Emma in two years and four months. She’s fourteen now. Was twelve when this all started.

I keep thinking I should have some profound opening, something wise that justifies why I wrote a book about this nightmare and built this whole community. But honestly? I’m just a dad who got steamrolled by something I didn’t even know had a name until I was drowning in it.

It started the way these things always seem to — slowly, then all at once. My ex-wife Sarah and I divorced when Emma was ten. Messy but not vicious, you know? Or so I thought. The first few months were actually okay. Emma came over weekends, we’d make pancakes, watch terrible movies. Normal divorced dad stuff.

Then Sarah met Derek. Suddenly Emma was “too busy” for our Saturday plans. Had stomach aches before visits. Started saying things like “Derek says you probably don’t really want me there anyway.” I’d pick her up and she’d sit in the passenger seat like I was some stranger giving her a ride.

The worst part wasn’t even the big dramatic moments — though there were plenty. It was watching my sweet, funny kid turn into this anxious, hostile person who flinched when I tried to hug her. Watching her learn to hate me with such… precision. Like someone was teaching her exactly which words would cut deepest.

I spent months thinking I was losing my mind. Therapists kept asking what I’d done wrong. My lawyer said kids “choose sides” in divorce. My family told me to “give her space” and she’d come around. Even my best friend Dave said maybe I should examine how I’d been as a father.

I examined everything. Replayed every conversation, every mistake I’d ever made. Stayed up nights wondering if I really was the monster Emma was learning to see. Started believing it myself.

Then I found an article about parental alienation on some random psychology website at 2 AM one night, and I literally started crying reading it. Not because it gave me answers — because it gave me words. For something I thought only existed in my specific hell.

I devoured everything I could find. Books, research papers, forums full of other parents describing my exact experience with different names and ages. And I realized three things that probably saved my life:

One: This wasn’t about me being a bad father. This was about Emma being systematically taught to reject me, and her little brain trying to cope with impossible loyalty conflicts.

Two: My grief was real and rational. I wasn’t “overreacting” to losing access to my child. I was grieving because I WAS losing my child, just not to death or distance — to something much more insidious.

Three: I wasn’t alone. There are thousands of us out here, good parents who got caught in this meat grinder, thinking we’re crazy because the world doesn’t understand what parental alienation actually looks like.

So why did I write Love Over Exile? Why build this community?

Because when you’re living through this, you need people who GET IT. You need to hear from someone who’s been in that courtroom listening to their kid recite accusations that sound like they came from your ex’s mouth. Someone who understands why you still set a place at the table on your kid’s birthday even though you know they won’t come. Someone who won’t tell you to “just move on” when your whole identity as a parent is under attack.

I’m not going to lie to you and say I’ve “healed” or found some magical solution. Emma still won’t see me. I still wake up some mornings feeling like someone died. Some days I’m angry as hell, other days I’m just… empty.

But I’m still here. Still her father, even if she can’t feel that right now. Still fighting, even when the legal system treats me like I’m dangerous for simply wanting time with my own kid. Still believing that love doesn’t disappear just because someone teaches a child to hide from it.

And I’ve learned that we need each other. Not to wallow or rage or plot revenge — but to remind each other that we’re not crazy, our love was real, and our kids are worth the fight even when they can’t fight beside us.

So that’s why we’re here. To tell our stories without having to explain what parental alienation is. To cry without being told to get over it. To hope without being called naive. To love our children fiercely even when they’re being taught to reject that love.

I’ll go first because someone has to. But I

2

Same here, Malcolm. Two years, seven months for me.

God, that bit about setting a place at the table — I still do that too.

3

Christ, Malcolm. I could have written half of this myself — the “too busy” Saturdays, the stomach aches, even the bit about setting a place at the table.

My lad Jack’s been back in my life three years now (he’s 19), and I still get that punch to the gut reading stories like yours. It doesn’t fully go away, does it? That grief just… sits there.

You did good building this place, mate.

4

I’ve been sitting here staring at your post for ten minutes, Malcolm, and I keep starting to type then stopping because — Christ, how do you respond to someone laying their soul bare like that?

Two years and four months. I’m at six years with my son Jake. He was eight when it started, fourteen now. Same age as Emma. And reading your words… it’s like looking into a mirror I’ve been avoiding. The way you describe that slow then sudden shift, Emma learning to hate you with precision — I felt that in my chest. Jake used to curl up on the sofa with me reading Harry Potter. Now when he sees me in town he literally crosses the street.

I write too, actually. Started keeping journals when the nights got too long and quiet. Something about putting the words down makes it real but also… bearable somehow? Like I’m documenting that this love existed, still exists, even when there’s nowhere for it to go. Your book — that took guts, mate. To turn this private hell into something that might help the rest of us find our way.

You’re right about needing people who get it. Six years in and I still have mates who think I should “just focus on myself now” like Jake was a hobby I’ve outgrown.

5

Malcolm, I could have written so much of this myself. The stomach aches before visits, the way they learn exactly which words will wound deepest — I lived through this with my son James nearly fifteen years ago now, and reading your story brought it all flooding back.

What struck me most was your phrase about “living bereavement” — because that’s exactly what this is, isn’t it? The world expects you to grieve a death once and move forward, but this? This is watching your child be slowly erased from your life whilst everyone tells you it’s normal post-divorce adjustment. I spent years thinking I was somehow defective as a mother because James would arrive for contact looking like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth.

Thank you for having the courage to start this. After all these years of silence, it’s extraordinary to find others who understand that particular brand of helplessness when the family courts treat your desperate love as somehow suspicious.

6

I could have written every word of this myself. Two years, eight months for me.