When your own family doesn't understand

Emotional Wellbeing
1

When your own family doesn’t understand

I thought the worst part would be losing my daughter. Turns out there’s another layer of hell I wasn’t prepared for.

My mum called yesterday asking why Priya wasn’t at her cousin’s wedding last weekend. How do I explain that I haven’t seen my 8-year-old in three months? That her mother has convinced her I’m somehow dangerous? My mum just stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Beta, just go talk to her mother properly. Work it out like adults.”

Work it out. As if I haven’t tried everything. As if the family court system is just a minor inconvenience we can sort over chai.

My dad’s even worse. “In our day, we didn’t have these problems. You must have done something wrong.” The shame in his voice cuts deeper than anything my ex could say.

The aunties at the gurdwara whisper when they see me now. Poor Raj, can’t even keep his family together. What kind of man loses his own daughter? I see it in their faces — this doesn’t happen to good fathers, beta.

My brother thinks I’m being dramatic. “Just be more flexible, bhai. Give her what she wants.” He doesn’t get that what she wants is for me to disappear completely. That every ‘compromise’ I make gets twisted into another reason why I’m unfit.

The isolation is crushing. I can’t explain parental alienation to people who think divorce means you split the furniture and sort out weekends. They don’t understand that some people weaponise children. That love can be turned into a tool for revenge.

Sometimes I wonder if they’re right. If I should just try harder, be better, fix this somehow. But then I remember Priya’s face the last time I saw her — coached into saying words that didn’t sound like her at all.

I’m documenting everything now. £18k in legal fees so far. My family thinks I’m obsessed. Maybe I am. But what’s the alternative? Just let her forget she ever had a papa who loved her?

The loneliness is the worst part. Fighting for your child while your own family thinks you’re the problem.

2

Christ, this could be me writing about my own whaanau back home. The cultural layer makes it so much worse, doesn’t it?

When I tried explaining to my nan what was happening with the kids, she just looked at me like I was speaking Martian. “Just ring their father and sort it out, love.” Yeah, right. Try explaining to someone who raised eight kids in rural Taranaki that some people actually use children as weapons. In her world, if there’s a problem with the kids, you have a cuppa and figure it out. She can’t wrap her head around the idea that someone would deliberately poison a child’s mind against their other parent.

My own mum keeps asking when she’s going to see her mokopuna again for Christmas. How do I tell her that my ex has moved them to the South Island and turned them against me so completely that they won’t even take my calls? Last week she suggested I “just be more understanding about what he’s going through.” More understanding. I’ve been documenting every failed contact attempt for six months, I’ve spent our house deposit on lawyers, and I should be more understanding.

The worst part is feeling like you’re going mental when the people who are supposed to know you best think you’re overreacting. My brother actually said “kids are resilient, they’ll get over it” when I tried explaining what parental alienation means. Get over it? They think I abandoned them because that’s what they’ve been told every single day since the separation. But to my family, I’m just being “difficult about custody arrangements.”

Sometimes I screenshot the messages from my kids — the horrible things they say that sound nothing like them — and I want to show everyone. Proof that this isn’t normal divorce drama. But then I remember these are children’s words, even if they’re not their thoughts, and I can’t do that to them.

3

God, this hits so close to home. I’m dealing with the exact same thing with my family and it’s honestly sometimes harder than the actual court battle.

My parents keep asking when Emma’s coming to visit again, like I’m just choosing not to bring her around. When I try to explain what’s really happening — that her dad has her convinced I’m unstable, that she won’t even talk to me on our scheduled calls half the time — I get the same blank stares. My mom literally said “well honey, maybe you should just apologize for whatever you did wrong.” APOLOGIZE. For what? For filing for divorce? For asking for equal custody of my own daughter?

The worst was at my nephew’s birthday party last month. Everyone kept asking where Emma was, and when I tried to explain that her father violated the court order again, my sister actually rolled her eyes and said “you two need to grow up and figure this out for Emma’s sake.” Like I’m not trying every single day to figure this out. Like I haven’t spent my life savings on lawyers and therapy and court-ordered evaluations trying to prove I’m not the monster her father paints me as.

I get the obsessed comments too. “You need to move on, Rachel.” But how do you move on from your child? I’ve got binders full of documentation, screenshots of every text, recordings of every missed call. My family thinks it’s unhealthy but what choice do I have? The system requires proof of everything and even then it moves at the speed of molasses.

Stay strong, Raj. Document everything. Your daughter will see the truth eventually.

4

This hit me so hard. The family stuff honestly caught me off guard too — I thought it would just be about fighting for my kids, but having to explain PA to people who’ve never lived it is its own special kind of torture.

My mum still asks when the boys are coming for Sunday roast, and I watch her face fall every time I have to say they’re not. She means well but she keeps suggesting things like “maybe if you just apologised for whatever you did wrong” and it’s like… there’s no explaining that the ‘wrong’ was existing as their mother after the divorce.

I’ve stopped going to family gatherings because the questions are too hard. Three years in and I’m still the problem child who can’t get her life sorted. The shame of that sits so heavy some days. But I’ve learned that protecting my own mental space isn’t giving up on my children — it’s staying strong enough to be here when they’re ready to come back.

Your Priya will remember your love, even through all this noise. Keep documenting everything.

5

The isolation from family hits different, doesn’t it mate. When my daughter Emma went missing from my life for 6 years, my own mum kept asking when she was coming to visit. I’d make excuses at first — “she’s busy with school” — until I couldn’t anymore.

My sister used to say the same thing as your brother. “Just ring her mum and sort it out.” Like I hadn’t already tried everything short of camping outside their house. The looks at family gatherings when Emma wasn’t there… I stopped going for a while. Couldn’t handle explaining over and over that no, I hadn’t “done something” to lose my kid.

Your £18k sounds familiar too. I was up to about $23k before Emma found me on Insta when she turned 17. Keep documenting everything, Raj. One day Priya will want to know her papa fought for her, even when nobody else understood why you had to.

6

God, the family shame hits different doesn’t it. Seven years on and my mum still asks when Sarah’s coming for Christmas.