Case Unlucky 13: My Greatest Loss

Abstract

This case history is entitled Dr. Unlucky because it does not traverse a satisfying journey nor have a happy ending. Rather, Dr. U recounts a horrific tale of fabricated charges of spousal abuse against him, of his in-laws smashing his car windshield when he came to pick up his children for a regularly scheduled visit to take them to a Jewish holiday dinner at his parents, of his wife calling the university where he taught and making allegations against him, and of ultimately verbally poisoning their two children with whom he had been very close so completely against him that he has not seen nor heard from them in several decades. The only mail he sent that was not returned were the child support checks; they simply never got their birthday and holiday cards and gifts he sent and were probably told he did not care enough to send them anything.

Although Dr. U has relocated and built a successful career, ironically as a child and family psychologist, the disintegration of his family of creation and the fact that his parents were deprived of knowing their grandchildren continue to cause him lingering pain and grief. The death of a relationship with one’s children is an excruciating and ongoing experience. And although his past has been overshadowed by a happier present, strands of pain reverberate in this prototypical case of what is often labeled “parental alienation.”