Why do they side with someone so horrible and nasty and cruel??

[rockandhardplace]

I watched my eldest being elevated to above me in the family as his GC. My lovely boy was the SC, he was bullied by both UPDh and GC until something changed and GC was getting busy with friends and he turned attention onto SC. My lovely kind sweet boy. He's now angry, mean, uncommunicative and copying the same behaviours his sister did around his father. Rude to me, rolls his eyes and looks at his dad before even replying to anything I ask him. Just looks at his dad like he's some kind of god. And at me like I'm the bad person. He's witnessed his dad criticise me, yell at me, call me names. He got the same himself.  I've read so much about parental alienation that I understand on some level that he has been brainwashed. That his fathers love has always been so conditional that he is lapping up the attention he never got when he was younger. And that siding with the more powerful one is the safest thing. That my love has always been unconditional, it will always be there no matter what. But I also know that none of that really matters when they are being turned against you. None of that matters if he is convinced to reject me and ends up living without a mother and with only an evil, manipulative, uncaring narc in his life. I can't bear watching this happen to him.
I have so much evidence of the emotional abuse from his dad, but I don't trust the courts to protect me or them. I just feel devastated. His dad is so twisted that when I talk to DS about things like car safety etc he will make a joke of it and even undermine what I'm saying to the point that now DS thinks that things like burn outs in quiet suburbs is funny and cool. Because he has to say the exact opposite of what I say. The other day my ex-chatterbox said that talking was boring. This is his dad talking. I don't know how to save him from becoming a miserable, misogynist like his dad.

[square]

Do you get opportunities to be aline with him?

If so, does he continue the new behavior or revert back to the old?

[rockandhardplace]

I don't get a lot of time on my own with him these days. His dad works from home since covid and is always here. He monopolises every dinner conversation. There's been so many incidences in the past where I've been chatting to kids and he's disagreed with my opinion and raged at me. I think that's part of why I just backed off and treated our horrible dinners together as something to get through as fast as possible.  I thought he'd go back to working in the office more and I'd at least get dinners with my kids back but that never happened. And that just gave him more power so now I'm trying to not let him dominate. 
I did get some time on my own with him last week and took him a few minutes to loosen up a bit but then he acted a bit more like his old self. I just can't help worrying about what lies his dad is telling him about me. I realised too late that he was most likely denigrating me behind by back (as well as to my face) to my eldest. If I try and talk to DS about what his dad is saying, it could make things worse.  He turned 13 recently and I know that many boys start to follow their dads more as they head to teens so I don't know how much is within a normal range of teen boy behaviour. He's always hated conflict too so the safest thing is probably to side with the powerful one but I just see my lovely boy slipping away and I don't know how to reach him.

Do you get opportunities to be aline with him?

If so, does he continue the new behavior or revert back to the old?

[Srcyu]

Do you think your son might be scared of him?

His dad is there all the time now. Your son already knows how horrible his father can be.
He looks at him before answering you. He may feel he has no choice but to go along with what your UPD husband says.



milly

[rockandhardplace]

I suspect that there's an element of that or that at least it started off like that. Maybe not fear so much as wanting to keep him on side. My eldest used to do the same thing when she was GC. I'd be talking directly to her and she would roll her eyes and look at him, he'd be doing the same thing. Or I'd ask her a question and she'd look at him before answering. He's the most controlling person I've ever met. But he has this way of making you believe he knows what he's talking about. When you're still in the FOG that is. I know DS hates conflict and has also been learning from his older sister how he thinks teenagers act. Dismissive of their mum, rolling his eyes, things like "why are you asking so many questions", "what's it got to do with you" etc. I remember once they did this silly tik tok game where questions on the family come up and they all respond mum/dad. One of the questions was who yells more and they both said mum, but the next one was who are you more afraid of and they both said dad. With my eldest I felt like she took all of her frustrations out on me because it was safe. We used to get into these silly arguments often. It took me years to realise that she was actually mimicking how her dad spoke to me. That's what is so scary, I know how skilled he is at brainwashing. I remember once telling her off for mocking me and she said she should be allowed to because her dad mocked her. She stands up for herself more with him now but everything with him is conditional. His love, his attention, his approval. The weird thing is a lot of the arguments around the dinner table would be me telling her to stop calling her brother names. When their dad was there he used to roll his eyes at me scolding her or make some nasty comment that supported her name calling but without using those terms. Like she'd criticise him saying he's so weak, he doesn't play any sports. One time she was being horrible to him trying to teach him to do a press up, laughing at him. When I asked her not to speak to him like that her dad just laughed and said things like come on you can do better, try harder, keep your back straight and got huffy/impatient with him. Then one day it flipped. Instead of joining in her bullying he started to tell her off. She was shocked. DS was so happy to finally be getting some positive attention from his dad.
There have been a few times where his dad has started to go off at me and he's left the room. And he's become so conflict avoidant that we can't discuss anything we don't agree on as he'll accuse me of shouting at him. I'm really careful that I'm not shouting, but I think he's either been told or observed his dad's perception that me having a different opinion is aggressive. I even have a video of their dad shouting at me accusing me of being aggressive as he yells in my face and knocks a phone out of my hand.
So I don't know how much is fear. Whether it is or not it seems to be twisting more to just looking down on me and seeing me as the useless, pointless person that his dad tells me and probably him too that I am. If I try too hard to force conversations he thinks i'm nagging or being aggressive. If I back off then then it further reinforces the idea of his dad as the almighty power. I can't win. It feels so hopeless.

Do you think your son might be scared of him?

His dad is there all the time now. Your son already knows how horrible his father can be.
He looks at him before answering you. He may feel he has no choice but to go along with what your UPD husband says.



milly