Early memories

Probably one of the earliest memories I have of his PA behaviour was when I could only have been six or seven years old. I'm inclined to think seven because of the circumstances surrounding it. My male parent treated my mother pretty badly sometimes. If he has bullied me, then he bullied her more. If you look at photographs of them together, he has one hand on her shoulder in a gesture of ownership. I can remember arguments between them, including one that left me alone in our home while they ran off down the road. She ran from the house, taking my little sister with her (not me). He chased them. I remember her shoes left on the front lawn and him climbing the fence as a shortcut. I remember running after them both up the road, afraid because I'd been abandoned and forgotten. I remember being furious at her, so much so that when she reached out for me to hug her, I drew back. I can't remember how that was dealt with. No idea.

I remember him climbing in bed with me and my sister crying and saying "Mummy doesn't love us anymore". He specifically included me in that. I don't think my sister remembers this as she would only have been three or four, but I remembered it and I believed it. She never spoke to us about much of anything, especially not their divorce. He, on the other hand, spoke to me all the time about it. Now it just looks like he was trying to get in there first and that a grown man was asking a tiny child to share his burden and be his friend. Wrong. But because he spoke to me and insisted that he was just treating me like I was older than my actual age, I believed the things he said. Mum never defended herself voluntarily and whenever I asked her about anything, she wouldn't reply. She'd tell me not to be silly or it was none of my business. Who would you have believed at that age under these circumstances?

He liked me getting angry with her. I think what may have sealed the deal was that she lied to us. She promised that, after a holiday in England, we would return to our home abroad. She had no intention of doing so and instead, left him, the three of us living with her parents. I knew she had lied. I was amazed. At the age of seven, my trust in her had been killed, mainly by her own unwillingness to talk to me. Had she tried to give me her side - something I asked for always - then maybe his Parental Alienation would not have been successful.