Thanks for the Advertising!

While reviewing our “Referrers” over the past 30 days, we noticed that the majority come from ancestry.com and our other genealogical website (i********57) — of course. But it was also curious to note the ones who came from facebook!

We never shared a link to this blog on facebook, but we really appreciate whoever did! Thanks for promoting our blog and helping us get our story out to the public!

And we have to give a big Shout Out to our readers in New Port Richey, Florida! Multiple visits spread over more than one day! Thanks for following us!

 

Tips to Protect Yourself from Cyberstalking

We’ve had some curious situations happen over the years, but when a password we shared in a private message on facebook was suddenly used by four different people to access our private family photos, we began to seriously consider what we should do to protect ourselves from what is obviously cyberstalking.

One tip: conduct an internet search using your name and phone number. We’d also suggest you do a search of any user names you might also have. That’s how we became aware of “someone” in Bedford using the name “i********.”

Another tip: utilize stat counters or other free registry counters that will record all incoming traffic to your blogs and web sites. That’s how we learned the IP addresses of the four individuals who were viewing our private photos. Those stat counters were initially put in place back in 2007, when our alienating parent was leaving what she thought were anonymous comments on my photos, and manipulating the standing of my photos in the “most popular” section of the website on her lunch hour.

And most importantly, record incidents — time, place, event. As you can obviously see from this blog, we learned this very early on. When we had to contact the Ohio Attorney General’s Office about comments and personal information which were being placed on the internet, complete with our names and other pertinent information, that was one of the first things they suggested we do: keep track of what our alienating parent was saying and doing on the internet and ultimately we might be able to amass enough documentation to press charges. It’s not how I would choose to spend my free time, but if it will eventually keep our alienating parent from posting personal, private information on the internet, I suppose I have no choice.

And who knows …. we might see a complaint from someone because we’ve posted their IP address on the internet? Even though that IP address was used to access private photos from a stolen password? You never know …. this is the same person who produced a “bill” in the name of her ex-husband for her medical expenses, as proof of her expenditures, resulting in Blue Cross charging her with fraud! lol!

As a side note, when the Ohio Attorney General contacted our alienating parent, one of my husband’s daughters answered the phone. She immediately berated him for the phone call …. instead of, perhaps, the person who was responsible for it? The person who was posting inappropriate information on the internet?

Never the twain shall meet ….

You’ve probably noticed how this blog deals with our alienating parent and her behavior over the years. That is entirely by design and a conscious decision on our part. We have our facebook page and our photography website which allow us to share all the wonderful things life has brought us with our family and friends. This ongoing situation with our alienating parent has been one of the major detractions in our lives, so we’ve decided to not only share it with others, but to also keep it separate from the good things in life that we cherish.

And never the twain shall meet ….

Have you ever sat down and run a line through the middle of a piece of paper and put the positive things on one side, and the negative things on the other? Well, that’s what we’ve done here ….. except the positive things are on our other websites, while the negative things are shared here. Guess you can tell how many “negatives” we have on our list ……. just one. 🙂

As we’ve mentioned before, this has definitely been a good experience for us and we’re glad we finally had to nerve to share our story with others. Thank you all for “listening,” and especially for your ongoing support.

Eureka!

It’s been a good thing, to sit and actually write about what has been happening to us because, suddenly, it was like a light bulb went off and we realized what might actually be taking place!

Our alienating parent has often accused me of stalking her when, in actuality, she is the one spending hours watching my every move.

She accuses me of using genealogy to hurt others when she is the one posting information about living people under the names of their deceased’s ancestors, in addition to posting totally fictional accounts of her relationship with deceased individuals from her ex-husband’s family.

She claims that, judging from my appearance, I must be unhappy when she is the one using a photo that is decades old as a profile photo.

She claims I manipulated photos on a photo website when, as we’ve clearly shown, she was spending her lunch hour logging on and logging off of my photo website so she could manipulate my photos in the daily standings.

She accuses me of trying to invalidate her “research” …. which she actually does a pretty good job of herself! lol! Not to mention post, after post, after post where she is the one claiming how incorrect my genealogical research is — while her’s is Setting the Record Straight! 🙂

For those who are not familiar with genealogy and genealogical research, let me clarify it a little. Basic common sense will tell you that there are probably no family trees out there that are 100% accurate. Given the age of many records, the lack of records, mis-spellings, and so on and so forth, there is undoubtedly not one family tree that is entirely, 100% correct. I’ll be the first to admit that I must have mistakes in our family tree. Just as most serious, legitimate genealogists are aware that they also have errors in their research.

I’ve never come across anyone who actually claims that their tree is completely correct. I’ve also never come across anyone, other than our alienating parent, who posts information to Set the Record Straight, and posts information because they’ve seen so much incorrect information posted. That, right there, tells you the reason the person is posting — it’s not about family history or genealogy, it’s about proving someone else wrong.

When true genealogists and family historians come across a mistake, they usually contact the person, give them the correct information and allow them the opportunity to correct the information. But not our alienating parent … no, she makes sure to point out the incorrect information — buried deep in her “research” — so that any errors that are there will never be corrected. Sharing information is a huge part of genealogy. Holding back correct information is not well looked upon in genealogy circles.

But I digress ….. why would a person accuse another of the exact behavior she’s been exhibiting for years? Psychological projection might just be the answer we’ve been looking for!

“Psychological projection is a form of a defense mechanism in which someone attributes thoughts, feelings, and ideas which are perceived as undesirable to someone else. For example, someone who harbors racist ideas while believing that racism is socially undesirable might come to believe that a friend is racist, projecting his or her racism onto the other person. Projection may manifest in all kinds of ways, and while it may be a defense mechanism, it can also be very destructive. …. Being aware of psychological projection in interpersonal relationships can be very important. Before attributing thoughts or ideas to someone else, you may want to reflect on whether those beliefs can also be seen in yourself. If they can, there’s a chance that you might be projecting, and you may want to seek out a more reliable source on what someone else is thinking.” [Source: wiseGEEK]

Our alienating parent is certainly entitled to a defense mechanism or two, considering her childhood, so this really comes as no surprise. Doesn’t make it easier to live with, but it does make it a little easier to understand.

Dealing with Manipulative People

“Recently I came upon a blog post by “Jennifer” who rightfully complained that parents or separated or divorced partners will frequently use children as pawns in their covert wars with one another.  She wrote:

‘Some parents get blinded by their own emotions and stuff going on in their lives that they fail to see the affects, hurt and damage caused by their actions.  One of such examples is a parent who use and manipulate their children to get their own way against the other parent.  In my opinion, anyone who uses innocent children in that way is a coward.  So what do you do if you find yourself in the position of having your partner or your ex use and manipulate your children to get back at your or get their own way?  Well, first and foremost be clear and acknowledge that this has nothing to do with your child (children) and that it is you that your partner or ex is really attempting to get back at or hurt in some way.  Also, be clear that your son/daughter is NOT responsible for being used in this way.’

Jennifer is right on about how damaging it is to abuse children this way.  However, she makes two assumptions frequently made by individuals overly steeped in traditional psychology frameworks.  First, she assumes that the warring parties are “blinded” by their emotions (i.e. aren’t really aware of what they’re doing); and second, she holds the opinion that people do these things out of cowardice (i.e. out of fear to more openly and directly reveal their agendas).

While such assumptions can be to some extent true when dealing with neurotic parents or ex-partners, if either or both parties is character disturbed, they know full well what they’re doing, they simply don’t care enough to restrain themselves because all that matters to them is that they have their way.  Further, if character disturbance is involved, these kinds of actions aren’t the result of cowardice but rather the steely determination to have one’s way, regardless of the cost and the recognition of the fact that one of the easiest ways to thwart resistance from your partner is to cloak your self-serving agenda under the guise of serving the interest of the child.”[Source:  Dr. George Simon’s Dealing with Manipulative People]

It’s sad to see this type of child abuse (and it is child abuse) going on, as in our particular case, for generations.  Larry’s parents had to keep OLF happy in order to see their grandchildren; Larry had problems throughout the years trying to maintain contact, much less a relationship, with his children …. and now it continues to the next generations. Fathers having difficulties with basic visitation, as well as grandparents not being permitted to see their grandchildren.

When will the cycle end?

Parental Alienation Syndrome

I’m sure this is a subject which was expected by anyone who knows what my husband has been through over the past 35 years.

“The more a parent sees himself or herself as a victim, the greater the possibility that he or she will go after the child’s relationship with ex. And once they do, there is often no limit to their efforts. They will falsely accuse and malign everything associated with their ex, and will manipulate the child like a puppet. In short, they have little to no boundaries. They will spill anything damning– both truths and lies– into the child’s soul. So can you blame the child, who loves this parent unconditionally, for believing the messages being heard?”

Any expert will agree that the first thing parents need to do is put their feelings aside and think about what is best for the children. You never, ever, ever use children to harm someone else. Our targeted parent expected it considering his acrimonious divorce, but he never expected to see his parents being told: “you can’t see your grandchildren.” To sit back and watch them, after all they had done to help with the grandchildren, and their unabiding love for those grandchildren, have to hear those words was a terrible thing.

And then when it started happening to him ….

Needless to say, he made the difficult decision to end his relationship with his own children. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a relationship with his children in the first place due to the divorce and all the drama that went on over the years. And when the grandchildren came along and he wasn’t allowed to see them, he decided he wasn’t going to go through the same things his own parents had gone through. He had learned from their experiences.

Having the same dna doesn’t make you a family. Love and respect makes you a family.

I can honestly say that meeting my husband, oh so many years ago was the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s a hard working, honest man — and not too hard on the eyes either! lol! What a perfect combination. I am so glad we met and fell in love because he was the ideal person to help me raise my children. He’s a wonderful father, and an even better grandfather. I feel very blessed to have him in my life.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

We really appreciate all the observations everyone is making on this situation. It won’t change anything, but it would definitely be nice to have a little better understanding as to why we are even dealing with our alienating parent after all of these years, especially since we haven’t had contact with the children for so many years. One person mentioned Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

“Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (either in fantasy or actual behavior), an overwhelming need for admiration, and usually a complete lack of empathy toward others. People with this disorder often believe they are of primary importance in everybody’s life or to anyone they meet. While this pattern of behavior may be appropriate for a king in 16th Century England, it is generally considered inappropriate for most ordinary people today.” [Source: psychcentral.com]

Grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority. We’ve covered this subject already in some of our posts: she’s a better parent, grandparent, photographer and, of course, her genealogy must be better because she has more sources, right? 😉

An overwhelming need for admiration: we viewed it as a need to build herself up, by putting others down. So, I suppose this could be construed as an overwhelming need for admiration?

In addition, no one has ever doubted my in-laws’ incredible love for their grandchildren. So why does our alienating parent feel the need to keep injecting herself into her children’s relationship with their paternal grandparents? Why all the comments about her relationship with her former in-laws, especially since she doesn’t make similar comments about her relationship with her own family members? Why is it so important that everyone believe her former in-laws liked her? An overwhelming need for admiration?

Complete lack of empathy toward others. Oh my, we’ve all seen our alienating parent in action and that is a DEFINITE!

Sorry to keep throwing all of these possible scenarios out there, but our alienating parent’s behavior is baffling, to say the least. Like we said at the beginning: it isn’t normal to obsess about a man you’ve been divorced from for over 35 years. And we get it alienating parent — you don’t like me and you have very strong opinions about what you think of me. That doesn’t explain why you feel the need to follow me from website, to website, to website, and express an interest in anything I might be interested in. I would think that the way you feel about me, I’d be the last person you’d want to emulate.

The Great Manipulator

It’s funny how our alienating parent constantly accuses others of behavior she, herself, is actually “guilty” of.  Well, let me rephrase that:  if it weren’t so sad, it would be funny how our alienating parent constantly accuses others …..

Remember the comment she left on a photo on the website she joined after she knew I was posting there?  About people manipulating the photos?

Here’s a little background information about that particular website:  it had communities and each community had a section which would display the day’s most popular photos.  The photos would appear in the “Most Popular” section after people would give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.  Once you gave a photo a thumbs up or thumbs down, you could not “vote” on that particular photo any more.  Unless, of course, you logged out.  Once you did that, and logged back in, you could give the original photo another thumbs up or thumbs down.

With that in mind, check out the stat logs from our alienating parent, when she was at work.

We know where she works and when this activity started appearing, we obviously knew who was behind it.  As you can see, she would repeatedly log in, go to one of my photos (which was probably in the “Most Popular” section for the day), spend a second there (giving it a thumbs down perhaps?), log off — only to immediately log back on and repeat the sequence again. On this day alone, she did it seven times in a matter of minutes!

Guess the evidence shows who was actually manipulating the photos, doesn’t it?

It’s one thing to sit on your lunch hour and try and mess with the most popular photos on a website. I’m sure she’s not the only one doing it, or other similar antics. But the hard part to understand is why does she then go on to accuse others of manipulating the standings of the photos, when — as everyone can plainly see — she was doing it herself?

If someone could explain that to us, we’d really appreciate it because we don’t understand this behavior at all.

Ding, Ding, Ding …. We Have a Winner!

 

Steve can collect the $55 pot for being the one closest to guessing when our alienating parent would start a blog on WordPress!

We started this blog on March 19 and on April 4, our alienating parent started one too!  (She couldn’t even use another website and had to use the exact same one I used — don’t you love it?!?)

Boy, that didn’t take long. But then, we really didn’t think it would, did we?

 

Placing blame versus accepting responsibility?

Yes, it was very embarrassing to get phone calls about the news reports, internet stories, not to mention making the front page of the News Herald. And, of course, we were e-mailed a link to mugshots.com…..

Naturally, after hearing for so many years that his children were raised by a hard working single mother, without any help from him, our targeted parent could certainly have a thing or two to say about this past weekend’s developments.

But what would that accomplish?

Instead, we’d like to point out that, first of all, there is no need to place blame. You raise children to the best of your ability. You attempt to teach them lessons throughout their childhood in the hopes that they will carry those lessons with them as they travel through life. Sometimes they do; however, oftentimes they do not. Once they become adults, while you can still provide guidance, it ultimately is your child who makes their own decisions. It then become’s your child’s responsibility to live with decisions they’ve made.

And so, in the end, that child must accept responsibility for their actions, instead of trying to place the blame on others. Once you decide to behave in a certain manner, you’re forced to live with the consequences of that behavior. Whether it be something that happened this past weekend …. or something that happened years ago.

That’s part of becoming an adult.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

Obviously this is a subject near and dear to our hearts.  We can only imagine how different our lives would have been if a certain 12 year old girl was not abused by her own father.

Please do all you can to support this effort to keep all of our children safe.

Obsessive Ex Syndrome

Our prior post brought up an interesting aspect of our situation with our alienating parent:  Obsessive Ex Syndrome.

Here is a person who, just because she had children with a person, feels she is entitled to control certain aspects of his life. And don’t scoff, we have plenty to back this theory up. Control is a big part of our alienating parent’s life. She no longer has control over her ex’s life, so she has to attempt to have control over his family history, his wife’s hobbies, etc.

That loss of control is obviously not sitting well with our alienating parent.

Here’s some information we’ve discovered about Obsessive Ex Syndrome:

“Revenge obsession occurs when the obsessive ex wants his/her partner to be punished for causing him/her pain. Although the obsessed ex may not be in love with their partner anymore, they want to make sure he or she is just as miserable as they are.

Attachment obsession occurs when the ex will stop at nothing to get their partner back. Often times, the obsessive ex wants things to be just as they were before the break up. Although they know that things may never be the same, they want to keep the connection they once had in order to feel in control.

Some people with obsessive ex syndrome exhibit both of these characteristics. Although they want their partner back, they want them to suffer just as much as they have for severing the relationship in the first place.”

It’s difficult to determine exactly which form of Obsessive Ex Syndrome our alienating parent might be suffering from. Revenge certainly seems to be a good choice: she wants him to be just as miserable as she is.  But then we can’t ignore the hours that our alienating parent spends looking at photos of her ex.  How do you explain that behavior?  Maybe she wants to keep the connection she once had in order to feel in control?

Control is something our alienating parent may feel she lost when she endured abuse at the hands of her own father — which is completely understandable. Allowing that loss of control to continue to affect her life 50 years later, however, is not quite so understandable.

Just a little comparison ……

Why don’t we conduct a little comparison here today?

I had a short-lived marriage, which resulted in two children, and which ended in divorce almost 35 years ago.

Our alienating parent also had a short-lived marriage, which resulted in two children, and which ended in divorce over 35 years ago.

And that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

I have not thought about my ex-husband for longer than I can remember. I have no idea where he is, what he does for a living, or anything about him. I certainly have no information about his wife — if he has one — and haven’t made it a point to find out what hobbies she enjoys. He left our state when our children were young and did not return to the area until they were in their teens. At that point, he contacted me and I told the boys it was their decision whether or not they wanted to see their father — since they were old enough to make that decision for themselves. They both declined. Since then, especially now that they are adults, it is entirely up to them as to whether or not they want to have a relationship with their biological father. It is really of no concern to me.

And then we come to our alienating parent … her children have had no relationship with their biological father for many years, yet she still feels this unwavering need to keep contact between herself, their father and their step-mother?

Unlike my situation, our alienating parent has made certain to keep up-to-date on the goings on at our house — as evidenced by our prior posts. She spends a great deal of time looking at current photos of her ex-husband, and knows all about my interests and hobbies, and makes them her own.

My husband and I have been happily married for 29 years. According to our alienating parent’s posts on the internet, she has also remarried. I have become part of my husband’s family and enjoy getting together with them and keeping in touch with them. And yes, I enjoy conducting genealogical research on the family I married in to.

Wouldn’t you think that our alienating parent would look to her future with her husband, instead of dwelling on the past with her ex-husband? Where’s the interest in her current husband’s family? None to be found is there? Maybe because she’s so obsessed with her ex-husband’s family, it doesn’t leave time for much else?

Even though I have two biological children from my first husband’s family, I have nothing about that family on our genealogy websites. I don’t feel the need to post information about my ex’s family — even though my children have biological ties to them — and I certainly don’t post ramblings about my relationship with them and/or my observations about anyone in their family.

In contrast, we all know about our alienating parent’s postings on my husband’s family, as well as my own. The postings have nothing to do with genealogy, which makes it a strange place for her to post her feelings. You’d think she’d stop for a minute and realize that people legitimately researching genealogy will come across her personal comments and wonder what they are doing in a genealogy forum. I’d be embarrassed, but considering she’s been doing it for years, guess it doesn’t bother our alienating parent?

Which of the above do you consider to be normal behavior, and which do you consider to be abnormal? There is actually a name for a situation such as our targeted parent is going through: it’s called Obsessive Ex Syndrome. Check it out and let us know if you agree with our “diagnosis.” 🙂

When Your Husband’s Ex Stalks You Via The Internet

This is obviously a long overdue post …. about stalkers on the internet. As anyone who knows our alienating parent can attest, she makes sure to let everyone know that she is the victim of a stalker.

These comments are, of course, posted on genealogy websites — because that’s where they belong, right? 🙂

And, as usual, our alienating parent’s view of what has transpired over the past years is not quite accurate. Take a look for yourself:

She Googles my e-mail address.

She searches for my e-mail address on bing.com — just in case she missed something on Google …. lol!

She’s a regular on my photography Facebook page and then makes sure to follow the links I share there.

She views my profile on Linked In and also follows that to my photo website.

She even spends her lunch hour looking at my photo website while at work!

She also doesn’t discriminate when she searches …. she Googles her ex’s name too!

And what does she do when she visits my photo website? The place she visits most often is my Daily Photos album.

Although she also makes sure to check out our year in photos, holidays, fall photos, etc. Should I be concerned that she has been known to spend quite a bit of time looking at the gallery where we have photos of my husband displayed?

If you look at this small example of our stat counter logs from over the years, you’ll see that our alienating parent has spent hours, upon hours, upon hours viewing our photographs. “Multiple visits spread over more than one day” almost always appears on these logs. On a regular basis, she’ll come to the photo website, from ancestry.com — which means that she’s also viewing what we have posted there.

These photographs show the logs from a three month period waaaaaay back in 2008. And the second is an almost three inch stack of logs, from another three month period in 2013. It’s obvious that our alienating parent’s viewing of our photo website continues to escalate.

And now back to the subject at hand ….. stalking. Could our alienating parent actually be a stalker herself?

Our alienating parent’s excuse: Her behavior stems from the fact that she has two children who are biologically part of her ex-husband’s family.

The truth: What does that have to do with our daily photos, our year in photos, our holiday photos, and so on and so forth? Especially since we have not seen or spoken to her children for several years. It was mutually decided between our targeted parent and his adult children to end their relationship many years ago. If, for some strange reason, they wanted to see photographs of their father, they are more than capable of doing that themselves. They certainly don’t need their mother to do it for them. So, her explanation really doesn’t make sense, does it? Particularly in light of the photos she is viewing — most of which deal with my photography.

The majority of our family photos are private, so someone trying to view photos about us are not going to find them on our photo website. And that becomes apparent very quickly and doesn’t involve searching for hours and hours on end.

Our alienating parent keeps viewing our current photos, which have nothing to do with her, or her children, or her children’s paternal family history. And, as always, we have to ask Why?

You’ll notice from some of the logs we’ve shared that our alienating parent viewed photos from “M*****’s Big Day at the Ball Park” and “Q****’s Baptism Photos.” Those are our friends’ grandchildren, who have absolutely nothing to do with her children’s paternal family. Again, why is she spending so much time looking at photos which certainly have nothing to do with her, or her family?

We have shared just a small sampling of what has gone on over the past ten years or so. Our alienating parent has spent hours, during multiple visits spread over more than one day, viewing — or attempting to view — our posts on the internet.

And this person says she is being stalked by someone else? What does she consider her behavior to be?

Still searching ….

You’ll remember that, over the past few days, I’ve pointed out just a few of the glaring mistakes in alienating parent’s so-called correct genealogical research? Guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise then, to see the logs from a quiet Sunday morning on our family tree website.

Stat Logs 04-06-2014

The first thing to note is a search by IP address 192.81.211.192. We’ve noticed IP addresses similar to this appearing — usually in the early mornings. Keep that in mind for a future blog ….. 😉

And then things got interesting: someone was spending a great deal of time looking at my pedigree chart, descendancy, timeline, etc. This same person was also viewing search results for S**** County, Tennessee. And most interesting was the fact that they were viewing information I have on some of my Irish ancestors. Do you think someone is studying up so she can become the next Expert on The Irish Settlers in Appalachia?!? Maybe she should have done some of this research before making asinine remarks about my Irish heritage?

These searches were conducted through a Verizon IP address — the very same Verizon IP address which was viewing private family photographs from a stolen password.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned that episode? Well, here goes: on February 4, at 8:27 a.m., I shared our password through a private message on Facebook. At 8:45 a.m. that same morning, our private photos were being accessed by someone — the same someone who, according to the IP addresses we captured, was viewing our family tree on Sunday morning. On February 4, they originally spent 1 hour, 51 minutes and 34 seconds looking at our photos, and then came back later in the day and spent another 5 hours, 43 minutes and 18 seconds looking at our private photos.

Is someone honestly so desperate to view our private photos, and watch every move we are making on genealogy websites, that they’ll break the law and use a stolen password to access areas we have chosen to keep private on the internet?

And this is considered normal — or even acceptable — behavior?