December 19, 2024 • 14 mins
In this raw and revealing episode, I get into the challenges of navigating co-parenting and overcoming manipulation during and after divorce. From struggles with custody agreements to dealing with intentional disruptions, I share my experiences of staying resilient amidst attempts to alienate me from my daughter. You’ll hear about the impact of toxic dynamics, how I managed to rise above it all, and the lessons I learned along the way. Tune in to discover how I reclaimed my peace, launched this podcast as part of my healing journey, and continue to find strength while inspiring others to do the same.
Episode Highlights:
[0:07] - Kicking off the episode: reflections on adversity and co-parenting challenges.
[5:45] - How my ex manipulated custody agreements and alienated my daughter.
[9:10] - A bizarre story about the "dog food in the piano" incident and its deeper implications.
[12:35] - The challenges of being excluded from pivotal parenting moments, like summer camp decisions.
[13:55] - Finding healing and purpose through launching this podcast and sharing my story.
Links & Resources:
Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message at podpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Karen,
Caryn Portnoy (00:07):
hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life.
I'm your host. Karen Portnoy,before I get into this episode,
please comment, ask questions,share some of your experiences,
and don't forget to subscribe.
You. So I ask you, how did yourex go about trying to ruin you
and your divorce? What subtle ornot so subtle nuances did you
(00:30):
pick up on that had to do withyour children? How did you
handle those moments I spoke inearlier episodes about how my ex
manipulated my daughter againstme and alienated her from me,
how he bought her loyalty byspoiling her, how he enabled her
by doing everything for her, andhow he empowered her to rule the
(00:52):
roost. So I always taught mydaughter how to do her own
laundry, how to load thedishwasher. I even taught her
how to clean toilets withouttouching anything with a rubber
glove, and, you know, the wandthat cleans the toilet without
having to touch anything. Whenshe was younger, she used to
(01:12):
love doing that, so it wasn't astretch for me to teach her how
to clean how to put things away,how to wash laundry. I mean, all
these things. He wasn't havingany of it. He did everything for
her. He even yelled at me, howam I making my daughter clean
toilets, like she's too good toclean a toilet and all I kept
(01:34):
thinking to myself every time hewould clean her room, change her
sheets, vacuum, dust, all ofthat stuff she could have done
herself, and he would havebenefited her by giving her life
skills, by teaching her how todo these things herself.
Instead, he did it all for her.
(01:55):
He cleaned her bathroom, hecleaned her bedroom, he did all
of her laundry, he cleaned allof her dishes, and he thinks
that that was good parenting. Sowhen she's 30 something years
old and living in New York Cityand calls her daddy to come and
clean her apartment, he'll gorunning. How does that benefit
(02:16):
her? And the fact that heempowers her to make all these
decisions that I'm sorry a 14year old shouldn't be making.
He's only hurting her,especially when it comes to our
custody agreement, we have veryclear cut parenting time. I'm
supposed to have her afterschool on Thursdays. I'm
(02:36):
supposed to pick her up afterschool. She's supposed to stay
by me and I take her back toschool first thing Monday
morning, and that's supposed tobe every other weekend. And then
on top of it, I'm supposed to bewith her every Tuesday. I pick
her up from school. I'm with herfor the rest of the afternoon,
and I have dinner with her, andthen I drop her off. He allows
(02:58):
her to cancel her parenting timewith me. He allows her to not
see me on Tuesday nights. Iunderstand she has appointments
and tutors and homework and allkinds of things after school.
She told me back in August, whenwe were on vacation together,
(03:18):
that Tuesdays weren't going tobe good for her, but we'll find
another day. And every time thatI've asked her about finding
another day, I keep getting thesame excuse. I have something
every day after school that maybe true, but I don't have a co
parent who is enforcing ourcustody agreement on any level.
(03:40):
The fact that she had herattorney advocating for her to
live with her dad, primarilyafter we had a 5050, custody
agreement verbally for a year,is mind blowing to me all
because he doesn't want to payme child support. I reminded him
that as the primary residentialparent, it is his job, as per
(04:04):
our agreement, to encourage ameaningful relationship between
she and I, and while he saysthat he's doing that, the
evidence of that says otherwise,I highly doubt that he is
encouraging any relationshipwith me, because his entire Mo
was to hurt me through her. Fromthe moment I filed for divorce,
(04:27):
I told him early on that if hereally, truly loved her, he
would make sure that she and Iwere strong, and instead he
dismissed me. It was all aboutkeeping her away from me,
slandering me to her andbrainwashing her with his
narrative about me. He was aDisney dad. He would rather
(04:47):
spoil her, buy her loyalty,whatever she wanted she got.
That was his whole motivationfor everything make it
impossible for her to ever sayno to him. I. On top of the fact
that he's a very overbearingbully type of personality, no
child would be able to say no tohim or stand up to him or go
(05:10):
against him in any possible way,he bought her so many clothes
that the closet in her room thatwe expanded years ago, all of
her clothes have spilled outover her already expanded
closet, over to a bench that wasin the hallway, and the ping
(05:30):
pong table we have in thebasement, and then all over the
laundry room. So all of thoseplaces were spilled over with
her clothes. What 14 year oldactually admits that they have
too many clothes, and while heclaims to have encouraged a
relationship between she and I,he doesn't realize how much I
heard the complete oppositenarrative from him when we lived
(05:53):
together. He would talk to herlike a surrogate wife. He would
share things with her that werenot appropriate for a child to
hear about me or the dynamics ofour divorce, all things I
overheard with my own ears. Iavoided confronting him because
I didn't want to get intosomething in front of her, but I
was very well aware of thethings he said to her when he
(06:15):
thought I wasn't listening. Theinteresting thing is that he
severely underestimated me atevery twist and turn. I kept my
mouth shut as time went on, andI let him tell on himself,
either to me directly or loudenough for me to hear him tell
her, I plead dumb so I couldstay a few steps ahead of him,
and when he thought he succeededin destroying me, I always rose
(06:38):
from the ashes, just like aphoenix every single time.
Another example of how he triedto sabotage me was with our dog.
Once again, it was the mostbizarre thing, and I swear I
could never make this up. But itwas a Saturday morning, and I
was sleeping in, and he wasdownstairs cleaning angrily
(06:58):
because I wasn't, and he wasvacuuming the living room, and
all of a sudden he yells up tome pretty loudly, that I should
come down and see what my dogdid. I ignored him because it
seemed ridiculous off the bat.
So again, he called up to me,yelling that I should come down
and see what my dog did. Andthat piqued my daughter's
(07:19):
interest to go down and see whatthe dog did. She was
unimpressed, and I don't reallyknow what she thought about it,
but by the time I camedownstairs to see what
ridiculousness I had in store, Inoticed that the piano was
pulled away from the wall, andbehind it was all this dog food,
apparently that was spilled intothe back of my piano, and this
(07:42):
piano was mine. It wasn't ours.
So I came downstairs to look andsee closer what this looked
like, and I took pictures of ittoo, because nobody would have
believed that this was actuallywhat he was saying, but he
claimed that the dog washoarding food in the back of the
piano, so my 35 pound dog isable to move a piano away from
(08:07):
the wall so that she can storefood in the back of it. Now, the
point of the pictures was toshow anybody who didn't believe
this that a dog hoarding foodwould take mouthfuls of it. If
this is exactly what washappening, what the back of the
piano actually looked like was ahuman who actually poured it
(08:30):
into the back of the piano. Itwas uniform. There were areas
that were higher than theothers, but it was so clearly, a
human who did this, it was neat.
It was it was so dumb to thinkthat this dog would be able to
do this. His whole Mo was to getme to clean it up, and I
(08:51):
refused. You're not going topour dog food into the back of
my piano and then make me cleanit up. But I made him feel
foolish for the fact that Ididn't believe him. But like I
said, you can't make this shitup. This was about the time we
were getting close to finalizingour divorce agreement, according
(09:12):
to my attorney, we were in thefinal stages at this point, and
it just was very clear to methat he was becoming unglued and
running out of things to pinagainst me. You know, he said
and did all the things that hecould think to do to ruin me,
and none of it was working. So Iwas unbothered by this whole dog
(09:33):
food in the piano episode. Isaid I was not cleaning it up,
and I went back upstairs to myroom, and lo and behold, he
wound up cleaning it andvacuuming, and that was it. We
moved on from that. Can youimagine?
So camp was coming around againby the summertime of last year,
(09:58):
and I. Don't know whether it washim convincing her that she
shouldn't go back to camp, or ifit was her decision, I'm not
really sure, but she decided notto go back to camp. This is her
narrative. The whole yearthrough, she wasn't going back,
and from what I understood, shewas trying to make plans to go
on a Teen Tour with some localfriends from a neighboring town,
(10:22):
and I believe the friends thatshe was wanting to go with were
flaking out of these plans, andthey decided to make other plans
instead for the summer. So loand behold, my daughter decided
that she was going to go back tocamp after all, and she didn't
want me there. Now she's at theage where it's very likely that
she didn't want me there, and Iaccept that, except because I
(10:44):
worked at her sleep away campfor the last six summers.
Somebody printed an email fromhim to her last summer
explaining that she shouldn'tcome to me if she needs
something at camp, her cousinwent there, and so he was
directing her, if you needsomething, go to your cousin.
He'll go to his mother and get amessage, and the mother will
(11:07):
then tell my ex what the messageis. So instead of doing what she
always did every summer, whichwas come to me and ask me for
something, he was telling hernot to come to me and to go the
route of his cousin. Could Ipromise that the only reason she
didn't want me there was becauseof her reasonings, or was it
(11:29):
safe to say that he influencedher with that too? I'll never
know, but it was the first timeI did not go to camp with her. I
was there for six years, and theseventh year I was not able to
go. Some things happened at campthat weren't ideal. She got
involved in some situations atcamp that I don't know if I were
(11:50):
there, if I would be able tohave stopped, but she did not
have a good summer, and as such,is refusing to go back. Now for
her last summer, it is so hardto be an active mother in the
life of your child who wantsnothing to do with you, and I
(12:13):
recognize that this is an agewhere she would have separated
from me, and she would haverejected me normally, but I am
1,000% sure that he influencesall of these decisions with her
against me. I'm at a point nowthat I'm five months out of
living at the house with them, Ihad to leave and move out of
(12:36):
that house. It was the only waythat this divorce would end. I'm
trying to move on with my life.
I'm trying to find peace. It'staken all these months, but the
shock is wearing off of my body.
Finally, and my nervous systemis starting to calm down a bit.
My body is recognizing that it'ssafe to rest now. So I've been
(12:57):
in a recovery mode for the lastseveral months. Moving on and
launching this podcast was amajor thing for me, because I
really was not wanting to reliveall of this, but if I'm going to
be somebody who is willing andable to help others going
through this, I needed to dothat, and what I discovered was
(13:19):
that it did help part of myhealing by going through all of
it again, so far, I have reachedover 100,000 people in different
groups that I'm in on socialmedia. I've gotten a lot of
positive feedback, some negativefeedback, from people who I
believe I've triggered, andtherefore they don't like me,
(13:42):
and that's okay, but I believethat there is a very large
audience out there who could usethe help that I can offer, the
wisdom, the experience that I'vehad, and so I'm highly motivated
to keep going, because I reallywant to help People. Please join
me every Thursday for a newepisode. I invite you to
(14:05):
comment, like, share, subscribe.
You can reach me at the music oflife, five, five@gmail.com with
any questions or stories orexperiences or anything that you
want to share with me, I'd behappy to talk about it on
another episode. You can checkout my website@podpage.com slash
the music of life. You.
Karen,
Caryn Portnoy (00:07):
hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life.
I'm your host. Karen Portnoy,before I get into this episode,
please comment, ask questions,share some of your experiences,
and don't forget to subscribe.
You. So I ask you, how did yourex go about trying to ruin you
and your divorce? What subtle ornot so subtle nuances did you
(00:30):
pick up on that had to do withyour children? How did you
handle those moments I spoke inearlier episodes about how my ex
manipulated my daughter againstme and alienated her from me,
how he bought her loyalty byspoiling her, how he enabled her
by doing everything for her, andhow he empowered her to rule the
(00:52):
roost. So I always taught mydaughter how to do her own
laundry, how to load thedishwasher. I even taught her
how to clean toilets withouttouching anything with a rubber
glove, and, you know, the wandthat cleans the toilet without
having to touch anything. Whenshe was younger, she used to
(01:12):
love doing that, so it wasn't astretch for me to teach her how
to clean how to put things away,how to wash laundry. I mean, all
these things. He wasn't havingany of it. He did everything for
her. He even yelled at me, howam I making my daughter clean
toilets, like she's too good toclean a toilet and all I kept
(01:34):
thinking to myself every time hewould clean her room, change her
sheets, vacuum, dust, all ofthat stuff she could have done
herself, and he would havebenefited her by giving her life
skills, by teaching her how todo these things herself.
Instead, he did it all for her.
(01:55):
He cleaned her bathroom, hecleaned her bedroom, he did all
of her laundry, he cleaned allof her dishes, and he thinks
that that was good parenting. Sowhen she's 30 something years
old and living in New York Cityand calls her daddy to come and
clean her apartment, he'll gorunning. How does that benefit
(02:16):
her? And the fact that heempowers her to make all these
decisions that I'm sorry a 14year old shouldn't be making.
He's only hurting her,especially when it comes to our
custody agreement, we have veryclear cut parenting time. I'm
supposed to have her afterschool on Thursdays. I'm
(02:36):
supposed to pick her up afterschool. She's supposed to stay
by me and I take her back toschool first thing Monday
morning, and that's supposed tobe every other weekend. And then
on top of it, I'm supposed to bewith her every Tuesday. I pick
her up from school. I'm with herfor the rest of the afternoon,
and I have dinner with her, andthen I drop her off. He allows
(02:58):
her to cancel her parenting timewith me. He allows her to not
see me on Tuesday nights. Iunderstand she has appointments
and tutors and homework and allkinds of things after school.
She told me back in August, whenwe were on vacation together,
(03:18):
that Tuesdays weren't going tobe good for her, but we'll find
another day. And every time thatI've asked her about finding
another day, I keep getting thesame excuse. I have something
every day after school that maybe true, but I don't have a co
parent who is enforcing ourcustody agreement on any level.
(03:40):
The fact that she had herattorney advocating for her to
live with her dad, primarilyafter we had a 5050, custody
agreement verbally for a year,is mind blowing to me all
because he doesn't want to payme child support. I reminded him
that as the primary residentialparent, it is his job, as per
(04:04):
our agreement, to encourage ameaningful relationship between
she and I, and while he saysthat he's doing that, the
evidence of that says otherwise,I highly doubt that he is
encouraging any relationshipwith me, because his entire Mo
was to hurt me through her. Fromthe moment I filed for divorce,
(04:27):
I told him early on that if hereally, truly loved her, he
would make sure that she and Iwere strong, and instead he
dismissed me. It was all aboutkeeping her away from me,
slandering me to her andbrainwashing her with his
narrative about me. He was aDisney dad. He would rather
(04:47):
spoil her, buy her loyalty,whatever she wanted she got.
That was his whole motivationfor everything make it
impossible for her to ever sayno to him. I. On top of the fact
that he's a very overbearingbully type of personality, no
child would be able to say no tohim or stand up to him or go
(05:10):
against him in any possible way,he bought her so many clothes
that the closet in her room thatwe expanded years ago, all of
her clothes have spilled outover her already expanded
closet, over to a bench that wasin the hallway, and the ping
(05:30):
pong table we have in thebasement, and then all over the
laundry room. So all of thoseplaces were spilled over with
her clothes. What 14 year oldactually admits that they have
too many clothes, and while heclaims to have encouraged a
relationship between she and I,he doesn't realize how much I
heard the complete oppositenarrative from him when we lived
(05:53):
together. He would talk to herlike a surrogate wife. He would
share things with her that werenot appropriate for a child to
hear about me or the dynamics ofour divorce, all things I
overheard with my own ears. Iavoided confronting him because
I didn't want to get intosomething in front of her, but I
was very well aware of thethings he said to her when he
(06:15):
thought I wasn't listening. Theinteresting thing is that he
severely underestimated me atevery twist and turn. I kept my
mouth shut as time went on, andI let him tell on himself,
either to me directly or loudenough for me to hear him tell
her, I plead dumb so I couldstay a few steps ahead of him,
and when he thought he succeededin destroying me, I always rose
(06:38):
from the ashes, just like aphoenix every single time.
Another example of how he triedto sabotage me was with our dog.
Once again, it was the mostbizarre thing, and I swear I
could never make this up. But itwas a Saturday morning, and I
was sleeping in, and he wasdownstairs cleaning angrily
(06:58):
because I wasn't, and he wasvacuuming the living room, and
all of a sudden he yells up tome pretty loudly, that I should
come down and see what my dogdid. I ignored him because it
seemed ridiculous off the bat.
So again, he called up to me,yelling that I should come down
and see what my dog did. Andthat piqued my daughter's
(07:19):
interest to go down and see whatthe dog did. She was
unimpressed, and I don't reallyknow what she thought about it,
but by the time I camedownstairs to see what
ridiculousness I had in store, Inoticed that the piano was
pulled away from the wall, andbehind it was all this dog food,
apparently that was spilled intothe back of my piano, and this
(07:42):
piano was mine. It wasn't ours.
So I came downstairs to look andsee closer what this looked
like, and I took pictures of ittoo, because nobody would have
believed that this was actuallywhat he was saying, but he
claimed that the dog washoarding food in the back of the
piano, so my 35 pound dog isable to move a piano away from
(08:07):
the wall so that she can storefood in the back of it. Now, the
point of the pictures was toshow anybody who didn't believe
this that a dog hoarding foodwould take mouthfuls of it. If
this is exactly what washappening, what the back of the
piano actually looked like was ahuman who actually poured it
(08:30):
into the back of the piano. Itwas uniform. There were areas
that were higher than theothers, but it was so clearly, a
human who did this, it was neat.
It was it was so dumb to thinkthat this dog would be able to
do this. His whole Mo was to getme to clean it up, and I
(08:51):
refused. You're not going topour dog food into the back of
my piano and then make me cleanit up. But I made him feel
foolish for the fact that Ididn't believe him. But like I
said, you can't make this shitup. This was about the time we
were getting close to finalizingour divorce agreement, according
(09:12):
to my attorney, we were in thefinal stages at this point, and
it just was very clear to methat he was becoming unglued and
running out of things to pinagainst me. You know, he said
and did all the things that hecould think to do to ruin me,
and none of it was working. So Iwas unbothered by this whole dog
(09:33):
food in the piano episode. Isaid I was not cleaning it up,
and I went back upstairs to myroom, and lo and behold, he
wound up cleaning it andvacuuming, and that was it. We
moved on from that. Can youimagine?
So camp was coming around againby the summertime of last year,
(09:58):
and I. Don't know whether it washim convincing her that she
shouldn't go back to camp, or ifit was her decision, I'm not
really sure, but she decided notto go back to camp. This is her
narrative. The whole yearthrough, she wasn't going back,
and from what I understood, shewas trying to make plans to go
on a Teen Tour with some localfriends from a neighboring town,
(10:22):
and I believe the friends thatshe was wanting to go with were
flaking out of these plans, andthey decided to make other plans
instead for the summer. So loand behold, my daughter decided
that she was going to go back tocamp after all, and she didn't
want me there. Now she's at theage where it's very likely that
she didn't want me there, and Iaccept that, except because I
(10:44):
worked at her sleep away campfor the last six summers.
Somebody printed an email fromhim to her last summer
explaining that she shouldn'tcome to me if she needs
something at camp, her cousinwent there, and so he was
directing her, if you needsomething, go to your cousin.
He'll go to his mother and get amessage, and the mother will
(11:07):
then tell my ex what the messageis. So instead of doing what she
always did every summer, whichwas come to me and ask me for
something, he was telling hernot to come to me and to go the
route of his cousin. Could Ipromise that the only reason she
didn't want me there was becauseof her reasonings, or was it
(11:29):
safe to say that he influencedher with that too? I'll never
know, but it was the first timeI did not go to camp with her. I
was there for six years, and theseventh year I was not able to
go. Some things happened at campthat weren't ideal. She got
involved in some situations atcamp that I don't know if I were
(11:50):
there, if I would be able tohave stopped, but she did not
have a good summer, and as such,is refusing to go back. Now for
her last summer, it is so hardto be an active mother in the
life of your child who wantsnothing to do with you, and I
(12:13):
recognize that this is an agewhere she would have separated
from me, and she would haverejected me normally, but I am
1,000% sure that he influencesall of these decisions with her
against me. I'm at a point nowthat I'm five months out of
living at the house with them, Ihad to leave and move out of
(12:36):
that house. It was the only waythat this divorce would end. I'm
trying to move on with my life.
I'm trying to find peace. It'staken all these months, but the
shock is wearing off of my body.
Finally, and my nervous systemis starting to calm down a bit.
My body is recognizing that it'ssafe to rest now. So I've been
(12:57):
in a recovery mode for the lastseveral months. Moving on and
launching this podcast was amajor thing for me, because I
really was not wanting to reliveall of this, but if I'm going to
be somebody who is willing andable to help others going
through this, I needed to dothat, and what I discovered was
(13:19):
that it did help part of myhealing by going through all of
it again, so far, I have reachedover 100,000 people in different
groups that I'm in on socialmedia. I've gotten a lot of
positive feedback, some negativefeedback, from people who I
believe I've triggered, andtherefore they don't like me,
(13:42):
and that's okay, but I believethat there is a very large
audience out there who could usethe help that I can offer, the
wisdom, the experience that I'vehad, and so I'm highly motivated
to keep going, because I reallywant to help People. Please join
me every Thursday for a newepisode. I invite you to
(14:05):
comment, like, share, subscribe.
You can reach me at the music oflife, five, five@gmail.com with
any questions or stories orexperiences or anything that you
want to share with me, I'd behappy to talk about it on
another episode. You can checkout my website@podpage.com slash
the music of life. You.
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