The price I have had to pay for this seems unbearable. I have two beautiful daughters, aged 14 and 12. Before my marriage broke up, I had a really good bond with them. We were very close. In the first months after I left, my wife did all she could to prevent me seeing them, but I was determined to maintain my relationship with the girls and I thought we had worked through our difficulties.

I met someone else nine months ago and I’m happier than I have been for a long time. Since I began seeing my girlfriend, however, my ex-wife has ramped up her campaign against me and has sabotaged any relationship I had left with the girls.

She tells them that I have left them, when I only left her. She has told them that I am more interested in my own life than theirs, and that if I loved them I would never have left.

I understand what’s going on. I think they are terrified of seeing me because they know it will upset her and they don’t want to do that. So they don’t answer my calls or respond to emails, and when I have succeeded in contacting them, they say they don’t want to see me.

My wife has put them in an impossible position. They are unable to show how they really feel and I think they are beginning to believe they don’t need me.

I have had court contact orders but the children are old enough to decide for themselves and they are certainly not encouraged to keep me in their lives. The court can’t help and I can’t keep bringing them back to court. What can I do?

Charlotte Friedman replies: I am sorry to hear about this situation. Unfortunately, it is all too common and the courts have a name for what your wife has done to the children. It’s called ‘parental alienation’.

When children live primarily with one parent, it is hard for them to break ranks and appear to be disloyal, for fear of that parent abandoning them, and because it is too distressing to see an upset parent. Court orders in respect of contact have no sanctions attached that really affect the outcome.

If your wife breaks a court order, she will be reprimanded and the court will try again. But if the situation continues, the choice for the court is stark. They might remove the children and give them to you, because they might say she is emotionally abusing them by alienating them from you.

However, before they do that, they will carry out a balancing exercise, asking: is it more abusive to take them away from a parent with whom they are settled and happy in a stable home than to leave them where they are without a relationship with their father? Unfortunately, the courts mostly opt in favour of leaving settled children where they are, even though the consequences for you are devastating.

Your children need you. And they need to know that, despite everything, you continue to love them. The most you can do right now is to write to them and tell them that you do love them, you are always available for them when they are ready to see you, and you are sorry they feel they can’t do that right now.

To guard against interception of a letter, you might also want to repeat this message by text and email, or (privately) through a social media site.

I believe that, in time, they will make their own decisions and seek you out. They will come to understand as they grow in independence and experience that, in aligning themselves with their mother, they have forfeited something they are entitled to and that belongs to them: a father who loves them.

I know this is a frustrating and distressing time. If you can hold them in mind so that, despite their apparent wish not to see you, they know you are there, it will make a difference over time.

One other option that you may have tried is to give your wife a voice, so she can let you know – not through the children but directly from her to you –how angry and bereaved she feels. That may then free her up from punishing you with the only weapon she feels she has: your children.

Perhaps take her out for a drink, tell her you are sorry and say you will listen to whatever she has to say. Slowly, if she feels heard, she may come round.

Charlotte Friedman runs the Divorce Support Group

Charlotte Friedman is The Mediator on high50.com, the website for the involved and influential 50-plus generation

See The Mediator part one on high50: “My marriage is a life sentence”

Further reading: Fathers’ rights: access all areas

John Carter is an ex-military captain transported to Barsoom (Mars), a planet on the brink of collapse. Action ensues as he becomes involved in the conflict between its people. The story is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs and stars Taylor Kitsch and Willem Dafoe.

Downtime with dad: essential for building a bond

Recent news that the government had decided to change the law and make it a child’s right to a relationship with both parents had me reminiscing on a grinding, uncelebrated and now, it would seem, successful campaign. I was chairman of Families Need Fathers for five years in the early noughties, and heavily involved for 15.

For me, it started in 1991 when a motorbike courier came to the front door bearing a solicitor’s letter. The letter said that my wife had had enough, moved out, taken our son with her, and “see you in court”. I did my best to fight it, but after a fair old legal battle, lasting a few years, I realised I had no chance of preventing her from taking our son to live in Japan, her home country.

Then she stopped sending him for holidays and cut off all contact, and I didn’t hear from him for about five years, until he surfaced on Facebook.

Mine was one of the very first Children Act 1989 cases. This Act was passed partly to recognise the importance of a father in the life of children. But, as far as I could see, the lawyers quickly subverted Parliament’s intentions. The courts carried on much as before, with every case continuing to be decided on its “individual merits, in the best interests of the children”. This formula left the lawyers with healthy scope for a good ding-dong, but was just code for “in the best interests of the mother”.

I’m not the activist type, but I had seen the help Families Need Fathers was able to give to individuals like me at their meetings dotted up and down the country. I became London Branch chairman by mistake. At the 1992 AGM, no one volunteered for the post so, in a moment of madness, I put my hand up. Then the national chairman keeled over dead aged 40-something, and I ended up as boss.

We were a rabble

We were, let’s be honest, a rabble, and an angry rabble at that. We were easy to sideline in debates as a bitter bunch of losers. Even allies would put us down. In a talk about his memoir of divorce, I heard the author and playwright Terence Frisby (A Girl in My Soup) describing the organisation as Nippers Need Nutters. I got a good laugh when I stood up and said, “Hang on a mo, you have the current chairman in your audience.”

We’re now good friends, and in fact, Terry had, like me, done several years sitting in a London pub, chairing FNF surgeries, so I sort of understand.

The charity existed on its members’ subs, so I was never paid for what was close to a full-time job. A lot of time was taken up managing the rump of members who actually were nutters. It’s hard to sack volunteers when they’re all you’ve got, and often the nuttiest were also the most energetic. I’ve subsequently noticed this is the same in many organisations, from village fete committees to political parties.

But mostly I found thoroughly decent fathers who were suffering a great wrong. Depriving a parent of their children, well, it’s hard to think of something meaner and nastier. It’s just that, as it was “feckless” fathers suffering, no one much cared.

Our frustrated militants would break away from time to time, and mostly disappear without trace. But one group, Fathers 4 Justice, blocked roads and climbed up Buckingham Palace and struck a chord with the nation. Part of me regrets that I wasn’t gutsy enough to join them. Without doubt, they gave the campaign the push that was needed. They take, and are generally given, the credit for the proposed changes.

But the reforms wouldn’t have happened without us. We became disciplined. We got professional with our press releases.

We’d do tedious stuff (I can’t tell you how tedious) like addressing the New Labour mania for a Family Policy Consultation every five minutes. We ground out submissions to them all. We made sure we attended every dry-as-dust Family Policy seminar going, and lobbied the succession of New Labour children’s ministers (who’d get reshuffled every six months or so).

At seminars, there would be a sharp intake of breath when we spoke out and put the fathers’ point of view, as these events were peopled by a whole industry promoting the idea that single mothers do a heroic job while fathers abandon their children.

In quiet agreement

At these meetings you’d be treated like a Holocaust denier if you ventured to suggest that, actually, most men aren’t violent. And yet, in the quiet moments at the coffee breaks, people, women especially, would sidle up to you and confide, “I agree with what you say… Families DO need fathers.”

A female district judge nearly made me cry when she touched me on the arm in a quiet moment and whispered, “I can’t believe how patient you are” while I bit my lip as yet another Refuge person went on and on (and on) about how dangerous (all) men were to children. Someone noticed me being patient?

I still can’t believe that there was not even one campaigning lawyer on our side. Not one. Being pro father = anti-mother = misogynist = right-wing bigot, and no one wanted to be tainted by association. And yet FNF activists were all sorts, from out and out communists to High Tories, united only by our love for our children.

Still, it’s the Conservatives who are bringing in the change. Tim Loughton was shadow children’s minister throughout opposition, while Labour kept changing personnel. Now he is the minister. Mind you, I heard a family QC on the radio saying, “There’s no need for any change. We’re doing a great job.” I expect they’ll do what they can to keep the gravy train going.  Just like after 1989.

For help, go to Families Need Fathers. Or call the helpline, and if FNF can’t help you, they will know who can: 0300 0300 363

You may think it is safe, but how do you know for sure?

Today is Safer Internet Day, designed to get families talking about their internet use and how they can share knowledge to improve their safe navigation of the web.

Recent research revealed that children seek guidance from their parents, with 75 per cent of 9 to 16-year-olds saying they benefit from talking to their mothers and fathers about their internet use.

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton said: “Safer Internet Day is a great opportunity to remind children and parents about the help and support on offer to keep children safe online. The internet is a brilliant education tool but technology is constantly changing so there is an ongoing need to inform parents and children about the potential risks in the online world.

“The Department, together with Childnet and industry experts, is hosting an event today with 80 children, parents, carers and grandparents to talk about child internet safety. Children and young people will hear from real experts and we in turn will hear the opinions and experiences of children and parents first hand. Internet safety is a shared responsibility and it is important to empower parents and all generations in a family to talk to children about staying safe online.”

Hundreds of high-profile partners are supporting Safer Internet Day, with free events, resources and programmes on offer both on and offline. Partners include the BBC, CEOP, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Race Online 2012, the Industry Trust, BPI and many others. A full list of partners and what they are doing to support Safer Internet Day is available on the Safer Internet Centre.

Many of the partners will be participating in an innovative parliamentary event on Safer Internet Day, which will gather together groups of young people, parents, grandparents and carers to share their experiences, needs and safety concerns with MPs and representatives from the internet industry. Discussion from the event will inform the development of future advice and support for parents.

Go to the Safer Internet Centre website for the Safer Internet IQ Test and for more information