Page 27 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents

Contributing Factor Ten: The Malicious or Emotionally Fragile Parent
There are parents who actively try to toxify the relationship between their children and the other parent. When describing an "alienating parent"
this is the classic depiction. Understand though that it has taken this long to get here and the other factors which lead to parental rejection are all as important and do not involve "alienation" in the sense it is most typically portrayed.
Their motivation of the malicious parent is derived from numerous places of psychological suffering and/or disturbance. The clinical presentation is usually one of character or "personality" disorder. The two most common dynamics which underlie the motivation for one parent to toxify the relationship between the child and a former partner are revenge and fear of abandonment.
Revenge
A parent who feels slighted or wronged by a former partner (someone who was unfaithful, dishonest, disappointing) may come to believe that their ex or soon to be ex does not deserve to right to raise the child.
"You were never a good [spouse, partner] to me, you will never be a good parent to our child, and therefore we are both better off without you."
The war cry of the most contentious custody battles has always been:
"I will make sure our child knows what type of person you are, and you will never see her again."
The revenge motivated malicious parent sees the court system as being too busy, too dumb, too duped by the other side or too disinterested in understanding what really went on in
their life or the life of their child. If the system did know "the truth" of what happened in your life the decision makers would see that the child is better off without a parent like that, but since "these people" do not really care it is their job to teach the child what a bad person the other parent is so that they can be protected from their abuse
The revenge motivated parent typically knows that the child will suffer over being cut off from the other parent. However, "in the long run," they believe that the child will see that they are better off without that parent.
In the most serious cases these parents will kidnap or flee with their children.
27