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detachment. The rage and detachment is followed by demands for love and attention and the dynamics of the relationship become very circular and crazy making for the object of the pathological attachment.
When relationships like this end, and there are children involved, the fear of abandonment often translates to fear of abandonment by the children. The pathological parent places tremendous demands for loyalty on the children. They fear that if the children have even a minimal relationship with the (ultimately) rejected parent they will never want to see or be with the preferred parent again.
This fear of abandonment translates to the pathological parents' needs for the children to be dependent on them, or "enmeshed" with them.
Enmeshment is a clinical term which means that there is so much co-dependence between the parent and the child that there is no psychological difference in their identities. This unhealthy attachment is created by the following behaviors and others like them:
Giving the children the impression that life at the other parent's home is unsafe or dangerous.
Maligning the other parent by calling them "stupid," "abusive," or "cheap."
Co-sleeping in the service or forming an emotional dependency.
Demands for constant communication with them through electronic means such as telephone calls, video conference, emails and messaging, which results in making the non-preferred parent seem
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