For years, Jacqueline Rourke lived a life that looked, from the outside, almost picture-perfect. A successful television journalist. A busy, proud mother of three. A woman juggling it all—until everything unravelled.
“After many, many years and trying, I decided for my mental health and well being and that of my children, that unfortunately, I could not wait anymore until the kids were 18 — I had to separate,” Rourke told Lianne Castelino during an interview for Where Parents Talk.
It triggered the start of a psychological nightmare she never saw coming.“When I left, I thought the hardest part was over. But that’s when things really began to fall apart.”
A Slow Erosion
At first, the changes were subtle. Her kids seemed more distant. Hesitant. Angry—but in ways that didn’t make sense.“You question yourself constantly. What did I do? Where did I go wrong?”
She soon learned the name for what was happening: parental alienation—a form of psychological abuse where one parent manipulates a child into rejecting the other parent without cause.
Her ex-husband’s campaign began quietly but methodically—nasty whispers, planted doubts, calculated lies. “In front of me, he told the kids, ‘Mommy doesn’t love you. She only loves herself.’ That was one of the 17 classic alienating behaviours. And I experienced all of them.”
He showed them court documents. Told them stories—some true, some twisted. He painted Rourke as dangerous, untrustworthy, selfish. And the people around her—teachers, neighbours, even family—began to believe him. “They get to everyone first. By the time you show up heartbroken, you’re already discredited,” she says.
The manipulation wasn’t just emotional—it was systemic.
“No one talks about this. Not the courts. Not the schools. Not the therapists. I didn’t even know the term ‘parental alienation’ until I was already drowning in it.”
The Emotional Fallout
What followed was devestating. “I lost my kids. But there was no funeral. No mourning period. Just silence. Just people wondering what I did wrong.”
The grief manifested in Rourke’s body: chronic pain, a locked jaw, eventually back surgery. Her once-vibrant career dissolved under the weight of depression. “This kind of loss—it’s trauma. It’s PTSD. Complex PTSD. It took me out completely.”
Even more heartbreaking, she watched her children mirror the language of her alienator—words she knew weren’t their own. “They told me, ‘There was never anything good about you.’ That’s not how real memory works. That’s how manipulation works.”
She now knows this as splitting, a psychological survival response where a child sees one parent as all good, the other as all bad, just to make sense of the chaos.
Estrangement versus Alienation
Rourke is quick to clarify a crucial distinction: “Estrangement is when a child backs away from a parent due to real harm. Alienation is when the child is used—manipulated—to reject a parent without cause.” She emphasizes: children who suffer real abuse often still want contact. Alienated children, on the other hand, suddenly become cold, absolute, and dismissive—tools in someone else’s emotional war.
The Turning Point
After hitting an emotional and physical rock bottom, Rourke did something many alienated parents never manage: she shifted her approach. “I stopped engaging with my ex. I dropped the rope. I realized that reacting, defending, trying to fix it—that was feeding the fire.”
Instead, she focused on one thing: showing up for her children with quiet, unwavering love. “A weekly message. Positive. About them. No guilt. No pressure. No ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Just love.”
She stopped asking for apologies. She stopped trying to explain. She refused to make her children carry the burden of adult conflict. “They’re victims too. Expecting them to apologize for surviving in the only way they knew how—that’s not fair.”
Rebuilding
Over time, the silence softened. Walls crumbled. And slowly, Rourke and her children found their way back to each other.
“We’re reconnected now. Fully. But we never talked about alienation. That’s not their burden. I just kept showing up.”
Her healing wasn’t just personal—it became political.
Rourke channelled her harrowing lived experience into advocacy – supporting Bill C-332, which would recognize coercive control as a criminal offence.
“If this had been illegal when it happened to me, maybe my children wouldn’t have suffered. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost years.”
She believes we’re on the cusp of a social reckoning.
“Just like society finally woke up to victim-blaming in sexual assault, we need to wake up to victim-blaming in family court. This is going to have its own #MeToo.”
For Parents in Pain
To any parent trapped in the silent devastation of alienation, Rourke says, “inform yourself. Drop the rope. Keep the love flowing. Your child needs you—even if they don’t know it yet.”
She urges parents to seek therapists and legal professionals who understand alienation—not just high-conflict divorce. To document everything. To resist the urge to fight fire with fire.
“You be the parent. You don’t match dysfunction. You lead with love. Quiet, steady, persistent love.”
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Silent Epidemic: Parent and Child Estrangement with Dr. Joshua Coleman
How Domestic Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence can Affect Parenting