Let me say this to you plainly, Pete.
Na parang nagkakape lang tayo and talking quietly without anyone else around.
What you’re in right now is the “long game” with Pia and Paul. And the long game can be brutal.
That’s because it will not reward you instantly, loudly. or fairly. Even with your best efforts and legal victory, there are hard challenges ahead.
Pia and Paul are showing preference for their unsafe Mom in the current parental guardianship.
It could feel like a reflection or judgment on you, Pete. But it is not. So you should “not take it personally.”
Why?
Bakit nga ba si Mom pa rin ang napipili nila sa kabila ng maaring may alam na sila tungkol sa kanya?
Pia and Paul are still minors in early development. Kids at their age do not choose based on safety, values, or future consequences.
Two big psychological reasons.
One, “attachment biology.”
What’s happening is a snapshot of where Pia and Paul are today in their adolescent nervous system development.
Their biology is the one doing the choosing for them, not wisdom.
Minors choose based on emotional attachment pull, fear of loss, and illusion of closeness.
The other reason, “survival psychology.”
When children are overwhelmed, they do not run for survival to what’s safe and best. They run toward what feels familiar.
And their Mom represents familiarity and emotional charge even if it comes at a cost.
She’s known to the kids in unique ways, which she is exploiting for her selfish agenda..
You, Pete, their Dad, is the other parent fighting for them, their welfare and future. You represent reality, structure, and boundaries for them to grow in a right direction.
Here’s the hard truth that often gets missed: yung sacrifices mo, laban mo, Pete. para sa kabutihan at kinabukasan ni Pia, Psul, at Matthew.
These matters matter much, much more even when they look invisible or unclear to the kids.
The Court battles, healthy boundaries, insistence on safety. Saying “no” when it would be easier to say “yes.” All of that registers in ways that don’t show up in hugs or gratitude right now.
That clarity usually comes later — sometimes even years later — when the children’s nervous system is no longer in a survival mode.
Often, the safest parent (you Pete) is the one Pia and Paul may feel they can afford to push away in the short-term. Because deep down, they trust you that you won’t disappear.
And here’s another important insight:
Pia and Paul are most likely incapable to see their Mom as she really is at the moment until they are safer and growing better themselves.
The work you’re doing now and onwards, Pete, is what makes that future clarity, healing, and growth for Pia, Paul, and Matthew possible.
- SO HERE’s HOW THE “LONG GAME” LOOKS LIKE •
So the “LONG GAME” looks like this:
•You stay consistent even when they test you
•You don’t compete, beg, or collapse
•You hold the line on safety without turning cold
•You let them have their feelings without letting those feelings rewrite reality
That’s not weakness. That’s endurance.
There may come a time—often in late adolescence or early adulthood—when Pia, Paul, and Matthew will look back in time.
They’d realize you their DAD was the one who fought for them … the one who stood firm when standing firm was lonely.
When that happens, it won’t be dramatic. It will be quiet. But it will be real.
Until then, your job is not to win their preference or approval.
Your job is to protect the future version of them, even when the present version can’t see it yet.
And Pete, whether it feels like it or not: staying in this fight with integrity is already a form of deep love from their father.
They are absorbing it — slowly, silently, and more deeply than you know.
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