Protecting myself

[backwardsbike]

Hi Soc,

I have read your board for a few years now and have learned a lot.  Thank you for the service you provide.  I have not seen this problem mentioned before, but its an issue for me.

All parties in PA.  In Feb 06 judge ordered counseling for both Cp and myself. I am NCM.  The order was based on the fact that for the last 8.5 years CP and I have been to court numerous times for things most adults could work out on thier own.

CP refused to participate in choosing a counselor.  I chose one.  he refused to attend the first two appointments.  Finally showed up for the third.  The joint session was not good as he refuses to speak to me, even when we are in the same room.

This resulted in the counselor requesting that she meet with each of us privately.  I hesitated as X is very manipulative and things generally go south for me once he gets any professional behind closed doors.  But I agreed because I trusted the counselor who seemed to understand the situation.

Well, true to form, once he spoke to her behind closed doors she refused to put us in the same room together again.  She also did not do any counseling with me on the individual sessions she had me schedule.

FOr the most part she just attempted to intimidate  me into dropping a contempt motion I had filed agaisnt Cp. On four occassions she told me I had betterdrop it becasue it would "come back to bite me in the behind."

Ihad explained to her that I was still observeing the very same behaviors in CP that led me to file the motion and so would not drop it without seeing some progress towards cooperation.

I won the contempt.  X never showed up.  The judge asked me how the counseling was going and i gave him a breif accounting including that we were not meeting face to face, that the counselor had done no counseling with me except to tell me to drop the motion for contempt four different times and that there was no plan that I knew of for face to face sessions.

The judge was very angry and made part of the order for "Meaningful counsleing aimed at preventing behavior leading to more contempts".  My lawyer got a copy of the transcript and asked me to give it to the counselor.

After that she wrote a summary which in my opinion was very biased against me adn aimed at covering her own behind with regard to why she wasn't doing face to face counseling.  She stated that she thought the children's best interests needed to be redefined.

I had caught her in a bald face lie in that she was emailing the children while there were with the X.  She told me she wasn't communicating with them.  I had wanted to make them a part of the counsleing adn X had refused.  yet wanted them to email the counselor behind my back adn she apparntly participated.

I confronted her about this and told her I lacked trust in her adn had lost confidence in the therapeutic process.  SHe poo pooed this notion and called me "nit picky".

I refused to pay for the summary she had written on the basis that I had not contracted for any report writing and had not asked for it.  She left a voice mail message asking to discuss this with me.  When I tried to call her back it took in excess of two weeks to hear from her again.

This time in, another voice mail message, she said that X and i were to be scheduleing appointments face to face an were to agree on the dates betwen us and that she wasn't going to do this for us.  She made no mention of the fee for the summary or my issues of trust.  This is the first I knew of her intention for us to meet jointly with her except for a line in her summary.  Nowhere in it did she suggest we were to arrange our own appointments.

So, now I have an issue with needing a minor schedule change due to some graduate classes I am taking that cannot be rearranged.  X refuses to discuss alternative times and says he will discuss only with the counselor.

I made an appointment for us to meet with her in about two weeks.  I have concerns that she may try to frame me as the uncooperative party.  I feel if this were to happen there would be no way I could prove other wise.  I mean, she could say anything she wanted  and I would have no proof otherwise.  

I have already pulled the consnet I had signed for the counselor to speak with my attorney.  My hope was that it would prevent any more reports from being written.

Questions:

1.  How do I protect myself during the session with X and counselor?

2. Is there a way to get her to withdraw from our case?

3. Can I file something with the court that would protect me in the event that this biased "summary report" gets shown to the judge.

4. Since the counseling is court ordered can I somehow get out of it without being in contempt of the order.

[socrateaser]

>Questions:
>
>1.  How do I protect myself during the session with X and
>counselor?

I don't know why you are continuing with this counselor. Are you court ordered to use only this counselor? If not, then tell your X that you want to come to an agreement on a replacement, provide him with a list of possibilities and ask him to pick one. If he disagrees, then ask the court to appoint someone else, on grounds that you have lost faith in the counselor due to her communicating with your children and falsely telling you otherwise.

>
>2. Is there a way to get her to withdraw from our case?

Do what I just said, or tell the counselor you are uncomfortable with her because of the issue with your children, and so you want her to withdraw, because you cannot trust someone who does not tell you the truth. I'd just be nice -- but straightforward.

>
>3. Can I file something with the court that would protect me
>in the event that this biased "summary report" gets shown to
>the judge.

You can see a different counselor and offer other expert testimony to impeach the counselor's credibility. The emails to your kid would be good, too.

>
>4. Since the counseling is court ordered can I somehow get out
>of it without being in contempt of the order.

If you're stuck with this counselor, then move the court to appoint an alternative because you don't trust someone who openly lies to you regarding communicating with your children.