Should DH have meetings with BM?

[onedaddy]

The custody/contempt hearing against BM was set to begin 9/28 but the forensics report was not ready so it was postponed for 10/27. The judge neglected to clear her calendar and after waiting for 4 hours to see her she decided we should reschedule.  

Now, we had to take BM to court on 2 occasions bringing up counseling for the children (7 & 5) and then we filed a contempt order since she refused to oblige.  She found a therapist after the contempt order was filed.  Now she can only take them on Saturdays, it's too much during the week even though the kids get out of school at 2:15PM and they often call DH at 8:30-9PM to say they just got home.  So she takes them on Saturdays and the counselor thinks it is healthy for the kids to be brought by DH on his weekends, mind you its a 2 1/2 hour drive each way.  So they should associate the time with their father as being on extremely long car rides on Friday, Staurday and Sunday. DH said absolutely not.

The counselor expressed DH and BM should now attend counseling with her together to express their feelings about the kids together.  Mind you BM was verbally and physically abusive throughout the 10 years of marriage.  Just this past year, she had DH falsely arrested 2x where he was forced to post $2500 bail and spent 10 hours in a maximum security cell, it took us 5 months to prove to the judge her ENTIRE story was made up, but we did. Yet still he has an arrest record.
She has  threatened him and myself verbally and with the court system with horrendous allegations that the judge has heard but has yet to hear our proof that it is all lies.  SF the violent convict has even threatened us and DH is finally making great progress in our counseling with taking control over his life.  The lawyer originally agreed with us that this should not happen, but then the GAL thought it was a good idea and now our lawyer must follow.  Would they dare ask an abused woman to share time with her abusive husband?

Please note that my husband has attempted this in the past when they were ordered to attend counseling together just a year ago, and nothing but aggravation and my husband feeling defeated came out of this.  She also screamed at me for accompanying my husband for support, I waited in the car.

DH has always followed the CO to the letter, he has ALWAYS compromised.  BM has NEVER, unless the court forced her to.  And now when he says NO just once, he's not interested in the kids benefit and he's being unreasonable.
 

[rm1759]

I was also extremely leary about attending sessions with the BM.  They still make me extremely uncomfortable, however I think it's important that he goes.  Remember it is now the therapist that he has to convince that BM is a whacko.  If he's not there, then all the therapist is going to here is her side, and his refusing to go just looks to the therapist that he is being non-cooperative.

I did NOT go to the therapy sessions when they first began with our first therapist, and she ended up hating me even to the point of writing threatening letters, I tried to start going to the sessions to defend myself, but by then it was too late and she wouldn't allow it.  I finally got the therapist changed, and made sure that I was at EVERY session my child was in, even if I wasn't supposed to speak with the therapist.  I wanted to prove to the therapist that I am an involved Dad and I do care deeply about my DD.  At every session I never said anything negative about SBFH (although I dearly wanted to) and in the beginning he DID take her side, much of the work centered on how I could improve.  As time went by (3-4 months) he started to see that the things I was telling him were true (alienating behavior by BM, BM being aggressive to me to the point of making threats, etc) and now is completely on my side.  All I did was be patient and state the FACTS of what happened and what my concerns were, never saying anything bad about her, kept my temper in check and treated it like business, not personal.  Remember that even the therapists can be biased and they tend to assume that dad is a deadbeat, so you have to overcome the bias AND the lies that are told, and that will take time.

Sorry this was so long, but I can't imagine now not attending the sessions, and I would recommend that he goes if for nothing else than to defend himself, because you KNOW what PBFH is telling the therapist about dad....

[Stepmomnow]

HI

I strongly suggest that your DH attend.  My DH's ex is also abusive to him, although all she does is scream at him, not have him arrested.  Through the "co-parenting" sessions DH has learned how to deal with her better, not that she has changed or that the therapist has done much, but that he has a chance to make better decisions about how too react to her.  Your DH has to remember at all times, the therapist is the person he is trying to get through to, not BM.  BM is who she is and will not change.  He has to convince the therapist that she is luny.

That being said, you will run into a client patient privilege if you even need the therapist to testify for you about what goes on in the sessions.  BM has to allow her to testify.  One way to deal with this is for both of you to sign a waiver of the privilege before you start.  If she won't do that, then DH has to go anyway, and when he needs to use the therapist in court, make BM refuse to allow it in front of the judge.  Then the judge has some idea of who is not cooperating.


Just my opinions.

[onedaddy]

We have gone to meet with the therapist and have kept open communication with her.  My problem is seeing the therapist together due to the past.  It is also extremely difficult for us to see her on a regular basis as it is a 2-3 hour drive in each direction and DH's job requires overtime and on-call weekends during the cold months.  He no longer has the privilege to request days off here and there due to the constant family court and criminal court dates over this past year and we are expecting our 1st child in 2 months.

Do you really believe going with the ex will make any difference what so ever?  He tried co-parenting with a separate therapist and nothing came of it.  Neither of us feel comfortable with this and our counselor expressed the same doubt.  This is a woman who violated a court order by picking up the children's phone line, her husband then threatened to f*** DH with his fists after BM said she would deny him the upcoming weekend, DH said nothing other than I'll talk to my lawyer now please put the kids on the phone.  They walked into a police station the next am and said DH threatened to shot them between the eyes.  

We had substantial proof that this was untrue yet the police insisted on "procedure",arrested him, sent him to prison for 10 hours 100 miles from our home while I followed and waited around to post $2500 bail.  We had to appear in court 4 times until the 2 trial and paid a lawyer thousands for what.

I do not feel safe taking any chances or being around this woman.

I'm sorry but our forensics evaluator sent a 30 page report stating that among other things BM abuses the system, is likely to become violent, she is severly sociopathic, pyschopathic, anti-social and borderline and s 26 violent arrests.  The therapist is unfortunately not privy to this information.  

[Kitty C.]

Then I'd be informing your atty. that this 'therapist' SHOULD be privy to the info.  I can about guarantee you that once that happens, a different tune will be played.........

[onedaddy]

We spoke to the lawyer about releasing such information, apparently it's illegal and she will request from the judge at the end of the trial.  but
the trial is yet to begin.
Until then do we go with our gut and stay away from such meetings or do we listen to the GAL who was able to do nothing for us during this arrest not even convince BM to stop picking up the childrens phone so DH could excercise his court ordered telephone time.
Mind you our last lawyer made it very clear that no matter what my DH must speak with BM when she wanted to speak about the kids and look what happened.

[rm1759]

Is it illegal to give the therapist copies of the paperwork, or is it illegal to mention it?  Surely he could mention some of the past episodes during the sessions (with or without BM there) and there would be nothing wrong with that...

I don't know all of your details, so you and your DH are in a better position, but I know for my case that I was very much against it at first, but I am very glad now that I stuck with it...

[onedaddy]

We can and have mentioned some incidents that have occured trying to keep it clear this was about the children.  We are unable to mention the findings of this forensics report at this time which explains that BM is a danger to society as well as DH and these children are doomed w/o therapy.  In fact we are unable to ever have a copy of this report for our own records.

We have stressed time and again how DH wants to be a part of this therapy, we wanted to be the ones taking them to therapy whne they were with us as BM has never been consistent with Dr., school, etc. and we are very sure they will taken out of this as soon as the trial is over and /or BM realizes this will not help her in court. But we cannot feel safe in the same room as BM.  We have always made ourselves available to her via phone and will and have come in w/o BM and SF.

Hopefully, DH will win custody and we'll transfer to a local therapist.  I know it is not helpful for the children to change therapists like this, but it is not helpful for BM to tell them what to tell her against daddy and question them when they leave which I have no doubt happens and the evaluator felt the same.

[onedaddy]

we made sure it was stipulated in the order that the therapist can not testify in court on the children's behalf.  We thought this would make it more about the children than the fight for custody.

[Kitty C.]

.....I would tell this therapist exactly what you told us.that you do NOT feel safe in the same room with her.  That is certain to raise suspicions with the therapist.  And if this therapist is also aware that the findings of the court cannot be accessed by her, it ought to be enough to make her realize that it could do more harm than good to have you both present.

Like the other posters have said, every situation is different and in others they have found taht, tho it was uncomfortable or awkward, they did it and it was fine.  But if you actually feel that threatened by just being in her presense, I do NOT recommend doing it.  If you can do via telephone, it would be better than nothing, but you also need to go in on your own physically too, and have the BM call in.