First counseling session today
I am very excited. Hoping we can get some good suggestions for dealing with bm and mil, who both show signs of BPD. It's been making ME feel nutso trying to deal with them.
The focus of our counselor's practice is "family systems" and he has a lot of years experience. Wish me luck in adequately being able to explain the situation...
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Good luck!
Hope you can at least be heard and understood by the impartial party - let us know what happens!
"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer." -Albert Camus
Our counsellor..
Our counsellor suggested that we cut off ALL direct communication with the BM...even though hubby has joint custody. The skids are 15 & 12, she said that messages can be passed through them now because they are old enough. The court order is in place for support & visitation...nothing else needs to be discussed unless it is a medical emergency with one of the skids.
She said if its a medical emergency with one of the skids, & if BM can't get a hold of hubby, medical staff or the police would....but to avoid the BM at all costs unless this were to happen.
Hubby wasn't sure about this, thought he would get in trouble in court....counsellor said, for what? He said joint custody means we are to communicate pertaining to the kids...she said yes it is to a certain extent, but joint custody does not mean that she is allowed to disrupt your life with nonsense....and that is exactly what she is doing. She said there is nothing left to discuss at this point, support is in place, visitation is in place, you know what extra's you have to pay....so she submits the receipts to you, & you send her a cheque in the mail...end of story. I could have hugged the counsellor!!
She told hubby it is time that he allows closure of this past relationship, because by him still continuing to communicate with her, it allows her to be a part in his everyday life (& mine) & that is not fair to anyone in this house.
So BM sent an email last night & one again this morning about holiday schedules for the skids...wanting to know if he wanted any (extra)specific time..too funny. She did this last year & the year before & about 20 emails went back and forth and she wouldn't allow any, so why bother with her crap. Hubby has decided he wants no summer visitation other than EOW because of the hell we go through with her & the skids taking info home...we walk on eggshells the entire time. Besides, she has started calling here each time they come for some sort of lame excuse & is now driving around our house when she drops them off so she can see us in our backyard if you can believe that (we live on a corner lot). So we are not even responding to her emails...lets see how irate she becomes over this one....maybe enough to finally have the nut charged.
Hopefully your counsellor suggests putting some huge boundaries around you and the BM you are dealing with...guess it really depends on how your court order is worded & how old the skids are. Good luck, hope you get some "tools" to work with.
Corie
well, we just got back and i
well, we just got back and i think it went well. i think this guy just might work out.
not much in first meeting, but here's what happened
he made a chart of our families and asked us a little about who was involved in the current problems. he got some background information on us and whether or not we had been through any counseling in the past (I hadn't, dh had) so he gave us an outline of how he thought we should proceed based on the little bit we talked about. He also worked with us on budgeting the sessions so that we could be most effective. basically he lowered his price because we thought we would need more than a couple of visits and we knew we would run out of money after about 3 or 4 sessions at his normal rate.
i felt very good about his manner. he told us that it sounded like we had put a lot of time and effort into trying to solve our problems and he was glad to see that we were willing to work at our problems instead of just giving up. he thought that it would help us in the long run with the situation. hearing that made a huge difference for me. he also warned us that things might get messier before they got better. he used the analogy of a junk drawer and when you clean it out, it makes a bigger mess at first, but then you can get it organized. he wanted us to be prepared that things we may not have realized were contributing to our family/ex problems might have to be resolved before we could start dealing directly with the problems at hand. we really didn't have much time for jumping right in because of paperwork. at first it bugged me that he filled out stuff we could have done ourselves before going in, but then i realized it gave us something neutral to talk about and interject little comments and personal questions without having to get right into the upsetting stuff. after i thought about it, it was a pretty smart thing to do. i still cringe at paying for him to fill out the forms, but i see the point.
i liked his explanations of his philosphy about counseling, what it is for and how he comes to his conclusions - it was comforting to hear those things up front and not feel later like he was just dragging the process out for the hell of it. i also agree with his plan of action for us and i felt like he thinks along the same lines as dh and i. maybe they all say those things to make you feel better, but it didn't sound insincere or scripted. (my bullshitometer is pretty good)
anyway, both dh and i were comfortable, and once again, i was impressed by my dh. i have always thought that we worked well together in various situations and meeting with the counselor was no exception. my ex would have been an ass acted like a different person in front of the counselor - my dh just gave 100% even though it was hard for him to talk about.
i definitely have a keeper.