Question on Counselling

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I've been divorced almost 4 years now, with two kids (6 and 9) and an ex-wife who is a high conflict personality. I'm fairly certain she's BPD, which our marriage counselor pointed me towards years ago. Most of it fits, except for the explosive part. She's very good at hiding her behavior from the public, and she's not overtly aggressive towards me, but is extremely aggressive in a passive way about disrupting everything in and around the girls and my life, so long as it places her in a victim role.

I found this forum and other similar resources a couple years ago and since I adopted a parallel parenting stance, things have gotten a lot easier, more structured, which seems to create normalcy for myself and my daughters. I've seen evidence that since I'm no longer a sufficient source of conflict, she's been pulling from other areas of her life. That's good news, but I am keeping a watchful eye on how her behavior impacts my daughters. Our youngest (she's almost 7) was born with a congenital heart defect. Her first couple years of life she spent many months in the hospital and ICU and have undergone numerous heart surgeries. She's through the worst of it, and is growing and thriving today (just started first grade). One of the patterns I've observed the last few years is my ex-wife using our daughter to get a significant level of sympathy for herself. Our daughter does have a serious medical past and she does have some risks ahead, but for the most part she's like any other 6 year old you'd meet. I have a concern about her falling into a similar pattern that I observe between my ex-wife and her own mother (the broken child thing), which I believe have have played a significant role in how my ex-wife developed into the state she's in as an adult. Mainly, that her mother victimized herself and raised my ex-wife. The lack of empathy, self centered nature, and inability to take responsibility/accountability for actions seems to have manifest in this world of growth with a protective yet overbearing mother.

I see similar behavior with how my ex-wife is treating my daughters. My older daughter is seemingly self driven and independent. She has always been a bit inquisitive and outgoing, with an ingrained desire to explore the world, ask questions and debate and challenge areas of life. This is a fun child to have, from my (as you can probably tell from this post) analytical stance of the world. I love to get to the bottom, understand, and grow through observation and reflection. I've noticed my older daughter develop methods to handle the differences between the homes, she talks to me often about these situations where she feels she need to act or be a certain way around her mom in order to manage her feelings and ideas. She voices frustrations (such as "mom doesn't want to know how I feel, she just wants me to tell her what she wants to hear), and comes to be for guidance and support. My support for her has centered around this idea of recognizing life as a series of events that we are given and need to figure out as we go. That her mother loves her and shows it in a different way, through structure and rules -- that her seriousness towards situations and desire for my daughter to see things her way is her way of trying to protect her. This is the language my older daughter speaks, so she seems to find comfort in that. I don't have many concerns about her mental well being.

My younger one is entirely different, she's emotional and less inquisitive. She's more concerned about how mom and dad feel. She doesn't quite know how to square this conflict she sees in the passive nature of her mother, and instead seems to resort to a view of the world as... .well her role is to appease those who express emotions strongest. This is where guilt comes into play - a tactic her mother uses excessively to combat her view of any dynamic between the homes that doesn't align with hers. I recognized that with my younger daughter I can't really get through to her with rational ideas and concepts. Instead she seems to need to process the world by a series of... .well it's like her concept of creating harmony for those she cares about. And she cares about her mother a great deal. I've found myself frustrated recently when she talks about situations her mother describes as factual, when her mother makes up a story to fit her narrative (Example: "mom and you divorced because she found the guy she's meant to be with... ." or "Mom says I need to go to the dance with [stap dad] instead of you because it'll make him sad if I don't"). Her mother uses emotional guilt often, and it places youngest daughter in a role of needing to choose a side, when no sides should be taken. This most often comes in the form of "mom says she's sad when I... ."

This has been a difficult one to work through. I think it's maybe an age thing. I think with daughters, the older they get the more I can remove any conflict from my end, the easier this will get. Kids grow into adults and as they reach the teenage years I'm pretty sure they will benefit from a open forum to explore independence and love in who they are (confidence and strength in figuring out the world). So that's been my motivation in this.

To my question finally... .is it ever a good idea to go to a parenting counselling class with a high conflict ex? This idea has come up a few times, recommendation from my lawyer. I've written by ex a half dozen times over the last 4 years suggesting we get a third party to help us see what we might be missing in parenting the girls, she often replies with "I don't see a reason to do this, if you can give me an example why we should then let's go." When I give her a reason, then she denies that what I'm saying every occurred and deflects and states how I'm the problem. Common sense would indicate this can only benefit the girls, but I also don't want to make the situation worse. I saw in our marriage counselling how my ex-wife seemed to twist the narrative of why we were their away from her and onto me. Should I ignore my lawyers advice to push for this.

Appreciate any other advice or ideas about how to best navigate life at this stage.

[Thomas0311]

I've been divorced almost 4 years now, with two kids (6 and 9) and an ex-wife who is a high conflict personality. I'm fairly certain she's BPD, which our marriage counselor pointed me towards years ago. Most of it fits, except for the explosive part. She's very good at hiding her behavior from the public, and she's not overtly aggressive towards me, but is extremely aggressive in a passive way about disrupting everything in and around the girls and my life, so long as it places her in a victim role.

I found this forum and other similar resources a couple years ago and since I adopted a parallel parenting stance, things have gotten a lot easier, more structured, which seems to create normalcy for myself and my daughters. I've seen evidence that since I'm no longer a sufficient source of conflict, she's been pulling from other areas of her life. That's good news, but I am keeping a watchful eye on how her behavior impacts my daughters. Our youngest (she's almost 7) was born with a congenital heart defect. Her first couple years of life she spent many months in the hospital and ICU and have undergone numerous heart surgeries. She's through the worst of it, and is growing and thriving today (just started first grade). One of the patterns I've observed the last few years is my ex-wife using our daughter to get a significant level of sympathy for herself. Our daughter does have a serious medical past and she does have some risks ahead, but for the most part she's like any other 6 year old you'd meet. I have a concern about her falling into a similar pattern that I observe between my ex-wife and her own mother (the broken child thing), which I believe have have played a significant role in how my ex-wife developed into the state she's in as an adult. Mainly, that her mother victimized herself and raised my ex-wife. The lack of empathy, self centered nature, and inability to take responsibility/accountability for actions seems to have manifest in this world of growth with a protective yet overbearing mother.

I see similar behavior with how my ex-wife is treating my daughters. My older daughter is seemingly self driven and independent. She has always been a bit inquisitive and outgoing, with an ingrained desire to explore the world, ask questions and debate and challenge areas of life. This is a fun child to have, from my (as you can probably tell from this post) analytical stance of the world. I love to get to the bottom, understand, and grow through observation and reflection. I've noticed my older daughter develop methods to handle the differences between the homes, she talks to me often about these situations where she feels she need to act or be a certain way around her mom in order to manage her feelings and ideas. She voices frustrations (such as "mom doesn't want to know how I feel, she just wants me to tell her what she wants to hear), and comes to be for guidance and support. My support for her has centered around this idea of recognizing life as a series of events that we are given and need to figure out as we go. That her mother loves her and shows it in a different way, through structure and rules -- that her seriousness towards situations and desire for my daughter to see things her way is her way of trying to protect her. This is the language my older daughter speaks, so she seems to find comfort in that. I don't have many concerns about her mental well being.

My younger one is entirely different, she's emotional and less inquisitive. She's more concerned about how mom and dad feel. She doesn't quite know how to square this conflict she sees in the passive nature of her mother, and instead seems to resort to a view of the world as... .well her role is to appease those who express emotions strongest. This is where guilt comes into play - a tactic her mother uses excessively to combat her view of any dynamic between the homes that doesn't align with hers. I recognized that with my younger daughter I can't really get through to her with rational ideas and concepts. Instead she seems to need to process the world by a series of... .well it's like her concept of creating harmony for those she cares about. And she cares about her mother a great deal. I've found myself frustrated recently when she talks about situations her mother describes as factual, when her mother makes up a story to fit her narrative (Example: "mom and you divorced because she found the guy she's meant to be with... ." or "Mom says I need to go to the dance with [stap dad] instead of you because it'll make him sad if I don't"). Her mother uses emotional guilt often, and it places youngest daughter in a role of needing to choose a side, when no sides should be taken. This most often comes in the form of "mom says she's sad when I... ."

This has been a difficult one to work through. I think it's maybe an age thing. I think with daughters, the older they get the more I can remove any conflict from my end, the easier this will get. Kids grow into adults and as they reach the teenage years I'm pretty sure they will benefit from a open forum to explore independence and love in who they are (confidence and strength in figuring out the world). So that's been my motivation in this.

To my question finally... .is it ever a good idea to go to a parenting counselling class with a high conflict ex? This idea has come up a few times, recommendation from my lawyer. I've written by ex a half dozen times over the last 4 years suggesting we get a third party to help us see what we might be missing in parenting the girls, she often replies with "I don't see a reason to do this, if you can give me an example why we should then let's go." When I give her a reason, then she denies that what I'm saying every occurred and deflects and states how I'm the problem. Common sense would indicate this can only benefit the girls, but I also don't want to make the situation worse. I saw in our marriage counselling how my ex-wife seemed to twist the narrative of why we were their away from her and onto me. Should I ignore my lawyers advice to push for this.

Appreciate any other advice or ideas about how to best navigate life at this stage.

[worriedStepmom]

What is your goal for the joint parenting counseling? 

Given how your ex previously responded to marriage counseling with you, do you think it more likely that these types of sessions will help the girls or is there also a possibility that it could make matters worse?

How do you normally respond when your little one describes situations from mom's emotional viewpoint?

[Thomas0311]

My goal would be to explore what the girls are going through, and my hope is that a third party view of the situation would show to both of us things we may be missing from our limited scope (one side view) of the situation. That from this we could assess our roles and how best to create a copacetic environment from which they could grow. More specifically to allow us to see the world through their eyes and what we may be doing to help or hurt their development because of the conflict/interaction that they tend to end up at the center of.

Given how my ex has responded to our marriage counselling, I am concerned that she will reject any perceived narrative that casts doubt on her end of the dynamic. That is, she will direct the narrative from her view and reject any evidence that points to the contrary. She would most likely close up and/or avoid any topics in the counselling that doesn't align with this narrative. There is a chance, if the focus is solely on the girls and less on what we are doing, that it may open her (and my) eyes to the world our daughters are living. In that it may benefit. I am not quite sure though if we can get to that point. That's the hard part.

When my daughter describes situations from her mothers viewpoint I often validate that her feelings are important, and redirect to her own feelings on the matter. I've found my daughter likes to talk about how she feels but very often doesn't seem to factor her own feelings into her observation of others. I often find myself asking my daughter "well how do you feel about it?" or "why do you think your mom feels that way?"... .getting her to explore those concepts seems to be beneficial. She's started to ask me how I feel, and that seems to be positive, even if there is an inherent conflict in the feelings at work. The example above about her step father and the dance. I asked her to explore how her step father felt about going to the dance (she indicated that he didn't mind one way or another) and then I followed with "why do you think it's important to your mom that you go with him?" which ultimately lead to the question "apart from all of the adults, how do you feel about going to the dance... ." At this point she seems to digress back to the importance of doing what makes others happy. That's a part I can't get over... .and a part, as a parent, I'm concerned about. Maybe I'm projecting her mothers stance onto her too much, but I'm trying to "solve" this by getting my daughter to prioritize her own emotions in situations... .she's only 6 though.

[zachira]

What might work is to go to therapy yourself and then ask your children's mother to come to help you become a better parent. In the process, the therapist can work with your children's mother to become a better parent, and she will probably never get it that the reason you are in therapy is to help her to be a better parent.

[kells76]

Hi Thomas0311,

Your kids sound like my DH's girls -- similar age gap and personalities. Whew, analytical kids can be tough and fun!

It's a good thing that you are open to seeing how ways you are parenting might have a different impact on the kids than you think. I agree that a professional third party is so helpful in those situations. My DH and I have a good MC (who, long story, also knows about the kids uBPD mom and uNPD stepdad), and the counselor that Mom finally got for the kids is very insightful. DH and I took a parenting class together, too.

I think you already "know" (logically and rationally) that the only person whose behavior you can work on is you.

I think I also hear you wanting your girls' mom to be a better mom. That's not a bad thing to want.

I think I heard some fear from you around the impact that Mom's behaviors have on your girls, especially your D6.

All that being said, I can get why you'd want to work with a C and your kids' mom all together. That would be pretty ideal if it worked.

You know, though, that you can only work on you. Even if Mom shows up and says all the right things, at the end of the day, only she can make different choices about her actions. Only she can choose to have some self-reflection about whether she's hurting the kids. I suspect it might be too difficult for her to do if you're in the audience.

I wonder how you think it'd go if you just started meeting with a kids' C on your own. Remember that even just you making positive parenting changes can go a long way for your kids, regardless of what Mom chooses or changes (or not).

Let me know what you think about this... .

kells76

[worriedStepmom]

I think you are doing great.  Your youngest may have the unfortunate combination of lots of empathy (my D12 is like that) AND very sensitive to the fact that if she doesn't manage mom's emotions, chaos erupts.  Add in that mom regularly invalidates her (D6 feels healthy, knows she is okay, mom acts as if she is still ill), and she's got to be pretty confused.

My SD was 5.5 when I married my H.  As soon as she and I were alone:  "Mama said... ."  I really think they do this because they are trying to figure out the right way to do things, and they know that our way of looking at problems is way different from mom's.   I handled it mostly like you do.  "What do YOU think?"  I think it's great that you also ask your D6 what she thinks that her stepfather (or anyone else who's been added into mom's feelings) thinks.   You're teaching her to look at situations from a lot of different perspectives, which is a skill her mom doesn't have.

With my SD, like your D6, in the beginning there was a lot of "I don't know" or repeating what mom said.  On the rare occasions that she offered some opinion or thought, I validated like crazy.  Eventually, she was able to more consistently articulate what SHE thought, and I could validate some more.  Then I'd ask "Do you want to know what I think?" 

We also worked a lot at home on how our feelings aren't caused by someone else, and our reactions are our responsibility.  Sibling interactions usually provide lots of opportunities for these lessons    I narrated more of my own emotions and reactions at dinner, too.  "X happened, and it made me sad, so I did ... ."  "Y happened today, and I was angry. What do you think I did?  Do you think I told an alligator to bite that person?  Do you think I sent them to the moon?  do you think I yelled at them?  Nope, I took a deep breath, came home, and cleaned the bathroom until I felt better."  (It's fun if you throw out really wacky scenarios mixed in with the real ones.)

After 2 years, SD stopped those conversations.  I think by then she had developed a lot more confidence in her own perceptions ... .and probably also realized hers matched mine more than her mom's.  It took a lot of patience on my part.

Have you watched Inside Out with your girls?  That movie gave my SD and my son the vocabulary to articulate their feelings  more.  It was easier to talk about what "Sadness" or "Anger" is thinking than what SD was feeling right at that moment.

On the surface, your ex sounds like my H's xw. There is zero chance that H's ex would be receptive to any advice on her parenting from a therapist.  There is also zero chance that any joint session between H and his xW would have any outcome other than her dysregulation.  His ex is triggered by any insinuation that she isn't the perfect parent ... .if your ex isn't like that, then maybe the outcome would be different. 

You may have better luck asking for therapy for D6 on her own.  H found one for SD11 six months ago. In our case, xW believes there is absolutely nothing wrong with SD11 (at least, nothing that can't be cured if SD would only try to understand mom) and that the T is an evil man who is trying to brainwash SD into not loving her mom anymore.  SD is making great strides in learning to set boundaries and make sense of mom's behaviors.  We are still working on her instinct to manage mom's emotions.

[ForeverDad]

I recall an appointment I had with a well-recommended counselor about 45 minutes away from my home.  I had gotten full custody and I heard this counselor was good.  So she met son and me.  Somewhere during the session I asked whether she wanted my ex to bring him too.  She got this shocked look on her face, "Oh, no!"

So I agree, in high conflict cases, it is generally a terrible idea to get the two parents in together without firm guidelines and goals.  The key question... .Do you see any possible good coming from a joint session?  Odds are it would turn out to be a sheer fiasco, a blamefest.  Either the ex would trot out a MOTY (Mother Of The Year) show or a blamefest against you.

As it turned out, within a couple months after I got custody, mother stopped taking son to the local child therapy agency he'd been visiting for the prior 4-5 years since separation.  So it was just me and him at sessions there until that faded away.

[Mutt]

Hi Thomas0311,

I can hear the frustration in your words you’re trying to find a solution. I’m not going to repeat the advice Tahar you were given you were good given good advice you are doing good with validating your D6’s feelings.

There is a chance, if the focus is solely on the girls and less on what we are doing, that it may open her (and my) eyes to the world our daughters are living. In that it may benefit. I am not quite sure though if we can get to that point. That's the hard part.

On the topic of empathy you said so yourself that she’s self centered and lacks empathy that’s severely going to impair her ability to see how she impacts D6 dysfunction on her part will trigger feelings of shame  and like Foreverdad she’s going to project those feelings and she’ll blame you.

I think that a question to ask yourself how productive is this going to be? I think that you’ll more productivity if you go to therapy by yourself without D6 and tell the T exactly what you told us here. One T told you that they think that you’re ex is BPD. Ask your T for help with D6.

Personally I think you might trying to repair too much which is common with care takers we can’t fix everything your D6 has a solid, objectionable and rational dad present in her life I would suggest to worry less it will be ok but talk to a T for help.

[trappeddad]

Total aggravating waste of time and $.    Just baseless allegations.     BPD's do not do counseling.       Perhaps it can be a way for the counselor to show  to the court the ex is un cooperative.

[livednlearned]

You may find it more effective to do family counseling with D6, just the two of you.

If she speaks in emotion, and you are analytical, a skilled therapist can help you learn how to unpack how D6 sees herself.

She sounds enmeshed with mom, and if she is empathic, there is a chance she will be more influenced by mom (who also speaks in emotion). My SD21 is like that -- she describes herself as an empath. I don't know if she's BPD or not, but she has the mood instability, fear of abandonment, splitting behaviors, people pleaser/codependent, no sense of self, etc. that her mom has.

H can see the problems caused by his ex very clearly, and (like many of us) he struggles to see how his approach can create emotional distance with SD21. He goes straight to explaining, problem solving, lecturing. These work great with his oldest daughter (23), who sounds like your oldest, but SD21 seems to feel offended or unheard or invalidated.

H and I went to see a child psychologist to help us with some blended family dynamics and it was remarkable -- the psychologist gave us both some good tools for communication and setting boundaries with SD21. When she first lived with us, I felt like we were parenting a toddler. Having a BPD parent can really stunt emotional growth so working with a family therapist or skilled child psychologist can be a real eye opener on how you can apply those skills in your parent/child relationship.

In our family, you could say that the problems originated with SD21/BPD mom, but the solutions lay entirely with H (and to some extent me). It got easier to see that once we took BPD ex out of the equation and focused instead on what we were doing. SD21 would never have gone to therapy with her dad, so instead H and I went and it worked great.

Counseling with D6 would allow her to see a whole world of possible relating open up modeled by you and the T, giving her a functional counter narrative to what she experiences with mom.

I would take your ex's response as a sign of things to come. She will push/pull and keep you turning in circles, and may even misinterpret what happens in coparenting counseling to D6 so that she is leery of therapy, especially if it's used to enmesh her even more with mom.