I think I need to find some kind of counseling for my kids, especially my daughter. I had a hard enough time seeking it for myself.

DD is at the cusp of puberty. When her dad first left us, she was devastated. She talked with her school counselor and a good friend of her older brother. (A girl whose family had been basically abandoned by her mother for a MOM while still in high school.) DD went through the stage where she really wanted to know where her dad lived and what he was doing. She really wanted to spend the night at his apartment and time with him. She wanted to please him. That was in the Christmas/January time frame. Somewhere along the way, it has gone horribly wrong.

Now, my DD has not got one good word to say about her dad. She doesn't want to see him. Will not even be tempted by the fact that his apartment complex has a pool. (And she loves pools.) She's said words to the effect that she cannot be purchased for so low a price. Four weeks ago, we all went to dinner together. She sat across from him and stood a menu up in front of her face so she couldn't see him. Three weeks ago, the last time any of us saw him, she wouldn't even speak to him. As she walked in the door in her soccer uniform, WH made the inappropriate question/joke? about if she had hit any homeruns. DD also plays softball but obviously not on that day. DD turned on her heel and would not even come near him. WH never calls, has not attended one of her sporting events and went to a bar with friends instead of going to her class musical.

DD has a very negative attitude towards her dad. She's an angel in the rest of her life: a good student with excellent behavior, lots of friends and a busy life. I don't think it's normal for a kid to make disparaging comments about her dad. She makes bitter jokes. (Like I've said before, sarcasm seems to run in our family.) Even if the things she says are true, I don't want to encourage this. She doesn't want to talk about her feelings for her dad. Just shuts down. I think she needs somebody else to talk to. There's a lot of deep, deep pain there. I can see her being scarred for life.

How do I find a good therapist for kids? What should I look for? What are the questions to ask? Are there certain qualifications given to people who work with kids? Are there different therapies? Of course, I need to find somebody offered by our HMO too. Then again, how do I get her to talk about it? Then there's her brother, the strong, silent type in denial...

For me to even think about this red flags my concern. I see DD building up this facade that cannot hold up. I think her dad's betrayal could affect her relationships with men for the rest of her life. I want to give her a fighting chance. Thank God, she has strong brothers and a wonderful grandfather but it's not enough.

Anybody been through this? Advice?

Grape,

My daughter is in IC right now, along with me and her dad.

Our sessions are set up so I go with my daughter, and her dad goes alone in a different session.

This is because she lives with me right now, when she goes to live with her dad in July the sessions will change. He hopes to get dad and me in together at some point, but we are not ready for that.

This councelor is a psychologist. And my DD likes him, so she is enthusiastic about going. We concentrate on her grades in school right now as I thought this was the most immediate concern.

An IC we used to have, I did not care for although DD liked him.

As a teen I went to IC (dad's alcoholism) but I couldn't stand the guy so it didn't do anything for me.

Which brings me to the point - it is very important to find an IC which your daughter likes, or it will be a complete waste of time.

Your DD has a right to her feelings. They are VALID, she has a right to be angry. Talking them out with an unbiased IC is probably a very, very good idea.

Ditto for your son.

I'm sorry Grape, I know how upsetting this all must be for you. When I am worried about my daughter, I can barely function. Hang in there girl!

Grape, the first time I had DD in IC, I called my employee help line and they set up the sessions with someone who the insurance would pay for. Do you have this option at work?

It would be the therapist who gets your DD to open up and talk. Might take awhile.

But you need to be able to talk to her about it also, and make it very, very safe for her to voice her anger without you disagreeing with it. Keeping the lines of communication open and letting her bad-mouth her dad without you badmouthing him or disagreeing with her either would be the most important place to start in my opinion.

"I know you are angry with your dad, and I understand. Can we talk about it?" Like that.

I am not quite convinced that counseling is the right thing at this moment....

but this is only my opinion and you know her better than obviously....

It is without obvious digression that it is your HUSBAND that needs counseled on ways not to abandon children....

Will not even be tempted by the fact that his apartment complex has a pool.

If he invites her she has every right to say yes or no..
if I was you I would tell her that if she ever ever wants to go there...that you would be happy to take her there..

what I would not do is encourage her to call him and make it happens...that's HIS job...

She's said words to the effect that she cannot be purchased for so low a price.

I think I adore your daughter and I would relay this to your husband in a witty off hand way..the other day daughter said....................

DD has a very negative attitude towards her dad

this is what I don't understand...why counseling for normal feelings and thoughts...
she is balls out dead on correct in how she feels towards her dad's ACTIONS...in some ways she is acting out the exact appropriate consequences for his pitiful choices...

there is NO NO NO excuse for not calling his own daughter
and she is not willing to give him one...

I would be afraid that suggesting counseling for her would be like making her the wrong one...
the one with issues...when clearly clearly clearly it is DAD all the way.............

I don't think it's normal for a kid to make disparaging comments about her dad.

why not they are true...
I think it's way normal...

For me to even think about this red flags my concern. I see DD building up this facade that cannot hold up. I think her dad's betrayal could affect her relationships with men for the rest of her life. I want to give her a fighting chance. Thank God, she has strong brothers and a wonderful grandfather but it's not enough.

I think that way before you put her counseling YOU need to decide what YOU are going to do about the huge conflict avoiding elephant in YOUR living room...

that if you are going to file
if you are going to go plan B
if you are going to hit your husband head on with legal stuff including support etc...

I think you need your plan first..
and then you share this with your children....
and then you see how things go...

I would not put her in a counseling situation to deal with conflict avoidance...until all the grownups in her universe are modeling non conflict avoidance behavior themselves.....

grapegirl I think you are so much stronger than you believe..
I think your husband is a coward
I think you need to let go of all the wasted energy of your fears that somehow YOU are responsible for this MAN"S horrible choices...
that you need to quit protecting him from his reality

and that you need make decision..

if i were you I would email him that son graduates on
blankety blank....
email me if you have any questions

PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would fill your daughters summer with a soft place to land...and lots of open communication....

and watch her closely.
and hug and smooch her
and tell her you aren't going anywhere
and tell her that you don't like change anymore than anyone else...but life throws us change...and you will all get through this together...
not by forcing her to see a counselor to talk and open up when no one else is...

I pray for you
I hope for you...
I know you can do this....
I know that the indepedant woman that was so recently seen in London is still alive and kicking...

ARK

ARK:

Sorry. Don't mean to threadjack!

I just want to let you know that you were absolutely right about the ABILITY TO CHANGE.

My FWH has evidenced remarkable CHANGE in his R with our sons. He continues to work on this daily.

Thanks, ARK for being there and stepping up to the plate!!

Ark,

I agree whole-heartedly with your post, as usual. But I remember when I was a kid, I could not talk to my mom. She was a conflict-avoider extraordinaire, if you know what I mean.

If grapes girl cannot talk to her for whatever reason, then a good councelor (and I mean good only) is an option for sharing her thoughts with someone who can validate her feelings and help her to stay focused on herself, and not her parents problems.

weaver and grapegirl..

I am not saying no to counseling
just not (opinion only) until a plan of action is in place...

here's the thing does one send a child for counseling to deal with parents that are in sort of limbo...

or do you address the limbo issue and see how the child does with the actions....

what about family counseling...but again with no plan whats the point?

what about DAD in counseling....
he's the one that NEEDS it...

thanks mimi...I do believe whole heartedly that people CAN change..
do they not always but the potential is always there for all of us...

ARK

Oh, that we as betrayed spouses could take a lesson from your daughter. GG, you are a great mom - and this girl's response to her father's unfaithfulness to her is a shining example that you have taught her that she is precious, sacred, and worth having a faithful father in her life.

She has more self esteem in her little finger than most of the women (and men) on this board who think they have to "attract" their spouses back to them.

She is mentally healthy and a counselor could only screw her up at this point.

GG - you might want to see a counselor on why you feel you need to have your daughter have a different relationship with her father. He chose his terms and left her with trash. And she is having none of it. She's not going to pick up the morsels he throws at her and call them good. They are not.

Don't minimize the smelliness of that trash to her. Don't invalidate her feelings of outrage at his abandonment. Hug her. And continue to teach her that she is worthy of faithful men in her life; that she doesn't need unfaithful men in her life. Her father, if he wants a relationship with her, will have to come to terms with that all on his own, because she's standing her ground on what she is worth.

This has been really helpful. DD is bright and perceptive. She does have every right to be angry. I guess part of my problem is that I'm of a generation where you didn't dis your elders.

It breaks my heart to see DD so actively dislike her dad. But he has certainly asked for it. She doesn't want to be protected from the situation. I try to keep the adult things away from her. If she hears I have a TM, she wants to know what it says. (WH has a distinctive ring on my cellphone, the Cookoo Waltz.) (There'll be a story about this on the Grad thread after I get back from the academic award ceremony.)

Chances are I won't be taking her to IC unless I see some behavioral problems. She's a bit whiney and needy but her grades are good. She's finally started having friends over to spend the night again. We do spend a lot of time hugging and kissing. I DO need to validate her feelings more. We have a fun summer planned including a trip to visit friends in NY. Perhaps even a trip to NYC. There'll be camp, visits to the library, time for art, camping and swimming at the rec center. We've talked about how next fall, I will go back to school and will try to find a parttime job, probably with the school system. She knows I will try to do things to minimize the impact on her. I do not want her to go from having a SAHM or being a fulltime latchkey kid. It'll just be the 2 of us in the house next year.

DD, DS and I have also talked about how are life is different and sometimes better without WH. DS knows that I don't mind him playing his guitar late. (No amps after 10 though.) When WH was here while I was in London, the poor kids felt a lot of detachment, complaining and criticism. Phrases like "Dad was always on the computer", "Dad always yelled at me for X,Y and Z", "Dad always was drinking a beer" (probably not quite true but that's what they perceive) I just listened to them go on about how their lives were better. How it's just like their dad is always at work. At some level, I have to think they miss him but I probably miss him more than they do.

I think change is possible in people but we can only change ourselves. Perhaps WH will have some enormous epiphany sometime and "see the light". One can only hope that this happens soon...before we move passed him.

DS has been in counseling with a child psychologist for a little over a year now. He was 11 when this mess started.

When FWW moved out after D-Day 2, DS became sort of zombie like. Except, once a week or so he would explode with anger. He would throw and break things and used very inappropriate language, including calling his mother very disrespectful names.

He would crawl in bed late at night with me and cry. He told all his friends and any family that called that, “My mom doesn’t love my dad any more.”

He wanted to find OM and kill him. Pestered me for months to tell him who OM was. He asked his mom if I was his real dad. And of course he shunned and insulted her every chance he got.

I told him she was his mother and she deserved to be treated with respect for that at least, but that he didn’t have to like what she did.

But that just confused him, really. His grades sank, he dropped out of all his sports and wanted to quit Scouts. So the issue became how to communicate the right responses to him. I was not qualified to do so. I seemed to be making things worse and he was also not respecting me any more.

The day he tried to trash her car with his baseball bat I decided I needed help to reach him. So in the end, it was me that needed help as much as he.

Also, I thought for sure we were heading for D. My IC strongly recommended I get help for DS if for no other reason than to help him work through the D.

DS’s IC is a wonderful guy. He talks and looks like an overweight Bill Cosby. DS is very receptive. In fact, when recently told he did not have to go much any more he said he wanted to keep it up at least once a month.

I do not know what they talk about, but they are like good friends now and DS talks to him like he does to me. Thing are much better for DS and I credit his IC more than anything else except my always demonstrating that I love him.

BTW, the school councilor was useless. And it’s a catholic school, too.