I did full exposure to my kids some time ago. It was after they came to me to announce that "mom has a new BF(the OM)."
I let them know that was not true.
My eldest daughter(11) began having anxiety attacks about a year ago. I arranged counseling through a referral from her pediatrician. She has been to three sesion, now.
I spoke to he counselor before she started seeing my daughter. I told her i believed the anxiety was due to the cheating and my XWW having brought this man into their home.
After her first session, my daughter asked me not to mention the cheating to the counselor. I agreed at that point and did not mention that i already had done so.
After tonight's session, my daughter was quite upset. her counselor had broached the subject and they had a long talk about it. She was upset that ihad told the counselor.
She said that she does not ant her counselor to think she is from a family of "trailer trash'.
I explained that I had mentioned it before she started and had honored her request to not mention it after she had asked me not to.
Now, the counselor is planning to call her mom and discuss things.
My XWWhas cintinued to lie to the kids about her affair. she tells them that her meetings between midnight and 6 in the morning that occured were to talk to a woman who also lived in the house.
just to shorten things, there is absolutely no question that she was cheating with this guy. No woman lived there, She was busted trally quite completely via PI, phone records, lingerie in her backpack etc. No one, including her family has any dougt that she was cheating.
So, did i do the right thing by finding someone with whom she could talk? She was having anxiety about things like the earth's atmosphere disappearong, or airplanes crashing into her house etc. I am sure this is not what is really bothering her and it is the cheating.
what a mes. i feel like i may have done wrong not just burying the whole thing and lying to them as their mom was doing.
But, i did not want that guy in their lives and exposure got him out.

Z, I hope that you and the counselor will work together to teach your daughter that nothing can ever be solved by ignoring it and trying to pretend it isn't there. It's clear that she's already desperately trying to practice conflict avoidance about her mother's cheating and BF.

Life has to be faced head-on - both the good and the bad. This is an excellent opportunity to teach her that.

You did the right thing Zelmo. No child wants to see their parent as a cheating dirtbag. No doubt all this is upsetting and DD11 wishes it would go away. Be gentle with her. How we teach our children to handle problems early on will be pivotial in their adult lives.

That is what I told her, Mulan. I saud it will help to talk about it.
She is such a good, sweet child. I took her out to dinner with my son and she kept inquiring why he quit college and what he wanted to do with his life. She is very concerned about others.
And, she wants to continue the counseling. So, that is good.

kids can handle the truth

counseling for dd is good

Zelmo,
I agree with advice given here. My question is why is what other people think so important to your daughter? Another realization for your daughter to understand is - we cannot control what people think or say about us and we shouldn't give them power to control what we think of ourselves.

Gg

Hi Zelmo-

I think you did the right thing telling your DD's counselor what was going on in your DD's world with her mom. She is at such a sensitive age so she didn't want the counselor to "judge" her based on what her mom is doing. Yet, she isn't old enough to understand that the counselor has to know everything in order to help her.

Maybe you could let your DD know that you told the counselor the truth so that the IC could help her. A doctor can't help a patient who has symptoms of a serious disease if the patient just says "I feel kinda tired."

But, you should also let her know that her conversations with the counselor are hers alone and won't be shared with you (unless your DD is a risk to herself or others). Counselors are bound by law to keep their time with clients confidential-even kids whose parents are paying the bill.

That might help her understand why it was so important to let her IC know the truth. I know it helped my YS when he went to see an IC about all we were going through.

I hope this helps. Hang in there!

Of course you did the right thing by telling the counselor but you already knew that. You didn't do the right thing in not telling her before that you had already told the counselor. You can't change that unless you have a time machine handy. All you can do is APOLOGIZE to your DD11 and let her know that you were wrong for lying to her and you will try not to do it in the future. Your XWW's A already taught her some harsh reality about lying and how it can hurt the people we love the most.

You can let your DD11 also know that the counselor is not going to judge her in any way and that what your xWW has done is NOT a reflection of your DD. Maybe you could ask her if she would be willing to talk to the counselor with you so you two can discuss this further.

Lying was always a big NO/NO in my family. We weren't supposed to do it EVER. Even if we were home and the phone rang and my Dad said, "It's for you." If we said, "tell them I'm not here." my Dad would say, "You tell them." If we refused he would say, "She told me to tell you that she is not here." and then hang up the phone. My Dad's mantra was, "you can steal from me, you can cheat me, but don't EVER lie to me."

Hey Zelmo, I think you are doing the right things. It may take some time and work, but the truth and dealing with things actively are good principles to instil in your children.

Zelmo, I think you are doing the right thing. But I wonder if the counselor is the right one. If your daughter has a good counselor she or he will help your daughter work through this. After all, that's why your daughter is seeing a counselor in the first place, isn't it?

How well do you know the counselor? I know you got a referral, but perhaps you should have a "session" with the counselor just to see if you are on the same page.

Your daughter's mental health is the issue here. You should make sure you have a respectable, experienced counselor who can help your daughter address her problems.

Yes, I agree. I should have told her that I had already mentioned the A when setting up the appointment.
My daughter called me later this evening, after I dropped her off at her mom's. SHe asked if it would be okay if she did not go back. I said that is okay and, perhaps she would like to see someone else.
Sjhe said that the counselor was very nice but she did not want to talk to a stranger about this stuff. She wanted to alke to me and her mom about it.
Well, her mom will surely just keep lying to her. Her mom has told all types of lies in the past few years.
She told the kids she was barricading her bedroom at night in case burglars came into the house. This was, in reality, what she was doing to keep the girls from finding the OM in bed with her at night ,as he would sneak in after the girls went to sleep.
She told the girls she was taken away by the police in front of them because she had been a witness to an accident. Later she changed it to that she had some unpaid parking tickets.
In fact, she was arrested on a bench warrant for failure to appear in court on two misdemeanor driving charges.
She has told them that their electricity was turned off for five weeks because their landlord had accidentally cut a power line while doing maintenance.
The reality is that she failed to pay her bill. It was cut off again for 2 weeks later in the sanme year.
SHe has told them that the car is broken and that is why she cannot drive them anywhere. In fact, her license has been suspended or revoked for the last two years for her driving offenses.
This is so hard to deal with. They are all very loyal to her and it hurts them when I tell them the truth. But, I do it.
My XWw is a complete nutbag, IMO. I have told the girls that if they want to live with me, to justsay so.
I tried to get child protection involved after the second electricity turn off. I was told this is not neglect.

Fred, I did suggest she could see someone else. But, sounds like she is just not ready to talk about it.
The counselor also told us both that she would not discuss her private stuff with me, so she knows that.

Zelmo, after my A, my DD - who was 10 at the time - had some problems with anxiety and depression. We knew it stemmed from all of the upheaval from my A, but she also was anxious about things like war and death and nature, etc. It was the only way she could process it. She was afraid and insecure because I had rocked her stable world.

I think being there for her and trying to get her some help is absolutely the right thing. My DD didn't really like counseling either - she didn't like telling a stranger things, she said. But to give you some hope, at 13, she is stable, headstrong, and much more well-adjusted about many things than I was at her age! And as far as caring what others think, she is 11. Most normal 11 year-olds are sensitive to what others might think, especially girls. If you, as her daddy, continue giving her that reassurance, it will make a lifelong difference.

Your kids are lucky to have you, just like my kids are lucky to have DH.

Z,

Hey, I am SO sorry about your DD and the anxiety attacks....My DD16 had them too when Dad abondoned us to play in Affairland. It was such a painful thing to watch.


Ok, I groaned when I first read this (this morning....). Here's the thing, if you had taken her to the Dr. and they told you she had cancer, would forgo the chemo because she didn't like it?....of course not....but in essence this is what just happened.

You should have at least negotiated a few more sessions (from what I gather, she hasn't gone enough to really "know" what she thinks about it....). It takes children even LONGER than adults to talk to their pychologists. While children tend to be more trusting of people that adults are, adults understand the reasoning behind counseling better than children do.

Here's the thing Z.....

My DD16 was molested when she was 9. We, of course, got her into therapy right away. She was in therapy for nearly 9 months. Her emotions about the counselor ran hot and cold, depending on what was going on in her life. And she HATED talking about the "incident". Whenever the counselor got her to talk about it, she was truly upset/angry/weepy for days. But the thing was, the counselor was trying to get her to not stuff her emotions about it. The counselor's job was to teach her how to deal with her trauma in HEALTHY ways, something most parents aren't able to do. Now, she came away after 9 months in a pretty good place. But we had been warned that the affects of her trauma weren't over as she was still too young to deal with triggers, and being so young there would be many triggers as she grew up (puberity, dating, her first boyfriend...ect.).

Now, flash forward to H's affair. She was 13 at the time it happened. He left us and it was a very awful, confusing (H spun lies you wouldn't believe....it was months before the "truth" all came to light....), and just plain bad time for the kids (I'm sure you know what I am talking about....). Anyway, as the weeks of H being gone progressed (and he was a real a$$...like all waywards are...but he didn't take most of her phone calls, he canceled dates with them, ignored them on his weekends to talk to OW..... ), DD was going down hill fast. I kept asking her if she wanted to go back to counseling, she kept refusing, after all, she KNEW counselor was going to make her talk about this crap. I suppose I should mention that H's leaving brought about nightmares about her abuse. So I didn't make the appt., since I didn't want to force her to do anything she didn't want to. Then came her first anxiety attack. It was awful (its all in my thread.....).

You wanna know what DD told me two days later after the attack?..."Mom, how come you didn't make me go see the counselor?"...me-"because you said you didn't want to go, I didn't want to make you do something you didn't want to...."....

Her reply...."YOU are the adult MOM. You need to make do some things even if I don't want to because they are the RIGHT thing to do....."

Me-" are you saying you want to go then?"

DD-"NO, but you and I both know I NEED to..."

Getting 2x4 by my 13yr. old on how to be a mother was the most HUMBLING experience I have ever went through.

So, the point I am trying to make is your daughter is suffering and needs help. Sometimes its the kind of help they may not like, but what they need.

Now, I'm done with my lesson....here's some suggestions....

She may not really have clicked with the counselor, for whatever reason. You may need to seek another one. I would go to her school and see the guidance counselor, tell them what is going on and they will have some recommendations on who to see. I would talk to the G.C. anyway and DD teacher, so they are aware of what is going on in her life. When DD was going through the molestation stuff (it was a year long event...starting from the moment the [censored] touched her up until his sentencing hearing.....), I let her teachers, G.C., Girl Scout leaders, and any other adult interracting with her know so they could keep an eye on her when I wasn't there.

Also, I would look into Big Brothers/Big Sisters and maybe consider letting her join. It may help her to have a good role model of someone older that isn't her parents.

Also, Girl Scouts is a good avenue for young girls. My DD16 started when she was in kindergarten and is still in it today (of course, she wouldn't admit to anybody at school.... ).

I will say I do admire you Z. A good, caring father/daughter relationship will carry her far in life. Since you wife can't handle being a parent, glad she has you to count on....

not2fun