I spoke with the therapist working with my kids, who's also had several sessions with the tbm ex. Therapist tells me that the ex has tuned her life to getting back at me for divorcing her. He believes she has generalized anxiety disorder.

His suggestion was to appease her, rather than fight. While I don't mind compromise and agreement wherever possible, I think complete appeasement is bad, as it raises the level of requirements higher and there'll always be more to give in on.

What do you all suggest?

I think I'd say, "Or why don't you do your job and help her to deal with this, and let her know that her idea of revenge is not appropriate or healthy for anyone? Especially not the kids."

While it's intriguing to get details of your ex's therapy sessions, it's a huge breach of confidentiality. Unless she signed a release of some sort saying it is part of her treatment for her therapist to reveal diagnoses and other details of her sessions to you specifically, this guy is behaving very unprofessionally. His job is to deal with her, not go around blabbing about her and telling other people what they oughta' do to enable her.

I saw so many red flags concerning the therapist's behavior that I have no other advice for you because you just heard a bunch of stuff that should never have been revealed.

We've gone through times when my daughter had a psychiatrist and a psychologist. We had to sign specified releases with each office giving them permission to talk to each other, listing the things about daughter's treatment that they could discuss.

Sheesh. I wouldn't believe a thing this guy says if this is his level of work. Walks like a duck to me. Quack, quack.

Good pt, Jenny.

The therapist is not working with the ex. He's working with my kids. His discussions with her (and me by phone) is about dealing with our kids' issues. For one of them, he is strongly urging her to let him come live with me. She is against it, as a punishment to me. That was the context of the discussion.

But I do imagine that what I say is potentially being relayed to her. I'm not that worried about it because I tell her mostly what I've said to him. It's about the kids.

Why he told me that is because, according to him, he believes that I should give in, in order to help alleviate her anxieties, and that would help the kids.

The whole point of divorce is to dissolve the marital relationship. When there are kids you still have to have a relationship as parents, which is harder than having no kids and just moving on.

But you still have to let the married relationship go. I've noticed that people can let go of everything but the anger. But if you've still got anger you've still got the relationship. Once the anger dissipates, things are over and go much better.

Best.

Treating someone gently and with respect is good but simply trying to appease them merely exacerbates the issues in the long run. I think it's called "enabling" in psychological circles.

I don't know what appeasment means to the therapist but to me it means give up and let her have her way. If she has anxieies the therapist should deal with that(Meds maybe), try and confront her irrational fears and continued hostility toward you. If you cave into simple demends she is sure to expect more concessions and when do you stop giving in just so she doesn't throw a tantrum. She is acting like a child.

I have GAD, but that is my problem and not anybody else's. I fail to see how your complete surrender would help her, it's not really that kind of condition where someone else's actions matters much (then the anxiety will just shift focus to some other problem, and believe me there will always be something else to worry about). I might imagine that if you completely surrender she'll realize that she's still worried all the time and thus seek help, but more likely, you might in her mind just be involved in a whole new set of catastrophic scenarios and she won't at all realize that it's about her, not you. I seriously doubt it will be helpful for either of you.

Compromise by all means, be supportive if you can, but keep your boundaries clear, boundaries are actually a way to reduce anxieties. If she knows where your boundaries are it should rather be a comfort to her than cause for alarm. And even if it doesn't help her it's not your job to solve her problems.

Why is the therapist telling you this?

Still, it's kind of iffy to go around diagnosing the parents when you're counseling the children.

Very true.

anon4drama Wrote:
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> His suggestion was to appease her, rather than fight. While I don't mind compromise and agreement wherever possible, I think complete appeasement is bad, as it raises the level of requirements higher and there'll always be more to give in on.

> What do you all suggest?

It depends on the issues in question, but in general, I tend to agree with you. Anxiety can cause the person in question to make irrational demands. If you constantly appease that person, in a sense that makes *you* responsible for managing that person's anxiety level. And that's not a burden that should be put on you. I agree that in all likelihood it would only escalate the demands.

I favor a policy of reasonable accommodation/holding your ground. Make the same reasonable accommodations that you would to any other adult under the circumstances. But don't contort yourself. And then hold your ground (don't apologize for not contorting yourself.) Just point out the entirely reasonable accommodation you have already made and disengage from the conversation.

Through all these interactions, it's best to remain calm and reasonable, yet gently firm.

Having divorced a bipolar ExH, raised a bipolar son, and been close to other people with mental illness and had to deal with many therapists of all kinds, your therapist is mixing up the situation and that will hurt more than help your kids. If he feels that there is a problem the children need to have addressed with either of you or both of you, then a family or group session is in order. It can get uncomfortable, but the therapist should act as a moderator and encourage even the most timid to speak.

DH has mentally compromised ExW that raises the stakes at every turn (over three years to reach divorce and two years since) using their daughter as a pawn.

Tread carefully and good luck... never hurts to get a second opinion.

his conclusion? What is he doing talking to you about her?
Pardon me, but I thought a therapist is not supposed to discuss his findings with anyone.
He might be on target, but he might now.
It's just his opinion, which he had no business discussing with you.

Anxiety is her problem, not yours.

I think probably the best thing to do is to have specific rules for the visits, and stick to them - and stay calm and not fight about them. Sometimes using a third person to carry the "white flag" for pick up and delivery of kids might be helpful to keep the atmosphere calm.

I was a monitor for supervised visitation in court custody battles. We had policies that had to be met, for instance: we had a policy that if the non-custodial parent did not arrive within 30 minutes for the pick up we didn't have to wait any longer. "Something happened" and we would reschedule.