Limited Contact with Special needs child
Hello, I was looking for advice trying to navigate getting help for my special needs kid at both households. My son has high behaviors, we have a skills coach that comes to our home 2x a week and works with him and then me sometimes on parenting strategies. My sons behavior increases at dad’s, so I connected him for parenting sessions. After each session dad has had, he sends harassing messages to me about how terrible of a parent I am because the therapist shares with him things she sees at my house and then he harasses me about it. He also demands to know exactly how much screen time kiddo gets, how many hours per week we study, etc. I respectfully asked the therapist to share as little info about my household as possible and provided the court documents saying I’m full legal guardian and didn’t go into detail, but did share he had supervised visits in the past because he abused me in front of the kids and was not caring for his own mental health. She chalked it up to pretty much being drama between parents and she’s shared other info with him about IEP meetings and other services.
I’m not sure how to go forward. I don’t trust her now, and don’t tell her details I don’t want getting back to dad. Dad just had a session with her Monday and he started the harassing messages before the session even started because she was late. He continued on for 4 more hours. I could ignore this, but the therapist is eating up the things he says like I dont ever tell dad anything, he has no rights, etc and she feeds into his drama. She is young and I don’t feel she has experience with triangulation before and is falling right into it. He tells her I let our child do whatever he wants, and this is affecting the strategies we’re working on because she believes him.
I want to really start therapy somewhere fresh and not involve dad at all. I wish he could just take their parenting sessions and learn things, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. It’s a lot of drama for not a lot of improvement. Has anyone else had experience with special needs children behavior challenges from home to home? My sons diagnosis is such that he will have trouble with transitions, hates changes in routine, and lacks emotional regulation. I have learned some ways to decrease behaviors and not escalate into meltdowns, but dad will not get on board.
3 comments posted: Wednesday, June 7th, 2023
Not able to open up
Hello all! It’s been a really long time since I’ve been here last. I wanted to reach out for any advice on getting through opening up with a new partner. I’ve been separated almost 3 years and divorced for 2. I’ve dated maybe a dozen people (just 1st or 2nd dates, I have been really picky) and have met someone super special that I’ve been dating about 3 months. I really want to open up to him and take things to the next level, but I feel like I can’t get close to him. I don’t want to miss a chance with him because he is wonderful. I also find myself constantly looking for red flags, but so far cannot find any. In theory, I feel healthy and ready for a serious relationship but any time an opportunity presents itself for me to discuss things deep or personal, I make a joke or deflect. He is a very kind person and I trust him and want to tell him how much I care about him, but can literally not force words I want to say out of my mouth.
Thanks in advance for reading! Would love to hear any insight or advice from others who felt similar and how you moved forward.
2 comments posted: Tuesday, May 10th, 2022
Alienation question
It's been a while since I've checked in. My divorce was final about a year ago and I am living my best life. I am so much happier and have my energy back from the divorce-process depression. I've made tons of home improvements and redid much of our marital home. I still check in from time to time here, but it's painful to read everyone's stories when they are just starting out the divorce process. Hopefully I'll be in a place to offer better advise and show everyone what's on the other side.
I needed advice on an incident that happened the other day, where I didn't answer EXWH's call immediately about a change in routine due to an appt, so he called my 11 year old and proceeded to tell him that I don't ever tell him anything and never let him know what's going on. EXWH became agitated and I asked him to call me directly and stop telling DS bad things about me. Two days before this, I texted EXWH about the change and his response to the text was "F--- off and leave me alone". I try to follow the agreement to the "T", but this appt was only available on a certain day and EXWH just had to leave the kids with me, he already was at my home dropping off the overnight bag so it wasn't out of the way.
I am going to take the kids back to counseling, but wanted advice on how to handle talking about this incident in the meantime. I don't want to badmouth the EXWH, so I apologized for DS having to hear that. I don't want to make the kids feel like they have to take sides, but I don't want them to think the things he says are true, either. He feeds them so much "poor me" BS it's nauseating.
I filed to modify the agreement a little over a month ago, but have not even been assigned a mediator yet. Since filing, EXWH has told me that he is going to tell the kids I'm going to take them away from him. I am so worried about my kids and my mama-bear instincts are on high alert. I want to have supervised visits, but it breaks my heart that he might tell them one day I took them away from him and they might end up hating me for it. I just wish he was a better person and despise him for treating my babies like this.
Should I refute the bad things EXWH is saying about me, or try to rise above and continue to reinforce adults should not talk badly about each other?
5 comments posted: Friday, April 23rd, 2021
