To feel like I’m being gaslighted by counsellor and ex

[DiaryStrife]

Divorced for 7 years. 4 DC. He is remarried.

We’ve had ongoing issues between us for years and in an attempt to fix them so the DC weren’t growing up in a hostile environment we agreed to go to family counselling (him, his wife and me).

One of the main issues is this: we have an online family diary which I am the admin of. Everyone has access to it. I upload all appointments, parents evenings, after school activities, trips and parties to the diary. They are colour coded so everyone knows who is involved in that activity etc etc. We also enter holidays and nights out etc.

Ex frequently forgets or doesn’t turn up for things in the diary. His argument is that I could remind him 48hrs beforehand with a text message. My argument is I’m not his wife, it’s in the diary, he can check and remind himself. He runs a successful business and seems to remember to go to work/quotes and meetings so I don’t see why this is so much hassle.

Counsellor asked me why I didn’t feel it was fair to remind him, I explained, counsellor then says “the thing is we are at an impasse here and someone needs to compromise”

I said it wasn’t going to be me and it was ridiculous that he expected me to do this.

Ex is saying “you see, you see how impossible she is”

And the counsellor is nodding his fucking head!

The sesson ended with me being asked to reconsider my position and come back this week to discuss the issue of why I was so “angry” about this. Was this really where I wanted to “plant my flag”

I feel like I’m going mad ffs.

Please tell me honestly if you think I’m being unreasonable

Stop sending the “pay the money” texts. Let him forget and haul him into court.

He can synchronise the online diary with his phone. He will then be updated live as you make changes. I do this with the online diary of my kids' school. There is no need for all this troubles. The counsellor is wrong btw.

I would say in the next session he is the other adult in the relationship and needs to take responsibility for his care of the DC's.

That involves paying maintenance unprompted, CSA if necessary so payment is automatic. No reminder texts unless very last min - that's just courtesy.

If counsellor feels you should compromise I would deflect back and ask why they feel it should be you compromising. Is it because you are female? That main carer? The originator of the calendar? He can't remember and therefore needs to find his own system to prompt him. That's what grown ups do. Or he takes the consequences of letting the children down and explains to them he's too busy to prioritise them properly.

If the session still goes tits up, report and don't go again. Whose idea was the counselling and who doh c the therapist out of interest?

Lol.

He is perfectly capable of remembering himself.

Or his wife

Or his dad

Or his mum

Or his brother

Or his sister

Or, y'know, anyone actually. Why should it have to be you? You who signed a piece of paper saying you didn't want anything to do with him any more. YANBU.

Dear God!

Stop the counselling and formally complain about the counsellor. Go and get some counselling by yourself, and get some for your kids too.

Get onto the CMS today and sort out maintenance payments thru them. Having to text him to remind him to pay for his own kids? Seriously why have you allowed this to go on for so long??

Continue to update the diary and at any kind of enquiry - verbal, text, email - simply respond “it’s in the diary” and repeat as necessary. Don’t expand or elaborate.

This twat is still controlling you. Time to stop allowing it right now.

As a few others have suggested, stop the diary, stop the maintenance reminders. If maintenance is missed, use CMS.

Use minimum reasonable communication, like someone else said - forward the school newsletter/whatever other communication they sent you and then forget it. If he doesn’t turn up to the parents evening/concert/art show then he doesn’t turn up.

Don’t be obstructive (just imagine the conversation with the DCs: “Dad, why didn’t you come to my concert?”. “Your Mum didn’t let me know there was one”.) but just quit the micro managing of him. Not your problem if he forgets.

I would be getting a copy of Wifework delivered to the counsellors office as they obviously need an awakening.

As for this diary business - if it's not doing its job as a diary then offer to stop updating it and he can use another method. And tell the counsellor that updating it WAS the compromise.

Are you getting much out of the counselling sessions?

A male consellor eh? Colour me fucking suprised.

1.) You are not responsible for your ex - he’s an adult and should be perfectly capable of wiping his own arse by now.

2.) Stop the counselling sessions. If your ex is prone to gaslighting it’ll never work.

3.) Complain about idiot, biased counsellor.

Actually yes, kick back. If you have another session (I don’t think I would, just tell the counsellor in private or an email what you think and don’t go back because it’s three against one) say ex is an adult and should be reaposnsible, you already do the diary and give him access. Plus you have decided that you are not responsible for reminding him to pay either, you will get the CSA to do that, it’s their job.

I would stop the counselling and just upload to the diary and do no more. What an absolute arsehole he is.

Also - Can you not go to CMS?

Out of curiosity - how often does he have your children?

Set up an automated email to go out at 9am every day to him with the text "check family calendar"

Yanbu by the way - I would find a new Councillor

God he sounds like such a pain in the arse!

Definitely bring up the having to send a reminder for maintenance EVERY WEEK at your next session. That is ridiculous.

Your counsellor sounds totally inappropriate. I would make an official complaint. Also agree with what @Sarahani suggests, deflect it back with a question about why it's YOU that has to compromise when he could simply make more effort. You are not his wife!

He could use Zapier to see if he can integrate the calendar with another calendar or messaging system he uses, so that he gets a notification each time you add something. Or maybe you should both looking at switching to a more modern calendar (I'm not sure of the alternatives, but I stupidly subscribed to Cosi for a year and it is crap).

Obviously he is being unreasonable, but it is possible that if you're adding things in last minute and not telling him other than updating the calendar, then he is going to miss it and you are going to be annoyed.

Maybe the family calendar is too much of a single family thing and you need to work out between you if there is a better way to do this. For example, on the nights your ex has the kids, you don't need details of all their arrangements with friends etc, he should take responsibility for planning that.

Very unprofessional of the Counsellor. I wouldn’t want to continue with the same Councellor (if at all) as you are being ganged up on.

It’s such a sexist assumption that you should bear the mental load for your ex. Crazy! He is an adult and should take some responsibility.

Stop the diary and stop the counselling. Don't remind him of anything regular as he should know as well as you. Text him with anything new or irregular.

You are already compromising by curating all the information into a digest and sending it to him (the diary). Otherwise he would have to piece it together himself from various sources.

You have led the horse to water, he now has to drink.

, but it is possible that if you're adding things in last minute and not telling him other than updating the calendar, then he is going to miss it and you are going to be annoyed.

But all that needs is an agreement that ex checks calendar at a specific time each day and if anything changes for next 24 hours, OP tells him.

Not texting to remind him before appointments that have been on the calendar for days or weeks and every bloody week to pay money for his children

That’s just making the op jump through hoops with the threat of no show or no payment.

Let him do that OP! Let him fuck up and let the authorities sort it.

@BobLemon

But those who say the Ex is controlling...
*
How is this NOT actually the OP who is controlling? Or trying to anyway*

Oh hi ex husband. Yes, nasty controlling op trying to get her husband's fair share for their kids Ina timely manner.

And not leave them waiting to be picked up when it's his turn.

Ugh bold fail. But, @BobLemon, how is she being controlling?

Just going out but to answer some quick questions

He has them two nights a week

4DC in three different schools. For example one entry will say “forest school Thursday”...he then knows he needs to pack DSs forest school clothes in his bag the night before. He doesn’t check the diary, forgets and I get called at work to bring them to school.

He absolutely insists on knowing about every GP/dentist appt although he isn’t expected to come. So if DD has an appt and I haven’t told him I’ll get a message asking why I didn’t let him know, so they are in the diary too.

Between all the kids there are 9 clubs and activities on varying days. School meetings, DD is a teenager and goes to parties, out with her mates etc. So if she’s said she’s going to dinner on Saturday and I haven’t put it in the diary ex won’t let her go.

CMS takes a cut of the maintenance so I’d rather not go through them. Tbf to him he does sometimes remember. It’s about 75/25

I think a professional and impartial response from a counsellor in this scenario would be 'This calendar seems to be causing more problems than it solves, so we ought to look at another solution that doesn't put pressure on anyone' or something like that. I do find his insistence that you sort it out totally dodgy.

My husband is rubbish at domestic organisational things and I have basically set boundaries of things I will not deal with or be held responsible for 'reminding' him about because that's a slippery slope.

God, he is a nasty, controlling bully isn't he.

He won’t let your daughter socialise if you don’t schedule it and remind him?

He’s a twat.

Obviously you are not unreasonable. You are already managing all the data and putting in all the work already, there's no reason you should have full responsibility for his incompetancy.

However, I would say it sounds like the app you are using is maybe not the easiest: google diaries with automatic reminders set would overcome the issue with no need for compromise. And/or a diary that syncs more easily with dh's diary.

So, if you do want to go back, I would go in breezily and say you've had a good think about it, and you think you have a solution - exh needs to research an app that will allow for automatic alerts, and that will work with his diary, that will send him an alert when new items are added, and you are really happy to use that going forward if he researches and sets that up for you. Obviously, it makes more sense for him to do this, then he can ensure it will fully meet his needs, as the current system works for you. Then there is no more work involved for you, the responsibility is his.

I would also make clear that if you take the sole responsibility for managing the diary and keeping it up to date, you won't take responsibility for also actively managing reminders, but are happy to set up automatic reminders.