Ex-husband's wife sent this email during custody dispute, was it inappropriate?

[Kiwiana100]

FYI this happened a long time ago. 2015 to be exact. My ex and I were in custody dispute. He and his wife wanted full time care of my eldest girl (Rebecca). I had agreed to only 50/50. They felt that her autism diagnosis was wrong and that I was conditioning and enabling her. He had become highly verbally abusive and his wife (a trained counsellor) stepped in to try to negotiate. This is her email. I found it to be a huge boundary violation. I have changed the names.
Hello Hannah,

Thank you for your email. I acknowledge that you changed your mind about meeting next weekend, I find that a bit of a shame as actions toward better communication could be, in my view, really helpful.

Great that you agreed to the new schedule which is based on your revised wishes.

You hope that one day Rebecca will appreciate your decision to prevent Matthew from caring for her full time. I think it sometimes requires a lot of love and grandeur to let go of your own needs and try new things for the sake of the child. Assigning Matthew full time care for Rebecca would have been such thing. It would have been a chance for Rebecca. Why would it mean you give up on Rebecca? You had both girls in fulltime care for nearly four years and Matthew never viewed this as giving up on his children. I really wonder how you develop such views? You both, Matthew and you, have the same rights to care for the children. Hannah, that's right, time will reveal Rebeccas's views on this. I agree, one day both girls will form their opinions about their experiences with both of you. They will make up their minds what they found helpful, what not, what they liked and what not. They will do this as we all did it with our parents. Good mother or good father – at the end of the day it is for them to say what they think.

Please don't worry about the way Matthew portrays you. I am well aware of the fact that I hear only his perception. Please also know that neither of us are judging you. You can do what you want, have you own values, live your own life as you want, please don't worry about this. We never comment on things related to you towards the girls and we take our pride in this. We also have no bad intentions towards you, we both wish you all the best, why would we want anything bad for you?

But still Hannah, between both of you parents, it must be possible to raise concerns. If Matthew e.g. gets the impression that Sarah gets more attention than Rebecca he must have the possibility to raise this issue with you, would you not agree? This is in our view just a normal part of communication between parents. And btw, you do this too on a regular basis.

Since we don't see each other on the weekend, please let me say a few words about your (Matthew's and your) way of communicating. I am well aware that you despise Matthew for his bad communication style because he is sometimes getting very aggravated, aggressive and becomes verbally abusive. You are absolutely right. And I have seen him on a number of occasions finding it extremely difficult to stay calm when things are getting out of hand between you two.
But I think it is a bit one sided to point the finger on Matthew alone and see yourself as the victim. Its never right to blame just one side. As a person who witnessed you both communicating, I would like to invite you to hear my perspective of it. It can see that you still hold a lot of resentments against Michael. Your relationship ended nearly four years ago, and I strongly doubt that you reached closure. Maybe you disagree, maybe you reflect on this and find the right answer to this question for yourself. What I observe is, that Matthew never gets it right for you. In your books he is to blame for this, that and the other. Just recently for Sarah not wanting to eat at McDonalds (please see your last Thursdays texts) and in yesterday texts you even blamed him for you not having a good relationship with your daughter Rebecca. Within this framework you expect him to react friendly, patiently and respectful. Beyond that you often don't consult with him in parenting questions, you rather consult with outsiders, I suspect you don't view him as competent (??). And, I'm very sorry to mention it, you don't acknowledge his efforts and achievements with the girls. In contrast you even criticise him for that.
I can tell you that Matthew too loves his children and he actively helps them to reach their full potential, to improve their behaviours, gives them direction, guidelines, support and last but not least his love. Rebecca's improvements in math and her communication, for example, are remarkable. Both girls are happy around him. I must say, I admire that on him. I find is sometimes hard to watch how you criticise him for all that is possible while insisting to be respected, and not being criticised. Respect is of course preferable, it just has to go both ways. When we blame we should also see our own parts that we play.

I really hope that you give it a go and think about my words.

Kind regards

Katherine

I ran it through the “Brenda & Frank” AI that’s meant to help spot manipulation and it came
back with a crazily long answer the conclusion to which was:

• Boundary violation: Yes.
• Inappropriate involvement by the spouse: Yes.
• Use of counselling-style authority to influence you: Yes.
• Minimisation of verbal abuse: Yes.
• Blame-shifting and “both sides” framing: Yes.
• Subtle guilt and future-judgment pressure: Yes.
• Evidence of overt coercive control in this email alone: Not enough to conclude that by itself, but it is consistent with a pattern of undermining and delegitimising you.

Interestingly even if I give the same tool a different prompt and say I’m the new wife with some rationale for why I want to send it to the OP then it still tells me I absolutely should not, pulls out examples where the language is inappropriate and expresses concern I’m minimising abusive language and asks if I experience the same. Given the degree to which AI generally seems to be agreeable to whoever it gives information to that’s pretty definitive.

Totally get why it’s still sitting with you, it’s so critical. I have a similar email from an ex, more than 20 years ago and is so POMPOUS (as is the one you’ve got). With a distinct tone of ‘I’m so much better than you ‘.

very sorry to hear about your other daughter defending her

How silly of her to put it in writing that your ex was verbally abusive . She must have no sense whatsoever

It seems to be a new mumsnet sport. Belittle the OP and minimise their issues.

Well as she is a counsellor she is a very bad one.

This part; It’s never right to blame one side.

Err yes it absolutely is.

I hope she has been struck off.

What a stupid so and so and is.

Here is a message to all second wives: stay the fuck out of it. You are not important. If you insist on shacking up with a man in this position, then stay quiet and suck it up. Otherwise choose better.

It's ok I have had much worse. I just don't see why the poster tried to say that he/she wasn't bothered when they took the time to comment 3 times! And 'extrapolate' was my ex's favourite word. Not saying there is a connection, but...

Honestly, re viewing distressing events is a normal human response to the distressing event - we all have different ways and levels of interpretation them though. What is distress for one person isn’t for another. Some people simply aren’t as affected by others. Including some people who are autistic or have adhd. But yes that email is twatty who ever you are!

Going off on a tangent, the book and theory of childhood development Dandelions and Orchids explores how some kids seem to weather every storm whilst others struggle in the same environment. Interestingly the orchids do the best with therapy. And the dandelions can sometimes really crash and burn later in life as they’ve never had to develop the skills and strategies they need to deal with shit. Obviously these personality types follow the individual into adulthood.

I love this line from @TheReflectiveQualityofGlass

It’s part of growth - re-processing but from a different position. As long as it’s not eating you up and causing distress then you can safely take your therapist off speed dial I reckon.

It doesn't sound like it worked out well for the girls, who's fault that was (if anyone's) we will never know. It did sound a bit like you and your ex (and his new wife) were very busy fighting with each other while claiming you both wanted the best for your children.

I'm not arguing with AI's analysis of the whole thing, I just don't understand what a poster gets out of putting an OP into AI, then C&Ping the result into MN as if it's their own opinion, without at least crediting it to AI when it's so blinking obvious.

If the OP wanted AI's opinion she could have simply asked for it without starting a mumsnet thread.

I'm a big fan of using AI for certain things, but please god, let's not let it replace all our conversations, human interactions and original thought, for crying out loud. That really would be the end.

If all we are doing on MN is acting as human search engines to return results from AI then what's the point?

It's bad enough that 50% of remotely interesting threads on MN seem to be AI generated purely to increase traffic. Let's not have responses that turn that way too!

Partway through Matthew becomes Michael. Possibly identifying or he somebody else?

Unfortunately, some people who work as counsellors are controlling, manipulative, and willing to trample all over other people’s boundaries to get what they want.

i am glad this woman is out of your life @Kiwiana100 and that you were able to protect your dd. Just remember how miserable this woman’s life must be and know that you’re much better off!

DD2 age 20 ‘is very closely aligned and continues to defend them’.

Perhaps this is part of why you’re bringing it up again, here? To whom does she defend them, her older sibling?

While I agree your ex’s wife’s statements were inappropriate for her occupation, I think your judgement at the time was good on not reporting her to her association (if there was one) at the time, since the situation with your ex, her and your DC was so difficult and it would have added additional conflict, affecting your DC.

No same person. It's just that she mentioned him so many times I missed it. THere's no surname and my main concern was the children's names.

It’s so patronising and I don’t know what she thought she would achieve by it. If she genuinely wanted to facilitate communication this is definitely not the way to go about it. Some counsellors are shit though.

I am the ex wife. This is the stepmother writing.

Sadly OP wasn’t able to protect her DC, though, @Holdinguphalfthesky . DD1 spent two years 50% of her time with her father and wife before physical abuse and returning to OP, and OP has said both her DDs ‘have trauma ‘

sorry, I meant your ex’s wife.

Sorry, just read it again. Your meaning is clear.

Why are you posting this 11 yrs later? What does it achieve?

I get that it could sound like that. Unfortunately, all attempts to de esculate conflict just made it worse. If you have a narcissist ex spouse, peaceful co-parenting doesn't work.

It's a bit worrying a counsellor would write "Its never right to blame just one side."
Sometimes one person is the abuser in a relationship and one person is the victim trying to placate them. Presumably she would tell the victim they were partly to blame for the abuse.

It has been discussed at length in previous posts.

Completely agree.

I definitely replay things occasionally, how I reacted to things years ago and how my reactions were impacted by other things going on and my history.

How 30 years of growth and self learning have taught me so much.

This strikes me as very normal.

OP, that email is so irritating, not one bit surprised it still grates.

I wonder would she be worth reporting still to her professional body?
Awful to think of such a person working in the area she does.

I think anyone who has been through the hell of protracted custody proceedings could understand why 11 years on you still feel pain from that time and you don’t get over things without working through them.

of course it is an inappropriate, arrogant, pompous and emotionally incompetent letter. I can only imagine she is a terrible and maybe dangerous counsellor.

it sounds like your girls have childhood trauma but court battle are also traumatic for them and a way in which men continue abuse of women - and sometimes the other way round.

Sarah is very young and may well see things differently in the future, particularly when she becomes a parent.