So about 2 months ago, the school sent home a notice with SD8 about a weekly counseling group session for kids dealing with divorce. (It's a really small school & apparently several families are recently going through divorce.) Keep in mind that my husband has been separated & divorced from BM for over 6 years now, which is most of SD8's life. She does not even remember them ever being together & is completely adjusted to BM having numerous relationships & to me being part of her life for the past 3 1/2 years.

Since the counseling is for kids with already divorced parents, too, my husband asked her if it would be something she would like to do. She said she didn't know & the look on her face said she didn't really care, either!

Then she goes to BM's...

BM not only convinced SD8 to do the school counseling, but she set her up with an actual counselor outside of school as well. Why? Who knows. But we're willing to bet it has something to do with former SD11 not living with us anymore (which SD8 is absolutely fine with). BM is stuck on this, convinced that it's traumatizing SD8. BM constantly badgers SD8 about this. My husband is pretty sure that BM is mad that SD8 isn't telling her what she wants to hear. BM wants SD8 to be miserable & upset, but she isn't.

So, SD8 goes to this counselor & no one mentions it to my husband. SD8 must have been instructed not to tell him about it because she never mentioned it & she is the type of kid that would. (BM tells SD8 not to tell us about certain things...we found this out.) My husband goes to mediation session #3 (ordered by the court) with BM, who then mentions SD8 seeing a counselor outside of school. My husband is fine with this (though I would have been annoyed if it were MY kid & my ex did this without consulting me first). So then BM says that the counselor wants to meet my husband & could he take her to her next session? Since it's on one of his busiest days at work, at his busiest time, he tells her probably not, but that he would get back to her.

Meanwhile, guess what? BM is going somewhere the day of that session & that's the real reason why she wanted my husband to take SD8. My husband can't do it anyway & tells her so, to which BM responds with several emails about how important it is for him to meet the counselor. He ignores the emails.

I should also mention that BM had told him that it would only be a session or two, but now SD8 has 2 more scheduled...a total of 4. And BM also agreed in mediation that she would stop scheduling things on our time & that she would stop expecting my husband to take care of things she set up. So what a surprise that she set up these next 2 appointments & told my husband that he had to take her to at least one of them. (And she keeps setting them up for times she knows he can't do.) So this is good...

When my husband says he doesn't want to take time off of work to do this, she threatens to talk to his boss about him needing to take more time off! (We have this in an email.) WTF?!! Who does this woman think she is? I'm his wife & I wouldn't do this. He has taken off countless hours to deal with her nonsense. He didn't respond to this email, so she wrote him another one a few days later saying how if he wasn't going to take time off for "his daughter" (gotta throw that in, of course!), then he needed to compensate her for taking time off of work & driving there.

OK, let me get this straight...BM decides to have SD8 see a counselor, doesn't tell my husband until after the fact. (My husband thinks the school counselor is more than sufficient, btw.) BM picks a counselor that's a good 30-45 minutes from where we all live/work, while there are counselors right here. BM sees all kinds of behavior in SD8 that we don't see at all. We have no idea why SD8 even needs counseling, though like I said, we're open to it. BM goes against what she agreed to in mediation & continues to set up appointments, fully expecting my husband to bend over backwards & accommodate her. She ORDERS him to do things.

What do you all think about this? Are we right for thinking BM is stepping over the line here? My husband decided that he would definitely not take SD8 to her appointments. (He will, however, contact this counselor by phone to find out why SD8 is in counseling.) He feels that the school counselor is sufficient & that if he saw a need for further counseling, he would find someone local. But honestly, SD8 is FINE. I want to ask BM is former SD11 is in counseling, too, because she's the one that needs it! (We know she's not. Former SD11 is BM's pet, so BM doesn't want her to get help. During mediation session #1, BM flat out refused to let former SD11 talk to a counselor.)

Very weird...