Our Island Family Life

Yesterday was a very long day. Starting with the 6am ferry then a visit with Cade's counselor. It went well. I went in to talk first and we were chatting about Sean coming in to visit the day before. She was just informing him of Cade's return to therapy and that she knew he had been seen there before and why Cade was seeing her and not the guy Cade saw previously (he's on extended vacation). She told him about going through the getting to know you sessions and then asked Sean for his thoughts. She said he was very distant, cold and very guarded. He was cooperative and answered all her questions of course. He wanted to know why he hadn't been told earlier about Cade coming to therapy. I am sure he will try and use that fact I didn't say anything against me. Therapy is a ongoing process and he knows where Cade goes, he is well aware that if Cade is refusing to see him then there is a serious issue that needs to be resolved. She told him she had meant to contact him earlier but hadn't gotten to it yet and it was my prompt that reminded her. He gave his version of the stealing issue and I was a little angry at how one the one hand in his legal statement he uses the "stealing" issue as a main point saying his "certainty" of Cade's stealing and that if Cade lives with him during the week he could combat this, yet to the counselor he stated he can't be sure where the money went. She (the counselor) was saying to Cade this may be an issue where their both may have to agree to disagree. Cade was not very receptive to this but is considering it. I will have to chat with her later about Sean's proclivity to say what he thinks the therapists and counselors want to hear then doing what he wants anyway. Anyway, she asked me about what Sean was like because she was seeing from Cade and even from me how open and warm we are, how easy our relationship is and how extremely different this is from Sean's behavior. So, I went back to the beginning, his childhood with an verbally abusive alcoholic parent, the physical abuse he witnessed, his own anger issues when we were first married and how he resolved this by intimidation, punching walls and smashing things he knew was important to me until his ultimate things with the prostitute and sex lines. How he was just mentally crushed at that time crying and unable to understand why he was doing these things. She just answered, "addictive behavior". I shrugged and told her of the first time he entered therapy and how happy he was about learning to recognize when he was getting angry but in retrospect I believed how Sean quit rather suddenly and would not go back when I asked him to. I think this was because they were beginning to get to the whys of his actions and that was too much for Sean. Also he learned to recognize his anger but just buried it instead and got very passive aggressive. She smiled and said that is exactly what Cade is doing and is what we are trying to work through. Cade came in after that had his chat alone then I came back in and we talked about when we might be bringing Sean in to talk. Not for a few more weeks anyway. We are back to weekly visits though.