Trouble in Paradise

 Beau and I had a pretty good run of things going smoothly. Now as we are headed into year 4, it's a bit bumpy. Mostly it has to do with his kids. On Monday, Stella had counseling with her counselor, Taylor and I had counseling with my counselor, Dave. Taylor wouldn't see her because she said she didn't get the paperwork she needed from Beau along with the ROI for me to talk to her. Dave said to bring her into our session. I thought it went pretty well and it was interesting to hear what Stella had to say about why she doesn't do the dishes on her night or clean up after herself. She said it wasn't fair because Ira never had to do chores when he was her age and they were living with their mom. Also, she said everyone treats her like a little kid, so she doesn't think she should have the same expectations as everyone else. The nurse-practitioner student picked it apart and asked for examples. She said it was mostly the other people in the house who were treating her like a little kid, but didn't really give specific examples. It also came out that she doesn't see her dad having any rules or consequences and that she told him she needed to be on medication. That was her excuse for not doing her school work when she was failing everything. 

I told Beau about the counseling session and he got very upset. He felt attacked and was angry that she would say things were his fault. Then today, he suggested I was trying to drive a wedge between him and his kids. He also got upset that I keep saying he sleeps all day. He implied that I don't like Stella because I complain to him about her. I told him it's because I can go directly to everyone else and solve any issues and they are receptive. However, she has mostly not been. I tried to keep it positive and say I think our counseling session really helped open the door for facing problems instead of avoiding them. 

After Stella and Ira had a fight, they took a break and came back to it and solved their problems. Stella even apologized to me for screaming when I was working yesterday, so I think that's progress. When I told Beau, he tried to take credit for planting the seed with Ira to work through their problems.

This morning I was trying to keep it light since Beau would be going to bed. I didn't want to frustrate him. But he latched onto the one thing I said about him sleeping all the day and not seeing his kids much and took it as an attack. I was upset because I don't feel like he validated anything I said, just ignored all the rest and got mad that I said that according to him, multiple times.