To give a brief recap of my step-story....for the last several years, BM has been working hard to alienate one SS (she has seemingly given up on the other one because he does not give her the histrionic reactions she craves). She has told him that DH "caused the divorce" and that DH "hates her." This has caused SS to cause drama in our house for the last two years, including screaming, crying fits that are complete inappropriate for a teen. Last October, BM had "her lawyer" send a letter demanding that DH stop talking about her to the children and agree to reduce his time with alienated SS. In response, DH got a lawyer, to which BM threatened court action....this went back and forth for months, until June when they had a mediation where DH agreed to pay BM more than he owed (because really this was all about money...and control) and to reduce the amount of time SS spent with him by one evening EOWE. DH also agreed that he would go to a counseling session with alienated SS. BM also pushed for a counseling session with her "if the children's counselor recommended it." 

DH and alienated SS had their counseling session this weekend. DH got emotional and told SS that he knew he was growing up and needed to be more independent, so he could choose whether he came to our house or not, but he still would like them to have a relationship with him, so he wanted to talk about how they might do that. SS sobbed and said among other things, "I've talked to my mom a lot about our relationship and she told me it was bad." To which DH said, "our relationship isn't bad." The counselor commended both of them for showing emotion and they agreed to schedule another session together. 

Less than 24 hours after visitation ended, DH gets a long email from BM telling him that alienated SS "volunteered" some information that he and DH talked about at their session. BM said, "SS told me that you said you feared you were going to lose him and that it was his choice whether or not he wanted to come to your house. Is that true?" Then she went on to say, "I 100% never tried to keep him from you or vice versa. I only requested the mediation to try to improve your relationship with him." She then told DH she was going to talk to the counselor about all this. I asked DH if when he was talking to SS that any of the conversation (other than SS's comments) was about BM and DH said no. He said that he wanted the conversation to be about him and his child, he didn't want to bring BM into it. 

Then today, BM sends another email saying "I'm totally okay with SS resuming normal visitatation with you. If he wants to visit the full weekend that's fine." She also added, "SS said you don't have any more joint sessions with the counselor. Is that true?" 

Let the games begin...BM claims that she is just trying to help her child, but she just can't resist trying to control all of his conversations with DH, even the ones he has with his counselor. My bet is that when she discovers that DH and SS have another session scheduled, she will either try to cancel it as being "unnecessary" or that she will try to stop SS's counseling entirely claiming that he doesn't need it anymore or that she doesn't want to pay anymore or making it look like DH was opposed to it. 

Some further context, at their previous mediation (also demanded by BM for unknown reasons) in 2016, DH suggested that the children go to counseling and BM refused to even consider it. This time, she kept saying that alienated SS needed to go to a counselor so he could tell everyone "how he truly feels", by which she meant that he truly felt that he did not want to be around DH. She tried to push to have him go to a counselor before mediation...trying to use a counselor her lawyer "recommended" that specializes in writing reports for custody hearings. She even threatened to take DH to court if he did not agree to a counselor before the mediation. Since the mediation, she has sent DH a list of things that she thinks the children should talk about with the counselor, items that she thinks SSs will "resent" DH for. Somehow, BM seemed to think that whatever counselor she picked could be used as a tool by her, to get what she wanted from DH. 

I told my friend who is a children's counselor about this whole episode and after gasping in horror, she said, "well, that didn't last long." I think she was hopeful, as I was, that if SSs could speak to a counselor without BM controlling everything, they might have a fighting chance of turning out ok.