How Did the Therapy go?

Well!  Very well it sounds. Much better than I had hoped for.
She saw Marc on his own for most of the time and did some tests with him to help understand his personality type.

• What would you most like to be if you were not a human being?

For most people and especially adolescents it is good to start with a game - it can have serious intent but it allows time to relax and is more fun than having someone ask you ' Tell me about your problem?'

Then the three of them went in and it seems that it went well. They all left at the end feeling positive and liking her.

So now we can go off on holiday to the UK with lighter hearts.
Marc got to go skiing - the pact is that he agrees to go four more times to see the therapist.

It's funny how when you change one thing lots of others start to move a little. 
I had some insights into it all last night

• Both Jordi and Vilma project their own feelings onto Marc. When the marriage broke up Jordi felt relieved - glad to be free of the constant arguments and unhappiness. He decided that Marc felt the same. Vilma felt abandoned and sad and like a victim of Jordi's selfishness. She decided that Marc felt the same. So what did Marc feel? No one knows yet.
• Both Jordi and Vilma are overprotective of Marc. Perhaps because he was premature and started life in an incubator for several weeks. Both of them find it very hard to deny him things that he wants and neither of them are good at imposing limits when it makes him unhappy. I have noticed that Jordi is very quick to intervene when I try to talk to Marc about difficult subjects - it feels like he almost puts himself between us so that Marc doesn't have to feel uncomfortable.

• Marc isn't speaking much to me at the moment. Jordi says it is because he thinks I stopped him having a friend to stay over night at the weekend. The problem was that Marc was going to a disco - a grown up one which ended about 5am.  We said his friend could stay but then found out that his parents didn't know he was going and this was his reason for staying with us! So we said no and I was firm about it.  This made me think that perhaps he was angry with his grandmother and that is why he never asked about her when she was ill and dying.  And perhaps this is why he didn't want to go to her funeral and didn't seem to care at all about her death. Not long before she went to hospital for the last time Jordi and I went away for a weekend and we gave her instructions not to let Marc into the house - because of the stealing. Of course he was staying at his other home with his mother so didn't need to come here but he rang and rang her phone and doorbell and gave all sorts of reasons why he needed to come in. She respected our wishes and refused but I wonder if this is why he blocked all feeling for her in her last weeks?

Well, that's all for now. How are you getting on with your resident adolescent?

Some therapy

I suppose many people with problem adolescents get to the point of thinking ' let's go to see a therapist'.
We have arrived at that point. We are admitting powerlessness and asking for help.
Here are some things to think about

• Which therapist?  Ask around and try to find someone who has experience working with adolescents and families.
• Be prepared to see several before you find the right one. Jordi went to see someone a few months ago and he went with only his X Vilma. It was a bit of a disaster as she cried and blamed all through the session and they came away with the advice to talk more to RA and stop using punishments. but no alternatives were suggested and Jordi ended up feeling like a ship with no rudder. things happened  - more stealing, no homework done, non attendance at school, refusal to attend grandmothers funeral....but what to do? Just talk? Hard with a boy who is only interested in sending messages on his mobile and grunts in response to any conversation.
• Who will go to the session? Obviously it is best for everyone to go but it's no easy task persuading three people who already have bad relations to agree on a person, a place and a time.
• How to persuade RA to go along? Bribe him? Threaten him?  Pretend it is an appointment with a famous hip hop DJ?
• Should the evil stepmother go too?  Four people in the room would leave little space for constructive thought. In our case especially as the X has a tendency to dominate all discussions with dramatic exhibitions of anger and tears. Also there is the language problem. We would spend a lot of time just translating to and from English.

Anyway, this evening they have all gone to see someone new. Someone recommended by the school so she is experienced with adolescents, hopefully able to see the destructive patterns of a couple who argued their way through 17 years together, and someone interested in helping RA find more postive ways to rebel than just stop all school work and break trust with those closest to him.

I feel I am sounding increasingly bitter here. I am just tired. Really I want to find a way forward so we can live as a family with only the normal difficulties that arise when living together with a growing boy.  I want to keep trying and to stay openhearted. But perhaps you can understand that sometimes it all gets too much?

I will get back to you with how it all went.