What is "all he has done" that DD wants an apology for? Ohiogal's obviously much better suited to answer your questions, but this strikes me as too much of the tail wagging the dog (just wondering what kind of apology will be enough and if more will be added to Dad's tab over time so he can never satisfy this), but if your husband can get into counseling ASAP and daughter also *AND* with joint visits (even though DD has said "no" to that), I'd want to get moving on that ASAP with a goal of reunification. The problem I see in what you've posted so far is that there appears currently to be no such goal. Is that not the GAL's interests in this case?
Child claims in the evaluation that dad does not validate her emotions. She says that he coerced her into being baptized when she wasn't ready. She says she feels emotionally maniuplated by dad. She says he forced her into seeing me as a mom.
This is all the evaluation says about what she has said. They saw each other for 20 minutes during the evaluation, and the only thing she talked about then was that he doesn't let her have her own opinion, particularly regarding a falling out that we have had with his side of the family, and that she thinks he is wrong about that.
Mom has been taking the child to see dad's side of the family, and the child frequently told him how uncomfortable this made her because she had heard both mom and his side of the family making negative remarks about each other and she didn't know how they could just smile and pretend to get along when they clearly didn't like each other. She also had indicated that she didn't want to see them, partly in defense of the fact that they refused to mend fences with dad so that they could finally meet her baby brother (child of dad and me). She said she felt put in the middle because they would ask all sorts of questions about what the baby looked like and what dad was doing.
Evaluator agrees that dad has a strict moral demeanor and that he tends to read motives and make judgments about people which are erroneous. He stated that dad was passive aggressive with a strong ability to handle stress but once stress gets too high, there is a possibility for an angry outburst. He also indicated a leaning towards narcissism. He claims that dad's preference to stand rather than sit is a method of control used to intimidate people, most notably mom who was in the waiting room while dad and child met. He states that dad projects all of his anger onto the child and has a strong ability to have antisocial thinking and behavior. He says that the child's self esteem is affected but there is no severe depression.
He says that both child and dad are extremely intelligent. He says dad is charming and charismatic too... I knew I married him for a reason
Eval's recommendations were that dad and child should each enter into counseling. Mom's position is that this should happen and that since the prognosis for an adult with narcissism is low, she will not consent to any parenting time or communication between child and dad. She also states that child has suffered significant harm and needs time to rebuild her confidence and heal from the emotional abuse.
Child says doesn't want any contact with dad until after he's undergone therapy. She also wnats her on counseling. Until she develops trust w/a counselor, she wants no counseling with dad, and that the apology, etc. need to come before any reinstatement of contact.
Dad has been asking for 8 months for "anecdotes" of what he does to her that is wrong... including when the child claimed that the abuse was continuing during the phone calls. No one will give them. The GAL makes references about "given your behavior in the past" without ever providing a further explanation of what behavior was so reprehensible. This is one of the problems with defending this case - since there have not been concrete examples of what he does wrong, he has trouble agree to stop doing it.
Mom consistently has refused to keep the child in counseling when ordered. Each time she goes to file a motion, she has the child talk to a therapist so she can get a letter for court saying how terrible dad is, and the therapy lasts a couple weeks or months and then ends until next time, when she claims that she thought everything was better, but then... Child hasn't been in counseling since September at this point. Dad has no faith that mom will keep child in counseling long enough for reunification to happen.
Dad's requests were individual and joint counseling for dad and child, joint counseling with mom and dad alone, short supervised visits working up to short unsupervised visits, weekly phone calls, and monthly status calls.
You are right - the evaluator gave no goal of reunification at all. Just that each of them needed individual counseling and that they have trouble communicating.
