ex H wants to be present during visitation

My children who live with ex H and ex H used to come to me for dinners - that was our visitation. I realized that he had been abusive to me and I want my own life, free from him, and visitation with my daughters alone. I have a lawyer now who will file to get me some visitation. I have a letter from my p-doc that says that I am stable and I expect reasonably good results from the neuropsychological evaluation. But my daughters do not want to see me without their father present. They want to go back to dinners together as a family. They also want all four of us to go into family therapy TOGETHER.

I know this is very weird, and I wonder, how would the family court respond to this?

For a long time my sister had supervised but it was with a "neutral" party. This happened to be with my parents. Your EX has unrealistic expectations. Yes I feel your children should be in therapy, possibly family therapy with each separate parent. I would advice against "couples" counselling or joint family therapy because anything that is said can and most likely will be used in a negative way. The kids will be assigned a person to take into account what they want as well as their best interest. Best of luck, you deserve visitation without him having complete control over it.

I think some of it is your kids wanting you to get back with your ex. It might be heartbreaking but you can't let always let your kids have their way. So in the beginning you might have to "make" them have visits with you without your ex around. In the long run it will be better for your kids to have a healthy relationship with both of you as individuals.

He is really insistent. He sent in an offer to forgive unpaid child support if I start visitation with him present. I said no.