Couples therapy in abuse...any therapists here?

@Brokenbeyondrepair1 read the whole thread because I am in a similar position - going to couple’s counselling even though I have been in touch with Women’s Aid and others in the past about emotional abuse and anger issues.

SS aren’t involved, so it’s not exactly the same. But I understand why you feel stuck in the relationship and trapped in the counselling process. If you’re anything like me it’s because you don’t really, truly 100% trust you’re right - even though if this was about someone else you’d immediately say LTB. And places like Mumsnet are supports on the journey to actually believing it for yourself. Hopefully we’ll both get there xx

I've been in this situation. The abuser runs the show in these therapy sessions. They have no problem being charming, outwardly co-operative and empathetic, painting you as crazy, making up things to support his narrative.
As soon as i realised my therapist didnt understand what was going and joined ex in the gaslighting, i stopped it. You need to leave. You need to Grey rock and stop opening up in these sessions. It is hard, but once you do, you claim your reality back.

You are not a psychopath. Neither am i, but i was called it frequently. Still am tbh. But now i decide who i am. I am kind, funny, deep and empathetic. Take steps to leave now. Dont let him destroy you. No one understands unless theyve been through it. Even if they are therapists.

Forget therapy. Just try to make plans to seperate.

Then ask him why he stays

OP please message me if you are comfortable, I can have a conversation with you.
I am a therapist, I am passionate about fighting domestic abuse and reading your post made my Blood pressure jump up.
You need your own therapy and your therapist is very very wrong to support this dynamic.
When you are wrapped up in the cycle of abuse you cannot see clearly and you believe there is no way out. I was there so talking not just from the therapist's perspective but also a woman who lived in abuse for a big part of her life.
Until I didn't and no matter how hard that was to break free, heal myself and break the patterns of abuse, it was never as hard as if I had continued on that path.
But it is very difficult to do it alone, you need support and couple therapy that empowers the abuser is unethical and plain wrong.
Please seek support, give it a try and you will see that it gets easier.
There is no such thing as being forced to go to therapy, it is plain wrong.

sounds like you need counselling for Co-dependency.

I've voted yanbu because you mustn't stay with him. You have to leave, even if you think you can't. I understand it's hard, I've been there myself . But just get out. However you can. Good luck, you can do this x

Its not that therapists can’t or don’t take on abuse cases—it is that they can’t treat sbuse like it is a couple/communication issue. Because its not—its an abuse of power and a warping of attachment between the couple. No one should try to “mediate” it or remediate it. Its not a safe or healthy relationship. To protect both parties—the victim from being victimized and the perpetrator from committing abuse—the couple should separate.

Couples counseling also relies on a good faith effort by each party to reach an equitable and compassionate solution to problems. An abusive person can not engage in good faith. The therapist can’t make them.

Not only can the abuser manipulate the therapist, they can 'therapise' their victim in order to gaslight them and it may escalate the abuse. The abuser may feel criticised or challenged and take that out on his victim.

I’m curious to know from other posters why therapists can’t take on abusive cases? Where are people supposed to go for help?

Its couples counselling that is the issue here, not therapy itself. Couples counselling involves being vulnerable in session and an abuser will use this against the victim later. It can escalate abuse and violence.If the therapist knows there is abuse, it is ethically wrong for them to work with the couple. But it is sometimes hard to know what is happening.

But abusers may benefit from therapy (like the kind Lundy Bancroft does) although the prognosis is not good. Victims definitely benefit from therapy. It appears that the OP has already done the Freedom Program but does not appear to want to leave.

I once worked with a woman over a course of about 5 years. At first it seemed her depression and low self esteem stemmed from childhood, and that her husband was a bit clueless and maybe insensitive. Then with more information I felt he was more that clueless, and actually quite nasty. Only during the last course of treatment did she disclose something that was abusive. I had suspected abuse, tried to explore it, but she had never gone there. And I did not want to alienate her and cut her off from help. When she did disclose, it was a remark which kind of popped out and she said she didnt mean to say. I am pretty experienced, but not a mind reader - I have to go with what I am told. She told me my reaction in the session really made it real to her that it was abuse. But obviously had not wanted to say it earlier.

She did leave him in the end, did really well.

Exactly - and the counsellor should not be going along with this. That is a breach of professional duty. This scenario is not suitable for couples therapy.

It is significant that the OP is not engaging in this voluntarily. That is about as big a red flag as I can imagine.

Because as OP has described the abuser uses things said in the session to abuse the victim further. The victim feels a false sense of safety within sessions and speaks her mind and the abuser then has more ammunition to use against her. In the worst scenarios abusers may use things said in therapy as an excuse to beat the victim. It's also totally pointless in terms of improving anything. Domestic abuse is not a relationship or a communication issue and can't be addressed in couple therapy. If you want to improve your life, leave him. If you don't want to do that, contact your local DA service and ask for some individual support for yourself.

Most counsellors are trained to reflect back what the person is saying in a neutral way so that that person can think about and re-evaluate what they have just said and the way they view things.
In couples counselling they will facilitate communication and not take sides. With an abusive relationship where one partner is lying about the other, the counsellor will usually not call them out on lying but will just paraphrase their words and meaning. Which can feel like being ganged up on to the other partner.
If you need support go to individual counselling, it will help you to see things more clearly and validate your feelings.

You are not responsible for the abuse btw, that would be your partner

That was quite a good Freudian slip.

the erosion = this person ...

Find yourself an individual therapist who will help you find the courage to leave this man.

If this couples therapist cannot see you are being abused then she is not worth her salt.

You have one life - do not waste any more of it on the erosion. Can you honestly see any happy resolution to this as a couple?

OP I’m in a similar situation. Im not sure the abuse is as extreme as your case, and I don’t want to leave either but I also need support. I also know I’m responsible for some of the abuse, but DH blames me for all/majority of it.

I’m curious to know from other posters why therapists can’t take on abusive cases? Where are people supposed to go for help?

Don’t do it!! Never have therapy with an abuser!! They are not trained and it will help the abuser turn it all around on you. Leave him he will never change. Read Lundy Bancroft and run!

@PITCHpink I have noticed exactly the same thing - that the older my kids get, the harder I find dealing with my mother.

I had a similar situation and I feel exactly the same. The older I get and the older my children get, the more I blame her for staying and making us live a life that was awful. She died years ago, low and behold through drink “couldn’t cope”. Meanwhile he’s still alive but of course I have no relationship with him.

I'm a trainee therapist but I don't need to rely on any of my training to give my opinion on your issue. I think if you're in an abusive relationship the only solution is to leave. No amount of therapy will help if he's lying or exaggerating and especially if he's not even listening to what you're saying. I get that it's hard to split a family up, I've been there, but you're priority needs to be your health and safety and the safety of your kids. I'd strongly consider personal therapy to figure out what it is YOU want and to get some support in making positive changes to your life.

This is the thing we're never allowed to say, isn't it, that the mother has some responsibility here. I feel very similarly towards my mother. Her refusal to act has ruined any chance of ever having a normal relationship with her.

He is never going to be able to look at his behaviour, genuinely accept what he's doing, apologise and mean it, and then become a decent husband.

This is never going to happen. Ever. It is not within him to do so. He is not capable of it. This seems to be the hardest thing to grasp. You cannot logically reason him out of his position. There is nothing you can say that will make him suddenly see things the way you do. There's some evidence, it seems, that men who perform this sort of coercive control have a personality disorder (NPD) and just can't interact with their spouses in a normal or healthy way.

I witnessed it in my own mother. The rigid adherence to the belief that if she just tried hard enough, she could finally make him see that he was wrong, not her. She banged her head against that brick wall for 25 years. Even now, she still can't seem to get her head around it. The last time we had a conversation about it, she said something about how he promised, every time we moved house, that this was going to be the magic solution that would fix his unhappiness, but it never was, and she couldn't understand why none of the solutions worked. I said, quite bluntly, he lied. She couldn't get her head round it.

Change will come when you stop trying to win this fight and decide that you CBA to have it any more. Let him think it's all you. Let him tell everyone it's all you. Let some of them take his side, it's OK. You don't need the whole world to believe you before you can change your situation. You don't actually need anyone to believe you, including him. Trust that other people aren't all stupid and some of them will work it out for themselves.

Every time he starts on you, and you participate by being determined to defend yourself, you keep this cycle going and make it harder to disconnect from him. Him starting on you, you having a massive emotional reaction to it, desperate to defend yourself, him not letting you, you clinging on to the idea that if only you could put your POV across he would see sense and things would change, that attempt failing and you on pins waiting for him to start on you again and give you another opportunity to state your case, and that attempt failing, so you're even more on edge waiting for the next opportunity, and so on, and so on, and suddenly you're 50 and your kids have left home and won't visit and your health is in the toilet and you're telling yourself that you're too old to leave him now, because you can't cope on your own, and anyway, you can't leave until you've made him understand. Does this sound familiar?

I recognise the pattern here, you need to rescue yourself OP.

You're trying to get someone else (and a whole mumsnet board) to tell you you're right and to validate you. However what's developing is a pattern of you seeking help but not engaging with it.

The underlying foundation of couples therapy is that you are both there to talk about and fix the dynamic. The idea isn't that she is a referee deciding who is right or wrong in a situation.

If she tells you this relationship isnt fixable, like the person you disclosed this to initially, and probably like the social worker who raised the concerns and like all the people on this thread. What are you going to do?

You can't keep trying to pull people by telling them awful stuff but then lack action.

In someways the more people tell you that he's wrong, the more it allows you to stay in the relationship because it calms you down, makes you feel more validated and more able to sit through the next fight because it pushes breaking point further away

The only answer anyone can give you is to leave. You have the choice if you keep asking the question.

I'm sorry but I really need to ask again. Did a social worker ask you to attend couple therapy? Knowing that the relationship is abusive? If this is true, please consider making a complaint on the basis that this is harmful and damaging advice and doesn't meet your and the children's support needs around domestic abuse. You really must stop this therapy.