To feel let down by couples counsellor not spotting abuse?

[Namechange2225]

I have recently left my emotionally abusive husband, with amazing support from Women’s Aid.

One thing that really bothers me is that we went to couples counselling for about 6 months last year and many of STBXH were mentioned by me (silent treatment for weeks which only ended when I apologised enough, sulking, stonewalling, needing his way, never apologising, telling me I am not a good mum because of my PND years ago amongst other things…) but counsellor never suggested he was abusive.

In fact, STBXH spent a lot of the sessions talking about how I abused him, without specifics, except a couple of time I shouted at him after being ignored for days, which I fully accepted I shouldn’t have done. The counsellor would often talk about my behaviour which STBXH “thought was abusive” and a lot of time was spent on my “anger issues” and how I needed to change, which just made me feel more guilty about everything and afraid to raise any issue (as he would just say I was trying to argue and he didn’t want to argue with me).

I now know you shouldn’t do counselling with an abuser, but I didn’t realise then that I was in an abusive relationship.

I’ve also learnt a lot about emotional abuse now and feel like the signs were definitely there.

AIBU to feel let down?

She wouldn't have been able to say that in front of your abuser - the repercussions could have been appalling for you as well as her with his reaction.

I had the same problem with a series of Relate counsellors...I now think that even if they had spotted the abuse they couldn't have said or done anything as it might have been dangerous for me...however i am not sure they actually dd spot it.

Well done on seeing it and leaving...it's the future that countsI

That’s a good point. I wonder if perhaps she could have suggested seeing us separately.

No. You’re not unreasonable to feel let down.

IME counsellors can be extremely bad at dealing with abuse and can, in fact, allow themselves to become tools of the abuse very easily.

My experience was with a relate counsellor (as chosen by STBXH). In the initial session - the one where they are checking for suitability etc - he totally manipulated the entire process. Played the victim. He even admitted to me afterwards that he was purposefully using the session to ‘prove’ I was in the wrong. He wanted to enlist the counsellor as his weapon against me.

In the individual session, I had with the counsellor we were allocated, I discussed this with her. So she definitely KNEW that he’d told me this was his intention. I also discussed several other things with her, including how he was financially abusing me and I had no access to money even to feed and clothe my children. That he’d purposeful lied and obsfucated to make me think that I was just overspending rather than him controlling all the money.

i was, as you can imagine, as mess. I was on maternity leave, with no access to money (he’d timed this for me not having any income), with obvious postnatal depression (on antidepressants), having recently had an unexpected pregnancy and miscarriage that I hadn’t even been able to tell him about at the time because it was hard enough without him being awful to me about that (he was when he found out). I was angry and all over the place.

Yet this counsellor not only decided to continue with the counselling, but actively took his side against me. In the final session, it turned into her telling me off and lecturing me about his I just had to remove boundaries I’d put in place to protect myself because the lack of them caused me to be depressed to the point of suicide ideation (and I’d told her about this, including that id worked with a counsellor to figure out some boundaries). I asked for the session to stop and she refused to stop. She continued, just telling my husband what he wanted to hear.

I left that night, with police involvement because he was threatening to prevent me leaving with the breastfed baby - and went to my mums with no money at all. I ended up in emergency homeless accommodation because of how awful my STBXH was. That counsellor not only failed to recognise a dangerous situation, but actually colluded with him in making me much less safe.

I later discovered that his account of relate counselling with his first wife, also involved him enlisting the counsellor to his side to the point that she got upset and angry and stormed out. At which point the counsellor apparently talked to him about he’s such a poor victim and so on. Which sounds very similar to what happened to me (except I had to have it happen on zoom in my home with nowhere to escape too).

There are a lot of extremely bad counsellors out there who do a great deal of damage to victims of domestic abuse. Especially if they dare not to present as nice, sympathetic victims. You’d think that could sellers would know that traumatised people don’t present nicely. But no.

My experience was also that relate’s complaints process is as useful as a chocolate teapot. It took many sessions in the domestic abuse counselling the homelessness services social worker referred me to for me to learn to recognise how badly I had been let down. And that it’s not at all uncommon for women to have these kind of experiences, especially with partners who are extremely good at presenting their perplexed, reasonable guy with mental wife image to the world.

It’s such a common thing that they should have clear intervention procedures. But they don’t.

In fact, they often fail to spot it.

One thing I have always seen on MN is that you never go to couples counselling with an abusive partner. And it's absolutely true, as you've found.

Book yourself in for counselling without the abusive partner.

The problem is where you don’t recognise he’s abusive. It’s hard for the boiled frog to know that the problem is that someone is raising the water temperature, rather than them just not coping.

And that is why there should be far more robust screening processes and proper training for recognising abuse (especially where the traumatised victim is behaving as traumatised people do) and safely managing it.

We had family counselling. I managed to pluck up the courage to say there was a problem with SBXH getting angry, with back-up from the children, and the counsellor literally turned to SBXH and said “You don’t seem like the type of man who would lose his temper”.

My elder son’s counsellor also encouraged my son to cut contact as he assumed I was an enabler. What my son didn’t know was that I wanted to leave but couldn’t as I had no right of residence, other than through SBXH. I struggled with the idea I was indeed an enabler for years until someone clearly told me I was a victim too, not an enabler. I think some of these people just assume a certain model of thinking and don’t consider other possibilities.

We eventually left with help from a shelter, and from the equivalent of children’s social services (not in the UK) both of whom accepted my younger son’s description of the abuse SBXH handed out. I now have a great relationship with both sons, but the first two counsellors definitely made things worse rather than better.

I went to couples counselling twice with abusive EXDH. The first woman from Relate told me that as a woman I ought to be doing the lion's share of domestic duties despite me commuting and working full time and him only working part time from home. I refused to return, she was rather old and I felt her opinions were extremely outdated.

The second counsellor did tell me now EXDH was abusive, after he stormed out of a session. But she didn't tell me what to do with that information so I went home and blurted it out to DH when really I should have sat with it and planned my next move.

His first wife recently told me that the counsellor they saw convinced all their marital problems were because of her overbearing mother when now we both know it is because the mother was trying to tell her daughter that our joint EXDH was abusive.

So yes, there's a lot of poor counsellors out there. I now have an AMAZING one so they are also out there.

I’m so sorry to hear of so many others having this experience, but it’s been really helpful to hear as well because I still have a lot of doubt about whether it really was abuse, whether it was me etc and my experience with the counsellor has really fed into that. I hope you are all happy and doing well now.

From hearing other people's stories about marital counselling it does seem as though a large amount of counsellors automatically side with the male partner.

Relate counsellors are not DV trained & often make the situation worse for the abused. Also true of Victim Support.

I know what you mean. I was in an emotionally abusive (and in the later stages it became physical) relationship for five years: we started to go to Relate during the last year or so of our relationship, and I got the feeling that the counsellor was under the impression that I was as abusive as my ex. My ex would tell him things in our sessions, and I was not allowed to retaliate or explain… The counsellor never asked for my input or my take on events. There was one particular event that I remember in clear detail: my ex made it sound as though I had beaten him up. The counsellor just let him talk it through, as though he were the victim, and yet, had the counsellor known exactly what had happened, and why it had happened. I think he would have completely changed his opinion.

This should actually be a genuinely shocking statement.

but, if you’ve experienced it, it really isn’t. Not at all. It’s a terrible state of affairs.

These stories are shocking. I had a relate counsellor to help me as I was so ill I was struggling to look after dd when she was little and I just wanted a space to cry and talk about my pain of not being the mum, I wanted to be, and to talk through my childhood.

The woman didn’t understand how ill I was and kept telling me I needed to do something with my life, what were my plans, was I going to get a job etc. Over and over. It felt abusive. This was to me, a woman sending her dd to nursery 3 days a week so she was fed properly and I could rest. My friend and dh looked after us the other days. I was showering every other day, less sometimes to conserve energy and could hardly stand up.

I felt I wasn’t supposed to complain as she did this for free. I paid the maximum contribution even though I didn’t need to as I wasn’t working. One day I showed up for the session and was told she’d been sacked for something, which had happened with another client so I presume some kind of gross misconduct.

I am sure there are some lovely counsellors out there but I didn’t have much success. I was allocated a second woman. She was much better and had a lot of experience with dealing with children in war torn countries. My problems felt very minor in comparison and again, she didn’t really get my issues.

I have since had much better fully private therapy. But it costs a lot lot more.

I have a similar story, although no violence. What I found even worse was the lawyer mediator we went to who sided with him. He has manipulated things to get me as free childcare so he can work whenever he likes (and admitted this), stopped me working or studying full time (thank fuck for the OU), refused to move out for 6.5 years (no exaggeration) and been able to do that because we're abroad and I was on his visa.

I've posted before about him. Point is that when we went to mediation I assumed the mediator was neutral. She was a partner in the law firm too, so not inexperienced! And basically - almost literally - said that as I wasn't working I was leaving him to shoulder the burden of everything!

And then she asked he felt about getting divorced. He said it wasn't great but it was fine. She refused to believe this!! She asked him THREE times and each time he said the same thing. She didn't believe that he didn't give a shit about me, and thought he was some corporate high-flier who couldn't admit his feelings of pain!!! I of course was over emotional and unreliable.

Meanwhile he stung her along, pretending to be involved in the process while he openly told me he wasn't. When I said this, she saw it as me being unfair to him: he had a high pressured job so of course he didn't have time to do what she'd asked us to do. Unlike, of course, me who was apparently sitting at home watching daytime TV all day.

It completely broke me to have a lawyer back him up. I had a kind of breakdown two days later and couldn't walk further than the toilet (from bed). The damage she did to me was bigger than the therapist who wasn't fully getting it (and in fairness didn't actually fight his corner for him). I had to have therapy as a result of the lawyer and could still burst into tears now.

I don't think people dealing with couples in relationship therapy or divorce mediation should be able to without fully understanding coercive control. The help they give others does not outweigh the damage they do to people (women usually) like us.

Abusers like to enlist people to help triangulate their abuse.They are often very charming and manipulative and will charm and manipulate others into believing their BS;they are accomplished liars and very convincing.

Have you ever watched the TV series maid where the main characters abusive ex enlists others help to make her think she's BU

A huge well done on escaping your abuser.

This. In my case he wanted relate and we went but I had two sessions on my own, as did he, we then had two sessions together where he played mr nice guy and I’m trapped I want to support her but I’m a new father, working all time and my wife has issues with my parents. He lied and lied and lied. He wouldn’t say if he loved me or if he wanted it to work. Eventually he missed an appointment - he told me it was cancelled. I went on my own - he’d told the counsellor that I was abusive after the sessions, he told me the counsellor thought I was mentally unwell. Unfortunately he’s done this by text, so we sat and compared texts. From then on my counsellor said no to any joint counselling and he’d only see me alone. He was amazing. Honest to god he said it is normally the truth is in the middle. But with me and my ex there was two completely different sides so much so that one side was lying but he couldn’t see who.

it was only by putting my phone next to his that he could see
text message at. 16.39 to counsellor - I’m very sorry David, Penelope keeps calling you name such as a misogynistic twat and feels you are siding with me and ranting and raving about the appointment
m text message 16.40 from ex to me I’m very sorry Penelope. David has been speaking to me in private about doing relate as he feels you are mentally unwell and may need serious mental health intervention
text message at 17.00 to counsellor ‘Penelope has refused to go to the session on Monday’
text message at 17.01 to me ‘David has advised to cancel the session on Monday and asked me to gently ask you to go to the GP’

the counsellor said my ex was one of the most narcissistic, abusive, controlling and manipulative men he had encountered

I hope that relate would see each person on their own at least 4 times and then 8 together and then apart again.

m as a vulnerable victim I didn’t know who to believe - he lied to my face and I couldn’t spot the lying but neither could anyone else

I hear you OP. My dad was abusive and my mum has a few amazing stories on how he led a variety of counselors and therapists up the garden path over years.

Unsurprisingly, I developed MH issued too. My mum took me to a very highly regarded therapist, in charge of pediatric psychiatry at his hospital. Alas, he was just a common and garden sexist prick... spent years trying to convince me that my mum was my problem.

There was one family session where my mother, in a form of words that was very discreet but unambiguous, alluded to my father's attempt to rape her. Didn't change the therapist's opinion at all. He did not pull my father up on it.

This was in the 80s but I'm beginning to suspect that things have changed rather less than I hoped. Solidarity, OP, and I hope you find a wiser therapist just for yourself.

All that counsellor was really demonstrating was his lack of awareness of how abusers operate. Those messages and the kinds of things your ex did were simply not exceptional or remarkable (they were awful and damaging to you obviously!) in the abusive bastard playbook. It’s pretty standard stuff.

Insisting that the truth is usually somewhere in the middle is exactly the stance that gives these abusers their in. The counsellor is already open to seeing your behaviour as a problem, so it doesn’t take much to tip them over into ‘she IS the problem’. Similarly, they’re so busy looking to share the blame that they don’t respond appropriately to disclosures of obvious abuse.

Given how unbelievably common domestic abuse and coercive control are, it’s simply unacceptable that counsellors are operating without sufficient understanding of these dynamics. It causes untold damage.

@Hopeandlove im glad you did accidentally manage to find proof that he was abusing you.

This is really interesting. STBXH has said that the counsellor confirmed to him that everything was my fault. I never had the opportunity to ask the counsellor if she said that as it was after the sessions had finished.

The problem is anyone can say they’re a counsellor, it’s not regulated
so they don’t have the correct training
it is appalling though

My STBXH said the same about the counsellor we saw and the one he saw with his first wife.

I don’t actually doubt that she did tell him this either. My hypothesis is that he’s just extremely good at engineering situations in which he convinces a poorly trained and somewhat incompetent counsellor that he’s a poor victim of the crazy women he married.

The fact is that my behaviour as the relationship unravelled has been pretty much textbook trauma response. Women traumatised by living with domestic abuse often don’t look like nice, sympathetic victims. And their abusers are often highly accomplished at presenting themselves as totally reasonable, kind, confused husbands.

There really is no excuse for any counsellor - especially not one employed by one of the UK’s most significant counselling charities! - not to have a good understanding of this stuff. It’s not unusual nor is it exceptional. And the risk of doing enormous harm is quite high.