Couples counselling - how do you know if its any good ?

[whoknowsme]

H and I are in counselling

Counsellor has, after hearing me mention an incident where h tried to push me out of the door with the intent of locking me out, asked if I feel frightened. I said "no" and we then never talked about this side of his behaviour again in the session. (It's the truth, I don't feel h would attack me out of the blue but he is permanently angry, passive aggressive language, sneering tone etc).

We are in counselling as I told h I no longer would put up with his behaviour towards me and as he won't seek counselling for himself I booked couples counselling just to get him to a counsellor at all.

I do feel that he is entering this whole process in a "we have a problem, we need to sort ourselves out way" and this is the way he talked in the first session we had, the counsellor taking her lead from this is tasking us both with stuff, which is great from h's point of view as I'm going along with suggestions to make his life less stressed, giving up control of even more of my life at her suggestion. H's behaviour has not altered noticeably since we started in counselling.

I feel that he is hoodwinking her about what is wrong with our relationship, I personally think it is beyond reviving due to years and years of h's increasingly controlling behaviour and vile attitude to me when he doesn't have/get that control. I actually told him it was separation or counselling which is the only reason he agreed to go.

Surely she should have explored the violent incident and dug deeper to get me to open up about even more stuff. At the end of the first session she asked h if he consideredf he was a bit depressed and he said no, I think he has been depressed for years and taken out his misery on me. I know I'm inwardly miserable about the way he treats me and have been for many years even if I've kept up the facade of being happily married.

Does anyone have any experience in this field or suggestions. What is the etiquette of counselling, should I start the next session by clearing the air as to how I really feel and why we are there even if it seems like I'm saying I'm fine it's just H who has a problem. I swear if he could just go back to being the person I married things would be fine, but he's become a two-faced monster, reserving his nasty side just for me.

Why dont you 'clear the air' at your next session? Looks like the counsellor is taking your replies at face value.

Do you think you would perhaps benefit from counselling sessions on your own as well as couples counselling? To help you deal with your feelings so you can decide definitively what you want to do?

I had planned to go to some counselling sessions alone if h wouldn't agree to eneter counselling and we ended up with me having to follow through with the separation/divorce route.

It seems disloyal though and presumably if I do I then ought to disclose it to the couples counsellor as she asked in the first session if either of us was undergoing/had unergone any individual counselling.

Joint counselling is not recommended at all where there are instances of ongoing abuse within the relationship. Your H will likely dominate the sessions and make it all out to be your fault. Abusive men too hardly if ever respond positively to any counselling sessions. He is not going to change his ways because of a series of counselling sessions; this is deeply rooted within his pysche.

He does not want to divorce you because he is getting what he wants from the relationship i.e to control and subjugate you. Abuse is about power and control; he wants absolute over you and you have allowed yourself to be controlled.

If you have children they are the ones I feel for as both their parents have both imparted very damaging lessons to them over the years.

Counselling solely for you is adviseable. You need to talk to someone without fear of him hearing what you are saying.

Counsellors however, are like shoes. You need to find someone who fits with you. It seems like this current person you're seeing is not quite right for you.

I would definitely say these thoughts at the start of your next session. Take your post and read it out even - it should help to start to make the focus of the sessions more genuine. I am wondering though why you are going as you say that you have no hope for the relationship anyway.

You say that you have both been given tasks and that yours means that you have had to change things and it makes you feel worse - it's really important to feedback to the counsellor how the tasks make you feel. Wasn't sure if you meant he isn't doing his tasks as you say he has made no changes?

On the pov of the counsellor, you explain an incident where your H behaved 'badly'. It obvioulsy has had some impact on you as you would like the counsellor to explore it further.
However, when she asked if you were frightened, you said 'No'. I can understand that you didn't think it was frightening but I am guessing you found his reaction aggressive, you became angry about his lack of respect or ??? Did you tell your counsellor about it?
She/he will only be able to go by what you are saying. If you don't express how this incident made you feel, she won't be ble to guess.
In the same way, if you feel that you do the 'exercises' and he doesn't, have you said so very clearly? if you think he is using it as a tool to control you, did you say so?

It seems disloyal though
Why is it disloyal for you to have counselling on your own?
Solo counselling is about looking at your personal problems not solving your issues as a couple. It can give you a better understanding of yourself and where you are. Couple counselling is about trying to find a way to communicate better, live better together or realizing it's the end of the road. Ver different aims imo.

H has sometimes barged past me or snatched stuff from me, usually the TV remote control or the newspaper. Many many years ago he whacked me in some way when we were in bed, I can't remember exactly how it happened now, and left a bruise on my breast. It's so long ago though that it almost feels like I dreamt it.

We have been together for 15 years and my memory is hazy.

He never apologises for his rudeness or if he is simply wrong about something, he makes excuses or apportions blame elsewhere. Over the years his behaviour has degenerated into never speaking nicely to me at all, always sneering/passive aggressive/angry/patronising - you name it. But now he is avoiding me as much as possible, presumably as he mostly can't bring himself to speak civilly so he won't speak if at all possible to avoid evidence of his unreasonable treatment of me.

I know why he was trying to throw me out of the house that day, it was because he'd had the kids all by himself for the day and was all out of patience. I didn't rush home as quickly as I could, stopped to chat to someone as I knew he was home with the kids. He was of the opinion that I was neglecting the children by not rushing home and therefore he was in charge of their welfare and I should get lost, not needed. The children were crying/upset because he had been shouting at them because they made a mess eating the tea he had cooked and refused to eat some of it as they didn't like it. He can't cope with cooking for them, their periodic pickyness and having to coax the youngest to eat any vegetables. He had ordered them upstairs to bed and they said that were still hungry.

I want to get this sort of behaviour out in the open with the counsellor but it just looks like "telling tales" doesn't it ? I want him to hear from someone else that this is totally unreasonable and that I shouldn't contemplate any sort of joint future with him unless he gets to the bottom of HIS problems/issues and changes his life.

Attila, I agree with what you quote but for one point "you have allowed yourself to be controlled".

I haven't in many respects and this, IMHO, is a source of anger to him. He, I believe thought that marriage and having children would change me from a girlfriend into a mother figure for whom husband/home and children are my only focus in life.

He complains about my career, implies I neglect the children/home and that I endanger his position/career because of it, I sometimes ask him to leave on time for childcare realted stuff (no more than a handful of times a year).

His disatisfaction with life seems to be partly from not having me completely under the thumb.

Oh my choices are so shit, caught between staying with h and the alternative being admitting I married badly and having enabled his worsening behaviour by not insisting on splitting up earlier.

It doesn't sound at all like telling tales - it sounds like telling it how it is and if you don't, it makes the whole counselling a bit of a farce and waste of money to be honest. I'm wondering if you learnt something during your upbringing that makes you feel that you have to keep bad behaviour and cruelty secret? Of course it takes time to ease into the counselling but now is the time to make it honest and genuine.

If you are going to a counsellor for them to tell him HE needs to change rather than to change, you are going for the wrong reasons. I can appreciate you want someone to do that. YOU need to say it though and you have the right to say it.

It sounds like he treats you like rubbish and you feel that you have no right to expect anything different, there's years of history with this. Sounds like he cannot handle parenting at all so has laid the blame for all on you and come to dislike you and control you rather than face up to his own difficult/uncomfortable/painful feelings about being a rather helpless parent.

You say that once he was someone different, I have no idea if that person can be re-found and brought back to life. Even if you are to split though, I'd really try and get him to parenting classes because he will presumably still be seeing DC and having them some of the time.

I posted before your last post. Again, your post that you believe him to want a stay at home wife dedicated to only him and the children with no outside life is a really important thought for you to bring to therapy and for him to respond to.

If it's true, it is a starting point for you being able to say - I cannot be that person so can you either live happily with who I have to be or can we agree to split amicably for the DC?

It sounds like as well, if he wasn't so taken up with blaming you, he would have to face up to his own fears about failing.

Please don't blame yourself though. Be kind to yourself...as he isn't doing it, it is even more important that you should allow yourself self-compassion.

If it is true that your H wants a SAHM whose priority is home and children, and you aren't that person, I can see why your relationship may have degenerated badly. IME, this is something that sadly only comes to the fore when the children show up and the mother doesn't devote as much time to them as the father would like. There are no rights and wrongs here, only priorities that differ and are sometimes irreconcilable.

You need to get rid of this man. He's a woman-hating bully who won't change. It's fine to leave him, you owe him no loyalty because he shows you none and mistreats you. And the DC. Dump his sorry arse.

I have told him repeatedly over the years that his behaviour is unacceptable, the problem is that I've carried on putting up with it so he's presumably felt I was all talk and no action.

The vile behaviour has been a drip drip drip effect, worsening gradually over the years, if he'd switched totally overnight, I 'd have upped and gone years ago.

I don't think there is any learn't behaviour in my background, I've made excuses for him being stressed over work or stressed over sporadic contact with his parents (divorced and not amicably so either). I've tried to be understanding on the basis that marraige is not always a bed of roses, you have to weather the rocky patches etc etc (my parents aren't well matched in a lot of ways but they are still together 45 years of marriage and still going strong, not lovey dovey, they have their disgreements, but very companionable together). It just seems I've run out of sympathy for him and his behaviour and he has squeezed all the fun and love out of our relationship.

He needs some sort of counselling but I was hoping he'd make that discovery for himself through talking to a couples counsellor with me.

counselling is for you to be honest and open in a safe environment.

"I want to get this sort of behaviour out in the open with the counsellor but it just looks like "telling tales" doesn't it "

that is what this cousnellingshoudl be for.

if you cant both say what you really feeeling/thinking then how can you both be helped?

but yes if he is controlling or you scared of how he wil lact if you "tell the truth" them it wont work read

this - it refers to dv situation but some of it may still apply

www.biscmi.org/documents/MEDIATION_AND_DOMESTIC_VIOLENCE.html

Good old mumsnet, "Dump his sorry arse" had to turn up fairly quickly on a thread like this !

Bonsoir, I sourced the very best childcare to allow me to work (I never went back full-time, not do-able in my industry), I always took time off when they were/are ill. I run them round to all the usual stuff, cubs/brownies/sports clubs, I leave work early some days so they can attend after school science/language clubs, whatever they express an interest in doing really. I devote a huge amount of my time to the children but it will never be enough for H as there's always something to blame me for.

There is no point going to a counsellor if you dont want to open up. And anyway, if you wont, there is less chance he will.

You two are the raw material, not the counsellor. His/her skills are to encourage that openness and facilitate, challenging if necessary.

You need a no- holds barredconversation at the session, and the sooner the better.

ps the counsellor wont TELL you that "this is totally unreasonable and that I shouldn't contemplate any sort of joint future with him unless he gets to the bottom of HIS problems/issues and changes his life."

cousnelling/therapy is about helping you have the tools/knowledge/self awareness to make those decisions/work it out for yourself.

i remember saying to my counsellor - "it was thanks to you telling me xxxxx" that i moved on

she said "no i didnt tell you xxxx, but by coming here you were able to work it out for yourself"

the counsellor says - how do you feel about cxx xwere you scared./
you say no
so counsellor moves on.

you talk about xx.
therpaist says - do you think it was unreaosnable?
you say yes because i felt xx
h is asked what he thinks.

going together is about faciltiating the discussion.

i did some stuff with my exP with one therapist but two more behind a mirror...heavy stuff!! where the other therapists behind the mirror would come in and role play what they saw we were saying to /about each other. then we were asked to comment.

it's about having a space to reflect on what is happening then coming to your own conclusions. therapist might say "i am wondering if you agreed to xxxx what would happen?" not telling you xx is good or bad to do but asking you.

a counsellor should not be telling you how or what to think - but asking the questions and guiding/facilitating so that you reach conclusions...

goign on my own i recounted some things exP had done, years ago..the counsellor would say things like "did you feel angry?" and i would say no - but then actually maybe i should have... they never said "you should have felt angry" but asked me to think why i did or didnt feel angry about it... and that left tme realising why things i had let go were actually cr*p.

if you follow.

You are all making sense and this is helping me tremendously.

I should perhaps just reiterate that I'm aware couples counselling isn't really right for our situation in the long or even medium term, but it is the ONLY sort of counselling H will even contemplate. He does not believe he has any problem, I am the cause of all the problems, in his mind.

I was hoping that he might start to get something out of talking and start to realise how unreasonable his behaviour is and want to "get better" for the children's sake.

I was hoping that he might start to get something out of talking and start to realise how unreasonable his behaviour is and want to "get better" for the children's sake.

maybe you do unreasonable things as well, very few relationships are all bad only on one side. At least by going to counselling you can both thrash out what you want to be the way forward

From what you've said, it doesn't sound as you've engaged in these 'joint counselling' sessions at all as it appears that you've sat back and witnessed your h, in your words, 'hoodwink' the counsellor.

Your reasoning is that if you contradict the spin your h is putting on your relationship it would seem 'disloyal' and it would like look like "telling tales".

You told the counsellor about a violent incident and, in response to a question from her, you said you were not frightened of your h. Nevertheless, you expect her to have 'dug deeper to get me to open up about even more stuff'.

The counsellor is not a psychoanalyist, nor is she a mind reader. How do you expect her to know what your feelings about your marriage are if you sit silently by while your h expounds on what you need to do for him to make his life 'less stressed'?

These sessions are 'joint' in that they are for both of you to articulate your feelings about your marriage. Why haven't you voiced your opinion of the state of your relationship, and why have you allowed him to take control and dictate terms?

The clue would seem to be in your statement that I want him to hear from someone else that this is totally unreasonable and that I shouldn't contemplate any sort of joint future with him unless he gets to the bottom of HIS problems/issues and changes his life.

He doesn't need to hear this from anyone else. He and your counsellor need to hear it from you in your next session when you make it clear that this farce has to stop and that unless he seeks individual counselling to work on his issues, you will be seeking a divorce.

It seems to me that you have already decided that continuing your marriage is untenable and, if that is the case, I suggest you cut to the chase and use your next session to break the news to him that you're not willing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of his demands any longer.

Frankly, when he went into one and sent the dc to bed hungry because he couldn't control his bad temper you should have pushed him out the door and bolted it firmly behind him.

I second every word Attilla has written and I also dread to think what impact your miserable relationship with this self-centred twunt has had on your dc. I can only hope that once you've rowed him out of your life you'll do your utmost to repair the damage that they have inevitably suffered.

i think it is about thinking about what you want from this and stop thinking about what he needs or wants - you cannot cure him/make him think x or y. he may not have an epiphany. in a way as heckler said you making it all about him when you need to think about you (and DC).

you might want to consider how long you give it for him to change/realise. and what you will do if in weeks or months time he has not ....

maybe give a few more weeks of couples then go for individual in which you will hopefully be encouraged to talk about you and start sentences with "i" ... not "he" does this and "he" does that.; i want him to xxx i wish he would xxx..

which is quite a hard thing to do, but if you can make that switch to you and what you want and what you do - things may become clearer.

try making every sentence about you and not about him at all. " iwant a relationship in which ..... "

I'm open to that too Hechler. No-one's perfect

So far as a result of counsellor's suggestion I have, in effect, conceded power over some of my freetime to him as part of "my efforts to improve communication with H".

H as done nothing but avoid taking to me as much as he can, I'm guessing that he thinks that not talking to me counts as not talking to me in and unpleasant manner.

The things is that if we are not going to spill the beans as a result of appropriate lines of questioning then any counsellor won't be able to guide us towards a suitable way forward. One of us is in denial and the other hasn't bared her soul yet.

I realise that H will blame me for being the cause of any split, he already blames me for anything and everything he dislikes or for not understanding anything and everything to do with his life so sure as eggs are eggs, without an epiphany on his part he'll blame me totally for what happens re the relationship continuing or not.

He hasn't sufficient patience with the children, he needs to be more tolerant of the fact that they are just that, children. If we split and he has them to stay on his own it will end in tears unless he changes for their sake.

you are not responsible for how he feels.
so he will blame you?
so what.
his problem.
you wont have to listen to him blaming you any more. freedom!!

if you split and he has them to stay and it ends in tears then if it continues to distress the dc you will have to limit contact.

if that does not change him then you know nothing will. and the dc will be better off not seeing him as much for their own emotional well being.

this too will not be your fault.

even if he blames you.

at the moment if it ends in tears you are there, coluding in a way.
dc ahve no choice.
when you split - there will be choice.
DC choice to see him
his choice to buck up or not.