marriage counselling

[happybubbles20]

Hello. Has anyone tried marriage counselling with Relate and if so would you mind sharing your experiences. I've suggested to DH that we go to talk through our marital issues but have no idea what to expect.

well, we had family counselling with relate. tough but worthwhile. there is no sides taken. an air of total neutrality and a safe place to discuss things. we had successful outcome in terms of communication within the family. any therapy depends though on the relationship with the therapist. it is an important factor for a good result and putting into practise the suggestions made.

Me and H have been to Relate and found it very helpful.

The first session was just going through the paperwork and talking about our issues in broad terms.

The first 'proper' session started with a bit about us and our relationship history- how we met, how things progressed etc. This gave us the basis of the rest of the sessions.

Each session after that would have a brief recap and chat about the week, and then we would decide what to discuss. The counsellor was good at getting us both talking, for example saying 'is there anything you want to discuss today? If you're not sure we could do A or B.'

I found having a safe place to talk where we could be steered away from going round in circles very useful, and things are better than they have been in years. We had 3 months worth of sessions.

HTH, good luck with it.

We just finished. We had a male counsellor, older than dh, which worked out really well.

We thought it was brilliant. They are neutral, BUT theyare challenging, which is good. My h had argued nonsense for years, but went down like a pack of cardswhen challenged by the counsellor. I couldnt have got him to open like that by myself - it is far less easy to bullshit in counselling, and they can spot and challenge it if you do.

i did it many years ago in my 1st marriage - mainly because i wanted help with getting exh to acknowledge that the marriage was over - the counsellor was a gay guy in his 50s and was fantastic, possibly because he didn't conform to any stereotype either exh or i had about what a relate counsellor would be like, he kind of seemed especially neutral, if that makes sense.

first couple of sessions were talking through our family background and relationship history, and even just that was really useful as it quickly became obvious exactly what the problems were, whereas if exh and i tried to talk we'd just end up yelling at each other.

I haven't, but I babysat for a friend while she and her husband went. This was a few years ago and the couple are still together and have had another baby since then.

Thanks all. That's really reasurring. We too could do with a neutral place to talk as we've been going round in circles for years. Hope this works as we've got to sort things through. One last thing, was it very costly? (i know the investment is worthwhile as its the rest of our lives we're investing in) but we have some budget issues at the mo.