Did marriage guidance/ counselling work for you?

[ihaveadirtydog]

My husband and I are having a bit of a rough patch - nothing major, just a lot of bickering, competitive tiredness and not much fun.

I have wondered if counselling may be of use but in the few couples I know who have done it, they all ended up splitting up anyway.

I don't want to separate, I think we can get things back on track and am willing to put some work at it but am worried that by even suggesting counselling I would be signing the death warrant on the relationship?

It all depends on the couple. If you both want to get out of a rut of bickering etc and you're both prepared to change the way you do things then of course counselling is potentially helpful. Where it's a dead duck is where things have already broken down, and one or neither of you accept you are at fault, entertain change or engage with the process.

Does he think there is a problem?

He would say the problem is that I don't pay him enough attention and he's probably right but I struggle to rectify this and that is the basis of most of our squabbles.

OK so - imagining you were in a counselling session - you would acknowledge that you don't pay him enough attention & let's say you'd propose a way in which it could be improved. But what would you counter with? What is there about him that he could improve and what would be his reaction if you raised it? Similar acknowledgement and commitment to change.... or flat denial and make it all your fault?

Well, whenever we've tried to sort things out ourselves he has minimised my opinions e.g. he doesn't see why I'm so tired after looking after kids, house and working part time - his job is much more demanding (am simplifying but that's the gist).
He doesn't understand the 'headspace' that these things take up as well as actually doing them and that is why he does tend to slip down the priorities list.
But I think if an impartial person could talk us through things it would help. The trouble is even suggesting it would freak him out and send him into a v negative state.

So you're saying he doesn't think there's a problem and, if there is a problem, none of it is his responsibility. You said originally that you're willing to work at it.... but I don't see any sense of that effort being either acknowledged or reciprocated. Being frank, I think once you have to engage a counsellor to tell someone to be kind to their partner and show some appreciation - which is really what it boils down to - things are a bit worse than a 'rough patch'.

I think most people go to counselling when it's too late and they've already reached the point of no return.

It might be worth going, especially if you both want the relationship to improve but don't know how to make it better.

No, it was awful. It was done by a woman who seemed to think we still lived in the 1950s and who let then DP moan about all his various complaints about me (very trivial but he wasn't told this, one of them was that I was "too attractive"). I was halted when I put my more serious concerns about him (such as him borrowing money to go on a solo holiday in the States on a hired Harley Davidson).

When I pointed out that things worked both ways and I wouldn't find it impossible to find another man if that didn't happen, I was told that I needed to do more for him to make him feel better, e.g. cook his meals, etc.. The counsellor was a very fat, plain woman and I can't help thinking this influenced her views to think that the woman had to hang onto a man at any cost.

DP thought it was quite wonderful. I was do disgusted I moved out a few weeks later and got a new boyfriend. DH pursued me for two years and was a changed man. Or lets say he was more like the nice young man I started going out with again. We are now happily married.

I really liked counselling. We had a very good counsellor who really made us investigate and explain our own thinking, and made us try to see things from the other person's point of view.

H and I are splitting up, as BertieBotts said we had waited until it was too late for counselling to solve our problems, it may have worked to keep us together if we'd done it 7 or 8 years earlier. It was still hugely worthwhile though as we were in terrible pain with both of us feeling hurt and rejected and we are managing the separation in a much kinder and cooperative way as a result of seeing this counsellor.

A bad counsellor would have made things very much worse, so see if you can get a personal recommendation. Ours was very good, she would sometimes pick up a tiny, throw-away type of comment and get the person who said it to explore it further and it often turned out to reveal quite a significant, unspoken assumption or attitude difference that was preventing us from understanding what the other was really saying.

It really depends on the willingness of both parties to work on things I think, own things they each can improve on - an admittance on both parts that there is a problem and a genuine willingness to work on it.

Also, if a relationship is in any way emotionally abusive, it is worse than useless.

I had dreadful relationship counselling from Relate with STBXH about 3 years ago - the counsellor was about as dynamic as a limp lettuce leaf, was obviously intimidated by my EA STBXH, and allowed him to rant at me at length in sessions, and also validated STBXH's, frankly odd, controlling behaviour. STBXH though was totally unwilling to accept that he needed to change any of his behaviour in our marriage - it was all put onto me - whereas in reality we both needed to change various behaviours - and we both had to give a shit about the marriage in the first place.

We are now getting a divorce...

But I think that is because our marriage was never going to survive anyway - if we had both been wholeheartedly behind the process then maybe things would have been different...