Really fucking depressed after relationship counselling

[pablothepenguin]

First proper session after assessment, both by myself. I think a fair summary would be that I am too compliant and he's a bit controlling so it's a terrible combination but we could both work on those things.

I don't know why I'm so depressed apart from I'm really bloody depressed anyway. I just can't face the working together. I feel really overwhelmed.

She suggests seeing us both by ourselves and then together. And it might help to talk about my childhood. I absolutely do not want to do that.

I don't know what I expected. If I wanted to hear LTB I could have posted here for free! It's just so daunting. I feel sick.

Is it always this difficult at the beginning?

I found counselling (just me) exhausting at first; I'd come out feeling physically knackered. But I did feel it was doing me good somehow in the long run. It's important that you feel comfortable with your counsellor. And I don't know about the UK, but over here you get people offering counselling who are not actually qualified counsellors - as someone mentioned above, make sure she is qualified. I had sessions with a qualified one then met my ex's counsellor once and the difference was striking...

If you are not ready to have counselling together, don't. Same with talking about your childhood. But ... if the counselling is good, it should not just dig up the past and leave it there to hurt you. It should take away its power to hurt you. The process can be painful, but facing your fears can leave you with a better mental balance you never even realised you needed.

pablo I felt compelled to reply to your thread after reading your post about your H saying that your childhood was causing you to have a disproportionate reaction to his shouting etc.

My exH said exactly the same thing to me. We tried couples counselling and it didn't work; we are now almost divorced and I am so relieved to no longer be trying to make our marriage work.

It's very hard to explain and obviously quite complex. I had a very difficult relationship with my (step)father and I can now see that I chose badly in terms of a husband, no doubt because of my childhood experiences. In my case that means I chose a very difficult man who had, and continues to have, major personality issues that I no longer have to try to manage.

It does not mean that his behaviour was acceptable and that it was my reaction to it that was disproportionate. My ex would do things like punch the walls and say that it was okay because he was expressing his anger, and that I was unreasonable to expect him to control it, and that my need to control his anger stemmed from having had an aggressive father-figure.

I feel your pain. The only thing I can say is that it is SUCH a relief to no longer have to wade through the 'making it work' treacle.

Oh, and shouting is a disproportionate reaction. If your husband thinks shouting at people is normal he has problems of his own.

Congratulations Teapot :)

Thanks... I'll feel more like celebrating when the 3-and-a-bit-year-divorce is finalised and I can actually get on with my life!

Maybe she isn't the right counsellor for you. I went to three different counsellors with STBXH. Two of them just didn't work for me at all. I left feeling much worse about myself and my role in the relationship. With the third counsellor, it was a completely different experience. Ultimately it didn't help our relationship because it turns out STBXH is EA and didn't want to change. But the right counsellor will support you through the process.

Counselling can be difficult because you're facing your issues but that's a different type of upset from the distress that comes from being with the wrong counsellor. It's tricky to explain, but imo, with a good counsellor, you should feel you have learnt a bit more about yourself and your perspective should have opened slightly. With a bad counsellor, it's old negative feelings and mindsets that are being rehashed and stirred up.

Thanks for all the responses. Its really useful to hear other views. Maybe I do need a different counsellor. I'm so depressed at the moment that sometimes it's even difficult to care what happens to the relationship. I just want to feel OK. I can't see any good ending to this.

The counsellor said that by coming by myself I was taking the power back but now its unbalanced the other way and that's not right either. It was the one time i felt like crying. I don't want power, I just want to be in control of me.

I'm really tired. Not sure what I think.

Teapot the echoes for me with what you describe are chilling. My XH was the same, blamed his angry abusive father for his outbursts (why would you want to inflict on someone else something you found so painful and frightening as a child?!), punched walls, kicked hub caps, shouted till I cried and completely pulled away. Which, of course, made it worse because I was a brick wall, a black hole, dead inside, and obviously had no feelings at all.

Another favourite was "It's not like I hit you is it, what's your problem"

The relief of waking up the day after I left will never leave me.

OP, I went to see a counsellor to work out some of the issues of the relationship, but after I'd left. She finally made it clear to me that how he'd behaved was absolutely not acceptable, was controlling and abusive. She said my reaction to being shouted at and repeatedly called a fucking bitch was a normal one, it was the outbursts and the name calling that weren't normal.

She made me physically pat myself on the back for having seen enough light to leave. It was massively cringey but so unexpected and sort of funny/painful at the same time it makes me want to cry just thinking about it.

As PPs have said, stick with individual sessions if you think this is the right therapist for you. If you don't feel 100% safe and trusting of her and how she might help you please find someone else.

I was typing for ages there. Well put Winnie. What I was trying to say!

AnneLovesGilbert I relate completely to what you said about the good counsellor validating your experiences and also acknowledging your strength and value. Well done on leaving.

OP it is difficult and draining and upsetting. I see a PP suggested Why Does He Do That? by Lundy. You might want to look at 'Should I Stay or Should I Go?' If you're just starting to disentangle what your relationship is like then I must admit I found the latter book much better at that stage. And an interesting point that Lundy makes is that women tend to put up with too much, not too little. We're conditioned to please and bend and try to make relationships work. By the time we're asking 'what else can I try?' we have probably already tried too much.

I have tried for the past nearly 20 years with one or another marriage guidance person with my husband. He is still a shit. There are some really AWFUL relationship councellors out there. Ones that shouldn't be in that job. They should not be making you feel uncomfortable, and certainly not taking sides. Alongside the dross, there are some good people out there. I have found, on reflection that most of them have only served to massage my husband's ego while he imagines a different reality that does not belong to the women he has been involved with. FFFS he blamed his ex-wife for not being able to have sex with him.

OP I think there are two different issues here. One is your past experiences. I have (had?) huge issues with anger, and processing it. Even just the hint of anger, I react in one of two ways; I either flare up and attack before I can be attacked first, or I hide, retreat and become completely despondent. Both are just as troublesome, and both are caused by what I went through when I was young. I've had several years of therapy, and worked through a lot of stuff I didn't think I wanted or needed to. Yes it was bloody hard. Yes there were moments where I wanted to scream and run and hide. But it has been worth every single second of that, and really, looking back, the pain of transformation was nothing compared to where I was at before it started.

However - I did that for me. Completely for me. I chose to go through that because I was at a point where I couldn't deal with the damage from my childhood destroying the rest of my life. I wouldn't have done it, or benefited from it, if it had been for someone else. So if you want to process what you've been through, I really suggest it - but do it for you.

The second issue is that there is obviously a lot more going on. The fact you're reading books like the one you've mentioned, and that he's blaming all possible issues on your experiences, on top of the fact that he's obviously shouting a lot, without taking any responsibility for that, is in a lot of ways much more of an issue than what you've been through. You're wanting him to respect what you've been through, but he seems to be lacking respect for you at all. Which is cruel.

for you.

Those of you who have separated. Did it get to the point beforehand where you were sure it was right decision? Or was it afterwards you realised it was the right thing to do.

Winnie I started Should I Stay or Should I Go. Thought it made lots of sense at first. Then i abandoned it (unscientific not evidence based or something similar I decided!) I think I will try it again.

I think I might give the counsellor another go. Maybe it was just tough because it is. If I feel the same next time I'll reconsider.

I think I just needed some kindness. This thread has made me feel a bit better. Thank you.

I became, not completely sure, but sure that it would break me if I didn't get out and more certain that if I stayed there was a risk of breaking the relationship with one of my children. I knew there wasn't a shred of hope left that he/things would ever improve.

pablo no, in fact I clung on for dear life and he was the one to finally one day say "I don't want to talk to you about anything other than divorce" (by text message ) but as soon as he said that on this particular occasion, I knew I was done and that there was no way back. He has since then wanted to reconcile on occasion but I have not once been tempted, thank god. I called a lawyer the next day and that was that.

It's very hard to be sure in an abusive relationship - you don't know which way is up.

Like kitty it wasn't that I was sure leaving was the right decision. It was that the thought of staying was impossible iyswim. Deciding to leave was still difficult and scary, and actually taking any steps towards it was even worse but I reached the point when I knew I couldn't live with him any more because it wasn't living. All the joy had been sucked out of me and my life. Giving myself permission to think about leaving was just such a relief.

But it still wasn't a straight line to freedom after that realisation. It was still like wading through treacle.

I was hoping what I should do would become clear at some point. It's sort of reassuring though to hear others talking about how confusing and difficult it is. It sometimes feels like MN is full of strong women giving advice and making confident decisions while I am weak and live in some kind of fearful inertia.

Sometimes its the having done it that makes people sound string when they look back. Living with an abusive man sucks your strength away, which makes it harder to get out. When you have done it you start to get your strength back (IMO).

Remember Pablo it is much easier to sound strong and confident when it isn't your own life and you are basing your very black and white judgement on a few words on a screen, not on years and years of good and bad all mixed up.

pablo please don't think that's the case... I felt that way too but felt completely and utterly stuck in my situation. The trouble is I decided that you're being asked to take a punt on something and compare two situations which are

a) staying in the relationship and trying to make it work >> this is a known quantity in that this is what you know, even if it's not making you happy or
b) taking a leap into the unknown and opting for a future that you can't picture or imagine.

I found it hard to have any enthusiasm when people told me things like "having less money won't matter to you - you'll be happy!". But by god it's true. I just needed to find out for myself

Certainly not Pablo! When I found out that my EA exH had been cheating, initially that he had been having an affair with someone he worked with for the last three years and subsequently that he had been having affairs all the 30 years we were together, I did just about everything wrong.

I went through an awful, humiliating 18 months of trying to patch things up only to find out again and again that he was still cheating. I still feel that hot rush of embarrassment when I think about it. My only consolation is that after I finally saw the light I could tell myself that I could not possibly have done any more!

Finally I told him to leave for 60 days. Less than half way in I knew that I had reached the end of the road. I had absolutely nothing more to give and I felt this calm certainty that I could only ever be me and that he would never find me enough. I ended it then. He already had (yet another) OW installed!

The one good thing to come out of this terrible wasteful mess was that I have never lost that sense of my own identity or the feeling that I am actually a valuable person in my own right notwithstanding that he never found me so. I'd never choose to go back now.

Do you feel safe in counselling?
It should feel safe. Absolutely. No ifs or buts.
Safe enough that you can, in time, open up your very vulnerable parts, safely.

The counselling process takes a great deal of courage and can be painful. But the setting should feel safe.

There has to be trust between you and the counsellor.

Do you trust that you can speak confidentially? Do you trust that she will hear and understand? Do you trust that she will penetrate your DH's charm or do you sense that you will be manipulated or disadvantaged?

I think the counsellor sounds alright actually, as counsellors go. I think she's right to focus on your childhood because that's where the cycle of abuse starts.

I don't believe that therapy caused your relative's breakdown. It's more likely that she got therapy because she was heading for a breakdown.

On your own I meant, don't see her with your DH.