couples counselling with 'ex' ea husband

[rememberthetime]

I am finally after 16 years of ea leaving my marriage but in a last ditch attempt to make me question myself he has asked me to attend a counseling session with him. The aim being to talk through how it might work and if there is anything salvageable.
In a normal situation this might be sensible but I believe this to be a chance for him to have another expert explain to me that I dint know my own mind.
I know the wise thing to do woukd be to refuse to go. But I have had counselling myself and feel very much stronger and how to be able to see through any bs. Plus there's a chance the counsellor might get what I am going through and agree a split is best.
So what are the tips for the session. Should I prepare in some way. How do I avoid him taking over.
Btw. He has been in therapy himself and is very much improved but refuses to accept blame for his behaviour and always wants me to see my part in it. To me that is not taking responsibility and hence the reason i refuse to accept he is cured.
Session is on Monday . Need urgent advice.

You possibly could hold your own... And the thought of it is appealing, I can see that. But the very fact you are going even though you don't want to because you are scared of his reaction if you don't, well that makes it unlikely tbh.

Why put yourself through it? It won't be pretty if his admitted reason for going is to "make you see your part in it".

Detach and then detach some more. You've had enough, you want to separate. Everything else is flannel. This is where you need to be strong, not in front of some 3rd party who may or may not give you permission to leave.

This time next year you'll be amazed you thought about agreeing to any of his nonsense, I promise

If you don't go, what's the worst that wil happen? The relationship ends?

That's not the worst thing love. Staying in it is.

You don't have to comply, you don't have to give a single thought to his situation.

I'll shut up now, but please don't do this

If you are in a relationship where you have to even think of holding your own; then you are in the wrong relationship!

My ex told everyone the break up was my fault. At the time I was indignant, years later I couldn't make myself care.

Say no.

Do not attend this session under any circumstances; it will put your recovery back by several months. Such men anyway can take time, years even, to recover from. You need to enrol on Womens Aid Freedom Programme if you are not already on that.

Re this comment:-
"I feel like I have to go. By not going I am offering him the chance to tell everyone including the kids that I wouldn't try. But by going I am opening myself up to more abuse".

Your second sentence is a mistake of huge proportions; you have tried and tried also for a long time. Your children as well as you know the truth; they've seen you at first hand being abused by their dad, he has tried to manipulate them as well. I also think that some of your friends have held their suspicions about him as well; abusers cannot keep up the act indefinitely and the mask slips. You would simply open yourself up to more abuse from him if you did go and for that reason you must not attend.

No counsellor worth their salt would ever counsel a couple together if there has been or is abuse of any type within the relationship. You should not be seen together.

He will try and tears you to shreds, no wonder he has said he is looking forward to it. You being there will make his bloody day if not year. Why give him such power and control?.

Its simply an attempt by him to further gain some power and control over you by trying to manipulate the counsellor; power and control is what abuse is all about.

In order for couples counseling to be successful, both partners must be willing to take responsibility for their actions and make adjustments to their behaviour. He clearly does not want to do this.

Abusive people want all of the power and control in the relationship and will focus on maintaining that imbalance, even if it means continuing unhealthy and hurtful behavior patterns. He will focus on manipulating the sessions to place blame, minimize the abuse, and attempt to win over the therapist to their side. If the therapist tries to hold the abusive partner accountable for these tactics, they will often refuse to attend further sessions and may even forbid their partner to see the “biased” therapist again. The abusive partner may even choose to escalate the abuse because they feel their power and control was threatened.

Couples counseling may imply that both partners contribute to the abusive behavior, when the choice to be abusive lies solely with the abusive partner. Focusing on communication or other relationship issues distracts from the abusive behaviour, and may actually reinforce it in some cases. Additionally, a therapist may not be aware that abuse is present and inadvertently encourage the abuse to continue or escalate.

Both partners should feel and be safe in order for therapy to be effective. A victim may not feel safe with their abuser present and could be hesitant to fully participate or speak honestly during counseling sessions. Alternatively, a victim may have a false sense of security during a session and reveal information they normally wouldn’t disclose. Then, back at home, the abusive partner could decide to retaliate with more abuse.

These are also concrete reasons why you should not attend.

You don't have to justify yourself to anyone lovely, and he's gonna tell everyone your a bitch anyway
So it doesn't matter if you go or not.

Make a stand and say no, lean on your counsellor for support through this issue, but dont dance to his tune anymore, your a grownup and your own person. It's time to try on that role and see how it fits

Good luck

Your reasoning for going to counselling is exactly why you shouldn't be going because there's nothing that you've done or haven't done, that he won't spin to make you look like the perpetrator and him the victim. My Ex was convicted of attempted manslaughter against me and I'm pretty sure he's convinced many that he was the victim, the mediators and support workers at the contact centre, certainly acted like he was.

When I went to mediation with Ex (a condition of the contact centre), five years after the disastrous first round which nearly took me to the brink of losing my mind, I didn't give a flying fuck what he, or anybody else thought about me. I knew where my boundaries were and I communicated them very clearly and when my Ex and the mediator tried to overstep them, I defended them and made it very clear that I didn't appreciate the trespass. In the end it came to nothing because I was there to secure a contact schedule for DD and he wasn't. However, it took 18 months for him to realise that I wasn't the same person he could intimidate with lies and insincerity.

For me the key to surviving mediation (the second time around) was being long out of the toxic headspace, that comes with the territory of sharing the same oxygen with an entitled and emotionally weak man. The clarity that came with the confidence of understanding my own capabilities and limitations (I couldn't change him), contributed massively to my ability to disengage from him and the ineptitude of our mediator.

Relationship counselling isn't the environment to solicit an epiphany (well not from this idiot) or to prove anything to yourself. If you have the misfortune of having a weak counsellor, there's a good chance it won't be just you against him but you against him and someone who inadvertently legitimises his behaviour.

You can not change him or his view of you, your responsibilities begin and end with limiting your exposure to him and entering into relationship counselling, is a step in the opposite direction.

Don't go and stop the cycle of appeasing this man and not listening to what your gut is telling you.

I feel like I have to go. That's a feeling. You can ignore it. Everything Attila says. Please understand that doing this can harm you. You've made your decision. Stick to it.

I went to couples counselling with my abuser. It was a very experienced counsellor chosen by me. He had a session on his own with her. She fell for his manipulation hook, line and sinker. I left saying 'I'm not coming back because you two are colluding with each other '. Ex took from it that 'someone had finally confronted my personality disorder and I didn't like it '. it set my back so far in my efforts to leave. Please don't do this to yourself. He will blame it all on you whatever you do.

My Relate counsellor failed to provide a 'safe space' in sessions with my husband. I felt more terrified after a session than at any other time. I felt I was crossing a line ringing the therapist after the third session and saying that I didn't feel safe in the sessions and that it did not feel like the neutral 'sanctuary' that I had hoped for. He said he could tell that I was distressed and uncomfortable (to say the least) but that he was hoping to draw my (angry, bullying) H 'out'. He made an effort to redress the balance in the following sessions but I remained distressed and terrified. The anger that used to steam off my H just during the 10-minute drive home used to make me almost forget how to drive.

After the (obvious and predictable) failure of around 6 sessions, I saw the Relate counsellor by myself. He told me that counselling doesn't tend to work in 'abusive relationships'. I was open-mouthed. It was the first time I had heard the term in relation to me. I had to get him to say it again. I was shocked on two levels - 1. that I was in an abusive relationship, what Me? Looking back it seems amazing that I didn't know it, but I thought I was not handling my angry H or communicating very well about it, yeah right. And 2. I was incredibly shocked that the counsellor hadn't told me this before, and maybe he could have said so in a session with my H. I don't think he was brave enough OR he sensed that my H would have made my life even worse if he had been confronted with the fact. EIther way, counselling did not help our relationship. If anything it gave my H even more material to punish me with and he was even more terrifying because it was 'all my fault' making him go in the first place.

This is what Attila means OP - even though you recognise your ex is EA and you are now supposedly 'out' of your relationship, what on earth can you gain by going to a counselling session with him now?. There is nothing to gain, and the main thing OP is that you could really suffer as a consequence.

Stop trying to prove that you are the kind and reasonable one here! No-one needs proof of this. You know it is true and so do all the people that matter.

Stop falling into his traps.

This is a trap. It really is. Don't do it. You have absolutely nothing to gain and you stand to lose all your progress away from this man. You need to keep going in that direction - not wilfully step back into the quicksand.

You do not need any more Moral High Ground!

There is nothing in this for you. Think about that. What could possibly be in this for you that is worth risking all that hard work you have done?

You don't need to win the argument. There will not be a happy ending to this counselling session. The fairytale ending where he puts his head in his hands, admits emotionally torturing you and then apologises desperately WILL NOT HAPPEN. Do not fall for it. Please. You don't know how far you've come - don't risk losing all that progress that you have made.

He is still abusing you. He is trying to force you into something against your will.

I would ask the counsellor to cancel the session based on the fact that 1. He is abusive and 2. You already have a counsellor so his one shouldn't be seeing you anyway - it's bad practise.