Has counselling saved your marriage?

[AhNurts]

Posted before but in a very tight nutshell, I just don't love DH any more. Have grown apart over many years of him neglecting me on most levels. He is a good guy but hopeless at being a husband, he has no passion for anything and is basically just the kind of person who lets life pass him by. I can't handle it anymore and have felt like I've been dying a little more every day over the past two years. I am naturally more of a firecracker I suppose!

He has now asked if we can try counselling together. I don't know what to say because I really feel like I can't be convinced to love him again (and if I'm really honest, I don't think I ever really loved him - more found him wonderfully reliable and honest and mistook that respect for love i guess..?). We have two young dds so lots to fight for, but I don't know whether to put him and myself through it if it's ultimately a waste of time and money.

Of course if it works, brilliant! It'd be perfect if we could be happy again, as I don't want to break up our family. But I won't raise my daughters in this kind of setup as it stands, and he deserves to find someone who does love him.

So I'd be so interested to hear your stories of counselling, especially if your situation is similar to mine.

Thank you

I think it was because I wanted a family so badly. I feel horrible saying it but think I convinced myself that I loved him, when really I just actually really liked and respected him and I knew he'd be a good dad. I didn't stop to think whether he'd be a good partner for me, and I guess that's what I'm paying for now :(

IMO and my experience, counselling is not a panacea; it's not the magic remedy unless both parties are equally invested in the outcome. However, it might give you a "safe" context to express some of the more difficult feelings you have and to work towards a conclusion to the relationship if that's what you intend. Wishing you luck xx

Should add that I am in same boat and considering same options AhNurts. It ain't easy....

Thanks green, sorry you're going through this too. In some respects I feel very fortunate to be in this situation, when I read on mn just how bad it can be. But the crushing unhappiness... it's squashing me down more every day. I look at him and feel absolutely nothing, he says 'I love you' and I can't bring myself to say it back. The poor man. I can't do this for the rest of my life. Hope you can find the answers somehow.

No it does not, it tends to make things worse because

1. you revisit the past and the reasons why you are at odds in the first place

2. there is no time limit so you never know how long it might go (and how much you might spend)

3. you can't sample therapists until you find one that both of you feel comfortable with. This means that if you don't find you are making any progress with the one you have chosen then you have to start all over again with the next one.

pastoral thank you for your input. DH has had a recommendation for a local counsellor and she offers a programme so there's a definite beginning and end. I've researched and she looks like the kind of person I could imagine myself working with. It's costly, but nowhere near as costly as separating would be in just the first month alone...

over that's really helpful, thank you. I guess I worry that, while I've been pretty honest with DH about how I feel, i probably can't be as brutally honest as I need to be in couples counselling. But he's so desperate to fix this together. I wish he'd been this desparate on the number of occasions I told him I felt completely emotionally cut off from him, ignored and misunderstood.

Also over is it a situation you ever regret getting out of? I am so scared that I'll take the leap then realise that no ones interested in a slightly overweight single mother of two and then realise that I had what i wanted/needed all along?!? I'm so confused!

Sometimes it can be useful if for no other reason than it helps you make that decision and take that step towards ending it if the counselling helps identify that there's nothing to work with - then you can action that decision with more of a clear head.

I guess if I felt pretty strongly that it's run its course I wouldn't want a long drawn out counselling process that merely defers a decision that needs to be made. The fact the counsellor you've identified has a time limited duration is a good thing.

My ExH and me did Relate for a while. All seemed improved until about a year later when he started being a twat again at which point he informed that he'd never believed anything the counsellor had said anyway!!! So that wasted a year!

polly how frustrating! I imagine you probably learnt a lot about yourself during those sessions, so hopefully not all wasted.

I feel like I can use this to discover what I want, I just don't want to get bullied into working on the marriage and have my opinions and feelings overlooked. I guess that's down to me to be as honest as I dare...

We had 6 sessions. Sometimes I think it was a waste of £300, but other times I wonder whether it really helped to make the separation more amicable. It didn't save the marriage but I feel we both came out having understood that we were both to blame for many things.

OP ask her what her method is, what is the framework, how she/he deals with recriminations on both sides and avoid appearing biased.

dragon interesting, I'm hoping these sessions will finally make him see that burying his head in the sand for an easy life does have fallout, eventually.

pastoral that's good advice, I think I'm going to call her and get a bit more info.

The running theme to this seems to be that counselling very rarely saves a marriage, rather it eases you both into the next phase of your relationship. Maybe that's because it's usually used as a last resort. No idea where we'd be now if DH or I had suggested it years ago...

Watching with internet as I'm in the same position.

Nothing 'wrong' except he isn't a good husband, but that's not intentional. He is also just happy to plod along, whereas I'm not.

We've had the conversation recently, but I feel so guilty for hurting him and breaking up my family that I don't know what to do.

Counselling won't save our marriage, but I think might help us both accept that the marriage is over? I don't know.

Interest*!!

AhNurts, sounds like you are craving a context to open up about your true feelings. It can be a real burden to be faking feelings and not to be able to match the feelings of your DH.

Bifs yes to the plodding! I hate plodding so much. I can't bear life to happen to me, I need control. He needs to be controlled. Therefore I end up not having any control and having to control someone else. Flipping nightmare for all involved! Hope you can find a good path for your situation.

green I think you're right. On one hand I'm scared of saying something i can't ever take back and on the other i'm thinking 'well I won't need to take it back, so that's not a huge problem'. But of course, i really don't want to hurt him.

Sometimes it's only by expressing our emotions out loud that we can look at them and examine how we truly feel rather than them sitting inside our heads and festering. It's a brave step to take but you're doing it because deep down you want things to change and you recognise you're unhappy.

It won't work for you in the respect of making everything ok.

Your first paragraph tells me it's over and you need to find a way to bring it to a close. Counselling may help that but it won't be a happy ever after ending.

green it's so weird that now I'm being honest (and using MN a lot to read others experiences) I finally see a way out. It was like before, I didn't think I was 'allowed' to break up with him but now I recognise that it's okay to stop something that's making you miserable, whatever the root cause of the misery. And now I can't ever see a way back.

silly yeah I guess my wording is pretty telling. Looking for a miracle because it would be easier than facing the mess of a split. But I know with certainty that I'd be more than okay after the dust had settled.

over thank you so much for taking the time to write this. Sounds like you've been incredibly brave. I feel the same, that I got married way too young and have grown into a completely different person since - and I crave being by myself. I also worry for my mental health. I have never been that susceptible to depression (thank goodness) but lately I have been looking a little too closely at all the possible ways out of this situation...

Separating in the home sounds tempting. I just don't know if I could cope with his moping around with sad eyes, as I know this will crush him. I'll feel so guilty just gaily going about my business while he breaks down.

My own counselling is something I definitely plan to pursue in a few weeks' time. Will have a look at couples counselling first to see what kind of things that brings up. Thank you again, really good of you to offer help x