Experience of relationship counselling?

[Smozzles]

Howdy! So, my husband and I had our first session of marriage counselling. We're at two very different stages. I have one foot out of the marriage to be honest. He has a quick temper and it's not scary; just tiresome and counter-productive. I've lost a lot of affection for him as a result, even though I still love him and find him attractive...a bit complicated, I know.

After 1 long session (1.5 hours), I feel wrecked. I sort of feel, 'why should I have to undergo all this therapy when he is the one with the problem?' I know that sounds like I'm being a brat but I hope I'm not. I've been seeing an individual therapist for months and the therapist has been calling my husband verbally abusive. My husband says that's because it's totally one-sided and he's not hearing his side of the story. Meanwhile, when I told the marriage therapist that my husband shouts and curses at me, she said, 'and what do you do that's not healthy?' I answered the question honestly by saying I find it hard to let things go. I know therapists have to ascertain what they're dealing with but looking back on the session, I just feel enraged by that. I think my husband needs individual counselling, not marriage counselling.

I also feel depleted and exhausted. Have any of you had a positive outcome from couples' counselling? Do you see its worth?

Wow okay ... I take it you got divorced then?

I don't know what I'm looking for tbh. It's like he's finally agreed to it but my window is pretty much closing. Too little too late. I'm fantasising about having my own place even though I know I'd miss him in many ways.

We're separated. Still in the same house for financial reasons though. He's finally having therapy and wants to try again. It's very different now as I've had therapy and have a zero tolerance toward abusive/unreasonable behaviour. I've said the love has gone and I'm job hunting to improve my salary ready to support myself better.

Sometimes a person really will not face themselves until it's too late. It sounds like this ship has sailed for you anyway OP. Nothing at all to feel bad about there. Abusive behaviour does erode your love for that person. In any case, how serious would he be about therapy if you said you're not doing couples counselling and he should seek individual support for his own abusive behaviour? If you're done, you're done. Don't let anyone persuade you otherwise.

If you are done with his abuse and intimidation nobody could say you are wrong to leave. I left a similar relationship. There’s so much stuff underlying his abuse and (IMO) marriage counselling will not touch it. Your relationship has a dynamic of 50/50, I do agree with this. But, the amount of remedial work to fix it is 90% his. At the moment you are getting the vibe from the MC that the remedial work is 50/50 and that’s not right.

I would say carry on with your individual therapy and leave him to sort out his issues. If you are done with him (and I personally think you should be, life is too short for this shit) then that’s ok.

And most importantly, make sure you have belt-and-braces contraception. Do not bring a child into this relationship. The abuse will worsen and you and your children will be affected for life.

Completed agree that you shouldn't have a child with him as his behaviour will escalate and you will be more vulnerable/less able to deal with it.

Thanks. I asked him this morning if we could get a separation agreement and he looked at me in disbelief and then said 'but I'm getting the dog.' We then went for a walk with the dog! I don't actually think he thought I was for real.

I was on another thread and don't ask me how but I ended up looking up the Surrendered Wives sample chapter. I hadn't even heard of the book before. Anyhow, according to this, verbal abuse is basically caused by a woman being a pain in the butt. What do ye think? Here's a direct quote from the chapter I found online regard verbal abuse:

''Women sometimes ask me if they should leave a husband who is verbally abusive. This is an important question because verbal abuse crushes your sense of self-worth over time, just as physical abuse does. You certainly don't deserve to be belittled. Fortunately, as you will see, respecting your husband and refraining from controlling him will put an end to his hurtful words¯as long as he doesn't fall into one of the four categories above. Here's why. If he is insulting, check to see if you have a culture of verbal abuse in your relationship. This kind of mistreatment is very rarely a one-way street, and is often a man's way of protecting himself against ongoing insults and emasculation. Again, it is not your fault if your husband is verbally abusive, but your behavior certainly influences him. One woman complained to me that her husband had called her terrible names while they argued and that his verbal abuse was simply intolerable. As we talked some more, she told me some of the dreadful things she had said to him during this same argument. At first, she objected to the idea of apologizing for her disrespect because he had not yet apologized. Rather than try to convince her that they both needed to apologize, I decided to take a different tact. I asked her what was more important: his apology (and her ego) or restored harmony. It didn't take long for her to admit that it was the latter. It wasn't long before she was willing to break the ice. Her husband responded by apologizing for what he had said in anger, and harmony was indeed restored. Over time, intimacy, respect and gratitude completely replaced verbal attacks in that relationship, as well as many others, as the wife continued to surrender. The same can happen in your marriage.''

Sorry italics didn't work but you can see where the quotes start.

Your relationship has a dynamic of 50/50, I do agree with this. But, the amount of remedial work to fix it is 90% his.

Y'see this is what I think...

Ummmm i would need to read more but I am skeptical.

I suppose the question is, are both partners being verbally abusive? If so they both have to take responsibility to apologise and change their behaviour.

But unless the woman (why always the woman?!) is also abusive, I don’t see why she is at fault or has to change!

Also just the concept of a “surrendered” wife creeps me out massively...

I went to MC with my H. It was helpful in that it clarified for me that I needed to end the marriage, which I then did.

Session 2. The counsellor asked us both to say the thing we most admired about each other.

I went first. I said the one thing I admired most was his bravery in standing up and speaking out, against the wishes of his family, about a really important and deeply personal issue.

The counsellor nodded and then turned to him.

"Errrr... she's really good at reading and that so if I've a letter I want wrote, I let her do it."

Seriously.

There were so many things he could have said.
I'd left my old life and moved to a city where I knew nobody, to be with him
I'd worked my tits off to get a decent job to put food on the table for him and his son
I'd created a new role for myself at my work, pitched it to the site manager and got it
I'd put aside my feelings and pain around my infertility and not let it affect my relationship with his DS
I'd encouraged him to take driving lessons and bought him a car when he passed
I'd taught myself web design, Excel and various art-related software
I'd lost 4.5 stone in order to qualify for infertility investigations
I'd given up smoking after 15 years at 40 a day
(all of the above while we were married)

But no. The only thing he could think of was that I was more literate.

As I'm writing this, I'm realising just now that the list, to him, wouldn't have been admirable, they would all have been negatives. Because he could only see things as they reflected on him, and all of my successes, to him, simply showed that he was unsuccessful.

Whereas he was comfortable with me being literate, because he was dyslexic and therefore it wasn't his "fault" that he wasn't confident in reading and writing.

Sorry OP that was very self indulgent of me. Obviously after 15 years that "she's good at reading" still burns. Maybe I can let go of it now.

From an observer's viewpoint, it does sound a bit like you know you need to move on but you don't want to be the "bad guy" and break up a relationship that's not terrible but just isn't that good either. Do you need to give yourself permission to end things and seek happiness for yourself?

Not the Ford, i feel your pain! At our mc, I said he was socially good fun (if we went out with others), he was intelligent and we enjoyed similar things. He said he couldn't think of anything?!
That was a low point and said it all really. Even after the rages and intimidation, I could see his positives but he couldn't or wouldn't express anything positive about me. Not even how i supported him unconditionally through recent bereavement...

NotTheFord wow, that smarts. Hooray that you ended it.

But I guess MC can at least clarify things that way.

Oh good God Itsnotok, I can't believe he said he couldn't think of anything. FFS. What on earth did he expect you to do only end the marriage after that?

Notthefordtype, it makes total sense to me why he'd say that (even though, agreed, awful!). He was expressing your usefulness to him as opposed to your inherent worth as a person!

I think I might give the MC a few more sessions. I'm just fed up feeling this way. I might well have to just say what I've said here in MC. I've to be careful though as my husband describes that as ''you're putting all the blame on me.''

How am I supppsed to take the Blame for his longstanding temper? I just don't know if it's enough to leave over. To stay & be dissatisfied or to go and be alone?

But unless the woman (why always the woman?!) is also abusive, I don’t see why she is at fault or has to change!

This is what I think too, AnotherEmma. I think it's dodgy going down the road of claiming a woman is 'causing' a man's temper.

Most couples counsellors would have individual sessions at the start - if only to check for abuse and proceed accordingly. So i would definitely request this of your therapist. Have you read the book “too good to leave, too bad to stay” ? I’d recommend it to help organise your thoughts.

Yeah she's going to see my husband on his own this coming week as I've been doing individual counselling and said I was all therapied out! She did say though that the individual sessions won't involve talking about the other person because that wouldn't benefit the couples' sessions.

I know there are worse forms of abuse that the kind my husband has subjected me to but I do believe it's abuse! I do believe being screamed at and cursed at, sometimes over the tiniest of things, is abuse. He's like a sweetheart when he's not an asshole though!

Yeah I'll read that book, thanks.

Hmm, it’s not great practice to only see one half of the couple alone (and would be a red flag imo) but I know what you mean about being therapied out!

Any therapy should leave you feeling listened to and validated - if it doesn’t after a couple of sessions I would probably try someone else. You have to click with a therapist and you can’t click with everyone.

How do you mean? When you said most therapists would see the members of the couple on their own at the beginning, did you mean before the couples' session?

She asked if either of us wanted to see her alone this coming week as we couldn't go back together until the following week ...

Any therapy should leave you feeling listened to and validated - if it doesn’t after a couple of sessions I would probably try someone else.

I did feel listened to. Didn't necessarily feel validated but we did it in the past and the therapist was a fiery, school mistress type so she's a lot better than her, thankfully.

Just googled it there ... different perspectives on it:

www.google.ie/amp/s/www.goodtherapy.org/blog/faq/can-i-talk-to-our-couples-therapist-without-my-partner-being-present/amp/

No I mean you’d generally have one session together, then one alone and then decide how to proceed - either sessions together or not. But yes there will be differing opinions on it depending on the therapist’s training/orientation. What I’ve described is what our relate therapist did but a previous relate therapist didn’t from what I remember.

Your relationship has a dynamic of 50/50, I do agree with this. But, the amount of remedial work to fix it is 90% his.

This was very much the case in my relationship. My Dh has a father like yours OP, very verbally abusive and sometimes violent, as was his mother. He had so much anger inside him and we both knew it came from them, and like your H, he was never violent, just a very short temper and shouting.
I’d had enough and gave him ultimatum, he either went to therapy or we separated.

He chose therapy, it’s taken a bloody long time but he’s like a different person now. A lot of awful stuff came out from his childhood that he’d never told anyone, and although he still feels angry towards his parents, the change in dh has been dramatic. He’s calmer than me now and very, very raises his voice. He really is the best version of himself and am so glad he got he helo he needed.

In your situation I would not be going to couples counselling, your H has to acknowledge it’s him with the issue and take steps to sort himself out.

I also had marriage counselling and it solidified my intention to leave - which I did.
Our counsellor seemed to ignore the very real abuse that I was trying to convey. I explained he was controlling, that he was verbally abusive and that he had made my life a misery.
She suggested that I let him take the lead in the relationship because that would set a good example for our children and make them feel secure. So, we should talk over issues and then let him deliver the final decision about what would be done. because children respect their fathers.
So all those years where he made me do things, belittled me in front of the kids and destroyed my self esteem - were actually a good thing?

I refused to go back to MC and left soon after.

Any counselling that does less than expect your husband to repair the damage already done and to start from a level playing field is not going to work for you. He needs to accept his failings first - because it is the one issue that's destroying your marriage. Your behaviour doesn't seem to worry him.

@Misty9 Thanks. Yeah, I know. Tbh, I feel a little bit strange knowing he'll be seeing her alone and then we'll go back together.

LizzieSiddal, wow the similarities here are immense! I kind of wish I had done what you did and said 'individual counselling or separation.' Maybe it's not too late for that? The stuff she was saying in couples' therapy, I've done all that before...say what you feel, use 'I' statements etc. That's not the problem. The problem is he screams and shouts at every bloody little thing. Sometimes he doesn't scream and shout but just takes off instead. He took off to the pub for a few hours the other night after an argument. He came back and said, 'I thought you'd be angry with me for leaving' and I said 'to be honest, I was glad of the break too.'

Oh my gosh, rememberatime, that sounds horrific! Perhaps that therapist had read 'The Surrendered Wife' and joined the movement!

She suggested that I let him take the lead in the relationship because that would set a good example for our children and make them feel secure. So, we should talk over issues and then let him deliver the final decision about what would be done. because children respect their fathers.

Like wtf?! Should children not respect their mother and father equally? Good grief. I'm sorry you had such a shoddy counsellor. Good for you for having the courage to leave and move on with your life.