Has anyone used Relate?

[pegasus02]

DH and I had DD 2 years ago and I'm 2 months pregnant, and over the last couple of months I've been feeling really low about our relationship. We've had a couple of big arguments and lots of little fallouts. We make up promptly each time, but the problem hasn't gone away for me.

We have no support from grandparents and are tired all the time. I'm also hormonal from pregnancy, and extra tired. I try to remember all this when I get upset with DH, but it doesn't always help. I feel like he tells me off all the time for the way I parent, and snaps at me for little things, and I'm very sensitive to his tone and language. I withdraw as a result, and feel very lonely in the marriage.

Anyway, the point is, I need to talk to a professional about these issues. I was thinking of Relate, but has anyone used them before and found them helpful? I have discussed similar issues with a clinical psychologist in the past and found it useful, but it's a bit more time-consuming and obvious to DH I'm doing it (in person meetings). I'd rather have a few phone calls to talk it through.

Thanks very much.

Yes. Stbxh and I did a year of marriage counselling before we separated. It was worth it for a number of reasons - it identified that my stbxh has assumed a ‘parent’ role and me a ‘child’ role in our marriage when in fact we should have been communicating as adults. Secondly, although things did not work out for our marriage in the end, at leat we both know that we gave it our best shot.

Thank you minion I was thinking of having a few calls on my phone first, I assume they do that too?

On my own* that should say

Yep, DH and I did about 5 years ago before we got married due to some issues around him hiding things and not being truthful. I think we had about 6 sessions and though we did get to hash out our issues, it actually made us realise that our relationship is really strong and the councillor basically discharged us (in a positive way rather than an "you've wasted my time" way). I am a big advocate for relationship counselling.

Yes, we had a series of 6 telephone sessions.

I learnt useful tips like take a few minutes checking in with each other each day so issues don't fester.

I would definitely recommend.

Good luck.

I’m not sure they do telephone sessions. I think if you go for individual counselling then that therapist will likely not be able to see you as a couple due to it being a conflict of interests. Our therapist told us she’d only ever be able to see us as a couple, though the couples counselling did involve me and my stbxh each having an individual session with the therapist after one or two initial joint sessions. After one individual session each the couples sessions resumed xx good luck!!

I did a few with my ex husband. It was of no value to me. I only went along as he asked me to but had no interest in trying to fix our sham of a marriage. However I can see it would be worth it if theres still hope of recovering the good parts of a relationship. Good luck

Thank you for the replies. Hmm I've read some past threads on Relate, and actually there were quite a few negative accounts. I might be better off looking for a counsellor who specialises in relationships to meet with individually.

My ex would not come with me despite me pleading. The Relate counsellor told me at the first session that alone told him that my marriage could not be helped by them but they could help me extract myself from it. They charged me £45 for 15 minutes.

Yes, I went on my own because I was so desperate.

The lady told me I was married to an emotionally unavailable person, which was helpful.

But what she really needed to tell me was that he was having an affair. If I can now spot it within seconds, they must have known.

The hard truth is better. I never want to be that bewildered ever again, he was being incredibly cruel (blaming and denying) and I literally didn't know what was real anymore.

I also remember it was expensive for the qualifications (some certificate or other, when clinical psychologists study long and hard).

We had face to face sessions...they were definitely helpful at the time,useful as a neutral ground for clearing baggage,and giving tools to help deal with issues in the future....it's still sometimes hard to utilise those tools when problems arise though! But definitely worth a go...