Marriage councelling?

[itchyhop]

Doe it work?
DH and I have been married now for 14 years and we just seem disconnected.

We're stuck in a bit of a cycle of being fine, and then growing distant with irritation (mainly mine) growing, to vague dislike, to proper rage and imagining a different life.
Then we'll have a big dustup over something irrelevant and we'll be ok again for a bit.

But... each time we go through this cycle I feel less bothered about trying to fix it because the next one seems inevitable, and I worry that one time I'm just going to detonate our otherwise perfectly lovely life.

We have two school age DC's who I want to protect as much as possible. In honesty they are my main incentive to get this sorted.

We both have unwell family members, so that's another pressure - DH's is particularly bad.
These are all long term illnesses and we need to find a way through - not just exist.

I'm thinking that just reliving the same crappy Groundhog Day is stupid and we need to break the pattern.
Has anyone tried marriage counselling? Does it work??

We had 3 months of couples counselling just before lockdown. Similar situation, together 12 years, became parents quite early on in the relationship, DH trying to build a business, family illnesses - felt like we'd lost sight of not only ourselves but the relationship aswell.

It thoroughly helped. I doubt we'd have survived without it as it gave us tools to communicate better with each other but also to understand the bases of why we reacted like we did with each other.
Yes it was quite expensive, around £75 for an hour but worth every penny in my opinion.

I initially suggested it and if I'm honest DH was probably a bit hesitant as he doesn't like 'airing his dirty laundry in public' but he agreed to do it as neither of us wanted our marriage to fall apart but we both knew we couldn't carry on as we were. After the first couple of sessions he was on board and I would say he probably ended up getting way more out of it than he thought he would!

Have your DH and you watched this series

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0b8kmch/couples-therapy

It might give you a bit of an idea of what it might be like and less scary for your DH.

No problem. I just wanted to add that the price does not necessarily reflect competence or qualification level. You will find that some people charge a lot, yet actually are not qualified for couple work at all!

You need someone who is a member of COSRT or BACP, this means they are bound by ethical codes. You can access listings of everyone Registered on both those sites. With COSRT, they specialise in second relationship therapy, so everyone will be qualified to work with couples. With BACP, any type of counsellor can join, make sure they have a couple qualification.

You want at least a diploma in couple therapy. It is a good idea to check where that diploma comes from, for example it could be from a university, or the Relate Institute, somewhere credible, it should not be from a random company. That is the difference between someone who has a regulated qualification Vs someone who did a module of CPD.

Finally, remember location matters. I charge far less than London therapists do, as does pretty much everyone here in Scotland. However, with so many people working online now, you are not bound by location. Many of my clients now are down south, but wanting to benefit from Scottish prices. Stick within the UK though.

Also, it is best to try and do couple work when you are not in the worst patch, then you have to stabilise before doing work! A good therapist will handle that without a problem, but again, it will cost more in time/money.

I went for marriage counselling with dh. I was so close to divorcing him, the resentment and anger. This was situation related as I had dc and had to give up the job I loved as dh wanted to work and live in Oz. He was given the opportunity and I was pressured into it. We had previously visited Oz as dhs sisters live there, so knew the score.
In the end, dh was made redundant after two years and we came home, me happily as I was miserable there. Dc were very small and I felt very restricted there.
We came back and the resentment and anger started building up. That I gave my job up for nothing. Dh wanted to stay in Oz, I didn’t as I missed my family and was always stuck at home with little dc, whilst billy bollocks was out with colleagues and friends.
I eventually asked dh if he wanted to attend counselling. To my surprise he did. We both had sessions individually and together with the counsellor, she was very good. Towards the end of counselling I got headhunted for a job, so that little bit helped.
We’re still together and in a much better place.
I’m still bitter about the job I had to give up though 😳

I am currently seeing a psychotherapist who has qualifications through Relate and she is amazing and it has been a really good experience.
Whether it can save our marriage or not, I don’t know, but there are more issues than just lack of communication, although we have that too as well as a number of small things that all add up (in the style of “this is how your marriage ends”) and a massive exploding bomb issue too.

If nothing else I can know we tried everything and hopefully resolve some problems regardless of how it finishes.
We pay £50 a session in the North West, but cover a lot. It’s taught me about myself, different ways people behave and interpret things, how a relationship should work, why people clash, how to respond to each other, and dh had actually spoken about his feelings.
He didn’t want to go, but I think he feels it is the only option to try and save us. I feel bad knowing that it might not as I think he is convinced it will.
Ours said that often after 6-8 sessions you will have an idea of if it is worth continuing to try to work things out or if you are too far past resolution.