Marriage counselling is making me feel crazy

[MumBunHun]

NC for this one…. & TW- miscarriage

DH and I have started marriage counselling and it’s brought up a lot of things that I thought I had let go/that I didn’t realise bothered me so much/that I haven’t ever really spoken about.

The big one is that essentially I feel systematically emotionally let down. I don’t know if it’s too late to make a big deal out of it but I can’t stop thinking about a certain event that occurred -

six years ago, I was pregnant with our first child and at 13 weeks we were told there was no longer a heart beat.

I was scheduled for a D&C four days later but the day before the D&C I woke up and miscarried at home naturally.

DH had a work event he was supposed to be attending (like a social day out which also involved mixing with clients) and he still went. He left me on my own to drink and watch horse racing with his work mates while I was at home having the worst day of my life. My sister came over for a few hours, in case I was too unwell to call someone if needed, but had her own kids to look after so I was still alone for a large chunk of time.

I feel so different about it now - it didn’t seem like a big deal before - but now I feel like I can’t forgive him for that.

its making me question how I feel about everything, and it’s only since things have started coming up in marriage counselling…

if anyone else has done MC did you experience similar? How did you move through it? Did you resolve things? Is it worth even dwelling on something that happened years ago?

I’ll admit I’m not the best at talking about feelings and I’m working on that. I was brought up in a family where you just didn’t state your emotional needs.

Counselling so far has been a big process for me so, is it really just a ‘me’ problem?

I am not an expert. But as I like Lysa Terkeurst - a christian best selling writer who divorced recently and wrote many books around the topic of marriage counselling and counselling, seems the first few sessions really uncover a lot of unhealed areas. This is not bad. You go to keep doing your exercises and journaling and then the healing will come

Hi OP
i had a MC a few years ago whilst still married. My ex came with me to the scan, where they found no heartbeat. He then came with me back home. Then went back to work while I miscarried at home, alone.
I didn’t make a fuss at the time but that was the problem throughout our whole marriage. I just wanted him to want to be there for me, without me having to ask, so felt constantly disappointed and low priority.
we tried marriage counselling after we separated and ultimately are now divorced.

OP counselling does bring out things you thought you were OK with, but have actually been hurt by. Leaving you to face a MC on your own is a symptom of him not prioritising you - it's valid that you're reflecting on how this made you feel.

It sounds like your counselling is working. I think anyone who gets counselling realises that things in their past are relevant to how they feel today- it draws out all sorts of things.

I'm sorry for your miscarriage and that your marriage isn't in a good place. I hope your partner is engaging with counselling and actively trying to make your marriage work.

Don’t confuse not being able to voice your hurt with ‘being OK’ with something. This is an opportunity to put all your cards on the table, there is no time limit, not giving your hurt a voice only means it will fester.

I personally think miscarriage is a very personal pain and rarely affects the non pregnant partner anywhere near as much. But if this is something you cannot get over then he may not be the one to share your life with.

Same happened to me, we were at an afternoon party and I started to miscarry, drove myself to the hospital and then home whilst covered in blood, my ex husband stayed at the party. At the time I didn’t want anyone to know so agreed for him to stay but he really should have left, he came back hours later drunk with a bottle of rum to make me feel better 🤷🏼‍♀️ we are no longer married for other reasons but I wish I realised from this how selfish he was instead of wasting another 10 years of my life

A miscarriage at 12 weeks plus is really scary, you lose a lot of blood, and how on earth are you supposed to know if you are alright or not? You do need someone with you - lucky your sister was on hand for some of the time. It's not only the emotional trauma, it's frightening when it happens because it can be physically dangerous. For him to go off drinking would mean either he's a callous bastard who didn't care enough, or that he didn't understand what was involved. But you'd think your distress would be enough to make him cancel whatever his work obligations were that day.
I'm not surprised this is still an issue and of course it will affect how you see him.

Hmmm. I’m in 2 minds on this. Of course, men and women are not homogenous masses and there is variation within each but, in my experience, for women anticipating needs is something we do naturally and as a sign of love but perhaps also because we’ve been socialised not to express wants and needs so we try to guess other people’s and expect them to guess ours. Also, IME, men are poor at it because they are socialised to ask for what they want. They assume women will do the same.

It may be that your DH is generally selfish and inconsiderate and overall your marriage isn’t worth saving. But you say you minimised it at the time. It may be that if you had voiced your feelings, he would have given you the support you needed.

There’s still useful fodder for counselling. It’s a safe space for you to talk about how the situation impacted you and what you wish you had been given at that time. But perhaps it can be done without blame and as a precursor to you making sure you express your needs/wants more clearly going forward.

Hmm, there are different attitudes to this - I didn’t particularly want DH around when I was miscarrying (I’ve had 3), mostly because he flaps and creates more stress, and I’d rather just be by myself.

He should have offered, but if you didn’t ask him to stay home it isn’t terrible that he didn’t. If you asked and said no, ok that is pretty bad.

If you didn’t feel you could ask him to stay home, that is a separate issue (that he is unapproachable and you don’t feel you can ask him for any support).

OP, I'm so sorry for what happened to you

I'm sorry that you're feeling triggered and crazy - but arguably that's how the start of counselling should feel! The pain that's been sitting in you all shoved down, causing distress that you can't articulate, starts to come into your awareness so you can express it, hopefully heal it, and move on feeling better?

In terms of your DH and the MC - all I can say is that before I had kids, I had NO IDEA of the intensity of gynae stuff. Even with mad heavy periods for decades, I just - had NO IDEA.

So if he didn't understand what was happening, and felt overwhelmed and did a robotic "will go to my work thing as planned", that's not a deal-breaker to me. Just a sign that you need to work on being able to communicate better and get more of your needs met.

But if a medic had explained to you both what was going on, and you asked him to stay, and he left anyway - then THAT would be a LTB situation.

Which one do you think it was, in your heart?
I wish you all the best and I hope that counselling will help X

*In terms of your DH and the MC - all I can say is that before I had kids, I had NO IDEA of the intensity of gynae stuff. Even with mad heavy periods for decades, I just - had NO IDEA.

So if he didn't understand what was happening, and felt overwhelmed and did a robotic "will go to my work thing as planned", that's not a deal-breaker to me. Just a sign that you need to work on being able to communicate better and get more of your needs met.

But if a medic had explained to you both what was going on*

Why would you need a medic to understand what was going on? Wasn't it obvious? Their baby DIED. It's called empathy. Just because someone doesn't have a uterus doesn't mean they can't grasp the severity of such a situation. Not understanding the "intensity" of gynae stuff, is no excuse. She was literally losing their baby!

This is absolutely unforgivable, what a selfish wanker. He should have at least offered to stay. I'm so sorry this happened to you, OP.

I don’t think I could forgive that, but then I don’t give men a free pass to be selfish, uncaring wankers as some seem to here. Just because he has a dick, it doesn’t mean he has to be one.

My partner is the most empathetic, caring and considerate human I’ve ever met and to me, it’s incredibly important a partner, who is meant to love you, actually shows you they are then for you at your lowest points.

Im sorry you went through that OP, you’re fully justified in feeling angry and let down.

*there for you

My ex boyfriend did similar to me when I miscarried at 12 weeks. I tried but I never really got over it. Everyone is different I know but it was a very visceral feeling of being alone at at time when I needed someone-the person who should have loved me the most-to be there. Sorry this happened to you Op

Hmmm. I’m in 2 minds on this. Of course, men and women are not homogenous masses and there is variation within each but, in my experience, for women anticipating needs is something we do naturally and as a sign of love but perhaps also because we’ve been socialised not to express wants and needs so we try to guess other people’s and expect them to guess ours. Also, IME, men are poor at it because they are socialised to ask for what they want. They assume women will do the same.

God, Dery, that's brilliant 🤩 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🤩 it should be on every school syllabus!

OP I know how you feel. My first DH forced my hand into an abortion and then left me to it by going to a football match. Until then I'd always thought that when it came to the crunch, he'd be there for me, and lo and behold he wasn't. However, this just crystallised our whole relationship (one-way caretaking) into something I could no longer ignore. If your DH is considerate and kind in other ways, I wouldn't focus on this for the reasons that @Dery outlines. But if it's the final straw in a long series of let-downs, you can't go on sweeping it under the carpet forever and you might want to save money on counselling by drawing a line under things if you know you'll never feel the same way about him.