Marriage Coach

[Bishops0411]

Hi all,

I’m hoping for advice/recommendations as my wife and I have been going through some troublesome times together.

Last week we discussed our options and as we both love each other we agreed to get help.

My wife has left it up to me to look into things, and I really don’t want to go to ‘traditional’ marriage counselling as personally, I don’t believe it’s effective. While we do have things to discuss and resolve from the past, I don’t see how having someone listen to us for an hour of ‘he said, she said’ is at all productive.

So I’m on the hunt for something else.

I spoke to a marriage coach called Stephen Hedger who sounds amazing. He speaks to both partners together, then individually to get to the root of the problem, then reports back with a plan to resolve the issue/s. However, he charges about £10k which I simply cannot afford!

I was wondering (hoping) that someone else might have found something that they could recommend.

MN seems to be full of threads like this lately, started by domineering husbands who are quite convinced they're right about everything, and seeking advice about persuading their wives.

(a) What jumped out at me here is actually a linguistic observation. You say “I tried to defend [using A]…then …I told her [B]”.
What is really notable by its absence is anything about what you really believe and will take responsibility for. It comes across that it’s just words to you, with the function of getting her to stop going on about it. It really really shows a lack of self awareness and reflection.
I read your response as “I wished to do this, without her comment or consultation, but also without being seen as the bad guy.” As others have alluded to, you felt entitled to treat her shabbily and I wonder if this basic disrespect is actually running Wider and deeper throughout the whole relationship.

(b) I wonder if this is her passive aggressive payback.

Do you not see what's wrong with the thought process here?

I knew she wasn't happy about the loan > but she didn't say no flat-out > so I did what I wanted anyway. (I swear, mom/dad, if she'd have said no I wouldn't have).

It's childish. It's slippery.

Also, TEN GRAND.

im still stuck on that.

if i had that money to throw at my failing marriage I’d get three weekends away, a cleaner once a week and a babysitter once a month. And I’d have plenty of change left over.

have you had successful relationships before you got married? Or have you had successful <eye roll> leadership?

I'm not a counsellor but I just want to comment, that if your wife wasn't happy with your choice to take out a loan to start a business. Which you believed at that time was going to benefit your family, as I don't believe you would of invested in a business and put your family at financial risk, if this business plan was for the best interests of everyone involved! You never stated in your comment if it was sucessful but I'm also assuming this buisness loan is cleared or nearly cleared now after 5/6 years? However if finances are a issue regarding past trust issues, I don't think your wife will be happy to invest 10k in couple counselling. Maybe like other poster suggested, to seek individually counselling and go from there? I also think the fact you want to save your marriage speaks volumes and I hope your wife will see with time, being stuck in the past is not benefiting everyone involved including your marriage and you both can't moving forward. Unfortunately the past cant be change, but the one thing you both can change is how you react to the past and work together to build steps to move forward with your lives, which includes building on trust and forgiveness, working together as a couple. sometimes clear and honest communication and holding your hands up and saying Im sorry, I didnt listen to you and your feeling weren't validated. A lot of time has past from when this incident has occurred, I wish you the best of luck with your journey, I hope 2024 brings good health and happiness for your and your family.

The OPs of these threads never return after they've had a few posts disagreeing with them.

More than happy to take recommendations/advice on board. That’s why I posted in the first place. But when people begin to judge me without knowing the first things about me, or my wife, let alone the dynamics in our relationship, that’s when I don’t return.

You're not being judged.

You're being given advice.

Thank you Ber84. Very positive feedback that has made me feel a little more confident this morning.

I’m not suggesting that I spend £10k on counselling. However I do want to save my marriage, so I’m looking for alternatives. I’m sure services such as relate work for some, but I came on here to see if there were any alternatives that people recommend.

And yes, the loan was paid off years ago without any issues such as missed payments.

This very expensive man is still offering counselling, even though it's dressed up as "coaching".

Your previous experience with Relate is not relevant really, because you won't get the same counsellor this time. Honestly, I'd give it a go.

What was your problem with Relate in the past, out of interest?

And yes, the loan was paid off years ago without any issues such as missed payments

Sorry OP, but is your wife still harbouring resentment that the money could have been used for something beneficial, and not wasted? Was it a substantial sum?

It is admirable that you want up save your marriage, but does your wife want to as well?

Maybe she would prefer to divorce?

I can see from your original post, you want to save you marriage and that speaks volumes. It takes two people to want to make the marriage work, you and your wife both have a role to play in order to move forward. I don't have any alternative, personally counselling didn't work for me in my own personal life, it broght a lot of anger up for me and emotions so I had to use an alternative approach i found self reflection, meditation and being out in nature helped as it giving myself time to think as well as reflect. I wish you the best of luck, I hope you can find an alternative approach that you will both be happy to attend together.

Ok, I’d like to change my use of the word <eye roll> leadership.

My wife comes from a very traditional family where her Dad went out to earn the money, and her Mum stayed at home to raise the kids/look after the house, etc. nothing wrong with that if it works for all parties involved. Now, we both work full-time, we share the household responsibilities such as cooking, washing, school runs, dog walks and so on. And I’d like to think we do a bloody good job of it. We have a good 50/50 split, and we both step up if one of it is away for work or unwell.

In short, I have absolutely no problem with putting on an apron and getting down to cooking and cleaning. And she has no problem catching the train at 7 am to go into town and earn good money.

However (and I’m not saying that this is right or wrong, it’s just the way it is with us), my wife still looks to me to take the initiative on things like finances. She has access to our shared accounts and she has access to all the files I keep to record all our details such as mortgage info, council tax and what’s going where. But she chooses not to get involved.

What I mean by <eye roll> taking the lead is that she expects me to keep on top of this kind of thing. And since things have not been good between us, I’ve backed off because I’m worried about getting things wrong and upsetting her.

(Cue a barage of insults for getting things wrong!)

As for the 10 grand - this is my whole
point. I don’t have 10 grand to spend. But if I did, I would much rather spend it on getting help to save my marriage than going away or getting a cleaner!

I can see why your wife has the ick <eye roll>

I can see you have a good home, life balance where everyone plays their part which is very good, well done. I can relate my husband and I work full time and I take full responsibility for financial administration and bills etc. For me personally it stems from childhood trauma and I like to be in control. I'm not saying this is the case in your marriage.

Also I feel like this attitude of "well I paid it all off anyway" is quite dismissive of his wife's feelings about it. It's like "well so what, I ignored what you thought but nothing bad happened, so what are you fussing about?"

I can see why she'd find it hard to get over.

She should get over herself

I think she’s on the fence. Sometimes she’ll tell me she loves me and that I’m an amazing husband and father. But other times she says ‘we just don’t work together’ and tells me that we need to think about going our separate ways.

However, she did say quite recently that she would get help (counselling or coaching) if I set it up. I may well be wrong, but to me that says she can see positives and negatives in both options, but she’s undecided.

That’s what my family say. But I do understand that we have different views on what was said and done at the time. And it has caused a lot of damage in our marriage, so I want to find a way to come to some kind of resolution.

It's a pity she's still harbouring resentment over the money she believes you wasted.

Is that the only issue, though? Or are there a lot of miscommunications in your lives which need to be worked on?

Why won't your wife arrange counselling/therapy? Is it because she feels inherently that the marriage is not worth saving now?

Are you sure she wants you to lead on financial matters, op?

It sounds like you leading on the matter was one of major causes of the problems in your marriage.

Maybe she has withdrawn from that side of things because you overrode her.

I understand. I really do. Which is why I want to try to find resolution.

However, I would never have done it if I had known that she was against it. She said she wasn’t keen, but as far as my memory serves, she never said ‘do not do it!’

The total was £20k between myself and my ‘business partner.’ Repayments were around £240 a month each for 3 years.

Why does your family know about this though?

I'd be furious if my DH discussed our financial affairs with anyone else, especially his family.

That would actually be a deal-breaker for me.