Marriage counselling?

[CalmReader]

DH and I have been together for 13 years married for 7 with one DC. We’ve had a couple of rocky years to be honest and separated about a month ago.

There have been many factors that led to our separation, including myself having an emotional affair a couple of years ago, him prioritising work when I was extremely low with postnatal depression and struggling And issues with finances - I was paying my full wages into our joint account and thought he was doing the same but it turns out he actually had a separate savings account and only moved across what we needed to cover the bills. He’s also recently had a pay rise that he didn’t tell me about, I found the email open on his computer.

I think I felt so low down his priority list that I stopped caring, and since then I’ve really struggled with attraction. I don’t feel a spark anymore, I don’t find him attractive and I don’t want to sleep with him.

However I look at our life and on paper it’s absolutely perfect, we’ve recently moved into our forever home, we got on really well he does his fair share around the house and we have a beautiful child together who is three years old. I’m torn as to whether to continue with the separation or perhaps try marriage counselling.

In truth, my head feels completely messed up if I could get the spark to come back and be happy again that would be amazing but I’m not sure if marriage counselling would help with this? I toyed with perhaps moving out for a couple of months getting some space and having some therapy to try and sort myself out first that I have a clear vision of how I feel.

As you can probably tell from my post my head is absolutely everywhere, I feel like we’ve tried over the last few years to get our relationship back on track, he is desperately wanting to fight for our marriage and I know it’s me that has the issue. I just don’t know whether to cut my losses and move on so that it’s fair for both of us or whether marriage counselling may be the answer.

if anyone has been in this position before or can share some insight on how marriage counselling helped their relationship I would be so grateful if you could share your experiences with me! Thank you in advance

Hopeful bump!

My dh and I already had a child each when we got married now have more together.

Lots of people have the point of view that you shouldn't stay in a relationship for the kids and they will be just fine. So if your not happy fck it leave and make yourself happy.

My dh and I disagree. We would never stay together just for the kids, but we will never separate without doing absolutely everything to see if we could stay in our marriage. We would never want our younger children to grow up with separated parents and potentially blended families. We value and appreciate that the life we all live is in our control.

Personally I would definitely have therapy for yourself. The most important relationship we have in life is with ourselves. And it will help having a place that is just for you to talk.

I would have marriage counselling. It may not end up with you staying together, but if you stay separated it will help with you both emotionally working through the relationship and moving to a co parenting relationship.

in my experience, marriage counselling only works if both parties are 100% committed to doing whatever is needed during/between the sessions.

i think quite often, it becomes apparent that the problem is more with one person than another, and the focus naturally weighs more towards them and things they need to think about/behaviours they need to adjust.

it takes an extremely committed person to acknowledge this, and continue to do what's needed.

often however, that person just closes down, as they feel attacked/blamed, and then it's pointless - this certainly was the outcome in my situation.

what did help us though, was - separate to counselling - deciding individually whether we wanted to commit to each other, and finding a relationship together that was mutually satisfying/positive (emotionally, physically etc), and then agreeing and working towards that goal.

if you both feel that you can do that, counselling might well be helpful (whether that's individual or together).

sorry, just to add...

my DW and i have a different relationship now than we had before, but because we have both openly articulated to each other that we are committed to each other, it's actually more fulfilling, and we both feel more secure in the relationship.

Counselling helps with communication but I don’t see how it can make you attracted to somebody?

Try the counselling. What have you got to lose?

I found solo counselling much more useful than couples counselling when it came to sorting out our marriage.