Please tell me what the impact of marriage counselling was for you

[Squarehairbear]

I've come to the slow realisation that I don't think I can live with things the way they are with DH. Nothing dramatic, no other parties involved but he has, over our 20 years of marriage, done a lot of things I've found very hurtful. He can be very cold and detached, and very rigid in his thinking. I think all of this could be overcome but he doesn't seem willing to reflect on his behaviour. He was very unsupportive in the early years of our having DC but will always deny this (despite hard evidence) and attempts to address it get shut down or I'm told I'm 'angry' or 'getting at him'. He has travelled a huge amount for work over the years so I spent a lot of time on my own with the DC but I've noticed that he's started minimising that and implying that I'm exaggerating things. Over the years, I've talked myself down about it and balanced out my negative thoughts about the relationship by telling myself all the really good things he does - and there are many, I really do recognise the good things about him. I'm also very aware that I'm obviously as flawed as the next person (or more so!) and there will be things I've done and do that have, if not hurt him, then irritated him and got him down. But things have come to a head (in my mind at least) since Mother's Day - both DC forgot and he knew it was mother's day (sent his own mum flowers etc) but decided it 'wasn't his job' to remind the DC. So no-one so much as wished me Happy Mother's Day - until DD realised late in the day and was gutted, made me a card the next day etc. Anyway, the point was not mother's day itself but the fact that he knew how hurt I would be but did nothing and, although it's a minor issue, it's made me realise things are a bit broken between us. I don't think he recognises this.

Our youngest DC will likely be leaving home in the next couple of years and I fantasise a lot about moving into a flat on my own somewhere. I don't look forward to spending time with him the way I used to and I'm losing hope that anything will change.

But, we have a life together, children, animals, a house, we both come from big families that are very intertwined now, and I keep thinking of all the things that separation would mess up. I also keep imagining what would happen if one of us got sick - and how important it would be to be there for each other. The whole thing feels totally intractable.

I recently confided in a friend who thinks I should broach the subject of marriage counselling with DH. I've started googling and found someone who might be suitable. But my heart does sink at the thought of how gruelling it would be, and I don't have much hope of the dynamics between us changing. Please can you tell me if you've tried it and how it was/what, if anything, it changed?

thank you

Have taken on board the point about individual therapy but it'll be another cost and it feels difficult to raise that with him too. Maybe if and when he does talk to me about the couples therapy I should suggest we both do the same individually.

Can I just add about mothers day as I think it's relevant for how he thinks.

Mothers day - in a positive sense - is about celebrating mothers - what they do, who they are to us. it's not some banal point about wishing 'your own specific mother' HMD is it??

He lives with you and you are his life partner - you are A mother and you are THE mother of his actual children.

if he is so petty as to deliberately wish his mum HMD and not you - and then to blame your children for their own forgetting - as if he couldn't possibly have just celebrated YOU as a PERSON!!! and your wonderful work as a mother - he is a fucking nob.

sorry.

If you feel you have broken something by suggesting marriage counselling, that is so sad when it is actually a positive thing.
As for him not responding that is either a power play or he is just being deliberately unkind.
Imagine him replying - I think that’s a positive step, why don’t you book us in?

I came to suggest you embark on individual therapy for a while, it might save the need for couples sessions.

Do you have access to funds for that OP?

I wonderd about autism in your first post (my child and brother are autistic and I work with autistic young people - before anyone says people jump to that too soon!) - just the 'detachedness' you describe from him.

I think things like families being too entwined - are not great reasons to be unhappy with someone for the rest of your life.

Would you consider a short term separation to give yourself time to really think what YOU personally want ? And how you want your remaining years in this world/ life to be!

Thank you all. Your posts mean a lot to me.

@GoldDuster I have access to funds but it's a shared account so there would need to be a conversation / explanation.

@waterrat yes, I'm pretty sure he is autistic. We have actually discussed this and, while I don't think he'd ever be assessed, I think he acknowledges that this is a possibility.

Just at the moment, I can't imagine taking the step to live separately for a while because I still have this nagging doubt that it's me that's the problem and that if I told you all the good stuff we have together and the kind things he does, alongside the other stuff that bothers me, you'd think 'oh ok, actually this isn't straightforward at all and she can't blame her DH for all this'.

Quick update to say that I'm heading into meetings for the rest of the day now but will check this thread later. Thank you again

Then I would be honest. Wait and see if you get any reasonable response to your email in the next couple of days, then tell him that you understand he isn't interested and of course you cannot force him to engage, but you will be doing some individual counselling to get some perspective on your situation and work out how to move forward.

Honestly, I have used it to wind up a marriage and get someone to "witness" that as I felt as though I was shouting into a void as I was constantly being dismissed. I have a couple of friends who have had success with it to get back on track with communication issues, and an infidelity, but both parties were equally invested and I think that is they key.

Hi @ Squarehairbear. Just thought I would share my recent experience. In the past when I asked to go to marriage counselling my husband refused. Last year I found out he had trying to engage in swinging and attending seedy nightclubs.
I then started individual counselling as at that point I did not feel I wanted to work on our relationship, I wanted counselling to reflect if there would be any point in attempting to mend our marriage. My husband also started individual counselling but was keen to have joint counselling, so in the end I agreed to join sessions with his counsellor. It did not help me as I struggled to accept what his counsellor was saying, that part of the reason he did the things he did was due to him struggling with intrusive thoughts and having managed to control the anger I had struggled with for so many years, it resulted in him pursuing swinging as an outlet, now he was no longer shouting at me. It has lead to my husband viewing the situation that he was sick. I found this very frustrating
I then went back to individual counselling, which you both may feel helpful initially then consider joint, but with a completely new counsellor to you both, when you have had chance to both explore your own feelings .I have found individual counselling helped me reflect that I feel justified in the way I feel and be able to voice my feelings better to my husband. Hope that helps you in deciding what may help

feeling calmer this evening but DH still hasn’t acknowledged receiving my email. I actually double checked my sent messages in case it hadn’t sent but it’s definitely there.

things are civil between us and there aren’t any arguments. It all just feels very detached.

@GoldDuster going to do as you say and, if he doesn’t engage re couples therapy, suggest individual.

@Missteefied that sounds extremely tough for you. I’m glad individual counselling was helpful

OP
If you are reflecting on your contributions then you are a great candidate for self improvement and learning or updating your relational skills and this can really ONLY be a good thing.

Remember that You changing FOR YOU, eg growing your self esteem, taking better care of yourself, can really only be positive. Please listen to the podcasts I sent and get started on making some changes, ANYTHING that is in line with increasing intimacy (such as honest and vulnerable conversations where you stay curious with yourself and with others including him) will help shift you off your current position and give you a feeling of hope. You have nothing to lose so go for it. Also bear in mind that it takes time and it is not plain sailing so hiccups are normal.

Be aware that some individual therapists can encourage leaving the relationship which may be the right thing - listen carefully as well to your own voice, to what you think is possible (in terms of healing your wounded relationship) as well. You need to hear multiple voices to help you through.

As for him acknowledging or not your email please remember what he does is in his control and you can only give him "data" about what you plan to do etc and then let him react or respond in his own way. The trick is to learn to soothe yourself and find other vehicles of emotional support rather than keeping on chasing him. He is likely frozen/overwhelmed and not aware of what to do.

I don't think I mentioned it but the Feeling Good podcast with Dr David Burns (and his books on how to self administer CBT techniques) could be very helpful for you.

Thank you for your thoughtful, practical posts @PineConeOrDogPoo I've just downloaded a couple of the podcasts. I've also been looking into local options for individual therapy.

Still no response from DH on my email. I think he's probably just hoping it was sent in anger and will go away. Have lost my appetite for raising it with him again now. Anyway, things are much friendlier between us for now but he's away again so that is probably playing into it.

This, in particular, is a really useful reminder

Dang, so much advice on how to pretzel yourself even more for this arrogant twat :(

You teach people how to treat you.

OP, you seem so cowed, so timid, so afraid of him. And worse, you seem to think you deserve his rude and disrespectful behaviour.

I mean this in all kindness: where is your fire? Is this how you want to lead your life?

i suppose I'm starting to see all the above as stuff I'd be doing for me / that will benefit me whatever the outcome.

There is fire, at times at least. I do get angry (as I did on Sunday night when I pulled out of going to the event with him) - in fact much more so than DH does, he's v v good at staying calm in arguments, which always makes me feel like the unreasonable one. And, if you were to meet me in real life, I don't think you'd think I was cowed and timid but I'm being very honest on this thread (because there isn't, yet, anywhere else to 'say' these things) about the fears in my head: that this is the perimenopause thinking and that if I don't do everything on my can on my side, I'll look back in a few years time and think that I threw away a perfectly good marriage because of trivialities.

But, saying all that, I did think just now as I scrolled through more marriage therapy podcasts, that I bet DH hasn't scrolled through any. And that does annoy me a lot.

Regardless, individual therapy can only be a good thing I reckon - and that seems to be the consensus on this thread. The idea of finding ways to soothe myself rather than always looking for things to be friction-free with DH in order to feel good is so appealing (albeit a million miles away at the moment). And I do want to understand more about why I'm so triggered by relatively minor things that DH does - not just for altruistic, couple optimisation reasons but because I find my tendency to overreaction really weakens my own position.

OK, I must have misunderstood, I thought you were trying to get H to go to marriage counseling. Although it did sound like you're afraid of his frostiness, and you're letting him basically freeze you back into silent submission.

In any case, I fully second individual therapy.

"the fears in my head: that this is the perimenopause thinking and that if I don't do everything on my can on my side, I'll look back in a few years time and think that I threw away a perfectly good marriage because of trivialities."

I think you'll find in IC that what you consider trivialities are not trivial.

Yes, I def do want H to go to marriage counselling (and suggested as much in the email I sent him) but he hasn't responded and I don't know how much I'm inclined to push it really because it'll all be pretty gruelling. I do find it odd that he hasn't responded and can't imagine doing the same to him. I keep wondering if somehow he's managed to miss the email in his inbox. Anyway, I am at some point soon going to have the conversation where I say 'regardless of what you think about MC I'm going to IC and I think you'd benefit from doing the same'.

You are correct that i'm a bit afraid of the silence / disapproval though, especially when the anger/upset dies down on my side. That's partly him and how he reacts to conflict - as I say, he doesn't ever get angry really but he can be very detached. He works in a confrontational environment and has learnt that silence is much more powerful - I wish I could learn the same. But it is also - at least I think this is what will come out in IC - partly me repeating patterns from childhood (unstable parent who would get very angry and then go silent and disappear and I'd just be desperate to know everything was ok and so relieved when things went back to normal that I would move on quickly from whatever drama there had been). So there's a bunch of stuff going on there and I can't pin all my reactions to his silence on him - I need to take responsibility for some of those reactions and it'll benefit me to do that.

"silence is much more powerful"

Using silence as a dominance tactic in a hostile workplace is one thing. Using it against your spouse is emotional abuse.

I've read the whole thread. I'm really impressed with how insightful and reflective you are. I think you'd really benefit from individual counselling because there are a few things that you are starting to grasp, particularly around your childhood. If you could really look those things in the face I think that'd allow you to gain a lot of clarity.

To answer your original question - my DH and I got to the brink of divorce and he suggested marriage counselling. I flat refused and said I wasn't the problem, he was and he could go to counselling if he wanted to but if nothing changed in our relationship, I was out. He went to counselling and long story short we're still together and very happy 10 years later. I didn't see the point in marriage counselling because I was 100% in the relationship, supporting him, listening to him etc and he was not hearing a word I was saying. Once he addressed his own childhood issues he could hear me and that changed everything.

One thing that interests me is how you talk about your relationship, as though it's an ongoing battle. You talk about winning, power, who's in the stronger position. A relationship is not a fight, it's a partnership. It's two people who have decided to support each other, even when they're being annoying. There should be no question of winning and losing. You should not fear bringing up something with your partner - they should be totally safe. They might get annoyed or even angry but you should know they fundementally care about you and have your best interests at heart. If you don't know that, then you'll constantly feel wobbly and insecure. You say you keep bringing up small things but chances are those small things are proxies for the bigger problem, which is that you don't really feel he loves you. Given your childhood you may feel it's your job to make him love you or that it's your fault he behaves the way he does towards you. That isn't true. He behaves how he behaves based on his own thoughts and feelings. You can't control that. He is not better than you or more powerful than you. It is not your job to win him around.

OP, What I think is happening from your posts is a lot of anxious "chasing" or "clinging" from your side (manifesting as your anger while he goes quiet, or you sending an email telling him you want counselling and anxiously waiting for a response).

The anxious attachment style is partly genetic but also shaped by unreliable childhood caregivers.

Whatever has shaped it, it will never work longer term to behave this way to create secure relationships - not in this one nor in any subsequent ones!

What you have to learn to do is to become far more self sufficient, without becoming cold and remote. This is easier said than done. I recommend you listen to how this "fellow Clinger" solved the issue in his own marriage very effectively.

Clinging and Avoiding and How to Solve it

If it’s got to marriage counselling but you want to stay together it should be called co/ parenting counseling or friendship counseling as you aren’t going to get back the relationship you started with

Sorry but this is actually not true. People actually fall back in love with each other with the right help speaking from personal experience. Marriage counselling alone does not "do it" though. It requires a lot of learning and practising new skills.