This has come up several times this week. People have asked if we tried counselling. Yes, yes we tried and it sucked. And then these people who tend to be divorced themselves tell me they had the same experience. So I am left to question: Has anyone gone to marriage counselling and came out of it without thinking it sucked?
My highly unscientific survey has found that people walk out of there either:
- Realizing there has never been anything attractive about the other person and filing for divorce immediately
- Not feeling any different about their partner, nothing got fixed and end up getting a divorce
- For the first time in a long time agreeing with their partner about one thing: They hate the counsellor
- One person feels like progress has been made and the other feels like they were just run over by a stream-roller
Apparently #3 is the best case a few couples went from there and are still together. My marriage fell into #4 and I ended up ‘Flat Princess’. While we did agree we hated her, I hated her for making me feel like shit, he hated her for making me cry every week, we weren’t in enough agreement there to fix any problems. The counsellor actually said I need to learn to express myself better. <insert visual of my friends with their jaws dropped and looking stunned> She said I was closing off my feeling and that the Prince wasn’t a mind reader. (ummm WHAT?!?!?) People who barely know me can tell when I’m upset, sad, happy or have a headache, but I’m too closed off for the man who has known me since I was 15 to figure this stuff out? And trust me the man who sat next to me on that couch was not the man I married, he was channeling Dr. Phil or something, he actually was making suggestions on what the counsellor should be saying to better get through to me. He was using his spare time to search for websites on the internet that would help him talk to the counsellor in her own language, I felt like I was getting hit from every side. I did learn the word “Organic” as in “He says he’s changed but it doesn’t feel organic to me, only forced.” That’s all I got out of it.
So now I have a few friends, who I know mean well, suggesting I go to counselling for myself. I listen to them and they share that they have gone through it or are still seeing a counsellor and it’s really helping them. I hear what they are saying but all I can think of are those sessions from hell I went through. I know I have trust issues, I know I have issues being a doormat, I know I have issues putting myself first. I also have a distrust of counsellors, something about getting paid per visit to help me fix what’s in my head. Where is their incentive when once I feel better I stop visiting and they stop taking my money? Ok, I’m having the same problem with lawyers who get paid hourly, how do I know he won’t be working slower just to drain my bank account? Did I mention trust issues?
They tried to make me go to counselling, I said no, no. no…
Apologies to Amy Winehouse
Odd fact spell checkers keep saying “internet” is spelled wrong, they want to capitalize it or hyphenate it.
Yeah I find they want to capitalize Internet.. lol…
I was never married but my now ex and I did go to a therapist to work on our relationship. Yeah that was doomed from the beginning. We were going because he was convinced something was wrong with me and I needed to seek help. He went along convinced there was nothing wrong with him. I didn’t mind going. But, in the end.. I was the only one who took it seriously and did all the exercises the therapist suggested. My ex became angry with her that she couldn’t say I had something wrong with me. *sigh* Anyways.. on to better things.
Sounds like we went to counselling for the same reason, I was wrong, I was shutting him out, I was the problem. And in the end he says he was willing to change and I wasn’t. At one point in a session he said he would change and she asked me if I would and I outright said “No, I’m happy with who I am.” She never wanted to dig further into that.
Which makes me wonder why would anyone have to change themselves to make a relationship with someone else work, it works or it doesn’t.
Our first attempt at counceling (4-5 years in) was definitely #4. My wife did *not* appreciate the focus on her childhood. It’s simply not something she’s ever going to be willing to look at and admit it had an impact in who she is. Our second attempt came much later, after I’d been seeing a counselor for other reasons, and asked her to come in. Those sessions were useful for me, and kept us together for a number of years by giving me new strategies and ways to change. She tolerated them, but didn’t hate them, mainly because I had learned from the previous mistakes. But it’s not going to help if you go in with the philosophy “if I change, I’ll die”, so in the long run it was not enough.
So I’m somewhere inbetween. She believes counseling (or even talking about your feelings with a friend) is a waste. I think it can be valuable if you have a specific goal, or are looking for new ideas to help you with a problem you can’t seem to deal with.
My thoughts on therapy are I get more from talking to people who have been here and writing out my thoughts, sometimes they get blogged, sometimes they are just there for me to look at. I learned a long time ago that if I can say what’s on my mind, or write it out, I can look at things objectively and if I still can’t figure it out then I scream out for help in some fashion.
I know I’ve changed over the years, but they were natural changes nothing forced upon me by others. He kept saying he could change but there was nothing natural about those changes, he was doing them to keep me someplace I didn’t want to be.
I’m at #4
… This sucks.
I’ve been told it gets better, someday… I’m waiting for that day.
We were #4. I thought we were making progress, he felt ganged-up on. But my ex did what yours did – channeled a whole different person in counseling. Gave answers that he thought she wanted to hear, etc. He had it in his head it wasn’t going to work, so it didn’t.
As for personal therapy, it has helped me tremendously. I would be rocking in a corner, babbling to myself right now if I didn’t have an amazing therapist. It helps to get a different perspective on things from someone who just wants the very best for you.
Good luck, lady! This divorce crap is hard!