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 Getting Wife Into Joint
Counseling - Giver
Unfortunately, the current situation with my wife is
slipping from our grip. We are creating enough ill-will
and misunderstanding that if we don’t take bold
corrective action, there will be no turning back. The
alternative to successfully re-building of our
relationship is not pleasant: if things deteriorate any
further we risk losing all we have -- and we will end up
hating each other. Neither one of us wants that to
happen.
I told my wife that I was going to schedule a first
meeting with a couples counselor and plan to discuss her
and our relationship with the counselor. I told her that
I will give the counselor my perspective and do my best
to give my wife's perspective on what she says has caused
things to deteriorate so much. I told my wife that I am
going to try and do justice to her point of view, but as
she can imagine, it will be my understanding of her
opinion: it would be best if she let the counselor know
how she felt about the relationship and outlined the
source of problems. If it is at all possible, I have
asked my wife to join in the first meeting, so that the
counselor has a completely accurate picture of the
situation.
My wife refuses to go and accuses me of trying to
force her and control her and embarass her by discussing
our problems with a stranger. What can I do to get my
wife into counseling?
 From: Bernd
It's my opinion that counselling, to be effective, has
to be a VOLUNTARY choice by either or both partners. If
your wife doesn't want to go to counselling with you,
keep in mind that only half the relationship is hers,
which means even individual counselling (without her) can
offer you a 50% improvement in the relationship on its
own.
There's sound reasons why people resist going to
counselling. In Lynda's case, for eg., because of her
past abuse she found it next to impossible to trust
ANYONE with something that struck so close to her core
being (the relationship, and her own struggles). There is
real panic that the monsters we fear are inside us will
be discovered, and the ugliness we are so afraid we have
inside will be confirmed! If one partner is initiating
the counselling, the other partner often feels as if the
counsellor will "gang up" on them along with
the other partner. Unfortunately, while they aren't in
the majority, there ARE horror stories where exactly this
type of situation has happened.
The best chances you have that your partner will
tiptoe into the counselling pool is through your example.
If you use therapy to help YOU understand better YOUR
choices, motives, and feelings as half of the
relationship, it will help you see your partner's
struggles, feelings, and motives in a more understanding
and compassionate light. In other words, your peace of
mind will steadily - and noticeably - improve. She wants
that same kind of inner peace as much as you do. The more
she sees positive change in you, and the more she is able
to build trust that the changes in you are REAL, and
permanent (instead of changes to try to "get"
her to change), the safer she''ll feel in taking that
first-time risk of trying a counselling session with you.
If she isn't ready to take that first step on her own,
"convincing" her to go with you has a very real
risk of doing more damage than good. When we began joint
counselling sessions. it felt as if they made things
WORSE, not better. What happened is that those sessions
dug deeper into our fears and pain than we were able to
on our own. Lynda felt even MORE srupid and inadequate
than before. As a result, the counselling sessions
themselves became another "problem", and
eventually led to Lynda ending her involvement in them.
It took us over a year before we were able to try joint
sessions again. There was a big difference when we
resumed though; this time, Lynda was going for HER, not
because I wanted her to.
For the past two years, we've been going to individual
counselling, with only a rare joint session. Most of the
improvements in the relationship that I've been able to
contribute to have come about through my individual
recovery work, not through joint counselling. Lynda's
resistance to joint counselling was actually a great gift
to me; I discovered that when I focused on healing my OWN
past pain and imperfections, the "relationship"
problems seemed to take care of themselves. I make a lot
of comparisons to cars, and I'll make another one. If I
keep my car maintained right and serviced regularly,
automatically I eliminate a lot of trips to the repair
shop to fix "major problems".
I tried to get Lynda into counselling, into recovery
groups, and cajoled and coaxed her to read all sorts of
relationship books I picked up. All of my efforts were
met with stubborn resistance, and none of them worked
(and in hindsight I'm grateful she resisted!). It was
only when I began really letting go of my need for her to
do ANYTHING about the relationship, that real change
began to happen - in me, in her, and in the relationship.
There's a very wise force inside each of us that knows
the path we need to follow to find our own way towards
greater happiness and love. As long as I tried to get
Lynda to go down the path I wanted her to, she had a lot
harder time finding the one she NEEDED to follow. Her
path may seem downright mystifying to me at times, but
that's not because it isn't the right path for her. It's
mystifying because my brain is simply too puny to
understand what her soul in its wisdom knows perfectly.
Those are my best guesses.
From: mzet
I agree with Bernd: you cannot "convince"
your wife to go to therapy. If she goes for you, she will
feel manipulated and therapy will not work. The only
thing you can do, per my experience, is to work on
YOURSELF. If you succeed, she MAY eventually see the
wisdom of therapy.
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