[tautologic]

How do you know when you yourself have reached the limits of what therapy has to offer the significant other in a mental health issue?

I've been in counseling for the past 8 years. Individual, marriage and support groups. Many therapists in the process. I've pretty much heard it all. I know my weak points, I know what to do for them. I've detached, set boundaries, stopped enabling, gotten on with me yadda yadda yadda.

So now what?

Lately my T and MC have both been uttering the same repetitive sentence. "You know.......what to say, what this means, what to do".

So is that it? I mean, yes I feel stronger in many ways....but my problems aren't solved. Maybe my expectations were too high. Then again, maybe this too is just another question that is answered with "You already know the answer".

[Perna]

Therapy does not solve problems, only an individual can do that. All therapy can do is give you the tools to solve your problems. But therapy isn't even about "physical" problems really, just about human interaction/communication. The bottom line is we only have our own lives to live and if something/someone else is causing us problems we can't really do much about that besides move away. If we're causing ourselves problems then understanding the dynamics can help so we can get personally unstuck.

I complained to my therapist about my boss at work and we determined that he hadn't and wasn't going to change after all those years doing the same things over and over. She said I could either quit the job or stay and get massively depressed, my choice :-) I picked a slightly sideways option as there were other things I wanted to explore and good relationships within the office to support me so I opted to stay a bit longer and just give as little attention to the boss/job as possible. I became part-time, which gave some relief and soon my boss quit his job so that particular "problem" for me went away.

The last time I was in therapy for 9 years and in about year 4 or so, my therapist said when my stepmother died, things would get simplier for me. She died in year 5-1/2 of therapy and things did get simplier but my own ways of relating, etc. I was still working on learning about and strengthening.

What is it you wish you could resolve that hasn't been addressed?

[Rhapsody]

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tautologic said:
How do you know when you yourself have reached the limits of what therapy has to offer the significant other in a mental health issue?

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IMO - you have reached the limit of your therapy when you have gotten to the point that you can now solve and name that which has been haunting you for years, therefore, no longer letting it control you or your present life.

[tautologic]

Perna after all these years of therapy, my husbands depression is still uncontrolled. He is still behavioraly and emotionaly doing the same things that cause strife in our marriage. I've tried so hard to change myself to alter the situation, but I feel like I am spinning my wheels and no matter what I do for myself, my kids, the marriage, his depression always ruins it.

Like I said, I have tried so hard to change my own attitude towards things, to be supportive rather than enabling, to take care of myself and the kids, to focus on the positive rather than the negative, to not take things personally, to respond rather than react....yet nothing I have done is making this better. No matter what, my husbands issues always take precident and overshadow our lives.

Most recently has been his incessant foisting of blame on me for his depression and his failures. The most recent being my causing the lack of relationship with his family. (which has been dysfunctional his entire life. He has never had a relationship with his parents or his siblings so how this is my fault is beyond me)

I think I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that I have reached the end of my road. That I can't deal with this anymore. That he isn't going to change. That our marriage is never going to offer me the security and comfort that I had hoped all these years for.

I hate this.

[tautologic]

Rhapsody, I have the understanding of it down but I don't know how to not let it control my life? It is what it is and I have no control over it. I never will. It is bigger than me.