[Ambient]

I have been divorced for about a month. I discovered recently the reason behind the final straw that caused me to divorce my wife.

I was living with my wife in Europe, and due to family reasons I had to return to Canada. My wife stayed in Europe for a number of reasons. We had been having pretty serious problems that were mostly due to my wife's psychological problems. She would agree with that.

My wife's therapist is fairly famous in her part of Europe as the author of "Empowerment of women" style books.

Initially my wife seemed to have some improvement from her therapy. But, about two months in she started acting aggressively towards me.

Just the other day I connected the dots. I recalled a time when the therapist had asked my wife to describe my faults. She said she couldn't think of any. Her therapist then said to her "That's what I would expect a woman to say about her father, not her husband". At the time I sort of felt good; that my wife had such a high regard for me. But at the same time her therapist saying such a thing was upsetting. There is a large age gap, and technically I could be her father. I should mention that never has there been indications of "daddy issues".

It turns out that my wife had been involved in probing me to discover my faults, with the support of her therapist. This involved acting quite nasty to me, and then taking note of my reactions. She just admitted this to me. She described it as a "wicked game", and she apologized for it.

My question is: "Is it appropriate for a therapist to say such a thing (the father comment), and is it appropriate for a therapist to be involved in probing me?"

I can see that the therapist would like my ex-wife to be realistic about me, but the comment and the approach seems entirely wrong to me.

[kiki86]

i'm curious as to what you view as "aggresive" behaviour from your wife.

now i'm going to say stuff you don't like and i think you'll probably ignore.

i don't think the therapist did anything wrong. the fact that you think your wife being unable to think of a single flaw of yours is the same as "high regard" makes me think you're a bit narcissistic. i mean that your wife can't think of a single flaw of yours is a sign she has some kind of issue or block. it's not really about you.

i also sense some derision for your wife's therapist being about the empowerment of women. and to be honest i strongly suspect that what you call aggressive behaviour is actually just your wife becoming less of a doormat.

you say you split up with your wife but you don't actually say what prompted you to do so? or is it simply that she became "aggressive" as you see it.

also no, i don't find the comment inappropriate but i'm sure you guessed that.

I basically agree with kiki, though I'd add that it sounds like an odd (not inappropriate, but odd) thing for a therapist to say that they'd expect a woman to say that sort of thing about her father... unless it's a daddy who died when the daughter was very young. Then again, if a therapist were to say "I would expect a woman to say x" to me, I would ask about the statistics s/he based that utterance on, almost regardless of what x was.

But as for whether the behaviour was inappropriate or not, it really depends on what it was. For example, if the therapist advised your wife to destroy your belongings in order to observe your reaction, it would be inappropriate and I would understand that you'd find it aggressive. I can also understand that it hurts to find out that somebody's behaviour has not been genuine, but since there was apparently a real psychological block somewhere for your wife, it does seem as if it was in fact warranted.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by Ambient

I have been divorced for about a month. I discovered recently the reason behind the final straw that caused me to divorce my wife...
My question is: "Is it appropriate for a therapist to say such a thing (the father comment), and is it appropriate for a therapist to be involved in probing me?" I can see that the therapist would like my ex-wife to be realistic about me, but the comment and the approach seems entirely wrong to me.

So are you now trying to say that the therapist effectively interfered in your marriage? As in malpractice; thereby relieving you of any responsibility for the breakdown of your marriage? As you say, your wife was already troubled. Unfortunately, I have a more American understanding of marriage; are there also cultural issues in play here?

[elliemay]

I think this kind of thing happens a lot. One partner enters therapy, changes, while the other doesn't. I mean that what therapy is designed to do, transform. Your ex-wife was not the same person you married. Some relationships can absorb this change, even welcome it, others can't.

I do not think that the therapist's comment was inappropriate at all. It actually rings true to me.

Personally, I know I would want a partner that knew me, faults and all, and loved me anyway. Eventually all rises to the surface and idolization only leads to disappointment and anger.

Perhaps you could try to see this as a positive thing as it gives you the opportunity to find some one who will love and respect you warts and all.

[WikidPissah]

You have flaws, everyone does, and the fact that your wife couldn't come up with one is disturbing.

[anilam]

Originally Posted by hankster

So are you now trying to say that the therapist effectively interfered in your marriage? As in malpractice; thereby relieving you of any responsibility for the breakdown of your marriage? As you say, your wife was already troubled. Unfortunately, I have a more American understanding of marriage; are there also cultural issues in play here?

Hankster, what is a more American understanding of marriage?

Ambient I think, that if there's a large age gap (and you being able to be her father is a really large age gap for me) in most cases there are SOME daddy's issues in the relationship involved. It doesn't have to be a bad thing though. I don't like how you're putting all the blame on your wife/her T. It's common and it could even be true but I just don't like it. Trying to be honest here not judgemental, just saying that my opinion could be influenced by this.
That being said, I don't think the part where your wife acted quite nasty towards you in order to monitor your behaviour is not OK and I don't think a good T should advice his client to behave like that.

[Perna]

I don't know how you got the comment (were you there?) and/or its context. I think you mostly got your wife's point of view though and take on things ("wicked game") and, given her problems and how you feel about her, I would not give too much credence to her reporting or make any heavy duty judgments of my own based on what she has to say, second hand.

[SallyBrown]

I kind of wonder if you'd like to blame the therapist, rather than your wife, for her part in the breakdown of the marriage. I don't know who did what over the years, but it does sound like her response to therapy is indicative of issues that go WAY beyond the therapist.

By which I mean: if my therapist asked me to do this to my husband, I would refuse. And probably get a new therapist. That's because I have no desire to manipulate my husband, and I'd be disturbed by anyone who suggested that I do so. That says something about me and the way I view my marriage; that your wife willingly went along with it says something about her and how she views her marriage. First YOU had no faults (this is not a good sign), now her therapist can tell her to manipulate you? If that's even what her therapist said... it may just be what she heard, and not at all what her therapist said. Another reason you can't really put this on T. Either way, she took what her therapist said as a reason to "probe" you, as if she was a child, and it was her mom asking her to probe her dad for information out of suspicion.

My husband also saw a therapist who said things I didn't like -- and I mean, things like trying to diagnose me without ever having spoken to me (a sure sign of a crummy T). But while I didn't like T, it was my husband I blamed whenever he fell right into it. He's a big boy and knows when someone is mistaken about me or how to approach me, and any time he buys something he knows is untrue just because it makes him feel better in some way, it's a situation where he knows he is doing wrong. That in and of itself is bad for our marriage.

I'm glad your wife apologized -- because it's on her, not T. Although if T did suggest this (which, again, you can't know), it's pretty bad therapy, in my opinion. But bad therapy, I have to tell you, is not something on which you can blame your divorce. If I've misunderstood and that's not what you're saying, you can disregard it... I just can't think of why else you'd include all of the information about it "causing" you to end your marriage.

[Ambient]

The "wicked game" as she described it was where she would say things to me that were designed to get negative reactions from me. She would then make note of my reactions and try to come to conclusions about what my flaws were based on those reactions. I wish that I could come up with concrete examples, but I wasn't keeping track. In some ways it was like "destroy my belongings". There was no apparent rhyme or reason for the things she said. The appearance was of someone not on the mend, but getting worse. And, having had six years of some pretty bad stuff, I felt it was time to give up.

I think that she described it as a "wicked game" and apologized for it indicates something about what she thinks now. She despises me for having “abandoned” her, so she wouldn’t apologize for something at this point without good reason.

I feel that the therapist was right in wanting my wife to have a realistic view of me. I think equating me to her father was not something appropriate since it seems like something that was more likely to cause problems than solve problems.

I think there is agreement from everyone that my wife had an unrealistic view of me, and the therapist was right to prompt my wife to try to achieve a realistic view of me. I don’t disagree. It really was that particular comment, and the method used to achieve that realistic view.

I never considered the possibility that my wife might have taken the therapist’s recommendations and translated them into entirely different actions. I guess that’s something I can’t know.

I am sure this looks awful for me. It looks like I don’t want to take responsibility for my share. But at some point a person has to give up on a relationship. I feel cheated that our last chance was spoiled by something she admits was artificial. If it were not for this “game” we might possibly have survived and flourished. That’s very difficult to accept.

I think my question is answered. There is no way I can judge the therapist based on this because I can’t know what the therapist actually said and what the therapist actually recommended.

Thanks everyone.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Ambient

I think equating me to her father

I did not get that from the exchange; I think the therapist was equating your wife's response to how a woman might respond about a father. You weren't part of the equation other than incidentally, in that you are not a father. In other words, you compare badly to a father because you are a husband. You do not equate to a father.

[likewater]

The situation sounds very complicated. I'm sorry for your pain. Divorces suck. It seems unlikely for a therapist to have enough
power to cause a divorce. In my personal experience, therapists help me follow my own heart. My former husband wanted to blame me leaving him on my pastor and therapist and prozac. The reality was he was abusive. Still anything is ptossible. If the therapist did
something unethical by pushing her own agenda on your wife, that is like brainwashing and she should lose her license.