My husband and I love each other very much, but damn, we have a lot of %#@&#! to work out!!

He absolutely refuses to go to marriage therapy. I have approached the subject in 3,482 ways, but he just won't go.

He says that it just isn't something that he is interested in... it is just something that he's not "into." He doesn't see how a therapist would help. Unfortunately, my husband tends to see our problems as completely my fault, and believes that if I just "fixed" a couple of things, we'd be good to go.

Besides the fact that his view is a complete insult to my profession (What does he think I do all day? lol.. Just hang out and chat with people?), it just hurts that he is not willing to take that step towards strengthening our marriage.

T says to go without him. He said that plenty of people go to a marriage therapist without their spouse. He said that the marriage therapist would be very different than our individual therapy because it would be focusing on the RELATIONSHIP, not me as individual.

I agreed. I told my husband about it, and he was fine with it.... BUT HE STILL REFUSED TO GO. Grrrrrrr.

I hope that, in time, I will begin to make changes that are evident in the relationship... and that H will eventually accompany me.

The agency that I see T at has many locations throughout and outside of the city... the location that is specific for marriage therapy happens to be right near the agency that I work at. My T's agency does not take insurance.

Without asking me first (I love T, haha), T did his research and asked around for an intern with a great supervisor. He told me that he found an intern with a supervisor that he knows very well.

He told me that he said to the supervisor, "My client is great, but she is difficult, is also a therapist and will argue and challenge the marriage counselor." Hahahahahaha... he knows me so, so well.

Of course, T and I argued about the therapist. I told him that I actually wanted a woman therapist because I wanted this to be completely different. I told him that if he was going to get me an intern, it had to be someone considerably older, and with more life experience than me. He made a comment that I would want a therapist who looks like Marilyn Monroe. I began to freak out saying that I wanted someone who is old and looks like a witch. Then T made me laugh VERY hard by pretending he was on the phone interviewing the new therapist for me.

T says, "Ok. I will call her and say: Question 1: Are you ugly? Question 2: Do you remember the shooting of JFK? More importantly, were you alive during it? What were you doing?"

I was laughing so hard, I couldn't breathe.

I love him for taking care of me like this.

What do you guys think? Has anyone gone to marriage therapy without their spouse?

[Kiya]

Still trying to stop laughing.
*wipes tears*
ohhhhh me. yeah, i guess going alone is a start =)
I'm not married, so i have no idea.
But i know my mom wanted to do the same and her husband went once ( i think to shut her up) and never again (she didn't go without him). They're divorced. It does take 2 to work on marriage. You could do everything he wants, including stand on your head, but he has to eventually realize that he's a part of the marriage and has to do some work also.
Good luck, Pink!

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
pinksoil said:
Has anyone gone to marriage therapy without their spouse?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Yes. I wish I had known that you could do this years ago, when my marriage wasn't so far gone that it might have been able to be saved (maybe). Like you, I tried back then to get my H to go to marriage counseling, but he refused. So I dropped it and didn't consider I could go alone. Now I am older and wiser and know better! Yes, by all means you can go on your own. I often encourage people on PC to do that when they say their spouse won't go. You can work on the relationship but also on yourself too so it is not always as your T said, that you work only on the relationship. As you know, there is a lot of overlap, so it is hard to separate them even if you want to. But you could certainly try. I have found it so helpful. It helped me examine the relationship and my feelings about it and most importantly, get strong enough to leave the marriage. Sometimes that is the outcome, not necessarily saving the marriage. As I said, I wish I had done this long ago, and maybe the marriage would not have failed. (But somehow, I kind of doubt it.) It actually took me months before I could even talk about the marriage with my T. He knew from our first session that was the issue, but it was so painful that I just had to keep circling it in therapy, touching it, withdrawing, coming back to it. Meanwhile we worked on trauma and that really helped me get unstuck and make me stronger so I could deal with the marriage. My T was very patient.

After you've done marriage counseling on your own for a while, you may be able to get your H to come too. You may be better able to communicate the benefit or he may see it firsthand in you and realize its value. After 9 months of solo therapy with my T, I finally asked my H to come (I was terrified of this). This time, about 8 years after his first refusal, he said yes. And we had about 10 sessions of couples therapy and then began on the divorce. I told him at the first one I wanted a divorce and we began the uncoupling process, still going on today. We did explore staying in the marriage, but it was too far gone. My T is skilled at both marriage and uncoupling therapy--both forms of couples therapy with a lot of overlap. Developing good Communication skills with your partner is something that is emphasized no matter what.

Anyway, that's my story. It has been soooo helpful! I never could have made it through this without the therapy.
It's great to have an expert to help you with all the relationship concerns. It gave me confidence that he had so much experience with all sorts of couples and marriages.

Good luck. Hope you try it!

(If you want a woman for your marriage therapist, then get one. However, I seem to remember you posting several times on PC that you don't really like women--or something like that--so would you really be OK with a woman?)

[Slippers]

All I can do is speak from how it would feel to me. Lonely, yes. Going to couples counseling alone would feel like the first step to living alone. I'm not saying don't do it, just that if it feels that way to you, I hope he hears it. It feels like it could add distance, and reinforce his nutty notion that it's all your problem.

For him to express how little he respects therapy (your passion) is just sad. But, it may just be an expression of his fear of being cornered into having to look inside himself. I think he's plum scared.

When one person is in indiv therapy and they grow and explore, they also mature and change in many ways. You may have grown emotionally so much that he's scared of this new person. He's being challenged to grow up too, and maybe he just ain't ready. Maybe he won't ever be. I dunno.

The other problem is that it's inevitable to compare H to T. T listens and emotes, and does all those grown up "in touch with my feminine side" things. H is still in the "I grunt my emotions" stage. If you go ahead with the couples counseling stuff - I would spend some time on this. How can H ever live up to the standard that T has set?

S

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Slippers said:
i think he's plum scared.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Yes, anxiety is definitely underneath all of this. I know he has fear (that he cannot face), that he has failed me... I also think there is a great fear and intimidation of being in the room with two therapists, even though I would not be in therapist role.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
When one person is in indiv therapy and they grow and explore, they also mature and change in many ways. You may have grown emotionally so much that he's scared of this new person. He's being challenged to grow up too, and maybe he just ain't ready. Maybe he won't ever be. I dunno.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Yeah, T and I talked about this. You hit the nail right on the head because when H is mad, he says to me, "You have changed so much. You are not the person who were when we first met." I feel like I have grown and he is stagnant. If I try to tell him this, he says that he is the who has grown, and I am the one who is stuck. Sigh. It never goes anywhere.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
The other problem is that it's inevitable to compare H to T. T listens and emotes, and does all those grown up "in touch with my feminine side" things. H is still in the "I grunt my emotions" stage. If you go ahead with the couples counseling stuff - I would spend some time on this. How can H ever live up to the standard that T has set?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Well, I'm definitely not asking H to be like T-- but I am hoping and wishing that H could put some words to his emotions-- or to at least connect with his emotions... maybe acknowledge that they exist.

[Slippers]

Yeah...he's grown so much he can't express an emotion. Forehead flick to him. Oh Pink. Those Y chromosomes can be SO frustrating sometimes!!

I didn't mean to imply fault in expecting him to be as wonderous as T. It's just human to want our H's to be as focused on us as our T's are. It's easy to forget that outside the office our T's also stink up the bathroom, have mean morning breath, forget anniveraries, etc.

Hugs, S

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Slippers said:
It's easy to forget that outside the office our T's also stink up the bathroom, have mean morning breath, forget anniveraries, etc.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

What to you mean "outside the office?" They don't go outside the office.... do they? LOL.

[Slippers]

My mistake. Yours sleeps on the couch in your afterglow (aka buttprint).

S

[chaotic13]

I started my therapy thinking that it would be a family thing. That didn't happen. First I went to check my T out and make sure she seemed OK. Then my son went for a while, then finally I talked my H into to going. He went once, totally broke down during the session with regard to his relationship with our son. Then he recovered himself by saying all kind of crap about me and our private life. The end result of he his one day in therapy was: 1) that he was a complete emotional mess for the next week, 2) I was furious for a long time with both my T and him because in my mind the session was supposed to focus on our son not what I need to be doing for him, and 3) my H refuses to do any type of therapy and gets defensive when he knows I have an appointment.

Since this time I have continued to attend therapy alone. It has helped make our home a lot safer and a lot more positive for our children. Unfortunately, I think that the deeper conflict that exist between my H and I cannot be solved without him doing some individual work and then both of us doing at least a few sessions as a couple. I really don't see that happening at this point.

I will also so that I have grown a lot personally and this has created even more distance between us. However, I have some better coping skills now.