Oh, and about couple's counseling . . .

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Oh, and about couple's counseling . . .
1
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 9:46am
H and I have been to several counselors. We have been to a couple of women counselor's who jumped his case and told him he was wrong and violent - they gave him no slack. Eventually, he quit going to them stating he was better. Yeah, he was better for, oh, maybe a week or two, then it would start back up again.

Last year he decided 'I' needed to go to counseling and he'd go with me so he asked around about getting a man counselor because 'he wanted a man who'd agree with him'. Well, we started going to this counselor who will never mention abuse. He did say 'well, Graig has admitted at being physical at times' - this is the extent he got. He was all about love and respect and saying the right things to each other. He would pat H on the back and tell him things would work out if he just did the things he said for him to do. Well, all this did nothing but make things worse. H definitely then did not take any responsibility for anything he did. Things were minimized and now he says 'you went to counseling for a year and it did you no good!' Even when the counselor told him he needed to go to his family and tell the truth about lies he's told, he says it never happened. He has completely lied about everything.

DO NOT GO TO COUPLE'S COUNSELING. Basically, in my opinion, in counseling like this does not work for the abuser unless he is 200% set on changing his ways. H even went to an anger management class for abusers. His opinion of that was that all the men there were 'set up' by their wives or SO.

Please don't even consider this. If he wants to go, let him go by himself. And don't let him blame anything on you! Sure after some of the things we have to put up with we will retaliate. If you see a dog who is abused and crouching in the corner all the time, haven't you seen where that dog eventually with come out with teeth barring? We have a right to defend ourselves. That doesn't mean we are to blame - that only means we have had enough.

Hugs,

Jackie

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2003
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 9:53am
Jackie, you're exactly right. I did six full months of marriage counseling with mine before I left him, and it did absolutely no good. If anything, it just made the abuse escalate, because we were actually "talking" about our problems (in our counseling sessions) instead of what was normal for us, where I would try to sweep all of our problems under the rug to avoid setting him off. So, after our counseling sessions, we'd almost always get into a huge argument. Couples counseling is *not* the way to go -- they have to be in batterer's intervention therapy in order for *any* kind of counseling to make a difference.

Love & Hugs,

Emm