Want wife to finally quit therapy

[Spark1111]

Here's the thing about therapy:

 

You are allowed to talk until the cows come home....basically about anything you want to.

 

Sometimes, in the course of talking, and...and this is the biggest caveat...under the care of a good therapist....you should be challenged where you, the patient, have epiphanies of WHY you act and behave the way you do.

 

Voila! Very painful, but liberating when done correctly.

 

Some people go to therapy for years, but never divulge that mommy was abusive or that daddy was never home. For years....because it is important to all of us to believe we turned out ok.

 

A therapist cannot treat what is NOT honestly divulged by the patient.

 

Many a therapist will not challenge a patient for their honesty. They wait....too long and too expensively, for a patient to come to their own conclusions.

 

Yes, it can be a waste of time. The rule of thumb is to interview until you feel you may be able to connect, then give it three times, and if you feel progress is not being made, then find another.

 

BUT, the client needs to want to make progress, as opposed to being told they are ok. See the difference?

 

Many a marriage is plagued by spouses projecting the pain of their childhood parent onto their spouse.

 

Your wife may still have work to do if she returns to belittling you in front of the children. That HAS to STOP. And if she does not succesfully deal with her mother, it may not.

 

Call her on it, if and when you see it, in the most loving and kind way that you can. Encourage her to not only talk about it, but to figure out what you do (or don't do) that triggers it in private, outside of earshot of your children.

 

Good luck to you. Why not take her out on a date as often as she attended therapy. It will be cheaper and healthier for the relationship.

 

Often, we get tired of burdening our spouses with it. Let her know she can burden you at any time. Be a good listener...and validate her feelings.

 

Good luck to you.

[KathyM]

I haven't read all of the responses in the thread, but I'd just like to mention that if your wife is in the mental health field herself, either as a therapist, a social worker, or some other situation where she is helping others who are going through mental health issues, then she is often required, or at least strongly encouraged to have her own therapy as a means of self care. Listening to, coping with and dealing with all the issues that her clients/patients may have is very emotionally/psychologically draining, and in order to help them to cope with this emotional drain, they are encouraged and sometimes required to have their own therapy. If she is in the mental health field, she will probably need to have her own therapy while she is in that field, so you need to be understanding of how difficult it is for a person to be in that field, and that is why they need their own therapy. Three times a week is excessive, though. Once a week should be enough. And if your wife is not communicating to you the way you would like, have a talk with her about the importance of staying connected and communicating about any issues in the marriage that is affecting your marriage. But don't expect her to drop her therapist. She needs the individual counseling herself in order to stay effective and emotionally healthy while working in the mental health field.

[TiredFamilyGuy]

Spark1111: great post - I appreciate better the mechanisms of therapy, following your great description. It's not that I was against it as such, it's just that she had tried for years "every therapy except one that works" - all the while being completely crap to me at home and not talking, and making space for lots of therapy, and costing us money. So not much upside there for me.

 

KathyM: I would be fine with therapy for my wife if she was able to talk with and be civil to me at the same time as having it. So I needed to take it away from her to give her a reason to change her behaviour. I appreciate what you say, and for someone else it may have worked.

 

So far the plan seems to be functioning. We just went on vacation to the Great Lakes and Nova Scotia with our girls, saw some of my wife's relatives, went to a folk festival. It was pretty good. I got up early and went for walks a couple of times with her....gave her plenty of time to say what's on her mind: mostly stuff about her childhood and mother. It also helps that her relatives are pretty sane people, very plain speaking and with no side to them.

 

I have also been thinking a lot now about the past. It disturbs me a bit that one of my reactions is still to be really really angry about all that wasted time when my wife wouldn't talk to me but bitched in front of the kids instead. I try not to let this show, it would be a killer to conversation, but I do mention it sometimes, and can tell my wife is a bit freaked out by it. She just says that she "can't remember a lot about that time" which I take to mean that she remembers just fine, but doesn't want to own up to her actions much. Still, I'll try not to Saccuse, to breathe deeply and give her a pass on all that history, so long as she carries on talking.

 

So, so far so good.

[lordWilhelm]

Sounds like things are going quite well. I was worried at the beginning as I read the thread that you forced her out of therapy instead of going together... but, it seems to be working.

[2sunny]

I think keeping from you is her way of controlling the situation.

 

But how would you REALLY know someone if they kept the intimacy part out of the R? I think it would feel very empty.

[evryrozhasitsthorn]

I think you really have hit on something. To be intimate means loosing control, and for some it can be too scary to do, so they shut the person out whom they should be intimate with. It's "safer". But it's also very selfish. And very counter-productive.