Am I wrong to just refuse to go to marital counseling

[ugghh]

I have been married for 25 plus years to uBPDw.  3 kids between 16 and 20 at this point. 

After this last pre-Thanksgiving blowout where I was once again told to get our of the bedroom, I decided that I am just going to stay on the couch.  As I learned in another thread, I think I have hit my tipping point.

My uBPDw is very high functioning.  Educated, good job, loved by friends and able to accomplish many individual achievements.  Over the course of our marriage we have attended multiple weekends for couples in efforts to improve communications/etc., including follow up groups.  Marriage Encounter, Retrouvaille, Gottmann plus off an on sessions with counselors over the years as couples and individuals.  Around a year ago, she terminated the sessions with the last therapist after about 5 or 6 sessions insisting that all we did was talk about the kids and the dishes, and that what we really needed to talk about was emotions and feelings.  About midway through this year she implored me to spend the weekend on another workshop to fix/improve our relationship.   After she said the last counselor was ineffective I was very reluctant but eventually agreed to attend the weekend, after she informed me that she had paid for it and was going by herself and would hope for the best.

Of course as with many of these type of sessions, if you actively participate you can always learn something.  Of course I did manage to bring tears to the eyes of my uBPDw as I told her one of the most important reasons I got married was to have kids and start a family.  The right answer was supposed to be to share my life with her.  In the interceding 6 months I have been chastised multiple times as she has told me I only married her so I had a vessel to bear kids.  Sigh, so much for being honest.

Fast forward to a few months ago and she is again talking about how our relationship is broken and following the usual pattern is using all the buzzwords from the latest workshop to demonstrate how that fits our marriage.  Then she starts beating the drum for the return to marital counseling.  She said we need to go to a therapist that will jump right into making us talk about the feelings and communications.  Thankfully my counselor bluntly said that counseling under that type of condition sounds an awful lot like her attempting to control.

To be brutally honest I just don't see the point in going to MC if we can't talk about the BPD elephant in the room. 

Maybe it is the work I have been doing with my counselor over the last couple of years.  I have finally reached the point where I can acknowledge my shortcomings and failures in the relationship without having to own everything that is wrong.  I even took the step of calling the counselor she wanted to use and bluntly asked how can you treat a marriage if BPD were a factor.  His answer did not give me much comfort - he basically said, well we start with the couple and hopefully that gives an opening to address the issues of the individual.  I guess I have just hit the point where I don't want to give up another couple years of my life in the slim hopes that anything will change.  I feel like a one armed, one legged man trying to climb a ladder.

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[Regular_Joe]

Wow - what you've recounted could have been a page taken out of my own experiences! However, I'm afraid all I can offer is a sympathetic ear, since I myself was not successful in keeping the relationship. When I consider the marriage counseling\retreats etc now, it seems like such a waste of time. (I'm thinking of a catchphrase a board member here was often fond of posting: "The disorder always wins... .".

Sorry to get maudlin on you. Anyway, kudos to you for putting your nose to the grindstone and trying again- it does count, really. Personally, I think that maybe you're not asking the right question. IMO, it's not a matter of right vs. wrong... .more like will another round of marriage counseling lead to the desired outcome?

Hindsight is 20\20 of course, and I believe that one of the reasons marriage counseling didn't work for us is that she and I did not have shared, definite goals for what we wanted to accomplish with it. (Part of that is my fault BTW.) In fact, she often took these sessions as an opportunity to gripe rather than work on any mutual goals.

"It takes two to tango" as they say, and if both partners don't share the same goals for what they want to get out of counseling, then it simply ain't gonna work. Just my $0.02.

Good Luck!

[iluminati]

Not only no, but *expletive* no.  As someone who was an ambassador, and a long-time denizen of the Staying side, I would say the leading source of people making it to this site are marriage counselors mentioning a BPD situation. 

If someone has BPD, they have to deal with their stuff before any sort of help will work.  In my experience, dealing with both this board and pwBPD, a common relationship strategy is to get their SO fixed to be "the perfect partner", so that they'll be committed to them and meet their needs entirely.  Ultimately, it's reflective of a poor understanding of boundaries, where they believe their SO is supposed to be a part of them instead of a relationship being a give and take between two people.  Unless your wife somehow gets that, nothing you do as a couple will work, period.

[Turkish]

Not only no, but *expletive* no.  As someone who was an ambassador, and a long-time denizen of the Staying side, I would say the leading source of people making it to this site are marriage counselors mentioning a BPD situation. 

If someone has BPD, they have to deal with their stuff before any sort of help will work.  In my experience, dealing with both this board and pwBPD, a common relationship strategy is to get their SO fixed to be "the perfect partner", so that they'll be committed to them and meet their needs entirely.  Ultimately, it's reflective of a poor understanding of boundaries, where they believe their SO is supposed to be a part of them instead of a relationship being a give and take between two people. 

Mine sent me to a couples' communication class... .tried to send me alone. To couples communication. That was almost 5 years ago. We both went, and she thought it was a pretty good class. I did, too. But we soon continued the toxic dance... .

This last time, she sent us to couples' therapy, thereafter abandoning her part after two individual sessions. But she was already knee deep in some kind of affair. So it was a trick? To punish me more? I was broken, of course, and I was the one who abandoned her (emotionally), so I was the problem. She in reality abandoning me didn't and still doesn't compute. She was always the good communicator, me the poor one. She probably still thinks that. I found something she wrote her paramour two months ago: "He's been nicer to me lately, I think the counseling is helping him." As if I was completely unjustified in not being "nice" after finding out about them. And as things go, I've been pretty darn nice (mostly because we have kids).

[nevaeh]

My uBPDh and I have been to marriage counseling a handful of times over the past 18 years, and all of these times took place within the same year that I caught him in an affair he was having while deployed to Iraq for the military.  I, personally, have seen countless therapists over the past 18 years... .I'm guessing I've seen no less than 10.  The only reason my H went to see the marriage counselor with me is because I said I was leaving him and that was the only chance he had at even thinking he might be able to keep me around.  The second time we went to counseling was about a year after that when we were fighting like crazy and he agreed to go because, again, I was threatening to leave.

His participation in the counseling was marginal.  My H is also very high-functioning.  Very intelligent, very friendly, talkative, etc.  He is good at talking the talk.  The MC post affair talked a lot about trust and slippery slope, etc.  The other MC was more focused on us "improving our communications".  I have also bought books about how to "rescue" our marriage, and we also attended a couple of weekend relationship workshops meant to turn our relationship around.  Obviously nothing stuck long-term because I will be leaving H within the next couple of months.

Oh, we also attended a few "family" counseling sessions regarding my S12 (then 8) who had just been diagnosed with ADD, anxiety and depression.  The intent of those sessions was to "improve" our parenting skills and learn how to deal with our "difficult" child in a more effective way.  Considering that my H has zero patience for S12 and frequently puts him down, swears at him and calls him names, I would say that it didn't stick and he was not open to anything that counselor had to say.  Not to mention that I didn't feel "safe" enough to talk about H's temper and it's effect on my S12 (and me) and how we could figure out strategies for him to perhaps how to reel in his temper for the sake of being a better parent to his son.  Pretty sad that I couldn't be honest with the counselor because I was worried about how H might react when we got home. 

The last time I told my H I was contemplating leaving was about 3 years ago.  We agreed that we would not do marriage counseling again and he agreed to go to individual counseling, which he had never been willing to do before.  He went to 4 appointments, I believe.  He emailed me after his first appointment and was upset because the therapist asked him what he hoped to achieve through counseling and he had no idea how to respond.  The reason he emailed me was because he wanted me to tell him what his goal should be.  I refused to answer for him and told him he had to figure that out on his own.  He ended up deciding (and telling the therapist) that his goal for counseling was to "figure out how to prevent his wife from leaving him".  um, ok.  He said he didn't get much out of counseling and I'm doubtful that he would ever go back and try it again.

Back in July we were going through a really rough patch and during a conversation we were having I mentioned that I was really confused about what I want and mentioned that maybe I should go back to counseling.  To this he responded that I am not to go to counseling again... .it's just a waste of money and all they do is get you to talk about your feelings.  My translation---you can't go to counseling because if you do you will realize that you would be better off without me, I will lose control over you, and you will leave me.  He is right... .if I attend counseling I will learn that there is a better way, that I don't have to be a doormat, and I don't have to live with someone who makes me nervous and bitter all the time.  

Anyway, bottom line is that I am a little concerned that H will make an attempt to sway me to stay with promises of counseling.  I have zero interest in MC at this point.  It won't help.  Nothing will help.  The only thing that will help is for me to be free of him so I can figure out who I am and how I fit in to this world without my partner constantly pulling my strings and controlling my emotional well-being.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey ugghh, I was married to my BPDxW for 16 years and spent many nights on the couch, as you describe, not to mention several nights at the local motel when my Ex was consumed by rage, so I have been in your shoes, my friend.  I also went the MC route many times, yet the result was always the same: After 4 or 5 visits, my Ex would drop out of MC, citing some excuse, usually when the counselor started to urge her to take responsibility for her role in the breakdown of our marriage, which in her mind was all my fault.  So it never really went anywhere and it was only in individual counseling sessions that I made any progress.  So I'm with you in refusing to return to MC only to wind up in the same place again.  Hang in there, Lucky Jim

[iluminati]

My experience correlates with all of you.  The difference is that I figured out the scoop the first time, so with each successive attempt at marriage counseling with the stbxw, I just sat back, made my feelings clear in a few brief sentences, then tossed it on her lap.  Suddenly, she couldn't figure out what she wanted or was otherwise rendered mute.  Shocked, shocked, I say.

Still, I would like to say something in the way of, if not necessarily defense, but explanation of our significant others with BPD.  One, people with BPD are neeeeeeedy.  It's a neediness that is hard to comprehend, but it's definitely there.  It's somewhat (though not necessarily) connected to the adultery they may do.  They have so many emotional needs that it becomes anything-to-fill-the-hole in their minds.  Until and unless they confront the abyss within, they will go find someone or something to fit that need, and if you can't step up, well, someone else can.   Plus someone who isn't around all the time isn't going to know the whole scoop and will unwittingly fall into that role.  I've seen on this board many people who fell into that role, got a promotion to the main dude/chick and got a rude awakening as to what the deal was.

The other thing is that people with BPD suck with communicating their emotional needs.  If they could say what they wanted, they wouldn't need to manipulate to get their needs met in the first place.  In terms of what to do and why, use the tools.  I know when I started using them many moons ago, I learned a lot about the pain that was there.  Of course, what you do with that is up to you, but if you have to deal with your pwBPD for any reason post-relationship, they are a Godsend.

[santa]

I don't see that it will make a difference either way.

Mine said that she tried to get me to go to relationship counseling with her and I refused. It was the first time I'd ever heard her mention it. Lol

They just make up whatever story they want no matter what actually happened.

[fromheeltoheal]

So with all this counseling and such, why is your wife still undiagnosed?  Marriage is difficult enough, but when one partner has a serious mental illness, it borders on impossible unless the other person is willing to endlessly bend to meet the whims.  I realize I'm preaching to the choir.

As you mention ugg, BPD is the elephant in the room, and it is very difficult to tell someone they have a serious mental illness, have them accept it, and seek treatment.  And with all the BPD avoidance tools, of course that will create a sht storm coming back at you.  Still preaching to the choir.

My relationship was a whole lot shorter and we weren't married, so when I got fed up I left.  For me it would be ultimatum time, but I realize there are kids involved.  Parents make massive sacrifices for their kids, but do you have to make sacrifices for your wife too?  I got a massive sense of relief and a huge weight off my shoulders when I left, and it's impressive the amount of work you've done on yourself over the years; I did too, but none of it really hit home until I removed myself from the pathology, and then it all hit, and life got really, really good.  I get what you mean about tipping point.

[maxen]

hi ugghh. it sounds like you've made your effort. you are entirely justified in refusing to get back on the wheel.

my experience was like turkish's:

I was broken, of course, and I was the one who abandoned her (emotionally), so I was the problem.

i certainly have benefitted from therapy, and i could have used it in the marriage too. the distinction i'm making is that, according to my stbxw, i need therapy, but she's "just the way i am." and with an attitude like that, you won't get anywhere in couples therapy. and that sounds like the attitude you're facing too.

on a deeper level, it's what you yourself have indicated, the BPD has to be addressed first, and she sounds unlikely to agree to that.

about me:

The other thing is that people with BPD suck with communicating their emotional needs.

from what i've read here, by opening themselves up at all they're opening themselves up to rejection, and that's not an option. right at the start of the marriage my stbxw established the pattern: i would initiate emotion-talk (or any talk) and she would then disgorge something she'd been hoarding and never mentioned when she was feeling it. no amount of assurance that she could tell me anything ever took. so my marriage ended not with "maxen, i'm kind of unhappy and i'm not sure we can fix things", but with weeks/months of deceit leading a one hour rehearsed statement and driving off to move in with the other party. when i faced her with what she did she shrugged and accused me of acting morally superior because i was honest.

[Skip]

Hi  ugghh... .

I'm moving this over to the Staying Board to keep it real.  The Leaving / Intervention board is not the best place to get "balanced" marriage advice - this is a community of people that have terminal relationships and are walking away.

"Am I wrong to just refuse to go to marital counseling?"  In short, probably yes - and I'm focusing in on the word "refuse".   If you have any hope for the relationship, there has to a willingness to work on things.  And that wiliness can take many forms but "I refuse" is probably not one of them.

You mention that this latest problem may be the tipping point.  Maybe the real question is are you ready to call a lawyer and start dividing assets and move out?  Or maybe the question is, are you frustrated and feeling hopeless and don't know what to do.

Marriage counseling is a mixed bag of nuts... .and there are many counselors that aren't skill enough to handle a person with BPD traits - and frankly that goes beyond marriage counselors - finding a fit for a pwBPD that will work even one on on is complex.  But this is where I'd start. A higher level guy (psychologist) with personality disorder experience.

Maybe it is the work I have been doing with my counselor over the last couple of years.  I have finally reached the point where I can acknowledge my shortcomings and failures in the relationship without having to own everything that is wrong.  

Good!

I even took the step of calling the counselor she wanted to use and bluntly asked how can you treat a marriage if BPD were a factor.  His answer did not give me much comfort - he basically said, well we start with the couple and hopefully that gives an opening to address the issues of the individual.  

This is how it works and its OK. He can't very well say - oh its her, I'll fix that (nor can he say the opposite).  The question is, is the guy qualified.

Thankfully my counselor bluntly said that counseling under that type of condition sounds an awful lot like her attempting to control.

You may both be in this place.  Or maybe its just her.  And that really needs to be sorted out.  Often where the counseling goes wrong is when one party sees it as a process to fix the other - and that is very common.  Is this where it breaks down for you?  Is this what needs to be addressed?

I guess I have just hit the point where I don't want to give up another couple years of my life in the slim hopes that anything will change.  I feel like a one armed, one legged man trying to climb a ladder.

This may be the bottom line.  Ready to toss in the towel?

[ugghh]

Skip,

Thanks for the move - it's does make total sense.  I think what realized is that I asked the wrong question but I was on the right board.

Maybe the real question is are you ready to call a lawyer and start dividing assets and move out?  Or maybe the question is, are you frustrated and feeling hopeless and don't know what to do.

Actually last night I had to bring myself to the realization that I am ready to call the lawyer, which I did this morning.  I had the conversation with the wife last night and proceeded to pack a bag and go spend the night with family.  I realized that as much as I want to be gentle and kind to her, and try as I might, I could no longer see any other way.

The last time the counseling broke down for us was when the counselor would ask what is on our mind, I would state what was going on, she would ask uBPDw to respond, wife would state that she felt ganged up on and attacked.  :)id that for a few times and after every counseling session wife would go on about how that was a waste of time and we weren't working on the right things.  So yes I guess that is where it broke down.

[owdrs]

ugggh,

I'm married almost 23 yrs, 16d 20s. Your post scared me at first as I thought it was too close to home--I've been to both individual and joint C, and retrovailles(?). I filed twice and almost 3 times during marriage. Going through the third and final right now.

Always something new needed to make her better/happy. I tried it all. The clincher for me long ago was how she treated her own kids--raging, absent, etc.

My final straw was last year she seemed different, and I found match.com stuff on her computer (just by luck she happened to leave it open and there it was) and then found texts from a guy she was with while traveling. She has denied that she ever cheated on me-----vehemently. But all the evidence says otherwise. She does slip in comments about what would it matter if she did since I don't meet any of her needs. Stuff like that.

I'll say this--I always tried to reach some sort of deal on what we needed to do to make things better. If she said more affection then I did it, if the house needed more cleaning I did it, if we needed more money then I did it. But after all these years we're still the same... .and it's all my fault. She's so good at convincing me, too, it's hard to stay sane. I swear there are times we are arguing and I can't recall what my original point was, as she has turned it around on me again. I have also over the years told her things the kids would say to me, why is mom so mean to me---why does mom treat everyone else nice but not us, and it never mattered. She would yell "I'm their mother and I have a right to ... ."

So, eventually I said no to MC. I knew it wasn't going to suddenly solve things. What I saw it as was a stall tactic to keep me around.

At your length of marriage you know deep down who you each are. It may be just too dang hard for a person with BPD to admit to it, and have to deal with it. I don't know. There was never any progress with us. And I am your parallel universe (I think). Strength to you!

owdrs

[ugghh]

Thanks Owdrs.  Sometimes the similarities on this board scare me as well.  On the other hand it is the strength of the community and the commonality of experience that hopefully helps all of us to find the peace that we each deserve.

I echo your observations about  the treatment of the kids.  We have 3 as I state in OP and she can never love them all at the same time, at least one of them always has to be on the outs.  Even today, just 24 hours after I told I was done, she sends me an email with her holiday plans - she and S18 are going to visit her sister out of state for Xmas week, then she and D20 are going to visit her mother out state for New Years and oh yeah sometime before or between she will celebrate Xmas with S16 by taking him to a movie-- what the H$ll... .

Strength back to you and thanks for the words of encouragement.

[Theo41]

After a huge blow out during a recent visit by one of my children my uBPDw was so devastated by what she had done ( under the influence of more than a few drinks) that she finally agreed to go to counseling. I was thrilled. We will be going together.  THEO

[owdrs]

ugghh,

I get the same stuff--almost like a threat. Just bully her way without any input. What I realized, and it took years, is that she simply forces her way through everything; totally takes over. Then... .complains saying she has to do it all. But never... .'do you want this' or 'what do you think'.

There comes a time when you just know what is always going to happen. I don't believe her promises, and fake actions when she is forced to change---I've seen it before. Always the old uBPDw comes back. Always.

I told her it was like I've been making deposits all my married life, only to find there was nothing there. And now I don't have anything left to deposit.

owdrs

[sadeyes]

Could you find a therapist that would do mostly individual with a few together sessions in the mix? I don't know if that would be possible or even work, but if it was put more like working on out individual parts that relate to the marriage so we can learn on our own ways how to relate... .

[Turkish]

I was thinking today that my X resents me so much because we have had to do this a few times, couples' communication, even sex therapy the first year of our r/s (basically me shutting down due to her verbal and emotional abuse... .confirmed that this was a normal reaction from a healthy person, but my X never believed it, but then it got better), now this sending us to couples's therapy, but only after her affair started, to punish me, I guess, to fix what was wrong with me.

Maybe it is me. Or maybe I am by far the most mature person she's ever been in a r/s with and it is normal to have these issues  between an adult (me) and someone who is emotionally a teenager at best. Still wondering if there is something "wrong" with me. Will ask T today, as he's been seeing me for two months now.

[ugghh]

Turkish,

Stick with the therapy.  If your experience is similar to mine you will slowly find yourself again and it is an awesome feeling.

My D20 reminded me the other night that she called me almost every day for 6 weeks to goad me into starting therapy 18 months ago.  It may have been the best gift I have ever received.

[maxen]

even sex therapy the first year of our r/s (basically me shutting down due to her verbal and emotional abuse... .confirmed that this was a normal reaction from a healthy person... .)

thank you for mentioning that, it is (was  :'( ) relevant to my situation

[Turkish]

even sex therapy the first year of our r/s (basically me shutting down due to her verbal and emotional abuse... .confirmed that this was a normal reaction from a healthy person... .)

thank you for mentioning that, it is (was  :'( ) relevant to my situation

she has a female friend who was my analog,  and had issues on the female  side with her  now x husband.  my X  still didn't get it.   All about them... .

[maxen]

even sex therapy the first year of our r/s (basically me shutting down due to her verbal and emotional abuse... .confirmed that this was a normal reaction from a healthy person... .)

thank you for mentioning that, it is (was  :'( ) relevant to my situation

she has a female friend who was my analog,  and had issues on the female  side with her  now x husband.  my X  still didn't get it.   All about them... .[/quote]
after she left, my w said "i haven't had a marriage for (a certain period of time)", meaning no sex. it's a messy story: i shut down for a while because of abusive treatment. but i came back on to her, often, sometimes when she was au naturel, and she never responded. and she never approached me. technically she had withheld sex from me but she hadn't had the marriage. it's all about them. this was one of many things which were unforgivable, no matter how much time passed or how i repaired (so to speak) my behaviors.