First couples therapy next week - wondering how to approach it

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I have finally found someone and set up an appt. for couples counseling.  The therapist was listed as experienced with personality disorders so that's encouraging, though my wife is currently undiagnosed.

I'm extremely nervous about this.  I'm worried the session will be all about my episode of infidelity.  I'm worried about how honest I should be regarding my reason for therapy.  I can't just come out and say I'm hoping this will be a good path for my wife getting the individual help she needs.  I don't think I should come out and say that I'm hoping a third party will help emphasize to my wife how ridiculous it is that she hasn't helped out financially for the entire length of the marriage.  I _maybe_ can talk about how unhappy I am that she and I seem to have different financial goals and I don't want to stay with someone unwilling to help me reach them?  I will say that I think our communication is broken and that there seem to be a range of uncomfortable subjects that just don't seem to get discussed.

I'm not sure what to expect or even what my expectations should be.  I have tons of pet psychological theories about our marriage, for example how my self-esteem was low so I subconsiously picked a sexually abused women who was incapable of meeting my emotional and physical needs.  My theory how she tries to make herself as helpless and dependent on me as possible to try and emotionally manipulate me into staying in a broken marriage.  I feel like I should probably keep the self-help psychology to myself and let the professional do their thing.

I'm wondering what other people's experiences have been like and if there are any suggestions for how to approach this new territory for me.  I've done individual counseling before but nothing like this.

[adventurer]

I have finally found someone and set up an appt. for couples counseling.  The therapist was listed as experienced with personality disorders so that's encouraging, though my wife is currently undiagnosed.

I'm extremely nervous about this.  I'm worried the session will be all about my episode of infidelity.  I'm worried about how honest I should be regarding my reason for therapy.  I can't just come out and say I'm hoping this will be a good path for my wife getting the individual help she needs.  I don't think I should come out and say that I'm hoping a third party will help emphasize to my wife how ridiculous it is that she hasn't helped out financially for the entire length of the marriage.  I _maybe_ can talk about how unhappy I am that she and I seem to have different financial goals and I don't want to stay with someone unwilling to help me reach them?  I will say that I think our communication is broken and that there seem to be a range of uncomfortable subjects that just don't seem to get discussed.

I'm not sure what to expect or even what my expectations should be.  I have tons of pet psychological theories about our marriage, for example how my self-esteem was low so I subconsiously picked a sexually abused women who was incapable of meeting my emotional and physical needs.  My theory how she tries to make herself as helpless and dependent on me as possible to try and emotionally manipulate me into staying in a broken marriage.  I feel like I should probably keep the self-help psychology to myself and let the professional do their thing.

I'm wondering what other people's experiences have been like and if there are any suggestions for how to approach this new territory for me.  I've done individual counseling before but nothing like this.

[Michelle27]

I'm not sure how you should approach it, but I can tell you that three separate times, I dragged my husband to couple's therapy and it went down in flames every time.  My husband now admits that he was manipulative in those sessions and actually wanted it to fail.  His reasoning was that he didn't want the therapist to get close to his inner issues. 

It was such a traumatic experience each time that now that he claims to want to get better and IS pursuing psychiatric care, involvement with our local mental health agency which offers DBT and is also taking CBT classes and now wants to get couple's counseling, I am terrified.  I don't think he's ready (he's barely begun) and I am in therapy myself and doing a lot of other work on myself to help with my resentments, anger and PTSD like symptoms from years of rages. 

Honestly, I think it's best not to have any expectations... .I think that was part of my problem with the attempts we've made.  I wanted to go in and have a therapist SEE the problem and immediately give us advice and exercises to help make things better.  Yeah, we never even got into the REAL issues before things deteriorated and then my husband refused to go back.  I don't mean to be so pessimistic because I don't think this is the path all couples with a BPD partner will go, but I've read lots of similar stories here... .

[adventurer]

Honestly, I think it's best not to have any expectations... .I think that was part of my problem with the attempts we've made.  I wanted to go in and have a therapist SEE the problem and immediately give us advice and exercises to help make things better.  Yeah, we never even got into the REAL issues before things deteriorated and then my husband refused to go back.  I don't mean to be so pessimistic because I don't think this is the path all couples with a BPD partner will go, but I've read lots of similar stories here... .

Thanks for this.  I think you're right - I just need to relax and just take things as they come.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey adventurer, Agree w/Michelle27: keep your expectations low.  I did couples counseling with my BPDxW, with the same result each time.  She would go for a session or two, and then come up with some excuse to drop out.  Michelle describes this well:

His reasoning was that he didn't want the therapist to get close to his inner issues.  

The same could be said for my Ex.  She was unwilling to face her underlying issues, with the result that she returned to the same patterns -- rage and acting out -- in order to avoid the real issues, which were too painful or frightening for her to confront.

Perhaps your experience will be different and it's definitely worth a try, so keep us posed.

LuckyJim

[Michelle27]

I do hope your experience is different.  I recently (like 2 days ago) discovered that my husband has requested a referral to couple's counseling through a local battered women's shelter.  I am floored because I made it clear to him months ago that I didn't think we were ready for that until we had both done work on ourselves (and he has yet to have started with the psychiatrist that he asked our doctor for a referral to OR has even been accepted yet into our local Mental Health organization offering DBT classes).  I found out  by accident when his email to his step mom was accidentally forwarded to me.  I haven't brought it up because I don't think it'll go well, so I'm just waiting to hear if/when that appointment happens.  At that point, I know I'll be going in there with a very different attitude than I did the first several times.

Please keep us posted on how it goes.

[adventurer]

Thanks everyone, I will keep you posted.

Today is the day and I'm nervous, but she REALLY does not want to go. This morning she has already attempted to bait me into a big fight. Last night I told her about some logistical house stuff I was planning to do today and she was trying to insist that I told her I already did it yesterday. I just remained calm and said, 'well, there must have just been some misunderstanding somewhere, no big deal.'

My guess is she is either trying to find an outlet for her negative emotions with a fight, or even trying derail the whole day so we are unable to keep the appointment.

[Lucky Jim]

My guess is she is either trying to find an outlet for her negative emotions with a fight, or even trying derail the whole day so we are unable to keep the appointment.

Probably all of the above.  Good luck!  LuckyJim

[adventurer]

Back from the first session. It went well. We went over some basic relationship history and started talking about some of the specific areas of conflict - the therapist did quite a bit of empathic listening which seemed to put my wife at ease. My wife was on the verge of tears a couple times.

Next the therapist wants to meet with us each individually and then reconnect in another group session. My wife has agreed (for now) to go along with this, though she was very withdrawn and cold immediately after the session.

I let my guard down a bit and argued for a minute with her about the timing of one of her illnesses - she claimed I start arguments with her when she is very sick and gave an example. I started arguing that it was after we fought about her getting a job that she got sick not the other way around. She pushed back, but I quickly stopped myself and said maybe I was just mixed up. I also said maybe I was thinking of the time she was really sick and thought she was pregnant instead of the time she came down with vertigo! 

I will continue to keep my expectations low on this, my gut is telling me that my wife will drop out if we approach some core issues too closely.

[adventurer]

I am also not sure in my individual session if I should talk about what I feel are my wife's psychological issues or not. I am thinking I probably will avoid that and just focus on specific behaviors that cause strain in the marriage.

[adventurer]

aaaand now I'm getting the hostile silent treatment

sorry, just needed someplace to vent for a second

just gotta keep myself cool tonight!

ok thanks - we now return to your regularly scheduled program

[Sunfl0wer]

My 2 cents:

I made the mistake of getting home and explaining a bit of the feedback the therapist gave.  (We were seeing her for a year) He apparently "missed hearing" something that was clearly for him to work on something.

IF your partner has selective hearing, DO NOT correct it later after the session.  Use the session to ask for clarification if you need it.  It is selective hearing to protect them, do not try to facilitate this process faster than they are ready!  Allow it to happen at the pace it is happening, do NOT supplement the treatment in hopes it will go faster.

The result of my error was: He felt he was "the bad guy" and was too ashamed to ever go back.  He made up some lame fight with me the day before our next due session, as an excuse to not put anymore effort into the relationship, as I was no longer deemed worthy of a guy willing to put in the work.

[Sunfl0wer]

I am also not sure in my individual session if I should talk about what I feel are my wife's psychological issues or not. I am thinking I probably will avoid that and just focus on specific behaviors that cause strain in the marriage.

Idk what others think but I certainly have!  I think it is our job to be honest during our solo sessions and that is MY time.  I can only imagine that me holding back my honesty during a solo just makes her job harder.  (I would just never ever ever tell my BF anything negative I say about him or vice versa, or he may run for fear of being painted black)

Now when together as a couple, I had to be mindful not to trigger him so he would still participate.  I didn't get as brutal honest, but tried to demonstrate and practice our r/s skills and communication.  I tried to make it easy for him to participate, but if I had an issue, I was honest too.

If you are having a difficult time with "the process" it is always a good idea to make therapist aware.  Once it was a good thing, I said I was having a trust issue with the therapist and requested an additional solo to resolve this.  (My bf lied previously and accused ME of violence that was actually his projection, so I felt the need to clarify this privately as it got so confusing). Or once I was projecting, the T did something that annoyed me that bf did, so I let him know this issue existed.  It is good to be aware that the way you interact with T is part of the therapeutic process and much growth comes of what develops with the T r/s.

[LonelyChild]

Couples therapy does not work with BPDso unless the T is specialized in BPD.

I went to CT with my xBPDgf. It ended up with her telling the T how I am an abuser, how I beat her bloody regularly. The T said "well, LonelyChild, we cannot work with such a violent r/s, you need to go see a T on your own first and become less violent, so you can manage your emotions." I thought I was on prank'd or something.

Afterwards, I asked her why she lied. She said "because you kept talking about so many things."

I should also say that I *did* hit her several times during a period in our r/s, because I ran out of tools to handle her craziness. I never punched her in the face, but I b___slapped her several times.

For example, one time, she attacked me. Her eyes were crazy, she kept hitting me and kicking me. I held her arms and said "stop, don't do this, just stop." She screamed "HIT ME, HIT ME". I said "stop, stop NOW." She kept doing it. I pushed her away. She attacked me again. I had enough and gave her a b___slap as hard as I could. She fell down and hit her head and started crying. I wanted to take her to the ER but she wouldn't let me. She crawled up to me and held my leg and cried "I love you, I love you, I'm so sorry."

Another time I handled it by pushing her out of my apartment. Result? She started crying and screaming like CRAZY outside, so my neighbor showed up. She told him I hit her and was abusive. I called 911, then went out to tell her police are on their way. My neighbor was still there. She started screaming ":)ON'T HURT ME MORE, DON'T HIT ME" and crawling backwards.

These people are INSANE. CT does not work unless it's a T specialized in BPD. Do NOT go there, because she will just get you in trouble.

[IsItHerOrIsItMe]

I am also not sure in my individual session if I should talk about what I feel are my wife's psychological issues or not. I am thinking I probably will avoid that and just focus on specific behaviors that cause strain in the marriage.

If the therapist is any good this is exactly why individual sessions were suggested.  You should be 100% honest about your concerns, mention BPD specifically and tell them everything you wouldn't say in a couples session.

Not that honesty guarantees results, but the slower you provide accurate information the slower the process will be.

[adventurer]

If the therapist is any good this is exactly why individual sessions were suggested.  You should be 100% honest about your concerns, mention BPD specifically and tell them everything you wouldn't say in a couples session.

Thanks for the reply - I will do this.

LonelyChild, I have taken your words of caution to heart.

[adventurer]

I wasn't sure whether or not to start a new thread, but I went to my individual session today, hers is coming up soon.

I just really wanted to thank everyone here for their input.  Everyone's advice here was incredibly useful and made the session much more productive than I could have imagined.  Basically, we talked about what I hoped to get out of the couples therapy as well as my overall expectations (which I admitted were pretty low).  I shared some examples of concerning behavior on my wife's part and my concerns that she may have BPD.  We also talked about about my depression and anger management issues and the work I've been doing in counseling over the past 2 years or so to improve myself.

The therapist is already trying to gauge the likelihood of self-harm or other damaging behaviors on my wife's part should separation be brought to the table.  The therapist will tell us more regarding a treatment plan after meeting with my wife alone, but I suspect she will recommend individual sessions for the both of us along with the couples meetings, which I would welcome.

I did tell her that my guess was my wife will abandon treatment when things go too deep but I was going to try and keep an open mind about everything as much as I could in order to give this relationship a fair and final chance to work.

Thanks again, everyone.  This board has been a great resource for advice, constructive criticism, self-improvement and venting/ranting.   

[Sunfl0wer]

This is such good news!  I'm glad you posted it here so we can see the result.

Great job!