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Author Topic: Couples' group therapy  (Read 550 times)
Dragon72
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« on: June 13, 2017, 08:48:23 AM »

My uBPD wife wants us to go to a group couples' therapy session. 

I have agreed to go, but I have a feeling that it will not be a productive experience.  Whenever I have tried to express my feelings about our relationship and offered to work through differences in the past, it has resulted in vicious counterattacks, rather than cooperation and compromise which is really what it should be about imo.

I am more and more coming to the conclusion that I will never have a loving and emotionally intimate relationship with my wife and I am looking more and more at the possibility of divorce and liberating myself from this relationship.  I have agreed to go to the session because it may count against me in a court if I don't.

Can any good come of these couples group therapy sessions?  I have a feeling she'll love having an audience to put me down in front of.
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Grey Kitty
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« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2017, 09:34:34 AM »

I think you are correct to have low expectations--Couples therapy has a poor track record with a pwBPD--Normally they convince the counselor (or group) that you are to blame for everything... .or if that doesn't work because the counselor sees through it, they decide that the counselor is "against them", paint the counselor back, and refuse to continue the "unfair" therapy.

Showing up as a way of demonstrating that you are doing your part for the marriage in court is a game that you can both play.

You predict that if she doesn't approach it with genuine interest and ability to improve things, she will take the role of beating you up in front of the group.

If you are correct, I suspect your best move is to simply say nothing or failing that, nothing of substance... .ignore the instructions/guidance toward productive resolution of issues as much as she does, just in a different direction--you know that trying to berate her in front of an audience (like you expect her to) will just make things worse for you.

Are either of you in individual therapy?
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Dragon72
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« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2017, 10:45:14 AM »

No, neither of us are in individual T.
She doesn't think anythings wrong with her.
Having been in therapy before for long periods, I am skeptical about its value (particularly when money's tight).

I am very close to starting down the road to divorce, but am nervous about the backlash from her, particularly if she starts fabricating things about me.
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Grey Kitty
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« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2017, 11:08:26 AM »

Being nervous about the reaction is pretty normal.

I would recommend planning out how you would go about separation/divorce without taking any steps you cannot back down on, and without giving her a clue about it... .and if you decide to do it, make a plan which includes when and how you will tell her.

If you don't have kids and thus won't have a custody battle, things are a lot cleaner, and fabricated allegations aren't as dangerous. It depends upon your job as well--some jobs are particularly vulnerable to scandals/etc.

... .whatever... .that is all speculative, and not today's problem... .you sound very fearful of what she does to you. Have you been able to enforce boundaries to protect yourself from verbal/emotional abuse (or physical abuse if she does that too!)?
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Dragon72
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« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2017, 02:39:16 PM »

Thanks Grey Kitty.

We do have a son, so the stakes are high and therefore the likelihood of her taking extreme measures are high too.
My career is schoolteacher (kids age 11-18), so that's something that could get badly affected by allegations of any sort.
However, she may be intelligent enough to stop short of ruining me. That would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
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Dragon72
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« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2017, 03:37:22 PM »

I guess I am fearful about her reactions in most things, that's why I'm in this mess.

I am trying to stand up for myself more and establish boundaries and JADE less and get out of conversations when they descend into circularity. 

She's never been violent, she can sometimes rage by shouting and projecting accusations, but most of the emotional abuse is by withdrawing affection and companionship and giving silent treatment.  She's been more a moody roommate than a wife for 3 years now.
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Grey Kitty
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« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2017, 09:16:10 AM »

Well... .I'd recommend three things for you:

1. Go post on the legal board with your situation and concerns about a divorce/custody battle... .so you are better able to protect yourself and your children's interest if she does file.

2. Go to the couples group therapy... .and do your best to avoid talking much about anything she does wrong in your marriage... .

3. Work on boundaries to protect yourself and your children from the occasional raging/shouting incidents... .posting specifically how a recent incident went here is will give us a chance to show you better ways you can handle it next time.

Lastly, the silent treatment/withdrawn affection is one of the worst forms of emotional abuse... .and you can do almost nothing to protect yourself from it besides leaving the relationship. (Which isn't your choice today.)

You can stop chasing after her, asking/begging for acknowledgment or affection. That gives her a bonus opportunity to hurt you, and (ultimately) encourages her to do more of it because it is clearly 'working' on you.

When she's emotionally away, you can remove yourself physically and spend your time doing something that doesn't involve her. That helps a little, and tends to show her that it isn't 'working' as well, so perhaps she will give up on it.
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formflier
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« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2017, 09:18:38 AM »

Hey... .I would say give it a shot, have very low expectations and focus on how you communicate.

So... is "couples group therapy" multiple married couples talking about their issues?  Or... .Is this going to be you and your wife and a counselor.

Changing how you communicate is where you should focus, because it is what you control.  

I would recommend that you take the step of individual T.  Nothing has to be "wrong" with you.  

"My marriage is important to me, I want to understand and improve my part in the marriage as best I can."

In group T  "It would mean a lot to me if you would go to individual T to understand and improve, as best you can, your part in the marriage"

Keep it that simple... .

FF
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Grey Kitty
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« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2017, 09:37:51 AM »

Never mind recommendation #1--I see you already did post on the legal board. And yes, talking to a lawyer is a good idea for you.
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Dragon72
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« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2017, 11:22:54 AM »

AFAIK, it's multiple couples.
I'm going to have to really try hard not to say anything critical about her though.  It'll have to be lots of "I feel... ." statements.

To be frank about the situation, I just want out of the marriage.  I really can't see her ever improving. The damage was done decades ago, long before I ever showed up on the scene.  I was just the first chump who put up with her antics and considered my needs less important - like a true codependent.

I'm beginning to stick up for myself a bit more now, to say "no" and not feel guilty, and to not take responsibility for her reaction to that.  It's not easy.

I'm also trying to start to do more for me and not feel guilty, although this is difficult as the father of a 3 year old boy.

The next step for me is to seek legal advice, which will be a difficult task when she likes to account for my whereabouts 24/7 and since I am bewildered by choice of lawyers here in a huge mega-city where the language is not my mother-tongue and none of the googling I have done has offered me any suggestions of a divorce attorney with experience of dealing with high conflict PD types.  I'll also need to squirrel away some more $$ as the only secret funds I have won't get the job done.
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Grey Kitty
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« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2017, 02:02:34 PM »

AFAIK, it's multiple couples.
I'm going to have to really try hard not to say anything critical about her though.  It'll have to be lots of "I feel... ." statements.

Talking about how you feel would be a good-faith effort in this group therapy session. You can try that, 'tho I am not expecting good results.

But you say this, which makes me suggest an alternative:
Excerpt
To be frank about the situation, I just want out of the marriage.  I really can't see her ever improving.

Shutting your trap and refusing to say anything critical about your wife, or acknowledge that you have feelings that she's hurting is another approach. It isn't about trying to get good results from the therapy. It is about trying to avoid saying something that she will latch onto and beat you up over. Not a good-faith effort to fix anything, just damage control.


OTOH, THIS:
Excerpt
The next step for me is to seek legal advice, which will be a difficult task when she likes to account for my whereabouts 24/7 ... .

Consider taking a stand against this. Tell her that you can't live with her knowing where you are 24/7, and interrogating her about everything you do.

Take the stand now, so you can go out for a walk, or have a drink with a friend after work, and not have to report in every minute about it.

Once you get that established, it will make that visit to the lawyer a lot easier to schedule!
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formflier
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« Reply #11 on: June 14, 2017, 04:07:12 PM »


Turn your I feel statements into "I don't understand... ."

Hand them back to her

I don't understand the way you communicate to me when there is a lot of emotion.  Can we both commit to trying a different way?

Any kind of therapy where there is a "debate" about "wrongness" or fault is going to have poor results.  pwBPD love that... .it's not their fault... .

FF

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Dragon72
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« Reply #12 on: June 16, 2017, 02:14:49 PM »

So, couples therapy this evening for the first time.

It comes at an interesting time.

As usual, recently my wife and I have been barely communicating but we were forced to today as we were called in for a meeting by our son (3 and a half)'s pre-Kindergarten teacher and the school's psychologist for a meeting.

We had no idea what the meeting was going to be about and it turned out that it was about our son's restlessness and inability to focus on anything for any period of time.  Something that I have notice and been concerned about too.

The psychologist very cleverly and insightfully, with just a few questions, identified the problem. My wife has weak boundaries with our son, she puts his needs paramount in our household and sleeps with him every night instead of with her husband.  I didn't mention anything about my wife's behaviour at all.  I didn't have to. My wife willingly explained her behaviours as a smothering and needy, pushover of a mom. 

The basic advice from the psyschologist was that she needs to give our son firm boundaries, give the needs of the adult couple in the house equal, if not more, importance than those of our son, teach him some night time independence and spend some intimate time with her husband.

This is all stuff I have been saying since the day he was born and the BPD traits started really coming on.

Her response was, "Why should I want to spend time with him [meaning me]? At the mealtable once he said cheers and clinked cups with our son, but not with me. How does that make me feel?"  She sounded like a 3 year old.  That, apparently is why she goes to bed with our son at 7.30 every night and never wants to chat with me.

I said nothing.

Soon afterwards, the meeting ended with the psychologist urging her to set and keep limits with our son and for us to seek marriage therapy.  This advice will not fix anything. She can't change the way she has been taught to respond to the world since childhood.

It felt good though for me to have my own philosophy validated for a change!

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formflier
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« Reply #13 on: June 16, 2017, 02:29:44 PM »

She may not change... but you can.  Follow the school psychologist advice.

This is about your child... a professional has given medically sound guidance. 

If your wife is shy about doing it, seek a second opinion.  This is an easy one... .no P is going g to recommend no boundaries.

FF
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BeagleGirl
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« Reply #14 on: June 16, 2017, 02:32:51 PM »

I'm SOO glad you were able to experience that.  Hold onto it during those times when BPDw is starting to make you think that YOU are the root of all evil.  

It was also good practice for MC tonight.  You can see that you didn't have to defend yourself to make sure that people around you understood the situation.  I almost feel sorry for BPDw, because she may end up with two doses of "have you ever considered that YOU might be the problem here" in one day.  

If only pwBPD weren't so very good at reframing the world such that well meaning and factually based observations/advice become baseless personal attacks by malicious idiots in their minds.
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Dragon72
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« Reply #15 on: June 19, 2017, 10:11:06 AM »

So we never went to the therapy session after all.  I think the emotion of being told by the school psychologist about her/our behavior having an impact on our son’s behavior was a lot for her to process.  It wasn’t mentioned that we wouldn’t go and I didn’t bring it up either.

That evening I was trying to get her to support me with setting limits with our son’s behavior (per the psych’s advice earlier in the day) in terms of no TV/phone/toys at mealtimes, not bargaining with our son and getting him to sleep (and go to sleep) independently.  She was resisting, saying that we should be making changes little by little. 

I disagreed.  She has said that in the past, and then not changed anything, or made changes at glacial speed.  It took her 2 years of nagging on my part and finally a persuasive pediatrician to convince her that our 3 and a half year old son does not need to drink from a baby’s bottle, for example.

On Friday night, she slept as usual with our son, in spite of what the psych said. The next morning she said that she had tried (before I came up to bed) to start the night in “our” bed, but the noise from the traffic on that side of the house was too much for her to sleep.

The next day we went to her sister’s house an hour away for a family reunion weekend.  She went to bed early at the same time as the kids (8pm) leaving me chatting to her family and when I went up to bed later at about 11pm, I found her in the big bed with our son. I slept on the blow-up mattress on the floor.

We got back home yesterday. Once again, she stayed upstairs when our son went to bed and I went up later to an empty marital bed.  She came into our bed later in the night, she tossed and turned and 5 minutes later went back to our son’s room for the rest of the night.

I really thought that married life would be like this: As a couple, we tuck our child(ren) into bed, switch off the light and creep downstairs where we chat, or watch Netflix over a glass of wine to unwind before going to bed together.  It’s just a fantasy.
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« Reply #16 on: June 19, 2017, 10:37:27 AM »

It wasn’t mentioned that we wouldn’t go and I didn’t bring it up either.

She was resisting, saying that we should be making changes little by little. 

I disagreed. 

She is loosing control... .and wants to give it up little by little... .or hopefully not at all.

So... why not bring it up?  Going to MC.

There is no easy way around this.  The less you talk about this and the more you take action, is likely better.

So... nagging her to not sleep with the kid is going to be counterproductive.

Scheduling another appointment with school psych to discuss "rate of change" is likely to be most productive.

Let someone else be the authority figure.  Keep "shining the light", but try not to be the enforcer.  That is tough act to follow.

"Honey... .help me understand our bedtime routine, given what we've heard from psych... "

Thoughts?

FF
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