plymouth71

Hi today is my first day at this forum and this is already my second post!

My husband and I have only been married 6 months and we have hit a speed bump. In a nutshell, I want to go to counseling, and he doesn't. This isn't even necessarily about marriage counseling but personal counseling.

I believe counseling can be effective and he believes it's bunk. I believe it is a legitimate branch of medical science and he believes it's pseudo-science. I believe I am bi-polar and he believes I have been brainwashed into thinking I am sick by my family and the various counselors I have seen over the years. I believe going back into counseling would help me with my self-harm behavior and he believes I can and should just do it myself.

My husband has told me he cannot "prevent" "stop" or "forbid" me from seeking counseling but his reaction to the thought of me going is akin to how I would expect him to react if I told him I was going down to the bar to sleep with a stranger. I very much want to get counseling for my problems but I feel like going to counseling will just make more problems. Any help or past experiences would be helpful, thank you.

WantsHappiness

If you feel you need to go into counseling for yourself don’t let anyone talk you out of it! imo, you’re being proactive and attempting to improve your quality of life. How exactly is he telling you this is a bad thing?

I understand the negative stigmas about therapists and it’s okay for people to have that belief but please don’t let him make you feel bad because you’re seeking help for your problems. He’s comparing going to therapy with infidelity? That’s just a ludicrous statement and one that is meant to intimidate you to get you to do what he wants.

There will be a learning curve for him and you’ll need to be understanding about it. People who have never dealt with a diagnosis such as bi-polar don’t understand that the behaviors such illnesses cause are not easily controlled. That you can’t just up and stop the self-harm, it’s all part of the condition.

Is he a reader? If so you might get him the book I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help by Xavier Amador. It helped me to really understand the situation when an immediate family member was dealing with a diagnosis similar to bi-polar.

plymouth71

I'll look up the book, that's an excellent suggestion. I don't know if he would read it if I asked him to, but maybe if I read it, mentioned if I liked it, he would read it if I left it laying around.

To elaborate on his position, he used this analogy yesterday. If I wanted to build a house, sure, I could get an architect to design it and a construction team to build it, but ultimately I would learn more and derive more pride and satisfaction if I built it myself. Likewise, I could just "cop out" and take a bunch of pills and listen to a total stranger tell me what's wrong with me, but it will be more effective if I ... fix myself? Stop being crazy? Stop believing I'm crazy?

That's where the metaphor kind of drops off for me. He denies that I have a problem yet wants me to stop behaviors and thinking patterns that are obviously destructive.

WantsHappiness

His analogy makes sense in one way. The whole “give a man a fish/teach a man to fish” thing. But this just isn’t like that. This is a not a skill that you can develop on your own. If it were chances are you would have mastered it already. I say that because I’m guessing that you don’t enjoy these behaviors and if you could have you would have found your own way out by now. Sometimes we simply need some guidance to help us to make changes or point us in the right direction.

His concerns about medication are valid. I tend to agree that psychiatric meds are overprescribed but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a purpose in some cases. What about starting off with just a therapist or counselor? Focusing on talk therapy instead of working with a psychiatrist/meds?

plymouth71

That's another great suggestion. I too, would rather try the "soft" approach of talk/analysis before bringing in the big guns. I have been medicated before but I have always thought of medication as a "cast" or "crutch" that is, something you use to get you back to normal as you build strength so you can stand on your own.

WantsHappiness

You should discuss these different counseling options with your husband. Maybe if he understands a little more about it and that you’re not in fact looking for a pill to solve your problems, he’ll start to come around.