Emptyone

My husband and I are currently in counseling our first visit was a run down of our histories and the counselor seemed hung up on my husbands past, after 45 minutes of delving into his history she turned and asked me about my family life. I shared for all of 10 minutes and answered any questions she had. In the end of the first session I kinda walked out going ok, the whole reason I was there is that everything is always about my husband we get in an argument and he turns it around so I address his needs or hurts and end up leaving my own twisting in the wind to meet his.

The next day the counselor called me personally to let me know that she was aware she had not adressed my needs and wanted to see if I was interested in restorative therapy since she felt my husband needed therapy before we could work on us. She told me that this could effectively deal with both his individual needs and that of our marriage. I discussed it with my husband and we agreed.

We began the sessions and the day following left one or the other of us emotionally charged each week. We took a two week later apointment to see if this helped. Through each session it seemed like my husband and I were taking small steps but when it came to the two weeks between he would fall off and in the few days prior pick back up and follow through with his commitments made in counseling. I mentioned this at an apointment and she spent the whole session dealing with just him again leaving me twisting in the wind on my issues.

To make a long story short the next session almost seemed like a waste she told us we needed to go back to the original plan that the restorative counseling wasnt working that he needed counsel first and if I wanted she could counsel me to help deal with my frustration with the situation.

Im not sure where to go with this at this point I feel like we never really dealt with the real issues in our marriage we just delt with my husbands history. We now need to decide if we will go seperate. I am not sure what the outcome will be from her perspective if we dont and my husband is not interested in visiting his past he wants to work on our current situation and help repair the marriage if we can.

Does anyone have any knowledge on restorative therapy and is it something that can help us work on our marriage or is it just working on my husbands history?

Dedicated2Her

This is a VERY good thing. My wife and I have both been in individual counseling for the past six months to deal with our own issues. It has changed our home and made us whole people. We now begin joint therapy in May, and I can honestly say it will really be productive. Our therapist has been amazing. You really can't love someone else until you love yourself. That is what individual will help bring to both of you.

Of course, I can't say I agree with your therapist kind of going back and forth on it. You BOTH need individual or you wouldn't be here on this forum. Go do it. You will like the results. It will take some time, though. I thought we were going to get a divorce 2-3 months into it.

Chris Taylor

I go to individual therapy and my IC and I both agree that what is discussed is very one-sided. If I make a claim regarding my wife, she isn't there to defend herself.

The IC can probe all she wants but there still needs to be a bit of "am I getting the whole story here" attitude with her, otherwise she wouldn't be doing her job.

So while IC can be good, I still think that you both have to sit in front of a counselor and hash things out, even if the beginning focuses on him. Obviously the MS sees something there that needs exploring.