# How does it work - safe zone for talking



## synonimous_anonymous

I have suggested to my wife that we attend marriage counseling to deal with issues she has with herself (She's suffered from abusive partners and 1 marriage before me) as well as a hard upbringing, which has made her think she can't be a good mother...and about US and where she wants this marriage to go. I'm all for saving what we've had the last 9 years.

The conversations usually go like this: I tell her all will be OK. She points out all the things she thinks will be problems. I tell her how we can handle those problems IF they should arise. She tells me she has no confidence in herself. I tell her I have confidence in her. She starts to say I don't understand her. I ask her to try and explain it to me. She says maybe nobody can understand and that it's not something that can be explained. Long ago I would try an understand her, hold her hand and say 'lean on me when you aren't sure.' but she says that because of her upbringing she has a hard time relying on anyone but herself.

So how would taking this conversation to a professional help. I don't see the conversation changing and I can imagine that anything said at a counselor's office would be taken home and not 'left in the safe zone'. How can I get away with saying something on my mind THERE and then not here about it HERE after? I would love it if my wife went alone just to get some perspective on her life. She's so keen on doing it alone that I really feel she's going to burn herself out.

The initial reaction to counseling was "It's expensive." how do I get by that?


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## WantsHappiness

Instead of simply listening to her concerns you are trying to “fix” them. By telling her she is wrong you are dismissing her feelings. 

Counseling will go much differently than the conversation you have at home, trust me. Having a third party to mediate makes a big difference. 

How do you make sure it is left at the counselors office? On the one hand you can’t really leave anything there, it all needs to come out if you’re going to move forward. Just going to counseling won’t solve any problems, you do have to work on what the counselor tells you outside of his or her office. What you can do at first is agree that you will hold off on the serious discussions at home until the counselor gives you guidance on how to properly handle those discussions. This is how H and I handled the first few sessions. We had such an ugly communication pattern which we needed to fix first. 

Individual counseling for her likely will not address all of the problems in your marriage. 

Counseling doesn’t have to be expensive. There are many counselors will work with you and charge on a sliding scale so that the cost fits into your budget.


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## synonimous_anonymous

OK.

My wife and I have some serious communication issues. However, she still has show zero interest in counseling. She doesn't think a 1 on 1 with someone she doesn't know will help her deal with her demons. I've asked her then to not spare my feelings and let out what is on her mind to me. I sat there and heard painful detail after detail. I'm not sure how much was her PMS and how much was how she really felt, but I think she was able to release some of what she was holding on to. However, by the end she said "I need to be alone right now." I left her alone.

During the conversation I never judged her or told her she was right or wrong. Some of what she said felt as though she was putting blame on me for her cheating on me. I did bite on that one, I decided to myself 'that one we can blame on the hormones for now'. She asked me where I thought she had gone wrong during our 9 years and that there must have been something. I said "To be honest, if I thought there was anything seriously wrong I probably would have told you then, at that time. I'm not holding onto anything. If I had to sit here and pick, hindsight being 20-20, maybe you could've been more honest and up front about your feelings earlier on in our relationship, but even that's not something that I can sit here and poke at. I remember more of the good times than the bad."

That's when she started to get the feeling 'So you're saying I'm bad for feeling like this and you aren't bad because you always looked on the brighter side'. My response was simply "People deal with different situations in different ways. I put my confidence in you. I depended on you. That's how I felt."

The communication has gotten a little better. Still, when the subject takes a turn towards the cheating and the feelings leading up to the cheating or the feelings we had after the cheating, she gets defensive. "I know I hurt you but I was hurt too." As she cries. I want to stand up and say "What I did, the things I've taken responsibility for, those were no excuse for what you did!" BUT I don't say that because I know now that it spirals out of control by that point. Until she actually decides to see a counselor about it, I am stepping on egg shells. If she decides to go to counseling I hope the counselor can tell her "You feeling bad and guilty are good things. It means you are remorseful and sorry for what happened. This is how you and your husband move past this and into a new part of your married life." 

I don't think she's fully accept blame for her share (The bigger share IMO) for the shake up of our marriage, where as I have admitted on many occasions that I was wrong 'here' and 'there'. I've said sorry far more than her...and I don't know that she can move beyond her feelings without really being able to talk to someone about them. Until now, she's only got me. She has no friends to confide in because she's embarrassed and ashamed. I told her my ears are always open...but I really hope counseling comes along at some point in our relationship. I need to understand how she feels (I don't think she's telling me everything either because she's going to hurt me even more or because she feels she should've said something much earlier in our relationship.) I know I haven't gotten past certain issues and the only time I know I can get past them is if she's willing to listen and try and understand and also take responsibility...I just don't think she's in that place.


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## WantsHappiness

Again you are dismissing her feelings, this time as being due to PMS. If she’s telling you her feelings they are important to her regardless of the situation. You need to learn to accept and respect that. If you don’t she will close back up and your progress will be stunted. 

At the same time she cannot blame you for her affair. She made the choice to step outside of the marriage to fill her needs. You likely contributed by not meeting her needs yourself and you do need to accept responsibility for that part of it (and work on resolving those issues) but she and she alone is responsible for her actions. The fact that she is not accepting responsibility says that she does need some perspective on the situation. She’s lashing out as most WS do, as you’ve probably learned from reading the infidelity section of TAM (if not, get in there and start reading). 

Since you feel it is necessary I would suggest that you schedule a marriage counseling appointment. Once you schedule the appointment tell her the time and date. Tell her once and only once that it is important to you but it is up to her to attend or not and then don’t say anything else until you attend the session. Go by yourself if she won’t go with you. At the very least it will help you gain some insight into what went wrong and help you to determine what path to take. 

FWIW, you would be well within your rights to make counseling a condition of staying in the marriage.


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