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My husband started going to counselling a couple of months ago at my request. He has had confidence and self-esteem issues for as long as i've known him. He finds it difficult to make friends, and is very negative in his outlook on life. I hoped that counselling would show him what i see: that he's a great man with a lot to offer as a friend, colleague and human being.
After he began this process, there was an incident. He went through my private papers, hoping to find evidence of god knows what. He did find something; some pages i had written while thinking about our relationship. I felt very betrayed by this, and don't feel i can trust him.
His counsellor asked that i attend a session with him after this incident. I agreed, thinking that if we could work out why he felt he had to do this it might help me to understand better.
We have now been to two sessions together; and the counsellor is determined that the relationship is the cause of my husbands insecurity and self-esteem issues. He has basically said that our relationship is doomed. He tells me that i had no reasonable expectation of privacy, since what i had written was about my husband and i, and that my husband was entitled to know what i had written.
I attending counselling many years ago, to help me deal with a break up. Even though it was tough, i found it very helpful. This experience does not feel like that for me. I feel like this counsellor is working with a set of preconceptions. If i don't respond/react in the way he wants, he accuses me of not being truthful or even outright lying. There wouldn't be much point in going to counselling if it was all based on a lie; and i'm not going to react 'his way' just to move things along. I believe that we have to work with the truth, and what's really going on.

Am i crazy? Or is this some new way of counselling couples that i haven't heard about?

I can't comment on the counselling you received as you describe it from your perception whereas your husband may have a different perception. However regarding your husband thinking you were hiding something he was right. Surely if you have issues with your marriage that cause you to write them down then these are serious enough for you to address them with your husband. Hiding them away on paper and not working through them together will never solve anything. Maybe that was what the counsellor was trying to facilitate, initiate a dialogue between you both that would get to the issues you had hidden away on paper and avoided addressing. If you don't address them together and keep bottling them away the danger is you will explosively react in the future and that will be destructive in your marriage. Try to find the right time to talk things over with your husband. Use a counsellor if you feel that would be helpful, or if you think you can address the issues together without loosing control and verbally attacking each other then do it alone together.

if this counselor is making you feel this way, maybe you should try to find another one.
You should not have to give answers that agree with him, you are not him and you have a right to feel the way you do.
It doesn't sound like he will be much help to you and your marriage

Dita,
My husband and I went for counseling during a very difficult period of our marriage. The company where he was a senior analyst was downsizing and he was a wreck about the whole thing.

I was going through hell where I was teaching and the upshot was
we started arguing all the time and decided to seek counseling.

The one we went to told us that we had a very "sick" relationship becasue we were fighting a lot! Why in the world did he think we were seeking his advice-because the marriage was going along swimmingly? We were there for help not to have him say our marriage of twenty years was over, for God's sake!

We found a different therapist, one who deals spiritually, (NOT religiously, there is a BIG difference), with meditation. With a lot of introspective work on our part, we resolved the problems. It took time and effort but with the right counselor you can do it.As a result I took courses to become a relationship and couples coach and love it.

This guy sounds as if he is wearing blinders. He also sounds like a bully and chauvinistic. Get another counselor.

Thank you for your replies; it's good to get different points of view on this. I understood that counselling wouldn't be an easy process and i was prepared to be challenged. What i wasn't prepared for was the personal attacks; at one point during our last session, he pointed at me and referred to me as 'that'. He also seemed very focussed on our sex life, even though that has never been a problem for us. He said it couldn't be great when our relationship was evidently so awful. I was uncomfortable with the way he kept bringing it up.
My husband has decided to continue his one-to-one counselling sessions and we are going to review it again in about a month. We will decide then if we are going to try couples counselling again. We do love each other, and all we want is to be happy, both together and individually.
Thanks again to you all.


To the first respondant: Sometimes, before i speak to my husband about what's bothering me i write it all down. So that i can clarify what exactly i need to say. His self-esteem is so low at times, that anything he hears seems like a very personal attack. I try to avoid hurting his feelings, and just stick to the bare bones of the issue.
And i also feel that everyone is entitled to privacy. No matter who they've written about.

He asks about your sex life all the time? He sounds like an armchair voyeur.

And yes, couples can definitely have a great sex life even if they're not exactly getting along.Sex is a physical release and if a couple is comfortable and have always had great sex, then there shouldn't be a problem.

BTW, had this man referred to me as "that" I would have questioned him about his professional training, his lack of compassion, and walked out the door.

In my own experiences through counseling, it is very much like going to a new medical Dr. You may like his bedside manner, etc. and he/she may respond well to you and your personality in the short time you are meeting with each other. However if you don't feel from the start completely comfortable about the therapist you and your husband have been seeeing then I say get a second opinion.

Did your husband feel comfortable with this counselor immediately? What is his therapy training background,ie; Jungian, Freudian, etc. because there are many. That can sometimes make a world of difference in the way they approach problem solving in individuals and/or couples counseling.

Now I don't mean just keep jumping from one counselor to another till you find one that say's what you want hear(my sister does that), because there are still some of those out there too. But I would ask in the first couple of meetings what their approach is? Are they the type to require alot of maintenance once you and your husband seem to be doing better, or are they and as needed follow up kinda therapist?

I have been so forward to bring my counseling history with me from my own notes that I kept, and then I always asked for a copy of my file from previous counselors, which I then let the current counselor know which ones were helpful and which ones were not.

Also, I have found that if you let them know that you are so willing to do the work on your marriage to the point that you have your history with you and have graded your previous therapist, it may change the way he approaches you and your husbands case. The therapist world is not as large as everyone thinks even in large cities, so they are somewhat concerned about what info may be getting back to their own industry about just how good they are at their jobs and they should be.

Can you tell we have MD's and PhD's in my family...lol. I really hope the information helps. Sorry so late posting it.

Good Luck, Martha

Beautifully put, Martha!

Thanks, and I enjoyed your post also! I feel a kindred "firecracker spirit" in you...we need more of us...HA!.

Enjoy your day, Martha

Firecracker spirit-I like that!

Thanks, Martha,