What's couples therapy like?

[Anonymous]

A massive waste of time and money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A massive waste of time and money.

Sadly, I agree with this. It’s not worthwhile doing couple’s therapy until both parties have done individual counseling. Usually there is one party who thinks they don’t need it or just goes through the motions without doing any real work, which means couples therapy is doomed.

[Anonymous]

As soon as the therapist suggested she might be responsible for some part of the problems, my fiancé's ex wife would refuse to continue with any of the therapists they saw over their years "together." My ex husband would nod when the therapist assigned date nights, but then would cancel them or cut them off in the middle of dinner. He'd also claim that we couldn't afford date nights after spending $250/session on the therapist. (Our HHI was about $350k at the time with no debt other than our mortgage.) If you see that sort of BS, nothing will work.

[Anonymous]

Mine mostly used therapy to try to pressure me into an open relationship and justify why he needed both me and his girlfriend in his life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a couples counselor. I see the couple together for the first session, then I see each person separately for one session so each has a chance to share their feelings and perspective without worrying about how the other will react. All sessions after that are together for the most part.

Things do tend to get worse for awhile before they get better, but not always. It depends on what's happening in the relationship. If couples are avoiding conflict or otherwise not being open with each other, then yes, talking about their problems makes things feel worse for awhile. But they learn how to listen to each other, how to share their feelings without being critical of the other person, and how to work through conflict, and then it gets better.

With other couples, if there isn't a lot of conflict or built up resentment, they are often able to work toward gradually getting closer without that difficult period first.

I hope that helps. Contact a couple of therapists via Psychology Today who are in your area and ask them about their process. They should offer a free consult call.

Can I ask you a question? Is there away to tell if a couple should try couples therapy or a way to tell the relationship is beyond hope? If there are resentments can that be worked through? Basically when is too late? Or no hope? Hoping you can help answer. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a couples counselor. I see the couple together for the first session, then I see each person separately for one session so each has a chance to share their feelings and perspective without worrying about how the other will react. All sessions after that are together for the most part.

Things do tend to get worse for awhile before they get better, but not always. It depends on what's happening in the relationship. If couples are avoiding conflict or otherwise not being open with each other, then yes, talking about their problems makes things feel worse for awhile. But they learn how to listen to each other, how to share their feelings without being critical of the other person, and how to work through conflict, and then it gets better.

With other couples, if there isn't a lot of conflict or built up resentment, they are often able to work toward gradually getting closer without that difficult period first.

I hope that helps. Contact a couple of therapists via Psychology Today who are in your area and ask them about their process. They should offer a free consult call.

Can I ask you a question? Is there away to tell if a couple should try couples therapy or a way to tell the relationship is beyond hope? If there are resentments can that be worked through? Basically when is too late? Or no hope? Hoping you can help answer. Thank you.

I am not the PP, but I am a therapist also. I don't work with couples anymore, but I collaborate with a lot of couples therapists.

It is a very bad counselor that has the assumed goal of "stay together" for any couple that walks through the door. The therapy starts as assessing what's wrong and what the options are. Most of the therapists I work with do some form of discernment therapy process with every couple in the intake. There are a few things that make counseling an immediate bad idea - active abuse is the main one that I can think of, including active infidelity where the cheater is not willing to stop cheating. In general, a good couples counselor will observe when a relationship is not working/not progressing/not healing/however you think about it, but their job is to help the people in the relationship see that - not to fix it or change the dynamic.

I have worked with several couples in the past and even more individuals who start couples counseling with the assumed goal that they are trying to repair the relationship, only to discover within 3 sessions (1 together, 2 individual) that the goal is actually separation, not repair. It is literally impossible to figure out how to improve the situation until you decide between repair and separation because almost all of the options and emotional work are different.

I was trained in Gottman couples counseling. They have a lot of self-study tools as well as workshops and lists of providers who are Gottman-certified. I have only done level 1 because I do not actually work with couples anymore, but I use the tools all the time: https://www.gottman.com/

Hope this is helpful.

[Anonymous]

For me and my spouse, couples therapy involved a lot of questions directed at both of us, with follow up. The questions often made us uncomfortable. They covered lots of topics, including how we like to have fun, why we married, why we don't have sex, what we used to like about sex, how we interact with each other, how we make parenting decisions, etc. The answers each of us gave were sometimes eye opening. After a month or two, the therapist said she thought she should see my spouse alone. My spouse and the therapist then saw each other without me for several sessions. We then had another session as a couple and the therapist eventually said she did not understand why I was staying in the marriage. The same thing happened with two different therapists. My spouse was very resentful about the whole process and hated being critiqued. We stayed together for many more years but are divorced now. I don't think it was a waste of time but it didn't help much. In private, my spouse was very disrespectful and self centered and had no interest in changing. I had problems too, but both therapists said they needed to work with my spouse and both gave up.

[Anonymous]

A waste of time.