Does therapy fix everything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how therapy or counseling helps. At all. Your husband either stops cheating and feels remorseful or he doesn't. Why would you want to pay a complete stranger money to tell you how to live your life?

That's not how therapy works. The therapist basically holds up a mirror and a microphone. Changing yourself is your job, not the therapists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Therapy doesn't do the work. You do the work. Some people are up for it, others are not.

I'm glad we tried therapy, but the above was true for us and therapy did not help our relationship. Spouse lied to the therapist, lied to me in front of the therapist, promised things in therapy and then immediately broke promises (like within 8 hours of leaving the office). So therapy was useful for two reasons: 1) showed me how far gone spouse was, 2) allowed me to let go of the "what if we had just done therapy, maybe we could have worked it out."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about any of you, but if I were cheated on, I wouldn't want to attend therapy and expect a professional therapist to be able to put my marriage back together again like Humpty Dumpty.

I may be a proud woman but I also am a very loyal woman and once a man oversteps his boundaries with me, it will be impossible for him to ever get back to the original place he ever was with me.

And if I cannot ever have a man that close to me in a relationship, then I would rather be alone.

I deserve much better from someone because I love myself.

You sound young, but good for you.

Not that poster-- but 44 and feel the same way.

Age =/= emotional maturity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Therapy doesn't do the work. You do the work. Some people are up for it, others are not.

This. Also you can't fix other people only yourself. So both partis in therapy need to do the work. It's not a cute all but it helps get to te bottom of things and salvage what is salvageable.

+1M

I think marriage counseling can be helpful if issues aren't too bad, but the main thing is each person doing the work. It requires people to be vulnerable and open to seeing things about themselves which they may have to change - and wanting to change them.

If you have the mindset it's someone "telling you how to live" then you are nowhere close to being in a place where therapy will be helpful.