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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a lot of gaslighting - we were engaged, but didn't marry.  I insisted on therapy to address the up-is-down, black-is-white nuttiness (the gaslighting), and we went in.

First two meetings: she utterly snowed the therapist.  Male therapist, she had him eating out of her hand.

She and I had a long session talking after meeting #2 - went long into the night (the gaslighting works better when you add sleep deprivation), and I simply said, "I want to hear everything you have to say, I am going to listen to you well and really try this time - I'm going to accept your (dominance over me) criticism and work harder to make this work".  I wrote down the things she said to me.  I read them back to her.  I went overboard on active listening and documented the points.  They jumped around a lot even during the conversation, but I got about two pages worth down that she more or less insisted on.

Third meeting: I said to the therapist, "I really did try what you suggested, and I did some active listening, and here's the things we came up with that I need to do", and I read him the list.  She was falling all over herself to try to deny they were real, and was claiming I'd made them up.  They were an obvious bag of crazy. I kind of needed the shock of seeing them written down to see how far I'd fallen down the rabbit hole.  Therapist said, "I think you two should separate, immediately" (we were living together).

That's what happened the last time I tried couples counseling.

If you really feel your husband is emotionally abusive (and to me that doesn't mean simply "jerk" or "says mean things" or "says things I don't like"), then why bother wasting your time?  Just check into therapy for yourself individually and figure out why you want to be with an emotionally abusive person.  That's what I did (finally) and started making much better choices.

If you have kids and can't leave, then I guess stick it out.[/quote]

That's not a good example of counseling, obviously. You both went into it with ulterior motives, and after two sessions you tricked and manipulated the person you were engaged to and arrived at the session with a "ta da! Look at what an idiot I'm with." That's not counseling, that's looking for validation to leave, which I'm glad you received and I'm assuming you've left that relationship. I think OP is looking for examples of actual, good faith attempts at counseling. [/quote]

+1.  Not the type of example OP was looking for.[/quote]

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