Marriage Counselling

mink35

This site is so amazing, much more than just money saving.

Too right! I've found nothing but help and have started to feel part of one big family ;D

*Hugs* to you and I hope you sort out your problems. :-*

jo_b_2

Thank you everyone for your best wishes.  This site is so amazing, much more than just money saving.

It's a whole community on here, so welcome. I went through a similar situation to you last year. We tried relationship counselling (through Relate) but eventually decided to separate last Summer.

I hope you and your partner manage to sort things out. Good luck and best wishes, Jo. :-*

Mrs_Thrift

Hi LCard,

I also wanted to wish you all the best. It's a very positive sign that you both want to work through your problems and you've been using the books. I don't have first hand experience of marriage counselling, but from what I've seen of others' experiences, I would only advise a couple to go for counselling if you were both commited to it, and both prepared for all the home truths that could come out, as mentioned above.
Best of luck, whatever you decide.

hilstep2000

Hi Lcard,
Have just e-mailed you. Good luck.

Caterina

Hi LCard

I am sorry that you have been so hurt and I hope you and your husband can resolve this very painful situation in a way that is ok for both of you.

I have been at the receiving end of my husband's betrayal too ( a good few years ago) and I know how awful it feels.

Because of many reasons that I will not go into, we did not go to counselling but gritted our teeth and tried to rebuild our relationship. Luckily it worked and we are still together. Some things are lost and some are gained in this struggle.

I hope that you can find a way to get over this horrendously difficult hurdle and heal the wound of betrayal. It can be done with a lot of hard work from both (only if both want this to happen and if it is worth doing!).

Lots of love and best wishes

Caterina

slim_bird

Hi LCard

I know exactly how you're feeling. Six months ago I found out about my husbands 18 month ( so I'm to believe) affair with a friend !! (who needs enemies eh?).
We are still together but as you know it's sooo hard. The mood swings are horendous and i know that it would have been easier to let him go. I always maintained that there would be no second chances but never comtemplated the depth of feelings that go with it.
We both agree that we are together for the right reasons.
The anger has now almost gone and feels good. I can only hope that it stays that way. The next for us step is to look at why it happened. We haven't used couselling though it was always a consideration. As hypocritical as it sounds we are good at talking and as mentioned earlier you have to be prepared to hear some things you'd rather not.
I really hope that you manage to work through this and stay together for each other.
I think of these 2 'sayings; Holding onto hurt feelings is a way of saying 'I won't forgive you' and 'no grief is so great that that time and love won't relieve it'.
I know it's still very early days but if you hold the tiniest of hope hang on in there.

dmorrice

Hi sorry to hear about your situation.
I can recommend relate as i went there last year due to me having an affair for reasons i wont go into on here but we are still together and relate really helped us.if you can afford to pay then you get seen much quicker and they do evenings and daytime sessions.
it will be painful but worth it in the end.
hope this helps.
d

azurepurple

Bare with me as I am a new user to this site. Having read your comments I can identify with your feelings as I recently discovered my husband had been having an affair for 2 weeks only a week before our first baby was due and to top it off the person who he was having the affair with was 8 months pregnant too. We are still together and the afair is over but I am still confused as to what I want and have also considered counselling. I have emailed you.

ribenagirl

We tried relationship counselling recently for reasons I don't want to go into, but we found it immensely helpful and are now moving forward together, and feel almost stronger than ever, if such a thing is possible, and we wouldn't have achieved it left to our own devices.

It helps beyond measure to discuss things in a setting where you are less likely to argue or create blame, with someone who is impartial and sympathetic and who can guide your discussion so that you don't avoid talking about the things you would hedge around if it was just the two of you.

It's actually really difficult to say okay, we want counselling, because you are then admitting you have a problem - but it' also very  brave because it's showing you want to do something about it  :)

The thing that we discovered most of all from having counselling, is that problems in a marriage like this do not just happen overnight - there is almost always a background to it, reasons *why* the problem occurred, and it's really important that you find out what those reasons were in your individual case, as you will need to fix them if you see a future together, to stop whatever happened, happening again.  Right now you are probably asking yourself just one question...why??????.....and it helps to have someone with no vested interests to find that out.  

The most difficult thing of all for you will be learning to trust your partner again, and the best way to do it is to find out together, what the causal factors were, and both of you do your best to stop them existing.  This is where the counsellor comes into their own, because they can help you decide what you both need to do next.  A good counsellor will never ever 'tell' you what to do  :)


That way, you can tell yourself that okay, he may be working away from home, and you don't know what he's up to but x, y, and z aren't issues for you both any more and therefore he is unlikely to *want* to do anything like that again.  There's always going to be the opportunity for things to happen, you just have to not want to do them.

This is assuming that you both want to stay together - but if you are not yet sure, counselling will at least mean you can walk away, if you decide to, with your head held high, knowing that you tried everything you could to save your marriage.

My final comment would be that if you do choose counselling, expect to experience a lot of sadness in the short term as you will undoubtedly hear things, and say things, and experience feelings, that are very painful and still raw.  But talking about them allows you over time to distance yourself from those feelings, which in turn allows you to be objective.

Having been through counselling, I can say that there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel  :)  And don't be suprised if you end up having more than one counsellor - we both didn't 'click' with our first, and that's no good because it means you won't want to discuss your very private feelings with them.

Lastly, I sympathise and know how you must be feeling.  It helped me to know that lots of people have similar problems, and the ones that get through them are the ones that have help to do it or those who are very very strong and feel able to do it themselves.  If you ever want someone not involved to talk to privately, please feel free to PM me  :)

rushnowt

Hiya LCard

i hope things are a getting better for you and whatever decision you made as regards to the councelling is going well, my thoughts and best wishes are still with you :-* all the best :-* :-*



Adsime,

I'm sorry to hear you have been through such a dreadful time too, good luck with everything and i wish you all the very best too :-* :-*