Posted by Medusa on August 22, 2002, at 2:46:46
In reply to Couples therapy, posted by Dinah on August 21, 2002, at 20:29:39
> is ignoring things really such a bad thing?
Depends on the 'Things'. This is something you could bring up when interviewing a therapist - make a list of Things you have decided to ignore, and only go to a counselor who'll work with you while respecting that.
> differing personality disorders that don't
> always mesh particularly well.Therapy could help you to find coping mechanisms to help you more healthfully ignore the Things. There are different ways of ignoring Things. Some ways take lots of energy, others help you to move beyond the Things.
> Has anyone had couples therapy that helped
> or hurt their relationships?Hurt: he was a throwaway relationship anyway. He had plenty of his own problems, and in the end blamed me for his increased awareness of his own problems. Therapy was a sort of tool for him in this process. (At the beginning, she was my therapist.) But the therapist had used him as a tool in my process, which still miffs me. At the beginning of the relationship, she pushed me to return his calls etc and try a relationship - I think she had decided that my hesitance to get involved with him was all about my fear of commitment, intimacy etc, and she overlooked the validity of my very real objections to some of his very real, um, eccentricities.
Fortunately, I got out before he persuaded me to dress up as Princess Leia.
These days, DH and his therapist are urging me to start joining his sessions. I agreed to go to the next one, then she said she wanted to meet with me alone first. For €100/50 min, I don't think so honey! Plus I get really belligerent with therapists, and present myself and my feelings toward DH as pretty hard and cold, so every single therapist with whom I've discussed him is adamant that I should leave him. Well, I'd like to leave him, but I'd also like to die and I'm not going to. And he's a really good cook.
poster:Medusa
thread:950
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020702/msgs/954.html