Posted by Dinah on September 18, 2004, at 20:01:03
In reply to I'd like to, but I don't know if I can, posted by Dinah on September 18, 2004, at 19:34:44
I've dragged my husband twice to see counselors. Once to see a parenting counselor, once to a joint session with my therapist. It was distressing to me (at least the marriage one was), and provided a h*ll of a lot of amusement to the counselors (my therapist says one of the things my husband said was so funny he'll never forget it), but absolutely no value whatsoever. I'm not being disrespectful to say this because my husband would be the first to cheerfully agree. He hasn't an introspective bone in his body and is rather amazingly literal.
My husband has never been anything close to verbally or physically abusive, but he was using Labrador retriever corrections on my Toy Spaniel of a son. In other words, I've got a very sensitive guy on my hands and a few words about how you'd like something done differently is generally sufficient. While my husband thinks it's his duty to make sure that my son behaves correctly and tends to try to startle him to make him remember. So off to the parenting counselor we went. And she asked "When your son grows up and is no longer in your home, what will make him behave in a responsible manner?" And the answer of course was that he had to have internalized values so that he would effectively choose to make appropriate decisions himself. And my husband just couldn't find that really obvious answer. He answered police, bosses, wife, etc. etc. as the counselor fed him hints until she finally gave up, looked at me in a mixture of amazement and amusement, and gave him the answer.
At the marriage session with my therapist, the therapist asked if my husband had any concerns. Since I was suicidally depressed at the time, he was aiming for concerns about my wellbeing. He said "Is she going to be able to do her wifely duties?" I guess my therapist thought he was bringing up sexual issues, but no - he meant doing the dishes and cooking dinner. The session went on and on like that until I was perched so far at the end of the cushions angled away from him that I almost fell off.
I'm not going through that again. Counselling would be the end of any ability we might have to work things through.
poster:Dinah
thread:392418
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20040917/msgs/392420.html