Hi Agent,
I first want to say that my husband is a really excellent man because the rest of this post may not sound so flattering. I also want to add that when we finally got to it and dealt with our problems, we were BOTH definitely part of the problem. All that said, there was a long period of time where I was insisting we needed to go for marital therapy and he just didn't see the need. Essentially I was a lot more conscious of being unhappy then he was, so I had a lot more motivation to want to fix things. The first time we started therapy together was because I issued an ultimatum. We were in starting to build a new home with an in-law apartment for my MIL and I told him that I would not continue working towards building a new home unless he agreed to go together. We did go and things got somewhat better, but then got busy with the house and we essentially stopped going after only some superficial changes had been made.

So I dragged us back again a few years down the road. He was showing up for sessions (and we were seeing his therapist) but there was this huge wall of denial for him that we were even having problems let alone that they were serious. I walked into a session (after a LOT of soul searching and talking to people I trusted) and told him how unhappy I was and that I wanted a separation unless he fulfilled certain conditions. When I was done, our T turned to my husband and asked him what he thought about that and his answer was that I was wrong, that he thought we had a good marriage. Our (my) T did something extremely out of character for him by interrupting my husband and saying "you don't have a good marriage, you're spouse is sitting next to you threatening to leave." My husband literally rocked back in his seat. (Months later my husband confronted our T about this and our T apologized but I've always been grateful as nothing was getting through and I think it took the shock of our T directly confronting him to get through to my husband.) The other shock was that my T turned to my husband and said that my demands were reasonable ones, if they weren't he would say so. To my total and complete shock, my husband agreed (which wasn't as happy a thing as it should have been as I was close to the end of my rope and had a foot (maybe a foot and a half) out the door). To my husband's credit, he complied although he thought the demands were unreasonable. After that, it was like he got his head back in the game and we were able to really start working on our stuff. Counseling has made a huge difference in our marriage and things are a lot better now and in many ways are very good.

But yeah, looking back, I'm not sure that anything would have happened had I not been willing to draw some very clear lines at times about what I was willing to do or not do.

I'm sorry you find yourself in that place, I know it's not an easy or enjoyable place to be.

AG

Hi AG,

Thanks so much for sharing that story. My position sounds somewhat similar to yours in the beginning. My partner knows I'm unhappy, but doesn't want to acknowledge that the problems in our relationship is a huge contributing factor to that unhappiness. Not the only factor, obviously - I'm more than willing to admit that I've got a lot of personal work to do. But I think I've been pretty clear and pretty specific that I'm not happy with some important aspects of our relationship, and it's just not penetrating. I guess it's inevitable that I'll have to issue an ultimatum at some point. It's frightening, but I do understand the need to draw your lines.

I think your T was completely right to challenge your husband's denial like that. I almost wish he hadn't later apologized to your husband for it, since it sounds like it was a huge turning point in the therapy. (Unless he was just apologizing for interrupting him, in which case, well, fair enough!)

Anyway, it's encouraging to hear what a difference the therapy made for you. Thanks again for sharing this. I really appreciate it.