For me, couples therapy was not helpful. In fact, I think it promoted false hope that my marriage could be saved.
I recall in one session, my ex saying that I had all the power in the relationship. When I questioned her assertion, the counselor looked at me incredulous and said something like, you don't see how that's true? That was out last session with him; yes, even the male counselors are biased.
Another trap, I believe is perception and intention. My ex said she couldn't trust me. I thought I was the most trustful person she could be with. I wish the counselor could have helped her see how her perception was influenced by her past experience with other men.
Some things are "given" these days. Like men have all the power. It has been said so many times that people simply repeat it. Question that and you are an instant moron.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet and I mean from such an idiotic therapist. He should have been questioning your ex about what she meant!
I have a female friend who, when her psychiatrist suggested that she needed the emergency number for when the therapist was on holiday, questioned me 'what did she mean?' My friend felt insulted that her therapist could suggest that she would fall apart so easily and yet that was what she was doing right there in front of me.
After sharing more about my own experience with therapists and 'not asking questions' I reassured her that, that was part of her therapy, "to ask questions immediately and not wait".
If one has to do therapy then I encourage anyone to open up as much as they can; say whatever you want to the therapist but you cannot hit them nor destroy their property.
Open the car bonnet and spew your problems out until you are done. That's what they are there for.
My last therapist of five years slowly got to me and I was a coward to speak up and he wasn't handling me the right way.
One day I exploded at him and he replied with something like, "don't ever talk to me like a dog."
I half apologised but what I really wanted to say was something like, "I think you are a narcissist, I'd never talk to a dog that way!"
I left three sessions later, with very little warning, and I saw shock and awareness on his face.
Couple's therapy was very helpful for me, as a male victim of domestic violence...but for reasons I did not expect. When my ex went to family court for custody, she falsely accused me of being the abuser. Everybody in the family court system fell for it. But ultimately, our couple's therapists knew she was the abuser....And they spoke up. And that's part of the reason I was able to force the court to understand the reality that the woman was the abuser. And that's part of how I got custody of our son.
All this is very true but misses a point that needs to be stated outright. Much of what women say in therapy is demonstrably false. Just because a woman believes something does not make it true. Women lie so easily to others because they are expert at lying to themselves. Men tend not to be so good at this because other men will quickly, and often forcefully, correct the errant man. Women...never get corrected and spiral into fantasy worlds all their own supported by other women also on the path through the Looking Glass!
I've actually heard what you say in your comment from a female family member but in reverse. I'm to the point where I wonder where such comparisons are taking society in general?
Ultimately reality prevails. When women live in fantasy worlds, they make themselves miserable because their expectations and demands are continually refuted by reality. They spend all their time finding someone to blame...their husband, a co-worker, the patriarchy, that they never take the time to see reality for what it is and recognize their own role in creating their misery.
Example: My sister lived with her fiancee for over 2 years before they finally got married. Each brought some family baggage to the marriage but nothing that was insurmountable. 6 months after the marriage, her husband's siblings sought to include my sister in wrapping up some family therapy related to some misconduct by the grandfather long in the past. Instead of taking this act of trust for what it was, she freaked out because she had promised herself that she would never get into an abusive marriage like her mother's had been. She lost all trust in her husband and his family, became staunchly anti-Catholic (their family was Catholic while hers was agnostic) and began imposing absolutely impossible and unreasonable demands on how her husband and his family should behave. She wanted no alcohol of any kind in the house (his was a traditional Irish family) and did not want his siblings staying over in the event that they had had too many drinks and were not safe to drive home. The standards were so ridiculous that failure was assured...so her husband began hiding things (a small bottle of rum) behind her back. When she inevitably found this she had her proof that he was dishonest and untrustworthy. She had insisted that the house they were having built had to be on the opposite side of the metro area from his parents such that they were 1 hour apart by car and a long distance call. When the house was ready to move in to, she went behind his back, got an apartment and refused to move into the house claiming she did not feel safe. She also insisted that since she never moved in she had no obligation to pay the mortgage/contractor who had built the house for THEM. When his family's parents house suffered a pipe failure and flood, they had to move to a hotel for a few weeks and left their dog with their son in the new house. My sister was outraged at this...how dare he allow his parents to bring a dog into HER house....the one she refused to move into and claimed she had no obligation to pay for. Mind you...she is an animal lover...but her irrational hatred of her husband and need to control him trumped all. In the end, they were headed to divorce. My sister was driving the car with me along ranting about how the state would give her a fault divorce and all sorts of money/property/alimony etc. I replied that actually, if anything, the state would give HIM a fault divorce given her conduct. She slammed on the brakes coming to a complete halt on a busy 4 lane highway putting many people including us as risk to turn and start screaming at how I was a misogynist who knew nothing about what it is like to be a woman in an 'abusive' marriage. Later she claimed her husband had physically abused her describing an event I remember from our childhood between our parents. When I pointed this out...she acknowledged it...and then continued on with her rant as if the correction had never occurred. Totally delusional. As you might imagine, the marriage ended up being annulled, he got the house and mortgage but she got no alimony. Withing 3 months he was dating and was married again within a year. She became a bitter old feminist maid. All of this could have been avoided had the woman been prepared to see reality over her fears and fantasies.
Psychotherapists are almost invariably effeminate men or women. They are naturally attracted to the profession because the success of the practice depends on attracting female patients. For the reasons you enumerated, therapy is what women think they need. Men are dragged into it reluctantly while women run toward it. When a man and woman sit with a therapist it is like the proverbial two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner, one wolf being the therapist who wants to be paid, the other being the woman wanting to be heard, and the lamb being the man not wanting to be eaten.
My marriage is strong, thankfully, so we haven't ended up in counseling, but my workplace has offered occasional "relationship retreats" for couples we've tried that cover some of the same material in a group setting (5 love languages, conflict management, etc). I was surprised to discover that although this was all new to me and I was happy to explore these topics with her, her own response was quite negative. She'd gone through all this material before with her Ex and didn't want to again.
I find that frustrating. I can somewhat grasp the idea that none of it saved her last marriage, so she considered it ineffective, and it brings up unpleasant memories for her. OTOH, I doubt that it's all ineffective and I dislike that her Ex's failures in these things has apparently foreclosed my opportunities to even attempt them with her. It worries me that if we do have serious issues at some point that she'll either skip trying couples therapy altogether (that also proved ineffective with her Ex) or I'll find myself walking into a therapy session where she's essentially picking up in the process "right where she left off" with her Ex while I'm still back at square one trying to figure out what the process even is.
Am I likely reading this situation wrong? Or is it common for women to treat subsequent relationships with a sort of continuity in regards to counseling rather than each guy getting a fresh start?
One of the most dangerous things in a relationship is people expecting from their present partner what they got from their previous partner. It is automatic and unconscious. I have seen many women with a history of being abused see their present partner as abusive, even when he is not even close to being abusive. This leaves the man in a state of disbelief and shock. It can be a real mess.
After my many typed responses and thought out responses I keep coming back to: leave now, OR, go and do your own therapy, without her.
Over ten years ago I went and worked with a female friend in her small family business doing admin stuff. I rented a room off her and we shared. I saw things that slowly horrified me - work and home and I'm not saying I'm perfect. Then one day the bullet arrived, "you remind me of my ex husband" (please note that I'm a gay man and had never had sex with this woman and had never wanted to have sex, either) and she suggested that I look for my own place.
In that moment I was devastated but decided if this is how she is then I need to leave altogether. I had moved cities to be with her as we had previously gotten on well and had similar ideas but it was now obvious that we had both changed.
I was able to move back to my old city and old job.
I very much appreciate this primer; it is smart, “a flash light and a spot light” on what happens in therapy with couples; being shared with clients and substack too
In the 80's I joined a Group Therapy group that was managed by a psychotherapist who would give a lecture then we split into groups of 10 and that group was managed by someone who was being trained/managed/in therapy with the main Man.
However, there seemed to be quite a few couples attending as 'group leaders', so they were learning to be Group Leaders. But the main man once said something like: I will do one session with a couple and only when it is absolutely necessary otherwise at other times, I do not give couples therapy as I believe that it takes two individuals to make a couple and the individuals need to 'fix themselves up'.
This is a situation I've often thought about in this world of Men's Advocate blogs and more so recently because I've finally realised that most of these blogs are for Hetero Men but as (a gay) man I dislike the injustice to men mainly by Governments. However, I think that so many Hetero Couples (and same sex couples) try to save the relationship rather than themselves!!
So true that a triad nearly always resolves to a dyad. Young girls experience this repeatedly with groups of three frequently ending up as a duo with one left out.
Excellent work. This is exactly why I, as a therapist spend time with each spouse individually first, then together, and usually the first joint session is laying out gender differences as a point of reference for everything we discuss going forward. That has seemed to work.
It’s amazing the number of women that just don’t know. They don’t know because men are so bad at communicating openly, they never tell the wife.
I sometimes feel like a matchmaker in session. Like I’m introducing them to each other for the first time. LOL
Men don’t often need “therapy” per se, but they do need someone to “talk to.” Linguistic caution isn’t a bad thing.
Eric Barker's book Plays Well With Others has a few chapters on marital counseling. Some astonishing facts, such as it fails in five out of six cases-- suggesting it does more harm than good. (Some actual scams have better track records.) And its origins in 1920s Central Europe by a certain political political party that needn't be named, but are no longer in business. You can guess.
Marital coaching appears to be a much better bet. Work on one spouse at a time, by that spouse. No blame allowed, except for oneself. It's a better fit for the masculine mind. Some successful coaches are themselves former unsuccessful counselors.
The founder of one such coaching program, the Marriage Foundation, tells of how counseling destroyed his first marriage. The counselor asked them each to tell the worst thing about the other. His wife insisted he go first. He did not like the idea at all, but agreed, and did so.
Sorry to be pessimistic, but I honestly do believe that when it comes to couple therapy, the woman has already decided that the man is the problem. The therapy session is only to justify this conclusion, how the man wronged her and he has to agree to it. The last part is important, as for her, it is removing any doubt on her own wrong doing. The worst a man can do is to accept and apologize for things he is not at fault with.
The same goes for the widely feared 'we have to talk!', which is itself a deception as it is actually a unilateral 'you have to listen on how I will accuse you of wrongdoings and you have to accept that' thing.
The purpose of a couple therapy is having a third party to agree to her and make it look less subjective ('see, even the other guys agrees to me!')
I was stirred up yesterday as I commented and read comments.
Then I read the following from an Australian female news moderator:
“It’s absolutely disheartening to see both side of politics side with the activist class when it comes to this issue – it seems to be one of those 80-20 issues and the 80 per cent of the population is not represented by the mainstream parties.
“Australia … seems to be trapped in some backward notion that anybody who challenges this activist movement has to be punished.”
While this is referring to her news article about Trans issues, I think the wording applies wholly to society right now and how Governments are taking sides, as mentioned.
I wonder sometimes what are we actually fighting here, any of us?
Maybe Feminism has brain washed Men but Men cannot remain 'brainwashed' for ever, even if the odds are against Men!!
It seems to me that the Activists focus on something, make it bigger than ever and then when it has blown over, the crowds, mostly, go home and have a lovely sleep.. hahaha
For me, couples therapy was not helpful. In fact, I think it promoted false hope that my marriage could be saved.
I recall in one session, my ex saying that I had all the power in the relationship. When I questioned her assertion, the counselor looked at me incredulous and said something like, you don't see how that's true? That was out last session with him; yes, even the male counselors are biased.
Another trap, I believe is perception and intention. My ex said she couldn't trust me. I thought I was the most trustful person she could be with. I wish the counselor could have helped her see how her perception was influenced by her past experience with other men.
Some things are "given" these days. Like men have all the power. It has been said so many times that people simply repeat it. Question that and you are an instant moron.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet and I mean from such an idiotic therapist. He should have been questioning your ex about what she meant!
I have a female friend who, when her psychiatrist suggested that she needed the emergency number for when the therapist was on holiday, questioned me 'what did she mean?' My friend felt insulted that her therapist could suggest that she would fall apart so easily and yet that was what she was doing right there in front of me.
After sharing more about my own experience with therapists and 'not asking questions' I reassured her that, that was part of her therapy, "to ask questions immediately and not wait".
She probably would have also had a negative reaction if the shrink had said "no need for you contacting me." LOL
Step 1 for survival: dont go to therapy.
End of Code.
In this day and age that is a safe plan.
If one has to do therapy then I encourage anyone to open up as much as they can; say whatever you want to the therapist but you cannot hit them nor destroy their property.
Open the car bonnet and spew your problems out until you are done. That's what they are there for.
My last therapist of five years slowly got to me and I was a coward to speak up and he wasn't handling me the right way.
One day I exploded at him and he replied with something like, "don't ever talk to me like a dog."
I half apologised but what I really wanted to say was something like, "I think you are a narcissist, I'd never talk to a dog that way!"
I left three sessions later, with very little warning, and I saw shock and awareness on his face.
"I think you are a narcissist, I'd never talk to a dog that way!" LOL! Well said!
Couple's therapy was very helpful for me, as a male victim of domestic violence...but for reasons I did not expect. When my ex went to family court for custody, she falsely accused me of being the abuser. Everybody in the family court system fell for it. But ultimately, our couple's therapists knew she was the abuser....And they spoke up. And that's part of the reason I was able to force the court to understand the reality that the woman was the abuser. And that's part of how I got custody of our son.
That therapist deserves a medal! So glad it worked out. Good to see you Father X.
All this is very true but misses a point that needs to be stated outright. Much of what women say in therapy is demonstrably false. Just because a woman believes something does not make it true. Women lie so easily to others because they are expert at lying to themselves. Men tend not to be so good at this because other men will quickly, and often forcefully, correct the errant man. Women...never get corrected and spiral into fantasy worlds all their own supported by other women also on the path through the Looking Glass!
Some of it sure is!
I've actually heard what you say in your comment from a female family member but in reverse. I'm to the point where I wonder where such comparisons are taking society in general?
Ultimately reality prevails. When women live in fantasy worlds, they make themselves miserable because their expectations and demands are continually refuted by reality. They spend all their time finding someone to blame...their husband, a co-worker, the patriarchy, that they never take the time to see reality for what it is and recognize their own role in creating their misery.
Example: My sister lived with her fiancee for over 2 years before they finally got married. Each brought some family baggage to the marriage but nothing that was insurmountable. 6 months after the marriage, her husband's siblings sought to include my sister in wrapping up some family therapy related to some misconduct by the grandfather long in the past. Instead of taking this act of trust for what it was, she freaked out because she had promised herself that she would never get into an abusive marriage like her mother's had been. She lost all trust in her husband and his family, became staunchly anti-Catholic (their family was Catholic while hers was agnostic) and began imposing absolutely impossible and unreasonable demands on how her husband and his family should behave. She wanted no alcohol of any kind in the house (his was a traditional Irish family) and did not want his siblings staying over in the event that they had had too many drinks and were not safe to drive home. The standards were so ridiculous that failure was assured...so her husband began hiding things (a small bottle of rum) behind her back. When she inevitably found this she had her proof that he was dishonest and untrustworthy. She had insisted that the house they were having built had to be on the opposite side of the metro area from his parents such that they were 1 hour apart by car and a long distance call. When the house was ready to move in to, she went behind his back, got an apartment and refused to move into the house claiming she did not feel safe. She also insisted that since she never moved in she had no obligation to pay the mortgage/contractor who had built the house for THEM. When his family's parents house suffered a pipe failure and flood, they had to move to a hotel for a few weeks and left their dog with their son in the new house. My sister was outraged at this...how dare he allow his parents to bring a dog into HER house....the one she refused to move into and claimed she had no obligation to pay for. Mind you...she is an animal lover...but her irrational hatred of her husband and need to control him trumped all. In the end, they were headed to divorce. My sister was driving the car with me along ranting about how the state would give her a fault divorce and all sorts of money/property/alimony etc. I replied that actually, if anything, the state would give HIM a fault divorce given her conduct. She slammed on the brakes coming to a complete halt on a busy 4 lane highway putting many people including us as risk to turn and start screaming at how I was a misogynist who knew nothing about what it is like to be a woman in an 'abusive' marriage. Later she claimed her husband had physically abused her describing an event I remember from our childhood between our parents. When I pointed this out...she acknowledged it...and then continued on with her rant as if the correction had never occurred. Totally delusional. As you might imagine, the marriage ended up being annulled, he got the house and mortgage but she got no alimony. Withing 3 months he was dating and was married again within a year. She became a bitter old feminist maid. All of this could have been avoided had the woman been prepared to see reality over her fears and fantasies.
Thank you for your story.
Psychotherapists are almost invariably effeminate men or women. They are naturally attracted to the profession because the success of the practice depends on attracting female patients. For the reasons you enumerated, therapy is what women think they need. Men are dragged into it reluctantly while women run toward it. When a man and woman sit with a therapist it is like the proverbial two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner, one wolf being the therapist who wants to be paid, the other being the woman wanting to be heard, and the lamb being the man not wanting to be eaten.
Two wolves and a lamb! lol
My marriage is strong, thankfully, so we haven't ended up in counseling, but my workplace has offered occasional "relationship retreats" for couples we've tried that cover some of the same material in a group setting (5 love languages, conflict management, etc). I was surprised to discover that although this was all new to me and I was happy to explore these topics with her, her own response was quite negative. She'd gone through all this material before with her Ex and didn't want to again.
I find that frustrating. I can somewhat grasp the idea that none of it saved her last marriage, so she considered it ineffective, and it brings up unpleasant memories for her. OTOH, I doubt that it's all ineffective and I dislike that her Ex's failures in these things has apparently foreclosed my opportunities to even attempt them with her. It worries me that if we do have serious issues at some point that she'll either skip trying couples therapy altogether (that also proved ineffective with her Ex) or I'll find myself walking into a therapy session where she's essentially picking up in the process "right where she left off" with her Ex while I'm still back at square one trying to figure out what the process even is.
Am I likely reading this situation wrong? Or is it common for women to treat subsequent relationships with a sort of continuity in regards to counseling rather than each guy getting a fresh start?
One of the most dangerous things in a relationship is people expecting from their present partner what they got from their previous partner. It is automatic and unconscious. I have seen many women with a history of being abused see their present partner as abusive, even when he is not even close to being abusive. This leaves the man in a state of disbelief and shock. It can be a real mess.
After my many typed responses and thought out responses I keep coming back to: leave now, OR, go and do your own therapy, without her.
Over ten years ago I went and worked with a female friend in her small family business doing admin stuff. I rented a room off her and we shared. I saw things that slowly horrified me - work and home and I'm not saying I'm perfect. Then one day the bullet arrived, "you remind me of my ex husband" (please note that I'm a gay man and had never had sex with this woman and had never wanted to have sex, either) and she suggested that I look for my own place.
In that moment I was devastated but decided if this is how she is then I need to leave altogether. I had moved cities to be with her as we had previously gotten on well and had similar ideas but it was now obvious that we had both changed.
I was able to move back to my old city and old job.
I very much appreciate this primer; it is smart, “a flash light and a spot light” on what happens in therapy with couples; being shared with clients and substack too
Thanks Michelle!
In the 80's I joined a Group Therapy group that was managed by a psychotherapist who would give a lecture then we split into groups of 10 and that group was managed by someone who was being trained/managed/in therapy with the main Man.
However, there seemed to be quite a few couples attending as 'group leaders', so they were learning to be Group Leaders. But the main man once said something like: I will do one session with a couple and only when it is absolutely necessary otherwise at other times, I do not give couples therapy as I believe that it takes two individuals to make a couple and the individuals need to 'fix themselves up'.
This is a situation I've often thought about in this world of Men's Advocate blogs and more so recently because I've finally realised that most of these blogs are for Hetero Men but as (a gay) man I dislike the injustice to men mainly by Governments. However, I think that so many Hetero Couples (and same sex couples) try to save the relationship rather than themselves!!
So true that a triad nearly always resolves to a dyad. Young girls experience this repeatedly with groups of three frequently ending up as a duo with one left out.
Excellent work. This is exactly why I, as a therapist spend time with each spouse individually first, then together, and usually the first joint session is laying out gender differences as a point of reference for everything we discuss going forward. That has seemed to work.
It’s amazing the number of women that just don’t know. They don’t know because men are so bad at communicating openly, they never tell the wife.
I sometimes feel like a matchmaker in session. Like I’m introducing them to each other for the first time. LOL
Men don’t often need “therapy” per se, but they do need someone to “talk to.” Linguistic caution isn’t a bad thing.
Eric Barker's book Plays Well With Others has a few chapters on marital counseling. Some astonishing facts, such as it fails in five out of six cases-- suggesting it does more harm than good. (Some actual scams have better track records.) And its origins in 1920s Central Europe by a certain political political party that needn't be named, but are no longer in business. You can guess.
Marital coaching appears to be a much better bet. Work on one spouse at a time, by that spouse. No blame allowed, except for oneself. It's a better fit for the masculine mind. Some successful coaches are themselves former unsuccessful counselors.
The founder of one such coaching program, the Marriage Foundation, tells of how counseling destroyed his first marriage. The counselor asked them each to tell the worst thing about the other. His wife insisted he go first. He did not like the idea at all, but agreed, and did so.
She stormed out, and that was that.
Will regulators ever investigate this industry?
Sorry to be pessimistic, but I honestly do believe that when it comes to couple therapy, the woman has already decided that the man is the problem. The therapy session is only to justify this conclusion, how the man wronged her and he has to agree to it. The last part is important, as for her, it is removing any doubt on her own wrong doing. The worst a man can do is to accept and apologize for things he is not at fault with.
The same goes for the widely feared 'we have to talk!', which is itself a deception as it is actually a unilateral 'you have to listen on how I will accuse you of wrongdoings and you have to accept that' thing.
The purpose of a couple therapy is having a third party to agree to her and make it look less subjective ('see, even the other guys agrees to me!')
I was stirred up yesterday as I commented and read comments.
Then I read the following from an Australian female news moderator:
“It’s absolutely disheartening to see both side of politics side with the activist class when it comes to this issue – it seems to be one of those 80-20 issues and the 80 per cent of the population is not represented by the mainstream parties.
“Australia … seems to be trapped in some backward notion that anybody who challenges this activist movement has to be punished.”
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/rita-panahi/trapped-the-australian-population-is-not-represented-on-transgender-issues/video/17f5ba2392840e23b0b42ad19d7b8cf7
While this is referring to her news article about Trans issues, I think the wording applies wholly to society right now and how Governments are taking sides, as mentioned.
I wonder sometimes what are we actually fighting here, any of us?
Maybe Feminism has brain washed Men but Men cannot remain 'brainwashed' for ever, even if the odds are against Men!!
It seems to me that the Activists focus on something, make it bigger than ever and then when it has blown over, the crowds, mostly, go home and have a lovely sleep.. hahaha