What do you think of marriage counseling?
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion Archive: Archive July 2005:
What do you think of marriage counseling?
Have any of you used marital counseling and did you find it helpful?
I'm at a loss. I feel like dh and I just have lost our spark for each other. We've been together a long time and have always been that couple that everyone talks about....so in-love all the time, best of friends, love to be together, still going so strong after so long. In the last year it just seems like it has all changed. I've gone through some depression(after the birth of my dd), which he was so supportive through, but I think that was a big problem. I'm mostly over it I think, but still have moodiness and my self-esteem is low. He tries to build me up but I refuse to hear it most of the time and I think he's just tired of trying and not seeing results.
We make time to do things together, and we always do things as a family, but it for our relationship it just feels forced. I can't believe this is happening. We talk about things and it seems like it will be better, but how can you change feelings? I'm crazy about him, but I'm just not sure he feels the same anymore. He loves me I know that, but is he 'in-love' with me anymore? He doesn't act the same as before...everything we do together seems like it's trying to recapture times past and we just can't. I've suggested counseling, and although he will sit and talk with me for hours about anything I want, he doesn't like the idea of sharing our problems with an outsider. I never thought I would either, but I just want what we had back.
I'm partially venting, too. What are your experiences with marriage counseling?
If both parties are willing and will participate honestly, marriage counseling can work very well. But that doesn't sound like your situation.
However, I am picking up on what you say about yourself - your post-baby depression, low self-esteem, and moodiness. This makes me thing that you might well benefit from individual counseling, to help you find out why you are still depressed, have low self-esteem and moodiness, and find ways to deal with those issues.
Agree with Ginny. Sounds like you might want to look into individual counseling. IF you are feeling bad about yourself, you may be projecting you feelings back into your relationship. You have to heal yourself before you can work on anything else. DH will see a better you and he will follow suit. And If you are feeling better you will see things in a better light. We have a tendency to read into things way to deep, get stressed out and ASSUME a bunch of stuff that may not even be there. Men on the other hand have a tendency not to see things until they are smacked in the face with them, until then they don't see the issues we feel we see (I say feel because often it really isn't an issue, as much as we want/try to make it an issue). Try to size things up in a "rational" sense and if you think that maybe you have some work you might need to do on you I surely suggest individual counseling.
Best of luck and I honestly think what you are going through is normal for more women that you might suspect. Get yourself some help and cut yourself a bit of slack... Tomorrow is a new beginning waiting to happen.
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