Forum > Is counseling worth it?
Can you ask the counselor this question? Or perhaps try a new counselor if this one is not working....Personally, I will never forget my lousy cheating on me. And he was simply not sorry enough. But that is just me.
Carrie
Sometimes the counselors like for their clients to "come to their own conclusions." Maybe you have?
LJ
we spent $1500 and 9 months in counseling where my husband convinced me (and our therapist) we had a great marriage and that he loved me. Weren't we all shocked when out of nowhere he told me "he made a decision that we were done and he just couldn't do it anymore". He did not want to fix it. Apparently he pretended for a long time. He told me this in front of my small children. Then I pulled phone records and realized that he had been talked to an old college girlfriend that he never mentioned after 14 years for the past 9 months. They talked him out of our marriage. I am burned out on counseling. I remain so disturbed by his lying I cannot tell you. It made it all worse and I was completely unprepared. 100 days later I have moved out with my children and he is history. He is certain to never be trusted again
yvonne
Sometimes too much damage has been done, and it is time to leave the past in the past and move on. If you are not making prgress or feel like it is not getting better, listen to your heart. If it is time to move on then do so, and move towards a lousy-less future that will be more joyful and fullfilling than the purgatory that it sounds like you are living in. Good luck....
renee
Check out section under Less Ugly Divorce on this site...towards bottom is a whole section on couseling....good luck!!
JT
Check out www.marriagebuilders.com. It may or may not help you. It was only a temporary fix for me. However, there is a lot of information on there, if you are trying work things out.
clarity
I think it is worth it for you...if he has been treating you badly for so long, I think you need counseling to see why you have stood for it for so long. No one deserves to be treated like that.
Mel.
Pretty much, "once a cheater, always a cheater!" My ex cheated on his girlfriends through high school and college. His first marriage ended by his infidelity after I believe 2 years and his second ended by his wife's infidelity after 3 weeks of marriage (they had been together for 2 years). Then we were married (his third) for 24 years and he couldn't stay faithful. I believe he's been cheating for most of the 24 years we were together. This one person and he were financially involved as well (and she's married too)! We never had marriage counseling but I'm in counseling myself and I believe it's been extremely helpful. I don't think we could have ever worked it out through counseling because he's such a liar and I never trusted him again after finding out what he had been doing. Once the trust is gone, it's just too hard to get it back - no matter what you do.
yr
I think that it is always worth it to try and understsand what is going on. Lots of time lousy behavior can be worked through...or perhaps it is simply lousy's true nature emerging. In any event, it is best to get all the info before making a decision one way or the other. Knowledge is power. If it is simply a phase, or a crisis perhaps the couple can survive and be stronger. But if the deceit and destruction are too much, than it is best to discover that too.
sally
Sometimes it's not worth trying to go through counseling. When you're dealing with a compulsive liar and total deception for most of 24 years, it's really hard to believe a person is going to try to "reform" and tell the truth in a counseling session or anywhere else! Gaining knowledge is absolutely necessary but do it with your control, legally. I discovered so much information about my ex's actions and involvement through subpoenas and it's amazing how people start telling you what they've known about your lousy spouse before you knew anything.
Some of these gyts are really scumbags and you don't even know it - we're talking alternative lives outside what you thought you had. No counseling, therapy, talking, etc. is going to change anything - you won't get the truth until you find it yourself. It's a hard pill to swallow and hurtful but that's the situation some of us are dealt with.
yr
I can' t but agree.I often wanted to compose in my situate something like that but I believe you' r faster.
commercial mortgage funding
i recently discovered that lousy has been cheating on me for 15 years. i threw him out when i learned, but he begged me to give him a second chance. he doesn't want a divorce and he doesn't love the other, he said. he wants us to go to counseling. we have gone a number of times and it has helped. for how long must we go? the last couple of times, it seemed that we were just paying the counselor for not much. is there some rule of thumb for how many sessions you need? or is there some state of mind you eventually reach that pushes you either to reconcile with the louse or make the rift permanent?