Is Couples Counseling Helpful?

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Has anyone attended couples counseling for their marriage?

My wife is dropping the D bomb again (divorce)...as she seems to do at least once a year. I'm frankly sick of her threats because I think I might just be better off on my own (we have two children - a 17 year old daughter and 15 year old son). I know I have my AS issues but she's no picnic to live with either.

Has anyone found counseling helpful? Do you identify yourself with AS to your counselor? Or is that just like putting a target on your back? We've attended counseling on and off in the past...but nothing regular. I'd have to pay out of pocket for sessions and I think it's money down the toilet (and our finances are very tight as my wife has severe money management issues).

I appreciate your comments.

I think it would only be useful if the counselor understood autism.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... Wc&cad=rja

This paper might be useful.

Before I considered engagement with my ex I insisted on couples counselling. I did tell him about my undiagnosed Aspergers and that didn't change the fact he basically ripped her apart. In hindsight he probably thought the whole time "you are paying me good money when the answer is obvious: she is a toddler in an adults body....and you are a blind idiot!"

Helped me see I was not the crazy or unreasonable one and saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life!

You know it's very difficult to say.

I truly think there are a lot of counselors who have the best of intentions but perhaps make things worse. You need to trust your own instincts and decide whether the counselor can actually help you or not. When I see a therapist I size them up and if I don't like them I drop them. Some might say this is paranoid but I consider it a protection against harm.

I do think there are some very good counselors who can help though. Just don't go blindly putting all your faith into counselors who can fix all your problems.

Thank you for your comments. I definitely would not see a counselor that wasn't AS-friendly. Thank you also for posting the attachment.

It might-- if both of you are willing to be honest about your issues (honest about the issues you have, honest about the issues of the other person's that you really don't want to live with, and honest about the issues you are unwilling/unable to compromise on or do something about).

It might-- if both of you are willing to be yourself in front of the counsellor. Marriage counselling will NEVER work for my husband and me, because I'm more able to take a counsellor's BS answer and "be duly comforted, at least for the next 60 minutes" than I am able to do that with my husband (I am programmed to "stop perseverating and act right" in front of people, but for the love of God, if my home isn't a place where I can show the pain I feel honestly and truthfully, then shouldn't I at least be permitted to leave and/or talk to someone else???); meanwhile, in the counsellor's office, my husband is the sweet, funny, soft-spoken, patient man that I fell in love with (and at home, with nobody watching, he's the short-tempered, demanding, insecure, amotivational, discouraging, confidence-killing, passive-aggressive, demeaning, ad-hominem hurling, unintrospective, threat-tossing miniature version of his father with selective memory to boot that I find myself married to).

The closest thing to that that ever shows in a counsellor's office is that, when pressed and confronted with things he knows damn good and well that he did and said, he clams up, becomes very defensive, starts backpedalling furiously, and changes the subject.

It might, if neither of you attempts to "get the counsellor on your side" or use the counsellor as a weapon with which the other party can be controlled.

OTOH-- Dude, your kids are 17 and 15. THREE MORE YEARS. The finish line is in sight. You've come this far. Is there a snowball's prayer in Hell of you licking her boots, kissing her ass, letting her do whatever she wants, and then politely hitting the road before the ink is dry on the younger child's HS diploma?? It might be easier on the kids than divorce, uprooting, a visitation schedule, and/or the seemingly obligatory foul-ass, ad hominem, shit-flinging, no-hold-barred custody battle.

I find therapy to be very useful. I think for couples it can help if you are both open to listening to someone's advice that is not in the middle of the situation. I have done it with my wife and have found very helpful. We also see the therapist on an individual basis to work on issues that might be going on with us specifically and not as a couple. But things that might be impacting us as a couple. Another key is to find the right therapist that is down to earth and not all clinical. That kind of therapist just does not work for me. Hopefully if she is dropping the D word she is not against getting help. Good luck.

My husband and I are currently in marriage counseling. So far, it's helpful. The counselor is familiar with Asperger's and is able to explain my sensory issues and brain processing to my husband in a way he understands. I don't feel like I'm ganged up on in sessions, and the counselor actually encourages my husband to do more research on autism to better understand me. He also explains my husband's NT reactions/feelings to me in a way that is helpful, and I don't feel like he's talking down to me.

I realize though that I am extremely lucky to have found someone like that - I know of some users on reddit who have had very negative experiences with non-AS friendly counselors.

I am in the same boat, and have been fore years... My wife has made me go through it twice. The first time, he was a complete quack, all he kept asking was about our Sex life, which neither one of us brought up or thought of as an issue, really creeped us both out.

Skip forward a few years later, she makes us do it again. This time, completely different experience, the guy basically "sided" with me, and other than giving me the generic "tell her how you feel type stuff," basically focused on all the things she was doing wrong, how she needed to accept who I was or get over it... it was rather satisfying, even though I hated going to it. After about 3-4 sessions, she no longer wanted to go.

At this point, I get the subtle threat (not directly saying the d-word) it seems about once a month or so, more so now because I no longer just accept or tolerate things she got away with for too long. I really think she hasn't done it because she knows I will be fine, and she would have a harder time with it, not so much because of love-loss, but rather how it would be to deal with things that I do, that she takes granted for.


Note: I have just self-diagnosed at this point, but we do have at least 1, likely 2 kids with ASD

I went through counseling the last time (what I consider the only really successful time) several years ago. That's when I learned about Asperger's / HFA (two terms for essentially the same ASD) and I was diagnosed. I was going through my third episode of major depression as well as I had ongoing and severe anxiety issues. The first two times I had gone for counseling didn't really do much for me. The first time when I was in middle school, I got to go sit and chat with a psychologist who was a friend of the family, which got me out of being beaten up on Tuesday afternoons. The second time, (different counselor) and during my second episode of major depression, after my son was born, but before I divorced my first husband, she simply handed me a book, Codependent No More and basically told me to "ditch the loser," which was helpful only in that divorcing my first husband was the right thing for me to do. Hindsight is 20/20 and he was a loser who really needed a mommy, not a wife. I didn't really identify much with the codependence thing, but I did learn that I am a person who is highly independent and much better off when I am mostly left to my own devices. My second (and current) husband has understood very well over the past 20 years that I am quirky, but easy enough to deal with as long as I have a lot of latitude in how I do things.

I never really understood that the reason why I had such difficulty with relationships and so much anxiety from dealing with people until my counselor (third episode of major depression, and another counselor) suspected that I may be HFA. She also consulted with my family Dr. who prescribed Catapres (for anxiety) and Prozac (for depression.) Medications are not always right for everyone, but this particular combination helps me stay on a more even keel- with far fewer anxiety attacks and less predisposition to a depressed mood. They are not a "cure all" but they do make it easier for me to navigate this world which is extremely helpful.

The anxiety and depression as well as the emotional disconnects that are part of being on the spectrum are taxing to relationships of any kind. It's hard to be in any kind of a healthy relationship when you have a hard enough time dealing with you. My husband is NT and was/is not amenable to any kind of psychotherapy, but our marriage has improved a lot simply from me taking care of myself and addressing my own issues. You can't have a healthy relationship with anyone unless you're reasonably healthy yourself.

It probably would be more helpful if my husband would have participated in therapy, but I think in some ways that I've already taken the first and most important step by taking care of my own mental health. And even if your spouse doesn't want to participate, you will benefit, and in some ways so will your marriage.