Did therapy work for your marriage?

23 comments

1. I think if you’ve repeated the same thing ad nauseum until you’re blue in the face, it’s time for counseling. Men usually feel like we nag them, and need to hear it from someone else. Stop being HIS maid. Let his wash his own clothes and cook for himself for a bit. They take for granted what you do, until you stop doing it.

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3. It won’t hurt to try. If things don’t change after giving it a fair shot, then you have a decision to make.

4. No. I told her pretty directly what I felt was missing in the relationship and she still didn’t care

5. So ask him how it’s fair that he gets to come home after work and relax while you have to come home and clean up after everyone?

6. Yes, couples therapy can help.

   Also watch the documentary “Fair Play” available on Prime and Hulu. It will help give a way to start effective conversations on this issue.

7. If you mean couples therapy it’s only worth it if both partners are willing to make the change. It’s not just about the workload that you’re doing, the therapist will try to address your communication issues so that you’ll both be a stronger couple with a better relationship so that when issues crop up again, you’ll both be able to address it effectively. If you’re going to therapy solely to have someone else tell him to do his share of the chores, you might want to sit down first and stop doing his chores for him. See if that changes anything.

8. Always try therapy before a big decision. At least u kniw u genuinely tried. Been there done that.

9. I don’t know if it will work, but it is you trying everything you can to solve a problem. His response to the request and the sessions will give you a clear direction of the relationship and if it should continue.

10. I always read that you shouldn’t make a big decision like divorce until like 3 or 2 years after giving birth because that time was so increíble complicated due to the complexity of bringing a new child into this world. I’ve known couples on the brink of divorce when they had their first and now when I talk to them they look back and say it was really bad. They had allot of communication and were able to actively do what they other needed in order to help with the physical and mental load. This could definitely be done when doing therapy but the couples mentioned did it on their own. One of them literally took charge and was like nope letting today i’m going to take me time here’s the baby i’ll be back in a bit, husband was shocked but this led to them actually scheduling me time. She also asked herself what she really wanted him to help with and she said it was bath time and bedtime, so on those days she literally handed the kids over to him and she went and did her own thing. She was also honest with herself about the pressure she puts on herself like she would go crazy if the kids didn’t follow a certain routine and this led her to be even more stressed, when she learned to be ok with perhaps not giving them a bath everyday or having them stay up just a tad longer her stress level really went down significantly.

11. Counseling before divorce. This is a fixable situation. You’re definitely taking on much more than he is.

    What if you worked only part time and he found a way to earn more of the income and pay more of the bills? Or you both continue working FT, but man in that case he needs to take on more of the home and child rearing work. It’s just not even right now.

12. It worked for me. It convinced me divorce was the best idea. I was unhappy for five years.

    Divorce is not always the worst decision. Sometimes it’s the best decision.

    I have been happily married for the second time for 30 wonderful years.

    I would have never known how amazing life could be if I had stayed with my first. I would have believed him; that I was all the worst things he said I was.

    I’m the same me, but this man sees a capable beautiful woman as opposed to a stupid idiot….

13. Um, why are you paying 50% of the bills when you are doing much more than 50% of the work?

14. Couples counseling did not work for my first marriage. Individual counseling (for me) works wonders for my current marriage. I’ll bring up stuff I’m struggling with & my counselor will give me some insight, another perspective, and ideas on how to address it. Stuff I’ve learned has helped me multiple times to not make things worse and, often, has helped make things better. Bottom line, you can only change yourself. And, if you divorce, you’ll have 100% of all the responsibilities, all the time.

15. Ask him to pay for a maid ,for a chef and for a babysitter so that you no longer do those chores

16. If you go to counseling with him, do it for yourself so that you can walk away knowing you did absolutely everything you could. Simply for your own peace. Men like this rarely change, and if they do it’s when they suddenly wake up when they realize they’re actually losing you, or 20 years later when they finally mature. Likely neither. Also, if he DOES “change” at the threat of losing you, be extremely wary and make him prove it over a long period. Don’t do his half of the work in the house and make sure you plan activities and trips etc so he’s forced to take care of the baby half the time. if he responds well to this for at least a year, I’d slowly start putting my faith back into the marriage.

    Whether you leave or stay, get in with a good individual therapist. If you leave make sure you also get an attorney who will make sure you get all the child support possible.

    He had his chance and he absolutely abused it. I’m disgusted by “boys” like this, honestly. He’s causing your death by a thousand paper cuts.

    Also, there’s a TON of amazing women out there on podcasts, TikTok, etc who help motivate women like yourself get out of these situations. Lmk if you want some suggestions.

    You’ll get through this love. I left with my 8 month old baby and while it was hard, we did just fine. You’re a strong ass woman and you deserve peace.

    Sending you love ❤️

17. As a husband, you don’t need to raise a full grown man. Stop doing his laundry and making his food.

18. Why not try therapy for yourself?

19. Are you me? I think I’ve probably had the exact same thought about being a free maid about a billion times, especially since we had our son. We tried counseling last year for a few weeks but I hated the lady we were speaking with and we didn’t see any changes (I did what she recommended and he didn’t) but I’ve been really thinking about finding a new therapist and giving it another chance.

20. I know so many on here jump to recommend therapy but in my experience it only works if you are open, ready to listen to constructive criticism, and willing to look inward and make changes. If you aren’t then it’s a complete waste of money. If I were you I’d stop doing everything for him and send a strong message that you aren’t his servant.

21. Statistics that I read said it worked 70 percent of the time but I don’t have a link. My wife is a therapist with a national reputation so it won’t work with us. She fired the therapist when she figured out that she couldn’t run the sessions.

22. Ask him if he wants to go to therapy, but he might just say no. That’s what my wife did.

23. Yes, we did some couples therapy and I also did a lot of individual therapy where my marriage was the primary focus, and now we’re thriving. It was pretty bad for a long time after our daughter was born, and prior to that it hadn’t been a cakewalk for many years.

    In 2021 and 2022, I frequently had the thought that I could make a venting post on this sub, and every word could be true, and it would draw out almost unanimous recommendations for divorce. She could have done the same. But I didn’t want to breath life into the part of me that could have taken things in that direction. Because I was convinced the misery wasn’t fundamental to our relationship, but merely a sign that we’d lost our way.

    One of the wonderful things about marriage is that it inevitably propels us toward dealing with our baggage. That is both a perk and an obligation: Marriage is a springboard we can use to grow, and yet we *must* grow for it to succeed. I stuck it out and never once even considered divorce, because I sensed baggage was driving the misery we were experiencing. I’m not suggesting the same is true in your case; that’s your call to make. But none of us enter a marriage without some sort of baggage. Sooner or later it will come up. When it does, we can either decide, “Ok, I can’t put off dealing with this anymore,” and take the bull by the horns. Or we can keep trying to get away from it and gradually poison our marriage in the process.