Refusing Therapy to Save Your Marriage
After promising do anything to save your marriage, your husband may have agreed to attend marital counseling. During the initial stages of the sessions, he seems attentive and open to the situation, but as time goes on, he becomes more withdrawn and even irate about the sessions. Before you know it, he’s changed his tune, refusing to undergo anymore counseling and doesn’t want to discuss it.
Marriage counseling is a good opportunity for couples to work through their issues under the direction of an unbiased party. Marital counseling will help a couple discover what brought them to the painful crossroads in their relationships. In counseling sessions, alliances are formed between you, your spouse and the therapist, and they all abide by the belief that you are unique individuals who are to be looked at individually and as a couple.
Counseling sessions are by no means easy to deal with. The truth about how you both feel may be brutal to face, and some nerves may be struck. However, you and your husband should feel comfortable in your therapist’s presence to let these harsh thoughts and deep feelings out and resolve to work through them together. If you find that your husband becomes stubborn and unreceptive to the counseling, ask him what the problem is. Perhaps he feels as if your marriage and its problems are private, and shouldn’t be worked out in front of others, therapists included. There’s also the possibility that he relives feelings of guilt from his affairs in every counseling session and doesn’t want to deal with that feeling. We can’t tell you what his exact thoughts are; the possibilities are endless.
If you feel that you’re making excellent progress in your marriage counseling together, try to encourage your wayward husband to work through the complications he’s feeling. Be honest about the fact that you feel marital counseling is helping your relationship and mention that you’re proud of his efforts.
If He Doesn’t Like the Therapist Environment
Should your husband state that he’s open to working on the marriage, but that the problem is the environment – he doesn’t like the counselor, for example- then this will probably require rectification in order to keep things afloat. Ask him what he doesn’t like about the therapist and their office. Maybe the office is too cold. Perhaps he feels judged by the therapist and presumes that the counselor empathizes with you as a victim of infidelity. Offer him the opportunity to switch out your current therapist and find someone who seems to fully engage the both of you in your sessions.
If you discover that your husband truly just isn’t interested in marriage counseling, but doesn’t have any other possible solutions to help rebuild your relationship, this may be a sign that he’s just not as invested in the marriage as you are. At that point, it’s time to re-evaluate your options.
