Couple Counseling

[Pig wrestler]

One thing that was discussed this weekend, after pretty much everything unpdw said to me was turned against me, was we should try counseling together. I can only imagine there are some major pitfalls to this. I do not see this happening until after the start of the new year, if at all. I would imagine she will blame me for things and suggest I do counseling solo.
For couples counseling, shouldn't any counselor worth their salt pick up on her pd ways?!? Or is this just another wasted effort or time and money?

[notrightinthehead]

I can only report it was a total waste of resources for me. My NPDh used the sessions to vent about me and uttered demand after demand. The cousellor tried to work on our communication patterns but was unable to stop him.
Afterwards h felt he had found another ally.

[NBRiverGuy]

One thing that was discussed this weekend, after pretty much everything unpdw said to me was turned against me, was we should try counseling together. I can only imagine there are some major pitfalls to this. I do not see this happening until after the start of the new year, if at all. I would imagine she will blame me for things and suggest I do counseling solo.
For couples counseling, shouldn't any counselor worth their salt pick up on her pd ways?!? Or is this just another wasted effort or time and money?

I would say give it a shot. Personally, it was a disaster for me. W went on an uninterrupted, 15 minute rant as soon as our session started. The counselor finally stopped her and said, "This is not how marriage counseling works. You need to allow your partner an opportunity to respond." W accused me and the counselor of ganging up on her and stormed out before the end of the session. We went back one more time. Any time someone else was talking, w tuned out while she mentally prepared for her next complaint. Counselor told her that she needed to be present the current conversation. Again, she said that the counselor was taking my side. We never went back. But, at least I gave it a try. Now I know.

[square]

Counseling for you could be good, to help you work through your own thoughts and feelings and come up with plans on how to respond to certain situations.

You are correct that couples counseling is only useful when both parties are willing to put in the work. Toxic partners weaponize the sessions.

A good counselor will be up on PD but you can't count on it. Do NOT mention PD.

If you do end up going, here's my advice.

Don't feel like it's a safe space to be honest. It's not.

Don't share any frustrations you have with her.

Your contribution will be "I would like to see if we can learn strategies so we can both get our needs met and deal with things cobstructively." Like maybe agreeing that neither of you will use name calling, that you both agree either one can call for a time out to cool down, stuff like that.

If you are cornered to share something that is bothering you, just say you are wanting to look forward and get some good strategies and not worry about past conflicts.

If you are cornered and find yourself sharing something, be as general as possible.
Gotta go lol will finish later.

[IsleOfSong]

During our brief foray into couples counseling, my wife told me that she thought I was "winning" marriage counseling. That comment told me all I needed to hear — that she saw it (and everything else) as a competition, complete with score keeping and no opportunities for her to be insightful. I've since focused on therapy for myself, since I was the only one of us actually willing to do the work that therapy requires.

As for you, you could check the "tried marriage counseling" box if you want to do that. But I'd keep expectations very low. PDs don't want to change because they don't see themselves as being the problem. Remember that.

[square]

So, I would avoid sharing concerns but if you find yourself cornered, be general. Instead of talking about this or that specific incident, be very general like "I wish I could share my concerns without being invalidated."

I was always demanded to provide examples, then my examples would be picked apart. I learned to refuse to give examples, and say "well, it's a concern I have, I'd rather not get into past incidents, just want to improve things for the future. If it never happened then it won't happen in the future and I'd be satisfied with that."

When H and I tried counseling, after the sessions we'd get into the car in the parking lot and he'd unload on me, yelling about how I "made him look bad." I didn't have all my strategies at the time but I was still fairly careful in the sessions, but I still got to sit there in a car getting yelled at. After three sessions I took it on myself to call and cancel the next one and H never asked about it.

[SonofThunder]

I refused. I will never advise a nonPD to go to couples counseling with a PD. Imo PD's are so skilled, they will manipulate the counselor and all of the focus will be turned to changes that the non needs to make. Imo it will result in a performance bar set incredibly high and destined for either your master-caretaker status or total failure.

Imo, your PDw will get the backing of a professional to deeply coerce you through guilt into compliance; a classic double-bind move every time by a PD, and designed to corner you into a real pickle, as the PD uses the counselor to get you to admit why you have changed; why you are now "..not the same person I married" (i bet money you've already heard that).

Imo, you are damned if you accept or refuse. So I chose the latter and dealt with that one instead of the double-teaming.  Picture the scene in Pixar's Finding Nemo, where Nemo and Dory get invited to a "fish are friends" meeting by Bruce.

#motiveiseverything
#fisharefood

SoT

[IsleOfSong]

Echoing SOT here... keep in mind that PDs are masters at reading and manipulating well-intentioned people. That's how we got into relationships with them! Consider the therapist another well-intentioned "easy mark" to be manipulated to the PD's gain.

Just remember: The hardest part of marriage counseling with a PD isn't the counseling, it's what happens AFTER the sessions. That's when the mask comes down and the shaming and blaming (or the victimhood) arrive. You've been warned!

[zad7242]

I found it a waste of time overall. I pushed for marriage counseling with my uBPDw, she reluctantly agreed after about 2 years. Her argument was as follows: "a therapist is only going to tell you to be a better person. If you don't listen to the therapist, you are bad, if you listen to the therapist after I've been telling you the same thing for past 2 years, you are even worse person." I think that is one of those double binds SoT was referring to.

We finally did marriage counseling. After the first 2 sessions of her crying and screaming at me. She would taunt me, and say I was stupid for agreeing to do counseling because of how bad the therapist must think I am as a husband. She even asked me "how does it feel to lose at marriage counseling?" After each of us met with the therapist one on one (standard practice for this counselor) the therapist told me she thought my wife had traits of BPD. Once my wife learned that our counselor was not on her side, she said she was trying to sabotage our marriage therapy on purpose. She promptly filed an ethics complaint against the therapist to no avail.

The only positive of marriage counseling was that it was the first time a neutral 3rd party got experience both of use directly and validated my perspective on our situation which naturally was comforting to me.
I can also know I did my due diligence in trying every avenue to improve our relationship I could.

[SonofThunder]

When H and I tried counseling, after the sessions we'd get into the car in the parking lot and he'd unload on me, yelling about how I "made him look bad." I didn't have all my strategies at the time but I was still fairly careful in the sessions, but I still got to sit there in a car getting yelled at. After three sessions I took it on myself to call and cancel the next one and H never asked about it.

👆🏼Square, that victimhood result is another great example of how marital counseling can be strategically used by the PD to also provide ammunition for private persecution in a controlled space with no witnesses. Well done Square in your self control in a difficult (car-trapped) environment and then the steel backbone to refuse further sessions. 

Along with everyone else's replies both here and elsewhere on Out of the FOG regarding couples counseling, they well validate the very strategic double-bind situation that a PD will use in the IDD cycle.  I personally believe that suggestions of counseling by a PD is preplanned manipulative persecution that has a victim-role outcome for the PD no matter the result.  I believe victimhood is the main fuel of a PD's hunger to feed 'self'.

This thread is great discussion on the pro's and con's and one can read in these replies that the only pro may be just marking off our internal checkbox that says to oneself, "I tried".  Ime, the "I tried" checkbox quickly dissolves in the ramped-up persecution following either choice regarding counseling so imo, not worth going through that double-teamed manipulation just for a short-lived "I tried" mindset. I refused based on the previous, similar discussions here on couples marriage counseling, so in hindsight i'm very grateful for the experienced truth of all of us who walk these trails together.

SoT

[MaxedOut]

To echo what others have said. PwPDs typically are not invested in the normie reasons for going to couple's counseling. It is about some sort of agenda (being heard but as in being validated without the reverse is about the most benign form). Because they view things as very black and white and adveseraial rather than collaborative, outcomes that you would want--even if very compromise oriented--are typically going to be felt as "losing" and they will no longer participate. The reasoning is probably about the therapist being junk, being on your side, you being terrible, the process being useless, therapy itself being useless-whatever, but really about them not being able to achieve wins. Those with borderline traits will typically try to establish early on their victimization and vulnerability to get the therapist on their side while narcissistic trait folks will walk in with the charm to ally the therapist to them.

As mentioned be very cautious about vulnerability, anything you say can and probably will be used against you. If you do bring up stuff stick with specific behaviors that are clear to see as worked on or not worked on (and probably pretty accomplishable ones since this is not really something your wife is probably interested in for the sake of meeting each others' needs better). And try and get their general feelings translated to specific expectations of behaviors to agree or not agree or whatever to as well (the phrase "tell me what _________ looks like for you" sometimes actually works pretty well).

You are probably more likely than not to have a therapist with little experience or training in PDs. I would not want someone who exclusively does couples counseling as that likely brings an approach rooted in beliefs that both partners share equal responsibilty for the current dynamic and improvment is about compromising together. That often means zero addressing of abusive beaviors and the non-PD bending over backwards even more as the therapist tries to even-hand things. I would try to find someone trained in DBT (or less relevant but usefull, CBT), mentalization, or other practices with an evidence basis for some positive effect for borderline.