Second counseling session
 

Yesterday, our marriage counseling session was supposed to be divided in half for us to each have individual time with the counselor. Well, AH went in first, and finally came out 50 minutes later. The counselor apologized to me, but I was fine with it because I am only there to be supportive of AH. This counselor wanted to ask questions about my childhood, my parents, my siblings...

In my opinion, we are there for marriage counseling. We need to focus on what is troubling our marriage and work toward dealing with those issues. Is this their way of making sure there will be more and more sessions so they get more money, or is this normal? The questions he asked were very easy for me to answer, and he was surprised at how fast that part of things went for me. Apparently, AH had a lot of baggage to discuss.

I do not believe in anyone using their past as an excuse for making poor choices in their adulthood. If you didn't have the most positive childhood, you still have the ability to make your own way as an adult. All of us have choices to make, and we can be the ones to break the cycle if there is one.

I'm not clear how only being in marriage counselling to be supportive of your AH would work?

From my experience of marriage counselling (limited) they ask you about your own family background and childhood so that they can get to understand what is "normal" for you both, and what sort of expectations you both have about what a marriage means - because it differs for different people, a marriage counsellor is there to help the 2 people in a relationship come to a better understanding of each other and fnd a way to be together that makes them both happy.

Marriage counselling doesn't work for addiction issues if they are the things that are troubling your marriage?

My AH went to our family doctor to talk to him about possibly getting medication for his inability to deal with stress other than by snapping at me and being a sarcastic jerk to most people. He is angry all the time, and thinks other people do things they know irritate him just because they know it irritates him.

I told him he needs to do something about his behavior, so he made the appointment with our doctor. This doctor said that he believes marriage counseling is what we need, so we decided to try it.

I was (am) at the point of not caring anymore what he does as far as his drinking is concerned as long as he understands that I will have no part of it. I will no longer enable him in any way and I refuse to interact with him if he is drunk. He has stopped drinking anything except low-alcohol beer, and some days no alcohol at all. I am still distrustful about the binge drinking returning, so have distanced myself from him.

He now says that he is thinking more clearly, and not through a haze of fog (his words), and that he realizes how miserable of a person he has been, and no longer wants to be that person. I personally believe individual counseling for him is in order, but I told him that I would go along with the doctor's recommendation for now and see how things go.

Doctors are often not educated on alcoholism.

I posted this a couple of years ago. Give it a read:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...y-symptom.html

Trying to address marriage problems via counseling before the alcoholism is dealt with is putting the cart before the horse, IMO.

Regardless of whether he is drinking, what he is drinking, and whatever medication he "thinks" is going to solve his attitude problems, he has not addressed the underlying issues of his alcoholism.

It's an exercise in futility.

You stated that you are distrustful of the binge drinking coming back again. As long as he is drinking any kind of alcohol, you will always have that mistrust in the back of your mind. It's very difficult to repair a marriage if there are trust issues and it's something you may want to bring up with him at some point if he's open to it. My AH wouldn't be open to any interference from me regarding his personality issues or his drinking. He's the type of guy who needs to make any and all decisions for himself, no matter the consequences.

Also, my AH is reading a book called "The Anger Trap" and I know his psychiatrist told him to read it last summer but he never finished it. He's reading it again now but hasn't spoken to me about it but I think it's a good book on helping you find the root of your anger and how to deal with it. Anger, for my AH, is his 'go to' emotion for anything; if he's depressed, anxious, frustrated, etc he uses anger to express himself and it has always been a problem in our family life. He got put on Paxil and Trazadone for the anxiety and sleep problems and, although they helped to some degree, I think the meds just put a band-aid on the issues. He really needs to do individual counseling and AA, but that's for him to figure out.

I like what Freedom said above, though, about addressing the alcohol issue before any other type of therapy. Yet, if you AH doesn't see the drinking as the problem nothing you say will convince him otherwise. It really is important that you take care of yourself and I hope I hope things continue to go well for you guys. Just remember to watch his actions and keep taking care of YOU!

Another thought... my last marriage counselor (who was an expert in addiction), also initially spent more time with my XAH. She put 2+2 together very quickly and realized that he was the problem and wanted to focus on him. He was ok with that, and so was I. Ultimately, it just helped me realize that I was over it, and wanted out. But perhaps that is what happened.

Thank you all for responding. I agree that as long as he is drinking any alcohol, I will always worry about binge drinking. I think I will even if he quits completely, as I read so much on here about relapses even with a program.

My issue now is wondering if I have just become so indifferent to what he does that the marriage won't survive no matter what. I honestly don't believe that having a therapist ask questions about my childhood has any relevance to our marriage problems.

Has he cut back on the beer because he really wants to so that he can be a healthier, happier person? Or is it because I grew a spine and decided that if he wants to be a drunk, he can do so without me around? I spent years being the "fake happy, everything is wonderful" wife. So now is he being the "fake happy" husband? If he is, it won't last (a person can only do this for just so long), and we are just wasting our time. Guess I should bring this up in the next session, after I politely ask if we can please focus on the issue that brought us here.

I'm a binger and I can tell you I first got sober 16 years ago. In that time, I have relapsed 6 or 7 times, and I WANT to not drink. Can you imagine how many times a person who DOESN'T want to quit drinking is going to relapse if they quit?

His drinking low-alcohol beer may make you feel better but that is just him trying to control his drinking. An alcoholic cannot control their drinking.

I agree with the fact that he is trying to self-control his drinking. I wonder if after drinking just that after a while, his tolerance will get to a point where even that will get him drunk?

No, it works the opposite. The longer they drink, the more alcohol they need to feel as drunk. They build up a tolerance.

To halt the disease, an alcoholic cannot drink alcohol, period. If they try to control the drinking, it may "work" for a little while but eventually they will go back to the same level of consumption they had before. And then they will increase consumption as time goes by.

While I agree that our childhood issues don't give us permission to make poor choices as adults, I respectfully disagree that it has zero impact.

I only say this because I have seen very close friends (non-A) struggle with childhood abuses/issues (direct & implied) which shaped their foundational thinking. Since these events were so tied to how they developed their definitions, sense of self & personal value they benefitted GREATLY from re-examing it all as adults & gaining a greater understanding of why certain triggers or issues persisted despite their physical maturity. It's like balls were set into motion in their lives years ago & without realizing it, they just kept letting them roll along without questioning it.

For the record, I grew up poor with an addict for a father so my own childhood is not without issues. While I don't allow that to control my decisions today, it took a lot of work & awareness on my part to choose to walk a more responsible path. And it didn't come easily. Just my $.02.

This thread made me smile. When I started with my counselor, she insisted on asking me about my parents, my childhood, etc. I sat there thinking "what is she--STUPID?" I'm here to deal with my marriage and my alcoholic husband!

After seeing her for over a year, I had to admit that my childhood issues definitely affected my behavior and thought processes as an adult. Identifying those issues and learning what to do with them changed my life profoundly.

L

I'm surprised any therapist would agree to treat someone who is drinking. Certainly not one who knows anything about addiction. Have you talked to your therapist about this? If he/she thinks therapy will help someone stop drinking I'd look for a new person.

We didn't go to counseling because of his drinking. I am done trying to fix that issue. That is completely on him. We went to figure out if our marriage is salvageable. We have so much more going on than just the alcohol problem, although that was brought up right away during our first session.

What is actually tearing us apart is that I have changed by becoming a more confident, self-reliant person who refuses to just play nice even when things are not great. I will no longer put up with being the scape goat for his sour attitude and mood swings.

He does not seem to like himself and that makes it hard to like him. He knows that he can be mean, sarcastic, bitter, and paranoid. These are the things that need attention. He has acted this way when drunk or stone-cold sober. I too thought things would smooth out when he stopped going on long binges, but it didn't happen.

We went to couples counseling and eventually therapist told us that we needed individual therapy because we were not ready for couples. He said there was no way we could effectively do couples when my husband wasn't doing any internal work with regard to his alcoholism. I hated hearing that and especially being that because we were separated that was our only contact, but I understand it is for the better. He will never be good for me and I will never be good for him until he's working his recovery and until I am healed.

"We went to figure out if our marriage is salvageable."

IMHO until he is sober and working a strong recovery program for life, marriage
counseling is not applicable, he needs to fix himself first.

We tried marriage counseling. She saw us together twice then each of us individually, before we came back together. I think it was a way to establish safety for each of us to talk about hard things while the other one was not there. I already had a long-term individual counselor, he did not. I was working a recovery, he was not. Looking back I think she was aware of that by the time we came back together.

I got a lot out of couples counseling, including that he was not cut out to be in a relationship at that junction in his life. I continued to see her off and on occasionally after the relationship ended (in addition to my individual counselor). Her experiences in couples help to add a different perspective to things.

I have had a wise person tell me that typically a relationship is challenging to keep going if one person is in recovery and the other is not.

I have learned that without examination my adult relationships are a way of recreating what was known in my childhood. My codependent behaviors were already in place prior to my relationship with an alcoholic, and in part attracted me to him. I hope that I choose to get into that relationship to learn and heal from my childhood (and that I don't have to repeat that lesson again).

Finally though we did not work out as a couple I am grateful that I did what I could to try. That was important to me and if nothing else came out of couples counseling that was valuable.

Our childhood is the foundation for our lives, and where we determine what is "normal."

As an example, I had a friend in college who grew up in Massachusetts. He ended up going to graduate school in Georgia, and we kept in touch for awhile via email.
I had to laugh when I saw his wintertime pictures - all his classmates in their heavy coats and gloves with their lips turning blue, and him standing out there in shorts and a T-shirt because their winter was in the same temperature range as his childhood summer.
Eventually he did start wearing longer pants during the Georgia winter, but it was only after attending summer classes for several years, and he never felt comfortable in the heavy jackets his classmates wore (especially since he'd fly home every Christmas).

When our childhood is one way, it takes awhile to become acclimated to something else, and even so it takes awhile for that to become anything close to comfortable. Childhood plays a bigger factor in things than most people realize.
It's not an excuse, per se, but it is an important starting point to those trying to find a healthier lifestyle. I know in my case it has taken awhile for me to feel comfortable in a relationship where (1) it's not always my fault when anything goes wrong, (2) I have a say in some of the activities we do, (3) I am not expected to take responsibility for everything and read people's minds to determine all the things I'm supposed to do, and (4) there are clear boundaries where I stop and the other starts and vice versa. These are all things that I did not have growing up, and even though I know that these are important parts of a healthy relationship, they are outside of my comfort/"uncomfortably comfortable" zone.