CentralOhioDad

Well, we go to the marriage counselor tomorrow. He supposedly specializes in addition and a host of other things, so we'll see how well he's received and if he's any good.

Wife has been drinking, though has cut back considerably since she threatened divorce last month. (She said she wouldn't drink at all until the divorce was final, but that fell by the wayside.) Except for last Friday's big slip, the house has been much calmer with her more stable moods.

I'm certain she will be the aggressor and tell him that everything that's wrong in the marriage and her life is me - I'm ready for that. I'm also prepared to be quite calm, admit that I do have faults, but that her 'coping skills' in dealing with all her inner demons, is unacceptable.

I'm sure it's going to be a fun weekend! But, one day at a time, and today the sun is out, and college football is on this weekend, so it WILL be a good weekend - mainly because my 2.5 year old is around creating all sorts of humorous chaos!

Titanic

Word on the street: She's got to get on top of her addiction before marital counseling will really be effective. The active alcoholic or addict IS NOT the same person as the true, recovered one.

It's like, does one want to do marital counseling so one can "comfortably" lay in bed with a blood-sucking vampire? Some of us had to learn that lesson the hard way.

But, by all means, please do the marital counseling thing when her real self is available to it and you.

SoaringSpirits

My AH and I spun our wheels in marriage counseling for over a year. I kept going and trying and thinking 'what the heck is going on? Why is this not working?' Each session just seemed to get us nowhere, and I could not understand why. I knew alcoholism was the #1 problem but hoped that if we improved other things, the drinking might also change. Boy, did I have it backward. I finally realized that without sobriety/recovery, any money spent on marital counseling was pretty much wasted.

Hopefully your counselor will be much more savvy than ours, and not let you spent a precious year and $6,000 on therapy before finally saying "You know, I think that not much is going to change with active alcoholism in the picture..."

ZiggyB

Good luck!
I did marriage counseling with my ex husband (not an alcoholic) and it didn't keep us together, but it did help me to realize just how hopeless the relationship was. :-/

I hope yours has a better outcome.

dandylion

Dear CentralOhioDad, My own experience concurrs with the three above that you have recieved.

I hope this therapist Does have considerable experience with addiction. REAL hands on experience. If you notice the ads for councelors/therapists, there is often a laundry list of conditions listed. Most have on area of strength and then a list of other things that they may have a passing acquaintance with. I am not being critical---I believe very much in the value of therapy. It is just, that if a person does not have a LOT of experience with alcoholics---they can tie a therapist up in knots with their manipulation and denial.

In particular---please listen to SoaringSpirits (above).

If this person IS experienced in addiction, they should recognize right away what is going on. You must be very honest from the first sentence about the drinking!!! Your wife will probably come off the wall, somewhat. If he/she is knowlegable about addiction, they might be a person that you could continue to see as your individual therapist. You are going to need this for yourself, in any case.

I am wishing the very best for you.

dandylion

Trilogy

I agree that marriage counseling when one partner is an active alcoholic is simply a waste of time and money. I have extensive experience with this both personally and professionally. I have been a psychiatric RN for 27 yrs., and have worked on addictions units myself as well as having to closely collaborate with therapists on the treatment team. My AH(who I have been with for 30 yrs) and I have attempted marriage counseling 4 times during our marriage. It doesn't work because he is simply not HIM when he is actively drinking. The longest stretch of sobriety he had was for 7 yrs. I would ask your therapist outright if marriage therapy will work if one partner is in active addiction, if the shared goal is to save the marriage. I would be leary of one who says it could work. In my opinion, money would be better spent getting individual counseling for yourself.

choublak

Is this some kind of trend where the marriage counselor also happens to be an addiction counselor and does marriage counseling for couples where one of the partners is an A?

PohsFriend

Wow guys...

Ok, I will be the first to agree that MC is not a cure all by any stretch but it has value whether you solve anything tomorrow or not because it is both of you doing something that supports rebuilding your marriage rather than tearing it down.

How about ....keep an open mind, thank your wife for agreeeing to go and leading off by saying that you are worried about your marriage and are there because you want to understand what you can do to improve as a husband and be a happier person?

....People go into that first session all balled up and ready to present their case to the judge and prove that their spouse is the problem. Her issues and alcoholism will come up in due course but if you lead off by saying you are there to improve things and are willing to do your part and you appreciate her willingness to join you and work with you...

What's the worst that can happen? You don't work it all out? You won't work it out in 40 minutes anyway. FWIW my wife and I have our first one in a while tomorrow, maybe our 6th with this MC and it's been a lot of you did this amd you did that crap. Tomorrow I am planning to focus on things I've noticed us BOTH doing and things I want to work on instead of wasting the hour taking turns defending ourselves...

Good luck. How you feel walking out of there depends on what you walk in there planning to accomplish.

Not trying to pump too much sunshine here... it's good to have realistic expectations but if you go in expecting it to be an utter waste of time then it will probably sink to the level of your expectations.

Hopeworks

Is counseling your idea or hers?

I refer my counselor to couples all of the time and he always has the spouse desiring counseling and change come see him in a private session. He then gives that person a card to give the spouse to make their own private appointment. He advises him or her not to beg, badger or promote their making their appointment because if they have no interest in working towards improvement tangibly then it is also a waste of time and money.

If one of them is actively drinking it would be a waste of time, energy and money to joint counsel....a good counselor will make that clear.

Hope863

I had to pipe in here even though I haven’t officially introduced myself.

Just like the above posts, I tried MC as well. Thankfully our counselor had some addiction knowledge and he did tell us that if there is active alcoholism, then MC simply will not work. We did try a few sessions but it really went nowhere.

When you talk about the shortcomings and faults of each other in MC somehow it puts the sober spouse’s faults on a level playing field with the addiction. We all have our faults, but they will never compare to the absurdity of the addicts behavior and the way they treat us. But to the addict, talking about what you do wrong and your part in the failings of the marriage justifies to them that their addiction is not the problem.

Your wife may have great intentions on going to MC. Unfortunately, my experience was when my AH drank afterword anything that was worked out or at least talked about in the counseling session went right out the window the minute he was drunk.

But individual counseling can work wonders.

drunkyjules

Hi Central Ohio Dad. I just wanted to say hello-I'm from central Ohio too. Go Bucks!

I wanted to say good luck at your marriage counseling tomorrow. I agree with PohsFriend that you should try to go in there with a positive goal in mind and positive attitude towards working on improving your marriage. I think that counselors can be very impartial-they are used to the blame game and are there to help sort it out.

As far as the drinking wife problem. I'm the drinking problem in my marriage and I can say that someone has to truely have the desire and the willingness to stay sober and to work on it their problem in order to change. I don't know your wife but I have found a lot of help in AA - central Ohio has a ton of meetings all over at all times of day. We are truely fortunate to have so many options. There are mixed meetings, womens meeting etc. When I first went I was amazed by the number of people there and the mish mash of people there. We A's come from every walk of life -that helped me alot. I had this image in my mind of what an alcoholic was and I was so wrong.

Anyway I'm probably rambling but good luck and if she doesn't want to continue with counseling and trying to improve things then you should work on yourself!! You could check out al-anon or an open aa meeting, continue counseling etc.

Take care Central Ohio Dad. Enjoy your football weekend My husband is an obsessed man during football season.....

Titanic

This! If therapist says it won't, then you can let her be counseled (especially if she chose the therapist). And you would do well to get individual therapy too.

You want to be in marital counseling with the true person, not this other character. Keep us in the loop!

EnglishGarden

I think some initial visits will be helpful, as the counselor may in fact tell you both that marriage counseling will not work unless both parties are clean and sober. But this may not happen on the first visit. I would go for a while and see what happens. The counselor may not get into the issue of alcoholism right away. But if that doesn't happen by, say, the fifth or sixth visit, then the counselor is just taking your money. Spending more than six weeks trying to help two people to work together to resolve their relationship problems when one of them is a flaming alcoholic is INSANE. COMMUNICATION and HONESTY are vital to the counseling process and an alcoholic is absolutely incapable.

Your wife is an ACTIVE alcoholic. (This "cutting down" business is meaningless). She is feeling extremely threatened that she is going to have to make changes, that you are changing, that you may not be around to rescue her and do her share of the parenting and provide a comfortable house where she can continue drinking. And believe me, she is way more cunning than you can imagine.

Her addiction is threatened and you are in a very dangerous place because of that.

My advice is to get separate individual counseling with someone who specializes in families of addiction and start ASAP, while you test the MC waters.

Otherwise, believe me, she is going to keep this merry go round going for years.

Titanic

Yes! But, testing the MC water takes only one dip, especially if you put the question about its efficacy directly to the expert the first time. Honesty and maybe even communication will NOT be there the first, second, third, fourth or fifth time either. The A is no more capable of the necessary honesty the sixth time than he/she was the first.

It normally takes almost a year or more of sobriety for the Honesty, Open-mindedness and Willingness (HOW) part of the AA/NA program to start getting somewhere reliably. And the Honesty part of it tends to focus on honesty as it relates directly to sobriety rather than the A's marriage!

Each visit will teach the A how to "work" the therapist or therapy better. The A is a master manipulator. The smart and subtle ones are the very best!

Just sayin'. Take what you like and leave the rest.

EnglishGarden

It is possible the counselor will want--professionally-- more than one session to ascertain whether the wife is an addict or abuses alcohol but is not an addict. Even if you believe you know for sure, Central Ohio, and we believe we know for sure, the counselor will be gathering information, sorting and sifting. I am assuming you are both complete strangers to the person.

Most of us here who have been in your situation (I have) also know that the direction and the outcome of what happens in counseling is not completely within your control, and that events will occur which will turn things one way or another.

Your higher power has opened this door. It is part of the story and of your growth.

I share Titanic's concern that the counselor can be conned by your wife, as alcoholics are quite the manipulators and they can look very good when it counts. But I'm hoping your counselor will have excellent intuition as well as a solid understanding of the symptoms of alcoholism and codependency.

We all will wish for you acceptance of whatever happens and the guidance of your higher power to take you to the next step.

Itchy

I wish you the best of luck. My AW won't go to counseling and the one time she did when she was really depressed she went on her own. But tonight she did one of her poor me screaming drunk nights and now she says I forced her into that then. What actually happened was that the counselor called me in for joint counseling and I had a prepared letter I handed to her and read aloud so as not to get into the active codie rigamarole. It is not going to work unless both partners are wanting a marriage, not a life with drama at a whim, tongues at the ready. To be honest I am tired of the verbal abuse, and the nightly tirades as soon as she has had her two drinks. (Read two glasses with 5 or 6 shots in them to one shot of water, then she can settle down and drink a couple more slowly)

I am going to have to file because she is in a rut of my accepting her outrageous statements as the ravings of a drunk pure and simple, because she won't even talk about the great dramas she raised the night before in the cold light of day. Even she hasn't self deluded that far yet.

I am just tired of the verbal abuse and ignoring it isn't helping. And she won't file, it is all about the control

CentralOhioDad

Well, it went pretty well. A lot of stuff came out, more from here than from me, which surprised me. She did talk about her Alc Mother, her ex's physical and verbal/emotional abuse, and other stuff. Also said that she does (did) drink too much, it's a means of escaping/coping - which I didn't think she would say all that.

Most surprisingly, she didn't pin all her troubles on me, which is what usually (always) happens when she's drinking. She didn't make me sound as sh**ty as I usually do when it's just the two of us.

We have another appointment next week. He asked some probing questions, left things on a positive note, and that was about it. We got a lot out in the open today, so there wasn't much to discuss.

We'll see what the next weeks brings. I told them both that since she's been more on a 'social drinking' pattern, that things have been much better at night.

Titanic

Thanks for the update! Like EnglishGarden said, as long as the counselor is gathering background to assess the situation, it's okay. Beware, though, of her morfing temporarily into a mere "social drinker," "abusing just to cope," and conceding things at home or elsewhere just to look good in the sessions. Peace!

CentralOhioDad

I didn't bring up drinking too much, though did say that was my major impetus for being there. He didn't single out either one of us - it seemed more of an information-gathering session.

One day at a time.

Itchy

COD,
Glad it is going well. Sorry about my earlier post, I was just finished with one of those, and now things are calm again. You know the pattern. Keep posting, best of luck.