Originally Posted by aBetterMe
Originally Posted by markos
I don't know that individual counseling and delving into childhood issues is really a positive way forward. Dr. Harley says that doing so makes the problems of the past into problems of the present.

I'm totally blowing up this thread! LOL

Hi Markos,

I while I understand Dr. Harley's reasoning regarding individual counseling, I suggest it here because it has helped me so much with understanding more about my present behavior. I'm a very logical person and it's helpful to have a neutral third party to provide insight and to bounce feelings and ideas off of.

The purpose of counseling in my situation was not to have a place to wallow in my anxiety or sadness but rather a "class" to attend to learn more about my strengths and shortcomings. Counseling is not efffective if you are passive, but if you put in the work and take it seriously there is so much you can learn.

In this context, I think Hilltopper could find counseling useful. There is so much blame between him and his wife, and he doesn't seem truly willing to look at himself in all of this. He's essentially says over and over "I'm putting in the work to meet her EN's but she's not doing good enough in response." And while he recognizes when he AO or DJ's, he's not making much in the way of changes, just apologizing and doing the same thing 3 days later and then blames his wife for it. I think counseling could really help with anger management as well.

Just my 2 cents. smile

There's a number of problems with some counselors, and you have to know what approach you're getting. Some are so bad as to encourage you to end your marriage so that you can be happy! Others follow all kinds of ineffective approaches.

The anger management field is particularly bad about that. There are all kinds of failed approaches out there that are still going strong, like teaching people to "express their anger appropriately" or having them "vent" to try to "get it all out" by punching a pillow or screaming or raging or such (which just reinforces the habit of anger, intensifying the problem) or trying to resolve issues from their past or get in touch with their inner child. None of these work. At least, that's what my anger management therapist tells me! smile And Dr. Harley agrees with him, apparently.

If a counselor knows how to eliminate the problems of Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts, knows how to teach new habits to replace these, then that could be very helpful. If the counselor is told this is the goal up front, and actually has a past track record of effectiveness dealing with these, and doesn't go on a fishing expedition to try to get to the "real problem" behind the problem or whatever. On that note, I think Hilltopper could really benefit from calling up Steve Harley, alone, and saying "I have a problem with Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts; can you help coach me through a plan to eliminate these?"

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I'm a very logical person and it's helpful to have a neutral third party to provide insight and to bounce feelings and ideas off of.

The purpose of counseling in my situation was not to have a place to wallow in my anxiety or sadness but rather a "class" to attend to learn more about my strengths and shortcomings.

There are some neutral third parties here, and we can be a good class to teach the MB concepts. smile Of course, we are peers and not professionals.

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There is so much blame between him and his wife, and he doesn't seem truly willing to look at himself in all of this. He's essentially says over and over "I'm putting in the work to meet her EN's but she's not doing good enough in response." And while he recognizes when he AO or DJ's, he's not making much in the way of changes, just apologizing and doing the same thing 3 days later and then blames his wife for it.

I'm not sure that any of us has enough insight to read Hilltopper and judge his motivations this deeply. He may simply not know how to do what you are saying, yet, so saying that he is unwilling to is a little bit more than I think anyone can say.

The fact is that as long as Hilltopper doesn't eliminate SDs, DJs, and AOs, his marriage will never be able to improve long-term. The Marriage Builders plan calls for eliminating these three categories of abusive behavior. What does Dr. Harley do when someone comes to see him and isn't following the plan? Well, according to his book Effective Marriage Counseling, Dr. Harley focuses with such a person on their failure to follow the plan.

The Marriage Builders material is chock full of help to eliminate these three abusive behaviors, especially if a person reads and listens to everything he can get his hands on and FOLLOWS it diligently, like his life depends on it. smile Hilltopper has been dabbling in the material since at least the beginning of the year, but we saw him really start to focus on the problem of his SDs, DJs, and AOs just a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks is a really short time to give up and say "It didn't work, we're going to need more help."

If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.