$150/hour wolly1234: It's funny. WE had a marriage counselor. $150 an hour one. We went seperately, each of us. ANd together. 7 or 8 times. A lot of money for us.
I remember one time after she had went for one of her solo sessions asking her how it went. Not prying, just trying to communicate, because that was her time with the counselor. Good, bad, useful? Just trying to be supportive.
She told me they spent the whole hour talking about shopping. AT A $150 BILLS AN HOUR! JEEEZZZZZZ
Re:$150/hour justmenow: Ours was $120/hour. We went for a year. It took me about four months past my divorce to realize that we had only been working on the symptoms in our relationship, not the problems. It would akin to treating the headache vs. treating the brain tumor causing the headache.
Here is what I learned (for free:)
Symptom: Zero sex life
Problem: He used to flirt with other women right in front of me. In turn, I felt not good enough for him, not beautiful, less desirable. Over time, I just shut down.
Symptom: No affection (and I don't mean not enough, I mean NO AFFECTION)
Problem: After feeling inadequate for so many years and not desirable, I would push him away at every opportunity. I didn't want him to touch me and after a while, he stopped trying. This was the final nail in our marital coffin.
Symptom: Zero Communication
Problem: After listening him drone on and on and on about his day at work, he never asked me about mine, or on the rare occasion he did, he would never *really* listen and *always* would turn the conversation back to him. After a while, I gave up and stopped listening.
Symptom: I am too defensive.
Problem: After 14 years of being scrutinized and criticized for every little thing I did, I stopped trying to do things and came to depend on him for everything. As you can imagine, this caused a whole lot of new problems. No longer was I the independent woman he fell in love with. Can you say "co-dependency"? Good! I knew you could.
Symptom: We just didn't like each other anymore.
Problem: We were just too different from the start. We didn't like to do the same things, we didn't believe in the same things, etc. I love to be outside, he loves to stay in, I like to save money, he likes to spend, I believe in God, he did not, I believed in monogomy, apparently he did not. These are big things that I'm not sure counseling could have overcome.
Hm. This got long, but hey, I just saved you $120/hour, or in Wolly's case... $150/hour. My advice: Make sure you have some sort of clue as to what the problems are before going into counseling. It will save you a lot of time and $$.
Re:$150/hour barelybreathing: It is amazing what you CAN learn all by yourself without paying a whole lot of money in therapy.
I do believe that if you have the fundamental foundation in place (faith) then you can build from there.
Not that therapy is bad. It is very good. Especially for those that are victems of the wrong thinking.
Justmenow, you rock girl!
