I have been going to individual therapy once a week for a few months now. I'm not the kind of person who likes therapy, and in fact I pretty much loathe the entire process.
I don't really like chatting about my problems with someone else, let alone paying him to listen. Nonetheless, I keep going in every week because I'm trying to save my marriage. If there is something innately "wrong" with me that can be fixed through therapy and therefore make me want to stay married to my husband for the rest of my life, then I'm willing to give it a try.
In other words, if you look up "Lady willing to try just about everything to save her marriage" in the dictionary, there's a picture of me there, looking forlorn.
Okay, I know that's too long to look up in any dictionary, but still, I'm trying to paint a picture here.
Anyhow, I think therapy has helped me out in a few ways. I need to acknowledge that some of the things from my childhood affected me more than I thought. Okay. I need to stop taking responsibility for everyone else's emotions. Got it. I need to stop pushing my feelings away and deal with them before I explode. Sure.
I don't know if the individual counseling is helping my marriage. If anything, it's helping me to get a better understanding of who I am and why I make the decisions that I make.
I guess that's helpful, but I don't know what good it will do in my marriage to figure these things out except to clarify that I'm wholly incompatible with my husband. Unless, of course, his individual sessions reveal that he's compatible with women who need to figure out how to better express emotions and stop taking everything so personally. If that's the case, then maybe we have a match made in heaven.
When I first started the counseling I told my therapist, "If there weren't kids involved, I would have already left." His response was, "Wait a few months and if you're still saying the same thing we'll deal with it then."
It's been a few months, and my viewpoint hasn't changed. Maybe my therapist can't "fix me" after all.