Thanks for any feedback.

hi loved1 i can relate to the part where u said there is genuine love there and the bit where u said sometimes its good between us i feel the same it seems very harsh for the counciller to want to stop the councilling im in the uk and it goes on for as long as u feel u need it we cannot save them just as u said my partner is also a drinker and has health problems and has had 2 strokes but that dosent stop him either i know ive not been much help but im here for u hun and i will see who is around that will know about this kind of thing so as to help u and hopefully people on here will know to loads of lovexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Loved1. Sorry for the delay. I am in a different time zone.

I feel for you. It is so tough to be stuck.

Two things struck me as I read what you said:

1. You are getting stronger, wiser and more capable all the time. Wow ! Your strength and wisdom just jumped out of your post at me. Way to go and congratulations. You hard work is paying off. I hope you won't be disheartened because things aew still a challenge. It takes time.

2. Mmm, the counsellor....Grrr!

I think you need a new counsellor. I'm not going to pussy foot about this. What the heck !!!!! The darn woman is behaving abusively - sheesh! But it happend. Some counsellors are lousy - or worse. Don't be fooled by her title. She did what she did and it was abuse. She did what abusers do and threatened you. And she threatened you with ABANDONMENT ! It is practically criminal to do to a woman in your situation (mine too). You go to her for support and she threatens to withdraw it if you don't do what SHE says you should.

I've come across this sort of thing before. And codependence (HERS !!!!) is rife in counselling, especially amony the less highly trained ones (which would be the case with her). If she isn't codependent, she is an outright abuser. Codependents abuse. by the way.

Also her behavior is unprofessional and unethical.


Maybe you should think of finding another counsellor and giving yourself the satisfaction of not going back. I find I have got stronger with each small stand I make when bad things are done to me. We don't have to be offensive, just make the stand. In fact I think we are prouder of ourselves when we can stay calm and polite and still say no. This is all your choice of course.

You could always go back and make a stand with her and say you will be deciding as you see fit and, if she feels she must send you away because your choices aren't pleasing to HER HER HER (it's all about her), then that is her choice. This could be tough. She could get tricky and nasty. It would be imperative, I think, for you to keep reminding yourself you are fine even if she disapproves of your choices. But Is she worth going back too? I think that is the crucial question.

Just keep thinking it through and keep checking in with yourself about how you are feeling about what to do.

It is up to you whether or not you decide to leave or to stay. Nobody can make this decision for you. Leaving a toxic relationship is difficult, and needs proper planning to be done successfully. Even when we do finally leave there is a whole other range of emotions that we deal with after we have left. We feel guilty that we didnâ??t leave sooner, shame that we stayed, some may even still continue to love and hope that the person will change.

Counseling will work when you are ready for it to work, and it takes time. I think for her to say counseling will not work while you are in the relationship is not an entirely true statement. I think it can help you come to certain realizations that you will need to face in order to make your decision.

Once you realize that you are not responsible for the way he feels, and cannot change his behavior it will be easier to start to unbind the â??spellâ?? he has placed upon you. Do not berate yourself or staying. Do not think that you are dumb, crazy, or any of the other negative emotions that we all deal with. You are none of the above. You are a loving person who is trying her best to make the relationship work. You are right, he is sick and you (WE) are not qualified to change them, nor can we.

Have you read the book, â??Controlling Peopleâ?? by Patricia Evans? She describes how people will create a â??teddyâ?? like figure and how they try to anchor that imaginary figure into our authentic selves. It is hard to describe as well she has, but I have put a summary of the book under the news section on the â??Physical and Verbal Abuse Survivors Groupâ??. You are more than welcome to join that group too.

I would also like to invite you to join our â??Roots and Wingsâ?? chat room discussion with the author Patricia Evans on June 27th at 10:00 am Pacific Standard Time. We will have an open discussion about her books and I would encourage you to bring up your concerns to her as well.

It looks as though you are working to try to establish healthy boundaries with him as well as inform him that you are standing your ground. You have also made another positive move towards nurturing yourself instead of putting his needs before your own.

Trust your own instincts. He sounds like my ex. My ex would grope me in public when he thought people werenâ??t looking. It was humiliating and he made me feel like I had over reacted to him grabbing me â??down there!â?? I was so hurt and angry. This guy is not thinking of you at all. He will not change and he is not listening to you at all. He does not sound like he even respects you as a person.

Abuse is always a roller coaster of emotions. Yes it sometimes feels better during the â??honeymoonâ?? phases but abuse nearly always escalates. Remember leaving is your decision and when you do leave it may take several tries to finally break off the connection.

There are all sorts of reasons why we stay. Donâ??t let anyone minimize everything you have gone through by saying, â??Well just pack and go!â?? Itâ??s not that easy. Let them walk in your shoes a while, and feel the tremendous pain that we have dealt with before they should even dare judge.

My ex was an alcoholic abuser. He drank every day, got drunk every day, abused me every minute of every day and blamed me for all of it. His depression was real and I knew it. I thought that if I showed him unconditional love for the first time in his life then it would all stop. I paid the bills, cleaned the house, cleaned him up when he needed it, covered for him when he needed it, lied to friends and family about it all almost constantly, i lied to myself about just how bad it was. I blamed the depression, I blamed the alcohol, i blamed myself mostly. I treated the alcoholism and depression as if they were aliens that had taken over the body of the man I loved. None of it was true. Every single thing I did enabled him to continue to abuse me. Emotionally, mentally, verbally, physically. Every time he hit me he was drunk, everytime he accused me (in public) of sleeping with others he was drunk, every time he crushed my spirit, beat me black and blue, told me I was stupid and ugly and worthless...i told myself it was the depression and the alcohol.

Absolutely every single thing we do for them is enabling them. If he quits drinking for you then he hasn't quit drinking. He turns into what is called a "dry drunk". He might not be ingesting alcohol - but he is still thinking like an obsessive alcoholic with that brittle, unbending and selfish thought process they get so good at. We were wrong in one elementary thought. It IS our husbands/partners who are abusing us, not the depression or the alcohol. We can't think any other way because then we are doing nothing but enabling them. We are giving them that one inch of room they need to take a mile out of your soul. I forgave and accepted and begged. After I left he quit drinking. Begged and pleaded for me to come home, he went to AA meetings, went to anger management classes, went to church. When that didn't bring me back to him, he stopped putting up the front and started drinking again, blaming it all on me and his depression. Even from a distance everything was my fault, none of it was his. Even after his supposed "sobriety" and being "saved" he was still the same controlling narcissist(sp?) underneath it all. Nothing was ever his fault. Ever. I will even go so far as to say that blaming it on a "force of evil" takes the blame off him and externalizes it. It is his fault. Period.

There is not one moment of anything I did that emasculated him. Not once. Not even subtly. Eventually the one I had to save was myself and that was what I did. And the worst beating I ever took at his hands happened on my way out the door. I was finally doing something he couldn't control and the abuse escalated to the point that by the time I was in the car and driving away I had 2 broken fingers, a broken nose, 3 cracked ribs, a missing tooth, two black eyes, bleeding from a busted lip and more assorted cuts and bruises and scrapes and punches than I care think about. I still have the pictures. Abuse is not about anger or depression or alcohol. Abuse is about power and control and the extent that these people will go to to get it. His ultimate goal is the subjegation of your spirit. The heart in me that was big enough to love this monster is the heart that was his target. I wasn't a wife to him - I was a hostage. And I wasn't a hostage of his depression or his alcoholism. I was a hostage of him.

You are this man's hostage. Keep going to your Al-Anon meetings and find yourself another counselor. You will find your way through this, you really will. I do not know what the road ahead looks like, but I clearly recognize the hole you are in right now. I was there.

What a great two post those were from Ruby and the dear queenly one.

I think a lot of Patricia Evans' books. And you may gain from what Ruby suggested re her. You can gain from just about anything actually, but be wary where you tread. But I would caution you that Patricia Evans is a journalist and not a therapist. I just said something vitally important. Some women have been so helped by the information that Patricia compiled in her books that they run with their imagination and raise her to guru cum healer status - without foundation. I am speaking from past experience. So be careful.

If you want an author who is truly an accredited healer and who is also a survivor of abuse, I suggest Beverly Engel. I have all her books (all of Patricia Evans' too) and they go where Patricia cannot. See Amazon.com. The following one has a lot to offer - http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Your-Emotional-Self-Self-Esteem/dp/0470127783/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212145520&sr=1-1 . It is a healing program from an experienced and trained therapist.

Please keep posting. There is so much to sort through.

My last reply didn't go through.

Thanks so much for your feedback. I really get helped from those two authors and recommend them all the time (Thank you).

I see the counselors point. They are short term domestic violence agency. They don't go into deeper issues. This is my 4th time there in 10 years, 3 of those time in the last 6 years with this counselor. So I am not inclined to pack up and run away when I see her point. She suggested a break if I continue to stay despite what I know about the relationship. Whether or not it's right or wrong, I need to accept her because I can't change her, and have been helped by her, and I don't want to be resentful (It is deadly for someone in recovery for addiction and alcholism like I am).

What helps is to get feedback and think about it a little. What also helps a lot, is if I continue to go back and forth with this guy and the clock ticks and this has gone on for most of the relationship, I can guarantee it will probably continue, not the happily ever after we're staying together. So it makes sense to lean towards the separtion. Doing it one day at a time has helped in the past. Being strong enough to not cave into his or my neediness is an issue.

No the counselor is not perfect, but I do believe she does intend good motives, and the scope of the agency just isn't long term deeper issues - I can pray about finding someone else for that. This is just domestic violence.

Ideally in a perfect world, is never going to happen. I just do my best.

I appreciate the support and replies. Thanks so much.

Counsellors have different training and ideological stances. Yours obviously has hers.

I strongly disagree with her stand on the grounds that it was authoritarian (which I disapprove of; my stand) and was not geared to helping you deal with your situation.

I was not looking at your situation and yours and your partner's behavior and making a JUDGMENT - as she and some other people have done. My view is that WE need to choose what to do and that we need to work through our thoughts and feelings to get to that point. I believe this strongly and that is why I started this group. It is our lives and we should be in the driver's seat.

There may have been some grains of truth in what that counsellor did, but she chose to use them to, in effect, manipulate you instead of trying to help you. If you have abandonment issues, heaven help you. If you are desperate for her support and approval, heaven help you.

I have had counsellors telling me what to do. I sacked them. I would have been a sick girl indeed if I had let them take me over. I wanted HELP, not domination. I had to sack them for my own good and then I had to search for help for.

And I know about counselling. Believe me, a counsellor has no right to take a client over and I don't care who she or he is. In the end, they are imperfectly human and counselling and therapy is not a science. Even science is imperfect.

What you got is the reaction of one other person. Her motives and the limitations of the agency are irrelevant. The point is about what she did. And I think it was wrong and unhelpful. And I think it was abuse and I believe there is no excuse for it.

By the way, I reported the last counsellor who tried to tell me what to do. And she got dealt with.

You have a lot of advice here to sift through...seems you pushed a lot of buttons with people who want to help. I will say that while I was in my abusive marriage, my stbx manipulated me to do everything for him, from doing his laundry and picking up the trash on the floor, to doing his bookkeeping on the weekends after working 45 hr weeks, while he drank and watched TV.

So, yes I do think we enable them by taking care of them. It is one more way that they exercise control over us, and don't have to do anything for themselves, and then can blame us for the consequences, because they weren't to blame, how could they be? They weren't doing anything, we were doing it all.

It is in my nature to take care of my loved ones, as it is in most of us. But when this is not reciprocated, when all the care giving comes from you and all the care taking is taken by him, it's not healthy.