I'm no expert, but I am impressed by your list... I wish I would have written my letter that i will leave him in the same manner---
Good for you that you can put your expectations into words...

May I ask why marriage counseling-- I'm not doubting what you are doing.. I'm just curious because of the info provided about counseling with an abusive partner. Be careful... Protect yourself (and your list) so that you are not "tricked" (for lack of a better word).

Stay strong-- and thanks for the support you provide to me.

That looks like a well thought out list with a lot of effort put into it. I only hope your wife puts just as much effort forth in your relationship and in marriage counseling! You deserve all of those things! Good luck!

Bax ----

All of that is great.

The only thing not
on the list is that
none of these
wonderful things
can happen in
the context of
an abusive
relationship.

That's why I maintain
that couple counceling
in an abusive relationship
is ineffective at best,
and dangerous to
the victim, in too many cases.

I wish you all the best.
Please do let us know
if the counceling helps
in your relationship.
I hope it does.

I went down the list with her. Most of the things she said she was willing to give me - but not all of them.. Figured that was a good starting point. We can start negotiating from there. I'm not done - I'm filling it out with a few more wants that I can be a bit more flexible on, but as far as needs - yeah. That's what I need any partner of mine to be.

She apologized. I think I started to get through to her about what a mistake she's made. She told me she didn't want to see me suffering because my friend was keeping me dangling. I was like Yellowstone, ready to blow. So I responded 'so you set me off, rather than wait' She got real quiet, then. Said 'Yeah. I guess I did.'

Confusion continues.

Tomorrow I'm bringing my daughter to my house for dinner. I haven't told my wife. If you hear a massive explosion from the center of the country, that would be her.

I'm scared. And no closer to an answer than ever. We'll see what tomorrow brings, I suppose.

Oh - and marriage counseling is a terrible idea. It's 100% guaranteed to make everything even more confusing and head-twisting than things already are. Ask me in a year what the success rate of salvaging marriages is.

I had a similar list. I showed it to my husband. He downplayed it a lot and blamed a lot of it on me. Which just opened my eyes more to the fact that he simply does not see me as a human being. It helped me to realize that things would never change. And, yeah, we saw two different counselors, both of whom fell in love with him and his wonderfulness and refused to believe that he didn't treat me like that, all charming and kind. (Some counselors should not be allowed to counsel.) It almost sent me over the edge. Be careful.

Not that it matters, but I made a lust a few months ago, but my husband would not read it, look at it, or discuss it. He insulted. And degraded me for making one. He also told me about 20 readings that counseling was bad for anyone... Including that he "would rather die than go see a therapist."
So I don't know--- in some eats you may be ahead if the game--- or maybe I am lucky that he was straight to the point .

Good luck Bax

I think your list is great, that you are insightful and are in touch with your needs. But what blew me away were there were 29 sentences that begin with "I need" or "I want". IMHO, marriage counseling can be effective for some issues, like say three or four. But you have pointed out at least 29 areas where your needs are not being met at all.

Look at it this way. If you began dating a person and came up with a list of 29 ways where they have flat out failed your basic emotional needs, would you consider the relationship worth salvaging? Right now all you have with your wife are children and history. I get it, I'm there too. But I am starting to see this as throwing potential good years in after bad. An emotionally healthy person would want to uplift you and keep your needs and goals in mind for the good of your relationship. Your relationship, like mine, is very one-sided with a partner that has next to no interest in our ongoing happiness. If somewhere along the line we have a day of happiness, it's only because it didn't interfere with their plans or needs. I don't consider that any type of viable relationship at all.

And, I agree with you about marriage counseling. My abuser is upset because although we have worked with a great therapist in the past, I refuse to do any more couples counseling. I'm not perfect and I have things I can improve for me. But regarding the "relationship" that I'm in, I'm like an old piece of elastic. I've given so much over the years, that I've been stretched thin. I have nothing left to give.

My biggest frustration is that since moving out, and doing my work, I've healed to the point that I've got some of that elastic back in me. Now I'm in the tiresome and maddening phase of trying to determine if I've got the strength to endure what it would take to stand by my wife as she heals, giving my children the gift of a stable family; or if I'm doomed to be stretched thin again. And that the best solution is to cut the cord, and give my children the gift of a stable father. I'm pretty strong, but not invulnerable.

Bax -----

Abuser have a
distressingly poor
record of

[1] doing their work
and
[2] doing their work
with the result of a
successful outcome.

Please take good care
of yourself and your
children.

I don't pretend to know all the details of your relationship. But I do know that abusers have little incentive to change their ways. Their brains just aren't wired like you and I.They interpret kindness for weakness and delight in control and crushing any sense of independence and human spirit. They may not even know why they do it but it doesn't matter because it's not our problem to fix - it's theirs. Think of all the years of abuse. How is it even possible to overcome that? I have been unrealistically optimistic for years and the only changes I have seen have been like bandaids for several months tops, then the same old monster reappears.

I have been in an abusive marriage for over 20 years. Each year I thought *I* could change and things would get better. Then I decided to stay until the children graduated school so they would have a more stable home. Now that they are adults they have told me so many times that they wish I would have left years ago, that THAT would have made them happy. It's not about the stuff or the surroundings, but the feeling of peace they would have had. They hate the emotional toll it has taken on me as well as them. The best gift you can give your children is to be the most emotionally healthy father you can be. I never expected my marriage to be perfect, but it has sapped my strength, my will and my resolve. It shouldn't crush your very soul to be married. That is a price too great for anyone to pay, and your kids realize that, too.

You know, honestly, not only do I believe that couples counseling is a terrible idea for an abusive relationship, I don't think it's all that effective or good for non-abusive relationships in trouble either. My husband and I have never been to couples counseling, but his therapist told him when he first started therapy with her that he and I needed to spend time together, we needed to go on dates. She also told him it was rare for these kinds of relationships to be fixed, but if we had a shot, we had to spend time together. That was her advice, we needed to go on a date once a week....I was like how the heck is that going to fix anything. I wanted nothing to do with that idea at first, it took a while of seeing him work and stick with it and see he was serious for me to have any interest spending time with him, but she was absolutely right. We didn't need to drudge through our relationship issues and the hurts and the wants that weren't being filled, we needed to fix ourselves as first priority and spend enjoyable time together as second priority. We needed to create good feelings first.

How on earth can you fix anything in the midst of abuse? How can you fix anything in the midst of bad feelings, hurt, loneliness and need? My husband and I sure as heck couldn't, we could barely have any kind of productive conversation at all, let alone fix anything. But with work on both our parts (him on his thinking and behavior and family of origin issues, me on my sense of worth, self respect, boundaries and understanding dangerous people) and time spent doing fun things together, things we both enjoyed and making some good memories again, it started to become easier and easier to have conversations about fixing certain things and what we both needed from the relationship and asking for and giving what the other needed. I am getting things from my husband that I NEVER in a million years thought I would get. He is paying attention to my relationship needs and my love languages and I am paying attention to his. Problems get talked about and resolved. Arguments are minor and get resolved.

Earlier this year I found some relationship stuff from Mort Fertel. I dont do his classes, just signed up for his free emails, but the things he talks about are the things we have been doing... And they work - and they work for an emotionally abusive relationship, too, IF IF IF the abusive person is willing to take responsibility for their actions ,and issues, consistently get help and do the work (which as Ilene says is the small minority)..

I had asked, and begged and pleaded and showed him my lists in the past, it never worked....I can only imagine how bad marriage counseling would have been.....much to my surpise, his therpaist wasn't nuts....this way worked.

Just some food for thought.....

Summer, it sounds like your husband committed to individual therapy. That's something that's quite rare in an abusive relationship as the abuser has ingrained habits of lying, reinventing the truth and minimizing situations to better their ends. Mine didn't 'hit' me, he 'bumped' me, for example. As far as date night, no thanks, been there, done that, got the resulting headache.

I know for my situation it simply won't help. My abuser went to individual counseling three times, then convinced the therapist that this was something we needed to work on "together." Remember, abusers are masters at manipulating, even professionals. I refused, and the individual sessions stopped that day. For most, there is no real want or need to seek help, since they feel they don't need it or, more importantly, will never be honest enough with a therapist to elicit any meaningful dialogue or change.

I firmly believe your situation is a rarity, and most narcisstic/personality-disordered spouses will never benefit from this type of counseling because they must first sincerely admit that they have a problem to fix. Mine is more interested in telling me how I should change. I am not "we".

Summer, I truly hope your spouse has changed. But don't be surprised if there is slippage to old habits. Any probation officer will tell you that the greatest predictor of future behaviors is past behaviors.

ehope, I'm talking about things that work for someone who actually wants to change for real - just some thoughts on why the premise of marriage counseling doesn't work. It will NEVER work on someone with NPD, NOTHING will work with someones with NPD....my husband doesn't have NPD, he has borderline personality disorder (toward the milder end of the spectrum) and OCD and he got fed up with what his disorders were doing to him and those around him. The difference with him is he doesn't want to live that way, he couldn't take it anymore. I also said emotionally abusive, if someone has been physically abusive, I'd very very leary and personally I put their chance of change right there with the NPDs, the relationship guy I mentioned won't touch the physically abusive ones, either.....

October will mark two years in, so at this point, I'm not nearly as concerned about the "fake change" as I was the first year. I have only seen gradual consistent change in thinking and behavior toward both me and the kids. There's been none of the crafty, on the sly, covert abuse either - in other words, he's not just changing tactics, been looking for that, too.....and I've changed tremendously, I wouldn't tolerate it AT ALL, if he did do something. As it is, if he does something I don't like, I speak up and we talk about it.

If Bax's wife doesn't get it and doesn't admit to what she does and take responsibility for it, and want for herself to change it, then it doesn't matter what they do or what she does, or how many dates they go on, or what they agree on from his list.....it's not going to make a difference. That's what I was saying with the IF IF IF .......nothing above works without the IF, period.

It does drive me kinda crazy when I come on here, as I have been for years, and tell my story and I get told he's probably not really changing. I took it at first, be careful, and I was and I watched and I waited and it took a LONG time for me to believe he was serious (and a LONG time to go on those dates). He may be rare, but he is definitely serious and is doing everything he should - not going to write it out again, it's in other threads and my journals.....after two years, I'm done defending what I have to say. And after two years, which past behavior should I refer to to predict his behavior tomorrow?? My experience tells me I'm much more likely to see his behavior from the past two years tomorrow than I am the behavior from the year before that.... In the beginning I listened, at 3 months I listened, at 6 months I listened, at 1 year I listened, at 18 months I had grown and learned so much and I watched on my own...at 2 years, it's my own own journey now and I trust myself and what I know and what i've learned and what I see above all else.

What I have to say is just as valuable as what anyone else here has to say. I have a different perspective, I am on the other side of "what if" and "what does he have to do to change" and "what does change look like".....I can offer some insights into those things, insights from experience that other people here don't have, I know what to look for not just from the books and the lists, but what it looks like in real life - and what it doesn't look like and what it takes to get there....but instead of that being valued, it's more like if I'm not singing the same tune as everyone else, then I'm wrong or he's faking it and tricking everyone.

Often when I speak up, I see someone else projecting their experience onto mine. Even if change is rare, then someone somewhere has to change....the rest of my life has been the 1 percent, so I figure why not this, too, lol ???

ehope, I'm sorry for what you have been through, I really am, I know the hell of false hope and false change and it's not a fun place to be. Just because that was your experience, doesn't mean it has been or will be mine.

Sorry for the thread jack....This board helped me sooooo much, I try to come by when I can and give back.....just get tired of this kind of thing....

Bax - what you need from your marriage is a very personal thing, only you can answer that question.....there isn't a standard set of needs.....I don't believe you will get anything positive from marriage counseling for several reasons and I don't believe you will get your list from her if she doesn't want to change herself - for real, for her, because she doesn't want to be that way and she wants to give you what you need......there's nothing on your list that is unreasonable by any means.....what exactly is she saying she can't give you from the list? If she isn't seriously working on her stuff, she will wittle away at what you have managed to do for you.....the only way it works is if both people are actively working on themselves, and it needs to be both working on themselves separately at first. You can't help her and you can't fix her......you can only work on you. Does she have an individual counselor? Does she have a diagnosis of anything?

Sorry Summer, didn't mean to trigger. I mean no harm, and I truly do wish the best to you and your husband. Peace.