Sexless Marriage… She Finally Agreed to Counseling. Then Used It Against Me.

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. You finally get your wife to agree to go to couples counseling. Hallelujah! If you're like a lot of guys, you actually feel hopeful about this. You're thinking, okay, this is it. Finally, we're going to get our problems out there. We're going to have a paid professional in the room. They're going to be there to make sure we both get our stuff out there, and we're going to pave a road towards coming back together. And you go, and what happens? For a lot of you, it just turns into, let's just sit and talk about how much the man has screwed up. Let's list everything you have ever done wrong. Session after session, after session. Is this counseling? Is this what it's supposed to look like? Did you just pay somebody $150 just to sit back and watch your wife prosecute you? That's what we're getting into today, and it starts with this email from Tom. Tom says, I finally got my wife to agree to couples counseling about 4 months ago, and I was relieved. Honestly, I was hopeful for the first time in a while. I thought, okay, we're finally going to talk about this with someone who can help us both be heard. Heard. That is not what happened. Every single session has turned into a list of everything I have ever done wrong. Old arguments, things from years ago, the way I handled something in 2019, the time I said something during a fight that I've already apologized for 3 times. She comes in prepared. It's like she is keeping notes. And the therapist, I don't know, she seems to just let it go. She asked me how that makes me feel, asks me if I can see my wife's perspective. I sit there trying to be open and accountable, and I leave every session feeling like I've been run over. Meanwhile, the actual problems, the intimacy, the distance, the fact that we haven't had sex in over a year, those never get addressed. We don't talk about that. We talk about me, what I did, what I said, what I should have done differently. Last week I brought this up in a session, said I felt like we weren't getting into the real issues. My wife looked at the therapist and said, "See, this is what he does. He deflects." And the therapist wrote something down. I drove home and I sat in the driveway for 20 minutes. I don't know if I'm losing my mind or if this is actually as bad as it feels. Am I the problem here? Is this what counseling is supposed to look like? The imagery of Tom sitting in his driveway for 20 minutes after the fact, just sitting and staring into space, that's a pretty powerful image. And it is one that a lot of guys can relate to, myself included. It's a very disoriented feeling coming from something that you're sure, I know how this is going to go, it's going to go this way. You're not asking for them to be completely on your side, but at least some kind of fairness there, right? And you leave saying, Wow, this whole situation is completely not like I thought, and I have these two people kind of ganging up on me. You went in there very open with a good heart, good intentions, and you come out feeling like the villain. It's very, very disorienting. And the whole line about the wife turning to the therapist and saying, see, this is what he does, he deflects, and you're like, what the hell? Tom and others, you ain't losing your mind. This is really, really common. In my estimation, this does not apply to all situations, but I hear this pretty often. And hey, it's my show, my microphone, my YouTube channel, podcast, wherever it is you're watching, listening to this. Thank you, by the way. So I'm just going to give my opinion on this. Tom, you're trying to bring good faith into a situation that stopped being about good faith a long-ass time ago. By my estimation, couples counseling is supposed to, in large part, do one thing: create a structured space where both people can be heard. This in turn will allow real things to get done and for the relationship to move forward. That's it. Both people moving forward. What Tom and others like Tom are experiencing is something completely different. I want to call it out for what it is. I think Tom, you and others have been gaslit into believing that this is just part of the process. When one partner, if you will, uses therapy as a tool to expose all the faults and failures, all those old grievances, those old regurgitated arguments, when they're just running an inventory of every mistake that you have ever made in your entire life together, that, in my opinion, is not couples counseling. That is a performance, and it functions as something entirely different. It functions as validation seeking. Your wife is not in the room to fix your marriage. She's not in the room to pave the way towards a road that will bring you closer together and allow you to build a relationship that will withstand all the stresses and everything of life. No, she is simply in that room to have her position confirmed by a professional, by a third party. She is in that room to get an authority figure to say, you know what, You're right, Mary, whatever her name is, Tom is the problem here. If she is able to coax the session towards that end goal of let's keep eyeballs on Tom and all of his deficiencies as a partner, then she is able to misdirect much like a good magician does where they say, you know, look at this over here while they're doing a little sleight of hand over here. All that work during the session serves the goal of validating her opinion. And guess what? This may be tough to hear, Tom and others, but it works. That's why, Tom, you're sitting in your driveway literally questioning your sanity. Am I the asshole here? Am I looking at this wrong? Next thing you know, you're 4 months into this whole process and you go in thinking, I'm a pretty decent man with a good head on my shoulders. And you leave thinking, holy shit, maybe I'm just a narcissistic asshole. I had no idea. Let's talk about the therapist next, because I think Tom's idea for what that therapist's role is is further kind of confusing the situation. He says that she seems like she's just kind of letting shit go and she's using these boilerplate terms like, "How does that make you feel, Tom?" "Tom, can you see your wife's perspective in this?" And then Tom eventually says, "You know, I feel like we're not really addressing the real issue here." And wife says, "See, this is what he does. He deflects." And the therapist, you know, calmly writes something down in her little notebook there. We want to be careful here. We're not in the room. We're not standing over the shoulder of the therapist. We don't know what the heck they're doing. But I will say this, in my opinion, a good therapist kind of manages the situation. They should notice when the sessions become very one-directional in nature. They should be good about steering the conversation back towards action-oriented items that gets things done instead of, "Hey, let's talk about something that happened 7 years ago again and again." And most importantly, they create space for both people equally. If that's not happening and you end up leaving these sessions feeling like you've been prosecuted for an hour, that's not good. Guess what? The therapist, kind of like your family doctor, surgeon, whatever it may be, they're not infallible. They're human beings. They make mistakes and they may not be a good fit for you. Not every therapist, much like not every doctor, every surgeon, every sports guy, whatever, not everybody's really good at it. Just because they have their name on the door and they got a website or whatever it is doesn't mean they're necessarily good at their job. And that therapist that you're going to, Tom, may be like a really good individual therapist, but they may really kind of suck at the whole couples thing. They may be somewhat kind of insecure themselves. They don't feel comfortable causing conflict. I know, as weird as that may seem, you know, about a therapist, but they're human beings too. So she may be kind of intimidated by your wife, probably kind of like you are, Tom. But I often say to guys, because a lot of the guys that I talk to are kind of shy, they don't like to rock the boat. They are very conflict avoidant themselves. And I say, dude, this person, you've hired them. They're working for you. You have every right to say, Mr. or Miss Therapist, If I may, time out. I want to talk about this now, or next session when we come in, I want to make sure that we discuss this, and I'm going to hold you to it, Mr. Therapist. I believe I have every right to state my opinion on certain things and give my perspective on this and to answer some of these things, which are— some of which are very valid from my wife, thank you very much. But I need to be heard here. And if that doesn't work, dude, you have every right to say, on to the next one. That is not quitting. What that is is advocating for a process that works, what is actually supposed to happen. Let's talk further about that whole moment where the wife says, "See, this is what he does. He's just deflecting," when Tom finally spoke up for himself. I don't think that's accidental. I think that is probably, if he's like most of the people I talk to, it's part of a pattern of behavior on the part of his spouse. Tom did something legitimate. He named, he called out like a dynamic that's happening in the room that he's not happy with. Hey, I think we should do maybe this instead, or can we just stop that train of thought and go here? And that was immediately by the wife reframed as what? A general character flaw on his behalf. And then his wife did a masterful job of what? Reframing the situation as we're taking our eyes off the prize, so to speak, of the elephant in the room of, hey, we haven't touched each other in a year. And she's like, look, he has a real character deficiency, a real flaw. He deflects all the time. See, therapist? I would consider that kind of a pretty sophisticated manipulative move on her part. And irony is that she may not be doing it consciously. Regardless of the intent on her part, the end result is the same. Tom is now in a position where speaking up on his own behalf leads to being villainized. That allows the current dynamic that is happening in the room to continue on unchallenged. That closes the loop, so to speak. And as many guys can attest to, This can continue on for like years and years. The old limbo state, as I call it. Are we good? Are we bad? What the hell's going on here? The only way to break out of that loop, so to speak, is to break the rules of the loop. Let therapist, wife, everyone in the room know, no, I'm no longer going along with those rules. I want to talk about this, and that's what we're gonna do right this very moment. You say this not emotionally, but you say it factually. I want to talk about the thing that I have been noticing. Most of our sessions have been focused on the historical grievances and everything that my wife has brought to the table, all pointing towards yours truly. We are not talking about the current state of our marriage. I understand, you know, history stuff has a lot to do with how we got here, but dammit, we need to focus on the here and the now. And the here and the now includes zero intimacy between the two of us, a lot of distance, and it's officially weird and it's officially very concerning. And that's why I'm here. And if we are reframing that as deflection, I don't know what to tell you. From where I sit, that sounds like good healthy adult talk. Next, I think you should consider whether or not this therapist is a good fit for you. 4 months of a session where it leaves one of you feeling kind of left out, that's not good. You can request a different therapist. And with that different therapist, you can say, "I would like to talk about these things. I want to make sure we don't lose sight of them." Don't be passive. That's something I tell a lot of guys. A lot of you Mr. Nice Guy types, You codependent types, you're very, very passive, very fearful of the drama that may result from just speaking up for yourself. Be honest about what the counseling is actually accomplishing. Is the wife in the room to actually fix the marriage and bring you closer together, or is she just there to build a case against Tom? A woman, or to be fair, a person who is invested in you and is there to fix things and to get the ball moving in the right direction, they approach the whole process in a way different way. So you need to be really honest with yourself, with your spouse and everything. What are we doing here? What are you doing here, spouse? I know why I'm here, but how about you? You need to stop going into rooms where the rules only apply to one person. This is precisely why I keep coming back to my group, The Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. I'm not doing this as a sales pitch necessarily. It's just an observation. Mr. Tom and others, you're sitting in your driveway for 20 minutes after getting home from work, leaving this counseling session, whatever it is, just trying to process everything and trying to figure out what the hell's going on here. You have no one to debrief with, so to speak. No one to talk to directly. No one to compare notes with. No one who's been there and done that. Just sitting alone in your driveway with the rain coming down, just staring with the radio on, the radio you're not even listening to. Your isolation in that moment is precisely, in big part, what makes this so disorienting. Being around other men who are in the middle of the work, trying to do better, guys who have been there, done that, guys who are in the middle of the process. And by the way, dudes, you're not alone, not by a long shot. That changes everything. It expedites the process of healing, if you want to call it that, doing better. So give it a shot, try it out for a month or two, thebrotherhoodathelpformen.com. So Tom and others, you are not a problem. You're not an asshole for wanting to go into a session and actually accomplish something. You are not deflecting by bringing up the giant elephant in the room of, hello, wife and I haven't touched each other for a year, and that's kind of weird. And no, you're not losing your mind. You're fine. What you're experiencing is when one person goes to counseling to fix something and the other one goes to counseling to confirm something. Those are very incompatible goals, and a therapist, even a really good one, can't really bridge the gap between those two things if you both come to the session with completely different goals in mind. Tom has been going to these sessions for 4 months and he leaves every session coming out feeling worse. At some point, the definition of doing the right thing has to include advocating for a process that actually gets shit done, and that includes being honest about the process, about the therapist, and about your wife and what her goals are. No more passivity. No more just giving up on the process and saying, 'It is what it is, I'll just go along with it.' No, no, no. You need clarity. I mean, you need direction, and that's gonna be very uncomfortable because you're gonna have to raise your hand and go, "I don't like this." And as you can see, Tom and others, from your wife, it's gonna result in a lot of, "Rah, rah, rah, rah." Who gives a shit? You'll live. You'll be fine. But that is quite literally the only way to really get things done. Stand up for yourself for once. By the way, if the topic of sexless marriages is something that's on your mind, and if you're like, oh, I don't know, the tens or hundreds of thousands of guys who have come to me with this issue, It probably is on your mind. From what I can gather, it's the number one pain point for married men out there. Well, I invite you to check out my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. You can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com. Click on links down below and check out my new Dead Bedroom Fix app. Go to deadbedroomfixapp.com, or I've got a special offer for you down below. Click the links. Guys, thank you so very much. I appreciate all of you for watching this, and we'll catch you on the next one.