Won't see a MC to work on problems but wants to go out for V-Day???

[Very_Confused]

Still confused as ever. I asked my husband to go with me to see a marriage counselor to work on the issues in our marriage and he flatly refused. I sent him a message last Friday while he was at work asking him to go with me again and he didn't even acknowledge my message, just ignored it.

 

He just called me to see if I could get a sitter so we could go out to dinner together tomorrow night for Valentine's Day. Hello ... I am totally dumbfounded by this. Right now I am upset and somewhat angry that he refuses to work on our problems. How am I suppose to go out to dinner and pretend that I am having a nice time with my husband? At any other time I'd have been thrilled at the idea of us finally going out alone. But right now it just ticks me off.

 

I almost messaged him back to say "thanks, but until you acknowledge that we have problems and agree to do something to work on them then I am not interested in going out on dates". But I didn't. I decided to vent here first and hope that someone can offer some advice, please.

[Krytellan]

To be honest I like your idea.

[JackJack]

He probably thinks going out for Valentines dinner will kind of "smooth" things over, as far as him not dealing with what is going on in the marraige. maybe in his mind he feels if he takes you out to dinner you will think he he "trying" to work on things without a counselor. However, that is probably not going to wrok. Until he realizes there are problems and wants to address them and really work on them, then it seems you are in this by yourself, and thats not a marriage. You need to let him know that going out to diner is a sweet gesture but your problems are bigger and go beyond dinner. Perhaps, you could go out to dinner and talk this over then? Might spoil it huh? No one wants to spend Valentines discussing problems, but gotta start somewhere.

[Very_Confused]

Until he realizes there are problems and wants to address them and really work on them, then it seems you are in this by yourself, and thats not a marriage.

 

This is where I am stuck. I can't exactly tie him up, drag him to the car and make him go with me to MC. I have tried to make myself as clear as I can how important I think this is to our marriage but he just doesn't agree. After I sent him the message Friday asking him again to go with me I sent another one saying:

 

"Before you get angry and outright dismiss my other message...

 

I was never this open with XH. Instead of telling him how I was feeling and trying harder to fix things between us I took the easy way out. I just gave up and ran away.

 

I have tried my best not to make that same mistake with you. That should tell you something. If only you would open your eyes and see it."

 

And yet he still ignored it completely. No, I don't think trying to get him to talk to me while out to dinner on Valentine's Day, of all days, would help matters. All I would do is make him angry in public rather than at home. But thanks for the suggestion all are sincerely appreciated.

[JackJack]

This is where I am stuck. I can't exactly tie him up, drag him to the car and make him go with me to MC. I have tried to make myself as clear as I can how important I think this is to our marriage but he just doesn't agree. After I sent him the message Friday asking him again to go with me I sent another one saying:

 

"Before you get angry and outright dismiss my other message...

 

I was never this open with XH. Instead of telling him how I was feeling and trying harder to fix things between us I took the easy way out. I just gave up and ran away.

 

I have tried my best not to make that same mistake with you. That should tell you something. If only you would open your eyes and see it."

 

And yet he still ignored it completely. No, I don't think trying to get him to talk to me while out to dinner on Valentine's Day, of all days, would help matters. All I would do is make him angry in public rather than at home. But thanks for the suggestion all are sincerely appreciated.

 

If you feel you have asked him over and over again to go, but he has ignored you each time, then maybe him ignoring you, he is giving you your answer as to what he wants to do about trying work on the the marriage, which is nothing. His actions pretty much say he doesn't want to work on the marriage. I mean a person can't be blind to seeing there are no problems but for so long. It might be time for you to make a bigger decision. I say you still need to go to counseling by yourself if he wont go, someone that can help guide you as to what YOU might need to do.

[Ladyjane14]

If I were you, VC... I'd start going to marriage counseling on my own. AND... I'd go out and have a nice Valentine celebrations with my husband.

 

You can't base your own work ethic on what other people do. You can only be consistant in making good choices about your own behavior and let everybody else do the same.

 

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Get out of the house, have a good time, and show him you've still GOT some A-game.

 

Don't worry about getting him to agree to MC. He'll know you mean business when he sees you following through on your intention to get some counseling.. alone if needs be.

[JackJack]

Don't worry about getting him to agree to MC. He'll know you mean business when he sees you following through on your intention to get some counseling.. alone if needs be.

 

I hope he sees that. I have known people that one spouse will go to counseling on their own when their spouse wont go, thinking or hoping that the other one would see that the other one was doing the right thing, only for that person to not follow suit. They did nothing to try to help change the situation. because they thought, "hmm..why should I go... my spouse is." they figured that was good enough and didn't do anything to try to help the situation. and ended up ending it.

 

I hope for this person that is not the case. I do think she needs to go on her own reguardless of wheather he follows or not though.

[Very_Confused]

Talked to my husband yesterday and after some back and forth silliness we are going out to dinner tonight, just the two of us. He says we can discuss things at dinner but I don't really see that happening. Busy restaurants aren't exactly conducive to meaningful, personal discussions.

 

I did give him his Valentine's Day gift this morning when I gave the kids' theirs. I have had it for a few weeks now and even found a card that tells him I love him without saying a bunch of extra stuff that just doesn't seem appropriate right now. He bought me a treadmill last week (I had been talking about wanting one since before Christmas) and said that was my Valentine's gift. No card yet but he will probably go out and get me one sometime today. He's not one for shopping ahead of time.

[Very_Confused]

Just a quick update. I'm not having any luck finding a MC locally. The town I live in is either backwards or just too small. The closest one is 45 minutes away. I'll need to fit that trip into my workday schedule somehow. That will make it more difficult to interview several to find one I am comfortable with. But, hopefully I will get lucky with the first one. My husband works in that town so I asked him to bring a phonebook home so I could make some calls. That was last week and he keeps forgetting.

[whichwayisup]

Yeah he keeps forgetting on purpose. So, take matters into your own hands and start using google, white pages etc...

 

It seems he is terrified of going to MC, terrified of really opening up and fixing things because that means putting in an effort, changing and working hard to keep the lines of communication open.

 

Don't get mad at him for forgetting, just casually mention that you will take care of finding the right information for a MC.