What to Do When Your Relationship Has Problems with Trust, Respect and Your Partner Won’t Come For Counseling
To day I’m going to answer a woman who has significant issues in her marriage. Below is her inquiry to me and my response
Hi Dr. Marty,
I have been married for almost 10 years. Even though having a loving relationship so far, last year I suspected of him cheating on me. I found out he had several accounts on social media websites. He doesn’t accept nor deny. After that we are having trust issues. He won’t let his ph out of sight. He blames me for everything. I have been depressed over our marriage and also issues at work. (In spite of working hard for a long time, my co workers have been given promotions, bonuses and pay increases) All of these have been taking a toll. Another issue is ‘in-laws’. Even though being far from us, my in laws have profound effect on my husband. My husband blames me of not working on developing a good relationship with my in-laws. Even though living together we have huge communication issues. Simple talk becomes argument. The two main characters are missing in our marriage, Trust and Respect. Even though I feel, there is still Love, I don’t see it. Even though he doesn’t say of ending relationship, he is not working on anything to fix it. Please help.
MJ
Hi Mj
You have been going through a really tough period with the possible cheating the lost of trust, and being constantly blamed for everything. Your pressure at work makes things even more difficult for you.
I agree with you, you do have a large “communication problem. Again you’ve put your finger on your issues exactly there is a real lack of trust and respect for one another.
Here’s the place to start. List the reasons why you want to continue your marriage as well as how important each of those reasons are to you; for example if you want to continue the marriage because you love him and that is a “5” on a scale of 1 to 5. If you don’t have a lot of strong reasons to continue the marriage then you have your answer; but, if when you take an inventory you have a lot of strong reasons to continue your relationship then you might start by getting professional help to sort out these issues one at a time and together with a trained professional develop a strategy for regaining trust and respect or what to do when nothing works, remember you have tried what you know not that that hasn’t worked ask someone who know how these things work. If you do nothing the odds are that things will be worse.
You can always invite your husband to join you, but if he is refuses because he is not ready, then it is important that you should seek the help. In my experience in is not necessarily the people who need the help who go for therapy, it is those who are most upset. My guess if your husband thinks the trouble is with you then he is not upset, his thinking is that you have to change and as result he is not highly motivated. The issues have described are both important and difficult to deal with and it will take work on your part the first step is finding a counselor you can trust and are comfortable with.
If you would like guidelines as to what to look for to find a good counselor, you can take a look at the short video on: YourMarriageCounselor.com which will help you learn how to select a good counselor.
Good luck let me know if you have any more questions.
Dr. Marty