Kerplunk - It's Over!!, A.W., H.R. and Our Girlfriends [best biographies to read txt] 📗

calm down, focus, see what was really going on and understand that my husband was a sociopath and that the cure rate was low so the idea of the marriage working and the abuse stopping was about 0%. His behavior and actions years after the divorce showed me that was true. Looking back, the counselor was onto him after a few sessions and armed me with books and information so that I could understand what a sociopath was. Those were some of the most difficult days.” – Sharon, 40
“I had a series of weekly therapy sessions one year after my separation, I think it was extremely beneficial and would most definitely recommend this. – Taren, 33
“The counselor wanted to see us separately. I went for my first session. Ex never showed up for his first session. I continued to go back and am so glad I did.” – Debbie, 55
“Therapy opened my eyes to the fact that he had been verbally abusing me for many years and helped me realize that my relationship was not healthy or normal.” “Through the sessions I developed the strength and strategies to exit my marriage. We went to couples counseling during the last years of marriage but he did not want to work on it.” – Vicky, 50
“He attended one session and refused to go back. I kept going. It was the best thing I have ever done for myself.” – Abby, 37
“Nothing worked. Not the marriage counselor, his anger management counselor or my therapist. The only real help received was from my good friend who was a therapist.” – Marcy, 33
We highly recommend therapy/counseling with a GOOD therapist (ask around—don’t just pick a name off your insurance provider list). A good therapist can help get to the root of the issues fairly quickly and in a safe environment. Therapy was very effective in helping us reach a decision – one that made us feel confident. This was instrumental in helping us end the marriage without tremendous trauma.
Warning! Some husbands are notorious for participating in “faux-therapy”, “fake-habilitation” or “psycho-anaylsis”.
Girlfriends far and wide have described to us how they watched their husbands use their honed skills of emotional manipulation and theatrics to coerce the therapists into thinking they are just angelic beings who have been severely misunderstood. Oh so sad, pity party for you, husbands. You may be privileged to get a front row seat to a show of this sort. Please do your best not to take off your shoe and throw it at his head in front of the therapist. It will put you in a very bad light and may damage your favorite BCBG sling back! Let him play the role (for awhile). Most of our girlfriends had incredibly intelligent counselors and therapists who saw right through all of it! In one example a counselor pulled our girlfriend aside and said, “Please keep a phone handy at all times and be ready to dial 911 because I am very afraid for you. There is something very evil about him.” About a month later, our girlfriend had to call 911 because she was afraid for her life. Luckily, she had that phone handy.
Here are some comments about this:
“We went to therapy but it was not effective. My husband only went because he thought it would appease me.” – Gail, 52
“We did counseling for about a year. It wasn’t helpful because my husband wouldn’t do the work the counselor set out for us. Frankly it was in my opinion a waste of money. The counseling I did on my own was helpful, but at that point I didn’t want to deal with the problems happening in my marriage. The answer was to get out, but I wasn’t ready to face that.” – Hannah, 57
And on a positive note…
“I only went to marriage counseling twice, he did not want to go. I believe it could have helped our marriage. I went alone. It helped me to deal with my personal issues, many that I was unaware of, that were detrimental to our marriage. Through therapy I gained control of my life, my choices and although my first marriage ended I gained skills that helped me not make the same mistakes in my second marriage. (Which is working out wonderfully!)” – Toni, 46
“After we separated, my husband was hell bent on getting me to come back “home.” He only went to counseling to appease me. He did not want to get better, learn from mistakes or uncover deeper issues.” –Annie, 31
“After going to counseling 4 times in 25 years, it was not helpful because he did not want to do what the counselor suggested. And my Ex told me it was all my fault anyway.” – Kelly, 50
“He said, “yes, yes, yes” to everything the counselor suggested, but as soon as we would walk out the door he would pick a fight and say that I was ruining everything. No, he did not follow anything the counselor suggested but told our family he was. It was awful.” – SaraLynn, 44
“His quote was "I'm only doing this so I won't look like an idiot.” He didn't want to be there, but his parents insisted that we go and they paid for it. He had no intentions of making any changes of bettering our marriage and he made that clear from the beginning.” – Lisa, 48
“He got so mad when I told the counselor that he had hit me – he glared at me and turned the story around and said that it was my fault for telling my parents <that he repeatedly hit me>. He got more enraged when I mentioned that he had been cheating on me (dating, sexual relationships, internet dating) and twisted it around to say he had cancelled his eHarmony account and that was why he was on the site. He twisted the stories again when I tried to bring up the other incidents by saying it was “over with her” only to later find evidence that it was not (why were there other women’s underwear in the laundry basket?).” – Parker, 38
“Everything seemed so clear to the therapist while I felt confused. The therapist warned me to be careful, cautious and to not upset him – she said that she had seen this before and that she could tell he was dangerous. She told me to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. That is exactly what ended up happening.” – Becky, 24
“We went to a Christian counselor but it did no good. The counselor gave us books to read dealing with pornography and sex addiction. Ex said that therapy was ‘a bunch of bunk’, that the counselor was attacking him and he wasn’t going to pay for it anymore.” – Danielle, 35

"I went to therapy in for two years while I was struggling to figure out why I was unhappy. I now know it was our marriage. I forced him to go to counseling six times during this period. We did not go together. After therapy, he improved and my life improved. Later, when I mentioned that he go again; he said “Therapy didn’t do me any good. I went so you would get off my back. It was very easy for me to sit there and tell that woman (therapist) what she wanted to hear so she would tell you that I was fine.” – Wren, 41
BEWARE Faux-Therapy
Sometimes spouses will agree to go to therapy to delay or derail your efforts to fix or dissolve the marriage. Many women have gone through this same hassle!
“Our marriage was crumbling. I was afraid to face it. I was giving one last big effort in hopes of holding our family together. I asked my husband, one Sunday morning, to go to church with the kids and me. He said “You know I don’t believe in organized religion and I’m not going to pretend that I do any longer. Not for you. Not for the kids” I told him that we were growing apart and fighting a lot and would like for us to go to therapy. He said “Hell no. You can go. I am not. Therapy is where sociopaths go to hone their skills.”
After 2 more long weeks of constant fighting, I told Ex I wanted him to move out, I wanted a separation. His response: “Let’s go to therapy.” He would only consent to going to the therapist of his choice. We went to a few sessions together and separately. I was honest with the therapist, both in private and in front of him. It did not take very long for me to recognize that he had her snowed. That he was pretending again to save the marriage for his sake. We did 6 weeks of couples therapy. After the last session I moved out and never went to her again. He continued to go to her for another year and they are now friends socially. I smell a rat...a big one." – Elaine, 46

The Spiritual Side of Counseling
"It was the darkest and most painful time of my life. I kept waiting for things to get better, but they got worse. The pain was so deep. I remember hearing Beth Moore give a presentation about her new book “Get Out of That Pit” and she gave the best description, "It was so awful, that I was crying on the bedroom carpet floor in a heap, sobbing, you know what that is like, when you are breathing really heavy, taking huge gasping breaths, but you can't move because the pain is so great, and when you gasp and cry the little shaggy pieces of carpet get sucked into your nose”. That was what I thought of when I was sitting in a chair in the counselor’s office. I was crying. It was hard to breathe. My eyes were running and my nose was running and my heart was being ripped out with a grappling hook. So I sat in the chair, closed my eyes and prayed. I prayed for help. The counselor was really trying to help ease my anxiety but it simply was not getting the job done. I began to see a growing light, it got brighter and it felt like it began to fill me. I started to feel calmer and more at peace. At first I thought that I was all cried out and exhausted. With my eyes still closed, I began to see a man or a spirit or God (not sure) but I felt a deep love that was stronger than anything that I ever felt and it penetrated my entire body. I will never forget how amazing and warm that love felt. I knew that I was taken care of and protected. It was so overwhelming that it seemed like I crumpled at this being's feet. The love was so intense. It was so intense that it was almost hard to take. I took a few deep breaths and it turned out that I was smiling. Then, I slowly opened my eyes and worked with the counselor on next steps to rebuild my life. I was without my husband but I was not alone." – Camille, 37
“In the midst of separation and divorce, I had so many spiritual moments of enlightenment, renewed faith and strength. Those moments are what I choose to remember and not the pain or confusion.” – Joye, 45
“I don’t know what to call it or how to describe it, but my