If you’ve discovered your husband’s lies or infidelity, will marriage counseling help? What you need to know about the best marriage counseling near me for couples.

Did you know that most couples who are seeking counseling are dealing with emotional abuse? To find out if your husband is using any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Are you considering marriage counseling because you just discovered your husband’s been lying to you. If you recognize that couple therapy is contraindicated for your specific situation, but are desperate for solutions, or at least support, please recognize that your emotional safety is the priority.

Rather than focusing on helping your partner recognize their harmful behavior, you can focus on establishing emotional and physical regulation and safety for yourself.

Consider:

It can be devastating to realize that addiction marriage counseling will likely make the situation worse.

To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

Anne: It’s just me today. So many women wonder about marriage counseling. Women in our community often ask our coaches or ask me, “I need a good couple therapist. Who should I go to?” And that’s what I’m going to talk about today. When it comes to women seeking couple therapy or marriage counseling. These are the two scenarios I see the most often.

Anne: Number one when a woman is unaware that her husband secretly uses explicit material, has affairs or hooks up with women from online dating apps. Usually the woman isn’t aware that her husband is doing this. She just knows something’s wrong in her marriage. When couples are having problems, people usually recommend marriage counseling. And because this is the most common recommendation, of course, she’s going to think that marriage counseling will help.

Anne: And number two, the wife convinces the husband to go to therapy, his own therapy. But then when she doesn’t see a difference or feels like he’s getting worse. She’ll think, well maybe if I’m involved, then I’ll see the improvements I’m looking for.

Anne: I have a master’s degree in education. And abuse educators like me don’t advise marriage counseling in any way, shape or form. Some women are confused, because the rare abuse program asks for your involvement, meaning the victims. So the therapist can get the truth about what’s going on. Why does a so-called good abuse program want the wife’s involvement? It’s because they know that the abuser will continue to lie and manipulate the therapist.

They also know that if she’s not involved, he’s not going to go. Which is like the biggest red flag right there. I’ve interviewed over 300 betrayal trauma victims on my podcast and in our community. And due to their reports about the harm done to them in both scenarios. I don’t advise. Any of the following: couple therapy, marriage counseling, suggesting your husband get therapy, or being involved in his treatment in any way.

Even if you have your therapist, and your abusive husband’s therapist talk to each other. I do not recommend that either. I’ll talk about what I do recommend near the end of the podcast. It’ll become really obvious why I don’t recommend marriage counseling, ever.

Anne: As I talk about the five things that need to be true in order for marriage counseling to be effective.

Anne: Everyone involved needs to know the truth about the source of the conflict and agree on the source of the conflict.

So in on a regular marriage counseling situation. It might be. That he likes golf and she hates golf. And that’s it. That is the source of the conflict, but he golfs a lot, and she doesn’t want him to golf a lot. And he’s like, yeah, that is the source of the conflict. I mean, the truth is out there.

Anne: Both partners willingly, honestly, and humbly identify their contribution to the conflict without needing to be convinced of it by someone else. So no one is trying to impose their interpretation on one of the other people. And they both willingly, honestly, and humbly identify their contribution.

Anne: Both partners have healthy expectations for the relationship. So in regular marriage counseling, it might be that spending two nights together a week is healthy. But expecting your partner to be with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is not healthy.

Anne: Both partners have consistently demonstrated they actually do. So this is something that you’ve seen with your eyeballs, not something that they talk about. They actively actually do childcare, household chores, and relationship management independently. Without prompting or oversight from the other. So this would mean he takes care of the kids without being asked, without being managed.

He can do household chores without being managed. He takes the initiative to actively participate in the marriage, in his child’s life. And the upkeep of the household, grocery shopping, cleaning. You know, all that stuff.

Anne: The reason the couple will attend marriage counseling is to improve their communication skills, their conflict resolution skills or intimacy skills. It’s not to address his abuse, his lying, or his affairs.

So if a man is a explicit materials user and has affairs, inappropriately texts coworkers, or been lying to you for years. If he’s been blaming you to manipulate you and exploit you and you have betrayal trauma from infidelity. None of those five things I just said can be true.

Number one, because he’s purposefully lying in manipulating you and everyone else to avoid the true source of the conflict, his explicit content use, his lies or his double life.

Number two, he’s never willingly honestly, or humbly identified, that he is the source of the conflict. But his choices are the source of the conflict. In fact, he’s been hiding it from you on purpose. Gaslighting you so that you don’t discover it.

Number three, due to his explicit content use. He doesn’t have healthy expectations. If he expects you to look like the women in the content look, that’s not healthy. If he views you as an object, he’ll expect you to do what he wants. Like don’t ask questions. That’s not a healthy expectation. If he’s an exploiter, he’s going to see the relationship as a series of transactions.

He goes to work, you give him it, or he brings home a paycheck. And you manage the children in household chores, the relationship, and everything else. That’s a transactionship. That’s not a relationship.

Number four, if he has an exploitative character. The likelihood of him without you managing it for him, managing childcare, household tasks, any of that stuff, grocery shopping. The likelihood of him repairing the relationship, planning dates, or starting hard conversations is almost zero. He might do these things to groom you while he’s trying to achieve a goal. But once that goal was achieved, he’ll stop. So he doesn’t consistently do any of these things.

Anne: And number five, as you’re thinking about couple therapy in this scenario, if you’re thinking about marriage counseling. You don’t want to go to therapy to improve communication skills, because your communication is fine. Your conflict resolution skills, your intimacy skills are fine. So, if you’re not thinking, Hey, I need to improve my intimacy skills or my conflict resolution.

If you just want to stop him from abusing you, or you want to figure out what’s going on. Then number five is not true. And r addiction marriage counseling will not work for you. Unfortunately, even if none of the five requirements for couples therapy or addiction marriage counseling are true. She may not know that he’s lying.

Couple therapists don’t do emotional or psychological abuse screenings before they start couple therapy. And they don’t do abuse screenings for addiction marriage counseling. Most of the time, a couple therapist doesn’t know what is going on, and neither does the wife. And this situation is going to make it worse. A regular couple therapist only has one job. It’s to help the couple improve communication so they can resolve their conflicts.

A man with an exploitative character is never interested in resolving conflicts. Although he may talk like he is, that’s actually a way that he’s going to continue to manipulate a victim. If he’s only interested in exploiting you, he’s going to see this whole situation as this perfect setup to continue to lie and manipulate you through the therapist. So I just talked about the five things that need to be true for couple therapy.

Anne: They apply equally to addiction marriage counseling. Which is why no one ever should go. Because those five things are never true if there’s addiction. When it comes to classic couple therapy, there are five things that guarantee a couple therapist will enable his abuse. And things will get worse for you. It will actually put your marriage at a greater risk for divorce.

Because his abuse will escalate during couples therapy or addiction marriage counseling. And if he starts to escalate due to addiction marriage counseling, divorce might be your only option for safety. So you need to take this seriously. If you want to avoid divorce. I take this extremely seriously, because on a very personal level, divorce did not solve my ex-husband’s abuse problem.

He continued to abuse me and my children emotionally, psychologically, and financially for eight years after our divorce. So I get it that women don’t want to consider divorce. And I’ll tell you my personal story of what happened with couples therapy in a minute.

If you want to avoid divorce, you want to avoid an escalation of his abuse for obvious reasons. That’s the number one reason you never want to go to couple therapy. Or even desire couple therapy or addiction marriage counseling. When it comes to regular couple therapists, those trained in abuse will refuse to treat couples who meet the following criteria.

Anne: What I’ve noticed is they’re either not trained in abuse, so they don’t know to refuse couples who meet this criteria. Or they think there’s an exception. Women tell me so many stories. A couple therapist or addiction marriage counselor thought he or she was this gift to humanity. This pride caused them to bend the rules. Because they thought they’d been more successful than they actually were.

So in the 300 interviews I did with betrayal trauma victims. They report they went to a addiction marriage counseling. And then they actually thought it worked for a minute. These women were pretty happy in the moment. And then they stopped going to therapy. And then they find out six months, a year, or two years later. That the husband was lying and manipulating the entire time. And it’s so traumatic to find that out.

And so when she discovers that the addiction marriage counseling worsened it. He was able to groom her and manipulate her even worse than before. She usually doesn’t go back to that same therapist, because even the thought of that therapist is so traumatic for her. It’s painful to her to even think that she just spent all that money and time, and it didn’t do anything. So she usually doesn’t go back and say, hey, this didn’t work.

So these therapists, all they know is that she left happy. They don’t know the end of the story. Alternatively, women tell me all the time that they came to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, started listening to the podcast. And they were like, this is kind of extreme. I don’t think this is my situation. So then they went to a couple therapy, and had a horrific experience.

Anne: They return to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, like five years later. And let me know, oh, my word, this is what happened. And they tell me their stories. So women come back to Betrayal Trauma Recovery all the time to tell me. Whereas I don’t think your typical therapist has that scenario. So they just think they were successful.

I find the attitude of addiction marriage counselors, that they can fix an abuser offensive. They don’t understand abuse. In that case, or they think the criteria I’m about to tell you doesn’t apply to them. Which is a huge red flag. And if they don’t have a screening process for this type of abuse, it’s unethical. So a couple therapist should refuse to treat any couple who meets any of these five criteria.

Number one, if there is abuse of any type, emotional, psychological, sexual, physical, financial, any abuse whatsoever present. Lying, manipulation and gaslighting are abuse. So if your husband lied about his use, he’s been abusing you. And that disqualifies you from addiction marriage counseling, or couple therapy. But if you don’t know he’s been lying and you go to couple therapy, do you see the problem here?

If he’s been lying to you about his use or his infidelity. He’s not going to suddenly tell the truth to a couple therapist. Similarly, if he admits to the explicit content use or you find it. And so you’re like, hey, let’s go to addiction marriage counseling. You’re in the same boat.

Anne: Either way, there’s been abuse. But the addiction marriage counselor will not see it as an abuse issue. They’re going to treat it as an addiction issue.

Number two, any couple where one or both of the partners has a mental illness or addiction problem. Couple therapy is never indicated. So even if you don’t want to label his addiction as abuse, this still disqualifies you as a couple from addiction marriage counseling. Addiction marriage counseling should not even exist. It should not be a thing. Anyone doing it is unethical. Because you’ve got abuse, addiction, and maybe a mental illness issue.

Let’s look at the victim for just a second, even if she’s been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or depression, or sometimes bipolar. Many times she’s diagnosed with these things because she’s an abuse victim, and they don’t factor that in. So rather than saying, you’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just an abuse victim. Let’s get you to safety. She gets a diagnosis. Every therapist should know that if mental illness is part of the mix, couple therapy is contraindicated.

So if there’s any mental illness in the mix that’s diagnosed or known, or if he’s a known addict, that couple therapist should immediately stop couple therapy. And if you ever have a therapist who says, hey, he’s a addict, and so you need addiction marriage counseling, that’s the biggest red flag in the universe.

Anne: Let’s go back to this mental illness issue for just a minute. Some experts say two thirds of addicts have a mental illness now. I don’t care about this part, because all I care about is how it affects her and to her it’s abuse. But the stats are 44% of addicts have a personality disorder or traits of a personality disorder. And so some therapists will be like, oh, there’s a mental illness. Let’s treat that. I’ll tell you why I’m not a big fan of that in just a minute.

They might say to you, you are experiencing PTSD symptoms, which is true. However, do they say you’re experiencing PTSD symptoms, but you’re fine? You’re totally normal. You’re acting exactly as you should be acting as an abuse victim. Because that’s what they should tell you. Instead, if they say you have some kind of mental illness because of your PTSD. Then you would be disqualified from couple therapy, which would sure disqualify you from addiction marriage counseling.

Number three, if there is a lack of empathy, then a couple therapy is contraindicated. This is where one or both parties are unwilling or unable to understand the other person’s perspective. If empathy is lacking, many therapists who have this, like I can fix him complex, will try to teach him to have empathy. They’ll give him scripts and do empathy training. Like a fake it till you make it sort of approach.

That is so dangerous, then abusers learn to mimic empathy, but they don’t actually feel it. So they understand the mechanics, and then they’ll use it as a weapon to groom you. And wives come back and report over and over that this type of therapy made their husband a super abuser.

Anne: He began to talk in very empathetic ways and sounded better, but it just felt so cruel because his behavior hadn’t changed. He was doing it in ways that were so much more insidious and almost evil. Like we’ve had women come back and say he turned into the scariest person ever.

Because everyone else was like, look how healthy and wonderful he is. And he’s so empathetic and loving. He used scripts from couples therapy or addiction marriage counseling to manipulate more. And that is one of the most distressing things that women report.

Number four, if one person has engaged in a relationship outside the marriage. So like explicit content, which is a relationship with hundreds of women outside the marriage. Emotional affairs, then couple therapy is always contraindicated.

Number five, if one person doesn’t want to reconcile or solve problems. So a man with an exploitative character, he never has the goal of solving problems. His only goal is to get what he wants from her, not to build something together. So if he’s got that type of character, whether you know it or not, couple therapy will escalate the situation.

As reported by the women I interviewed, some therapists will say that if an addict or abuser has had a certain period of sobriety, or hasn’t been abusive, or has been in treatment for his addiction for his abuse for a year. Or a certain amount of time, it’s okay to start couple therapy or marriage counseling. And they report it did not go well, even after a period of sobriety or treatment.

Anne: In fact, my own experience illustrates this well. I had been dealing with an addict husband going to his own individual addiction therapist for years. We’d never tried addiction marriage counseling or couple of therapy before. Because I’d always refused. And things seemed like they had gotten a little better. They hadn’t. It was more like I was the frog in the pot, you know, I didn’t know that he had learned to lie better.

But because I thought things had improved since he’d been doing therapy and going to 12 step, he admitted he was an addict. And then he said the reason why things aren’t going perfectly yet was because we needed to go to couple therapy. There were some things that “we needed to work out”. He’d been wanting me to do couple therapy the entire time.

Sorry, side note, just yesterday I had one victim ask me if I knew he wanted to do it? I knew it was a bad idea, and that was my best test for whether the course of action was safe. Which kind of makes me smile now. Because my husband wanted to do couple therapy at the time, he was so excited. I remember when I agreed, he literally leaped off the couch and was like, awesome. Everything’s going to get better now. So we did 19 addiction marriage counseling sessions.

And things only escalated. I think it’s because he thought now’s the time to unleash all my resentments toward her. All my feelings based on all my erroneous thought processes. Because he hadn’t changed his abusive thinking at all. And he wanted the couple therapist to cram it into me.

Anne: Because he was like, I can’t convince her that she’s got these problems, but now I can get the therapist to do it. And he became more and more abusive to the point where he hurt me and was actually arrested. And the court gave him a no contact order.

Now couples therapists ethically, to maintain their licensure, must operate under the assumption of safety and equality. And in a situation with betrayal and addiction, there is no equality. Lies create an abusive power dynamic, because one person has more power than the other, because they have more information. So any couple therapist who does not see lying as an abuse issue creates a situation unequal and unsafe.

And so they’re not maintaining those ethical standards of operating with safety and equality. Okay, let’s move on to the second scenario I introduced at the beginning, when wives avoid addiction marriage counseling, or couple therapy. But I think his individual therapy isn’t going that well. And maybe if she talks to his therapist, the outcome will improve.

When I discovered the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop Strategies, one of the things that was like rattling around in my mind was about one well-known addiction marriage counseling practitioner. I’d heard accounts of his abuse to women. He would require her to sign a contract that she wouldn’t leave the marriage for a year. That she couldn’t use anything she learned in addiction marriage counseling in a divorce. He made her sign a contract, stuff was really bad.

I’ve heard a lot about this guy. He would tell the addicts or the abusers. If she’s angry, don’t worry. We can work with that. That’s not a problem, the only thing we can’t use is your wife’s apathy.

Anne: Knowing that he thought he could use the woman’s emotions to benefit this himself. And the only thing he felt he could not use to the advantage of the abuser was apathy. That rattled around in my mind for a long time.

And that concept is well explained in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. The Living Free Workshop outlines why it’s not safe to have your therapist talk to your husband’s therapist. Or to participate in your husband’s therapy as an observer, or to meet with a therapist with your husband. Even if the therapist says it’s not couple therapy or addiction marriage counseling. Which seems like word salad to me.

So after explaining to you all the reasons why a couple therapy is sometimes counter-indicated, and addiction marriage counseling is always contra-indicated. You’re probably thinking. We don’t fit the criteria, and he continues to harm me. So, what do I do?

I outline exactly what to do in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. Because it’s different than anything you’ve heard before, I wanted to visually show this to you. The Living Free Workshop is 55 video lessons. The total runtime of all 55 lessons is only two hours and 20 minutes. On average, they’re only three minutes each. I broke it up into tiny bite-sized pieces. The shortest video is 28 seconds, the longest is six minutes.

There’s a question between each lesson that you can either answer. If you want to process it on a really deep level, or you can just like put an X in the box and push next. Then you also process the information with the free workbook that comes with it. It’s a PDF, a beautiful two page spread.

Anne: And so if you want it in color, you can get it printed at like Kinko’s or something. It’s more expensive. The cheapest way to print it is to order it on Amazon. It’ll come quickly, or you can print it at your house either way. Just make sure if you print it, print it double-sided.

The Living Free Workshop will help determine your husband’s character. And help you know what to do. If you take the Living Free Workshop and you’re like, oh wait, he’s actually not abusive. Then couple therapy might be an option for you. And that would be great.

But addiction marriage counseling should never be on the table, because it never meets the criteria for a couple therapy, ever. I don’t even know why it exists. If you’ve enrolled in The Living Free Workshop, I’d love to know what you thought about it.