Long story short, my husband and I are have our first real “issue” in our almost 10 years together. Neither one of us really seems to know how to handle it or communicate about it. I think we would really benefit from a counselor (and I have reason to believe that he would agree).
The problem is, in my very personal experience, the counselors I have seen have ranged from not very effective to completely crazy. I know that there are good, effective counselors out there, but I just don’t seem to know how to pick em’. I have asked the few friends that I am willing to talk about this stuff to and they have all agreed that a counselor is a good idea, but they also don’t know any good ones.
Does anyone have any advice on how to find a decent counselor?
Were the counselors you’ve dealt with in the past, not effective or crazy because you didn’t agree with their advice?
It seems odd to me that every single counselor you have dealt with would fit into these negative categories.
I haven’t dealt with many. Two (well three, since my husbands mother is an MFT) to be exact. One was when I was a teenager and having issues with self-esteem, etc. She wanted to blame everything on my parents. I really love my parents and think they did an amazing job. To me, this reeked of looking for the easy answer rather then actually listening to what I was saying. It really rubbed my the wrong way.
The second time was when we went to premarital counseling (my mother thought it was a good idea). This one kept talking about herself and her relationship. She also kept claiming that she would teach us something to would completely change our relationship, but she never got to it. All I really remember was her telling a story about how her husband scrubbed bathtubs really well.