We need one, and I suspect that some of you Dopers may have some first hand experience here.
I’ve been through enough therapy to have some idea of what I’m looking for and what I want to avoid. Specifically, my wife and I don’t see eye to eye on some pretty important issues, and what I would like is someone who can fairly hear us both out and give us a more or less objective point of view about how each of us are looking at things. If it turns out that I’m being a jerk, so be it.
I am **not **interested in going to someone who will spend weeks going through our childhood traumas and asking us “…and how does that make you feel?” We’ve been there. Never again.
It almost sounds like you need a professional mediator. I’m in Chicago, so no reference here, but it sounds like that might be the type of counselor you could benefit from. A quick google showed some in Austin. Good luck!
Well… you really need to determine if this is a marriage counselor that’s willing to try to help save a salvageable marriage, or is it’s a counselor who’s likely to say you need to split, and (IMO) and based on my divorce experience they are very distinct categories. In addition based on my conversations with attorneys they (the attorneys that do domestic work) can can often predict with fair accuracy what the immediate divorce/no divorce posture will be for a contending couple after they are sent to counselor A vs counselor B. Counselors often have very distinct and varying orientations and often get well deserved reps as “make up” or “break up” counselors, so, it might be worthwhile to ask your local attorney (if he or she does domestic stuff) if they has recommendations or people to stay away form.
Re mediators I thought that was for when you’ve decided to split and are trying to divvy up everything without fighting.\
BTW IMHO is free and anonymous and might give you a better perspective re what a lot of people think re your dispute situation.
Yeah, I don’t think that would be very fruitful. I’d only be giving my side of the problem, and I’m sure I could make it sound totally convincing that I’m the reasonable one and my wife is being pig-headed.