How do I convince my husband to go to couples counselling?

What works best is not telling him why you need to go, but what will not be waiting for him there. Almost all men who refuse have two specific fears, and neither has anything to do with the counselling itself. If you take them away beforehand, his no often falls apart.

The two fears

I have been working with couples for years, and with the men almost always the same thing comes up once they are there.

The first fear: this is the beginning of the end.

For many men couples counselling does not mean repair, but preparation. They assume that a woman who seeks professional support has already made up her mind inside and just needs someone to see the separation through with her.

That is why many of them come in with the sentence: my wife said I have to come along, otherwise it’s over.

The second fear: woman with woman against me.

This is the unspoken one, and with a female counsellor it is even bigger. He pictures two women sitting in the room, understanding each other, while he sits in the middle and has to explain why he is the way he is.

Most men do not say this fear out loud. Instead they say that they do not need anything like that, that it is a waste of money, or that you should be able to manage on your own.

Why an ultimatum backfires

“Either you come with me, or there will be consequences.” That is the most understandable route and the least helpful one.

It confirms exactly his first fear. If counselling is the condition for you staying, then in his head it is already part of the separation process. He may come along, but he sits in the room like someone fulfilling a condition imposed on him.

It can still turn out well. In my work, most men who came under pressure then stay voluntarily, because they notice that they themselves get something out of it. It is just that the start is unnecessarily hard.

There is an easier way.

The three sentences

Short, without reproach, and none of them contains a condition.

The sentence that takes away his first fear:

“I don’t want to go to end us. I want to go because I don’t want to give up.”

This is the most important of all. For him, this sentence changes the meaning of the whole undertaking.

The sentence that takes away his second fear:

“Nobody there is going to tell me I’m right. She works with both of us, not for me.”

That is simply how it is. A good counsellor does not take sides. What is worked on in the room is not him and not you, but what goes on between you.

The sentence that makes the first step small:

“Let’s go once. Afterwards we’ll decide together whether we carry on.”

One appointment is a different decision from a whole programme. That is also why I have set it up this way: the first video session is booked on its own, and only afterwards do you decide whether the four sessions follow.

What you can tell him beforehand

It helps surprisingly much if he knows what does not happen there.

• Nobody is asked who is to blame.
• Nobody digs around in childhood until someone cries.
• He does not have to talk about feelings he has no words for.
• There is no diagnosis and nothing that ends up in a file.
• He is allowed to say that he thinks the whole thing is unnecessary. That is not unusual in the first session.

And what actually happens: you practise. You do not talk about each other, but with each other, and I step in when it starts to tip. For many men that is the surprise, because they expected something completely different.

If he still does not want to

Then you have two options, and both are fine.

You go alone. That sounds like the weaker solution, and it is not. A dynamic takes two. If you change your part, the old pattern cannot simply carry on as before. Many men, by the way, join of their own accord after a few weeks, because they notice that something has shifted.

You wait and ask again in three months. Sometimes the timing is the problem and not the thing itself. Between a job change, a small child and an ill parent, almost anyone says no to everything.

What I would not recommend: asking three times a month. That turns into an argument of its own, and in the end you are arguing about the counselling instead of about what it was meant for.

Where it is not about convincing

If you are afraid of his reaction, if you are belittled or controlled, or if violence is involved, then couples counselling is not the right path. I also do not work with couples in that situation, and that is not a question of ability but of what is right. In that situation, what is needed first is protection and a service that is set up for exactly that.

The German helpline for women affected by violence (Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen) is available around the clock, free of charge and anonymously, on 116 016, even if you just want to sort out what is going on between you.

What I would like you to take away

The men who tell me at the end of the first session that they will come back have almost all had the same experience. They expected to have to justify something, and instead they were understood.

You cannot tell him that, he has to experience it. What you can do is take away the two fears, so that he gets that far in the first place.

One appointment. No more.