How to lead freinds to marriage counseling?

[Coily]

I have a bit of an odd spot, but I will start off say I do not intend to do anything to interfere directly in their marriage, aside from suggesting counseling. It’s not my place. I just some ideas to help them get to a professional.

 

To give you background on this, my friends “Ralph” and “Alice” have been married for about 4 years and have had the usual spousal arguments. Things however have taken a bad turn here recently, and I worry about them. Ralph quit his job back in the spring to tackle a personal Ambition, and Alice getting ready to go back to University originally was going to go with him; but for financial reasons she did not. In that interim he set out and had to stop due to injury, and Ralph took a long time to return to work after recovering.

 

Enter Mrs. Gibson, Alice’s mother into the equation. A divorcee who relocated 300 miles so that she is 45 minutes from where Ralph and Alice live, who comes across as rather anti-male, and well I’ll let you all do the math. Mrs. Gibson, who is still competing for the affection of her daughters with her ex; has taken to inviting offering vacations for “the family;” but that has not played out quit that way. A vacation last year was planned in part by Ralph and intended to be paid for by Mrs. Gibson, however when Trixie’s husband (Dr. Norton) could not afford to take the time off, Ralph was disinvited. This year’s trip also was planned without Ralph or Dr. Norton being invited. On a side note Alice gets very anxious when both Mrs. Gibson and Trixie are around, as she tends to be the focus of their negative attentions and tend to cut her to the quick almost for sport.

Additionally while Alice is going back to university and at a new job, she is staying with Mrs. Gibson during the week, and only seeing Ralph on date nights or weekends, while they are looking to relocate Alice has got it into her head they need to buy a forever home. For a grand finale of Mrs. Gibson; Alice and Ralph are wanting to buy a home with 20 acres of land and Mrs. Gibson wants to help them get it. The catch is that she is expecting to have a place on the property as well, either in a detached home or within their house.

 

The flash point came this weekend when Alice, Trixie, and Mrs. Gibson were all at Ralph & Alice’s place (with 6 dogs by the by) for a get together. Ralph cooked a cake for the celebration, and then excused himself to help a local museum for a few hours, he returned to the hen house for a while and Alice offered to bring him over for a get together with Myself and Mr. & Mrs. Lanigan (and she stays for a bit). The evening passes, Alice comes back to pick up Ralph (who has been drinking); he is slow at leaving, which stresses Alice. On their trip back they begin arguing, she kicks him out of the car, then comes back gives him a punch. They then proceed to argue once home, with Mrs. Gibson and Trixie as an audience.

 

How does a 3rd party get these horses to water without being a worthless busy body about it? Am I totally off base thinking that a counselor could help them both see this outside force that needs to be addressed? And again Not really my place to say anything, but it's painful watching them destroy their marriage.

[nutbrownhare]

You can't really do anything about their marriage, but you might want to reconsider your post here. Maybe the names are fictitious already, in which case there's nothing to worry about, but if these are the actual names of the people involved and can be identified as such, you might want to change them if you're still able to do so.

 

ENA is not a closed forum, and if people are mentioned here they can theoretically be found by a Google search.

[melancholy123]

You can't really do anything about their marriage, but you might want to reconsider your post here. Maybe the names are fictitious already, in which case there's nothing to worry about, but if these are the actual names of the people involved and can be identified as such, you might want to change them if you're still able to do so.

 

ENA is not a closed forum, and if people are mentioned here they can theoretically be found by a Google search.

 

Those names certainly appear to be taken from the old The Honeymooners show featuring Jackie Gleason. Ralph and Alice were the main characters in it. Gleason is close to Gibson...

[nutbrownhare]

Those names certainly appear to be taken from the old The Honeymooners show featuring Jackie Gleason. Ralph and Alice were the main characters in it. Gleason is close to Gibson...

 

Ooh... you live and learn!

[thealchemist]

My friend's marriage is also going down the drain. Not anything you can do without putting yourself in another's relationship, which is never good.

 

I just listen to my best friend complain and shut my mouth while he vents about how terrible his wife is being. The whole while I feel like I am going to have a seizure because I just want to yell at them both.

[Seraphim]

Unfortunately ,with adults all you can do is watch them implode or explode if that's what they're going to do .

[DancingFool]

Honestly, not much you can do. About the only thing I can think of is when you have them both over for a social visit, you can yap excitedly about some friend of a friend who like totally saved their disaster of a marriage by doing counseling and now they are like on cloud nine as a couple. Your friends might hear that and consider it for themselves or ignore it because they are not into that kind of stuff. Counseling isn't for everyone and is not some kind of a miracle cure for problems. For it to work, both people have to believe in it and be super determined to do whatever it takes to save their marriage.

 

Besides, no busy body man hating third party will ever shake a solid couple to begin with. So do keep that in mind as well in terms of the issues they are having and just how much pull this third party does and doesn't have. Chances are, the tensions and fractures have already been there, it just wasn't quite so in the open.

[Coily]

You can't really do anything about their marriage, but you might want to reconsider your post here. Maybe the names are fictitious already, in which case there's nothing to worry about, but if these are the actual names of the people involved and can be identified as such, you might want to change them if you're still able to do so.

 

ENA is not a closed forum, and if people are mentioned here they can theoretically be found by a Google search.

 

110% stolen from the Honeymooners (all the way down to peripheral characters), seemed to fit.

 

@ DancingFool: That's about the only sensible way to even try to bring up counseling. Thank you.

 

Thanks all, I'll keep my ears open and mouth shut (for the most part).