Marriage Counseling

[JMRhoa123]

Last few months have been pretty rocky in my marriage and it looks like it is time to get some outside help. Looking for some kind of marriage counseling in the Bangkok area for a US/Thai family. Anyone have any suggestions???

[ArranP]

Last few months have been pretty rocky in my marriage and it looks like it is time to get some outside help. Looking for some kind of marriage counseling in the Bangkok area for a US/Thai family. Anyone have any suggestions???

I was told by "Tilleke & Gibbins" a top solicitor firm in Thailand, that in some 5 star hospitals they have or can refer you to this type of service. Otherwise, typically in Thailand they don't have.

Maybe give T&G a call and ask, they were friendly to me.

Edited July 26, 2009 by ArranP

[dieter1]

If you need a psychologist, trained in family-therapy for marriage counseling send me a message

[Mario2008]

Some hospitals offer the service, there is also NCS New Community Services, just google them.

[MikeyIdea]

Last few months have been pretty rocky in my marriage and it looks like it is time to get some outside help. Looking for some kind of marriage counseling in the Bangkok area for a US/Thai family. Anyone have any suggestions???

In my opinion, psychiatrists and marriage counsellors don't try to clear problems, they try to teach the couple to work around problems.

My "wife", mother of my daughter better to say, has a temper that would make an African killer bee green of envy and she (used to) hit me, kick me, spit on me and more, also in front of our child. The only thing that the psychiatrist ever tried to do was to talk, talk, talk and ask me to be patient. This went on for nearly 3 years. In the end I threw her out, then mummy cried for a month, used up all the tissue paper in the psychiatrists' office and got the psychiatrist totally on her side instead

The only thing that ever came out of 3 years of going to psychiatrists (except money out of my wallet) was what I did myself. She stopped hitting me because I kicked her out, she stopped calling me sex words in front of our daughter and throwing things because I threatened to kick her out.

The laugh of the story is that a month after I had thrown her out, the school had to close for a week because of mouth and foot virus and since I hadn't arranged for full time support, only fetch from school and take care until I come home from work, I had to ask mummy to come back again…

In my opinion - based on 17 years in Thailand – Psychiatrists and marriage counsellors don't work very well anywhere, and they work even worse in Thailand. I can't get it down in words, don't know how to write it, but Thai women simply don't respond to discussions the same way as western women do. Aren't open to discussion is maybe a better way to put it.

One reason is that Thai women were never trained in discussions as a child, they were trained in how to handle being pushed down by a male dominated society. They were trained to accept, and because of this, they were trained to be hard. People having this back ground don't respond well to talk. I have counselled quite a few friends with family problems throughout my years in Thailand (statistics show that I am better at helping them than helping myself…), there is a common pattern:

Wife cares less, becomes less respectful, does what she wants without concern for husband, or less concern for husband, doesn't want to join discussions and doesn't listen if forced to join. It doesn't have to mean that she has stopped loving the husband, not at all, it more means that she takes him for granted, she goes into an automatic mode and since she has had to fight all her life, that's what she does. She doesn't see or think of that she doesn't have to fight and she therefore works herself up in a power position and becomes less respectful. Relationship problems follow.

I have thought a lot about how to handle situations like this. I normally recommend to test ignore first. Ignore can work very well actually (as a wake-up call). If you recognise the pattern above, then try ignore first, just enough to make the girl think, not so much that she has a reason to start an argument (that puts her in a power situation again). Make her understand that she is less important and watch her reaction. All women hate to be ignored

Bangkok Hospital has a bunch of marriage counsellors if you want to try them, but my bet is that if you can't clear the problems yourself, then no one is going to be able to clear them for you. Approx THB 1500/h for psychiatrists and 1000 for psychologists. Child psychiatrists are around 1200/h and them I can really recommend, but for adult Thai females...

Michael

Edited November 3, 2009 by MikeyIdea