I worked with a couple in couples therapy recently where the man, in this case, had strong feelings. The longer we worked together in therapy the more it became apparent that he was taking his strong feelings and telling the wife she should change, because of how he felt. As I worked with him and his side of the relationship, he began to see that his caring, actually let’s call it “over-caring,” had to do with him caring about his wife, feeling it strongly, then strongly telling her to change. He knew that his approach was not the best, that it would push her away. And he didn’t know how else to deal with these strong feelings. So we have moved to “working” his feelings, getting him to know them better, getting him to own them as him, getting him to not try to get rid of them by pushing them on her.
Couples therapy has moments when I work with one of the pair on an aspect of his or her life that is causing problems. To balance things, I very quickly go after the others compliment to the issue. In this case, the wife was pulling back and not saying a number of things that “needed” to be said. More on that next time.
Keep working on the relationship if you can…