Couples Counseling with an Abuser

Is couples counseling with an abuser a good idea?

In a domestic violent/abusive relationship, you do not have two normal range, healthy individuals with the same relational agenda in the relationship.

A normal range, healthy individual desires a healthy, satisfying, mutually respectful relationship. 

An abuser desires a self-serving relationship. This agenda requires the abuser having more power or control in order to get this goal met.

Socially, we condemn a person if he comes right out saying, "I desire this relationship to be all about myself & I plan to control the other person so that I can have all the power." An abuser knows he has to be more crafty than speaking that direct truth, or he will not get his agenda met.

Couples counseling & co-parenting counseling exists to come alongside & help two spouses or parents towards a healthy, satisfying, mutually respectful relationship for either the sake of the marriage or the children.

Note: only the normal range adult & the counselor have the same goal.

Both the spouse/co-parent & the counselor need to acknowledge that they do not have the power nor authority to *make* the abuser choose a healthy, satisfying, mutually respectful relationship. 

Marital & co-parenting counselors enter a circus as soon as they engage in traditional counseling with a couple consisting of one normal range member & one abusive member.

Counselors want to be successful at their job. Success is: two spouses or co-parents contributing towards a healthy, satisfying, mutually respectful relationship via their traditional counseling methods.

They don't want to be told they can't accomplish this because then that would make them unsuccessful, which is not their agenda. What they don't seem to realize nor respect is that their goal to educate/equip/encourage/inspire an abuser with tools to experience a healthy, satisfying, mutually respectful relationship is a fool's errand... the abuser is not interested in this.

Abusers don't generally attend counseling of their own volition because they have an entirely different goal than the counselor. 

However, when abusers are forced to (through court order, through familial or religious pressure, etc), then they employ the same strategy they do in any relationship in order to accomplish their self-seeking agenda: manipulation.

The abuser recognizes the counselor is an authority. The abuser never respects the counselor as an authority for HIM, but knows that the normal range member does view the counselor as an authority for HER. This is the first step of exploitation, triangulation & manipulation.

The counselor (subconsciously) immediately supports & props up the abuser by falsely identifying him as a normal range parent looking for a healthy, mutually respectful relationship who just needs some education & better communication/coping skills. This gives the abuser an alibi so that he's always "innocent" when doing his dirty, abusive work. "See, it can't be ME who is abusing, I'm the healthy normal range parent, remember?" 

And off they all go down the counseling road. The counselor seemingly blind that the abuser is only interested in the counselor's power over the normal range spouse/parent. This is what the abuser is focused on & what (s)he will be looking to take throughout the whole process. And once (s)he does, the normal range parent is once again disempowered.

Forced counseling between a normal range individual & an abuser MUST stop.