Written by I received this e-mail from a woman who attended the Doug Weiss Heart To Heart Counseling Center. She said the experience was horrible! Here’s what she had to say about that experience.
Doug Weiss. HORRIBLE!!
1. When I stated that I was so devastated that I did not want to have sex with my husband, he (Doug Weiss) told me that if I didn’t have sex with my husband that I would lose him (I guess non emotional and objectifying sex is ok with him).
2. He told my husband that I would not leave him because I would not give up my “life style”.
3. When I told him that my physician husband continued to touch and exam fully naked women and that triggered me, he stated ” then just don’t be in the room when he does that! (as if that makes it ok).
4. When I suggested that my husband give up doing procedures that involved him staring at and touching fully naked women all day long, he stated ” You can’t ask him to change his career, it’s like asking him to change his eye color!) What? We are born with our eye color, however, we are not born with our careers! We can change our careers at any given time, but not our eye color! Besides, I wasn’t asking him to change his career, I was asking him to not do procedures, which triggered me and triggered my husband.! As if its ok for an alcoholic to work as a bartender!!!
5. He told me that I suffered from intimacy anorexia not reactive intimacy anorexia. He said I had full blown intimacy anorexia because I did not want to have objectifying sex with my husband after I found out that he had unprotected sex with over 1500 different prostitutes, my sister, his patients, gym members, nurses, cleaning crew, drug reps etc….and did nothing to rectify the marriage and continued to lie lie and lie.
Really?
She goes on to say:
I just posted a comment about Doug Weiss, however I was wondering if you were aware of any clause his paperwork (that I did not pay attention to when I went to see him) stating that you cannot say anything negative about him? I know a great deal of therapists and women who had negative experiences with him, however I can’t find their comments anywhere. I know that when I asked him for my polygraph questions that he used in office, he refused claiming my questions were his property and that if I tried to get them from him that he would have a lawyer contact me. What?? Really??
I know he is lawyer-ed up and wondered if maybe I should not post that comment although I feel partners have the right to know about how I was treated.
I answered that I did not know if Doug Weiss had such a clause in his contract but if she tried to post a comment on his site or his facebook page that he has the authority and the right to monitor comments and choose which ones are allowed.
She also wrote:
There were women in his waiting room in complete shock telling me “He doesn’t get it”.
When I called to schedule my intensive I specifically told his wife what I wanted to work on during my intensive. However, when I got there they put us through his assembly line (what I call it when you have couples going from station to station doing the same thing).
To have spent all of that money just to have him not listen to me and tell those things (that I mentioned above) traumatized me even more. When I pointed out that Barbara Steffens states in her book that I have every right to ask for things that make me safe, his response was, ‘Well, I don’t agree with everything these authors write!”. He’s a complete fraud!!
This woman’s description of what happened to her is typical of the lack of acknowledgment of the partner’s trauma and the victim shaming that occurs in many of the sex addiction treatment centers.
Partners are told to ‘trust’ their husbands or partners even in light of years, sometimes decades of lying and deception. They are told to have sex with these men, potentially exposing them to STDs. They are told to not ask questions about the sexual behaviors as it might ‘shame’ the sex addict. Partners are told to ‘own’ their part of the problem, seek therapy and attend 12 step programs and they are told that any monitoring of the sex addict’s activities is proof of the partner’s ‘sickness’.
In my opinion sex addiction therapy and rehab programs do nothing more than enable the sex addict by giving him an excuse for his behavior (my addiction made me do it), give only lip service to accountability and gives them a sense of entitlement that is often used against their partners.
As I have said so many times here and on my other sites; this thing we call sex addiction is not an illness in itself but a trait or symptom of a personality disorder or other mental illness and should be treated professionally as such. Bogus treatment centers, 12 step groups and sex addiction therapy do nothing to fix this problem.
Same same same! My experience at Heart to Heart was horrible! They are the WORST, I think Doug Weiss is still involved with other women outside his marriage (his wife is bat crap crazy too) and looking at porn and thus making wives look crazy when we demand change!! DO NOT GO THERE!
Hearing these experiences with Doug Weiss, confirm suspicions I have had for 10 years. By the time my husband (at the time) went to see Doug for intensive treatment, it was a last ditch effort to attempt to change my mind about divorce. It never swayed me. I received a phone call from Doug, asking me if I had any additional questions for the polygraph. I had maybe a minute to think of something because he seemed so rushed. I hadn’t planned for this call or question- so had nothing to add. When he called me later with the results, I was trying to write everything down but he was speaking so quickly, that I didn’t catch it all. I’m sure this was purposeful. I told him, that the fact that he “Passed” the polygraph- didn’t change my intentions. He tried to talk me out of divorce.
As it turns out, the polygraph was a lie. One question: “Does your wife know everything about your sexual history” – he answered “Yes”. And during the following year, more gruesome information came to light that I did not know about. This always puzzled me until I read the accounts here.
Thank you all for speaking out, and for speaking the truth.
I can not even imagine your journey. Just getting a glimpse from the above has left me speechless, and shocked. It’s as if the whole world just stopped for a moment in me as I reflect on the details of your story.
Also, I do believe he has changed and learned over the years. He really acknowledges victims MUCH more. I posted a link of an interview he did on Daystar about Partner betrayal trauma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9XYFW9vQ94
What about Dr. Robert Weiss? What do you guys think about him?
Yea, it’s unimaginable how someone could expect a marriage to work when each person has not received individual restoration before they engage back in a sexual relationship! When you stand before God, you are not going to be there with your spouse, you have to give an account for yourself. When God heals and restores people, he talks to and with that person … not the other person and you. This is a ministry that obviously needs improvement. Including the fact that Dr. Doug Weiss may be coming from the position of a past perpetrator, his perspective is vastly different than what it means to possibly be a victim, personally, although I’m sure he’s encountered many victims. This is why I believe he gives two options divorce or work on the marriage. In these extreme cases I’m trying to figure out why you expected him to state the obvious or be a fix all. I do believe he supports spouses who choose to divorce. But we can’t have or create a custom program that basically controls or babysits the person/perpretrator. If your spouse is physically abusive, a drug addict, open unsafe adulterer, especially committing these sins without protection he cannot tell you to divorce them … but I’m really unsure as to whether his ministry can do anything for you. Because remember it is a sexual restoration ministry Not drug, physical abuse, assault ministry. Obviously the first thing he wants to do is either get you healed from a divorce or traumatic separation and assist you in creating other healthy normal relationships OR help you work on the one you have. When Christ forgives us, he does it immediately, it’s not like this condemning situation for months and months… If a person is NOT willing to change to receive forgiveness from Christ, it is not necessarily for them because we don’t want to accept that free gift. Clearly some marriages are like that, if you have discovered a spouse who truly is unrepentent and/or have known it over the years, getting out, and getting your own restoration is likely for you. There have to be two willing parties … that is not Dr. Weiss’ fault. Although it seems as if this man needs to understand the perpetrators working on themselves individually BEFORE they engage in normal, healthy human sexual relationships again. And to the person who made the car accident comment OBVIOUSLY as well if a person is in accident, they take the time to heal, be healthy, and restored FIRST before they engage in normal activity again. Don’t let anyone, anywhere, I don’t care where that ministry comes from tell you, what you need to do for you. SEX should be experienced by a healthy and whole individual, PERIOD. Not a broken or traumatized person, that’s what we should be working to eliminate and get healthy sexual relationships back, either in the same or new marriage relationship. But some of the responsibility falls on us to make tough decisions we have to do.