SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

If You ask questions of a potential employee....

How much more do should you grill a potential IC/MC?

Did they have an affair, what are their online reviews, are they married, do they value marriage, are they psychopaths etc

"If you want to save your marriage you’re going to have to figure out how you contributed to this and the signs you missed" . Never went back.

Next found a therapist that seemed to check better boxes: Gottman, Attachment Theory, Brené Brown. She was highly sympathetic to my wife, at one point validating a nonsensical answer to one of my questions about the affair as TRUTH. When I dared to challenge this, I was met with "it sounds like you are trying to tell me how to do my job".

Very similar to our experience. I made all the "rookie chump mistakes" and searched out the most "qualified" MC I could find. Gottman trained, LMCF, CSAT, the works…..

Mine was a woman and started off as an endless supply of excuses for my WW (who just sat there and didn’t dispute any of the BS the MC came up with). Stupid stuff like she was "young and scared of being married". I said "at 42 years old after being married 20 years"?? Also "she only lies when YOU back her in a corner". Me "she’s been lying about this for 38 years. Her first and only instinct is to lie. About EVERYTHING!" WW was also actively lying to BOTH of us about the number of APs at the time. I kept pushing for the truth and MC said "she’s telling the truth, if YOU can’t accept that you have all the info you’re going to get, maybe YOU need IC." I responded "if this is all the info I’m going to get, I’m just going to divorce her lying, cheating ass". MC then backtracked and suggested a poly. 4 more APs came out…… I asked MC if SHE still felt WW only lied when "backed into a corner". No response….

She also gave us the book "8 dates" to read and work on. When we returned and she asked how that went I said "I have no interest in going on 1 date with an unrepentant serial cheater, let alone 8". That went over like a fart in church. When she started up the "love language" BS, I responded "my love language isn’t in the book". So MC falls into my trap and says "OK, what IS your love language then"? Me: "don’t fuck other men. She failed…"

Basically, trying to either excuse 20 years of infidelity, blame me or the marriage for it or just brush past it on her way to making the future marriage better without addressing the elephant in the room. Before leaving MC for good, I told her “your approach is to throw a sheet over the dead elephant and move on. Even if I convince myself I can’t see it, I certainly will start to smell it as it continues to decay….”. All I got was “I’m sorry you feel that way”.

Eventually became my wife’s IC for a short while before my wife decided she needed someone to hold her accountable. I have never gone back and have no plans ever TO go back. I have much better ways to spend that money. Including just lighting it on fire!

[This message edited by ImaChump at 5:37 PM, Thursday, August 22nd]

Thursday April 4th I discovered my wife was sexting with a 40-year-old married coworker. When I confronted her she said we flirt, that's all, I have not crossed any lines and after an hours long conversation all she offered was I'm sorry this upsets you and I don't know how to restore your trust in me. Friday afternoon when she came home from work I said there is a suitcase upstairs I need you to leave so she did

We met Sunday afternoon and I went fully prepared to say we're done if I got one iota of anger or resentment or deflection or any BS. At this point my head and my thoughts were so confused I didn't know what to do but I knew we were finished if she kept up with the anger and deflection nonsense

When we met Sunday her attitude was a 180. She was crying and sobbing and begging and pleading and I said we are going to a marriage counselor and you are going to find one. Years ago I had asked her to go just to help us learn to communicate better and she was adamant against it

In our very first session this woman asked my wife "Did you catch feelz?" Now mind you this woman is in her 40s. My wife answered yes because she thought the counselor was asking if this guy's attention made her feel good whereas I took it properly as have you developed romantic feelings for this guy so for 3 days I was walking around thinking my wife had romantic feelings for this man. I brought it up 3 days later and it was then we realized the miscommunication.

This woman was sympathetic in my opinion to my wife's "struggles" and was trying to convince me that I was partially responsible for what my wife did. I fired her

The therapist we are working with now does aggravate me at times. The latest: Trying to get me to say what I did wrong that caused the miscommunication between my wife and I (the day I confronted my wife we talked for about an hour in my truck and I recorded the conversation because I knew there was no way I was going to remember everything that was said and how it was said)

I was asking questions and getting answers of I don't know I don't remember so the therapist thinks that I for some reason caused my wife to be unable to answer my questions thus I somehow caused this miscommunication. I said I didn't do anything wrong during our conversation. I wasn't yelling or screaming or calling my wife names or putting my hands on her. I said given what I just discovered an hour earlier I think I handled the situation pretty damn well.

We ran out of time but this is the first item on my agenda the next time we see her. I'm going to ask her so what do you think I did wrong. The wife and I talked about this that night and I said I was getting pretty aggravated because the therapist kept pushing me to say that I somehow did something wrong that caused you to be unable to answer my questions

I will say to the therapist's credit that she has called my wife to the carpet a couple of times. I said someday I want my wife to listen to our conversation so she can hear how flat and disconnected she was. I want her to listen to her dismissive answers and her anger and her vitriol.

The therapist ask my wife if she was open to that and my wife said yes but I remember everything that was said. The therapist said well given the emotional state of both you is it possible you do not remember everything or possibly you misremember some things? My wife did answer yes

Quick T/J to respond to this for a new poster:

…the therapist kept pushing me to say that I somehow did something wrong that caused you to be unable to answer my questions

One possible explanation for this is that MC’s attempt to retain the image of being impartial and then combine that with a fundamental assumption that both parties have good intentions. Well, usually the second assumption is garbage, the WS is often still lying and possibly still cheating, but even so it seems that few MC’s will treat them like a "hostile witness". It’s just not their job. But then once you have this immense imbalance between the two parties (a true victim facing their true abuser, NOT two well meaning but misunderstood parties) the MC NEEDS to extract some kind of concession from the BS, doesn’t matter what, in order to continue feeling impartial. Never mind that in reality they are actually undermining it, but perception is reality, right?

My thoughts on that. Best of luck, maybe rethink the whole approach of MC based off these stories. IC first. BS heals BS, WS heals WS, then maybe the two can heal the M.

End T/J

I know how you might not believe it, but you have an opportunity to have an even stronger marriage.

I never understood this line of thinking. Further, if this was ever spouted during MC, the Betrayed should reply to the therapist, in front of the wayward of course:

"Well, following that line of thinking, logically, shouldn't I (the Betrayed) also have an affair since it would then DOUBLE the chances of a stronger marriage?"

And then sit back and listen as the MC tries to talk back what they said, while the Wayward sits all guppy face. The BS should continue to throw that back in their face if they ever try to preach "an affair can lead to a stronger marriage" bullshit.

Hopefully if the MC ever said this to the BS [Note- I can maybe see a MC telling a wayward this in a one-on-one session, to give some hope to the wayward but only if the MC also impressed on the wayward how much work the wayward is going to have to do to save the marriage] the BS should never go back to that MC.

In defense of counselors.

My FWS was a master gaslighter. After she confessed for real she admitted that she had never told either the IC or MC the truth, even when she saw the MC in session apart from me.

She was so ashamed of what she had really done that she couldn't even admit it to herself. That was why she made up her false affair story, graphic, conceivable, and almost believable. She couldn't bear for the MC or IC to know the details of what she had really done.

Counselors are in their offices all day long listening, or not as in the case of the paper shuffling one, and facing all the ills of humanity. I knew a couple of counselors who said they had to have frequent counseling sessions themselves (it was either weekly or monthly) to maintain their ability to engage effectively with their clients, as well as their families. One counselor told me he had seen one client for 20 years before she finally told him the real reason she was there.

"Well, following that line of thinking, logically, shouldn't I (the Betrayed) also have an affair since it would then DOUBLE the chances of a stronger marriage?"

Love this.

I do think the marriage can be stronger after an A. But it never needed the A to become stronger.

This is something I actually agree with Esther Perel on. That the A is like cancer. Fighting back after it you can be stronger, but you wouldn't ever want to get cancer again or wish it on anyone else. It's also possible you could get stronger without that catalyst.

Similarly, if you break both legs, you could go through PT, have a good exercise regime and eventually be in better shape than before your injury. It's also possible that you could have just improved your behaviors without that injury. You maximum capacity might even be diminished by the injury you recovered from, even if you are now using a larger fraction of a smaller maximum.

All of this sort of stuff goes through my mind when I hear about this.

No doubt I have better marriage communication skills now that before. My marriage is functionally better than it was before. Could I have gotten here without the A? I think so. Would I have? Hard to say, but I wouldn't give the A any "credit" in improving the M. If I had gotten these skills without betrayal trauma, would things be even better? Definitely.

And BSR- I would report her to her board/employers. That is beyond unprofessional. Sorry your son is experiencing this.

Thank you. He reported her the next day. He's in the same field, so he didn't have to second guess himself. He knows exactly how bad that was.