SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Husbands affair ended last year. It was complicated by mental health.

Medical therapy has ended and he is well. He started IC and we are not together but living together and unsure of our future.

I have asked for MC as I feel if we carry on the way we are there will be nothing left to repair. We don't argue etc we just live like friends. I don't know whether I can reconcile and I don't know whether requesting mc is the right thing to do right now. I've had individual counselling and feel more confident and at peace with the idea of divorce until it comes to leaving and that's when I get upset and sadness creeps in. I think I'm just looking for something to set in stone for me whether I should stay or leave. Sorry this is a bit of a ramble

We had it very early and continued for about 2 yrs.

Thing is, find the right one. First one called me by OW’s name.

Ladybugmaam that must have been awful being called the ow name! I hope it will help us figure out where we go from here

We started MC before DDay. Weirdly, H initiated it thinking that I wouldn’t agree to go; he thought he’d have a good excuse to leave without having to confess. He was wrong. I learned and grew quite a bit before the rug got pulled out from underneath me, thankfully. We continued for two years, graduated from it, and have returned this year for quarterly tuneups while we both process old trauma.

These days, of course, SI recommends that IC precede MC. You’ve both done that, and if you think that you’re both capable of true introspection, then it’s a good time for MC. I think it’s valuable to continue IC during MC so that you can process things from all angles and do so privately if need be.

I strongly recommend that you seek a MC who specializes in trauma, infidelity, or sexual addiction, even if SA isn’t the issue. They’ll better understand the dynamics of infidelity recovery.

About six months into his (and my) IC because there would be no point if he wasn't making internal changes into becoming a safe partner.

But I continued my IC because that helped me become less dependent on whether he changed or not.

Edited to add: MC with this therapist helped tremendously. He was an infidelity specialist and initially just helped me express what I needed to say without breaking glass. He held my FWS accountable and we didn't venture into "marriage issues" until I decided I cared to, because he knew the A needed processing first, and knew S's decision to betray me had nothing to do with me. Best thing he did early on was to comb through S's timeline(s), line for line, day by day, and asked him to reflect on what he was thinking every step of the way. From then on S could never refer to any part of his betrayal as a "mistake". He was offered the opportunity to look at the thousands of decisions he made to betray me, and given the opportunity to take that into IC to figure out why. I think it helped him understand the magnitude of what he had done, and the magnitude of what it would take to change into a safe partner.

But time will tell on all that. And I keep.it.moving.

[This message edited by HardKnocks at 3:33 PM, Tuesday, September 5th]

So we started MC about 2 months post-d-day. At this point, I was definitely leaning towards R - if R was possible, though I certainly wasn't quite all the way in with both feet yet.

For me at least, MC was super helpful with working out interpersonal issues and communication styles that were proving to be barriers to productive R. A lot of this stuff would have pre-existed prior to the A however in the aftermath of the A, it was like a spotlight was shining right at all of this. I think it (along with his IC) was also useful for helping my husband dig into his WHYS and then a place for us exploring that together and eventually and helping to craft a narrative of the A together that was acceptable to us both. I think also think it's a useful for forcing you to discuss and address the nature of your relationship, if one or both of you is prone to avoidance of such topics.

If you're not sure whether you want to R however, I'm not sure MC is going to be the place to figure that out. It may be, I don't know, it just isn't a place I can speak from experience on.

Too early against the better advisement of the folks here. The MC didn't help us repair and I fired the first MC after a particularly egregious session in which my MC wouldn't answer the question as to whether or not duty existed.

If you husband is being honest, the A is over, and there has been a significant period of NC with the AP, then MC can help establish better lines of communication, and getting you to where you are using the same language and tools around conflict resolution.

It won't make you like each other.

Our MC didn't really help, but it wasn't her fault. XWH picked the MC, whose first name was very similar to AP's name (ending in ie rather than ia). We started about a year after dday1.

One of the first things that MC said was, "We'll see why Mr. Fields felt like he had to go outside the M...." I told her that I respectfully disagreed with her on that point because if we were going to talk unmet needs, then I'd have been the one to have an A. So, she reworded it but I felt like I needed to be on guard for the unmet needs fallacy stuff being introduced. It shifts some of the blame back to the BS, and his A was due to his piss-poor character.

My XWH had inappropriate contact with another person and told me about it in our MC session. XWH was the reason why we stopped because we were on the path to D at that point.

[This message edited by leafields at 9:17 PM, Tuesday, September 5th]

Timing - sooner is better.
My WS started IC prior to D-Day, which is why she disclosed.. we started MC immediately.
Does it help? Depends on the counselor.
If they start talking unmet needs and quoting Esther Perel, you might as well get a pineapple themed doormat and start swinging.
A good counselor will come from a place of respect for marriage and a baseline understanding of the fact that you intended it to be exclusive instead of redefining it in the fly.

I think it is great that you asked for marriage counseling. It is hard to stay in limbo. Forge ahead and do the work in counseling. It can be tough that is for sure, but all the good things in life don't come easy.. you got to work for them unfortunately. I hope this works out for you and you find happiness once again. God Bless.