SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Anyone else’s WS go to counseling IC then MC and advise the WS not to admit the affair and/or minimize the truth? WTF is going on with these counselors? Both were faith based and Gottman Trained.

Is there anyone in the world that is trustworthy these days?

I'm curious to know how you know your WS was advised to lie and/or minimize?

Did this info come from your WS? From the counselor themself?

From my WW. Seems like a stupid lie considering she finally confessed in MC with the 2nd one. Took months though.

Well, you know your WS is a liar. They have to be to get to be a WS. Yet you believe her when she says the MC is telling her to not tell the truth. Why are you still trying when your WS is still lying? The only way this works is if honesty is given. If she is not being honest, you have nothing to work with.

Not admitting and especially not giving full disclosure seems to be relatively common with therapists, especially faith based. I don’t have any hard evidence to back this up, only my experience and what others have said on these and similar forums, plus countless blogs and articles from supposedly reputable "affair recovery experts"

That being said, based on your flair, you are unpacking 9 years of lies and lying.

At that point it’s not even lying anymore, it’s two different people living in the same body.

Never trust a therapist to be the final word in how to repair your relationship. They only offer advice, that you are paying for. They don’t get to make any decisions about what you need or don’t. A good therapist will ask what you need and help guide through it. A bad one will tell someone what is best for them as though they have authority over you. They don’t, and a lot of therapists are pretty messed up. If your WW is trying to use that as her excuse to not tell everything, you should tell her that the therapist isn’t married to her, you are, and you get to decide what you need.

My WW's counselor told her not to disclose a second affair to me because "it was a one time thing and you're not going to do it again..." She said it would just further damage us/me to tell me about something that was in the past and not a problem anymore. Problem with that stupid advice is that you had sex with another man in real time and space, meaning other people know too. So, he told his g/f about my wife, and when him and her broke up the now ex g/f called me to tell me. That's a fun bomb dropped into a shit storm. I'm with you, I don't know what the hell is wrong with people. Very hard to trust anyone, even "professionals". But I do think it's somewhat common.

This is why we advise folks to interview the therapists to ensure they meet your requirements— 100 honesty, no blaming the marriage, etc. There are some who are really unqualified to deal with infidelity. And WS take that liberty and run with it….

My WH started IC after he told me the whole ugly truth. And after he told that to the counselor, the guy flat out said, he should have kept the worst parts for himself, because with telling, he only unburdened himself, but burdened me. So he should just have told me the things I already knew or suspected and keep others to himself and as long as he stopped with the cheating, that should be enough. When I called him out on that the next session (we went to the second session together), he said I have too high moral standards and implied my poor WH just couldn't be up to them and maybe that's why he cheated . Disgusting, even my very foggy WH at the time did not agree. Needless to say, he never went back but unfortunately it also caused a great deal of distrust in therapists on both of our sides, so no therapy for us since then.

I appreciate all of your candor and experience. I am not looking to repair the relationship beyond 5 more years for my youngest daughter. I just want to not be so angry and resentful at the world and myself. My hope in counseling was to find a way to work through the emotions far enough to co parent. I am starting to think it is a fools errand and I would be a better co parent with the small amount of self respect that I hope to gain from divorcing her. Sucks when you have high hopes of a moderately palatable future and find more lies and deception with the guidance of the relationship "authority". It’s an f’ed up world we live in these days…

Sorry, but it is a fool's errand, though lots of people try it. I am sure some of them are able to do it with some type of peace... I guess.

But frankly, you are thinking in the right direction about being a good co-parent and divorcing her.

Time is limited, and I think wasting it is a bad idea.

Further, there are lots of BAD counselors and therapists out there. Are more bad than good, I have no idea. I know the therapists and what not here will defend the industry, but I have seen more bad ones than good. And I think therapy with a good therapist is great.

[This message edited by BluesPower at 1:56 PM, Tuesday, July 2nd]

There's no shortage of crap therapists out there, but if I were betting on this, I would put money on the likelihood that your wife is lying about what the therapist said.

I just want to not be so angry and resentful at the world and myself.

You're angry because of your W's betraying you, but you can't change that, and you can't change her. You CAN change yourself. You have the power to do that. If you're not doing so on your own, a good therapist can help.

Your anger has a lot to do with your self-talk. You can resolve it if you hear your actual self-talk and change it. Helping you hear your self-talk and changing it is what good therapists do. My W and I were lucky in her choice of IC. Her IC became our MC on d-day, and her message to my W was, 'If you want to R, answer his questions honestly and fully.'

I imagine life is very difficult with an unremorseful WS. Check out the D/S forum here, especially the 'fear vs reality' thread. I don't read D/S much at all, but my sense is that people who bite the financial bullet are happy they did.

And my reading here is that kids do better with one healthy parent after a D than they do living in a broken home. It's taken years for my GS to return to some normality (for his stage in life, aged 14 now), but he's much better off than if his parents had stayed together. As a number of SIers (and others have said, 'I'd rather be from a broken home than in one.'

Betraying someone is a horrendous act, but it defines the WS, not the BS - unless the BS lets it define them.

Great feedback, thank you. She apologizes often, but thinks the work ends at "I was so self absorbed and full of all the attention I was getting."

I respond with "Temptations are everywhere, I get hit on fairly regularly, but my values and character have kept me from cheating. Character is who you are when no one is there to police you and at this point, I don’t think we are morally compatible."

Sucks that the Time Machine at Costco was just an amusement park ride.

Gottman does not encourage full detailed confessions of sex acts, but otherwise recommends full disclosure. It doesn't encourage lying or minimizing. Plain old withholding. I don't think its the right answer, but Gottman thinks the specific details of sex acts are too traumatizing to be useful in reconciliation. I think if you can't forgive the specifics, reconciliation isn't in the cards.

Not even about specific sex acts, about the actual affair happening. If she can tolerate the horror of what she did, I am sure I can’t forgive it.

If you plan to stay in the home for the next few years please find some outside hobbies. Take up golf with your kids. Hike, bike, book club for guys, working out. Do something to release the amount of stress you will carry.
I am a broken record about this…stress is cumulative. It can literally alter the amount of years you have on this earth. Stress can give you PTSD. It can give you heart problems. The damage done by unremitting stress is bloody awful. Do.not.do.that.to.yourself. However you can, get out of the house. Find joy in your kids. Leave your w to her own thing. You don’t have to be angry, just be busy. Play pickle ball. Do something. Please.
I cannot imagine living in this but it is your choice so be as proactive as you can about staying healthy. Do not drink, smoke or use drugs.
If you are in the US visit state and national parks. Give yourself one gift every day. Give yourself time to enjoy something.
Good luck.

9 year LTA is like a second marriage. Did she confess or did you bust her? Confession means guilt whereas being caught means she would have carried on.
Do your children know? 3 are young adults now and 13 years old now are mature to handle it. Sometimes it’s better to rip off the band aid than to leave it on the festering sore.

I found out, she denied, gaslit etc and finally confessed saying I I deserved to know what happened years ago. I then brought her some of my proof and she said "I didn’t think you knew about that." Then a little more truth. I was tricke proofing and decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. The kids know something is up, I sleep on the couch and haven’t said I love you to her or been affectionate in quite some time.

I actually called the lawyer again today, I am not sure I am equipped to handle this much longer, unfortunately. My kids will know soon enough and my new beginning is right around the corner. Wish me luck.

As someone who experienced the opposite, I can say that complete disclosure doesn’t lessen the impact.

My exWW and her IC conspired too "manage me" by stage managing the whole DDay process. I was presented with everything laid out and packaged up in the name of transparency while the IC was online during the covid lockdowns. Essentially I was trapped due to the lockdowns, and managed with staged "commitment days" on a timetable where I was supposed to agree that I wouldn’t leave or withdraw until the next date. It sucked.

I was blindsided and clueless, felt powerless as IC and exWW had been preparing for weeks…

Some details tbh I wish I didn’t know..

I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone….

AN.

AN-

So sorry to hear your story. It does seem like we have to continue our 1 sided commitment, while WS’s are encouraged to omit anything that may end the desire for us to stay. The more we learn of our WS’s behavior the less connected and special we become. It is far from a fair and just world that we live in at least as a BS.

How are you getting along now?