About five years ago I asked my wife what she thought about us seeing a marriage counselor to help us learn how to communicate better and her response was an adamant NO. I asked why and she said, "It could bring up other problems in our relationship" to which I replied "Wouldn't it be a good thing to address these problems?" and she said "I think it's a bad idea" so I dropped it. I found an IC and when I told my wife she got upset. "Why didn't you discuss this w/ me?" to which I replied "I asked and you are dead set against it so I'm going by myself" It was amazing.
Two days after D-Day we met to discuss the next step. I was convinced she would show up still shooting daggers at me w/ her eyes and spitting vitriol but she had two days to think and she did a 180.
I demanded that we see an MC immediately and told her SHE would find one. I hadn't found SI yet and in hindsight this was a mistake. The better advice is for the BS to find an IC and after several months and once the BS feels like he/she is back on solid ground w/ clear thoughts then he/she decides if he/she wants to try and work on the relationship.
True to form our first MC was horrible. In our first session this mid 40's "therapist" asks my wife, "Did you catch feels for him?" to which my wife replied "Yes". I was crushed. After walking around for three days believing my wife had romantic feelings for this guy I brought it up. My wife took the question to mean did your AP make you feel good about yourself. For three F'ing days I walked around in misery. At our next session I said, "From now on can we use adult words in our questions" Therapist thought she was being hip or something. After a few more useless sessions I fired her.
The next therapist, now she is very good at her craft BUT like most she tried pushing the "put the affair behind you and build a brand new shiny sparkly relationship" BS and she tried using the Gottman therapy manual page by page. She tried focusing on making us better communicators. My patience wore out after a few sessions and I said, "Are we going to talk about the reason we are here?" The MC said yes yet still tried the Gottman stuff and I shut it down. I don't need to go page by page thru some playbook, let's talk about why my wife destroyed 27 years of relationship. The MC gave up on Gottman.
I made it clear to my wife and the MC that I was in NO hurry to rebuild trust. I said, "Until I can believe that whatever was broken/missing in my wife has been found/fixed and I can believe she can be a safe partner I am not putting my heart into this relationship." Session by session I slowly took back my power (balls) and during one session I said F' it and let my words fly, consequences be damned. If my wife walked out or we ended things so be it. That was a pivotal day for me.
My advice: Start w/ IC and cycle thru them until you find one you can bond with no matter how many it takes. After several months if you think you want to work w/ an MC to save the relationship then find one but in hindsight I see them as a bad distraction early on.
BTW, I also pushed/demanded my wife see an IC. She needed to work on herself w/ someone w/out me there. I honestly thought she would last a month or two and then proclaim ALL IS WELL and if she did then I was ending the marriage but she has stuck w/ it for about 20'ish months. She goes weekly and 99% of the time she comes home feeling bad because she is talking about some pretty bad stuff from her childhood that was never processed. I am proud of her for sticking it out. Early on she was discussing the affair. I don't even want to add up how much we have spent :/ Had she gone to MC when I suggested it five years ago maybe I wouldn't have gone thru the worst pain of my life. She has admitted several times that she wished she had done so.
[This message edited by WB1340 at 1:16 AM, Monday, February 9th]
