I'll tell you what I feel finally made the difference for me, regarding therapy, that allowed me to finally "snap out of it" and have reality come back into place. I hope maybe some part of this story is helpful to you in regard to your own relationship, and understanding where her head is likely at.
We had both been seeing a wonderful MC, and each of us also luckily found amazing IC's as well. Our MC focused on EFT style therapy and on helping us to attune to each other. However those efforts were negatively impacted by the fact that I could not get out of my own head completely, and so attuning to another person was honestly impossible until I was able to attune to my own reality.
My IC on the other hand, focused solely on me and my personal needs. Saving my relationship was in the mix, but it was not the primary goal. Nor should it have been, for the exact same reason stated above. I had to be able to see myself in order to be able to see anyone else. And until that happened, any efforts put into the relationship were really based on thin ice. If anything, what I needed my IC to help me understand was "what life was in the absence of a relationship" and help to understand that life was what I did with it, and not what life did to me. I needed to understand how to be me, and who I really was, in the absence of anyone else's input or needs.
In truth, and I know how this sounds, but I need to be honest... in truth, I needed for MC to "fail" in order to heal myself. The reason I needed that to happen is that I was so emotionally invested in the relationship as my "safety net". As long as it remained a viability, I refused to let it go, and saw it as my identity, my raison d'être.
In my head, I picture it like this. Imagine having fallen out of a window, and managing to grab the window ledge just before plummeting to the ground. As you dangle there, firemen arrive and spread out a net to catch you, but darn it if that net doesn't look like it's the size of a pea from this high up. Allowing yourself to simply let go of the window sill and trusting that you'll fall into that pea-sized net is simply not an option, so your brain instead tells you to NOT LET GO OF THAT WINDOW SILL OR YOU WILL DIE, and so all efforts remain focused on not falling, not letting go of the one solid thing standing between you and death. I can't imagine what anyone could say to you at that point that would override that urge to not let go. At some point, you simply begin to tire, and realize that you're either going to summon up the strength to crawl back up and into that window (and you aren't, if you had the strength, you would have done it to begin with) or you will come to grips with allowing yourself to fall. Maybe you'll live. Maybe you'll die. No one can really say until it happens. But until you let go, you can't think of anything else but doing anything, anything at all, to not let go of what you are hanging on to. Every bone in your body, every self-preservation instinct, tells you that letting go is nuts, and certain death. It doesn't matter that hanging from a window ledge is no way to live. It seems like a great way to live when the other choice is splatting like a tomato on the pavement below.
This was my emotional state at the time. For me, the window ledge I was clinging to was the relationship. As broken as it was, it was still what I felt I needed to hold on to in order to stop the worst possible outcome from occurring. And I was so panicked about it all that all I could do was hyper-focus on clinging to that ledge. "Just keep clinging to the ledge, and you'll be okay. Let go, and you're toast."
What my IC helped me to do, eventually, was to build up the strength, the courage, and the inner fortitude, to let go of the ledge. To accept whatever fate occurred from the fall. To accept that the ledge was as much a death as falling was, because hanging from a ledge, while being alive, is different from living. More than anything, I had to realize that it was not the infidelity that put me on that ledge in the first place. I had been hanging from that ledge most of my adult life. I just kept hoping that someone else was going to save me. But no one can save a person who won't let go of the ledge they are hanging from.
What needed to happen really was "all about me", from beginning to end. It was my building. It was my ledge. It was my fall. So I was the only one that could do anything about it. Other people could encourage me, guide me, pray for me, but at the end of the day, this was my problem to solve. I had to stop thinking someone or something else could help me. My life or death was my own choice, my own effort, and mine to lose or gain. I had to let go, and in my heart, I knew that I couldn't hang on forever. But I had to exhaust every possibility of climbing back up into that window first, because I'm stubborn that way, and because there are things in life scarier than falling from a ledge. At least, I thought there were.
I'm not exactly sure how, or why, but at some point in IC, I finally came to the realization that R was simply not going to happen and that it was my fault, beginning to end, from the affair to where we were then, and that by clinging to that wreck of a relationship that I had destroyed, was just never going to work. I was tired of being the one to hurt my wife, and for once, I was starting to feel the weight of that reality. I was actively hurting her, and my kids. I was the knife still stuck in her back and by refusing to leave, I was just remaining as a knife, not doing her or myself any good, just causing needless harm and not having the dignity and fortitude to just remove myself so that they could live their lives without the burden and pain of my knife in their backs. I came to the realization that my life was forfeit anyway, and always had been. I realized I was just scared for myself, and letting others get hurt rather than face my own fears, as terrifying as they were. I dunno. Somehow it just became clear that there was nothing left to live for, and that I was hurting others, and I didn't want to be that person anymore. I was tired of clinging to the ledge, and tired of making everyone else around me focus on saving me when they could not. I decided it was better to simply let go. I fully expected to die. I had come to grips with that.
Somehow, I willed myself to let go of that ledge. And I fell.
And when I did, the switch flipped. As I fell, I suddenly realized that, in willing myself to let go of the ledge that was "keeping me alive", I had given myself a gift, and that gift was the realization that I had choices in my life, and more than that, I had the power to direct those choices in any way that I wanted or needed. I could aim for that safety net. I could put out my arms and "fly" in whatever direction I needed to. And eventually I realized that I could even control more than that. I could make that net as large as it needed to be. In fact, the more I let myself lean into this new paradigm, the more I realized that I could probably just fly in the first place. I just didn't know that because I had been told all my life that I could not, and allowed myself to believe that and never challenged it.
In real terms, I realized that if my marriage failed, that I would not die. That life would go on. And that by letting go, I had taken the power away from others to hurt me. I even stopped myself from hurting myself, and others. In fact, I didn't want a relationship anymore, not like that anyway, not one where I was dependent and needy and weak and a burden to those who loved me. I needed to be someone I could respect. I needed to be able to contribute to a relationship, not rely on one. I needed to understand that my pain and sadness were 100% caused by myself and no one else. And that I could choose to be happy or sad, weak or strong, present or not. I could choose to be someone that I loved and respected, and in doing so, it would allow others to see me in the same light. And those that did not, no longer had the power to hurt me. I no longer had to hurt anyone either.
My point in writing all of this is simply to give you a glimpse into the work she needs to do. If she still blames you, then she's still clinging to the ledge. If she hasn't actually uttered the words, "I need to be a better person", then she's on that ledge. Trust me when I tell you that it will be "crushingly obvious" when she lets go. There will be no glimpses, no doubts, no baby steps... it will be as obvious as an elephant sitting on your chest. (That's not to say that all things will be fixed and peachy, it simply means that the relationship work can begin). You will know she can see you because you will be able to see her, that person you once fell in love with, that person that once had empathy and dignity. It's like seeing an old friend return.
Who got mad, who said what to who, who did this or that or that other thing... with all due respect, all of those things are kind of meaningless in the long run. They are just clues and hints about the deeper realities that we need to explore and face, and sometimes they distract us from those realities. The reality of her affair was that you realized that she did not love you, because no one who loved you (or themselves) could do such a thing. For her, the reality of the affair was that relying on you to fulfill her emotional needs was not working, and that she needed make a change. (Unfortunately, rather than making the change she needed to, which was to learn to love herself, she opted for an unhealthy route, and tried to get someone else to fulfill those needs for her.) Sometimes we walk into MC with the hope of "winning" or "proving our point" or simply "being vindicated", and none of those are healthy reasons to go to MC. They are the reasons we need MC in the first place. When both people can walk into MC as healthy individuals, and explore what each of them can give willingly to the relationship, then things will move forward and blossom. Until then, we're just trying to get ourselves in order.
