SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The marriage is the client

Absolutely. My first marriage ended in divorce, but Dear Lord, I tried to save it. I believed in my vows. He, evidently, misplaced his.

A well-intention MC pushed me to the brink of suicide trying to protect his client (the marriage). The marriage was not the problem. Adultery was, and the ability to engage in adulterous activity is a CHARACTER flaw.

It’s extraordinarily complicated, but it also isn’t. You want to save the marriage, in order to do that you have to willing to lose it.

You have to be willing to lose it.

The marriage can only be saved if he changes, and for him to change you have to do your part, and that is to set boundaries and stick to them. Hard, sharp boundaries with no give. Ones that he will bump up against, rebel against, and learn from, that there is a new reality. Or maybe not…you can’t control that. You can only control you, but that will influence him.

If you go to MC, you will need to train the counselor too. These are my boundaries, my nonnegotiables, don’t even go there or I’ll leave you to comfort my WH, like his last AP did.

I admire your dedication, and agree that for better or worse includes stuff like this. The worst injuries in marriages come from within, not external. I want you to succeed in your goal, just know that you can’t control him, you can only influence him, and the best way is clear, unambiguous, "f*** with me and find out" messaging.

There’s a new sheriff in town, and she wears heels.

Op here again, with an update and another question.

First, I totally understand IC and that it's an individual thing. An IC is there to work directly with their client and no one else. I get that. However, if the client asks for help dealing with another person and their issues, is it OK for the IC to say no, because that person is not their client?

WH asked his IC for ideas and tools to better communicate with me, to help me deal with my pain and to help me de-escalate when I start to spiral. WH admits that he freezes up and doesn't know how to respond. He gets defensive and uses an annoyed tone, which pushes me down even deeper. I asked WH if I should jot down some of my thoughts to help him communicate them to his IC. He said yes, that would be helpful. So he read my notes to the IC which explained exactly what my issues are. WH asked for tools and strategies to better communicate with me. The IC said, "You're my client, so I can't help her. She needs her own IC. Besides, I'm not sure that you're ready to deal with her pain yet. Let's move on."

Wait what? But the question was related to how WH deals with and responds to me. How is giving him advice to respond to the person he hurt not helping HIM? No one was asking for the IC to help me directly. WH was asking for the IC to help HIM talk to me. I was thinking perhaps he would pull out one or two points and give WH some guidance. Something like, "Your wife thinks you use an annoyed tone. Perhaps you do, or perhaps this is her perception in her heightened state. Either way, try to focus on your tone when you're talking to her. See if you can recognize it." Would that not be helping WH? Or, "You wife feels that you get defensive during discussions with her. That can be a big issue. Perhaps just focus on using more positive and affirming statements. Take a moment and think before you respond to her." But no, there was nothing. Nada! No help at all because the IC refused to say anything that might help me. But again, how would this kind of advice not be helping HIM? I've tried telling WH these exact things, but he seems not to hear anything I say unless someone else says it or he reads it in a book. I was hoping for some back up from his IC. But I'm not his client. So he had nothing to offer. Now WH is convinced that he needs to just keep happily working on himself, holing up in the den reading his books and articles, seeing his quack IC, typing out his session notes, whatever. Apparently I do not factor into his process. I'm just supposed to sit around and wait for him to "fix" himself, all the while wondering if he even can fix himself or if his 60-year old self is too far set in his ways and has his head inserted so firmly up his ass that he either can't recognize or doesn't care about the path of destruction he's left in his wake.

I'm leaving town tomorrow, on a plane, far away. I'm going to visit my beautiful youngest son who's been working at his dream job for the summer. I'm going with my mom, sister and a family friend. WH isn't going because he was supposed to be doing a show right now, which he selfishly signed up for despite the rate of Covid in our area. Well, the entire cast came down with Covid after only three rehearsals and the show got cancelled. He was kind enough to bring Covid home to me and our older son who lives at home. I asked him to reconsider doing the show, but he did his usual pick, pick, picking and acting pathetic and telling me all the reasons why he should get his way. He knows full well that he plays on my weakness to want everyone to be happy and not to be the cause of anyone's disappointment. So I said fine, do the show. And Covid was my reward. But it's probably a good thing because he's not included on this trip and I need a break from him. Meanwhile I've been trying to sign up on a new online therapy site to get IC for myself. The site keeps kicking me out! I've gone through the form twice and it screws up when I have to attach a photo of my insurance card. It erases all my progress. It's so frustrating and I'm in no condition to deal with it. This shit has GOT to get better soon!

I once had a problem with a boss. He was an awful boss. Truly. One guy pissed on his desk one evening.

My Ic never let me talk about him. I could talk about my feelings and thoughts, but never about him. Then I took some business training from her. One exercise required me to talk about someone I had trouble dealing with a work. She wouldn't let me talk about him there, either - 'He's crazy,' she said.

Back in therapy, I asked about this.

Therapist: 'You're my client, and you're here. He isn't, and it's not going to be productive to talk about him. It will be productive to talk about your thoughts and feelings.'

Me: 'But all I wanted to know was if my thinking was valid. Was he really the POS I thought he was? Was I crazy?'

Her: 'That's not what you asked for.'

Maybe your H needs to ask questions like:

This is what I feel when she's in pain, and that's a problem for me. Can we talk about how to solve my problem?

I don't know if that's the solution, but it may be a start.

Maybe your H needs to ask questions like:

This is what I feel when she's in pain, and that's a problem for me. Can we talk about how to solve my problem?

I don't know if that's the solution, but it may be a start.

Yes, I think you're right. WH admitted later that he probably wasn't direct enough with his IC. After reading the stuff I wrote, the IC asked him how it made him feel. WH said it made him feel like shit that I feel this way and that his actions caused it. At that point, WH said he should have said, "But I need some tools and strategies to help ME when she gets upset." Instead, the IC lead him off in a different direction and he followed.

I finally got through the website glitches and signed up for my own IC. I'm a little leery since my last venture into IC was such a bust. But this time they sent me the profiles of five ICs and I was able to choose one. I asked for one experienced in infidelity trauma and PTSD when I wrote up my profile. The algorithm picked up on that and all five had trauma recovery as one of their areas of focus. I feel pretty good about the one I ended up choosing and have my first appointment booked for next week.

In the meantime, I'm getting ready to go to the airport to see my youngest son who I haven't seen in nearly two months. I didn't even get to hug him goodbye because we were all quarantined with Covid on the day he left. By some miracle, he was the only one in the house that avoided it, probably because he spent the week we all turned up positive with his girlfriend. He was able to catch his flight and get to his new job on time. He makes me laugh more than anyone else in the world, so I think a few days with him is exactly what I need. Thanks for your input and advice.

Fire,

I agree that going to see your son is the best medicine right now. In fact, spending time with people who love you is the best medicine.

You're traumatized and in my opinion, the single most important thing to do right now is take care of you. Those obsessive thoughts are normal. You're overwhelmed with pain and confusion and fear. The mind is reeling. You cannot "make them stop," but you can start dosing yourself with love and care that will help you heal. Time spent with people who love you is a big old shot of feel goods. Do that and more.

Retail therapy helped? Do it every week. Get out with a friend. Laugh and cry. Read your favorite book. Go get a full body massage every week. Whatever it is, DOSE YOURSELF WITH LOVE. And do it away from your WS. He is a source of pain right now. Take breaks from it and go get the love and care you deserve.

Building yourself back up WILL HELP with whatever you are going to have to face over the next months or years. If you don't, you will languish in despair.

There is no quick fix. Healing yourself (which is your job not his or a therapist or an MC) takes time and consistent effort. Dose yourself every day with something that brings you pleasure or peace. The thoughts will return and persist, but I promise you, as you heal and grow stronger, the mind will calm, the thoughts will recede. Stick with it!

The point of the healing is to be able to remember your worth, see your WS as clearly as possible and have the strength to move forward with whatever life you want. But you have to heal first. Be kind to you.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 5:47 PM, Wednesday, June 29th]

My wife and I both bring our issues in dealing with each other to our respective ICs. That said, I don't try to have my IC figure out how my wife deals with her anxiety. I figure out ways for me to communicate with my anxious wife or otherwise not repeat ineffective behavior on my part. I have brought her tools and methods I have learned in IC as well. She has also brought me hers.

One example of very useful cross pollination was figuring out that my wife is not great and sharing negative emotions with me (figured out based on what I brought to my IC in dealing with her). Telling my wife about this helped her bring this FOO issue to her IC to work through it.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:20 PM, Wednesday, June 29th]