Is it just me, or does it seem like everyday brings some new excitement.

Today - my wife and I met with a Family counselor to discuss how to tell the kids about the impending seperation. tips on how to make it easier on the kids, what to look out for behavior wize and how to handle it, etc.

So my wife decides to have lunch together before the meeting, and the conversation was light, we drive in for the meeting together, and are in a fairly good mood. The therapist was getting something, and as we are sitting down on the couch, my wife and i are laughing about something personal.

So.. the therapy session starts off with the therapist getting our family data. Age of kids, etc. Then he starts asking questions about our marriage, when the problems started, what we were feeling, if we had gone to marriage counseling, etc. He then explains that divorce is really hard on kids, and if when he gets asked what the best thing to do for the kids, he has to ask parents if they honestly did everything they could to save the marriage.

So for the next 30 minutes he is basically pointing questions at my wife and I about our feelings, marriage, the OM, etc. He even asked my wife, if her aversion to trying was that she couldn't imagine feeling love for me again, or she is afraid of doing the work of trying? She didn't really answer this question.

He also said, "kids, especially older ones are very savvy, they will ask you did you try?"

Anyways, my wife the whole time was really clear that she had given up a long time ago. She eluded to the fact that she couldn't see anything between us, was not attracted to me anymore, etc. She also tried to say that even if the OM was out of the picture she would feel the same way, but she got busted on some other questions where she admitted that the OM played a role in why she wants out. He also asked about her families experience with divorce, and really drove home some points about being a child of multiple divorces.

In another part of the discussion, he talked about her feelings for me, and she said she has always questioned if I was right for her, but in other parts of the conversation stated that we had something really special together.

The counselor was relentless. In 45 minutes he covered so much of our history, and really asked some tough questions of both of us. I listened, I validated, I tried to keep my answers brief. I stayed out of the business of convincing her to try. I just stated my feelings when asked.

When we left the office, i looked at my wife and said "i really didn't expect that. I hope you don't think I set that up" - then i showed her my notes of the things I wanted to go over in the meeting that I had in my pocket, all things like - how to talk to kids about seperation, etc.

She said she felt a little ambuished, but she didn't think i was behind it. She said next time we should go in there arguing. I said "yeah next time no laughing about xxxx when we sit down on the couch" she looked at me and started laughing. I avoided any R talk on the way home. From the stuff she brought up though her mind is still made up on the seperation. Either way, i didn't expect the impromptu marriage counseling today so I didn't expect any changes in the situation, so it is what it is.


Either way, it was a suprise to me, and I think of all the possible outcomes it was pretty good for a family therapy session that should have had us walking away with preliminary seperation plans.