infidelity

[hoosiermama]

Thanks--those are good points. I am doing IC, hope to continue that if we do MC but don't know if I can afford it, especially since D is seeing an IC as well. But I'm certainly going to try.

Here are my goals and strategies for MC next week, which I've been working on with my IC:
It's important that I begin the session, so that I can get my points across; H has a tendency to use a lot of "therapy-speak" and when we did MC before, manipulated the therapist. I'm fairly sure that this therapist won't be charmed by him, but at any rate, I will try to start the session. What I want to say is this:
1. lots of changes in the past couple of months for H, including:
medication change
job change
denominational change
significant personality changes
affair
separation/moving out
2. "everything is my fault" mentality for him
3. I want to work on the marriage with solution-based goals, not rehashing of how we got here--I want to work on this because I love him and I love our family and I believe it can be much better than it has been
4. I recognize that there is little possibility that we will be able to accomplish much toward healing the marriage as long as he has emotionally left the relationship
5. I also recognize that there will be no working on the relationship as long as he's having an affair
6. What is the therapist's recommendation about what we can hope to accomplish under these circumstances?

I know he won't hear anything that anyone says which doesn't support what he wants to do at the moment, which is to pursue the affair. I really don't know if anything can be accomplished in MC (as I said above) but I think it's the only shot I have right now to improve things at all. I really think I'm just going to have to ride this out; if and when he wakes up, there will be a lot of MC to be done and we might as well have this baseline with the therapist. I know he will blow up and throw a temper tantrum, because he will undoubtedly disagree with almost all the above. And it will be interesting to see what she does with his response.

So basically, I'm open. I don't think this is going to solve anything; I don't even know if this will be a beginning. If nothing else, though, I will feel a little less helpless. Even if she agrees that not much can be accomplished now, at least she will likely validate what I'm going to be saying.