Hope you are feeling better today Cookie, and that doc helped you gain some clarity.
I think Gucci's advise about just stopping "trying" is very sound.
Regarding IC for your H, be careful about confusing the result you want to see with the means to achieve it. If one result you want, for example, is for H to be more emotionally connected to you, the kids and himself, you think (perhaps correctly) that IC for him would be the way to get there. That might be one route or it might not. There could be other ways to get there too. Or he could go every week and still get nothing from it. Look at what these guys said:
Originally Posted By: confusedinpa
To be frank, my wife had been trying to get me to understand/recognize that there was a problem for years (according to her 8 of the 9.5 years we've been married).
I spent a year going to counseling every week wondering why I was there.
I didn't understand until Jan 9th this year when my wife told me she filed for divorce.
Originally Posted By: Virtually_Handsome
As long as he thinks it's all you, I don't think it makes a hill of beans of difference if he sees an IC of not. He's just going to hear what he wants to hear, anyway.
I am wondering if the changes you saw in him were due to the IC or to the crisis mode he was in at the time to win you back. It may be both.
I get the sense that your H really doesn't have a clue why you want him to go to IC or what it is you want from him in terms of emotional connection. He seems to equate the absence of mental pathology with emotional health. I am reading "How can I get through to you?" by Terrence Real about the gap in intimacy skills between men and women. He mentions a cartoon where the couple is at a marriage counselor and the wife says to the husband "Of course you don't know why we're here. That's why we're here!"
As far as living arrangements if you separate, I understand and agree with Gucci's thinking as between you and H, but IMO, what is best for the kids should be the #1 consideration. Their lives will have the least disruption if they stay in their home with the person who has taken care of the home, and the vast majority of their (non-monetary) physical and emotional needs for the entire lives.
I know you'll be okay whatever you choose, and I support you either way. You deserve a great relationship and I am confident you will have that, if not with H, then someone else in the future should you choose to leave.
