Something The Boys And I Have Noticed

[AntoniaB]

Tad you said, "Antonia, I would go see a therapist, but honestly, I'm kind of afraid to. The one I went to after XW left I didn't like because I think he had his own agenda. The marriage counselor we went to see before XW left didn't do anything for us. Then I find out that she was on her 4th marriage!?!?!?! WTF?"

Couple of things here: the therapist who had his own agenda: depends what that agenda is. What was it? I know that in my case when I first went to therapy I wanted to just sit and vent a ton and get all this "explanation" from my therapist for my XH's behavior. It was like I wanted to use her to validate any theories I had going or to tell me I was right or wrong or that XH was out of line or crazy or whatever. She listened initially but soon resisted by saying things like "he's not my patient so I can't speculate." Or "he isn't the concern here; what he has done or is doing is not the point. What you are doing to heal yourself is."

Considering how much you still seem to want explanations or validations for your XW's behavior, I wonder if you see a therapist as someone whose job it is to do the same for you, to be a sounding board about HER instead of YOU.

Second point, when you mentioned the counselor who did nothing to fix your marriage--and then you found out she was on her 4th marriage...well, ok, again....this sort of speaks to you seeing a counselor as being tasked with fixing your marriage and fixing your XW so that she comes back. When that didn't work, you called the counselor out for being married often. I don't know that that's a bad thing. A person married several times probably has a lot of insight into what can and can't work in relationships. And even if her own life personally is a mess, that doesn't make her a bad counselor for other people. I mean, I haven't dated a ton in my life, and my marriage fell apart and I couldn't fix it, and yet all my girlfriends claim that I have THE BEST insight into dating and male/female relationships and are always asking me for advice.

I do think any counselor who promises to fix a marriage is on shaky ground, but I bet your counselor didn't make that promise. I don't think ANYONE could have fixed your marriage because your XW is so out there (like all our exes) and she must be let go to make her own mistakes.

What I'm getting at is that if you enter counseling with your own agenda, and that agenda includes fixing the marriage that just ended while she is planning to marry someone else, or trying to get her to see the error of her ways, or trying to just keep rehashing past stuff or to analyze her current behavior, then yes, counseling/therapy will be a total failure. Because again, this is focusing on her and not you.

Therapy is supposed to be entirely about YOU and YOUR problems. If you go into therapy saying "I need help to accept living without my XW and to accept and feel good about myself and boost my self-esteem", then therapy will be a tremendously different experience for you.

In my own experience, my therapists would only listen briefly to any past event and then steer me to "what are you doing for yourself TODAY" and "what will you do tomorrow to help yourself and build your own independent life." Because of this, therapy has helped me tremendously.