Thanks darknes. I went to MC once myself and once with her (well she showed up half way). The thing is MC is another one of those things where I say I'm going to do it and then I got side tracked and let the days get away from me. Then 1 week into 2, 3, so on. She even said something about it and all I could do was agree and eat crow.
I asked her last week if she wanted to go this week, she said this week wasn't good (financially). I'm thinking of playing dumb and saying to her, I'm considering going to MC either this week or next, would you like to join? Or, Should I say, i know you said this week wouldn't be good to go to MC, would you consider going next? Or I know you said this week isn't good, I would like to schedule a day for next, would you like to join?
And, is MC beneficial by yourself?
A few things...
I am guilty of the exact same situation you are in. We would get into it about something, and the topic of MC would come up and I'd say, yeah, we should go to MC, lets set something up.. and I would never take the initiative, and she (likely) would sit back and just wait to see if I would ever do it... and by the time we went through this cycle 3-4 times, we finally went to one MC session together, and she refused to go back since, and she's likely filing for D in the next few days/weeks (if I'm lucky).
she mentioned in MC and in her personal therapy session that if I really cared about fixing our MR, then I wouldn't have waited for her to leave me before finally wanting to work on changing things...and now it's too late. I'm still fighting though.
about your question. I don't understand, the money situation, our MC was the same amount whether one person attended or both people attended. So if you are going for you, you pay for 1 hour. If your W wants to come, you still just pay for 1 hour. If you are already paying, I would go ahead and go and tell her your going, and that she's welcome to join. If she does, great, if not, I'd schedule for the next week to. I realize money isn't limitless, but D is can be very expensive, and if you spend it on this, at least you can walk away knowing that you did everything you could, while you could, to try and put it to something useful in saving the MR.
As for, is it helpful if you're alone... I guess it depends on what your goals are. MC (properly trained ones), are not individual psychotherapists that are trained to pick about inidividuals flaws and qualities, but a well-trained family and marital therapist are trained in identifying problems within a SYSTEM of a marriage, group, family, etc. It's actually called systems theory, something most therapists never learn in regular education without going out of their way...
If you're goal is to help you identify you faults and failures in a SYSTEM environment, and better yourself for the future, regardless if it's for this marriage, or the next, or even at work, then yes. MC can be very beneficial for a single individual. However, a lot of MC therapists out there will not continue to see one individual continually, and then see the other one here and there. You won't allow talk about individual therapy matters (you're psycho/mental issues), and see you as a MC therapist as a couple, because of favoritism, taking sides, etc.
What I've done is, since my wife has refused to see our MC with me, I've hired a second MC, and told the first one, that if my wife ever wants to join back in, I'll come back to them. But until then, I'm going to the second MC for my individual work within a marriage or system environment. This created a barrier so that the refusing spouse doesn't feel teamed up on when/if they ever do decide to come back to MC therapy.
Sorry if that's a lot, but that's exactly what I'm doing, and that's what I was told to do by several resources I looked into regarding the situation. Hope it's helpful.
