Yes only attend if your W is working on the marriage. How do you know? She reads the 5 Love Languages and learns yours and actively try’s to implement them. She does the homework given. She speaks positively about you in MC.
Anything less is a complete waste of money and time but of course MC is not going to tell you that.
So that basically means (if I'm hearing you correctly) that any couple that is currently S should not do MC, right? My WAW certainly knows my love language and to her credit, speaks positively about me but since we're S, we don't have much of a pathway to implementing them.
Forget about the separation.
Couples go to MC all the time and get nowhere. Misalignment of goals. They can both think they are "working on the MR" but what is really happening is they both view the MR so differently that progress cannot be made.
I had decided 2 weeks ago to view MC differently, but I got pulled off-track. Here is what I was thinking:
I could care less about 5LL right now. My W has significant relationship issues:
1. Overwhelming negativity (read Gottman on this, 5:1 positive:negative ratio in a healthy relationship) 2. Mind-reading and poor communication skills 3. Lack of empathy
For me, evidence that my W is working on the MR would involve her working on those 3 points. I don't need her to say "I have a lack of empathy" but I need to see evidence of movement or I will continue to feel that R is not healthy or possible.
This is why I advised you (Steve) to think about your W's issues. Use MC as a forum to show your "reformed NG" side. I brought up some conflict we had last week, stood my ground, and my W actually came around a little bit yesterday. I was proud of myself, didn't really see it as an evidence of movement in our MR. But it is a necessary step if we are ever going to work out, and also necessary for me in any future relationship to assert myself more. I cannot be in a MR if it depends on me continuing to be a NG.
I think there is a huge NGS trap here. It's easy to skip the hard work step and jump straight to traditional MC steps. All that stuff is meaningless. Use MC as an opportunity to assess if you think this MR can work first.
Or maybe I'm just rationalizing why I continue to go to MC...
