We had our second couples counseling session which is supposed to be aimed at us learning why our marriage failed and healing the resentments so we can be good friends and co-parents and do better in the future relationships.
Todays initial discussion was me asking W if she REALLY wanted to live together for up to a year, and if she REALLY wanted to do this counseling with me. One of her stated reasons for staying in the home with me and the kids during separation / divorce was financial. I told her that I could make two households work financially whenever she wanted to go so that wasn't holding her in the home or counseling. I really want her comitted to the process.
She said she really DID want to be in counseling because she didn't want us to have any resentments towards each other since we will be our kids parents for a long time. We talked about how her Dad thinks we're crazy, and most people we know think it's crazy that we are getting divorced yet we plan on staying together but separated for a year to help the kids get through it and to heal our own crap.
Counselor said we are the sane ones and that most people get bitter, split up and hurt everyone.
We talked about a lot of different things, times when we were happy, times when we felt like the other one didn't love us. It was the same as any marriage counseling except there were no discussions on what to do to improve the marriage, just what went wrong and how we COULD have done it differently.
Basically it comes down to the fact that we held back a lot of our love for each other, or didn't let the other one in. It was pretty obvious we loved each other, and that we also were hurt. There were father issues with her trying to 'fix' things about her relationship with her dad through her relationship with me and me doing similar 'fixing'.
Also that she had thought she could never feel those feelings of love again, and that her 'relationship' with OM showed her that it was possible. C said to her 'it wasn't really as much a relationship as it was an event, or a chance to live out a fantasy' and W agreed. Her tone of voice seemed to be saying that it is fading out.
W said she wants to feel this in all her relationships and C said 'the work we are doing will make that possible'.
Many other issues too numerous to talk about here.
The biggest thing we were told we should do is make this Xmas as normal and loving as any other, by being kinder and loving to each other. As C said to us "you had 15 years of marriage where you witheld some part of yourself from the other and now you certainly deserve to feel it during this time". She is so good.
On the drive home we were totally emotionally lost. W says 'why didn't we do this work on ourselves a long time ago?' I said 'because I guess we weren't ready to'. "What does being loving, kind and nurturing look like in our current situation?". W says "I don't know".
I think we were both shocked at how much we BOTH hurt each other, by protecting ourselves emotionally when we didn't have to. It was so hard to stop thinking of this as a 'marriage counseling' session that we were going to go home from and have a marriage. It was so much like that and not like a 'let's get along and forgive the past' session. For me and I think for W it was very confusing. She is still in 'divorce mode' of course and frames this all as a way for her to 'do better in her new relationships'. But our interactions tonite so far are more pleasant than they have been in a long time. I understand a lot more about what she has really needed from me.
So we're trying to figure out how we act 'loving, kind and compassionate' with each other in this divorce situation. I am totally confused tonite so I'll just go with it and we'll see what happens.
