I had a IC session yesterday and it went well. We talked a lot about my desire to talk to my W about things and my C took me through a few mock conversations where she played my W and I tried out different ways of asking certain things. In the end she showed me how making statements about how I FEEL can be a great way to either start communication or at least let her know how I feel without getting a defensive reaction. Mainly she said based on my W's shutting me down AND asking "what do you want me to tell you" the other night when I tried out the R talk, I should get by giving. She said I should give my W what I want, open talk about feelings, and hopefully she will respond in kind. C talked a lot about what I am or am not doing to be proactive in all this since it's obvious that my W, for whatever reason, is not going to be, and really, never has been the one to instigate these kinds of conversations, or those kinds of actions.
She also said that the better time to do this, or to start this would be in response to an experience, maybe not immediately after but the day after at the latest. I talked about my W "recoiling" from my kiss the other day and she said something like that would have been perfect to respond to by saying something like "You know it really hurts me when you pull back like that." or something like that. Just give her an honest reaction, without accusation or negative tone. She said that W may not even know she's doing it at all.
She basically told me to find the right moment and just express how I feel to my W. Tell her that I am hurt by some of her actions (not THAT action, that goes without saying) but that overall I really think things are going well between us and I would like to take it further but am afraid and unsure how to do that. I said I didn't want to appear weak or tentative (OT) and she said since it is obviously VERY hard for me to talk about these things, as it is for my W, it would be very STRONG of me to be able to talk about how I feel in a mature, honest way. I admitted that my W and I had never really been able to do that (talk about our R or intimacy) and she asked me if I wanted to continue in a relationship where we can't talk about those things...I said no. She said "then it's up to YOU to help bring about that change."
As for the affair, she said we just can't know what's going on there right now. He could be on vacation or out of her life, but C said knowing all she THINKS she knows about my W from my sessions, that she would not expect my W to come out and say OM is gone for two reasons. First because she (C) thinks that my W would be VERY happy to just ease back into our "normal" life without EVER having to talk about this again. I never told her that's how I feel too but it's not too hard to figure out. The second reason is that she may still want to hold onto him in some way and telling me he's gone would be too much of a commitment while she is still feeling her way around "us".
I also added that I thought before my W would be intimate with me again, sex or otherwise, she would have to be honest with me about them being physical if they had. I said it was a fear of mine that kept me from asking too many questions. C said she understood but that we (C & I) had assumed from the beginning that a PA was a real possibility. It was then that I brought up the forgiveness conversation I had with a few of you here last week. I told C that I felt I had already forgiven my W for starting this, and when it ended, I would forgive her for it altogether. C said I should find a way to tell her that. She said IF I truly feel like I have forgiven her, that I should tell her that and basically let her off the hook in terms of telling me anymore. I should just tell her that I forgive her for whatever went on and want to just work on getting us back again. C didn't say to do this right now, but that if it seemed like there was a barrier still preventing us from connecting, proactively forgiving her may be a decent risk to take even though as some said, she may take offense at being forgiven for something she either didn't do, or doesn't think was wrong.
C thought the ring was obviously a big step and really significant because since my W is not a big verbal communicator, it was the best way she could SHOW me that she's trying.
It was a really good session, one that I took some concrete ideas from. I was one of the first sessions that was "solution" based but that was because I said going in that i really didn't want to spend an hour going over current events and wanted to start working exclusively on me and my issues. We did end up talking about W and R stuff most of the time, but it was in relation to how I am and my issues. Surprisingly my C spent a lot of time kinda taking my W's side in things which actually made me feel better because I don't just want C to be a "yes" woman for me and not call me out when I am on the "wrong" side of things, especially when it pertains to my intimacy issues, etc.
As for my sitch at home, nothing to report. W is sick so she spent a fair amount of time sleeping when I got home. I put the boys to bed (usually we both do it) so she could rest. She's not been sleeping well the past few nights because of being sick and she also broke out in some kind of hives (stress anyone?) the night before last. We just watched TV together, I worked out, she made the kid's lunches and then we went to bed early. Totally uneventful night in limboland. The only thing that was significant was that I had the feeling, for the first time in a LONG time that the OM was not "with us". There was nothing really that pointed to that, just a feeling. I could be wrong.
