My Story - Looking for help and support

[SRTogacihC]

Last night we had our second marriage counseling session. While not as disastrous as the first...it did not turn out that well as far as being any help for our relationship. The MC refuses to work with us or see us any longer until the wife breaks off all contact with OM. So basically this is our last session with this MC. Wife absolutely refuses to lose her relationship with OM. W is adamant that OM is just a friend again and she has few friends and she refuses to lose him. I explained how I felt and that while not ideal I am willing to work in this situation as is…I feel that if we can work and strengthen our relationship OM will become less important and fade out of the picture. My W is being honest with me (as far as I know) about contact with OM. MC not buying it and probably made some good points that if OM was just a friend W would give him up to save her marriage, that it will be impossible to work on our marriage with a third party on the sideline, OM is filling emotional needs and it will be impossible for me to fill those needs when they are filled elsewhere, MC is going to be hard and that there are going to be times when we both say things that hurt each other and MC does not want W running to OM each time she gets upset (good point…like she did last week after the first session). MC did acknowledge that giving up OM is going to be hard and depressing etc…but W is having none of it.

I left the session depressed, MC was something I was pinning some hope on…I do not think I can do this alone and make a lasting impact. On the other hand W was pretty positive, she was happy with what I had to say in the session. She said she feels like we can really work on our marriage and get it back on track. She felt we made a strong break through.

Another problem is I did kind of like this MC and thought she probably was going to be a big help. We talked a little bit about DB-ing and she said her T approach is solutions based and was very familiar with MWDs work.

So what do we do now? I do not think I can do this alone and I really want to go to MC…wife is pissed about a lot of our past and thinks I was 99% of the problem in the relationship. She sees herself as the one who tried and tried and tried…I do not dare dispute this…even though I don’t necessarily agree…I think we just both have poor communication skills and some unreal expectations. But do I want to be right or save my marriage (DB)…I figure this is the role of a MC to help us both understand our failings.

Here is the new plan...wife has always said…I wish we would have gotten into MC a year ago before any of the recent problems happened. So we are going to try a different MC and probably not mention the A and just bring out all of the other problems (all my problems…lol). Pretend the affair did not even occur…this is far from ideal but if it gets us back talking and working on our marriage I am willing to go along with it. It was my idea just because I want to find someone who will work with us and I want the wife to be willing to work. The other option is to do individual counseling. Not sure what else to do? I do not want to be dishonest but I know I also need help in this situation. We still need to talk about it more…maybe we try another counselor and just lay out the whole story again and see if the new one will work within our parameters.