EA, being "friends" with OW, and Boundaries

[NikB]

Hi all,

Sorry - total subject change but I had another question. I posted this over on the Newcomers board too but realized a few more people may be following the story over here. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about choosing an MC? H told me that he sees me changing and is happy to see it but he also thinks I’m avoiding the issues (or rather…continuing to) by not setting up MC. That really surprised me, but I’m glad he wants to pursue it and agree he may be right.

First question - my company has an assistance plan where we can get 5 sessions at no cost, and they’re covered by my health plan if we need more. The problem is, all I get is a list of 20 or so people to choose from with no information. Via web searches I found more info about 2 of them. Any thoughts on which is the best choice?? Or should I call more of the 20 to get more info?

MC #1’s approach/focus is “cognitive behavioral.” He likes to work together in the first session, individually in the next 2, and take it from there.
MC #2’s approach/focus is “Transactional Analysis.” Seems very individual focused – but apparently is also effective for couples from what I found on the web. I don’t know a lot about it.
Option # 3. If neither of these work out, how are the DB coaches? I want to try the insurance covered options first, but will explore other options if need be. I think H really wants to go in person instead of phone though.

Second but related question – before finding DB I panicked a bit and signed up for this program: http://www.marriagemax.com/index.asp. Any thoughts on it? It isn’t all that different from DB, but it’s a big time commitment and I can’t decide how much time to commit to this vs. individual work on me vs. DBing, spending good time with H, and MC with H. Our first Marriage Max “teleseminar” threw H into a real tailspin (described further in my MLC post ). His only comment before becoming really depressed was “This program is for people who hate each other – we don’t! This won’t help our issues at all.” I am getting some value from the CDs, but I think the majority of my energy needs to be focused on GAL and one on one MC with H. If anyone’s had great success with Marriage Max though, I’d be interested in hearing about it.