As you know I've been at this for 20 months now since BD. For me personally, no matter how hard I try, my mind won't let go of figuring out the end game. I know the mind likes stability. Drives me nuts. It comes and goes, but always there.
I was frustrated a few weeks ago and initiated a convo. Aired some things out on both sides. Keep in mind I haven't done that for 20 months. W says that she was thinking about suggesting marriage counseling as a last ditch effort, but of course only threw that out after things got a little heated. She probably was, but I doubt she was planning on telling me that anytime soon.
DB wise the convo probably didn't help anything, but the man and mind can only take so much. Now back to DBing and figuring out a plan for the 2 year mark in 4 months.
greenman, I know you've heard this before but want to reiterate. The WAS will usually agree, and sometimes even suggest, MC. Why? Are they really ready to commit to the marriage? No, usually it is so they can check it off the list.
"Yep, we tried everything, even MC!"
You do not use MC for the WAS to recommit to the MR. After the WAS recommits to the MR, MC can be a useful tool to work through the previous existing issues.
I would avoid MC at this point like the plague until you are sure she is recommitted back the MR.
I know the next question, when will you know? You WILL know. It will be unambiguous. It can't miss it. There will be no doubt about it.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
I was frustrated a few weeks ago and initiated a convo. Aired some things out on both sides. Keep in mind I haven't done that for 20 months.. things got a little heated.
Hi Greenman, that's one of the reasons to keep posting--you can air grievances here or in your journal without setting back your situation. "Heated conversations" rarely shorten your limbo in a positive way.
Originally Posted by Steve
W says that she was thinking about suggesting marriage counseling as a last ditch effort
I agree with Steve, MC only makes sense if she's committed to the marriage, and her phrasing around it--"last-ditch" and "only after things got a little heated"--strongly implies you're nowhere close. My own experiences with MC when either my partner or I were not committed was that it didn't help and maybe hurt.
May went through "Discernment Therapy" with the purpose of helping her partner decide if he was committed. I have no personal experience, but one thing I liked from her descriptions is the therapist kept reminding him of boundaries ("It only makes sense to talk about your anger over that once you've committed to staying. Are you committing to staying?") It also did not let him check off that "I gave it my all.. with MC" box. If you must do some sort of therapy, it's an alternative to check into. You might ask May more about it.
Good points on MC. The problem I have is I don't think she is anywhere near committing to R. They way things are works well for her. Cake eating or whatever you want to call it. Married benefits without being married. I am getting to a point where I don't know if I want to R. I know others that stayed separated for years, dated others, never got a D and many years later R, but that just isn't an option for me financially. Maybe I'm just in a down cycle, but right now I see no end to limbo. Going to get to the 2 year mark and evaluate.
First, totally agree with CW and Steve that there is zero point to MC unless both parties have the same goal in mind. Waste of time if she wants to box-check on her way to feeling good about a D or breadcrumbing you while continuing to cake-eat plus it has the added side benefits (depending on your therapist) of sidetracking DBing if you spill your guts in session.
Discernment therapy could help if you are at a $hit or get off the pot stage. If you aren't ready to end limbo, no matter which direction, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you are ready and want to move the needle-- and do it thoughtfully and collaboratively-- discernment therapy could be a good fit. Basically it is a short term (I think usually no longer than six weeks) set of conversations with a therapist aimed at deciding whether to stay in the M, end it, or stay in limbo. I think sometimes these are held with a mix of joint and individual sessions, though in my case they were all joint. The therapist started and ended each session with the set goal of exploring where each of us were on those three choices. For me, pretty quickly the status quo was out-- it was the one thing I wasn't okay with, then I ranked working on the M and ending the M, in that order, as my two options. For my H, he really would have preferred to stay in the status quo (AKA cake eating) and the therapist kept reminding him that option was off the table because we both had to agree to it. Also, as CW says, my H kept on veering into complaints about our R and the MC kept reminding him-- this is really more appropriate for MC instead of DC, so park it until/unless we are ready to work on the M. I think having a trained third party keep the conversation on track was helpful for us. I believe that traditionally if you decide to work on the M, you agree to MC for a set amount of time and then to reevaluate after that point.
Now, my H still relapsed twice after deciding in DC to end his A, and I don't honestly know if DC was really all that helpful for him, but COVID also got in the way of continuing MC and I guess there is a chance that he would not have relapsed if we were still in MC. Who knows. But I still appreciated the DC process because it helped me to clarify my own boundaries and begin to enforce them. In your situation with no OM and the two year mark coming up, it could be a mediated way to decide how to move forward.
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
may I know you've mentioned DC before. The only other IF I will add, but the LBS shouldn't do it IF they can not do it with no expectations of R. If you are doing it with the understanding that you are likely to end up D'd then I think it can help the LBS to move forward out of limbo, especially long limbos like we sometimes see here. I have no statistics on it but I'd have to believe that most WASs use discernment counseling to get their LBS to accept the D.
I also like how you described it: " I think sometimes these are held with a mix of joint and individual sessions, though in my case they were all joint."
In my case I did MC with my WAS, but after the first couple of sessions it really turned into IC for me with her present. It can be difficult to set up that kind of arrangement, and I can't say how it might work in other's sitches, but in my sitch doing IC with her present was really beneificial, and I think, along with me getting better DBing as I went, is a big reason we eventually R'd.
greenman I've been cautioned by other posters not to have a "it worked for me, it will work for you too!" mentality. So I am not trying to say what worked for me WILL work for you, but just wanted to give you my experience as well.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
I'm just going to throw this on the pile so you can explore things at your own pace and you can get a full view of your options here. I really wouldn't recommend MC or even Steve's suggestion of IC with W present. (No offense Steve but I really think your W is the exception here not the rule. She deep down must have had a lot of love for you or respect or both because thinking of my H doing that at the time we did DC I can't even imagine how horribly that would've gone.)
Honestly given what happened with me and a few other couples I know of intimately I would have to say attempting MC or IC w/W present are absolutely the worst things you could do. if they're out the door they have no interest in giving 2 $hits about how you feel or what you think. It will go very very badly, very very quickly. DC removes all of that.
Like May said it's short term. 5-6 sessions tops. They are long sessions like 80-90 min and they will be booked week after week for that time period. They don't like doing gaps. You will each get a short time period with just the counselor, then both of you going in together. The individual time is really more so that the counselor can get a handle on where your head is at. It also gives them a better idea of what the underlying dynamics are vs what they are seeing in a more tense setting. They will discuss the 3 options as May presented D, work, status quo. The likelihood of this ending with an R is slim to none, however, it will move you out of limbo, and it'll give you some closure that you've probably been looking for.
If and that's a big IF, if you guys do decided to both work on the MR you will be in intensive MC for 3-6 months. Our agreement with DC it would've been 5 and then a reassessment. None of this is cheap, just a warning.
Last my experience with this was pretty ugly. No one's DC experience is pretty but it was extraordinarily ugly. We, H and I, made it through 1 session. Just 1. She asked one question regarding his FOO and he absolutely lost it. Just totally off the deep end. And then we fought for 3 hours after. During this session and after here's a list of things he said: he never really loved me, the only reason our relationship progressed was because I coerced him into it, I dictated our entire relationship with ultimatums, everything he ever did in our relationship was to fulfill the expectations of other people, we were just so different there was never a chance with us, he thought those difference were what made me special but he was wrong those difference were the reasons why he was miserable, there was no point in doing any more sessions he wanted a D, there was absolutely nothing left in the marriage for him, his daughter was not my kid, my kid was not his, I better not try to get money from him we weren't married long enough for that, I could go on forever. However, my favorite of all the crap he said in the fight after the session was because I knew exactly what he was going to say he accused me of eavesdropping on his session with the therapist. When I said "Unlike you have ethical standards, you're just so pathetically predictable I didn't need to listen in to know what's going through your head," he didn't take that well. BUT because of that session I read DR and I came here. AND it was really great for me to hear all of the insanity that was going through his head. He looked me in the eye and completely rewrote our history and believed every word of it. He spoke about his child like she was luggage he could just haul with him. A child I had been parenting for years longer than we had been married. He looked at me with nothing but disgust and contempt, and for the life of me I couldn't understand where the contempt had come from since I was the one carrying the household, the parenting and the MR while deeply depressed. It was then that I realized what I was really up against. It wasn't just OW, it was my H's own warped version of reality.
That changed a lot for me. It really helped me come to a place (that this place helped me fully flesh out) where I knew that if I really wanted to get to the other side of this I had to worry about me and my kids and absolutely nothing else. He was lost and he was on his own to find his way. I couldn't save him or fix him or fix our MR. I could only save me. The rest would fall into place as it should.
I'm just going to throw this on the pile so you can explore things at your own pace and you can get a full view of your options here. I really wouldn't recommend MC or even Steve's suggestion of IC with W present. (No offense Steve but I really think your W is the exception here not the rule. She deep down must have had a lot of love for you or respect or both because thinking of my H doing that at the time we did DC I can't even imagine how horribly that would've gone.)
Completely fair. Just reacting to may's post about MC and IC.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Wow, wayfarer! I've had bad counseling sessions--with one of my ex's because I was being a donkey's bum, with my most recent ex because she was being a donkey's bum, but yours sounds truly wretched. ((Hugs)) By now I bet you're mostly over it, but intense moments can leave echoes that stick with us. Thanks to you and May for sharing your raw perspectives on DC and when it may be helpful or not helpful.
I'm just going to throw this on the pile so you can explore things at your own pace and you can get a full view of your options here. I really wouldn't recommend MC or even Steve's suggestion of IC with W present. (No offense Steve but I really think your W is the exception here not the rule. She deep down must have had a lot of love for you or respect or both because thinking of my H doing that at the time we did DC I can't even imagine how horribly that would've gone.)
Completely fair. Just reacting to may's post about MC and IC.
Just one follow-up. There is no doubt that when BD happened my W was done with the MR. It was crystal clear in her words and deeds. She agreed to MC just like most WAS, to check it off the list.
Just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
