She is begging for counseling. Any advice on this issue. If she is not sure she wants to be married then I don't think counseling will help. Everything I have read or studied says it will not do any good.
It might would help us with communication but this may be a last ditch effort to keep us on speaking terms going into a divorce or separation. I think she wants to do counseling because I have distanced myself from her. It seems if I didn't try then I may regret to giving it a chance. Am i wrong in this regard?
Agree with LH. She knows where you stand. Until she is truthful about everything and drops the OM and really shows you that she wants to be with you, what good is counselling? She needs to work on herself too. If you go at this point you are highly likely to regret it.
Someone said it on another sitch - something to the effect of: She's going to try and absolve herself of any guilt and make it seem like you both eventually agreed on D.
H 37 W 31 S 2
T: 7 M: 4
BD 12/18 Separated 2/19 Living back together 04/06/2019 W Moved out again 07/15/2019
You go to marriage counseling to save the marriage, period. If both parties aren't committed to trying to save the marriage, and there is no point. And if one party is still seeing affair partner, by definition they are not interested in saving the marriage.
Until she comes to you, remorseful and contrite, and tells you she wants to put everything in the trying to save the marriage, all you are doing by going to counseling is enabling an easier exit for her. For a WW it is just a box-ticking exercise until they're over the waywardness and go NC with affair partner
Only possible exception here would be if you could find a definitively pro-marriage counselor, who was also well-versed in the addictiveness of affairs and wife is also willing to do IC with that same counselor. Even then, it is risky. My own WW and I seemingly made some progress with such a counselor in those circumstances, but there was no real breakthrough until my wife finally cut all contact with OM. Before that, we were mostly treading water in counseling and early on it was obvious she was just doing it as a box checking exercise. If my wife had not had such a strong grounding in faith and such a strong family-oriented upbringing, us being in counseling when we did may very well have backfired. I was also GAL-ing like a madman, got in best shape of my life, engaged in a lot of activities, drawing interest from other women. Which helped.
But the bottom line was that even in the beginning, my wife was making at least lips service to the idea of saving the marriage. you have to be convinced that your wife is at least interested in making a sincere effort, if not 100% committed to saving the marriage before you start counseling. at a bare minimum contact with the OM has to be cut off. That should be one of your boundaries
H53/W51, R-ing 4/'18
"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"-Sg.of Sg 2:7
"So oftentimes it happens,that we live our lives in chains, & we never even know we have the key"-Eagles III 1:3
She is begging for counseling. Any advice on this issue. If she is not sure she wants to be married then I don't think counseling will help. Everything I have read or studied says it will not do any good.
It might would help us with communication but this may be a last ditch effort to keep us on speaking terms going into a divorce or separation. I think she wants to do counseling because I have distanced myself from her. It seems if I didn't try then I may regret to giving it a chance. Am i wrong in this regard?
Ask her what the purpose would be.
Her first sentence should be telling. If she want things to be better than great.
If it's about coparenting, an amicable divorce, etc... than hell naw!
If she hasn't gone cold turkey on POS OM than hell naw!
H 34 W 29 BD 3/12/18 Divorce Busted Spring 19
It is not things that bother us, but the stories we tell ourselves about things.
Dating and getting married out of high school causes feared being alone and starting over. Never been there before but I’m sure if it happens then I will be fine and will enjoy my life.
You will, absolutely. I was with my XW from the age of 25 to 51 or so. I had all kinds of anxiety over everything from how to do laundry to how to get the kids ready for school to how I would make ends meet financially. It was a huge adjustment, no question. But I did adjust and it was a smoother transition than I would have thought. I think at the end of the day that we all hate change, it's just human nature to want to keep things status quo. But when we have no choice and we have to change and adapt, we do it. And it's never as bad as we thought it would be.
Regarding being alone, you only will be if you choose to be. There are a lot of women out there looking for a good, loyal man, and not many of them to go around. When the time comes, you will have no trouble at all finding another love.
If you are wavering, tell us what you think are the other benefits to going.
Benefits would be to help with moving on through divorce peacefully. She has been clear its not to save the marriage but rather to work on our relationship. She probably feels this way due to us not talking as much and showing contempt for one another.
I do think it is more about helping her feel less guilty. When I told her it had to be about the 2 stipulations I set up she stated that, "you will have to trust me".
If you are wavering, tell us what you think are the other benefits to going.
Benefits would be to help with moving on through divorce peacefully. She has been clear its not to save the marriage but rather to work on our relationship. She probably feels this way due to us not talking as much and showing contempt for one another.
I do think it is more about helping her feel less guilty. When I told her it had to be about the 2 stipulations I set up she stated that, "you will have to trust me".
In this case, don't go.
W: I can't believe you don't want to work on our D'd relationship for the kids' sake!
I asked that question b/c I ended up going in my sitch. We physically S'ed after the first session, and had I not continue to go, my W would have withheld the kids from staying overnight at my house and I would have had a court battle. I didn't want that for my kids. But even so, sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice.
