We have been to 3 sessions of MC together, here in London.
After session 2, I asked the C what her "role" was. She said that she would question occasionally and agree if she felt it was right.
I was hoping for something a little more pro active.
Yes, yes I understand that no one can tell you how to run your life, BUT one of the appeals of MB for me, is the pro activeness of it.
ANYWAY, the core of the recent problem is: She told us to come armed to the next session with something we wanted to discuss. I having read a few books, suggested that we talk about not WHY the affiar happened, but "what we have both learned from the affair". (We are 1 year after the PA and 7 weeks after letter contact re-started)
C nodded sagely and WH and I proceeded to pick things apart.
At the end of the seesion, 50 minutes and £50 later, she siad that it was a waste of time discussing that issue as we were still in the middle of the troubles, so how could we have learnt anything.
I was fuming. Why did she wait until the end? To make us look stupid? To get her money and then make us look stupid?
I know that not many of you are from London, but I'm not happy with this. Can anyone suggest anything better?
WH's suggestion was keep the money and the babysitter and go out for a drink instead. Very appealing, but I don't think it will get the job done.
Thanks, kate xxx

BWV - Go to Recovery and check in on Bob Pure. He looked around in England for Marriage Counselling. I know he was very disappointed with Relate, but there was a Catholic pro-marriage service he thought was worth a try. I think he might be able to help you. TT

Bay,
If there is still contact, MC is a waste of time. WW and I went to 2 different MCs while WW was in affair. I was unaware at the time. She lied to both MCs. Said our love "just died" and such. Contact has to be ended for any type of MC to have a good effect. Even then the C has to be pro-marriage. Lots of Cs are not. They are usually ICs doing MC as a sideline. Being selfish and making YOU happy all the time does not cross over to MC. These types of counselors often have disasterous results with couples counseling. Again, establish NC before wasting any more money on counseling.
68

BVW

One of the issues I have had with folks on here is their blind recommendation to 'get mc'. Therapy and counselling isn't 1% as mature and available as it is in the US, as you are finding out. And when you DO find them, the quality is far from guaranteed.

Fact is I spoke with 5 MCs and I realised that a couple of things must be aligned for it to work at all:

1. Both spouses must have a roughly common onbjective, i.e. recovering from a problem they BOTH agree exists between them.
2. The MC must know this problem and be experienced in resolve such.

I for one showed up at Relate's offices knowing far more about the dynamics of affairs that either of the MCs I interviewed though my studies of books, this site and the examples on it.

Then I arrived at MarrigeCare, the counsellor was great, completely understood my issues, and MB concepts BUT wasn;t prepared to counsel ME without Squid ( very wise).

Even within organizations, support can be highly variable. Top Rope for example is a UK poster who SWEARS by Relate as being helpful.

Try MarrigeCare if you haven't already.

or bite the bullet and counsel with Steve Harley by phone.

bay,

If it makes you feel any better, MC mostly sucks in the U.S. too. They are pretty much like what you described. They are divorce counselors, not marriage counselors. They'll help you feel good about getting a divorce, but that's about all.

And as the others said, if your WW is still in contact with her OP then *any* counseling is a waste to time anyway. A WS will just use the counseling to say they are "trying" while they go right on seeing their OP.

Good luck. Let us know if you find some good help over there. Maybe us U.S. types will take a little trip!
Mulan

Thanks guys, WH still works with OW (she is due to leave in July) BUT (please don't bash me) he is extremely willing to work on our M (more than me, I'm just lost and drifting) and is avoiding all C with OW.
I know, I know, so he says.
Bob, I will try the people you reccomended. Our C is "relate" and was extremely disparaging about all the books we have read. She droned on about "best fit" and "quick fix".
I'm afraid that I'm not as arrogant as her. I related to a lot of the stuff in the books, so maybe I am just "one of the crowd" instead of being this "unique" person in a "unique situation that she imagines.
Grrrrrr.

Lostherlove68,
An "I don't love you letter?"
That sounds extremely harsh.
Jeez did she include a sachet of salt in the envelope to rub heartily into your gaping wound?

Bay,
Yes, very harsh. It was eight pages long, detailing my shortcomings. She was in her A when she wrote it, I found out later, and had collaborated with the OM on its content. I think she expected me to just leave her with the house and the kids after I read it:)
68

I hope you changed the locks and sent then sent the letter back with all the spelling and grammatical mistakes underlined in red. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

BWV

Relate are by admission a 'minimising conflict' organisation, not a pro marrige one.

The MB way is sometimes very hard indeed on all parties but ends up many times in a reconciled and solid marrige.

Relates way is to minimise pain, whether that is divorce, CA or whatever. I'm not making this up, they TOLD me this.

IF you want an intermediary, I guess Relate are good.

I must admit,to be disparaging about a method of recovering from infidelity that is largely advocated by expert after expert and which has saved thousands of not millions of marriges is very bizarre.

Final nail in Relate's coffin for me is that the regional head of relate for my area is having an affair with my brother's boss. * ahem *

Try Marrigecare. I got a wholly different response from them. When Squid wants to go I'll go there, no doubt.

Somebody here - it might have been Patriot - pointed out that "Conflict avoidance only leads to more conflict."

Maybe Relate will figure that out someday, but how many people will they have harmed in the meantime?
Mulan

I am one of those who probably gives a blanket prescription for both MC and IC. Bob's post above gave me pause about my approach. I relate my advice to my own successful IC first and then to MC secondly as an effective means to move forward on certain issues and have an objective person tell me that I need to rethink certain positions. BUT...after reading Bob Pure's post and rethinking all of my MC and IC experiences, I probably have to agree that overall the quality of my counselors have not been all that great and not all have been either well versed in marriage rebuilding principles or not just wanting to get the "quick fix", take my money and move on. Maybe why my experiences were utlimately sucessful is that I knew beforehand what role I wanted out of both IC and MC and if I didn't find that with one, I moved on to the next one until I found one that fit me and my FWW.

Don't give up on MC yet, but don't settle for a conflict resolutionist type. If they don't share the same ultimate goals as you and your WH, it is unlikely that the outcome will be sucessful...or anymore effective than if you take that role on yourself.

NT

BVW -

In my limited experience, one of the keys of successful counseling is a good counselor-client relationship. A counselor can be great with one type of people, and lousy with others. (Of course, there are counselors who are just lousy with everybody).

As others have said, find a counselor who is pro-marriage, and is in step with what you and your husband's goals are. If a counselor isn't working for you, change counselors.

My wife and I left our old counselor when it became apparent that he was either unable or unwilling to help us work through our problems. Like you and your WH, we wanted to start addressing the root issues of our problems, and he was not willing to do that because my wife was not willing to give up all of her male friends (never mind the fact that 99.9% of her male friends, men she knew before we met, I now consider friends as well and are all 100% behind us working things out and staying together).

There are many on here who will say that until NC is established, MC is a waste of time. In general, I will agree with that. For me, my point of view is a littel narrower - as long as the affair is active and ongoing, yes, it is a waste of time. There are situations where there is ongoing contact of some nature (like with your husband) - in that case, I think MC is of value to both of you.

There is still intermittent contact between my wife and OP, but she's been honest lately with me about it (most recent was an e-mail asking for our address so he could return some things she had lent him). However, after switching MC's about 2-3 months ago, I have seen improvements in our situation, so I feel there is value in it for us.

Bottom line - get a counselor that is a good fit for you (if at all possible). They should also be good at holding both you and your H accountable for your actions (not in a condescending way though).

That's my 2 cents, and I'm by no means either an expert or even that knowledgeable in MB principles yet. I hope you and your husband can find a good counselor in the UK.

So far I have used two MC neither one of them were very good at working on reconciliation.

The firs MC actually broke our client patient priveledge. We had a long discussion in my session about my FWW drinking. I made a comment like I couldn't believe she started again she knows that it could cost her custody. She came back from her session furious asking me if I planned on taking the kids from her. I asked where she got that idea and she told me the MC kinda hinted at it. Last time I went to him. He sent me a bill for our final two sessions and I told him to go pound salt.

The second MC seemed to be pushing me to divorce my W and take the kids. I was really suprised. MY FWW loved this counselor said she was great but every session I had was basically her asking why am I staying then when I gave an answer she asked is that really enough.

Now I am looking for a third MC because my FWW finally decided to practice radical honesty and I know the beast I am trying to deal with. Unfortunately I am afraid to go to an MC because they don't seem to help.

Harley is outta the question because I can't afford it. My insurance company covers mc for me.

OK Bay,

If you are BOTH motivated to get some counselling, I suggest you do what my wife and I did. We shelled out the $195 I think for the Marriage Builders Audio CD-Course. It s really very good. You may well find that is worth it if you have a lot of good will and want to heal your marriage. You can do this stuff yourselves.

And please make sure he doesn't work with OW a second longer than can be avoided. You can't recover with ongoing contact.

Thanks everyone.
I think that we are going to try someone else.
BigKahuna, what is the CD?
We have read HTSAA HnHN how is this different?
I'm intrigued.
Thanks, Kate xxx

From Penalty Kill


BobP has an excellent point. Even here in the US, the quality of MC my H and I have found has been rather poor. The first counselor, when my H said he was feeling diminished by discovery of my A, told him that he would feel much better if he left me and saw that plenty of women would be interested in him. This was in a private session with her.

Mind you, we came to that counselor when my A had been over for 4 years, and we said that our goal was to stay together.

In my private session, she called my H immature, and said that he focused too much on sex. Hello, he just found out that his W had been unfaithful years ago. What was he *supposed* to focus on? When I called her on the phone to attempt to resolve the conflicting nature of her advice, she spent the first fifteen minutes of the next session berating me for having called her during her lunch hour.

The next counselor wound up being a close friend of a relative of ours. She told the relative, in so many words, that she was seeing us professionally. That was it for us.

We've done counseling by phone, but a face-to-face counselor would be much more preferable to me at this point.

I'm not thrilled w/counselors here, and I always think of that when I recommend counseling to people.