Recently, my wife had to take me to the emergency room because of a migraine that had gotten out of control. She drove me to the hospital, checked me in, stayed by my side and tried to do anything that she thought would help. She was doing anything she could to help me because, as any loved one would, she wanted me to feel better. Rubbing my head gently, scratching my back softly, and whispering how much she loves me. Oddly though, rubbing my head gently was actually making it worse, but I did not want to tell her. She was frustrated and wanted to feel like she was helping and I let her continue. In the end it was a doctor that gave me a shot that got rid of my headache. Thank you doc.

I am also experiencing a similar feeling of frustration of helplessness. My wife goes to her IC and talks to her every week and explores different avenues of what it will take to help my wife. And I, as a loved one, want to feel like I’m involved with her progress and want to help her. I try to talk to her, get her to express her feelings, tell her how much I love her, and so on. Unfortunately, me forcing her to talk isn’t the most helpful thing I can do, and just like my medical doctor, it’s her counselor that is the expert and it seems best if I let her do what she is trained to do. Thank you doc.

Hopeful, even doctors can be wrong. Even more so with most counselors. Sadly, this field, marriage/personal counseling, often seems to cause more harm than good. In fact, I believe it was you who just posted that her IC gave terrible advice that is harmful to the recovery of your marriage, such as advising your W to withhold pertinent information about her affair. That is an impediment to the recovery of your marriage and is very bad advice.

Many C's are not pro-marriage, do not understand the dynamics of adultery and actually encourage divorce. So while it is good to seek the counsel of "experts," be sure you are consulting a TRUE expert that knows what they are talking about. And never, ever blindly trust any so-called "professional."