I have recently noticed several posts about MC and IC and it keeps reminding me of an unresolved “issue” that I have.

Four years ago at the end of my A, I scheduled an MC appointment in hopes of working on the M. My BS (who didn’t know he was a BS) did not want to go to counseling for a myriad of valid reasons.

So I planned to go alone.

But, before my appointment something very bizarre and unexpected happened, OM died (while leaving me a telephone message). It was a very startling, and frankly, quite disturbing event and it messed with my head (hearing death of a person, my guilt from a sense of personal relief that the whole fiasco was over with, guilt that I had stolen time from another wife and children that could never be compensated, etc)

Needless to say, when I arrived at the IC appointment, I was brain twisted and ended up blurting out everything. Unfortunately, I did not do the same with my BS. A decision I will forever regret.

Which brings me to MY POINT: Counselor accepting secret in marriage.

At one point during my IC, I raised the issue of telling my BS about everything. I was fishing for courage….which ultimately had to come from me not the counselor. But the conclusions in my IC session were that I didn’t have to tell my BS, since I had ended the A and (since OM was not alive) there was no chance of restarting it.

I am still so mad about this. HOW HOW HOW could the counselor for one minute justify this?

I wrote her a letter a year ago, but I am still irritated. I know it was my fault for the whole mess and that I didn’t have to take the advice….but I was vulnerable, I was looking for support to do the right thing. She let me down!

Oops, I wanted to add.

If anyone has tips for others as they select their IC/MC on how to go about selecting one....please chime in.

Here is a website I found:
http://family-marriage-counseling.com/therapists-counselors.htm

But I note that in searching for guidelines, standards, ethics, etc. in relation to ICs--I couldn't find anything really helpful online.

Anyone else have suggestions for those in need?

It's such a horrible predicament..that when we least trust our own discernment..we have to look for someone to trust.

The ever present IC/MC nightmare.

The people that you choose as your counselors will influence you..they will have your ear and your life will be molded accordingly which is why it's such a scary prospect because most people SEEK counsel because they are struggling..they don't KNOW what decision to make..how to carry it out etc..

So no real help here..but I understand where you are coming from..although I would advise editing the letter to make it about your needs and feelings of loss..because this is likely not a person who intentionally misled you..she very probably acted in accordance with the script she has been given..human psychology as she understands it, and has herself been schooled in it.

Maybe it would be possible to say..here's what we did..and how I feel about those choices in retrospect..and here is what actually DID help me.

She may dismiss it and remain in her comfort zone..but just as possibly not..because she is in a psych profession..chances are she will be interested.

Thanks for the post.

I actually already sent the letter a year ago, and I did try to make the focus more about how she could help someone else from my client-perspective. I didn't even blame her for my decision to accept her advice.

The issue that gnawed at me is the issue of Honesty. This is what I focused on--counseling someone to be Honest in their life.

Shouldn't that be a tenant of therapy?

She was counseling me, and not my M. So I understand (from her response letter) that she was guiding me in a way that supported the concerns I was expressing (broken M that needed my attention--not more destruction which would be the result of disclosing my former actions...)

But in all fairness. Her ultimate objective is counseling someone to be healthy mentally--and hopefully happy emotionally.

Can any human being REALLY be happy when their primary relationship contains a lie?

I would be curious what conventional therapy educators think about influencing someone to be honest during therapy. Do you know Noodle?

It really depends on their premise don't you think?

Not all people embrace honesty. A lot of people..and a lot of therapists are morally relativistic. Remember that psychology and philosophy are closely tied..something to keep in mind.

Honesty is not practical and yes..when thinking about an affair disclosure..there will be some destrcution so I do understand her position of not wanting to create MORE destruction.

A lot of people both accept and operate on the platform that what you don't know doesn't hurt you.

I disagree and think I can point to that flawed logic in their own practice even..say a person is being dishonest in their disclosures DURING therapy..how will the therapist know what to treat?

Do I think that a person can be happy while embracing lack of integrity? No..because I equate lack of integrity with entropy..however I would have to be blind to fail to notice that this is not a popular viewpoint.

Ah,

Sounds like you are reaching back in time...and you are in this present, and I consider you magnificent. You got here because of every step you took...each influence you accepted and rejected...and who you are right now is amazing.

I would even challenge you to consider you only came to your highest honesty through others' discouragement, rather than encouragement.

For me, choosing to believe the only way to here was how I came to it, helps.

Could your urge to protect others from deceptive ICs be just that...a desire to shorten their path, ease their pain, as you desire this for yourself?

This comes from my experience with my BH's IC during my A...where she asked me to come twice...for two sessions, while counseling him on depression...and validated directly to him that he was the problem...she called it giving him a reality check as I spewed my fog...and this, in hindsight, had me furious with her after I walked out of my fog...for what I saw as the added injury, the deep lacerations on top of what I did...

And it relieved me a bit of my own destruction...because I wasn't the only one doing harm. She was important, critical, even, to our recovery...in a way I couldn't see then...and see more now...probably more in the future...because her choices, her errors, helped my DH to see his own thoughts, beliefs and feelings were valid. That others, even professionals, were human...and it broke his authority rebellion and blind following...

This isn't me rewriting something...this is me acknowledging that I can choose to believe it took everything, all of it, to be here...and whatever is here, right now, to get me to my future...or I can wrestle it and miss some really good stuff...

And I wouldn't trade the Ahuman I read here for anything...your firm grasp on what is honest, inside and out, may only have been won from experiencing what you did, as you did, in the way you did...the strength of that grip may well have been determined in part from really bad advice.

LA

<quote: But the conclusions in my IC session were that I didn?t have to tell my BS, since I had ended the A and (since OM was not alive) there was no chance of restarting it.

I am still so mad about this. HOW HOW HOW could the counselor for one minute justify this? >

my two cents worth of opinion ... I suppose her justification was "let sleeping dogs lie" Uncessary upheaval, you fixed the problem already, etc.
As a BS I would want to be told about my spouses affair but not everyone does. Although I want to know, I also realize that my day-to-day happiness might be much greater if I remain blissfully ignorant.
For this counsellor. she felt you should carry the burden by yourself, and do better in the future, not loading this punishment on your spouse's back.

In the end we don't know for sure which approach works best. Although members of this site have a deep trust in Dr. Harley's approach this is only one of several possible recipes.

Actually, I always wonder what counsellors are told in their training classes - I have a strong feeling that the training manuals for counsellors by and large are not based on solid statistical proof. I think these manuals are in large part a flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants kind of thing.

As far as I can tell, the success rate of counsellors in restoring affair-damaged marriages is not all that much higher than the natural survival rate of marriages that continue without counselling. (is that right/wrong?)

Actually, I always wonder what counsellors are told in their training classes - I have a strong feeling that the training manuals for counsellors by and large are not based on solid statistical proof. I think these manuals are in large part a flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants kind of thing.


If you want to see what Dr Harley's success rate did after he developed these materials, go to the top of the page and click on "meet Dr Harley."

I think it might be an eye opener.

SS

I like this.

Care to elaborate?

Not Dr. Harleys rate but MC's in general?

I think that the normal everyday MC in many cases are jaded.

Lets face it 50% of M's end in divorce.

Now you have 2 people sitting in front of you and at best in the MC's mind they have a 50% chance.

Lets say their sucess rate is 20% at saving an M and they have seen your problem before and you fall into that 80%.

I wonder what their motivation is?

My first MC was a fist class schmuck. In his defense I am sure he knew my FWW was lying to him and me about the A.

His advice was "don't talk about the A".

What the heck? I read a statistic that said that the success rate of an M after an A is directly corolated to the amount it is discussed.

85% success rate if it is discussed a lot.
55% or lower if it is swept under the rug.

Not only that but he broke my confidentiality in a round of about way.

That was the last visit. He sent me a bill for the last four sessions. I returned the bill with a note saying I would not be paying the bill. If he would like to persue it any further I would be filing a complaint against him.

It was the last I heard from him.

Now the funny thing. I want to try MC again. I went to a website for MC's. I went to MC's and started looking through their credentials. Then I noticed they also had a section for DC's divorce couselors. You know more then 60% showed up under both. I laughed. I wondered if their MC approach brought them more business for their DC practice.

Needless to say I am not going to a MC that also specializes in DC. They might get confused and give advice based on getting a D.

Harley certainly has an "approach"...but he didn't invent honesty.

To reach the type of love created through deep intimacy there is only ONE approach. The truth.

I dont have faith in this---I KNOW this through experience.

Honesty is the ONLY way to intimacy. There is absolutely no way around it. A couple cannot deal with their issues if one of them is hiding something...you dont have all the variables of the equation so you can only get so far.

Even I personally could not address the REAL issues underlying my A, until I faced the music. I could not take control of my own life until I recognized openly what my life was.

I guess those people who dont want to know the truth about their partner prefer not to be intimate....and prefer not to know.

This is what bothers me today about that counselor--how could she counsel me to keep living a lie? She was counseling me into an emotional prison...an isolation from true intimacy....and I paid her for that!!!!

I can surely try. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I try to think of things..not only in terms of what they ARE..but where they are going.

I believe in trajectory as a life shaping tool.

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion..right..so if you think about that and apply it to your life and your decisions..especially with regard to lack of integrity [which is in direct contradiction to the concept of WHOLENESS]..

If you make choices of DISintegrity..I believe that sooner of later your life as a WHOLE will disintegrate ..it will come apart..you will not be able to hold all parts of your disconnected life together against the current of trajectory. Each of those choices/decisions leads you in a direction..shapes your life..when you have different parts of yourself heading in opposite directions there can't BE any alternative outcome..something somewhere has to give.

Let's use honesty as a model as it was the premise of the post.

Say that a part of your life is hidden..is it not essentially in stasis as a result?

Can you move past or work through things that you must stuff/cover/hide/walk AROUND?

I believe not. I believe that when an unresolved issue exists in our lives..a part of us is attached to it. So when the rest of your self moves foreward in life..that part whose job it is to stay behind and guard the secret..those parts who are invested in that deception can not come along they must remain and be separated from the rest. This creates tension..we are meant to be whole. I believe that this is an important element to what looks like quasipsychotic behavior from generally sane people who have become WSs..and it also explains that relative swift recovery from said behavior once integrity is restorred.

I also think it goes a long way toward explaining the disorientation of the FWS when looking at themselves and their choices during the WS time.

They often do not recognize themselves in those choices..they do not understand how they got from A to B because..as a functional WHOLE person..they wouldn't respond to the stimulus in the same way.

Which is why intimacy can not exist in a marriage with secrets..there have to be so many walls..roads around..fences..guard dogs..explanations..maintainance..and all of these things have to be done covertly..this takes ENERGY and that evergy can not be shared nor can it be stilled. Energy is movement..it has to be used to pull away in order to protect that secret/lie...it takes planning..it takes removal of empathy so that you can judge dispassionately..in short the secret/lie becomes the priority and life is built around it. The person you have become and the person that your spouse sees and interacts with..is that disintegrated person. Lost and disjointed and unable to hold it all together indefinitely.

Or it can be used to pull TOGETHER all of the aspects of yourself in your life.

You have the ability as a sentient being to look at the direction any choice would have you go..perhaps you can not see all ends..but you can see the first step and judge whether that step is in agreement with your chosen course in life..or in disagreement.

Of course we misjudge sometimes..but when the GOAL is to have integrity..the tension from the alternate path choices will result in a sensation of friction..you are now being pulled apart..and if you act when this first appears..when you are not greatly invested in the new direction..it doesn't COST you greatly to pull out.

I like your logic but I refer to the veggie tales Video.

The Fib From Outer Space. Great kids videos too.

Alfred Asparagus tells a little Fib. He was prompted to do so by The Fib from Outer Space. Each Fib requires another Fib to cover up the other Fib. Each Fib makes the Fib From Outerspace Grow bigger and bigger until the Fib from outerspace is so big it is destroying the whole town.(symbolic of course)

Finally Larryboy tells Alfred the only solution is to start telling the truth. Alfred finally starts telling the truth and the Fib shrinks and shrinks until it can no longer do any damage to anything.(symbolic again)

I believe the bigger the lie the more you have to be dishonest to cover it up.


The Dishonesty will touch every part of your life. It is hard not to be gaurded when you are gaurding something that big.

Your IC was wrong. It is that simple. If someone wants to tell the truth because it is harming them then they should guide them to do it. Or at least ask the standard IC question.

What do you think you should do? Tell him the truth. Ok then there is your answer.

Hey I want to be an MC I can do that. LOL.

This article is very helpful.

http://www.symcinc.com/getinformed/articles/questionsforcandc.html