I don't want to take anything away from the trauma of childhood abuse, but the many, many adult survivors who did not seek out an affair to appease their 'inner child' would take issue with what your MIL said. This is an easy anecdotal comment that meshes the two issues of abuse and infidelity when they shouldn't be meshed.

This comment makes no sense whatsoever.

Good job, SH!!! You have done a superb job on getting your MIL on your side. I don't agree with many of her points, but that is neither here nor there. You managed to gain her support and that is what counts. I would strongly suggest that you always refer to this as an affair, though. Not calling an affair an affair is wayward whitewashing and it sounds like your MIL may have bought into this line of reasoning. And that is ok if SHE doesn;t want to call it an affair, but you know what it is and should always refer to it that way with your wife. You don't need her agreement to call it that.

Went to my counselor today. My WW offered to go as a joint session but I wanted to go alone.

I filled my counselor in on everything up to this point. She was impressed with my progress. She also was impressed with almost all of the insight that I have gained from MB....except for exposure. She focused mainly on how controlling a tactic it is and thought it was a bad idea. I offered her no apologies either and told her I believed in the process.

In the end, she said she had great hope for my marriage. She recommended that I lay off of discussing the affair or referring to it as an affair for now. She said that the only way for me to trust my wife again was just to trust her. She said I should stop snooping because I was not going to find anything that I like. She said if I found nothing, I would just keep obsessing and checking repeatedly over it and drive myself crazy.

As I described to her the method MB suggests to terminate an affair (exposure, NC letter, transparency, eliminate conditions leading to affair, no nights apart, commitment to restoring romantic love), she agreed with most of it. She didn't see the point in the NC letter. She also said to let her keep her passwords secret. She agreed with the rest though. In regards to keeping the passwords secret, she said that it was interpretted by my WW as a means of control which her instinct is to rebel against.

I told her that I didn't think I could follow her advice on that point. In regards to the NC letter, I told her it wasn't for my WW, it was for me. It was to help begin bringing closure. In regards to the passwords, I told her that we never used to hide our passwords or log out of our emails/facebooks until last month when she started this A. And because we never hid it from each other, we never had to check on what each other was doing. I told her that in hiding her passwords and keeping her activity secret, she is struggling to maintain the freedom to continue her secret life and maintain an A and it has to stop.

Nevertheless, she recommended that I think her advice over and consider following it.

SH, it is clear she is not very experienced and educated in infidelity. Most marriage counselors are not. Dr Harley, on the other hand, is a clinical psychologist with 40 years of specialization in infidelity. He has several top selling books on the subject.

The truth is that your marriage would not even be to the point of recovery if you had not exposed. If you had followed this MC's advice you wouldn't have a marriage to recover.

[quote=She said that the only way for me to trust my wife again was just to trust her. She said I should stop snooping because I was not going to find anything that I like. She said if I found nothing, I would just keep obsessing and checking repeatedly over it and drive myself crazy.

[/quote]

That is horribly bad advice. You should not trust your wife and of course you should continue snooping. If you find something you don't like, that gives you an opportunity to protect yourself. It was too much trust that led to the affair in the first place.

This counselor has no idea what she is talking about, SH, and is very unqualified. If I were you, I would take her Dr Harley's material on infidelity and ask her to read it.

This is horrible advice that you should not follow. In order to recover from her affair, she must become completely transparent. It was this secrecy that allowed your wife to carry on the affair in the first place. You have a right and need to know everything she does which means you should have access to each and every password. There should be no secrecy in marriage.

Please tell me this destructive counselor did not spew this nonsense in front of your wayward wife?

*YOU* have a better understanding of affairs than this counselor does. Do you realize this? You recognize the danger of secrecy in marriage, and she does not. This is why marriage counselors are so destructive to marriages.

Ok and now your looking in the yellow pages for a new Counselor right? I remember seeing earlier in your post someone saying MC's in general dont know how to handle ending an A. Well you found one that doesnt. Its not there fault they just dont know or dont care to learn as long as they collect the 160.00 they earned that hour. Either way the few things she doesn't agree with we all have seen lead a WS and BS to the big D, and I dont mean Dallas
Secrets are for the Military and such and not for a true happy M. Transparency and Radical honesty is the only way to thrive.
Shattered dont belittle this by calling it anything but what is is. ITS AN AFFAIR! Let her be mad for calling it one if she needs to be. But call them how you see them bud. If in your mind it was an A then it was an A! But bringing it up is a LBer. So try and avoid talking about it to call it anything anyhow.

Yep, it's controlling, alright - you're controlling the life of your marriage! Good for you, to offer no apologies for doing the work needed to save your marriage!

Oh, well, heck. I was going to cut and paste all the quotes that she made that were completely ridiculous, but that would have made my post a mile long. So I'll just post this one and build on it.

SH, you understand that most counselors have learned everything they know about marriage from books they've read and psychology courses they've taken in school, right? They are typically incapable of separating 'self-psychology' from real marriage counseling. They've spent so much time doing clinical nonsense that they've lost their common sense in counseling.

You already did the trust thing! Look where it got you! Hello, counselor! She's so busy looking after your WW's 'self respect' and 'self image' that she's completely overlooking the fact that your wife, while in a place of trust, tossed you in the trash!

SH, my H and I did some MC after his affair. Nice guy. Waste of money. I think a lot of other couples can make the same claim.

That MC, and plenty of others, need to get to this site, order some books and do some serious reading.

MB ... my H and I did some MC after his affair. Nice guy. Waste of money. I think a lot of other couples can make the same claim.
Claim made, fired every single one of them so far. One right about 10 minutes into the session when she said I needed to move out and give my WW her space. I got so mad I got up told her she was an idiot and stormed out and refused to give her a dime. Wife stayed and loved her because she was enabling her. That MC refused to ever see me again, Im glad. At this point I have given up on finding a competent MC.

I agree with you all. I know this process is what is going to save my marriage. I'm being persistent. I just have not been able to get my wife to the table and on board with the process yet.

I'm Plan A'ing the heck out of this thing though and it is paying off. She has several moments where she seems to be defogged at times, but I know she is not yet. She still is not eating very much, can't sleep without sleeping pills, and is tired throughout the day. She is taking antidepressants, which is a good thing. My fear is that she'll fall prey to her withdrawal and recontact him.

My snooping has not uncovered any further contact. For all intents and purposes, I witnessed the last exchange between them. In that exchange she apologized to him and told them she could no longer talk to him. He replied that he would no longer respond to any of her messages because he couldn't even be sure if it was her he was talking to or me he was talking to. Her mom has kept most of her time occupied when she's not with me. Again, I have not seen any further contact yet. Doesn't mean it's not happening though.

When I can get her to agree to transparency I'll feel a lot better about this. I will persist. Until the right time though, Plan A, Plan A, Plan A.

Actually, I trust you to recognize the signs.
Surveillance is a good thing.
It can confirm your observations.

Do you seee how this MC harmed your chances of getting the much needed transparency? That is why I don't recommend marriage counseling unless they understand Marriage Builders.

As far as transparency, that is not negotiable. You don't negotiate that at all. You simply tell her this is what it will take to recover your marriage.

Plan A is for an ongoing affair, for now you should be in Plan RECOVERY. And if she won't get on board and do the things to effect recovery, you are headed for a death of a thousand cuts. I would not waver on this at all.

Melody No harm as he didn't let her go when she asked too go.

Went to my counselor today. My WW offered to go as a joint session but I wanted to go alone

Now fire the IC.

oh good, that makes me feel better. I agree: FIRE THAT COUNSELOR! You would get better results from manicurist. At least getting pedicures won't harm your marriage.

LOL MelodyLane I agree too. FIRED is the only way to go.

SH you ok buddy?

Things have been slowly but steadily getting better. I still have not uncovered any additional contact. She's definitely still in the fog but she's slowly defogging. She's still not eating well and yesterday she had what I believe is a stress headache (went away after long hot shower). She's sleeping better though (meds).

Me, I'm doing the things I have to do to find myself again. My appetite is completely back. I'm working out. I still can't sleep without over the counter help though. Last night I had another one of those moments where I woke up still feeling the emotions of my dream. Same feeling I described earlier: Extreme sadness and feeling as if I was not allowed to remain in bed with my WW. I hope that phenomenon goes away soon.



Melody, I think that is what the MC was trying to tell me in her own way. See, this counselor is MY counselor. My WW was actually seeing another one at one point but switched over to talking to mine (we go separately and only have done one joint session). This week, she saw the MC before I did. I believe she has the MC convinced that the A is over.

From speaking to my MIL, she's convinced of the same.

She's no longer closely guarding her phone as if it contained state secrets. I haven't uncovered any additional contacts through all my veried methods of snoopery.

For all intents and purposes, it does APPEAR that contact has terminated. It's only been 1 week to the day since exposure though.

We have not done any of the things suggested in regards to exposing and terminating an A.

There was no mutually agreed upon NC letter. I did see their last exchange online. It was nothing near what is recommended for a NC letter (i.e. stating that the relationship was a mistake, it hurt BS and family, request no further contact). The exchange was more of an apology which left hope for a future. That I did NOT like. Nevertheless, she did terminate contact. He also terminated contact by saying he will never respond to her again because he can't be sure it's not actually me (he did leave the "I'm always here" caveat, though).

In regards to eliminating conditions that enabled the A, she did deactivate the fake facebook account, but she did not delete it even after I showed her how to. It's as easy as logging back in to use it again.

There's still no transparency yet. While she did initially give me her passwords, she went back later that day and changed them. She still logs out every time she leaves the computer. It wouldn't bother me so much if there had never been an A. But it bothers me even more because up until about a month ago, neither of us hid what we were doing online or our passwords from each other.

In regards to honesty about the A, she won't talk about it. Period. MC suggests we can do that with her present.

In regards to "no nights apart", I suggested that I would try to switch from working nights to working days. She was supportive so long as it was what I want.

We haven't discussed any of the other steps (no opposite sex friends/confidants, commitment to recovery program aimed at restoring romantic love).

Even though we haven't done a lot of that stuff, it does appear the EA is over and NC has been maintained (for a week at least).

All that being said, should I be moving past Plan A at this point and start focusing on Recovery? If so, do I drop the above listed issues (i.e. the NC letter)?

Again, I believe that is what the MC was suggesting. I also believe that is what me wife wants.

Do not falter on your conditions and boundaries. It will show your determination as a weakness. She is still foggy and you wont get much agreement from her till shes over that. Recovery plan is on Yes. Fulfill her ENs when she lets you, be the husband you want to be and the one she needs. But NEVER bend YOUR conditions to accommodate her. It may take some time but she will eventually comply when her love bank has some good deposits made.
A condition you do need to address is the passwords.Or just let it go and have the keylogger gain them for you so you can snoop it and get the real deal. If she is keeping them a secret you can bet she has a reason. And that reason is not to your advantage.

If by recovery plan we're talking about the Rule of Care, Rule of Protection, Rule of Time, and Rule of Honesty...I've been doing that all along. I've been avoid Love Busters at all costs all along.

I want to get her on board with all of it. I'm fairly certain she'll be willing to commit to transparency relatively soon.