SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi, I'm back again.

Today I'm feeling pretty frustrated at my therapist.

Back story:

In December my wife and I had a pretty big fight where she essentially told me to go find a divorce attorney. That was a big deal to me so I asked her if she would be willing to see my individual therapist together. We went that same day for an emergency session (thats one thing I really like about my therapist, he will work during off hours if needed), and we talked it out. Calmed things down. She was just angry and didn't really want me to do that. And I believe her.

Since then we have seen him four more times. Each time there has been a lot of emotion from both of us, but more from me in the last two sessions. Last month he asked us to come up with three things we want to see change in the other person, and we have done that, but only gotten through two each because of getting sidetracked by arguments. It's been good to have a third party to mediate our discussions, and my wife does seem to act with more restraint when someone else is present so thats a bonus. I even feel like I can talk more freely because there is someone there to calm things down. All good things.

My frustration:

So the big problem I've had with my wife since D-day has been her redirecting almost every conversation to problems she had in our relationship before the affair, and her generally not taking full responsibility. She has taken the pretty standard path people who cheat take. Saying things like "affairs don't happen in a vacuum", and "you need to take responsibility for your part in our bad marriage", etc. To be fair she hasn't said those in a couple of months, but it's clear that she is still focussed on being validated about how she was feeling in the relationship before her affair.

To be clear, I have done what I can in the present to address her concerns, but I can't change the past, and I don't like that she continues bringing our conversations back to that topic. Essentially trying to put our concerns on the same level.

Yesterday she directed the conversation back to this same topic. I read the following to them:

"When conversations about the affair get redirected toward my shortcomings, our marriage problems, or ways I hurt you, I experience that as blame and criticism. Even if that’s not your intention, it feels like responsibility for the affair is being shared or shifted onto me.

When that happens, I don’t feel emotional safety or repair—I feel like the core issue is being defended against rather than owned. I need conversations about the affair to stay centered on your choices and their impact, without reframing them as something I caused or could have prevented."

The therapist asked her what she thought about this and she essentially said that she didn't feel heard, felt like it was one sided, and she wanted to know when I was going to hear and validate her feelings.

This was extremely frustrating to me since it's been her default attitude whenever we talk about the affair, and I have literally heard her complain about this stuff for the entire time. Almost from day one she started criticizing me and complaining about things from years ago, and this attitude has gotten less but is still present.

Where I get even more frustrated is when the therapist didn't do anything at all about her again redirecting (he has been listing to me complain about this for 18 months, and has told me that relationships cannot cause affairs), and then he started explaining that there were relationship issues and we need to resolve those. He started talking about personality types and how each of us need to be aware of our personality type in order to communicate clearly. Etc. Basically going into couples therapy mode rather than infidelity therapy mode.

Looking back at the beginning of this journey, I followed his advice from the start and his advice was to try and be patient, and kind, do nice things for her, and to address the complaints she was bringing up. So thats what I did. I didn't know any other path. I think it likely helped us stay together through those hard times, but also I'm worried that it setup a positive feedback loop for her negative actions. Which I think caused her to not feel any need to really take a look at herself and allowed her to maintain this defiant attitude.

Now I'm questioning his advice, but I don't know exactly what to ask for.

I'm considering some options, such as finding a different therapist (least favorite option), communicating what I need to see from him in therapy, not going and doing one of those infidelity recovery groups instead. I don't know what to do here.

I feel like he is trying to do couples therapy when what I need is infidelity centered therapy.

One question I have for the group is what does good infidelity recovery therapy look like and how is it different than normal couples therapy?

P.S. To be fair to her, she is changing for the positive. It's slower than I would have expected or wanted but it is positive change. The fact that she is willing to do this therapy with me is a good sign IMHO. Also she seems to starting to get it. For example after that pretty intense session she gave me a big hug and said she loved me. I don't want to convey that she isn't trying or making progress. She is. I'm just concerned that it's not the right kind of progress. I'm concerned that it's going to be swept under the rug.

[This message edited by Theevent at 8:34 PM, Friday, February 6th]

I’m not certain how you resolve the therapy session issues.

But here’s my two cents on your wife’s blame shifting. Next time she says something like "you did X and Y and caused our marriage to ……. and that’s why I cheated" you should say to her this;

Nothing I did or didn’t do caused you to cheat. You decided you were not happy or were angry with me and chose to cheat. You made the choice and there is no excuse or reason that justifies cheating.

Then explain to her that when she did things (or didn’t do things) you didn’t get mad and cheat. You acted as an adult and stuck to the view that were made. No matter how mad or snarky or frustrated you felt.

Your wife sounds like she doesn’t want to listen to anything you say. I’d stop beating my head against the wall and drop the MC and see the therapist you like so much on your own.

He/she has seen your wife in action. He/she can probably provide you with some coping strategies at the very least.

The1stWife

But here’s my two cents on your wife’s blame shifting. Next time she says something like "you did X and Y and caused our marriage to ……. and that’s why I cheated" you should say to her this;

She has always been careful to NOT say "and thats why I cheated". Early on she said things like "I wasn't happy", and "you didn't date me", and things like that. But for the most part she doesn't say that any of this caused her to cheat.

It seems like there is her cheating which she verbally says "I take full responsibility for", then there is the relationship issues which she wants me to take responsibility for my part. I feel blamed because this has been her attitude from the start and she has consistently redirected all of our conversations back to me needing to validate her feelings about things from the past. She says things like "I feel like I'm rowing alone, and I need you to row with me". Thats all good and fine but in this situation I feel like I am rowing with her and sometimes I do the rowing for her.

This is blame shifting for sure, but it's a lot more subtle than saying "you caused my affair". Her logic is like so:

you did X thing (or didn't do Y thing that I wanted you to do), and that made me unhappy. That unhappiness caused me to be angry and I couldn't talk to you because you aren't a safe space. This contributed to a pre-existing vulnerability to having an affair. You need to take responsibility for your part in our bad marriage.

Of course in my case, like many others, I had no idea we had a "bad marriage" until she revealed her cheating. So all of this feels like blame and is infuriating because it is completely impossible for me to fix issues if they aren't communicated, and even with those issues none of it means betrayal should be an option at all. So why even discuss that stuff?

So then don’t allow the conversation.

If she starts down that path of you did X, I was unhappy blah blah blah, you can stop her by saying "I’ve heard this before. It’s in the past. And I’m trying to focus on the present."

My point was you don’t have to continue to entertain this nonsense. It’s killing your joy and spirit. It’s not the life you want to be leading.

If you recognize things are NOT going to change, then you need to make different decisions. It’s that simple - if you are unhappy and she’s not the person you are in love with and she’s not going to change, then IMO the ball is in your court.

Your choices;

Accept her for who she is and stop trying to get answers or change from her;
Recognize this is not the marriage you hoped for but you can be relatively happy w/ the status quo and focus on moving yourself forward;
Accept you are unhappy and there is nothing that can be done to change it but you will focus only on your happiness and not make the marriage a priority;
You are unhappy and need to move on.

Stop this negativity and loop that has dine in for far too long. It’s the definition of insanity IMO