SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am trying to decide if my wife (WS) and I (BS) need a new couples therapist or if I'm just making a big deal of nothing.

Back story:

My wife told me about her affair the end of April 2024. It was a year long emotional and physical affair, where they both said they loved the other. They had unprotected sex hundreds of times, which eventually resulted in a pregnancy and she had an abortion. Really difficult for me.

From the start I wanted to reconcile. For the first 6 weeks she had a really hard time breaking contact off with him, and he kept reaching out to her. It has really been hell for me, and only recently have I been able to think about other things some of the time.

She is also suffering a lot with her own issues and emotions surrounding the affair. Feeling lots of guilt for what she has done, mourning the loss of her relationship with him, mourning the loss of the baby she aborted, etc.

We both have triggers.

It makes for a lot of volatility when we have discussions. But also she has been really good to help me through my issues, and put my needs and the needs of our kids first. She is doing many of the steps that people recommend to reconcile.

Since the affair, my wife has continually said the affair is 100% her fault. But she also has been bringing up all sorts of things she is blaming me for not doing before the affair, or things that contributed to her having an affair, etc. Things that were almost never communicated prior to the affair. It seems like she is saying something like this for every thing she blames me for: "the affair is 100% my fault, however there were things you weren't doing that I was able to get from the affair, and are part of the reason it happened."

On the one hand I'm glad she is trying to explain why it happened to me. I do really want to understand that. On the other it seems like blame shifting her affair onto me. It's hard to tell which is which.

In the period from then to now we have tried three different couples therapists. The first one was horrible, the second one I liked because she seemed to be able to empathize with my predicament. My wife wanted to go with someone else though; the therapist we are currently seeing every two weeks.

My concerns:

This therapist is very knowledgeable and competent. I don't have any issues with that. But in our last three sessions he has pretty much skipped over the affair completely and wen't straight into using the Gottman methods of repairing relationships. We asked for Gottman techniques, and to get started repairing our relationship ASAP, so I'm glad to learn these skills, and maybe I just need to communicate what I want.

It just seems strange that a couples therapist seeing a couple because of infidelity hasn't yet addressed the issue directly. He's talked about trust in general and what it means to each of us. He's recommended some books, which we are reading. We worked on how we communicate better, which is a good thing.

However focussing only on marital issues we have, or had before the affair, feels to me very much like blaming the affair on our marital issues, and not on the decisions my wife made. Or maybe I'm just focussing too much on that and the way to repair our marriage is actually to fix those issues?

I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's not addressing it directly because we are months into this process. We have had many discussions already, we have had full disclosure already, backed up with a lie detector test which I requested she take.

I expected that a couples therapist would work through and address the affair first, and then proceed on to things that strengthen the marriage.

However I've never been here before and thats why I'm seeking advice from everyone here.

Does it sound like we need a new therapist?

Should I bring up my concerns in couples therapy? (I also considered writing a letter to him alone to avoid stressing my wife out)

Am I focussing too much on the affair, and should really be focussed on repairing issues we had in our marriage instead?

We had a Gottman focused MC. Two actually. Only because one had to bow out due to medical issues. That being said. It sounds like you do need more support in talking about the A. I'd ask for it. There did come a time when we eventually worked more toward what we wanted than focusing on the repair, but you are in EARLY days yet. There is a LOT to unpack there.

I will say, yes the A is 100% FWS's fault. And, yes she was likely getting something out of it that you weren't providing. Because an A is ALL about external validation. She told herself, at the time, that things were wonderful with AP because she was focusing there rather than on your relationship or her own internal validation. It is a strong drug, but a drug.

It is fairly common for FWS to have a hard time breaking things off. Mine did as well. It's an addiction.

The thing that I liked about our MC was that they were both able to support BOTH of us through this process. The Gottman techniques gave us soemthing we could DO. We're both do-ers. That "homework" felt like an action we could do to move forward and helped us both to feel less hopeless.

I also had my own personal counselor. She was able to help me process my own needs to heal. Maybe that might be an option for you?

I'm so sorry you're here. That first year for me, I feel like I was just doing well to keep myself above water. It is the roughest things I've ever done. Hang in there.

Am I focussing too much on the affair, and should really be focussed on repairing issues we had in our marriage instead?

Marriage can’t cause cheating. Ever.

All marriages have problems, not ALL people choose to cheat as a ‘solution’ to M problems.

The most important thing (for me) was that my wife address the validation issues — why did she need a comparative stranger to make her feel ‘better’- versus turning toward her M in a time of duress? I needed to know that my wife can be a safe partner. Of course, a full on healed M needs BOTH people working on the relationship, but you never abandoned the M in the first place.

First things first, your WS has to own it and take the lead in repairing her issues.

Otherwise, you can’t fix the M, if the very next time the M has a problem, your wife bails out.

Gottman stuff for communication is good stuff, strong tool set — however, until your spouse owns her poor coping mechanisms, she isn’t a safe person to be with.

Your therapist wants peace. So do you. But first you want accountability or you don’t have a lot to work with.

Our counselor heard me out. He was able to hold my wife responsible and allow her room to be viewed as a whole person.

My wife isn’t defined (for me) as her worst days.

However, she had to own ALL of her choices, and she did. That was the start of our R.

Before discussing your question, I think it's important to consider these other questions.

1) Although the A caused and continues to cause you immense pain, the A came from your WS's internal issues. The WS almost always needs IC to address their issues and to change from cheater to good partner. Is your W in IC?

2) Have you considered IC for yourself?

WRT couples counseling, you say you asked for Gottman. Have you also asked for help addressing the A? If not, speak up. If the MC won't address the A after you ask him to, I agree you need a different MC.

I urge you not to consider whether voicing your desires will stress your W out. R is a process of building a new M, one that serves you both, and if your WS lets her issue interfere with your healing (and vice versa), maybe D is the answer for you.

As for problems your W mentions in your pre-A M, they are a type of blame-shifting. Does your MC confront that?

I believe she'd be better off focusing on changing from betrayer to good partner. Also, IMO, she'd be better off focusing on what she wants in your M not on what she doesn't want. If she makes the necessary changes, I believe a lot of those old problems will disappear.

To R, you need to heal you. Your W can support you, but the pain is in you, and you're the only one who can process it out of your body. That may mean therapy for you.

Your WS has to heal themself. You can provide support, but the WS is the only person who can resolve the WS's issues. As I wrote above, IMO that almost always requires therapy for the WS.

You work together to heal/(re)build your M. You both have to participate in defining what the new M will be, and you both have to participate in building it.

A good MC can help. One marker for a good MC is addressing the A first. It's very difficult to learn new communication techniques while suffering from the immense pain of being betrayed and from betraying.

'Addressing the A' includes: confronting blame-shifting, minimizing, and trickle-truthing; not listening and/or hearing; stuffing anger, grief, fear, and/or shame; etc.

For insight into how to identify a WS who is a good candidate for R, I suggest reading:

https://survivinginfidelity.com/topics/586809/beyond-regret-and-remorse/ and
https://survivinginfidelity.com/topics/324250/things-that-every-ws-needs-to-know/

For a good thread on D I suggest reading:

https://survivinginfidelity.com/topics/497843/fear-vs-reality/ - I know you say you want R, but you may find D is your best bet. Prepare yourself to make a good life either way....

Have faith in yourself to heal, with or without your W.

Should I bring up my concerns in couples therapy?

Absolutely. This is not a bandaid situation. Sounds like the MC is addressing the concerns you’ve both indicated are a priority. He needs to know there’s still a serious wound to be addressed. IC with someone who deals with trauma would be optimal, but it still needs to be acknowledged during MC. If you go with the letter I’d give your WW a copy before the next session.

Since the affair, my wife has continually said the affair is 100% her fault. But she also has been bringing up all sorts of things she is blaming me for not doing before the affair, or things that contributed to her having an affair, etc.

So it’s 100% her fault but…

This is wayward thinking. She had plenty of options to deal with any problems in the M but she went with cheating. That’s totally on her. You were in the same marriage and you didn’t cheat.

[This message edited by asc1226 at 4:45 PM, Wednesday, September 25th]

Net effect she is blaming you.

If you did X I would not have done Y - that’s blaming YOU for the cheater’s decision to cheat.

My H used the "we were disconnected" excuse. Yup because HE chose to stop communicating with me. And HE chose to get his ego boost from countless other women (not all affairs) over the years.

But funny how it becomes "we". Until I was annoyed one day and told him he was disconnected and he should not speak for me as I can speak for myself.

For you, I would definitely bring it up with the counselor about her perception of the cause of her affair.

I would also get up and leave if the counselor starts blaming you or implying any of it is your fault.

And after dday2 if my H had showed any signs of pining for the OW I would have thrown him out the third floor window. With his clothes right behind him. I would not tolerate that disrespect. I suffered through it the first Dday and was stupid to allow it.

Never again.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 2:36 AM, Thursday, September 26th]

So, I think it is worth bringing up all the marital issues at the same time as the affair at the beginning. Not to say any of the problems caused the affair, but to lay them on the table as well. So you can look at the pre-A marriage and ask if it is worth saving. How many other problems do you need to figure out in addition to healing from the affair?

Some marriages aren't worth saving. I'm not saying that they cause the affair in that case. I'm saying if you go, "OK I had an otherwise good marriage with a few issues, and after we work through the affair, we can also strengthen the underlying marriage and I'll be happy." Maybe R is in the cards. If you look at that pile of marriage issues and go "Holy shit, I wasn't really that happy before the A, and now I have to figure all the other crap out in addition to getting cheated on" it gives you direction.

You cannot be working on the M before going through the steps of the Gottman affair recovery "Atone, Attune, Attach" that's outlined in "What Makes Love Last". You shouldn't be jumping to the seven principles (as useful as that book is). If you try to do *both* at the same time, the problem is that you will inherently be intermingling the affair with the other issues. Whether that is actually blame shifting or not (it sort of is) is less relevant than that you have to treat the affair injury first. Like any other medical triage. You don't treat the stubbed toe before the knife in the back. Heck, you don't treat a torn ligament before a stab in the back. The ligament needs repair, and surgery and PT. It just doesn't need it before you figure out how to safely remove the knife, sew it up and stabilize from that injury.

He's recommended some books, which we are reading.

Which books? I've read a bunch and I can tell you which are red flags and which I think are pretty good.

EDIT: I think I'd like to share a little piece of my R story. Which is initially my wife would say I was too cold and it was easier for her to share with her AP some of her emotional pain. The truth is I struggle a little with this type of empathy, but the deeper issue was that my wife was unwilling to share her emotional pain with me due to her own underlying issues in feeling like with me she *had* to put on a strong face. Having little to do with my weakness, and much more to do with her FOO issues. So even if you find something *now* that feel slightly blame-shifting, you might find later as you dig deeper in to what motivations she had or what she was missing from you may have been something she was denying herself all along.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 7:45 PM, Wednesday, September 25th]

TIF

I think you brought up a good point. And maybe it applies to me.

I am emotional but also strong. I will cry in front of my H but I try to avoid drama and nonsense.

And I think he didn’t feel "needed" but yet felt "needed" by the OW and was going to rescue her from her tragic life. Her drama and struggles and woe is me attitude.

I think my ability to handle life was used against me by my H. How sad. Because when I was an emotional basket case and cried every day during his affair, he got upset with me and would yell at me to stop crying.

My two cents is it’s sometimes easier to talk to someone you don’t know well for a few reasons. They don’t know the truth behind your problems like your spouse does, the cheater can lie and get the AP to believe "my spouse hates me" etc.

And the stupid AP falls for it, not knowing it’s nonsense and half/most/all of it is not true.

And the stupid AP falls for it, not knowing it’s nonsense and half/most/all of it is not true.

Meh. I would rather say "willingly falls for it", because AP prefer to think of themselves as good persons, so the nonsense the WS is feeding them has to be true. Even if it is stupid. Even if they just got 50% of the story. It just fits their shitty narrative.

I'm thinking you should read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "Married Mans Sex Life Primer" - YOU need to work on yourself -
Wife (still?) should read "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair"

There is a post on here by "OnlyTime" - a short dissertation on Contrition - contrasted with "Regret" (Damn!, I got caught) and "Remorse" - (Gee, I didn't think you would be hurt!)

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/586809/beyond-regret-and-remorse/

Not sure but thinking a bit of background on your marriage/family and how you got to where you are now might help others with their suggestions on how to move forward in your life.

Counseling is a way to help people deal with life and (if needed) fix themself. So far, your info provided doesn't point to much of that going on with your sessions.

I want to thank everyone for your responses. They have been helpful to read for sure.

I was going to respond to each question individually but I can't find a way to respond in a thread. Is this possible?

Anyway heres an update:

We had therapy on Thursday, and I elected to not bring my concerns up this time around. I did this for a couple of reasons:

1. I wanted to see if he would do anything differently than before.
2. My wife has had a really rough two weeks dealing with all sorts of feelings related to the affair. I've been there supporting her and didn't want to make things worse.
3. I wasn't 100% sure what my thoughts were and didn't want to be expressing partially processed thoughts.

Again my wife brought up a disagreement that we have discussed several times without making progress; one of those things she has been bringing up since telling me about the affair that she never discussed prior.

After therapy I told her how I was feeling (basically summarized the original post), and she politely listened to my concerns. She asked why I didn't talk to the therapist about it and I gave the above reasons. I am going to write an email to them both about it though.

Answers to some questions you guys asked:

- She and I are in IC as well as MC
- Books recommended by couples therapists:
The state of affairs by Esther Perel - Informative but not helpful for reconciliation.
Moving Beyond Betrayal - This is a book talking about how to work with a sex addict. I only read chapter 1.
The seven principles for making marriage work - This is a good book with lots of useful tools we can use.
- Books I looked up and read:
- The courage to stay - A good book for the situation I find myself in. It would have been better starting with day 1 IMHO but I read it like a month after. My wife finally read it like three months after.
- Books her therapist recommended to her:
Mating in captivity

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting though.

Some more back story:

My wife and I have been married for 19 years this year. The first year we were married she had an emotional affair that we really didn't deal with. It caused me a lot of stress, but eventually (ten years) I got over it. This is why this time around I want to make sure we really deal with the issue.

We have always gotten along well together for the most part. Neither of us are the type to be mean, or say unkind things. That has made this reconciliation process doable for me. If I had to deal with a mean WW as well as the trauma of the betrayal I don't think I could have done it.

She had some sexual trauma's early on in life, and we as a couple have gone through struggles together about my family who were pretty unkind to her.

We have two boys, both teenagers 16, and 14. Really great a-typical teenagers.

My conflict:

I'm conflicted because she is doing many of the things I've asked her to do to help me get through this and to repair our marriage. She keeps me updated about where she is at, and her plans for the day. She installed a tracker on her phone (actually the whole family did, it's nice to see where my teenagers are at as well), she took a lie detector test, she often does nice things for me or just helps me through my grief.

So it's not all bad. But then theres the blame thing she is doing which is really hard for me.
The more I think about it (and read posts on SI), the more I agree that this affair is 100% her fault.

It's difficult to want to do things to address concerns she had prior to the affair when I feel unfairly blamed for them.

It's hard to go through these ups and downs as I'm sure you all know well.

It's difficult to want to do things to address concerns she had prior to the affair when I feel unfairly blamed for them.

Some of my wife’s grievances were real, others were imagined, all combined to help justify her specific choices to turn away from me, our family and to be validated outside of the M.

It’s fairly straight forward — until the WS accepts responsibility for said choices, and understands why they did what they did, you don’t have a lot to work with.

Even if you decide to stay, the resentment will start soon, when you continue to blamed for her very calculated decisions.

The question to the MC then is — "What happens next time the relationship is under duress? More cheating?"

What is anyone doing to make you feel safe or good about wanting to stay?

Tracking someone’s location does not make you feel better if your spouse doesn’t own the destruction caused.

Early on my wife said placing blame does not help, we are both at fault and my head nearly exploded. I said none of this is my fault, this is all on you. She said so all those years when you would freeze me out? You don't feel like you are partially at fault?

No. I went to a therapist, I learned what I was doing wrong and I stopped doing it, YOU refused to see a marriage counselor together. I stopped freezing you out a long time ago so no, this is all on you.

Took her a while to finally accept AND SAY it was all her fault.

Your wife like every other WS had the ability to end the relationship and then start a new one but they chose the coward's way.

After my D-Day I like most people was trying to figure out what I did wrong what I didn't do what I didn't do enough of that caused the affair to happen but eventually realized this is all her fault. I was a good husband and we had a great relationship, so I thought, but it was my wife who was defective and sought validation from a younger married coworker. She blew right through her morals and convictions just for some cheap thrills.

My wife said she was happy with our relationship but she was unhappy with herself and she thought I was unhappy with her and that's the reason this happened and it took me a while to call her out on her bullshit. When I asked the question if you thought I was so unhappy why didn't you try to fix our relationship? She replied with I should have and if I could go back in time blah blah blah.

For years when I would try to talk to my wife about a problem she would put up her walls cross her arms deflect and just get upset. That was her way of not dealing with problems and it just became our status quo. I tried to change that she refused and now we're seeing if we can salvage a 27-year relationship

Stand tall and do not let your wife deflect any of the blame for her affair on to you. She had the ability to leave the relationship if she was so unhappy

[This message edited by WB1340 at 8:21 PM, Friday, September 27th]

You have mentioned two Esther Perel books which I have read.

My ‘go to’ was Shirley Glass’ ‘Not Just Friends’.

I also liked Gottman.

There was also a book called ‘Love must be tough’ by James Dobson.

Finally, like many here, I found Brene Brown’s audiobooks good. I was treading water in a demanding job for a good 6 months post d day and found it hard to read.

I am better disposed to Perel than some here, but she says something which encapsulates her approach. She is from a Belgian Jewish family and specialized in counseling people in cross-cultural marriages. She found that in America people responded to affairs with ‘how could you’. She felt that in France, although I believe her impressions might be based an upper middle class socio-economic sample, people regard affairs as ‘hurtful’. By starting there, that affairs are hurtful rather than wrong, she felt she had more to work with in couple’s counseling.

Then I picked up Shirley Glass and was captured from the first page where she was acknowledging the help she received from a mentor. It showed a clear sense that you can have a great association with people but you keep it in its proper sphere. That’s your responsibility. Even in that foreword she was showing her ‘windows and walls’ approach.

At least with my social programming, I was unable to reconcile until I saw my wife making some right/wrong distinctions again. I didn’t require her to stay mired in regret forever, but I did need her to choose a right path and show she intended to stay on it.

My wife grew up in a situation where her mother had affairs and lots of children to three men. My wife wanted a relationship with her Mum and her siblings and half-siblings, and was estranged from her Dad. She built up some unhelpful attitudes to deal with social judgement and shame. She was slow to make moral judgments, saw herself as a non-conformist intellectually, and dealt with dissonance by a combination of sport, list making, changing her mind a lot.

I was sitting right on the line of staying and leaving. I had always cut her slack and supported her. I told her that if I acted in the ways she was, everything would fall apart, and she was being a hypocrite, I couldn’t trust her and she had treated me terribly.

I do think she saw that. I started to notice changes, particularly when dealing with our kids. I have always had a good relationship with them, but I could see that my wife was being more respectful of me when speaking with them. Slowly, I let my guard down and we moved forward.

The marriage has changed. We speak a more bluntly now, more like I would with any other person.

So, my recommendation is Shirley Glass, although I do recall one poster on this site saying she had some sessions with Dr Glass and wasn’t impressed in person.

We also have some home grown talent and materials on this site which are just as good. You could do worse than printing out Daddy Don’s posts and giving them to your WW. Or Maia’s survival guide.

Our MC is using the gottman manual page by Page and I do see the value in learning to communicate better and learning how to compromise.

After our third or fourth session we still had not discussed the affair so at the end of the session I asked are all of these exercises leading up to us discussing the affair?

The MC smiled and said yes and I said okay, I just want to make sure all of us are on the same page.

We've had sessions where I allow the MC to run us through another page from the gottman manual but when there is something on my mind or we're having an issue then I start the session with that. At times I feel that the MC is too focused on trying to help us communicate better and not focused enough on talking about the affair

I find it ironic that gottman is on his third marriage and therapists use his teachings to fix marriages

[This message edited by WB1340 at 9:44 PM, Friday, September 27th]

Answers to some questions you guys asked:

- She and I are in IC as well as MC
- Books recommended by couples therapists:
The state of affairs by Esther Perel - Informative but not helpful for reconciliation.

This is not starter material. You need to be able to sift through the bullshit to find the nuggets of wisdom. So yes "Informative", but it's important for you to remember (because EP doesn't really care to explain), that all the information she gets from cheaters is from proven liars and deceivers

Moving Beyond Betrayal - This is a book talking about how to work with a sex addict. I only read chapter 1.
The seven principles for making marriage work - This is a good book with lots of useful tools we can use.
- Books I looked up and read:
- The courage to stay - A good book for the situation I find myself in. It would have been better starting with day 1 IMHO but I read it like a month after. My wife finally read it like three months after.
- Books her therapist recommended to her:
Mating in captivity

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting though.

I haven't read "courage to stay" so I can't speak to it.

"Mating In Captivity" is more EP and full of cheater apologist nonsense. Especially plays into the "maybe I'm poly" brand of cheating.

Here are my recommendations:

"Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass which gives great insight on how affairs start and what to do in the aftermath.

"How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald.

If you want to put Perel in context, she group up around victims of the Nazi slave labor/murder camps who lived through daily traumas that I don't want to read about. As she says, some of the people merely survived; others lived. Concentration camp trauma is, IMO, a lot more DIFFICULT to recover from than infidelity trauma.

We worked with a very skilled therapist, and she addressed the trauma of the A first. Gottman is great when there's no lurking elephant in the room. When a A is in the mix, though, it needs to be addressed. We dealt with communication issues when they came up, but talking and expressing feelings about the A came first. I think that was crucial to our R.

Perhaps more important, I think the client needs to drive the therapy. You didn't address your issues in the last session. How did that help you heal? You had another unsatisfactory interaction with your MC, but you still don't know if he can help you or not. You need to bring your issues up to see if he can help you resolve them. Maybe he can, but if he can't, you need to do something different. If he can't, the sooner your find out, the better.

I know it can be daunting to confront the expert. The thing is: you can't heal without asserting yourself. Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: no one is as much of an expert on you as you are. The MC may be expert on people in general, an you need to be open to confrontation on what you think you know about yourself, but you're the expert on you in particular.

My reco: bring up your own issues in the next MC session, or bring up your failure to do so in your next IC session. That's not meant as implied criticism. Rather, I suggest it as a way of taking responsibility for yourself, acknowledging where you are, and starting to move from there to where you want to be.

*****

If your W won't move from the past (past complaints) to the present (the A, and building a new M), do you still want to R?

Since the affair, my wife has continually said the affair is 100% her fault. But she also has been bringing up all sorts of things she is blaming me for not doing before the affair, or things that contributed to her having an affair, etc.

Agree with most if not all of what has been written by others, this behavior is straight out of the "cheaters handbook".

She's blaming you for the affair. She's blaming you for her behavior.

If your behavior was responsible for her behavior, her affair, then why are you not having an affair? Because, her behavior would be responsible for your behavior, you should obviously do something like cheat on her!.

This is not unusual, for the WS to do this in counseling, in recovery, etc. It is a method of transferring blame and assuaging their guilt. Personally, I found it extremely hurtful, my wife sat in our counselors's office, and said that I was never home, that I was gone all the time, and she stuck to that story. She blamed me.

In the end, it turned out when she actually admitted the full truth, I was home watching the kids when she went out to have sex with this guy she had met. I was probably doing laundry. It is amazing how much laundry you can get done when you're never home. Everything changed when my wife became truly "remorseful".

It does not sound, from what you are writing, that your wife has true "remorse" for what she has done. It does not sound as if she is really considering the damage that she has done to you, your marriage, and your family.

A quick update:

I was struggling with a bunch of stuff so I spoke to my IC, and told him I was planning on writing our MC a letter explaining my feelings. He recommended that I meet with him in person because therapists like to be able to ask probing questions and get feedback. So I met with my MC the next week. I spent like 45 minutes of the hour explaining all the points in my letter. How I think I'm being improperly blamed for things, how it seems like blame shifting is going on etc.

He listened intently, making a few comments here and there. Then at the end he suggested a book, "After the affair" by Janis A Spring.

I'm like cool, and action step! I wen't home and bought the book on Audible (I would rather listen to most books).

In the introduction she talked about how in the book we were going to look into how both partners contributed to the affair, how she doesn't make judgements about if affairs are good or bad, and that she doesn't like to label people as betrayer and betrayed because it conveys moral righteousness. (Exploding head)

Then she goes on to talk about how she defines the betrayed as "someone who's assumption of monogamy was violated", or something to that effect. Assumption of monogamy? I'm sorry but in my marriage this was not assumed. We explicitly agreed on monogamy!

After that intro I didn't continue listening to the book, and I'm going to try and get my money back.

Anyway long story short, I wouldn't recommend this book, and I'm going to find a new MC that isn't going to try and blame me or sweep the affair under the rug.

What d you want from an MC?

*****

A lot of MC training is to take a systems approach to M problems. On the surface that looks like the best approach. The trouble is that As aren't problems in the M - they're problems in the WS.

Until d-day, I always thought an A would be a symptom of a problem in the M. My W got us some time (2 hours?) with her IC on d-day. I was skeptical until the therapist (let's call her 'T') started by confronting W for what she had done and quickly moved to finding out how I thought and felt. I learned pretty quickly that T thought my W's A was due to a problem in my W, not in our M.

IOW, there ARE excellent MCs out there, but you have to look for them. The one you're working with, Theevent, doesn't look like he'll change from 'virtually useless' to 'effective,' though.

*****

BTW, our sessions morphed into disassembling the (false) image of me that my W had built up and replacing it with something closer to the real me. Your W's complaints about how your behavior somehow caused her to cheat (if I understand you properly) might be coming from a false image of you that your W built up. If that's the case, the fix lies with your WS, not with you, and not with your M.