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

I would suggest that you simply explain to her to you will not accept any responsibility at all for her decision to have an affair, that marital issues will never, ever justify infidelity.

You can listen to those pre-A marital issues and let her know that she has been heard without validating her thoughts and feelings. Ask her why she seeks validation from you. Question her at every turn. Keep asking questions until she finally runs out of excuses for her own choices. Exhausting all of her rationalizations will force her to recognize that she is 100% responsible for her own conscious decisions. Keep reminding her that nothing ever justifies infidelity. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Unhinged
And theres the rub for me. I have listened to her complaints. Probably hundreds of times at this point.

She blames me for things I don't feel I deserve blame for. She wants me to admit fault for things I don't believe I am at fault for. She has anger over things I did that she never expressed to me until AFTER she had an affair. Then all of the sudden she wants me to validate her pain for these unexpressed things. She complains that I'm not taking responsibility for my part in our "bad marriage". Like I said this "bad marriage" was news to me until she disclosed her affair.

She continues to (attempt to) separate her complaints from the affair. Always saying she is not talking about the affair she is talking about our relationship. Every time I say something like "why do you continue to redirect our conversations back to these complaints", she says something like "because we are in a relationship and I need my feelings validated too. My pain is real.". She keeps saying things like "I need you to row with me", and "I'll just put my stuff aside so I can be available for you, but this is not going to be sustainable", and "my feelings are valid too", and things like that. Always disconnected from the affair talk in her mind, but to me it looks very much like she is deflecting.

Ask her why she seeks validation from you.

She would say she seeks validation because we are in a relationship together and we need to be equal partners. One person shouldn't be lesser than the other. She keeps saying things that makes me believe she feels subservient to me when I ask her to do things to help me get over the affair.

You know, if you could surgically remove the infidelity history from what she says now, I'd agree that she does have a point about both people in a mutual relationship needing to be able to be heard, and their feelings validated. I'm pretty sure you would agree.

The big problem is your feelings about the infidelity are NOT being validated; it seems as if she wants to roll back the clock to a time before she cheated and re-litigate issues she never brought to your attention at the time as I undertand you.

Maybe R doesn't work that way.

If you were to agree with her that, even though she had never spoken with you of her discontent and then had decided it was OK to betray her vow and injure you the way she did, you would still defend her right to her feelings...wonder what she'd do with that?

R will not work until the WS can openly admit he / she is 100% at fault for the affair. Early on my wife said placing blame does not help, we are both at fault and my response was I am not at fault for you having an affair. This is 100% on you.

She retorted with so you don't think all those years of you not talking to me do not play a part in this? I said I don't do that anymore. I asked you what you thought about us going to a marital counselor to learn how to communicate better and you were ADAMANTLY against the idea so I went by myself. I learned how to communicate better but when I tried to talk to you all you would do is cross your arms throw up a wall and shut down the conversation. So no, this is 100% on you

It took her months before she could finally say to me I am 100% at fault and that's when our R could move forward.

I suggest sitting down and telling your wife look, until you can accept full responsibility for this we are not going to be able to move forward and if she is adamantly against the idea then you need to decide your next move, what is best for you

WS's try blameshifting to make themselves feel better about their decision to destroy a relationship

"Well, honey, some of those are valid reasons for you to be upset or dissatisfied, I agree. They're great reasons for you to have sat me down and had a talk a long time ago. I hear you and I'm sorry you felt that way and/or I did/didn't do those things, but none of them are good reasons for having an affair. Right now that is the most egregious, relevant, and damaging issue between us. I think we need to discuss that first, then we can work on those other things. Otherwise I feel like you're just trying to deflect from it."

[This message edited by Pogre at 12:05 PM, Saturday, February 7th]

My husband did some things very similarly.

My response was to tell him, "fine, I take all the blame for the fact that you had to have affairs".

Then I just stood there. Anything he said, I would say, "yes, this is all my fault, you poor thing, having to go screw other people, it’s terrible what I did".

Yes, it was sarcasm. Yes, it angered him.

And I asked him if the fact that I accept blame for his infidelity did ANYTHING to move the marriage into a better place, or was it just painting over his shitty behavior using a lie as the paintbrush?

I also told him that until he could openly accept the responsibility for what he did without blameshifting, we had no hope of recovery. I left him for three weeks to a planned trip, and told him I would not return unless he figured that out.

Sometimes I think you have to risk the entire marriage into order to save it.

@Theevvent,

Did you seek help healing? Did you seek help for R? Did you seek help for deciding between R & D? Did you seek help for dealing with the devastating feelings that come with being betrayed? How did you start with your therapist?

It looks like he interpreted what you asked for as help in reconciling. That is, IMO, the only justification for counseling patience, kindness, etc.

Even then, IMO, your therapist went in the wrong direction from the start. You were bleeding out emotionally. Your W's condition was not of your business - first and foremost, you had to stop your bleeding. His job was to help you do that.

Patience with your W, kindness for her, doing nice things for her, and addressing the complaints she was bringing up are appropriate only after you've stopped the bleeding and established your healing.

IMO, a new therapist is likely to be a better choice for you. Ordinarily, I believe you can build a new relationship with a C. In your case, however, your IC has made the relationship essential irredeemable by starting you off wrong and by mixing IC and MC actions.

IMO, you still need help stopping your bleeding. You say your W is still blame-shifting. That being the case, she's not yet a good candidate for R, and it's too early for anything but protecting yourself. IMO, that's what you should ask for.

*****

I know we generally write on SI, 'Sometimes you have to risk the entire marriage into order to save it.'

IMO, the M doesn't start healing until after the BS starts healing, and that requires changing how the BS thinks and what the BS does. IOW, the BS needs to take responsibility for themself just as much as the WS does. Those changes ipso facto put the M at risk. IMO, if the BS doesn't make those changes, R can't work. That means the M has to be risked in order to save it.

IOW, I think we'd be better off writing something like, 'the BS always has to risk the entire M in order to save it.'

sisoon
Your insight is impressive. I did indeed initially ask for help reconciling. That would explain why he offered that advice. I see now how it was misguided, but at the time I followed it religiously.

You say your W is still blame-shifting.

I believe this is whats happening, or at least it feels that way to me. It's quite hard to be patient with it after 18 months. Her view is that she is only working on the marriage. She told me one time that all these issues were under the surface and that if our relationship was going to risk destruction she might as well bring them up.

As I've thought about it more, and reading these comments, it looks like she, and my/our therapist, are trying to do standard marriage counseling BEFORE fulling resolving the betrayal. This could be why I feel like it's blame shifting. Either way it's not helpful, and needs to stop. Actually it's more than not helpful, it's compounding my pain.

I have written a document of what I expect out of therapy. I can post it if you want to read it (it's three pages long), and now I have to decide if I give it to my current therapist, or pick another one.

Give the doc to your therapist, see what he says.

The way I see it, when infidelity occurs it essentially ends a marriage. I often told my exww that infidelity is a deal-breaker. She ended our marriage. She protested often and vehemently that this wasn't true, that it was not her intention. It didn't matter to me that she was either incapable or unwilling to validate my thoughts and feelings in this regard. I didn't need her to validate it. For me, it was simply a matter of fact.

Nothing else mattered. Not our entire relationship, what we'd done together, our wedding, marital issues... nothing. All of it was irrelevant, as if it had simply been erased.

(The singular exception, of course, was our son.)

For the first couple of months, she tried to shift the blame. When she found out I was looking for a divorce attorney, that shit stopped rather quickly. There were, upon occasion, hints that she was still shifting some of the blame, but I adamantly refused to accept it. That remains true to this day.

Generally speaking, I encourage every betrayed spouse in R to get as comfortable as possible with divorce. Reconciliation is never a foregone conclusion. Some WS are truly capable and willing to put in the work that reconciliation requires. Some aren't. And when it does come to R the bulk of the work falls squarely on the shoulders of the cheater.

Having one foot out of the door will certainly get a WS's attention. I'm not suggesting that you use this threat as a tactic or bluff; you have to be willing to follow through with it.

I don't sense that this is true for you. It seems to me that you're reaching for some other way to make R work for you without making it clear to your wife that she's the one who broke the deal and she is responsible for becoming worthy of a second chance.

Unless she's willing and able to own and fix her shit, reconciliation is never going to happen.

I asked the staff to bump this thread in W forum. I highly suggest you read it.

"reframing needs and validation" by Maia

As I've thought about it more, and reading these comments, it looks like she, and my/our therapist, are trying to do standard marriage counseling BEFORE fulling resolving the betrayal. This could be why I feel like it's blame shifting. Either way it's not helpful, and needs to stop. Actually it's more than not helpful, it's compounding my pain.

This is pretty common when couples start MC without properly addressing the infidelity and engaging in the proper IC before hand. The weird thing here is your IC seemed to be performing more as an MC even before you brought your wife to him. Maybe since you expressed you needed "help with R"?

We fell into this shortly after D-Day. Both with our MC and my WW "blaming the marriage". I even fell into that trap myself. My wife had multiple affairs over the first 20 years of our marriage. I could somewhat "understand" affairs during the first 5-6 years of our marriage because it was "bad". The later affairs boggled my mind because I thought our marriage was good and we had "made it". I had no clue there were problems in the marriage. Turns out there weren’t. She admitted the marriage was great during those later affairs. So how then did the "bad marriage cause her to cheat"?

We never talked about the "bad things" in our marriage early on and when I asked after D-Day it was the usual. She wasn’t happy, I only showed attention when I wanted sex, etc. At the risk of "muddying the waters" after D-Day between "marriage issues" and "why did she cheat", we sat down and went through the entire timeline of our relationship (including dating, this was 41 years at D-Day).

The "TL/DR" version of that (it took weeks to slog through) is she initially cheated because she felt she "didn’t get to sow her oats" (we started dating at 18 and she was a virgin). She was working with a "party crowd" and wanted to participate. Problem was she was married and pregnant. Ultimately, she didn’t let that stop her. Afterward she admitted "I knew it was wrong but I didn’t feel that bad. I felt I deserved it. It was fun and I decided I was going to do it again". As we put the timeline together, her first cheat was in March of 1985. Our "marital problems" started in April of 1985. After the fact. As we went through the remaining timeline of her affairs in the first 5-6 years of our marriage, we recognized a pattern. She would cheat, or at least start an inappropriate relationship THEN the marriage would become rocky. Due to her. She had the largest epiphany of our post D-Day journey…… "Holy shit! I sabotaged the marriage in order to justify the cheating in my mind". Ding, ding, ding.

Our "bad marriage" didn’t make her cheat. Her cheating made our marriage bad. I’ve seen this pop up many times since I’ve become a student of infidelity. Especially in WW/BH scenarios.

I wholeheartedly agree with the approach "address the infidelity first, THEN (if you BOTH want to R) address "the marriage". But in my case, addressing the "bad marriage" fallacy head-on when trying to get to the bottom of "how and why" paid dividends.

OP, was your marriage truly bad, sabotaged by your WW or simply "revisionist history"? I’ve heard a LOT of the same things your WW is saying. I’m guessing a bit of option 2 and 3. The problem is how do you "crack that nut"? Likely with good professional help which I’m not sure your current IC/MC is equipped for.

Sorry you’re dealing with this.

[This message edited by ImaChump at 9:02 PM, Saturday, February 7th]

ImaChump

This is pretty common when couples start MC without properly addressing the infidelity and engaging in the proper IC before hand. The weird thing here is your IC seemed to be performing more as an MC even before you brought your wife to him. Maybe since you expressed you needed "help with R"?

Yes I think this is exactly what happened. When I first came to him I asked him to help me save my marriage. From then on he took that viewpoint. I appreciate that he has been focussed on that task, but I'm learning that it takes two people to do that, and wishing he had taken the "lets establish safety" first route. I'm not sure if he is capable of going that route either. Thats what I need to decide I guess before I decide if I find someone new or try to get him on board with my plan.

I wholeheartedly agree with the approach "address the infidelity first, THEN (if you BOTH want to R) address "the marriage". But in my case, addressing the "bad marriage" fallacy head-on when trying to get to the bottom of "how and why" paid dividends.

I have seriously considered going this route. Unfortunately she has been pushing for this from almost day 1. Redirecting all our conversations back to this topic. For the first six months I heard her out, not perfectly, but the best I could given the extreme pain I was in. I took a deep look believe me. She blames me for things, wants me to take responsibility for them even though I don't feel responsible or that I did anything wrong. Over and over we wen't until I finally said no more. Now it just simmers in the background for her as as anger that pops up whenever we have problems.

OP, was your marriage truly bad, sabotaged by your WW or simply "revisionist history"? I’ve heard a LOT of the same things your WW is saying. I’m guessing a bit of option 2 and 3. The problem is how do you "crack that nut"? Likely with good professional help which I’m not sure your current IC/MC is equipped for.

From my perspective our marriage was good. Sure we had struggles like anyone. But nothing bad. We almost never fought, and when we did we resolved it easily. My wife admitted that for all these years, she has been holding up a facade not telling me how she really feels because "I'm not a safe space", and that this built resentment over time until it finally blew up and she said "fuck it" and had an affair.

So on my end marriage was fine. In fact I worked really hard to provide for her and for the family enabling her to be a stay at home mom and to raise our kids like we wanted (still a good decision). I went to school full time while working full time supporting her and the kids, so I could get a degree and make more money. It was hard but I wouldn't say our marriage was bad at all.

For her apparently it was not fine but she never communicated that to me. She kept hiding and lying until she couldn't any longer. And then she wants me to take responsibility for doing things that hurt her even though she never communicated that fact to me. It's maddening.