How long to wait to get to counseling after affair discovery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

If you’re the guy on the Wife Seduction thread —

Your wife is pretty checked out of the marriage. Either she is angry at you or she doesn’t feel her needs are being met at all.

Why do you think she had an affair after you had one? Is that like revenge? Or has your marriage just been going downhill for a long time?

Either way, you need to take it one step at a time. The counseling at this point is diagnostic. What is wrong with the marriage? You need to have help to get clear on that. It’s too early to tell if you can repair or not. But this state of things is not healthy. You know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You've got it all wrong. You're working on the marriage, he's working on not paying for a divorce. Why would he be honest with a therapist when he happily lied to his wife for over a year? You don't matter to him anymore. Act accordingly.

OP, with the genders reversed it's even worse...sorry. The social stigma of a woman cheating and causing a marriage to end is much greater than it is for a man. She is 100% going through the motions to save face. As a woman, run as fast as you can. I wouldn't want her being your medical power of attorney right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is this you?

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/987253.page#25788963

Your wife’s affair is probably not unrelated to yours. You both need marital counseling to get to the root of this and figure out what is going on. Maybe you both want to move on from this relationship. Or maybe you just lack the tools to communicate.

OP if that is you — counseling should help you both take responsibility for the state of the relationship. The way you worded your OP it sounds like you think she’s to blame and you’ve been great. I wonder what her story is, especially if you had an affair. You will need to own your part. What’s the alternative, anyway?

If you’re thinking of holding out on counseling now and making her suffer, I don’t think that will be a great plan. You are dealing with a lot of damage already to the relationship. The most important thing is to make sure that doesn’t keep going, even if you get divorced you don’t want it hostile if there are kids involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

But you had an emotional affair first, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

But you had an emotional affair first, right?

Yes, mine was first. I had a difficult time ending it, the person was very important to me, it started and ended within six months and upon its conclusion I dove headfirst into therapy. I’ve tried my best to clean up my side of the street and I’ve spent the past year and a half doing everything I can but never understood why there was a chasm between us until figured it all out. There was a three month gap between when my EA ended and hers began,


I messed up and if I deserve the beating for the dissolution of my marriage I’m fine to take it, i’m not looking to win, I don’t want her to admit her affair was worse, I really don’t care, I just want to know the best way through. We are only seven days out from discovery and she is very enthusiastic about therapy and repair but I feel like I’m about to go for a car ride with someone who just woke up from general anesthesia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

But you had an emotional affair first, right?

Yes, mine was first. I had a difficult time ending it, the person was very important to me, it started and ended within six months and upon its conclusion I dove headfirst into therapy. I’ve tried my best to clean up my side of the street and I’ve spent the past year and a half doing everything I can but never understood why there was a chasm between us until figured it all out. There was a three month gap between when my EA ended and hers began,


I messed up and if I deserve the beating for the dissolution of my marriage I’m fine to take it, i’m not looking to win, I don’t want her to admit her affair was worse, I really don’t care, I just want to know the best way through. We are only seven days out from discovery and she is very enthusiastic about therapy and repair but I feel like I’m about to go for a car ride with someone who just woke up from general anesthesia.

DP

If you have a good counselor they will help you sort through whatever the initial presentation/ mask is and get to the deeper issues.

It doesn’t matter how either of you present, there must be some deeper issues underlying this covert behavior on both of your parts (plus whatever dynamics are in the marriage). It’s probably in your best interest to go to a very experienced and good counselor and get to the bottom of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

But you had an emotional affair first, right?

Yes, mine was first. I had a difficult time ending it, the person was very important to me, it started and ended within six months and upon its conclusion I dove headfirst into therapy. I’ve tried my best to clean up my side of the street and I’ve spent the past year and a half doing everything I can but never understood why there was a chasm between us until figured it all out. There was a three month gap between when my EA ended and hers began,


I messed up and if I deserve the beating for the dissolution of my marriage I’m fine to take it, i’m not looking to win, I don’t want her to admit her affair was worse, I really don’t care, I just want to know the best way through. We are only seven days out from discovery and she is very enthusiastic about therapy and repair but I feel like I’m about to go for a car ride with someone who just woke up from general anesthesia.

Too late. You’re already in the car and you have been for some time.

Both of you had EAs. Why are you both avoiding the reality of yourselves, each other, the relationship? Are you afraid of losing the marriage if you admit how much pain you’re in? The only way out here is through. There may be a lot of grief or anger or resentment to unpack, but you need to start sorting through this to see where you stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here; I didn’t think it would matter but some of you have the genders reversed; my wife is the one who had the 12-15 month emotional affair.

Any change to the advice?

But you had an emotional affair first, right?

Yes, mine was first. I had a difficult time ending it, the person was very important to me, it started and ended within six months and upon its conclusion I dove headfirst into therapy. I’ve tried my best to clean up my side of the street and I’ve spent the past year and a half doing everything I can but never understood why there was a chasm between us until figured it all out. There was a three month gap between when my EA ended and hers began,


I messed up and if I deserve the beating for the dissolution of my marriage I’m fine to take it, i’m not looking to win, I don’t want her to admit her affair was worse, I really don’t care, I just want to know the best way through. We are only seven days out from discovery and she is very enthusiastic about therapy and repair but I feel like I’m about to go for a car ride with someone who just woke up from general anesthesia.

DP

If you have a good counselor they will help you sort through whatever the initial presentation/ mask is and get to the deeper issues.

It doesn’t matter how either of you present, there must be some deeper issues underlying this covert behavior on both of your parts (plus whatever dynamics are in the marriage). It’s probably in your best interest to go to a very experienced and good counselor and get to the bottom of this.

Seems that the root cause is I chose work instead of her on one too many occasions, thought I was doing the right thing by providing but choosing play at the wrong times was just as damaging.

[Anonymous]

You could waste a lot of time, energy and money in marriage counseling if the person having the affair is still in contact with the AP.

OP, are you sure that the affair is truly over? Emotional ties that involve declarations of love are really difficult to break. There will be a lengthy grieving process.

[Anonymous]

OP- the term applicable to your relationship is "mad hatter". There's a lot of nuances to mad hatter situations that need to be tended to. It's more in depth than one partner stepping out and takes longer to truly process and rebuild if possible.

If you post in this thread on SI, you'll get MUCH more specifically targeted responses from those that have been there. Good luck.

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/649199/madhatters-only-part-2/

[Anonymous]

As someone who has dealt with cheating in a marriage, marital counseling is not good until and unless both of you are going to individual counseling.

Marital counselors often come at marital problems as joint problems: that each of you contributed, equally or otherwise, to the state of the marriage. But, when cheating is involved you will never feel that you are close to 50% "to blame" for where the marriage is and are responsible for 50% of the work needing to be done to right the ship. Your marital therapy sessions will likely be upsetting, challenging, and unproductive. Particularly if your spouse is not 100% going to own up to what they did.

I advise you each to pursue individual counseling for a few months then start marital counseling (while continuing IC). Good luck.

[Anonymous]

So the general consensus in the affair recovery world is to do individual counseling first, but you are dealing with a mad hatter situation, and so I think that makes a difference. I would say if you're both willing to do it now, then do it now. As you yourself know, your wife's feelings for the affair partner are just that . . . feelings. You can be attracted and attached to another person while also choosing to work on your marriage. Remember, the grass is greenest where you water it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the general consensus in the affair recovery world is to do individual counseling first, but you are dealing with a mad hatter situation, and so I think that makes a difference. I would say if you're both willing to do it now, then do it now. As you yourself know, your wife's feelings for the affair partner are just that . . . feelings. You can be attracted and attached to another person while also choosing to work on your marriage. Remember, the grass is greenest where you water it.

Wife has been in weekly therapy for 3.5 years but only disclosed the affair a few days ago, I’m sure she was working on other things but what a waste of time to not disclose something so major to the one person you’re paying to tell everything to.

I had been in weekly therapy for about 18 months and then dropped back to once every three weeks as we kind of ran out of things to talk about, I’ll be back to weekly for a little while now I’m sure.

I’m all in on the hard work but at this point I feel like she needs to be the one to move the process along, we have some information on EFT and Gottman, I am fine with either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the general consensus in the affair recovery world is to do individual counseling first, but you are dealing with a mad hatter situation, and so I think that makes a difference. I would say if you're both willing to do it now, then do it now. As you yourself know, your wife's feelings for the affair partner are just that . . . feelings. You can be attracted and attached to another person while also choosing to work on your marriage. Remember, the grass is greenest where you water it.

Wife has been in weekly therapy for 3.5 years but only disclosed the affair a few days ago, I’m sure she was working on other things but what a waste of time to not disclose something so major to the one person you’re paying to tell everything to.

I had been in weekly therapy for about 18 months and then dropped back to once every three weeks as we kind of ran out of things to talk about, I’ll be back to weekly for a little while now I’m sure.

I’m all in on the hard work but at this point I feel like she needs to be the one to move the process along, we have some information on EFT and Gottman, I am fine with either.

Why does she have to be the one?