I still think, Riven, when all is said and done, your husband's biggest issue is his alcoholism.
If he drinks as much as you say he does, frankly, he hasn't been sober in a while.
I would concentrate on getting him sober.
No one of course recommends rug-sweeping the cheating, or allowing him an out due to alocholism.
But why not, given that it was an ONS when he was very drunk, give him the chance to prove he can be a different person without the drinking.
This is just my view. He also had a DUI. The DUI is just as bad or worse than the ONS. They were both done while drunk. In the one case, he could have killed a bunch of other people. In the other, he wounded you deeply. But their common link is alcohol.
I hope you don't misunderstand me, but it seems you've channeled all of the rage for all of his many betrayals to the marriage via alcohol into the ONS. But he has such larger, larger issues.
You desparately need a support group for spouses of alcoholics. Most people on this board just are ill-equipped to give advice in that context, me included. Standard advice for infidelity and BSs etc. is a poor fit for him and for you--that is just my gut sense from everything you've told me.
Thanks iheartlife. He's been sober for 8 weeks now. Urges come he says but he knows that the bigger picture is more important. I personally feel like we've made more ground in the last three days or so than all 8 weeks with the MC. That's the point where I said this isn't working, listen to me, not her. Because when he was listening to her, he'd let her override me. She'd tell him not to do stuff, and when I asked him to he wouldn't because she said not to. I'm not talking about drawing pictures about what happened, I'm talking about reassuring me he loves me and this wasn't my fault, telling me things will work out and he's sorry when I'm upset ( not re-creating, just upset about things ).
I'm sorry no matter how you look at it, that's a bad MC. That's the same box as telling their kids that it's their fault you're getting a divorce. The same kind of person who says it was someone's fault they got raped because obviously they wanted it to happen since they were walking down a street by a bar.
You don't have to justify switching MC's to people on this board. Both spouses have to feel the MC is helping and not hurting the marriage.
Now if you were saying you won't go to MC at all, or you were saying this is your third MC and dang it all every MC is a loser, that would be something else.
We know for a fact your husband is an alcoholic. You don't even have to say anything else. Even if you were a raving lunatic it wouldn't justify alcoholism or an affair. The appropriate response to a failed marriage is always to seek counseling and then divorce for anything short of abuse.
Go put your energy into finding a good counselor for marriages wounded by alcoholism.
I never said you had BPD, that was your former counselors opinion. The site I linked deals with most personality disorders, not just BPD, and even if you do not have the disorder, there is no harm from learning about it and the symptoms that go along with it.
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Originally Posted by Riven
You have no idea if I'm quick to lash out or not. Is that based on me defending my position?
No, its based on the language and tone of the posts you make, the situation you've recently gone through, and your subsequent near breakdown.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Riven
The longer we went the worse it got. My husband doesn't like counselors, this was the only one who could get us in without waiting 3 weeks ( looking back probably a bad sign...) and was ETHL certified, or so we were told, she's actually not done with her certification we found out later. I let him pick so he could be comfortable with the one we used. I can assure you that if we changed every two weeks, he would not have been able to even deal with that at the time.
Even though MC is a must when it comes to R and repairing a relationship, it is sometimes best to address other issues first. If your H's substance abuse problem was so bad that he could not deal with going through a few counselors until one was found that suited both of you, perhaps rehab, or an addiction counselor would have been a better first choice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Riven
I accepted responsibility when I stopped going. I am a strong person, an intelligent person, but any person who's entire world shattered in one night is vulnerable, they want to believe the promises, especially when they are made by people who are supposed to help you. Did she do any good? Yes, there were good parts, good things that we learned. But the bad outweighs the good by far. By telling a husband not to talk to his wife when she's upset... what exactly is that going to achieve other than alienation? Telling a BS that they need to fix thing all on their own? That will only do the same thing, separate them from the WS when they need reassured that they are wanted and loved.
If your H's mental health/substance abuse issues prevent him from processing what you are going through properly, discussing it, right at that very moment, may do more harm than good. If you are at a 6 out of 10 in terms of mental health, and he is a 2 out of 10, it is unlikely that he would relate, understand, or be truly sympathetic to your issues anyway. So perhaps your counselor saw that you were in need of healing, and knew your H was incapable of helping you with it at that moment.
Or maybe she's a bad counselor who doesn't care. The most "caring" we saw out of her was when we said we were going to stop paying her over $400 a week for her "services"...
Again you don't know anything about the situation.
All I've basically heard from this thread was people saying I don't want to hear the stuff the counselor says even though it's true. Yet there is only one person in this thread other than me who knows most of the information.
Yes, my husband has problems. His substance abuse issue is NOT at home, it was away from home. Putting him in inpatient would do more harm to him than having him be at home doing outpatient. He has other things that you guys aren't aware of.
I don't have any other major mental health issues to deal with first. And he has other things that need addressed, but nothing that can't be worked on while SAVING the marriage. I am angry in my OP, because we were betrayed and abused by someone we were supposed to be able to trust.
I understand Paladin what you're saying about him not understanding, but in the end he can't anyway because he's never been in my position. You don't need to understand physics to play on a teeter totter... you don't need to understand the details to know your wife is hurting and needs to know she's loved and desired. It's not that he was unable to, it's that she was telling him not to. He even said that. Since he stopped listening to her, and following his own intuition, I've been able to sleep, haven't even had a minor break down, and I have felt loved. I loved him for the person he was for 10 years, she told him not to be that person. Even with his wrong words trying to say the right thing, at least he was saying something.
In reality I AM the dumb one here, for letting you guys pull me into this dumb pissing match over something you guys no nothing about. I'm not saying about counseling or cheating. I'm saying my life, my husband's life, and our marriage.
Support is a two way street, if you feel like the advice/comments you are getting from people who take time out of their lives to post in your threads for no other reason than to perhaps provide a point of view that you dont see or have and help you salvage your relationship, maybe it's time to stop posting?
Your replies are full of comments like "you dont know anything about me or my situation," even though it's clear that we know the things you choose to share since most of us take time to read what you are posting. Comments like that make it seem like you already know everything, and obviously know everything there is to know better than anyone else posting, so I guess I'm wondering why you chose to post anything in the first place. You also say "you don't need to understand physics to play on a teeter totter" and in the very same sentence you say that your H will never understand you, but should somehow understand you. You really cant have it both ways, people can either understand without knowing the details, or they cant.
Just as no one forced you to attend your sessions with a crappy counselor, no one is forcing you to take any advice posted on this forum. I really do hope things improve for you, all that anger and bitterness is bad for the soul.
Do no counselors take emergency calls anymore for their patients?
Many don't and many can't. I am not allowed after hours to do this. I have worked in mental health for quite a while and honestly I do not know one psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, nurse, counselor who are allowed to take emergency calls unless they were on the clock to do so. Most will refer to a hospital crisis line, 911 ext. This is common protocol in both governement and private practise.
It didn't used to be be this way. My father was a psychiatrist for decades until he retired in the early 1990s. He took phone calls 24/7. He did not hide behind work rules.
He lived for his patients well being.
Typically, the agitated ones who called in the middle of the night seemed to be testing him. He worked on their insecurity and those calls would decrease--until the next patient.
And yeah, he would be getting emergency services as warranted.
My physician's have both checked in on me to make sure I was okay randomly because they know what's going on. When my ENT did my sinus surgery, my primary came by the hospital each day even though he wasn't my attending.
As for my husband understanding me, I never said he needed to. I have asked him for what I needed from him. I've told him plainly, if I'm upset I need you to hold me and make me feel like you care, but she was telling him not to. I have not had one freak out since we got rid of her, but today when I called a referred MC and they were full they recommended her and yes I become upset with the thought of even seeing her again.
P, I have the most anger towards myself for not listening to myself more, instead I accepted that she told me was normal, even though everything I read contradicted it... that people were expected to forgive their spouse 2 weeks after something like this, that they weren't supposed to be hurt or upset that something like this happened. The funny thing is someone on here, I believe you, said "my tone", well your tone sounds holier-than-thou and know it all to me, is that how you mean it? Everything is in the way that you read it.
Seems to me like you want to pick a fight, I have enough crap going on in my life without adding drama to it. You said you were not interested in getting into a pissing contest, yet you seem to be going out of your way to antagonize. If you have some concrete examples of what I said that made you feel like I have a "holier than thou know it all attitude" I'd appreciate you pointing them out so I can avoid using that type of language when posting in your threads (assuming I continue to do so).
As far as tone goes, I agree, text is a poor medium for conveying tone, but words do matter, and certain words fall into the "angry, bitter, combative" camp more than others.
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Originally Posted by Riven
...what you're saying about him not understanding, but in the end he can't anyway because he's never been in my position. You don't need to understand physics to play on a teeter totter... you don't need to understand the details to know your wife is hurting and needs to know she's loved and desired....
I think this is why we are on different pages about understanding. I think that in order to know that you want and need to be comforted, desired, and loved he has to understand what he did and why you are hurting in the first place. If he feels you shouldn't be hurt, or can't understand why you are, he may not be able to give you what you want and are asking for.
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Re: Terrible MC... - Rant - 
