[Dontgiveup]

Laursecan

Your counselor doesn't necessarily agree that your husband is in MLC, but thinks he is going through a maturation process right now.  That made me smile.....what exactly do many counselors think MLC is if not a process of emotional maturation?

My counselor recognized and even "diagnosed" my ex-wife's MLC.....but he thought she might get through it in a year or less.  Not so much.

I don't know if our marriage counselor believed in MLC or not.  I kind of felt sorry for the guy a couple of times.  He listened as my wife said that our marriage was not bad and that I was a great guy.......and that she wanted a divorce.  He wanted to meet with each of us individually, but that's when my wife decided she was done with counseling.

[OldPilot]

He listened as my wife said that our marriage was not bad and that I was a great guy.......and that she wanted a divorce.  He wanted to meet with each of us individually, but that's when my wife decided she was done with counseling.

DITTO, exactly what was said in my counseling sessions.
Other than making more money  I committed no other crimes against the marriage.

[growing every day]

My counselor is pro-marriage.  She listens to me and makes suggestions on how I can build a bridge to open communication between my h and me.  She doesn't necessarily agree that my H is in MLC.  She says that he is definitely in crisis and believes that, due to his drug and alcohol issues at a young age, my H never truly matured.  She feels that he is going through the maturing process now.  She believes that he will take no action regarding divorce or moving forward.  She suggests that I continue to try to build a bridge toward communication - so that, sometime, we could move toward reconciliation.  As I said, she is pro-marriage.
She has asked about this forum quite a bit.  She thought that the trip to LUX was a great idea and felt that it really helped me.

L

My therapist is not necessarily pro marriage as much as she is pro me. She does agree that my H is in a crisis that agrees with your therapist L, the he will not take any action regarding divorce or moving forward. He is too ashamed and will not admit any wrong doing. I agree! For our entire marriage I have been the problem solver and the fixer. When something needed to be done I did it.  She gets the MLC thing and says that while she is not one to put labels on things he is definitely going through "something." She does not feel that my H will come back, just based on what I have told her and what she knows of his personality, albeit through me. But she will also be the first to say "who knows."  And that is because since January we have had no real communication. And until that starts to happen nobody will know what could be.

I have an appointment withe her today and I am very glad. After my meltdown yesterday I need to talk. I did have a long conversation with my dad today that just touched my heart.  I'll post on my thread. My dad is my HERO!

[StandandDeliver]

L - I thought your trip to Lux was a great idea too - it was fab meeting you!

I guess there are as many opinions and different ideas about psychology in psychology circles as there are in normal life, although I have to mention that I have at least one friend who, in my opinion, was better than any counsellor that I saw (and I did like my last one that I had before I moved a lot!). She had read a lot of Jung and was versed in ideas such as the anima and the shadow self and was the first to identify those elements in my H's behaviour - long before I thought about MLC or found this site. Not only that she has been balanced as I have swayed back and forth between "standing" and moving on. She agrees that I should leave the door slightly ajar for H to give myself options should he ever decide to come back, but she also thinks that I should move on and move forward and be open to new possibilities so that if he ever did come back I would be making a true choice about the person he has become taking into account the new person that I have become through all of this and allowing for the fact that after a certain length of time for healing and reflection etc. there is no reason I should not be open to the possibility of a new relationship with someone who has not been such a profound disappointment in his inability to manage life (as sympathetic as I am to MLC, unlike many MLCer's on here, my H had a pretty charmed life: born with committed parents, no real money problems, emotional and financial support - the crisis seems to have been triggered by the fact that he felt he had surpassed his expectations for his own success and didn't know what his goals for the rest of his life should be. The only "problem" stemming from his childhood really seems to be that at times through his childhood, adolescence and, maybe most importantly, in adulthood he allowed his parents to influence his decisions every step of the way - hadn't cut the apron strings if you see what I mean, so being grown up was an act for him, but he couldn't actually hack having the grown up responsibilies cos he never learned to completely stand on his own two feet. Still, as I am a person from a childhood filled with mental illness and dysfunction who has developed the ability to function nonetheless, I have to say I find his descent into MLC fairly self-indlugent, but perhaps the fact that I disassociated myself from my parents and their decisions  early on as they were usually poor, and as someone who did rebel as a teenager and get a bit wild at times, I was a bit better prepared for adulthood?) Ahhh, MLC, I just don't know what to make of it all...

[StandandDeliver]

Oooh, or maybe the problem for H was about not actually ever having any real problems to contend with, so when life got complicated (we didn't have any major problems, but our life was quite complicated and stressful - lots of balls in the air, international lifestyle and 2 very young children). He always knew his parents would bail him out of any difficult situation and even now they are trying to make everything as easy for him as they can - I am not sure whether this helps or hinders or makes very little difference in MLC. OK I am just speculating now and I should be sleeping!!
Goodnight and thanks for the thread RCR, I'll be interested to see other LBS experiences of therapy as it progresses...

[readytofixmyselffirst]

The more I have been reading and looking at counseling, the more I realize that you just don't pick someone because they offer counseling just as you would not go to the yellow pages to select someone for brain surgery.

As counseling has evolved, there are two forms of marriage counseling that are deemed more effective than most. I will write about one then I will post later on the second. The point is that just to go to a counselor and not understand the type of therapy they are going to use is going to confuse you and may actually make things worse.

Traditional counseling has focused on communication skills. Unfortunately, this tends to create two people who can be even better at fighting than before.

EFT therapy is more than just talking about the problem. EFT is about deescalation of the crisis, creating a safe zone for discussions about feelings, and then repairing damaged emotional bonds between the couple. It is based more on research on adult love and childhood bonds. It is not a long term counseling (six months to a year) or 20-40 hours of counseling. However, research has shown that it is 70% effective in improving a relationship as compared to 35% for traditional counseling.

EFT is not simple. The counselor notes body language, listens for issues of trust, feelings, and willingness by both parties to discuss issues. The counselor slowly opens the wounds when she or he determines that the couple is ready to take the next step and feels safe to discuss issues. The goal is to emotionally reconnect the couple not just get them talking to each other again.

In my three counseling sessions, my wife has made three significant shifts, one she said, "I am not going to focus on the past." HUGE for someone who has clutched on to issues that are years and years old. The second came because she had requested to talk to the counselor in private then changed her mind. When asked why she said, "I think that we should not be keeping secrets or make it seem that we are ganging up on Ready. I also know that I need to learn to speak up to Ready." Great! Something I have been desiring for years. If I make you sad, let me know. Smack me on my but and say, "That was not good." Don't suffer in silence while I go on committing the same crime again and again. Finally, she said, "If I did not love Ready, I would not be here." Huge strides in a matter of a few hours of talking.

However, EFT and any other form of therapy is not going to work if the both parties are not ready to change. I also think that you need to work on healing yourself before you can heal your marriage. Then you will be ready to do YOUR work on the marriage and be able to complete change on YOUR part so that you can rebuild yourself and your marriage. Also, EFT and many other therapies tend to lose impact over time. I have realized that we will need to see counseling or weekends from now on to continue to refresh ourselves and keep our marriage intact and well-tended.


I will research and post on the other method. Like EFT, it is a very complex behavior model. It has the same results as EFT, but longitudinal studies indicate it has more lasting impact. Have a good day and remember to do one nice thing for you. Rest, eat well, and exercise. The MLCer at home can be really taxing and draining. Detach from his drama and ignore most if not all of his behaviors.

***Added note, the therapist key in the first sessions is to revisit and validate the emotional bonds that have been damaged. It is then to allow the interactions between both parties to be reconnected. This calming moment is critical to the reconnection process. This allows both to se each other in a vulnerable spot and then reach out to each other to connect emotionally. Once again, EFT is not a simple process to explain and as I research more information, I will post more.

[Trustandlove]

Ready,

I'm going to put huge disclaimers on what I'm about to write, and say that in NO WAY am I trying to undermine the progress that you have made. 

What you say about EFT seems very different from what I read about it....  what I read causes alarm bells to ring.  What I read is more along the lines of "this is the cure for everything", which we all know can never be the case.    Also, I've not read anything that uses EFT in the context of relationship counselling; what is done here seems to be more on social phobias, etc.  But it does seem to attract the new age "this is it" crowd, as well as costing huge amounts of money..... 

I am particularly glad that in your case it is getting your wife to open up, because at the end of the day that is what counts.

Now I will also admit to  my own particular bias here -- in the 2 years before H left we were both going to see an alternative practitioner whose practice sounds fairly similar to what I read; they, too, claimed to bring people closer together by encouraging you to feel all your feelings, etc.  But the effect on us was disastrous (OK, not helped by the practitioner herself turning into the mate predator alienator...).  Also financially disastrous, as they charged huge amounts of money and H went on several weekend courses, some costing thousands.  And every time I said it didn't seem to be working they just said that the answer was to do more (and pay more...). 

I haven't named this therapy; partially to not identify myself (well, I've probably done that anyway), and partially in case others are very into it and it would cause offence -- because I do know people who swear by it.   

But I will do so if people think it is worthwhile. 

I later researched it a lot (after BD) and found that it falls into the category of "therapy cult".    But of course, those who swear by it are adamant that it is nothing of the kind....   Kind of like scientology members insisting their organisation isn't one. 

So that obviously colours my thinking about this.

Gotta run; this is an interesting topic. 

[LettingGo]

Ok, I'll play!

After BD, I Googled up something like "How to get my husband back" ( I know, pathetic!) and found Dr. Bob Huizenga and his "Break Free From the Affair" E-book. I paid the very fair fee and downloaded his materials which are excellent... for reconciliation. I still have them and even had a free phone coaching session with him that was very good. I subscribed to his email newsletter and the materials are excellent.... free webinars, etc. However, I knew there was something else going on.

I also had a phone coaching session with a counselor through my workplace... she was warm and kind and non-judgemental and it made me feel better and encouraged me to keep looking for more information...

Then, I found this website and began lurking.... I finally began posting, and then requested coaching from RCR, which was the MOST valuable for teaching me how to accept this MLC process while I was still new... I consider her coaching to have resonated with me as far as communicating with my husband, and he didn't have to be there!

I began attending Al Anon which reinforced all of the information I was getting here....I started posting here and following other people's threads. It was so helpful to have a place to go where there were others like me. I considered this my therapy.

At the same time, my best friend was talking about my sitch with HER therapist, and believe me, they had plenty of opinions on what I was doing wrong... some valid, but without any acknowledgement of MLC. My Mother tried to become my "therapist", as is her M.O., but THIS time, I respectfully asked her to treat me as an adult and allow me to solve my own problems.

My daughter sees a counselor, and in the short time I had to give her an account of what is going on, her eyebrows flew up and she said "so, he's not living with you, but he's never really moved out?" Yep.  She didn't say anything about that as her job is to counsel my daughter, but she did seem like she "got it" that this isn't a normal separation leading to divorce situation. I mentioned that I refer to my husband as being depressed and I know that she discussed with my daughter how depression causes people to act really selfish and be unable to think outside of themselves. So, I like her and would see her if I wanted to.

In the future, I expect to attend MC with my husband.... but will only accept a Marriage Friendly therapist.... That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Dear T&L,

I am also aware of EFT on phobias. However, this is an entirely different approach to therapy. It is meant to be short term and the therapist is the catalyst to exploring feelings. It is not about just feelings, but slowly peeling back to emotional sore spots to repair the emotional bonds that have been broken during the relationship.

Of course, I think EFT is good to bring the relationship from the brink, but that no matter what therapy is used, the couple needs to return back to therapy after a period of time to refresh and renew those bonds.

Also, the bottom line is regardless of method, it is the combination of therapist, couple, and the commitment of the couples to restoring the marriage.

No issues with the post.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

A good therapist never tells the client what to do. My IC therapist helped me with communication, for example if I wanted to say something to my wife, she would help me phrase the question. However, she never told me what to do with my relationship. Only that when I reached the point that I was done, then I would be done.

She exited me from therapy saying that the problem is no longer with me. That the work we set out to do had been accomplished.

If anyone who has a therapist that insists on telling you the solution to your problem, then they are shortcutting the entire process of being a catalyst of enabling the patient to identify the issues and then come up with their own solutions to the problem that they can live with.

Just my two cents...