[Hmmm]

Mine said he was like a child testing the ice to see if it would break. Stamping and jumping on it to see if it would bear his weight. This was two years ago. I'm strong, he knows that but has no interest in me other than as the mother of his kids.
X

[Songanddance]

My therapist just dealt with me and my fears/worries/panic attacks etc...

At no point did she offer any comment about my H or crisis. She said that her job was to help recognise how I was reacting/behaving and turn it into responses.

At first I wanted her to comment but she refused as she was not a marriage therapist and I was her client not H.

Now I am so glad she did that - I have used the strategies to help me and written about them in my earlier threads. Using those strategies helped me detach and learn how to handle myself when in communication with H. 
That is what is important. 

[CallanG]

My IC spoke to me on the phone for over an hour before we even met , she just got the confusion that I had , she got the complete sense of shock . She just got it , she was the first IC who I spoke to who did not say I don't want to talk about your H she understood that at that time I needed to talk about H .

She had counselled Men and Women in Crisis and she had also counselled people like me who were left to deal with the fall out and at the time .

She was a person based counselor so she let me talk about whatever I wanted to talk about which to start with was H , I needed to talk to someone neutral about H and she was the perfect ear everyone else around me was to close to the situation .

In time she helped me understand myself , she helped to love and accept who I am .

When I looked for an IC I was not looking for one who understood MLC , I had no idea what I was looking for I just knew that I needed help . Mine does not list MLC on her website , but she has experience in all of the the issues that can lead to the perfect storm that is MLC .

Counselling is such an individual thing and we all need different things in an counselor but the one thing I have learned is that it will only work if your want it to , it will only work if you are wiling to let it . 

Callan

 

[UKStander]

I had two counsellors. The first wouldn't talk about H much, all she seemed to want to listen to the latest drama - and in the months after BD there was much, of course. She used to get angry with H, and at one point I said to her - 'you're getting angry, that's good!'  and we both laughed. She was unfortunately anti-male, though (she'd worked in a male prison at one point and clashed with the very macho management? something like that - she even told me about it), and I didn't get a lot out of her sessions, except for chance to regularly vent. She came recommended by a friend which is why I saw her.

The second was better and WAS willing to talk about H, though she had no real understanding of the difficult convergence of things that produce MLC. She knew about the individual parts of course, eg depression, leaving emotions buried, control as a defense mechansim. I liked her impartiality. She even asked me for a book on Midlife. She helped more than the first one, though we went deep into my childhood (as they like to do sometimes) and found very little that I didn't already know. A few more tears were shed, which may have helped, but it didn't really assist with living through mlc at all. That's been a journey that ONLY this site and my lbs friends have been able to help with (plus Jed Diamond, of course, who I contacted right at the beginning. He had an MLC himself, so he knew... and he could put it into psychological/biological context - priceless).

For me, it would have to be someone willing to talk about H. That was what I needed to sort out in my head - WHY he was behaving so oddly. The problem was never me. Taking my psyche apart was a red herring, in my view. Though it's always good to empty the psychological closets and see what's in there. And I always quite enjoy a mental spring clean.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

Mine has told me several times that the wrong person is in therapy and that she wishes she could spend some time working with my wife.

And she gets it. She said at the very beginning that it must have been like getting hit by a bus. She was right, except the bus keeps returning. I think she gets that part now, too.

After my session yesterday we walked out to the waiting room and she saw that her next client wasn't there so she asked me to do her a favor. She's receiving a reward today for Social Worker of the Year ans she asked me if I would listen to her acceptance speech and give her some feedback. That was nice. I got to hear about her background and all of the people who influenced her. I mention this to illustrate that she doesn't treat me like some crazy person. She really seems to respect me and my stand.

[Thunder]

The only thing that sticks in my head was when I was leaving my counselors office for the last time I said to him...do you believe in MidLife crisis and his answer was...how do you think I got this job?

We both smiled.  Apparently he had been through it himself.  I knew he understood all along.

[Medusa]

Although my IC was remarkable at helping me understand what had happened, I think the most profound thing she told me is that people like STBX are like rebellious teenagers who push every boundary they meet. They look at us like their mother--we are supposed to give them unconditional love no matter what. While that it certainly one of the tenets of HS, what we as LBSs have to remember is that we are not their mother and that even mothers have lines. For whatever reason, when she told me STBX likely views me as a mother, I was able to finish letting go. The only people I want to be a mother to are D23 and S21.

Another thing that really hit home with me is that people in that deep of a depression are incapable of empathy and are entirely me-focused (like I didn't know that, right?). It was the way she described it that made that knowledge sink in to where I no longer react to whatever he does.

The last thing that stayed with me was her telling me how OW often work: they stay on best behavior until they get the ring. Only then do they begin to drop their guard. The way she put it to me in that particular session was, "I wouldn't be surprised if she has never farted in front of your husband". Yes, it was funny, but I when I thought about it, I agreed with my IC. These women have to project themselves as some kind of perfect being because they know they aren't.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

I agree. This is why they typically move so quickly, from first date to living together to married as soon as possible. It takes a lot out of them to act concerned and loving when that's not their true nature.

That's why I'm dragging my feet on the divorce but I think my wife may have already figured him out and that's why she doesn't seem to be committed to him but instead acts like she's just staying there.

[Absolutely Fabulous]

Saw my new therapist along with the family one today. They both agreed that I needed to have a life, and that it would be healthy for me to get rolling on the taking better care of me front.

They both told me that he has way to much control/power over me financially and that I need to start making some financial headway. Fast. They are both LBSers. Family therapist is male. My IC is female.

They both explained that he's not going to stop his antics until he gets that I'm done, and not coming back. It could take a while, but they both assured me that it would eventually stop.

[Lane]

My IC (whom is really great) started therapy by teaching me skills and the methodology (like learning to play tennis) on how to cope with the "reality gap" between the reality I want (and knew), and the reality that is delivered to me with my H's MLC. 

Now that she sees that I am progressing well with my coping, she has started to focus on helping me try to better understand H and his MLC.  She agrees that the more I understand "what is happening to H", the easier it will be for me to accept the new reality. This exercise is of course not the same as H going to therapy, and analyzing him (through my eyes) is really to help me (not H).  Here is what we did in the last two sessions - happy to share further reading materials.

Attachment Types.  The first thing my IC wanted to identify was our attachment styles - here is a test I found online: http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl.  See here for short explanations on the different styles and their impact on relationships: http://www.psychalive.org/category/attachment-style/ and https://jebkinnison.com/bad-boyfriends-the-book/type-dismissive-avoidant/.  She asked me to answer the questions positioning myself at a time (i) before I met my H (my natural style) and (ii) 6-12 months before BD (to see how his style impacted my natural sense of security).  She asked me to do the same for H, as best I could, and to survey his old friend/family for the time before he met me. 

It was very revealing.  In my case, H was clearly very Avoidant/Dismissive before he met me, and became more Secure when he met me (probably as secure as he could have gotten), because I am very Secure and I figured out intuitively from the start that I needed to give him lots of space and freedom, while being supportive and emotionally available.   Summarily, a person with Avoidant/Dismissive attachment fears intimacy and rejection, and copes with this fear by training themselves to not need to attach or connect with anyone.  She suspects that once he shut me out and shut down that source of emotional security, he reverted back to his natural attachment style of very Avoidant/Dismissive, which is where he is most comfortable to weather his existential crisis - or vice versa. 

This reassures me that I did the right thing all these years by giving him space instead of trying to demand more intimacy and forcing him out of his cave... Maybe this was the maximum amount of emotional connection that he could have sustained (until he deals with his childhood baggage).  Maybe he ran away to be alone, to not have to need me, nor for me to need him.  This may also explain why he ran away even if there is no OW.

Schema Therapy.  The school of psychology I am workinh on is called Schema Therapy; the forefront of that school is Jeffrey Young see http://www.schematherapy.com/.  I read his easiest book "Reinventing your Life", and it helped me identify the Schema (i.e., the warped filters through which we interpret information and act) that was controlling my life (and that of H) and how to work on neutralizing them to live a more authentic life. 

We are all "warped" one way or another, and we kind of have hints and impressions that we are warped, but may not have consciously realized or acknowledge the warping or its impact on our lives.  Very quickly, my warped filters were named and I understood how influential they were on my way of seeing things and how they contributed to my knee-jerk reactions and how they impacted the actions and decisions that I took. 

This is heavy stuff and will take some time to work through, but understanding the existence of the filters (and that they should not be trusted), naming them, and facing them, is good start.  This exercise helps you to better understand the inner workings of yourself and those you love, including H.