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After a first session with my wife and one each separate session, we had our first official meeting today.

Therapist noted that my wife is very disregulated, shaking crying.

She demands us to take a psychiatric evaluation and eventually drugs before the next session. Then she asked me if I feel disregulated and I said no, I feel calm. She asked me if her demands about psychiatric exams made me angry and I didn’t.

She looked surprised and asked why, then I answered her that it makes sense from her perspective and I expected it.

I know she was checking in as in our last individual meeting I told her I have no interest in treating the marriage as the patient because adultery and betrayal destroyed our bond in the first place.

Before taking it as gaslighting I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, though I was crystal clear about me being into MC to give my wife a chance to listen and understand what she did to our relationship, maybe understand empathy and why " I can’t just get over it, it is in the past ", not to have someone trying to change me to smooth things out.

My healing costed me too much and I was left too alone by therapists too, to have someone playing conditioning games.

That’s the part that let me a bit skeptical, but again, maybe it’s procedure, benefit of the doubt.

My wife was the one doing the most talking, when I was allowed to talk the therapist interrupted me often mentioning how "your wife seems to disagree, she is shaking her head whenever you speak ".

Then my wife started to interrupt me so in short I was not able to finish a single exposure of my own feelings.

The only thing she said in my defense was "if you keep interrupting and denying your husband feelings he will be walled off to you".

The part that I felt truly irritating was when she echoed my wife and questioned "since the betrayal’s happened years ago, why are you stuck in the past and don’t focus on the present and the future? We are in 2026, not 2008, 2010, 2011, or 2014. After all your wife told me in her individual session that she loves you "

Then she closed the meeting telling that psychotherapy is painful and she needs psychiatric evaluation first. Because she can see that my wife is completely powerless and feels abused.

So my takeaway from today is: she has the victim role at the moment and we must empower her, and I should focus on that instead of her many betrayals and adultery.

I don’t like it a bit if this is her conclusion, I am hoping she just wants her regulated to connect with my feelings.

But all in all i have the impression of being the "bad guy" here, for the most part. Ok I found out her confessions only weeks ago, but betrayals are in the past so I am unreasonable to feel still hurt by that.

At least that’s how I felt about the meeting.
Maybe is normal, but for 17 years I was convinced that the fault of my wife’s betrayals were because of my unworthiness. Today it felt like a replay of this song.

Oh WOW....don't walk away, RUN! Unbelievable condonation of adultery from a professional. If she actually uttered those words about the timeline, I think I'd consider a letter to her licensing board.

Well I don't like that either. I don't know much about psychotherapy, but I have personal reservations about mood regulating drugs. They did nothing but turn one problem into a series of other problems for me that had deleterious effects on my marriage. A nonexistent libido and ED being just part of it. Turning me into an emotional zombie was another part. I stopped taking them and some of those side effects lingered for years.

I know they've helped many people tho. This was just my experience. YMMV. Just be vigilant. I think SSRIs in particular are over prescribed.

That's neither here nor there tho. I take a lot of issue with a therapist who tries to paint the betrayer as some sort of victim. I'd seek someone else immediately.

Find someone else. Sometimes, it takes several interviews before you find the right therapist. Do you know if any do emdr and/or specialize in attachment theory? Those therapists are the ones we've had the most success with.

That being said, why are you doing MC at this point? You both need to be in IC. I know you've had bad experiences with that. You have to keep trying. If you can't find anyone in person, maybe you can find someone online.

I will not take any drugs, neither my wife. I had therapy during betrayal trauma. They dismissed it completely and filled me with SSRI, zombie to a level that my wife begged me to stop it (solved zero).

I guess, rather hope, she wants to have a psychiatric evaluation to be sure nothing else is going on beyond emotional issues. If is that is fine.

In my private interview she noticed that the betrayal still evokes a lot of pain. I told her yes, I am fine in my daily life, but if I have to come back to those stories I am relieving it and the pain memory is as crisp as ever (which is normal, same happens with the death of my mother, if I go back to it, it will always be painful).

I did not like the "in the past" statement. I am hoping the goal is only to have my wife emotions under control and able to go through this finally instead of minimizing.

But I do not know, I might be guarded since therapy was not helpful in the past for me, but I really had the impression the Betrayed Spouse was painted as the bad guy here, because I have clarity that my feelings are still today, impacted by the betrayals.

If she is a cheater apologist we will change, my wife is on that too.

My wife is doing emdr with a new IC, following lowen. She had a good impression first meeting

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 9:33 PM, Tuesday, February 10th]

This therapy session had more red flags than Soviet parade. But before I dig into why, I just want to say that I don't understand why you're doing MC at this point. All of your other posts have mentioned how you're detaching, working on yourself, and trying to figure out your way forward on your own.

If there's one good thing that came out of this MC session it's this: your wife once again proved that she is not willing to be honest, refuses to take responsibility for her actions, and will resort to painting herself as the victim and you as the villain whenever you push her to accept accountability for anything.

Now on to unpacking the therapist...

First, a therapist suggesting a psychiatric evaluation or meds can be appropriate if someone is truly unable to function or is at risk. But in a couples setting--especially with infidelity--that should be about stabilizing the person, not about reframing the whole problem as "she’s powerless and you’re the issue" before you’ve even been allowed to speak.

Second, a competent MC manages interruptions and makes sure both partners can finish their thoughts. By letting your wife dominate the conversation and interrupt you, and then echoing your wife's reactions and cutting you off, your therapist wasn't being a balanced mediator... she was aligning herself with the more dysregulated person.

Third, the "why are you stuck in the past?" comment is also a huge problem in betrayal work. Betrayal trauma doesn’t heal on a calendar. You've found out a lot of new information about her betrayals very recently... and you also have good reason to believe that you don't have the full story. Whether or not your wife wants to admit it, and as far as your nervous system is concerned, the betrayal is happening right now. Rushing you toward "the present and future" without full truth, accountability, and validation just recreates the original injury.

Fourth, your therapist's reframing of your wife as "powerless" and "abused" while minimizing the impact of her repeated betrayals is another red flag. In infidelity recovery, reversing victim/offender roles or treating your pain as the problem is not repair--it’s retraumatization.

Lastly, you were also very clear that you’re not there to treat "the marriage as the patient," but the betrayal itself. That’s actually consistent with modern, betrayal-informed approaches: first stop the harm, establish safety, get full truth and accountability, validate the injured partner, and only then work on the relationship. What you’re describing sounds like old-school couples therapy, which tries to smooth things over by centering the more distressed partner and rushing past the injury.

In summary, I think that you're entirely correct to say that this therapy session felt like a replay of the same old song and that this therapist and this environment aren't safe for you. But even a great MC who is betrayal informed and emotionally safe can't do anything for your marriage if your wife is unwilling to change herself. And after 17 years of this nonsense, I don't think it's reasonable to think that she will.

Yes blue that’s the impression I got seeded today, it was disturbing enough that I woke up now in the middle of the night (it’s 1:16 am here) with a feeling of unease, I thought it was 5-6 am the time I usually wake up to start the day.

I processed this emotion and it feels like abandonment. Not from my wife in this case , from being heard reopening my vulnerability that I detached from.

And I explained that it cost me a lot to go through this again because I was alone and dismissed during the betrayal .

I mentioned to my previous therapist but no one seemed to care about the betrayal back then, focused on cognitive behavioral therapy for the panic attacks and paired with lexotan and ssri which I refused to take after a while because it changed me into someone else.

I had to heal alone, I never felt heard and reading here I thought MC could open a dialogue.

I’m not sure if I have a future with my wife or not, because I am focused on the present

This emotion now, strong enough to bother me and wake me up, probably tells me that I still have a deep seated need to be heard by my wife.

Because she keeps saying that she loves me and those men meant nothing, not realizing how that made me feel and how much she is deaf and dissociated from what I felt.

She is worried that I am not feeling anymore for her , and I am abandoning her now. That’s to me feels like dismissal and blaming, and it was her who begged me to open up because she couldn’t read me anymore since my healing and detachment.

I can see her flaws and suffering, so I accepted to make one last try, meaning opening up your vulnerability and wounds to let another person see. Because our daughter, and I don’t exclude I might have still some feelings buried deep under the ash of our relationship.

I was hoping couple therapy was the environment were you can do that with respect of vulnerability. Today I felt my pain dismissed.

Still doubting if it is not my projection of bad experiences with therapy before or is true. For now I file it as a red flag. Along with medication, that’s another big red flag.

Truth to be told it helped me more to write about this session here than the session itself.

I imagine for now I have to make the best of it and double check myself on the psychiatrist if I am truly integrated or if I am broken and blind to it.

But if after this I will feel again unheard like today I don’t see much of a point to continue MC. I have that for free from my WS

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 12:46 AM, Wednesday, February 11th]

I have such empathy for what you are going through, in the middle of the night over there...yes I think you are right about that old abandonment wound getting scraped, yet again. But one question: did you not take my reaction as valid, to RUN, in other words, to just close the door to this dance with an MC like that and say "No!".

Honestly, this night, this very moment, when you seem to be chewing over whether to minimize today's gut reaction, even after several of us have confirmed the same to you, is the kind of mental "hook" or pattern you seem to fall into that does NOT help you get out of this situation.

I have such empathy for what you are going through, in the middle of the night over there...yes I think you are right about that old abandonment wound getting scraped, yet again. But one question: did you not take my reaction as valid, to RUN, in other words, to just close the door to this dance with an MC like that and say "No!".

Honestly, this night, this very moment, when you seem to be chewing over whether to minimize today's gut reaction, even after several of us have confirmed the same to you, is the kind of mental "hook" or pattern you seem to fall into that does NOT help you get out of this situation.

Thank you Superesse, it does mean a lot.

yes I took your answer to heart and so did my wife (I am very quiet but she is attuned to my actions so she followed suit) and she heard that she said "we don’t need her, we need me to heal myself let’s make this visit and confront her, meanwhile we look for another therapist ".

She surprised me, she wants to know if she has any disorder to be diagnosed, to work with emdr, no drugs, but she suspects she might be a narcissist or borderline.

I’m not sure how to properly read this reaction of her, she was so walking on eggshells right after I presented her with divorce papers and answered to her questions that I am no longer in love with her, I know she is crying often out of my sight and yesterday she broke down shaking in tears.

She said that she now understands what I meant when I told "it costs me " to do couple therapy and that is she who needs to work with herself first.

She also can see I am a different man, and she wants to be healed to face the betrayals that were unspoken for the last 17 years.

It didn’t stir my feelings for her right now, but apparently she was listening to what I was telling her when we talked, while I thought she was walled to it.

The question mark is that she stopped to look for external validation because the most important validation for her is mine at the moment, so I am careful even if this sounds positive.

I think no matter how detached I am in my daily life it’s still important to process the betrayals that I suppressed for so long.

Maybe the best line of action is to keep going about my life and myself like before we started to talk recently, let her do the healing work and just be open to her when she is ready.

That implies I am fully detaching from her again and just leading my life as before.
The wayward must heal herself first after all, like I healed myself.