SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

IMO, a WS has to change behavior to heal. That's the goal - new behavior. Energy spent on 'understanding' is, at best, only indirectly related to changing behavior. That's why I wrote that understanding slows down healing. And anything that slows a WS's healing can also slow a BS's healing.

I get that a WS might think, 'I was angry that my BS didn't wash dishes, and I used that as justification for cheating instead of setting a new boundary.' But that would have done nothing for me if my W had said it, unless it was followed by, '...And now I see how big a mistake in judgment that is.'

WSes need to realize on d-day that much of what they think they know is downright wrong. They need to use their energy and intelligence first to understand and later to be understood. They need to question everything they've told themselves in the past.

About 4 or 5 years ago I asked my wife what she thought about us going to an MC to learn how to communicate better and her response was an immediate NO. I asked why not and she said it could bring up other problems in our marriage and now I'm standing there thinking what other problems? What other problems do we have that are so big that we can't even discuss them?

I said well wouldn't it be a good idea to talk with an MC to work on these problems and she said NO, I think it's a bad idea so I dropped it.

So I went and found an IC to help me learn how to communicate better. When I told my wife I had an appointment with an IC she got upset. She said why didn't you talk to me about this and I said I tried and you were adamantly against the idea so I'm going by myself.

I tried to bring those new found skills home but whenever I would try to talk to my wife about a problem she would just put up her wall, cross her arms, shut down the conversation and that became our status quo

In hindsight my wife realizes that if we had gone to MC when I asked the affair probably would not have happened so I feel zero guilt about the state of our relationship when she did what she did. If anything, I get mad when I think had she not been so God damn stubborn and we had gone to MC we would not be trying to save a 27-year relationship :/

[This message edited by WB1340 at 5:12 PM, Monday, October 13th]