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Hi all new here and just had a question. My story is in my profile if any want a background.

My question is, is individual therapy better or worse than couples therapy for reconciliation ? Anyone care to share their experience with this will be greatly appreciated

I think its an individual thing. For us we went the MC route. For some they do IC and for some they do both. Probably not real helpful to you I know

We do both. IC was needed for both of us (I was also in IC prior to Dday) and then we do MC in between IC sessions. It works great for us.

We do both. I can't imagine having made it this far (five months, feels like eternity) without both.

IC is for you and your H to resolve your individual issues. You are the client in your IC. He's the client in his IC. The C helps each of decide what changes you want to make and guides you through actually changing.

For example, IC can help you process the awful feelings that come with being betrayed and help your W change the thoughts and feelings that allowed her to conduct her EA.

In MC, the relationship is the client. The MC observes your relationship, helps you decide together on what changes you want to make, helps you make the changes you both want to make, may identify dysfunctions and offer help changing, etc. It usually comes down to helping you learn to communicate better - doesn't sound like much, but this can be a great help.

IMO, the WS needs IC and the relationship needs MC to R. I used IC, but I can see R happening without IC for the BS.

Me and WH are both doing IC. We plan on doing MC when our therapists think we are ready. I think it's been helpful, especially for my WH. He has a lot of childhood issues that he hasn't delt with.

Ok thanks for the info.. I feel a little bit better knowing what the different counseling is for.

Sisoon your explanation is perfect. I too don't think the BS Needs counseling but since there are issues that my wife says that I need to address within myself I am willing to go..

Another question : should the same therapist be used for IC for the both of us and MC for the relationship or should we see different IC's

We use the same therapist for everything, but that is usually advised against. Its hard for some to wear those three hats.

For us, we've been extremely lucky. She was my IC first, then our MC, then also his IC. However she referred him out for his assessment when we needed that and she does not treat him for his sex addiction, that is separate and he is in 12-step for that.

We use my W's IC for MC, because she saw us on D-Day and confronted my W a lot. She also started by addressing the A and treated my W's A as my W's issue. We're addressing issues form the M, but only after I was basically out of pain, and in no way are the issues treated as excuses for the A.

Initially I wanted my W's IC to be mine, too, but after almost agreeing to that, we both realized there was a potential conflict of interest between us, so I used someone else.

Since it sounds like your W may be blaming you for her A, I'd stay away from using her IC.

We got to a point in MC where we were just spinning our wheels and we were stuck. Our MC recommended IC for us both. H started seeing her partner and I stayed with MC. The IC has helped H immensely and we start back in MC together next week. Tomorrow will be our last separate appointments for now.

I started IC right away and we started MC at the same time so that we could start working on the R process without doing more damage to our M. We have a long history of terrible fighting that we needed help with just so we could talk about the A constructively.

fWH was working 100 hours a week so he only started IC once his schedule tapered off at about 7 months out. He had no real problems talking about his A, was remorseful from the start and was quite supportive of my pain, so MC was "enough" in the beginning. We needed that mediation.

He''s in IC now to figure out his "why".

[This message edited by Knowing at 3:15 AM, July 29th, 2013 (Monday)]