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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]