SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

in response to the IC/MC thing there is a poster asking the same question on the wayward side forum of this site the resonse's there may give some back up to what people are saying to you.

"Should our MC be the same person as our IC? *females only pls* believing4better 15 5/6/2015 7:43:48 AM"

What troubles me is the tone of the conversation - which sounds like a cross-examination. As though she is trying to prove you have an anger problem.

I am an ex-prosecutor - she sounds like she is on cross-ex.

That troubles me.

Has she said what the goals of the sessions are?

Gah, DG, I've been through a contested custody battle. Redsox is correct. It sounds like it could be a set up.

IC/MC, medical and financial records are all allowable in court. *In the best interests of the children* of course. Assume everything will be admissible in court.

Assume she is going to try for sole custody.

HENCE DG, EVERYONE HERE ADVISED YOU NOT TO GO TO MC. NOW YOU ARE WALKING INTO THE QUICKSAND. YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE TO STEP OUT OF IT. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ???

Don't go back and lawyer up. Anything short of that, you'll come back as even a more broken man when they turn the tables on you.

Call WW today, tell her you are done with MC. See an attorney and file. Otherwise, you are done

I am an ex-prosecutor - she sounds like she is on cross-ex. That troubles me.

Yes, this deeply worries me, as well.

I totally understand where you are. Until d-day, I really believed my husband, at very least, loved and respected me as a human.

I learned, as I discovered more and more about who he really was, that he'd gone to great lengths, for a long time to build a case against me---with many, many people.

The picture he painted did not resemble me in the least. He was able to take the truth (I was upset, I was grieving, I was decimated) and twist it to his advantage.

I really don't know if he believed (or believes) these things about me. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that two people in the same situation can have very different experiences. Throw in mental illness, and all bets are off. What I DO know is that he was extremely calculating. He made sure that, when dday rolled around, he had a cadre of supportive people who thought the absolute worst of me.

Whether he believes it or not, we are WELL past the stage where I can convince him differently.

And this is where you come in, because this is the stage you occupy. You are desperately trying to convince your WW and others that you're not the Bad Guy. This is very dangerous for you.

Your time, instead, should be spent getting out of the minefield she's laid. Because your strategy involves walking IN to that minefield. It's extremely dangerous.

Your wife is exploiting your grief to her advantage. She is twisting it and using it to convince others of your lability. She is using it to control you, implying that unless you cooperate, your anger--something she's magnified in her mind and those of others-- will be used against you to disastrous end.

Believe her.

Your wife is building a case against you. She is gathering character witnesses. Like a bad detective, she's cherrypicking facts of the case and bending them to fit her theory of the crime. And that theory is that she's a victim of YOU.

She may or may not believe what she is saying. It doesn't really matter. Either way, this has the potential to ruin you.

This is why people are recommending you use a VAR. At this point, no one who's emerged on the other side of such a toxic relationship is giving even a millisecond's thought, any more, to helping you gather information about your wife's infidelity. No one cares about those details. They don't matter. (We know that to you, they do--now. But that's not really pressing, at this point.) You can worry about what's on the computer and in texts when you're no longer in danger. You have a lifetime to investigate, if that remains important to you. (Many of us discover how very unimportant those details are; the real injury, for us, was inflicted after dday.)

Very bluntly: we are recommending a VAR because we are concerned that your wife is building a case against you and plans to have you arrested for domestic violence as a part of her strategy to justify her actions, both to others and in her own mind.

If she can convince not only herself, but OTHERS, that you are a monster, then what she has done becomes "not so bad." It becomes "a cry for help." It becomes "something bad Mom did, but can you really blame her?"

She is re-designing you as an alternately negligent and angry man from whom she needs protection. She is re-designing herself as the victim of this man, a woman who did what many would do if so threatened and neglected and unloved.

And you need to protect yourself from this.

Carry a VAR when you are with her, even in MC. (ETA: though I retain my stance that "MC" with a remorseless spouse is profoundly damaging to the BS---and you should not follow through with it; your daughters surely will come to understand that coercion voids promises and, in any case, would excuse you from something so horrendously hurtful. If not, you've lost them already.)

One day you may require the info you gather as evidence.

Her strategy is often very successful.

If nothing else, what you are able to collect on VAR may spare you the complete estrangement from your daughters that she is already working to effect.

[This message edited by solus sto at 11:07 AM, May 8th (Friday)]

Again DG, Solus Sto hit a Home Run. Listen to her.

Read the first post in this thread:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=560559

This could be you. Protect yourself please.

I am not worrying where my next meal is coming from. I will post a few more times so I get PMs, send me an address (friend's, work, whatever) and I'll send you three VARs free of charge.

Just a quick question. This MC deal you made with your wife and daughters... is her plan to give you the passwords and let you read the emails during MC? Or are you allowed to get the passwords and read them at your apartment?

Just read a previous post where she requests the MC be there when you read the emails.

On the VAR front - Someone just posted about another fake DV account today in General- http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=560559

You might not think she is capable of doing this but you didn't think she was capable of lying, or cheating, and making you feel like you were going crazy or being so manipulative, or involving your daughters... or

[This message edited by Freeme at 1:21 PM, May 8th (Friday)]

DoneGone I feel for you.

I say....play the game. Do the MC thing, do what your WW needs.

You can put on an act. You have it in you. Then once you have satisfied your part of the bargain, get her to give you those passwords.

Then you are free to do what you want.

It does not serve you to let yourself get bent out of shape by your manipulative wife and her quack MC. Just go with the flow, then when you have what you need...bring the f*cking hammer down.

She's not going to give the passwords. He will be deemed "too volatile" by the MC. The decision to withhold them has likely already been withheld.

And honestly, the contents of the accounts the passwords access are of minimal importance when you realize the real purpose of the MC: to continue to build documentation (by a professional!) of his "anger issues."

try unkilling me

If I was dead it wouldn't hurt - but i'm alive and dying

i feel your pain and wish you healing. you deserve to heal

If I understand correctly, your kids are all grown up, so there's no danger of you having to pay CS to your WW in case of a divorce?

In my opinion, the decision to withhold passwords was made long before the mc sessions even started. The promise to give them was made only to get him into the sessions to build the case and get a professional witness that he's unstable.

Incidentally, when I found out about my husband's first affair, I trashed the room I was in (including pulling a refrigerator over), punched him in the face four times, and pulled out my own hair. I had never hit him before (or since) and I don't even spank my kids (or grandkids now). To someone on the other side of this, I looked pretty crazy. I don't have an anger problem. I do have an infidelity problem. But I could have been arrested and it could have been used against me. Don't go back and give her more ammunition.

DoneGone made a decision to go to three sesssions of MC at the request of his daughters. He agreed to wait for the passwords and not hire a geek to hack into the computer and phone. Can we not agree to support him to see this through

^^^

Almost everyone is going on about him going to MC. He's got an end goal and I don't think telling him to stop MC is helpful.

He needs his daughters to know the truth. That is VERY IMPORTANT to him and we should all respect that. He doesn't want to break into the devices, so we should also respect that.

Of course the MC is a joke trying to blame DG, but going is a means to an end.

DG stay strong. You're doing great.

DG, the problem is that you aren't getting the truth by going to MC. You are actually helping them operate against you.

You seem to be stuck on going to MC. It is your decision but you can change that.

Have you stopped for a second and asked what good is it doing for you as opposed to the bad things that can come out of it ?

I know you probably think that people are attacking you here. That's not the case. people here speak from experience. If we sit back without making any objections to your course of action, and you suffer as a result, then what good have we done ? The answer would be none.

You already mentioned that most here have had this pegged right. I feel that many here are right on this subject as well.

Telling him not to go to MC is very helpful because the "marriage counselor's" focus is on him, not on his marriage. There was no getting to know you session. There was no vetting the information his wife provided for accuracy. They went straight to "You have anger issues. You're a powder keg ready to blow. Your wife is afraid of you and you can't handle the truth."

All of that is nice and tidy in a neat little folder waiting for his next response to add the bow along with the final nail in the coffin. His wife is counting on him keeping his word because she knows she dangled those passwords like catnip for a cat and she knows he can't resist.

The mistake we have all made is thinking we really know our spouse. But we all thought our spouses wouldn't cheat and they did. He thinks his wife won't use him trashing a motel room after she ripped his heart out against him, yet she is. And notice how the therapist uses words to minimize his wife's actions and magnify his.

Nope, I'm not going to support him going into another session with these two because he's being manipulated and may well be in danger. They are using his integrity against him. They are using his humanity against him. We all want to believe that good will prevail but, in reality it often doesn't because good people can't fathom how dirty the other side will fight.

My suggestion would be to record the next MC session. Use your cell phone, start it before you walk in, be upfront about it, and if the MC balks at you recording her (horrible) counseling session, explain that you cannot continue if the MC is afraid of having the session on tape. And that having the recording will help you go over the information later.

Have a list of questions ready, such as:

Why is it ok for the MC to see your wife privately and not you? Don't argue with her reasoning, just let her give her answer.

Then respond to everything the MC says very calmly. When she says "you need to let this go" ask her what kind of treatment plan does she suggest for infidelity? What resources, therapy workbooks, books she has read on the subject and what steps she suggests? Bring a copy of How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair and books like Not Just Friends and highlight passages that contradict her previous statements and start asking why she disagrees with those experts. Don't be hostile about it but make her justify her rugsweeping stance. You could fill that whole last hour calmly asking her questions like a journalist and it would keep you from having to listen to your WW's non-sense and the MC's horrible therapy. And then, when this is over, please D her and get some support in your healing. It's a long road and SI is great but you might want to have some support IRL.

sandy, with all due respect, those of us who are recommending against continuing with MC have considerably more experience---both personally and on SI--than those who are recommending to to to MC as "a means to an end."

We've seen things that you have not, during your short tenure.

Ultimately, it's up to DG, of course. But he deserves to know some of the huge pitfalls that may be awaiting him.

They can change his life forever, and it would be irresponsible NOT to let him know.

I agree with Solus and Tears, completely !!!

He is the victim. He needs to protect himself. His continued walking into the gauntlet that he faces every MC session only entraps him, not helps him