Debkor,
I would like to share a little of my experience now that I am over 2 1/2 years away from the separation and 1 year away from the divorce being final. I will predicate by saying that my exnh never wanted our marriage to stay together once I found out about his affair and he determined that that was his excuse to escape our marriage. Unlike you, I was trying very hard to keep him with me, despite learning of all the lies I'd been told, the things he was hiding and ultimately the OW. We did attend joint counseling for about 6 weeks, but during that entire time, he lied to both me and the therapist about a number of things which would have been critical to any successful outcome for counseling. Of course, the T and I had no knowledge of his lies until after he bailed out of the marriage and the counseling process. Several times during therapy, we had long tearful nights together, with him baring his soul (or so I thought) about his relationship with his mother, his father's alcoholism and much more. I honestly believed at the time, that we were connecting on a level we never had before and making progress toward reconciliation. Until he very suddenly walked out of a joint therapy appointment, said he couldn't do it (marriage, therapy, kids, whatever) anymore, packed his bags and left. Leaving me so shellshocked that I didn't eat for nearly a week.
Now that I am going on 3 years away from that whole scenario, I can see how lucky I was that the therapy was not successful in keeping the marriage together. He left me for a woman who was married at the time, and to this day, 3 years later, is still in her marriage and he is still convinced she will eventually leave her husband and family for him. To me he is like a pathetic child who decided to run away from home, but then realized that the world outside that home is not as friendly as it was inside and without me or some other adult to guide him, he doesn't know what to do next. I don't know if he continues to see his T, but he has made no progress that I can see in all that time and his T never made him deal with who he was. I know the T we saw together and I continued to see alone for 2 more years, would not have let him do that and why he eventually had to walk (actually run) away from that relationship.
You h's T sounds more in tune than I think my exh's T was (however I never had a conversation with him, so I don't know for sure what the T thought). I can tell that you are not buying into his pleas for help and acceptance and remaining objective. Good for you. I wish I could have been more objective and realistic at the time and saved myself a lot of grieving for someone who clearly didn't deserve it. But at the end of the day, I am the one who has gotten healthy and wise (wish I could include wealthy) and am actually grateful for the eye-opening experience I was forced to have.
I wish you well and hope you can keep your objectivity throughout your process. Always remember that they live by the lie and trusting them can only come back to bite you.
Blessings,
Brigid
