Tino, I guess that is what I was afraid of with counseling
.that it would be one-sided, especially with a male counselor. Anyway, it didn't turn out the way I thought it would.
He was very nice. He's been a therapist for 25 years, and his wife is also a therapist in the same building. I thought we were going to focus on my husband and what he has been doing and feeling, but the therapist seemed to want to know a lot about how I was feeling about what hubby did. He also seemed to be less focused on the "decision" that hubby has to make, as to who he loves more, and more focused on getting him to understand what he has put me through, and put the family through, and put HIMSELF through. I didn't think he was biased, because he did tell me that about 15 percent of men go through the "bad" mid-life crisis and another 30% go through a moderately bad crisis. We mentioned the eye-color change, and he also told me that, ironically, that is the SAME percentage of men that, at the time of entering puberty, have their eye color change
..ie, 15%
Hubby's eye color changed from blue to brown when he entered puberty, and funnily enough, his eye color has recently changed to green
..just within the last couple of months. I had never heard about eye color change as an indicator of sexual hormones out of whack, and I think very few people have because I googled it and it didn't come up. But the therapist told me that he had seen it before. Sometimes the change is so slight that the person doesn't even notice it, but if they really looked hard, they would see it WAS different. In my husband's case, the difference is incredible, and he did say that was unusual
.for it to be that apparent.
So he wanted me to know that the chemicals flooding my husband's brain really were driving him mad. But he seemed to think that the focus should not be on his making a decision between me and her
.particularly since it is apparent the chemicals are still affecting his judgment. In fact, he recommended that we don't even talk about her for the next few weeks, and just concentrate on US. He said that there will come a time when he does have to talk about her, but he doesn't think it's a good idea to rush that.
The main thing to focus on, for the next few weeks at least, is to understand both parties feelings and how to repair the damage caused and to bring back the love, and how the marriage has changed because of what has happened, and how to improve the marriage and find ways to openly communicate so that problems can be prevented in the future. It made sense to me. I am not sure if it did to hubby. He walked away saying that, in one way it was good, because he thought all the pressure would be on him, and he would feel like he was on the "hot seat." That didn't happen. But in another way, he thought it was bad because he needs to get Brenda out of his head, permanently, and to be told not to think about making a decision for the next few weeks was kind of irritating. I have to admit, I was disappointed in that as well. I do want it to be completely over with Brenda, and being told to concentrate on "us" for the next few weeks instead of his decision was hard and it made me uneasy. But we are going back next week. All in all, I am happy with the experience. (Surprisingly, he thought my being older was a "non-issue"
..imagine that!
)
