counselling 'post affair' together or separate?

[kath4kids]

Right at last may be getting some counselling sorted, thing is I assumed this would be done togehter but the counsellor is saying in her experience it is better to do it seperately.

Thing is i think we should do it together,I need to know where he came from/ why he did it etc and he needs to know how i feel about it all.

Am I right or should we go alone?

Could you perhaps compromise with the counsellor and say you'll go separately at first but then you definitely need to see him/her together at a later date?

she says come to the first one together and see what we want to do from there. Thing is he is already having counselling on his own through GP so don't know what the use of him having another lot on his own

My understanding is that you should have one counsellor who sees you together, if that is what you decide. If one or other of you is having counselling already it is not a good idea to go to that same person for joint counselling as they are not in a good position to be impartial.
Hope that makes sense.

No his counsellor is through the G.P this one is through christian perspective i think so not the same person

bump

Kath, I did joint counselling - which Relate recommended. It helped enormously.

Kath we tried counselling together near the beginning- didn't really work as he was not yet being honest and open. He hadn't at that stage accepted what he'd done. We realised it wasn't working and went seperately- taht gave us both a chance to find out exactly what was in our heads- then we got back together again. That worked because by then he'd explored why how he'd got in the situation in the first place and he knew what he really wanted. However we did a lot of talking to each other after our counselling sessions. I don't think there's a right or wrong- it depends on the couple involved.

i think together would work, just wish i had had some on my own in the last three months then maybe I would be able to talk about this without crying

A regular.

We has an initial session together and then separate sessions for a few months. Looking back (2 years on) this was helpful as it gave dh a chance to explore what had happened in a non-accusative/judgemental way. I don't think that we would have come to the same place if it had all happened jointly. We did have counselling with the same people though, and from time to time we did have some joint sessions.

I agree that you do need to reach a place of understanding as to why things have happened, but an affair is often a symptom not a cause IYSWIM. In our case we eventually concluded that Dh was tempted because he thought that I was judging him in the same way that his mother judged and dismissed his father. But it took several sessions for dh to admit this to himself.

You are right - you will need to talk, but there is value is individual sessions early on.