Will counselling help us? - what to expect

[PilchardsonToast]

My DH left out me last week after 13 years, he'd met another woman, wasn't in a relationship with but wanted to be and didn't want to talk about it. We've had a horrific week but yesterday he told me he wanted to try counselling, he wanted to see if we could work through things and didn't want to rush ending our relationship.

I was very relieved to hear that, I'm not kidding myself that everything will be ok and once we start talking I may not be able to move on from what he's done but I feel positive that we're going to try.

I don't know what to do now though, I don't know anyone that's used a counsellor locally but really don't want a shit one as I'm worried if we do this wrong there will be no benefit and we'll have missed our chance l.

What should I expect from the process? And where can I find a brilliant person who can get to the bottom of our issues!

Has the relationship been in crisis prior to the ow? If not, I'm not sure why you need counselling unless he wants to end it and to make it less painful to you...he's the one that needs it.

Anyway, it may be worth trying. In the first session, the counsellor will ask you if you still love each other - and the answer has to be honest for any chance of a successful outcome.
Try relate, it costs about £60 a session.
Good luck

Has the OW rejected him and that's why he wants to try again?

What was the relationship like before? Did the split come as a shock?

I'll be honest, if find this hard to forgive and I doubt I could get past it with counselling.

Have you talked about what you both believe is wrong in the relationship?
From your perspective, was there anything wrong prior to OW coming on to the scene?
From his perspective, what is wrong with the relationship that requires counselling?
Why does he suddenly NOT want OW and want to try?
Do you have DC?
Do you work?
Do you think you will ever get past this?
It may be that only he needs counselling, to understand why he did what he did.
From what you say, you've done nothing wrong.

Thanks for the quick responses. From my perspective things were fine, we've never had any real issues in our relationship never even in anger talked about ending things and while I can probably with hindsight see that over the past month he's been distancing himself from me we have still been getting on as normal.

I think we do need to talk a bit more before starting counselling. I hadn't thought about why we should just that I didn't want to make rash decisions. I'm not actually sure he's desperate to come back

I'll ask him the questions you've all suggested and see if his responses give me any faith in the future.