Marriage counsellor has just made me angry- what should I do?

[badsurname]

Went for first couples counselling session with stbxh this evening. We have been separated for nearly a year following me catching him in an affair.

I realise she was trying to be even but I felt attacked for the whole session. She basically said our marriage was clearly crap before (it wasn't ) and he agreed with her. While he may have agreed if he thinks back to when his mind was fuelled by lust and irritation at having to be separated from ow, if he thought back only six months more we were good and had been for 16 years. I don't think I am willing to go if she is going to require me to accept half the blame for his inability to keep his dick in his pants so what should I do;

A) request a new counsellor- it's provided by employee assistance programme.
B) go, but be clear with her next time that our marriage may not have been perfect but it was pretty damn good before he crapped all over it.
C) go but change the agenda to amicably divorcing and clearing the air rather than potentially reconciling so she stops defending him so much.
D)give up and try again in another year when I am less angry?!

I am so pissed off. It didn't help that he has the lurgy and has been "wfh" while ive been working hard in London, so she clearly didn't believe me that he was a workaholic who left me holding the baby while he was away all week working and shagging.

Please be gentle. I'm really upset

you need counselling by yourself, not with him Youre seperated from him and he cheated. Theres no reason for you to have couples counselling. Just bin him off and get your own counsellor, it will be far more therapeutic

You sound a bit like I was when my cheating Ex did similar. He also said that ‘we weren’t really working were we’, and even got very angry when I refused to agree with him. He successfully turned his female friends and his family into thinking that I was limiting his life, preventing him from seeing people etc.

So the anger you are feeling is probably an explosion of the hurt from being betrayed sexually, AND the betrayal of having him rewrite your relationship history to excuse his actions and get other to turn the spotlight on you being the problem. In this case, the counsellor.

I relate to your very angry feelings, that you want to show him and the counselor how wrong they are.

However it’s all energy spent on his agenda. I realised that my Exes need to be seen ultimately as the good guy was worth more to him than even giving me a tiny bit of honest respect and admitting that I was a lovely partner to him. It’s a silly thing of them to do, because actually us, the mother of their children, we are the ones they have to deal with. Not the counselor. Not transient friends or transient affairs. My Ex very much regrets his actions but he’s still so selfish he’d have me trying to ‘better myself’ I.e. be so attractive and alluring he would never stray, and let him go out by himself every week while I looked after our child. That’s why we could not get past the cheating. He did not own it enough. It was not my fault in any way. In fact he’d given me far more stress and guess what, I didn’t jump into bed with someone else or blame him if I did.

You are worth more than having to defend yourself. Every relationship has problems, find one where you can both work it out without having the devastation of betrayal.