SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello,

I'm considering asking my WW to enroll in one of the two following courses with me:

Coach Beth Fischer Group Coaching Program

OR

Affair Recovery EMS Online Course

I resonate with the first one more than the second, but the second is much cheaper so I'm not sure which to go with. I like the idea of a course like this mostly because of the group support aspects and because things they say my WW will likely view with more weight than anything I suggest on my own. She resonates with "authority" figures as many people do.

Also I'm not even sure if right now is the best time for this type of thing or not. We are 8 months out from D-day, and I have paused MC because I didn't like our therapist, and in many ways feel like without a really good therapist MC is mostly useless and even possibly harmful early on.

My wife and I are in IC, however I don't have any visibility into her IC at all so I don't really know what they are working on, and honestly I don't trust her IC based on things I've heard my wife say she said. I would like to see some kind of progress even if it's just her progressing through a course.

Has anyone taken either of these? If so what are your thoughts? Are they useful to Recovery? Should I just find a marriage counselor I like and hash out our issues there instead?

Thanks!

My WH and I completed the EMS Online program, so I can speak to my experience on that, but I have no knowledge of the other program.
For us, the course was incredibly helpful. We neither one had any idea of a path and felt this was at least an attempt to beginning learning how to navigate the hell we were in. My WH balked a little because it was a group setting, but I will tell you that was one of the best things we did. He heard other women stating their hurts-similar to mine, or their thoughts/anger, and it resonated differently.
We both learned a lot about our selves, one another and he learned a lot about the lies he was telling himself about our marriage.
We completed the 13 weeks then completed the year long group with 3 couples - Married for Life. We still meet weekly with that group, and have moved on to some Gottman books that we read and work through. For us it was incredibly helpful, I am sure others could have different experiences as you do have to be willing to do the work, feel uncomfortable and look at other perspectives.
Again, just my experience, I am happy to answer any specific questions you may have.

A number of SIers (and even more non-SIers) recommend Retrouvaille. It is a Catholic Church program, but it reportedly does not push Catholicism. It's a weekend program with a lot of follow-up available.

WRT a WS's IC, I usually forget to say that one of my requirements for R was for my W to signs a release that allowed her IC to talk to me and required her IC to inform me if she rescinded the release. W's IC was also our MC, so the release allowed the IC to bring anything from an IC session into our MC sessions.

You can also request a joint session with your W's IC. Now, her IC owes a fiduciary duty to your W and nothing much to you, but you can use a joint session to make sure the IC knows about the A, etc., etc., etc.

As I say above, I made transparency a requirement for R. If my W had not agreed, I think I would have gone straight to D, but she agreed without hesitating.

sisoon
As far as interacting with her IC, I don't think I will be doing that anytime soon. She is very secretive and protective of her IC sessions, and doesn't appear willing to budge on that anytime soon. Also I have very low levels of faith in her IC. She is probably a good IC, but as far as the marriage or I am concerned she doesn't seem to give a flying.

I will need to find a MC that can bridge that gap for us.
What questions did you ask to vet them before deciding to work with them?

It was easy for me. W got us time with her IC on d-day. I had low expectations, but I figured I couldn't feel worse. The IC took on an MC role, and she started confronting my W. She basically told my W to take responsibility, to answer my questions if she wanted a chance to R. She asked me what I was thinking and feeling, and she told me I was pretty normal, as badly as I felt, and therefore, I could pretty much count on healing. It was a highlight. Great therapist.

I'd ask things like:

How does the candidate C view an A - a systemic problem or a choice by the WS or ? (Systemic, unmet needs ... thank the MC and hang up.)
How would the MC start working with you? (You're looking for cues as to whether the A will be addressed 1st or not.)

Does the MC give homework?
Does the MC work through a protocol, or are MC sessions free-form, or ? (Go with whatever approach you prefer.)

If it matters to you, as about the MC's theoretical framework?

My XWH and I did EMSO. It did help me, and it helped me realize XWH was half-assing his work. He'd wait till the day before the call to do any of the homework.

Plus, you have to sign a contract to not D for a year when you first start.

EMS is also offered in person over a weekend. Much more expensive than EMSO but also more intense and focused IMO.

I would caution you that there is a very high likelihood you would be the only couple with the WW/BH dynamic in your group. Logistically pulling together groups of only WW/BH is almost impossible for AR due to their members being very heavily skewed to WH/BW. That can cause additional difficulties and feelings of isolation in these sessions. Also, AR in general is very much skewed to the WH/BW dynamic and basically just assume to "swap the genders" in their material for BHs. Personally, I feel that is one of the biggest weaknesses in most ALL infidelity material.

Additionally, there is a pretty significant religious aspect to all AR programs and materials. Not that that is "good" or "bad" just something to be aware of.

AR also offers individual courses (Hope for Healing for the Unfaithful and Harboring Hope for the betrayed). I found it VERY useful to have gone through these individual courses before EMS. In these courses you ARE only in class with other BHs and your wife would be with other WWs. There is some repetition between the individual courses and EMS but we found it much more comfortable to go through these individual courses individual courses in a "safer" environment with people who shared our experiences from a similar position. Now granted, that adds several additional weeks to the timeline before even getting to EMS but IMO it’s better to do it "slow and effectively" than "fast and shoddy".

Hope this helps!

ImaChump

Thanks for your viewpoint!

Are you reconciling? If so would you say these courses helped you get there? Or do you think you would have gotten there on your own anyway or with IC/MC?

Do they talk a lot about the betrayed spouses part in creating the conditions for an affair to happen? I've spent the last 8 months being blamed for everything under the sun by my WW and I don't think I could take much more of that. Certainly wouldn't want to pay for a "service" like that.

Theevent,

We are still married but I would not say we have R’d. My wife had a series of seizures in Feb of 2023 and we have been on an arduous journey with brain cancer since then. We have attempted to keep moving forward in R at times but it hasn’t been successful. She had an appendectomy 2 days ago on top of everything else, so life keeps dealing us blows above and beyond working on R. Frankly, I believe she is to the point of wanting to just rugsweep it all now and I am pretty much "dribbling out the clock" as it were…….sorry, I don’t have a more positive report for you.

Doing MC too early (within a month of D-Day) was the biggest mistake we made and almost pushed me over the edge. All the "unmet needs" BS plus blaming me or the marriage for the cheating, mollycoddling my wife and supplying her with excuses for cheating while making me out to be the asshole was too much to bear for me. I am not interested in "8 dates" and "Love Languages" when facing infidelity head on.

I found the individual courses at AR very helpful for both of us and better preparing us for EMS and potentially a return to MC at some point. H4H does a very good job of digging into "why people cheat", having them "own their shit" and not blaming the spouse or the marriage. There are several exercises in there that force some painful self reflection and interactions with the betrayed spouse. These are reinforced in EMS. I would very much say these courses helped us get to a better spot before cancer intervened. Like all things, you get out what you put in. At first my wife had great shame in her H4H class as she was much older and her cheating was much worse (more APs, went on longer, all PAs) than most of the women in her class. Once she "owned that", she got value out of the class.

IC was a mixed bag for her. She at first used our former MC as her IC after I dropped out. She then later realized she needed some one to hold her accountable. Her second IC did a much better job of that.

Overall, I think the classes are worth it and helpful with the caveat the attendees have to be "all in".

[This message edited by ImaChump at 7:20 PM, Friday, January 31st]

ImaChump

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope everything turns out okay.
Thank you for taking the time to respond.

We also went through EMSO. They have a free 7 day boot camp we did before that. It is also a good way to judge how serious she will take this. It is self guided but was helpful for us early on. They is definitely less BH/WW but we did have one other (mostly silently) pair in our group. Our group was fairly dud though and didn’t continue after the 13 weeks. It really is not that expensive overall but some of the material can be a turn off if you are not religious. Jesus sweeping is strong…

My situation is slightly different in that my WW confessed and was desperate to repair what she destroyed by the time it came out. I had already done the 180 without knowing what that was. I had told her 3 months prior that I was working to get myself to a place emotionally that I could divorce. She had already tried ending things months before that but I think she knew when LTAP reached out again that the only hope was to tell me.

Tobster1911

Thanks for your input. Maybe I will see if she wants to try the free bootcamp.

Your situation is similar to mine in several ways actually. My wife was in a LTA and she told me that she knew she wouldn't be able to break it off unless she told me about it. She had tried ending it several times before but couldn't bring herself to do it. The pull was just too strong for her. She also confessed, but it was a month after her AP's wife found out about the affair so that leaves me with doubts about her sincerity in that area.

I'm still flip flopping between my options. I keep trying to remind myself that time is my ally and I need to be patient and deliberate. Sometimes it's hard to not want to rush things though.

Yeah some similarities there for sure. Mine had a 4 year LTAP and "ended" it many time. He pushed and harassed including threatening to reveal it several times. Somehow he was able to talk smoothly enough to keep getting her to go back to him and get those feel good emotions going in her. Still baffles me how she couldn’t hold the anger at him enough to hold the line but just kept adding more eventual damage to me. She said that at the end she got to a place where she felt that she had already done so much shit, why did it matter to add more. The body count went up and all kinds of other added damage.

This whole thing sucks so much. You are still at the very beginning. Give yourself grace to not do anything right away if you are not able and hold to the idea that staying for now doesn’t mean you are giving up your right to leave because of this later. I am 3 yrs out from DDay 1 and we are doing well. But it takes a lot of time and full commitment from her to be insanely consistent. IMO the burden of proof is entirely on them. We are giving them a huge gift of simply being willing to wait and see. They don’t even deserve that.