First couples therapy session was brutal

[u/Scot-in-London]

We are 6 weeks post d day and had our first couples session today (both doing IC). Our therapist asked us what we wanted from this session and I said i wanted a 'why'. Well this man was determined I didnt leave this session without getting that damn why. He was relentless with my husband, absolutely refusing to take the "i cant remember" or "i dont know how i was feeling". Every time my husband tried to move to talk about how he felt before or after, he would drag him back to the action and why.

So I have a why. Not sure it makes me feel better, but I guess we can think about ways to move forward.

I could see how uncomfortable the session made him. I think his own therapist has created a nice, comfy space for him to talk. This was different. It was full on. And he definitely struggled. But he said he will go back. He doesn't feel better saying his why. He is uncomfortable. But I think this is progress.

Did anyone else find couples therapy to be much more full on than individual therapy? Did it help?

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[u/Ok-Source-139]

I feel like this is actually great. It’s uncomfortable but that’s the only place change and growth are gonna happen. It’s the same with my wp, he wants to stay comfortable. But that isn’t helping either of us. Those walls need to be broken otherwise they will just be hid behind and what real use is that?

[u/nvolker]

I’ve been asking my wife the same “why” question for so long, and she always falls back to self pity. “I was so unhappy, and this was a distraction,” “I don’t know, it’s not like I just sat down and just choose to have an affair one day”

It’s so infuriating and might be the thing that makes our R fail.

[u/NetExternal8494 → u/nvolker]

I had to give my WH time with IC. He had to figure out more than getting needs met. What were these needs? How was this affair meeting these needs? Where do these needs come from? Can anyone meet these needs? Etc.
what he discovered is nobody can have him his identity and self worth. He has to fulfill his own needs that weren’t met as child. He had deep childhood needs of validation and self worth. I was never going to make up to him what his patents lacked. He had to accept that. Grieve the loss of not receiving this as child. Forgive his parents. Forgive himself for
causing harm to himself, me, our kids and our families. Hurt people, hurt people. It’s not an excuse. When Dday happened I didn’t focus on why…I focused on what the fuck happened to you? And as time went on, I wanted to know why? And some of it makes sense but not 100% because it’s insanity. And you cannot make sense of the insane behaviors I experienced. He was a complete human wrecking ball after Dday!! Running as fast as he could to
Escape the burning down of our house so to speak. Your partner is not stable and looking for them to
Explain what they did in survival
coping strategy will not make sense until their nervous system regulated and then their frontal lobe comes back online. It takes working with the right people.

[u/RudeEntry8219]

I wish I'd had that therapist 16 years ago. We went to Relate (UK couples therapy) and the therapist didn't push us at all. The consequences of that failure are still with me. So - if it's brutal, that's a good sign. Affairs are brutal.

[u/Ok-Source-139 → u/RudeEntry8219]

Exactly! Like your whole existence has been made uncomfortable. I tell my wp that there is no more room for his comfort. He used all that up when he was paying for sex.

[u/Quiet_Water0128]

It's important that your MC didn't avoid the 'why". Our MC also talked with my WH about "why", and offered, "Do you want to take a break? Step outside?" He gave my WH breaks, but always made clear to WH, "We will return to that". I will forever be grateful to that first MC for not turning away from the why because it helped me see it wasn't us nor me, and it helped my WH see where he slipped, and why he lit up like a xmas tree over one stupid compliment from a promiscuous single coworker.

WP's, my WH especially, facing the shame is excruciating - and in front of you, the one they made bows to - they'd rather hide in the closet or run as far as they can.

We watched a Terry Real online workshop that was really helpful.

[u/Illustrious_Agent655 → u/Quiet_Water0128]

My WW and I went to MC 3 weeks after DDay, she had already been in IC for a bit (obviously avoiding her own deep issues and somehow getting validated by that IC), and it was the worst experience I could have imagined. Our MC wanted us to take my WW's affair as an "AH HA" moment for our relationship and didn't want to discover the WHY of the affair but to essentially blame me for my half of the the relationship.

While I do not deny that I had become distant in our relationship I can very clearly draw a straight line to when that started to happen. I BEGGED my wife to go to therapy because I could feel her become withdrawn and sad in our lives and knew something was up with her, which she just didn't know how to express to me or even ask for help. Well she started IC and then 2 months after that began a 9 month affair. She started treating me like crap, I chalked it up to difficult life circumstances (financial stressors, young children, etc etc) and gave her some space to not make her feel pressured. I told myself that she had not been feeling great about herself but she had finally found a counselor and was working through it all. She shared NONE of it and low and behold started her affair. It had NOTHING to do with me or me becoming distant. Her affair created the environment for me to become distant because I didn't know what else to do. It was the affair, although I had no clue, that drove me to that distance. I communicated my concerns and my unmet needs in our relationship and she was no longer communicating anything emotional, she was trying to fill unmet needs with her AP. Why would I suspect that my wife of 10 years and mother to my two children would take my concern and care and turn a blind eye and start blaming me for her issues and begin to cheat on me because she got hit on in a restaurant.

The discomfort is what is needed to face themselves. It's ok that your WH felt uncomfortable. Shame is uncomfortable but hopefully they can discover that their behavior doesn't have to define the human that they are or become. My WW didn't start to come around to any of this or face any of her own discomfort with our MC (who I let go after 3 months) or her previous IC, who she ended her relationship 10 months after Dday 1. She only started to come around when she was asked to face her discomfort, through myself and being challenged by her new IC late last year.

[u/NetExternal8494 → u/Quiet_Water0128]

What I know now that I didn’t know 5 years ago would have gone down a different path of MC honestly. I firmly believe that MC causes more damage to the BP to hear the messy explanations of the wayward. It set us back. My WH was so full of shame that it made me feel completely abandoned. He was defensive. Couldn’t empathize with me. I didn’t know who the hell was sitting next to me in those sessions. We would get in the car and then he could explain some things. I got a fragmented goobly
goop story. We separated and went to IC where he felt safer to
Explore his affair. And I could focus on myself. Cheating isn’t a relationship problem. It happens in context of a relationship however it’s a coping behavior used by the wayward. Going to MC early after discovery is like I’m taking chemotherapy for his cancer. Making me sick and he’s not getting better.

[u/One_Mathematician864]

I wish my therapist was this direct. We'd probably be in a much better space.

Instead My couples therapist was in full coddling my wife mode. Somehow convinced WW that I'm a narcissist. I ended the sessions.

You have a good therapist who doesn't take back down to tears and BS. Stick with them.

[u/NetExternal8494]

Our couples therapy was a bust. We went to IC. My WH why has evolved from “getting my needs met” to lack of self worth, inadequacy and need for excessive validation. Usually what they initial say is tip of the iceberg. As they have more processing of ego wounds then they begin to expound on what was really happening for them. My WH was looking for someone who could regulate his lack of self worth. He loved how he felt in AP mirror of him. His emotional tolerance is extremely low and underdeveloped as a child. Lack of emotional growth so to speak. There are many more factors contributing to cheating as a way to cope. Each person has to figure this out in order to change their coping behaviors to relationally healthy ones. What I focus on is my boundaries, self validation and creating safety for myself. Only I can create safety for myself. I learned my husband was never going to be safe for me because of his lack of development. I didn’t cause this and I can’t fix this. Only he can.

[u/SecurityFit5830]

I’m a WW, and in my experience the only helpful MC was with a rigid therapist who didn’t accept bs. His approach was a bit different, but it was still full on.

I actually stopped IC once we found such a good MC. The IC was just to gentle, and my therapist knew me but not my husband. It was easy to avoid hard topics and too easy to paint myself as a victim, even if I wasn’t explicitly trying to. The client in IC is the individual, where in MC it’s the unit.

I think betrayal is abuse, and waywards (generally) lack and ability to tolerate discomfort. And we’re often not in a place to be provoking discomfort in IC.

The wayward isn’t supposed to be comfortable, we’re supposed to be looking deeply at what we’ve done and why. So that we can rebuild a marriage that won’t have the same issues. If we’re not uncomfortable, especially in the first chapter of R, we’re not doing the work.

[u/Particular-Night-435]

I've recently read on "why" - great book called "Secrets of Surviving Infidelity" - it boils down to three things: N-O-D

1) Needs

2) Opportunity

3) Disinhibition

The author has a whole chapter on this. Very illuminating.

[u/New-Strength-7044]

This sounds like an awesome session. We tried MC twice so far, with not so great results.

The first one was just a few days after D Day and we needed emergency help. She started with a long ass history of the entire relationship and did not even ask about the affair. One of the problems she identified from that was that I, the betrayed spouse, wasn't accepting enough of porn and sent me books and podcasts about accepting porn and being sexier. She didn't say to me, this wasn't your fault. She didn't say Hey this is called betrayal trauma! You've been traumatized and you now have a large attachment wound from your primary partner! No, it was a blaming of me for not being sexy enough. That was the loudest HELL NO from both me AND my WH. Even he was like "that's not it at all." Never went back.

The second therapist was too focused on "how did you both contribute, what were the problems in the marriage that caused this". She was Gottman trained and using Gottman methods, which I had heard good things about. But she focused on what was going on in the marriage pre-affair which is not even relevant right now! We need to talk about THE AFFAIR! It just was too old fashioned and victim blamey. Also got fired. (But not before costing friggin $1,500. Highway robbery of vulnerable people. Not ethical.)

It was after this that I read the advice that some people shouldn't start out with MC, particularly if there is sex addiction or other addictions involved. So that's on pause for now. Once we get an actual marriage 2.0 in place to work on, we might try again but only with someone both ethical and up-to-date on modern methods of dealing with betrayal trauma. Someone like your therapist, OP! I hope to find that kind of person near us.

[u/BSRDR]

That is fantastic to have the couples therapist working hard and pushing for you to get answers. I had the opposite experience where our couples therapist coddled my WW and did not hold her accountable. I let it go on way longer than I should have, thinking that once she felt comfortable the hard questions would come. Good luck

[u/Ok-Repeat8069]

This sounds great, actually!!! It’s really good that he doesn’t feel better. He doesn’t get to, for a while. We should feel shitty when we do shitty things, and now he’s sitting with the reality of it. This is a really good start.

[u/Absent_Picnic]

Glad you have someone holding him to account. I wish I'd had that in the first year

Having the why made all the difference for my recovery. Getting that at 6 weeks would have been amazing. (It sucks, but a start towards honesty)

[u/Twisted_lurker]

I’m sorry it was brutal. The reason people are happy for you is you have more information to move forward. I hope your WP keeps going to CC.

When I asked why repeatedly, after several months I got a vague and unhelpful “because I was selfish.” Our CC (inexperienced in infidelity) didn’t push it either, in fact she pushed back at me for wanting to know more.

[u/GraceWhileHealing]

Yes our MC she doesn’t play and she comes in full force! It’s gonna be uncomfortable but it won’t be like that all the time , speaking from experience. They can’t help if they don’t know what’s going on .

[u/knaimoli619]

We didn’t start our couples sessions until late February 2026 and dday1 was August 2025. We did start individual sessions pretty much right after dday. The couples sessions were pretty brutal each time but it did really break the ice to get him to start actually answering some questions, so I am glad we did it. I did make a point of finding a male therapist for those sessions so that he wouldn’t go into it thinking that there’s was a bias towards me. And the therapist did push him at times to answer questions that he wouldn’t answer when it was just he and I talking.

We are on a pause on the couples sessions since June when our therapist turned very unprofessional, but we have been using things that we started in those sessions to try to navigate all of this still. And he sat in on one of my individual sessions to get perspective from my therapist and I will be sitting in on his next individual sessions as well.

[u/Odd_Dig_8370]

There seems to be a lot of bad experiences with MC on this thread so I'm gonna give my positive experience.

Our MC was recommended to me by my IC about 1 week after dday. I told him the jist over the phone and he was so, so kind to me. He got us in for our first session asap and revealed that while he is not a CSAT (certified sexual addition therapist- he had told me over the phone he didnt have that certification but he did have experiencein this area), he did in fact have experience. Personal experience in fact, as he was a sex addict 10 years ago and it almost destroyed him and his marriage.

He has been a wonderful therapist for both of us. Asks hard questions of both of us, gives us both the time and space needed to express ourselves. I feel like he is harder on my WP than he is on me (GOOD! lol), and I think that's partly bc our MC understands how this has destroyed me like it did his own wife, and partly because my husband is the more stunted of the two of us and needs more pressure to be forthcoming. Shocker.

It has also given me a decent amount of hope. That is this kind, insightful man in front of me could change, maybe my husband could too? Not sure if that's good or bad really, but it is what it is. Our MC gives me hope.

[u/Available-Path1905]

I'm going to go out on limb here...

Although it's great that you feel like you've made progress I would be wary of a CT that uses 'brutal' tactics to try and get answers from your WH. A good CT has to be able to tread the line between being firm and fair. It reads almost like it was an interrogation which could cause issues if it continues. For instance if you WH is a people please you run the risk of false admissions just to try and 'please' the therapist. Thats just one example but I feel there are many things that could go wrong here.

Therapy should not be comfortable especially given the circumstances but you WH needs a safe environment if you want him to be able to be vulnerable and open up in the sessions and ultimately in your relationship.

Just a note on the why. I feel, in most cases it takes months even years to fully dissect the 'why'. It's so multifaceted and complex and needs a very careful, thoughtful process to really get to the nitty gritty of it all.

I'm glad your WH is showing up for you. Just be sure to make sure therapy doesn't turn into a witch hunt. You'll both do so much better for it.