The Initial Conversation

This was my first attempt at using receiving counselling. I am utterly disgusted that she couldnt be bothered to turn up ! In my wifes words "she shipwrecked us". The issue we have is a huge disagreement on religion. Theres been a teeny weeny bit of progress without counselling - at this point Ive resolved to let time do the work I thought the counsellor might do.

I'm a big fan of "crowd sourcing" for this sort of thing: Yelp, Angie's List, and so on. You can google for "poly-friendly counselor" and cross-reference it with people's ratings and reviews of the counselor to try to avoid picking a dud the next time.

"Poly-friendly" doesn't, of course, automatically mean "take your side," nor should it. It just means that the counselor won't walk into the room thinking you're something out of the DSM that needs to be cured. :-/
 
She did not like that the counselor specialized in gay and alternative relationships.

Oh for goodness sake. She's stonewalling you. In poly, we do say, go at the pace of the slowest member, the one who is struggling the most. However, NO progress, not even one baby step, is different.

And yes, you're being "chickenshit." Passive might be a better word.

In a similar story (which I've shared on another thread), this guy I chat with told me his wife found out he was a cross-dresser. She refused to go into therapy with him to come to terms with his gender identity (which came as a shock to her, as he'd denied it in himself, and tried to hide it from her for their 12 year marriage). So, they spent an entire year as roommates, more or less, no touching of any kind, no "I love yous," no kisses. Slept in the same bed to not give the kids any idea something was wrong.

Finally after a year of that, extreme touch hunger, loneliness, and horniness drove my friend to distraction. He joined ok cupid just to meet people who might be able to relate to his struggle, messaged me as I seemed to be a likely person to help him. He hit on me a bit, but when I told him I wasn't interested, and instead encouraged him to approach his wife again for counseling, he agreed, asked her, and by that point she was ready. He had been in individual therapy for that whole year and come to more acceptance of his gender ID himself, coming more from a place of strength than shame and guilt.

I'd recommend you continue to see this poly friendly counselor yourself until your wife is ready to join you.
 
He had been in individual therapy for that whole year and come to more acceptance of his gender ID himself, coming more from a place of strength than shame and guilt.

I'd recommend you continue to see this poly friendly counselor yourself until your wife is ready to join you.

I'm on the end of that road myself. I think I'm finally ready to come out to my wife. I'm still scared that I might lose everything we've built for the last 23 years, but I know now the conversation has to happen. I also know I would never have gotten to this place without the poly-aware MFT I've been seeing for the last two months.

Your story is remarkably similar to mine, MorningTwilight; I'm rooting for you.
 
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