I remember....we were living in Australia at the time and I had seen the name of a women he'd communicated with back in NZ....on his work phone ( he'd put the first 3 letters of his companies name in front of this women's name, and thought I wouldn't notice). One  morning when the text beep from his phone sounded I asked suspiciously "who's that from?"....well, my partner lost his temper, yelled at me,stormed out and was gone for a couple hours. 
Another time he was showing me something on his work laptop and I noticed her name in his emails, looked at him accusingly and he immediately became defensive and as we were walking away from the car he was ahead of me, spun around, threw the car keys at me and stormed off. 
One other time we were having a bath together (at this point I still thought it was women! I had to worry about) and I was pathetically begging him (I cringe at myself now) to never leave me/sleep with another woman/blah-blah-blah. He got incensed and launched angrily out of the bath..

All these times....looking back....were examples of him exerting the power of his lack of emotion over my confusion and panic.

His r'ship with the woman was purely sexual, and almost a conduit/a soundingboard that he used alongside his tsdecision to delve more into chatting/seeing men. There was nothing I could do to stop all this, he was so secretive.

There was a time when looking through his phone would never have occured to me. When I realised he was deleting his texts before he came home....every day....I became suspicious/worry/stressed but got to a point where I knew if I didn't stop myself caring about who, when, how, why....it would make me crazy. It was really difficult but the fact he has a phone with facial recognition means I don't go near it

Hi Susanne

therapists are focussed on the interests of their client primarily, that is what they are asked for and so that's their task. The care for the well being of others is not their priority. They probably assume it's the responsibility of "the others" to take care of themselves. 
The therapist should however strive towards achieving the goals formulated by his client (usually these are discussed in the first session). It may help to think about and discuss these goals, so that your situation and well being should not be comprimised but rather is part of the goals your husband wants to achive by the therapy.
This is different in couples therapy, where the interest of both spouses and their relation is at the center. 

Individual therapy can be befenefical, but can also backfire when it's too one-sided. Like in our situation 15 years ago, a therapist suggested my wife to find a girlfriend (next to our marriage). I'm sure the therapist said this in the interest of my wife at the time, but it would have devasted our marriage and our family. So it can be like with horse blinkers on.

Eventually we went for a combination of two kinds of therapy:

Couples therapy, which aimed at improving communication, helping to cope with emotions, speaking about the loss of trust that I felt etc, but didn't directly address the homosexuality. I suppose it's the kind of therapy that helps any other (straight) couple in/after a relational crisis. This eventually helped my wife, but especially me a lot in those early years. It helped us to get to a somewhat hormalized situation. Although I also recall very difficult conversations with my wife after some of sessions, when we used to take a walk together and evaluate what was said. But over a period of several months these conversations slowly shifted from very problematic to more hopeful. 

In the same time period my wife went to individual therapy (although I attended the first couple of sessions also) that aimed to get grip on her feelings and sexuality. Giving it a place where she could put her new found sexuality in perspective. The main principle: you aren't your sexuality (like: as if it defines your idenity), BUT it's (only) an aspect of what you are. 
A simple principle, but this was an all important first piece of understanding. Before she felt floating arround in a current, without having much of a choice about these feelings. 

btw the therapist of the couples therapy was at first a bit reluctant when she heard my wife wanted to attend two different therapies at the same time, because it can sometimes become problematic if they don't align. But as she understood the separate aspects it would address, she agreed to it. And it did work out very well, it never got in each others way.
In fact the combination of these two therapies was more than the added sum. Especially concerning rebuilding trust in our relation.

The first period after "coming-out" she didn't had a grip on her feelings. I noticed that too and it made me feel unsettled more and more, trust was only getting less. I had to bridge that lack of trust by policing, and also felt I had to be on my guard to prevent getting hurt. But by doing so took her responsibility over her own feelings on my shoulders. But... somebody has to do it, otherwise chances were that sooner or later it would spiral out of control. That's what I feared.
Trust could only begin to rebuild if there is enough solid ground beneath it. And this was when my wife found control over her feelings, and she determined her actions by her own and considered choices. Time and many talks later I felt I could trust her again. Hard to pinpoint when, it's a litle by litle process by which I slowly got convinced it is secure to trust. She was able to carry her own responsibility over her own feelings and actions.  

Therapy can help, but it´s not like taking a pill or expecting the therapist will solve the problem. One has to pick it up and actively do the actual inner work.

Edit...
Samanta adds that in retrospect, she thinks it was very good and useful those boundaries were set and guarded by me. At that time it was needed I did that, it gave her the necessary time to get a grip on herself and work things out to a stable level from where we could go further on our way.

Last edited by Dutchman (August 2, 2020 12:22 pm)

Yikes, ...this was explaining my goof up on the quote...can't totally delete it either.

I'll get to this later, but do want to say that the original post on this was all messed up. I did it in a hurry and didn't preview it. When I re-read it, I realized it doesn't say what I intended. That's one reason I don't post my own posts very often. 

Last edited by SusanneH (August 3, 2020 10:48 am)

"Susanne" wrote:

 If I don’t mess this up, it’ll post ;).

This happened to me a couple of times too Typing away for an hour or more, resulting in nothing. Arggg...
Since then, I write my posts in notepad or word first, and copy-paste it to the forum reply when I'm ready writing.
(in case there are problems with the connection or website, the text is still save in notepad).

I do realize the therapist’s interests are for his client, my husband. In fact, that was my point... 

I totally get your point (!), and agree with you that he (your husbands therapist) seems to have no or little understanding of your position in your situation. 
He seems to think/suggest you are some overreacting and paranoid type that desires controlling your marriage. Well, you're not, and this all is certainly not by choice!
You act sensible, and are doing the right thing. The fact that, at this point in time, you feel you have to keep a check on your husband is both rational and next to that also understandable from your emotional view point.

Naturally you first have to be sure your husband is really trustworthy to deal with his own inner (sexual) feelings before you can let go. For if he doesn't, it will hurt you badly, and you had enough of that and you don't want to experience that pain again and again.
If that therapist doesn't understand this, he is a moronic nitwit. You may quote me on that So I sure understand you feeling angry about the stupid and ignorant remarks he mailed you. (yeah right, he doesn't check his wife, but what would he do for instance if he suspected his own wife had an affair?)

But assuming that this therapist is capable and well thinking: he is still focused on achieving goals formulated by his client (your husband). This is the decisive matter they should work on.
These are not "goals" as in "tasks" for your husband. It's about the goal(s), that is formulated by your husband (!), as the (ultimate) objective of the therapy. THAT is the task the therapist is assigned to go for. 

Suppose your husband utters the wish to "live out his bisexuality without it bothering you and feeling guilty about it"... THIS becomes the goal of the therapy. The therapist will try to achieve this objective/goal for his client (or otherwise refuse the assignment all together).

So that's the question I tried to throw up for you to consider. What is the ultimate goal (objective) of your husbands therapy? How is this formulated by your husband? What task is put upon the therapist to achieve?
Is it "Live happily following his (sexual) feelings, and somehow get you to adjust to that"? Or... "enable him to get a grip on his feelings and urges, and make choices from his free will"?
With this I don't accuse your husband to have a hidden agenda, but... does he himself realize what he wants to accomplish in therapy? Can he formulate for himself what his actual objective is? And does this align with your common goal?
You have to know what you want and totally go for that. Not just you, but both must have that at the center.

Beside of that, I think couples therapy will benefit you both and hope your husband agrees to it. Because it's to help through the more practical side of the situation. How to deal with each other, speak out about issues that arise. A setting with someone else present who moderates and regulates can surely help.  

In all cases it's indeed what you (both) talk about and do next to that. For us the therapy sessions (not only the couples' therapy) were like input we subsequently worked on further. Mostly by talking, but I also often also wrote mails to my wife and (sometimes) vv. 
Writing things down can be helpful because it gives more opportunity to formulate and think things over. Even if it was and feels a bit awkward to communicate this indirect way, it also helped us.

It looks like I'm a lot like you, examining and searching, trying to get as much info myself. It was sometimes useful what I dug up and learned and could share with my wife, but it was also hard to do. Working through all the stuff out there, the negative things. It felt like being in the front line and the bullets whizzing about.

Hope it makes some sense & hope I didn’t leave something important out.

You make perfect sense, I understand what you're going through. And also from my/our side there is much more to tell, but well... it doesn't fit in a single post.
Keep posting.

PS:
Dutchman, thanks for understanding. I felt like I was being portrayed as a controlling, awful person. 

I used to be SO mild mannered, hardly ever criticized, was pretty happy (considering I’ve been chronically ill, and housebound since 1992....comes from a mother with a great outlook on life that she taught us 😊 with  a lot of love), and just liked most everyone. Now, I have a hair trigger, and get angry easily, and don't trust most people anymore 😕. . I want to go back to being myself, even though I know I’ll never be the same, I believe I/we can be happy again. It’s just going to take time, effort and patience. I can do it......just hope he can. 

It’s nice to have this forum to be able to talk to others and hear their experiences, and as they say in AA, also share strength and hope 😁 👍. 

Last edited by SusanneH (August 5, 2020 11:29 am)