Oh Dear, I can only hope you've found something helpful in some way.

I will be honest, I try to be very cautious about projecting my own experiences, my own biases, into another person's situation. It's tough to be completely "objective," I can only try to not contaminate your story with my stories or my own history, which would include my own experiences, my own biases, my own feelings, my own anger, my own fear, etc.

I became very aware of this, how we all can project our own stuff into situations which have nothing to do with us or with our own history, when I witnessed a therapist projecting her own stuff into a friend's marriage. It was so bizarre. My friend was so confused by this therapist. We'd meet after her sessions and I would be mortified by what the therapist was telling her and how the therapist was "bullying her," in a sense.

For example, the therapist was truly twisting things up, making things worse than they were for my friend, distorting what my friend had stated, making her husband sound like some kind of a madman, etc. How do I know this? We have been best friends for many, many years. She has always told me what goes on and she admits this. She swears she did not tell the therapist anything different than she'd told me. This therapist was "out of control," like a runaway train.

When my friend would try to counter what the therapist was saying, the therapist would then tell her there was no arguing with her clinical assessment, as she had presented case details to other therapists in the practice and they had all agreed he was severely abusive. My friend has never known him to be severely abusive or abusive at all. My friend was seeing the therapist because she was having her own mental health issues. She was not there about her husband or her marriage.

This is a small community. I was a bit suspicious about why this therapist was zoning in on my friend's husband like this, hoping to prove he was some kind of a monster? Well, soon enough, it came out: the therapist was going through her own divorce with someone she was alleging was a "monster."
The therapist and her own husband were deeply embroiled in a very hostile divorce.

This did a lot of damage to both my friend and to her marriage, for awhile. It has taken a lot of healing time, as how do you explain all of this to your husband, without him wondering how it all came about?

My friend and her husband are now fine, except my friend may never trust another therapist again in for the rest of her life.

While people can share on some of the similarities of marriage issues and/or can share re: feelings, it's a gross disservice to project my experience or my feelings about my negative experiences into your current experience(s). It is also not fair of me if I start interpreting your marital situation based upon my own marital situation.

I don't feel I am wording this well just now.
I do feel you understand what I am trying to say though.
You had mentioned you cannot know what anyone's agenda might be, even the T's agenda. Exactly. While she is there to help you, she is human. She may have a different agenda, conscious or unconscious.

I think you have a very sound approach. I am sure the distance, your having your own space, has been helpful in reaching a greater level of objectivity.

The bottom line: This man has been your husband and your children's father. You can divorce one another without demonizing one another. You can see one another's faults and be sad about them, there is no glory in persecuting one another further.

It's critical we come from the heart. We open our hearts. This does not mean we dismiss the Truths. It does mean we honestly feel compassion for, and we show compassion to, one another despite the need to separate/divorce. The goal of a divorce is to end the chaos/turmoil, not to perpetuate it with more stories, further accentuating one another's downfalls, and shoring up more hatred toward one another. We can accomplish separation and divorce with a sense of doing the right thing for everyone involved and doing it with Love despite the hardships and the hurt involved. It's not the way society has encouraged us to do this. It's not what divorce attorneys thrive upon. It is, however, more humane and more compassionate. It engenders potential for the eventual healing for everyone involved, despite the history and the huge loss involved in divorcing. We can do what we need to do, we can do what's healthiest for all, and we can do it out of deep love and respect for everyone personally affected.

I have kind of stumbled over my words. I am very tired today, my apologies. Yet, I honestly get the sense you know what I mean and you'd like a kind, peaceful resolution (whatever that means for you and yours), if at all possible.
I feel it's quite possible.

You and Yours Are On My Heart.

WC