My personal therapist and my couples therapist confer

My wife and I see a couples therapist (call her April) and we each see our own personal therapists. We are trying to work through some problems that have developed and grown over 15 years of a 27 year marriage. Our issues are complicated, multifaceted and involve things each of us has done that have caused pain to the other.

We both want to work through our issues and stay together. Re-read the previous sentence if you are thinking of advising me to take steps that will result in divorce. That is not my goal or wish. We are making progress and getting along better, although we have a long way to go.

Here's the dilemma I face now: I am making sufficient progress in my individual therapy that I am opening up to, and dealing with, some life-long sexuality issues. I am bi, having spent my teens and 20s in exclusively hetero relationships and encounters, but having admitted to myself my attractions to men as well in my late 30s and 40s, occasionally acting on it.

I want to be more open and honest with my individual therapist about this, and have excellent rapport with him ("Ted"), but the way we have set things up is that our couples therapist consults and works with each of our individual therapists, speaking weekly or nearly so. They all know each other and have worked together before. I am not ready to tell my wife everything (although I have told her about y bi tendencies and we are working through that). I feel certain that if every betrayal was laid out on the table (a history of oral sex encounters over time, largely with me as recipient), she would terminate therapy and we divorce me. I have good reason for feeling this way. Every confession made so far has almost ended things and there is a point at which the last straw will break the camel's back. This knowledge of course inhibits me from telling "Ted" everything.

I know, I know -- the standard prescription is complete honesty and let the chips fall where they may. Betrayal can only be overcome through total honesty... I get it. But I don't want those chips falling where I am sure they would: divorce, damage to nearly adult children, financial disaster, personal life mayhem. So please accept that, and do not tell me to do something that will lead to disaster from my perspective. I am willing to be completely faithful -- as I have been since we started this process-- and not act on same-sex attractions. As we work through our problems, the urge subsides, I have found.

Should I open up to Ted about literally everything I have done -- and put him in a bad position of not being able to share it with April? Or should I seek a new therapist who is not in communication at all with our couples therapist and who can help guide me through all this without any impediment? I am leaning toward the latter but would appreciate advice, other then to just fess up and have my wife leave me. Thanks for considering this thorny dilemma.

I would open up to Ted assuming you trust him not to share it with April.

Your history with Ted would mean more trust and understanding there -- he knows you more than some new therapist would, and that's an important part of therapy -- the history.

My instinct is to find another therapist that has no involvement with your couples therapist. If not, you may end up withholding front Ted and not getting the full benefit of therapy. Having also been in couples therapy/ individual therapy at the same time, I understand your hesitance to share certain information, even with the guarantee of confidentiality.

Can you ask Ted in advance not to share what you are about to tell him? If you can’t get that guarantee can you seek out an individual t unconnected to marriage counseling?
It sounds like a hard situation and I hope you find what you are looking for.

I don't think you'd be putting Ted in a bad position by asking him not to share certain information. None of this is about him.

Is it usual for an individual t to share with a marriage counselor? I thought only the marriage counselor shared info with the spouse.

Maybe those here who have been through a similar marriage counseling situation would know?

In my opinion ted is in your hire, you can ask whatever you want

I see you're in the US. That means you would have had to sign something saying the therapists could talk to each other. (Because of HIPAA laws.) Assuming that's the case, you can revoke that permission at any time. I think this would be a good time to do that, so that you can freely discuss your sexuality with your T without fear they'll disclose it to your marriage counselor.

Thats a difficult position to be in. I guess if it were me, i would tell "Ted" but make sure that he knows that you are not ready to share this with your wife yet. I dont know if you have plans to tell her but I would at some point, especially if you are rebuilding your relationships. Secrets make for a shaky foundation. Maybe "Ted" could help you come to a place where you feel you could tell her and accept whatever her reaction is to the news. I know its probably not what you wanted to hear but as someone who has been on both sides of an unfaithful relationship, there is no way to work through it without pain on both sides.

I would ask Ted what his position would be on telling April and in turn what is her position on this entering your marriage counselling. Good luck with figuring all of this out. Trust in therapy is very important to get anywhere so definitely talk to Ted to find out if you can take this discussion further.

If it were me, I'd tell "Ted" not to talk to April about this issue until you're ready to. I think if you left "Ted" for another T, your wife and "April" might get suspicious. Like why would you leave a T you're making progress with?

I think that Ted should easily be able to keep that particular thing to himself. I would ask him first by saying that you have something that you believe you need to work through individually, but you are not yet ready to share it with your marriage therapist or your wife. Would he be willing to keep it secret? If he says "no," then you have your answer. But therapists are pretty good at keeping confidences otherwise they wouldn't be therapists anymore, so I'm guessing he will be ok with it. His first responsibility is to you, not your wife.

My guess is that therapists do that all the time. I'm pretty cautious about signing releases, but I recently signed one for my therapist to talk to a doctor because I needed her help explaining something to him. I told her that I didn't care what she talked to him about other than one particular thing (having to do with sexuality) and she was fine with it.

Would your wife not just become suspicious if you moved to another T, specifying the no sharing rule.
Would she not just assume,'rightly so' that you are hiding things from.her.
Given your previous history that would be my assumption if I was in her shoes.

Just a thought.

You need to ask Ted how he handles situations like this. You don't have to give specifics, but should be able to ask in a general way.

As someone who's been betrayed the slow leak of information is much worse than an all at once confessional. Finding out that you've been lied to, either outright or through omission, is one of the worst hurts you can ever feel. Especially since you've already brought up the bi-tendencies, your wife probably already has suspicions if she hasn't already asked. Eventually finding out that you deliberately hid things once you started to work things out is shattering because it effectively destroys all trust that you thought you had built.

My best advice would be to lay it all out on the table with Ted and April and ask for help in talking to your wife about it. You said you wanted advice that would avoid divorce, and I honestly and genuinely feel like you need to tell your wife ASAP with the help of your counselors.

I would ABSOLUTELY talk to a new therapist outside of the setting where you currently see your couple's therapist and you and your wife see your individual therapists. I also think it was a mistake for you and your wife to allow all three therapists to confer. If you live in the US, you must've signed the authorization to release information form that allows all three therapists to talk to each other. Without that form no therapist can discuss your case with any other therapist even if they work in the same building or for the same organization. So, I assume, there is a written authorization that you signed, which you can withdraw any time. At this point though, I wouldn't trust any of the therapists not to talk to the other two even if I asked them to. They've already talked too much for me to feel comfortable about sharing some sensitive and potentially explosive information with them. So, yes, I'd just seek individual counseling for myself outside of that place.

I would be open.

What do you gain (in general, ever) from Ted talking to April?

In your shoes, I think I'd either find a new personal therapist or revoke permission for him to talk to her.

When I was in couples therapy I did not grant the couples therapist permission to speak with my individual therapist. I had nothing to hide. The was no secret, no affair, nothing like that on my part but I felt that the entire point of having an individual therapist was knowing that anything I told her wouldn't go any further. (My ex granted her therapist permission to talk to the couples therapist but in a text I later found, asked her individual therapist not to tell the couples therapist about her affair. Ex also accused me of hiding things and being shady by not allowing the couples therapist to speak to my individual therapist... good times!)

Anyway. I hope things go well for you and your marriage doesn't blow up. I am agnostic as to what you should tell your wife about your past extra-marital experiences. I do think you should be honest with yourself and ultimately with her about your sexual needs going forward. The fact that your needing to have sex with men is exceedingly inconvenient in your current setup is, in my opinion (and more importantly, in your experience), unlikely to be sufficient to dissuade you from ever doing so again.

My point is that your individual therapy should not become an unsafe or untrustworthy space at a time when you especially need the support and perspective.

This is a bomb that is going to detonate, whether Ted trips the switch or you or a combination thereof.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions.

Additional facts: My wife and I went to many months of individual therapy before embarking on the couples route. Our two therapists agreed upon who the couples therapist would be (recommended by the woman my spouse is seeing and endorsed by Ted).

Yes, I did sign consent forms, as did my wife. We have been generally pleased with the interaction between the three therapists. My wife also met with my therapist once, so he could get a sense of her in order to guide me better. On balance the interaction has been helpful to me, in terms of bringing the couples counselor up to speed on me and giving her insights into my wife that help her round out the picture of both of us. For example, my wife approaches the problem as victim and me as perpetrator. The reality of course is more nuanced. I did not stray until my wife did some things and embarked on some unilateral actions that affected me without my agreement and left me behind in many ways. The communication between the 3 therapists has helped our couples therapist (who may well be the weakest link, but nonetheless a skilled and intelligent therapist) guide us toward discussing things that each of us has done that contributed to our marital problems, instead of just addressing one part of it.

So if I come clean with Ted, I am 100% sure I will be pressed to tell all to my wife. No matter how "guided" we were and no matter how it was disclosed in the presence of a therapist where we both felt "safe," I am 100% sure it would be the end..e would cease therapy and she would file for divorce.
So I will not put Ted in that position. If I revoked my permission, that decision would ricochet through the couples therapy and very adversely affect my professional relationship with April. No,

For now, I plan on working with Ted on all the "why" stuff without fully disclosing the specifics of activities I engaged in when I was in a pretty low place. The exploration of the "why" inquiry, and its focus on my family life as a child, with Ted has been very illuminating. If I see the value in fully disclosing every detail of what I did, then I will seek a different "clean slate" therapist and keep it to myself, at least for a while. There is no perfect answer, so I must choose the one that has the fewest disadvantages. Thank you for the helpful thoughts and don't hesitate to give more if they come to you.

Could you ask Ted if you could share certain things with him that he would agree not to share with April? When I was seeing ex-T, I had signed permission letting her and former marriage counselor communicate (they were in same practice). However, ex-T agreed not to tell him about certain things without my separate permission. In other words, she might say, "I would like to mention this to MC. Is that OK?" Or if I said, "Please don't tell MC about this," then she wouldn't. This mainly became an issue when I developed transference for MC and wasn't ready to talk to him about it yet (or, once I did, wanted to be free to share thoughts about it with T without her telling him). But there were also some things I disclosed to her, like feelings (5 years ago) for a fellow grad student that I did ultimately talk about in marriage counseling, but I wanted to wait until I was ready.

I think it would help you to discuss these feelings and encounters with your T. So I wonder if you could ask him about keeping certain things quiet from April. In fact, I think you can amend your form to include or exclude certain topics (that's how my current T's form is, like you can say "I allow T x to share with T y only information pertaining to _________.") Just a thought of something to try, so that you could talk about it with Ted without April having to know.