My wife posted this in the Emotional Needs folder. Someone suggested that I post it here (and in the In Recovery Folder) as well. She'd like some perspective.

----------------------------------------------
My husband has been posting here since D/Day, excuse me I am not up to speed on the terminology. I was the one who had an affair. The affair (physical part) happened one time, but the emotional side of it was a few weeks after. My husband found out after he found an email I had written to the OM in our car. We are in the recovery process now, and I have maintained the no contact agreement that I promised. I have been communicative with my husband about the affair, and fairly open with questions he has asked. I feel genuine remorse and sadness about what I did, it was wrong. I don't think an affair should ever happen, however my husband had been out to sea for abour 6 years prior to the affair. Sex was sex with us, it became very nasty 5 years ago, and was never intimate afterwards. I was extremely rarely kissed on the lips, and he really made tremendous efforts to pull from me in any intimate parts of our marriage. We were dedicated parents, going through the motions of life, with very very very little emotion. I felt dead. I felt so depressed, and every three months I made this known to him. I asked what I had done, why he was so unresponsive to me, and he always said it was him. Anyways, my point of writing this is that he has been very focused on examining the details of the affair, and while I agree if I were on the other side of the fence I would be too, however it seems as though the thing that really needs to be examined is the distance that formulated between us. Right now he is a model husband, he is very in tune to me, and wants to spend every spare moment with me. I feel very much so in love with him again. Plan A is in full effect and he is doing everything to try to be a pleasant and attractive spouse. Really though, I want him to do what he feels...not the anger part, because we tried that and it only seemed to drum up more anger, to the point of a snowball between us. But, I don't want him to create some fantasy man because he feels that this is what I want. I want him to do the things he is doing because he WANTS to. We had a moment a few days ago where I got frightened because he was showing so many signs of going out to sea again. We communicated about it, he asked me what was wrong, and I told him. It helped, but I think what we really really need to work on is WHY I got to that place. While he has been very encouraging about talking about it, I don't see as much introspection into this asthere is into the affair. I am not experiencing any withdrawals, am happy with my marriage at this point, just afraid that if I give myself and my heart totally to him that I will be pushed away once he feels as though he has fought the dragon and won (I do recognize that he has fears of this too). I have told him that I don't need a magical man, I just need very simple emotional needs, like maybe to be kissed on the lips at least once a month, and made felt that he really does love me, not just respects me.

I don't know if it is appropriate for me to feel this way, I just do. I really really want our marriage to work. I want to love him with every piece in my heart. I know that I am the one who actually committed the betrayal, however, I felt so neglected emotionally prior to this and he was made so aware of it. When I thought about him finding out prior to D-Day, I truly thought that he would be relieved, and happy to go our separate ways. H didn't seem ready to give emotionally or want to give emotionally. At times right now I feel as though I am now more attractive to him (not physically, but as a person) because of the A. Only because I had a conversation with him prior to D-Day where I mentioned the Divorce word, and while he was concerned he didn't try to move any mountains like he is moving now.

Help, I want this to work. Thanks for listening..

Maija

Andrew- there was a post on a bit of the same topic under GC's thread about WS finding or using this forum. The point was made that plan A could appear to be manipulative if the BS wasn't committed to continuing the changed behavior even after NC etc. was won. It sounds to me like your wife has a lot of these same concerns, and that the two of you haven't spent much time together examining what was going on in your relationship when the A happened. Remind me- are you in MC? That might be instrumental in helping your wife feel that not only are your changes real- but that you both understand how things need to change to keep your marriage healthy.

Sad,

We are in counseling. And...we've spent a lot of time talking together about the issues that led to the affair. We have a lot more examination to do, of course. But..it's pretty clear to me that I didn't understand how deep some of her needs are (particularly, her need for affection.)

The behavior she is seeing now DOES come from my heart. There are a lot of feelings being expressed that have been bottled up for a long time. My goal, every day, is to demonstrate to her how very much I love her and to make sure that she goes to bed each night with her love bank completely full.

I haven't done a good job of that in the past. I'm committed - and determined - to doing a better job of it each and every day for the rest of my life.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by AndrewA:
<strong> Sad,
My goal, every day, is to demonstrate to her how very much I love her and to make sure that she goes to bed each night with her love bank completely full.
I'm committed - and determined - to doing a better job of it each and every day for the rest of my life. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Excellent Andrew- and your posting here and doing MC should give you a lot of credibility. Hopefully in time you will both have explored your relationship- and the A- to the extent you both need to be satisfied.