Great post, MrW!

L2L, it is an addiction that she has. Her therapist diagnosed her with what he would describe as a borderline sexual/approval addict. She shared this with me.

As far as her being NPD, I am not diagnosing her, We did these tests a little over a year and a half ago. I have addressed my childhood issues in therapy, as they did "color" how I viewed things as an adult, and the therapy helped me to let go of a lot of destructive behavior.

I do plan on putting my education on hold for now and foucs all my energy on saving this marraige. I have hope, but I cant control another person. She reallys shows no remorse for what she has done. I dont know if the affair is over. She says it is, I dont believe her, but if she wants to continue with this OM I cant stop it.

I have access to her email and phone logs, but who is to say she hasnt opened another email account to contact him? If I were to dwell on this I would go mad. I also left the home because at the time the environment was toxic to my kids. We start counseling tomorrow with a new therapist. I am excited because I can actually talk about it.

My WW tries to make me feel guilty about her affair. After she told me I verbally lashed out for 2 days, of course she told me I was abusive, to which I replied "How am I supposed to act?"

I am appreciate the advice, it helps to keep me grounded and going.

Move back in, put a key logger on the computer, or stay out, cut your losses, divorce.

Thank you for your pos Mrs. W. As someone who suffers from bipolar disorder, advice which basically consists of "she's hopeless, she's disordered, toss her," makes me cringe. Thank God my H didn't feel that way.

It sounds to me as if she is still in the fog big time. Once that fog lifts, the remorse will set in. I was a pro at pushing away those defogging, honest thoughts....until they crushed me. Unfortunately, you can force away the fog.

The pros here have lots of good tips on snooping. I know that living that way sounds awful, but my H did it for a long time, and it actually helped both of us. I knew I was accountable, and he felt better every time he didn't find something.

In the days of rampant "disorders" and a new "addiction" at every turn, if the only marriages worth fixing were the ones that weren't touched by these, there would be a lot of unmarried people out there. One thing I have had to learn the hard way is that not every well-meaning person or well-meaning therapist necessarily has a clue what they're talking about with regard to these things.

Only you, your wife, and God Himself really know all the details, so you have to weight everything you get from an outside source against that. I will say this, though, once repentance does come, the change in your wife may well be dramatic, so have hope. And once that happens and you begin to catch your breath from all the pain, the MB principles here will be invaluable to help you both put 100% into the marriage in the most effective way possible. If someone had told us 3 years ago that my H and I would be where we are today, we wouldn't have believed it. It can happen.

I think you should really try to find out if she has a personality disorder. From what I have read, these are nothing like Bi-polar, the condition from which luroosi(sp?) suffers. There is a huge difference.

Zelmo - as in "The Music Man", I'd like to see your credentials for psycho-analytics on this board. You plant seeds of doubt in recovery based on what?

Your experience of a diagnosis and a result. Big whoopteedo! That means the whole world's results will be the same - diagnosis-result - hammer-nail.

I've told you before that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Harleys do not go into psychoanalysis because it is mostly meaningless. The wife is either motivated to recover her marriage through correct behaviors or she's not. And that's what Jenkins needs to determine right here and right now. And he needs to be working on correct behaviors himself. Not trying to match a diagnosis to a probability of success BEFORE he decides if he should do correct behaviors. He should do the marriage builder steps because they are the right steps to take right now. Period.

It will be her actions, not her mental diagnosis that will tell him what he needs to know.

Enough with psychobabble distractions!

Hi J,

Can you give some details on how long you have been married, your ages, how she met OM.

Can you afford to go on a MB weekend?

I do agree that it is better to fight divorce than to yield to circumstances. Divorce is much easier (no divorce is easy) than restoring your marriage.

If your wife is narcissistic, this is a terrible situation to continue living under. Evidence should show itself of N before the affair. Keep reading here and discover that affairs do turn spouses into aliens.

Imagine,

We have been married for a little over 4 years, almost 5. I am 34, she is 33. From the time we dated she always had the "need" to keep in contact from men (friends and ex's) in her past, although I was to dismiss and never have contact with any women period.

After we married this issue still remained a problem. We went to see a marriage counselor and she also told my wife that this was potentially dangerous and leaving open doors that could lead to ruin. She listened, or so I thought and the problem went away.

Through dating and now marriage, she has always flirted with men. She would GO OUT of her way to make sure they noticed her, and I was paying her adequate attention, she just got off on it. I told her if her behavior continued I would no longer take her out because it was hurtful and disrespectful. She didnt stop, so I stopped taking her out. That was about 2 years ago, then our daughter was born and the marriage began to go downhill.

I spent a lot of time running my business and caring for our daughter. My wife was in school at the time and would come home, visit with me for about 15 minutes and then jump on the PC for 2-3 hours. I was essentially the primary caregiver for our daughter and the 2 other kids in the home. Her entire foucs was on getting her degree.

Our marriage sucked because we didnt communicate and other things came before each other. I have been in individual therapy for a little over2 years working on me, which in turn have helped me to interact with her better. I asked her to put her schooling on hold to work on the marriage and she refused.

I shared with her that I felt like I came second to everything else in her life. Looking back I began to withdraw from her because she openly rejected my feelings and pleas to help work on our marriage.

So, fast-forward to the affair, she hooked up with an ex on facebook, they began to tell each other how bad their marraige was and thats how the affair began. What I struggle with is what I read, She has a Blackberry and she used that a lot to communicate with him. She was basically trying to force him to divorce his wife and then they would start this new life together. She discussed our personal life and made horrible remarks about me and my genitals. She sent nude photos to him at first and they had phone sex while I was in the other room!

I just cant wrap my mind around any of it. This woman I thought I knew and could trust, would do this to me. This man had a wife and kids and she didnt care if she would break up this other home. It now makes me look back and question everything she did. She would take off for the weekend, go to the bar and come home at 2-3 in the morning, she gave a guy a ride home at 130am, and according to her did nothing with him (all this behavior was in the last 7 months).

Its hard knowing that the woman I see in old photos is a fraud, or at least that is how I feel. If it was that bad in our marriage, and apparently it was, she had options. She could have shared with her therapist these feelings, a friend or better yet, given me a chance to meet her needs.

I feel like a fool at times because I feel like I am the only one trying to save my marriage. I have been the one to call and make appts with all the therapist' we have ever seen. She tells me even after the A that I need to "convince" her as to why she should stay. I am going through all these emotions and she has this expectation that I should just move on and if I could I would.

I think this new therapist will work, or I hope. The first lady we saw told me to leave my wife because she was "broken." She had some counter-transference going on because she shared how her husband cheated on her, twice and they never change. I never saw her again. The last man told me to "love like Jesus" and move on. Sorry, I am not Jesus, but a man. I told him flat out I needed to discuss the affair and he would not do it. So I hope this new therapist will work. She has experience with affairs so this gives me hope.

Sorry the post is so long and again, I appreaciate the advice. To those that say move in or divorce, I wish it was that simple. I have emotions that run deep for my wife and if I could turn them off like a faucet and leave her I probably would.

She does sound like she has a serious problem, be it a personality disorder or something else and it clearly predates her affair.
I realize KaylaAndy feels I have tunnel vision on this personality disorder issue . However, I do not see it in every situation. Infidelity is rampant among these folks,the disordered. So, it is not surprising to see a high % of incidence among the WSs.
Look, folks can dismiss it as "psychobabble" or whatever term they choose to try to undermine the concept. This is hurtful to those involved with the disordered, as, typically, they are already questioning their perceptions of reality due to long term abuse.
Ignoring the possibility of a disorder (particualrly in this case where there is a long history of weird behavior, a professional has broached the possibility, and the BS has noticed these tendencies in his wife) does a disservice to this BH, IMO.

Hammer/ nail. This makes no sense to me. I could say the same to you, KA, re your allegiance to the belief that there is a one size fits all remedy.

I understand the feeling foolish as you are the laboring oar when it seems the cheater should be. I'd do this for a while, but not indefinitely.
I was with a NPDXW, and, I got some peace of mind when I set a deadline for how long I would continue hitting my head against a wall.
At some point, if the WS does not step up and start accepting responsiblity and trying to do the hard work involved in reconcilng, you have to cut your losses.

Hmm I think that loving like Jesus would be more like Dobson's book on "Tough Love". What a pity that the therapist could not be specific.

I am not from America and here in South Africa we don't do therapy. I believe that you will pick up some very strong points from this site's articles. Eg Minimum sharing time of 15 hours per week; Concept of radical honesty; Policy of Joint Agreement. Alternatively, you might want to listen to the voices here that recommend contacting the Harley's directly.

These folk agree that while they are expensive, the Harley's are seriously more effective. Hence, far better value for money.

I continue to read the articles and learn more each day. Free!

My old therapist was very specific, "Love like Jesus" forgive your wife and move on. I agree with you Zelmo, I need to set a deadline and be ready to move on with my life.

I have one more question for all:

We are going to therapy tomorrow and I want her to get rid of her Blackberry. She used it to contact the OM and has email on there that I dont have access to as well as instant messaging. Is this appropriate? Should I just flat out state what I will and will not accept?

There should be nothing that you do not have access to. Nothing. Even now, three years alter (and forever), my H has access to all my phone, email, FB, everything. I don't go anywhere unless he knows where. If I disappear, he finds me (via phone or whatever), even though it's just me being too long at the grocery store.

BTW, that therapist wasn't very accurate. Jesus didn't tell the adulterous woman to "go, and we'll all move on." He said, "Go, and sin no more." Jesus' forgiveness does not exempt us from the consequences of sin. Forgiving and forgetting are NOT that same thing. My H has forgiven me, but neither of us will ever forget it.

MB has very cearly defined "deadlines," as it were. They are plan A and plan B. I think that is the way to go.

Yes. It's called enforcing boundaries.

You don't want to be in a marriage where your wife is free to pick up guys in the internet and sneak around by contacting them on her blackberry. If she doesn't want to move out and get divorced, she can kiss her Blackberry and all social networking sites goodbye. If that's not acceptable to her, don't let the door hit her in the @ss on the way out. Most waywards will try to negotiate, threaten divorce, and manipulate you, but when it comes down to it, they'll cave. You just need to take back control of what you will and will not accept.

Jenkins,

I know this does not make it any easier to hear or accept, but almost all waywards spew a bunch of garbage about their spouses. My H told OW intimate details of our marriage, our childten's problems, my surgeries, my personal shorcomings, said that he had married "second best", almost amything negative that you can think about. H and OW traded nude cell phone pics, made out in my car, wrote passionate notes to each other. The only way for me to look at this and accept it was to acknowledge the A as an addiction. H said and did things that were atypical for him and he is now tremendously ashamed. It took him many, many months to get to that point. Even so, 18 months post D-day, recovery is difficult - mainly because H is making it that way.

AM

KaylaAndy
I can appreciate you are trying to encourage this poster to follow the process, and you have difficulty when Zelmo raises the issue of a personality disorder. The challenge is "if" a personality disorder is part of the equation the process will not work. A personality disordered person does not behave, act, or process the way an average or normal person does. A borderline or narcissistic personality disorder will be consumed with blaming and avoiding responsibility.

Because of the nature of the disorder it would be reasonable to expect there will be a number of the partners of someone with a personality disorder to experience marital discord. It will be one of the symptoms. Living with someone who has a personality disorder is like living your life in the spin cycle of a washing machine. You cannot comprehend the actions, and you begin to wonder if you are going nuts. A personality disorder is difficult to diagnose, however if you start having marital problems, what do you try to address first, the disorder, or the marriage. If a personality disorder is evident it is like trying to rebuild a house on a crumbling foundation.

From what I can see is Zelmo has been sensitized to PD behavior, and it seems to me he is trying to get people to ensure that they are not dealing with a PD.

I was trying to follow the MB process, I was sold on the MB process, but there is strong evidence my stbxw has a personality disorder. My experience was the PD has to be dealt with prior to any MB principles being introduced because the person with the PD does not process the same way an average person processes.

In this posters case, a woman who will carry on phone sex while her partner is in the other room certainly raises the possibility there may be other issues that need to be taken into consideration. As much as you would like to say it is only actions that need to be focused on is short sighted. With a PD their actions will be predicated based on the PD.

So I would caution you that to totally disregard the possibility of a PD is doing a disservice to the person seeking assistance.

BC, that pretty much sums it up. I think the allegation that I brought the PD thing up out of the blue and planted seeds of doubt is baseless, as jenkins, himself, said he was dealing with an N. Where KA came up with that notion is anyone's guess.
I'd be willing to bet that Harely would agree that dealiing with a bonafide PD person is a whole diferent kettle of fish.
I don't think it hurts to try these Plans with a PD person, but , if you are really dealing with one, keep expectations low. And , jenkins, I think you will know relatively early whether it makes sense to bolt or stay and try.
Remorse and empathy are the keys to identifying who/what you are dealing with. There are WSs that can accept responsibility and try to help you heal(in many cases, even that is not enough and most marriages do not recover, regardless). If you deal with blameshifting, justifying, gaslighting for an extended period, you are probably dealing with someone unsuited for a committed relationship.

Zelmo and BC - just for the record. I have a family member with a bonafide diagnosis, ok? I also have been through having an armchair amateur like yourselves stick a label on this loved one that was FALSE! and Because of that label, everyone else saw that label as FACT when in FACT it was fiction. The real diagnosis only came once the professionals saw past the amateur's label and that didn't happen until a great deal of harm was done and time was past. It has taken YEARS to recover what should have taken a few days, perhaps weeks.

It happens. FAR. TOO. FREQUENTLY. I've worked in the profession and the text books, professionals and full time practitioners will agree.

And above all else, it's irrelevant here!

It is a SECONDARY concern to Jenkins right now and a distraction.

ACTIONS speak recovery. Not diagnoses. Not Talk.

Actions.

First of all, NEITHER of you have the qualifications to truly accurately label. You can warn. But what good is a warning? Factually speaking?

I personally know someone with an NPD diagnosis who has taken charge of his treatment plan with humility and action. The text books that say this doesn't happen aren't dealing with human minds and hearts.

What Jenkins needs is an action plan with a time line. Zelmo - that part you got right. But the diagnosis bears no relevancy to that. He should have a plan with a time line regardless of her mental state/illness/personality disorder.

Because he is going to run out of energy and heart to get through this any other way.

So help him with the action plan. Stop distracting him with NPD or BPD or a myriad of other possibilities, that since you haven't examined the patient, done the MMPI or Rorschach or Myers Briggs, DISC or other personality/mental illness tests on her, Stop it with the what ifs.

The facts are this: she's actively cheating on him. He needs a plan. He needs a time line. He needs to start implementing boundaries yesterday. He can order the psychological exam for the custody fight if she doesn't respond to Plan A and Plan B.

Zelmo my reaction to your post didn't come out of the blue. EVERY single person you respond to has a spouse with a personality disorder in your mind. That is not a notion. That is a FACT. Unfortunately we've lost 6 months of evidence of that fact.

But Please. Once and for all. Get over your ex wife's being indicative of every wayward out there. Not true by any stretch of the imagination. Your ex was as she was/is. Jenkin's ww is not your ex. And Jenkins deserves to gain the support of the Harley methods without you coloring his picture with your filters!

Jenkins, Where to the kids live, with you? Your wife sounds really immature, and the dymanic in your relationship could be paternalistic which causes her to act out more like a horny teenager. Who're paying your rent? Do you both own the house? If you move back in, why would that be hard?

L2L