I have worked as a behavior consultant before and still do a lot of that now in my student teaching (middle school kids) and music therapy job. One of the biggest things is consistency and follow through. If you are inconsistent with what you do and don't follow through on what you say, things can't get any better. Also, with my own children, I gave them permission to have their temper tantrums when appropriate. I would tell them that they can come see me when they are done and I show no frustration or emotion. Get down to their level as best you can when talking with them and limit the amount of verbalization.

As far as in public, my DS had a temper tantrum in the middle of the mall one day and I told him to go ahead and to let me know when he is done. I had no reaction to what was going on with him, matter of fact, and did not give him what he wanted as far as the attention or something like that. (HMMMM...sounds a lot like not giving my WH the anger/aggravation/etc. that he is wanting). Obviously, you don't leave your child alone if or allow them to continue with their behavior if they could get injured.

When it is over, talk (limited) with them and try to figure out what they wanted. Behaviors are usually a form of communication (wanting to get something or get out of something). Letting them know expectations and being consistent are so important to all of it and then letting go of what happened afterwards.

Hope this helps!!

Very helpful thanks prayerful!

Today is just a down day for me, I'm crying for no reason. I feel isolated and alone though I'm sure I'm not. Days like this I wonder why I'm choosing to stay and work on our M rather than just leave.

You are not alone RW!! You've always got your cyber MB friends..... {{{{{{RW}}}}}}

Do you feel this way often? If so, have you considered talking to your doc about AD's for a temporary period of time to help you through this? I've never taken AD's but from what I've read here they do seem to help alot of people.

RW- I agree with MS. I KNOW that when/if WH comes home, I am going to need some AD's for sure. Plan A was so hard to pull off the first time. I felt like I was losing my MIND. I get little tugs every once in a while in Plan B but not like the almost constant turmoil I was in before.

Let yourself cry for a bit and then go do something for you that has nothing to do with R. Like maybe go for a walk, or turn some music on and dance around the house. Something physical to get the heebee geebees out.

Thanks for the support MS and Scotland. I saw IC yesterday. No ADs as getting regular exercise usually helps me.

WH has been trying to make it a team effort to get exercise the last couple days. He also made our next appt with SH. Overall I'm meeing his ENs to he best of my ability ad waiting on our meeting with SH to find out how to best guide him in what is needed to meet some of mine. I can tell he's trying though. That's a positive change. He seems to appreciate the positive changes that i've made for myself too.

Nice!

Hey RW! How are you doing? Hope things are going great!

Hi MS! We are doing okay. Spending time together, trying to meet each other's ENs.

WH has started emailing me a bit more while at work to just chit chat. Even if I am busy I take a minute to make myself available to chat with him. When I started at this job I really put the lid on WH emailing me all day. I now see that wasn't a good thing.

DS will be spending the night with his grandmother tomorrow night. We hadn't planned what we will do yet.

I'm still keeping a close eye on his actions rather than his words. After I made it clear that I won't accept having him just do the bare minimum to appease me he rally stepped it up. I appreciate having my MB folks remind me to keep the bar high.

I'll update again soon

Our assignment from Steve was to plan out our 15 hours UA this week. That was pretty difficult. We've been spending more time together but haven't actually pre-planned the entire week at a time.

We set aside a couple times to just talk and share our thoughts and feelings with each other. WH suggested it, I'm guessing because he now knows that this helps to meet my need for O&H. As crazy as it sounds I'm anxious about it. We still don't "know" each other all that well. Sad to say about your spouse but it's true for now at least. Up until now we've had conversations mainly about current events, our family,DS, planning fun activites, basketball. Mainly we just talk about general stuff.

Anyone who's BTDT please provide hepful hints or any of your input for this stage of the game.

I've been snooping and still no signs of contact from what I can tell. I have someone at his job who's my spy for any suspicious activity.

Checking in, sometimes I feel like WH and I are in a cocoon. We've been spending as much time as possible together. We do need to get better at actually tracking the time to make sure it's at least 15 hours of UA.

Last week wasn't a good week as I just felt hopeless about the future of our M. I think it had to do with WH slacking up on his efforts to meet my ENs(we talked about this and it has gotten better). I admit if I don't watch it, sometimes it's easy to slip into our old "normal".I think it's time to go back and re-read some of the articles on the site. I also just started reading FIL SIL. WH is slowly but surely reading SAA.

Thanks to all who has said encouraging words and pointed me in the right direction in the first few days when I couldn't even think straight. I will forever be so grateful for that.

All in all I just keep reminding myself that it's a marathon not a sprint and that I have to set and keep the bar high for WH.

He's supposed to be working on creating his EPs for SH. They are working on it together before WH presents them to me.

RW,
Thanks for the update. I think you're doing really, really well. WH is continuing to work with SH and that is the best you could possibly ask for.

I also think it's good that you see how easy it is to slip into the old "normal" and that you are taking actions to prevent that.

It's so clich�... "It's a marathon, not a sprint". But you know what? That's how clich�s become clich�s -- there's so much truth to them that they get repeated non-stop. From where I sit it looks like you are doing really, really well. Yeah, I know, I said that already

RW- I want to say WOW. Not just about how well you are doing but also because of the help you were giving to the newbies today. You were spot on. Great job. It shows how much you understand. I agree it is good to re-read what DrH has written. It helps us remember more. You are leap and bounds away from where you started.

Thanks turtle and Scotty, this is the most difficult process I have been through.

Here's my update for the week.

WH and I have been trying to do more fun things together. Our DS was at grandma's this weekend so that helped us to be able to do more things and talk a little more.

Right now I'm not feeling really confident about things just because it seems that my WH isn't opening up to me. He makes more of an effort to talk with me but, to me it's more of mindless chatter. I feel like I don't walk away from the convo feeling that I learned more about him or that I have an understanding on what he's thinking and feeling. I guess the part that I feel I do not know what he's thinking and feeling (about anything) really doesn't sit well with me. I'm not sure how to address the way I feel. Times like this I just feel like it's hopeless that we will ever have a fulfilling marriage in that we both are happy.

In our interactions WH has said "I love you" a couple times and I do not know how to respond to this as I feel like I would be lying if I said I love you too. Deep down I know that I love him but sometimes I question if I'm making a mistake and wasting both of our time by trying to R our M.

After writing this I feel like such a confused and ungrateful person. I know Wh is making an effort to complete the assignments given to him by SH. I also know that others would probably love the opportunity to try and meet their WH's EN's and etc. I know WH is cooperating but, I feel like he could be more aggressive at following the MB program. I feel like I am the driver and he's in the backseat just going along and I hate feeling this way.

In a nutshell I'm not sure how I feel

I had to post and run earlier, osrry about that. I wanted to get some feedback on whether the way I'm feeling is normal. After wanting to fight for my marriage I'm now not opposed to walking away from it all.

How do I asess whether my WH has a had change in his thinking toward firendships with the opposite sex & radical honesty? I feel like if I ask these questions he can give me the right answers but I have no way of telling if he truly has a new way of thinking. These are questions I ask myself daily and they make me question if I made the right decision to stay and R the M.

Today is just a bad day all around. I've been thinking so negatively. Am I expecting too much too soon? Any way hopefully this post made some sense.

Hey RW!

Sorry you are having a down day! Hang in there!!

I think your feelings are completely normal. Of course you are going to question whether your WH's thoughts and actions are real. That is perfectly normal and part of the process. Recovery is a roller coaster ride for sure. Right now you are down at the bottom of one of those hills. You'll be on your way up again soon. Just keep your seat belt on and hold on tight.

It's entirely possible that your WH is just saying what he thinks you want to hear at this eary stage. What is important are his actions. Is he working on recovery? Is he attempting to learn the MB concepts? Is he continunig to work with SH? If so, then give it some more time.

Remember, marathon....not sprint.....

Agree with mindshare. You'll be enthusiastic some days and defeated other days.


By listening to him. You'll see scenes in movies or TV shows and he'll make a comment about what a dolt the guy is to get himself into that kind of a predicament, or what an insecure control freak the girl is for smothering him from his "friends".

He'll mention something a gal at work said and you'll figure out this was a lunch conversation. You can ask who all went and then call one of the others to verify.

It's "just" a matter of time. It takes time to learn new behaviors, time to turn them into habits, and time to trust that things are different now.

It's been a while since I checked in and provided an update. I started a new position at work recently so that has kept me busy!

As expected some days I am hopeful, happy and excited to be R the M. Other days I feel like leaving and never coming back. I worked on releasing fear of losing WH in the begining of this process and now I am afraid that I will get hurt again. I'm not sure what to do about that.

WH and I have been spending time together. We recently interviewed someone to babysit DS so that we can go out alone more often. For now we just have to get creative about what we do and when we do it.

Overall there's a ton of work still to be done but we are slowly making progress. WH plans more activites for us to do and is working to meet my ENs the way I've told him I want them met. I am doing the same for him. I'm not 100% sure we'll make it and I think that's just because when we first married I thought we would and now my reality has changed. Nothing is promised.

It's been a while since I've checked in. Hello to turtlehead, mindshare, Scotland, SuzieQ and all others who have given me encouragement and advice along the way!

WH and I have been slowly R our M. I'm happy to see a change in him, and he has responded well to the changes that I have made. I have noticed that it does become easy to slip into old ways. I alsonotice that if we do not spend at least 15 hrs. UA then I do not feel as connected to WH. WH now suggests activities for us to do together rather than have me plan everything. It's definitely a breath of fresh air.

I still snoop just not as much as before. WH has given me all of his passwords, I have free access to his cell phone and etc. which was part of the plan B letter.

We have not yet joined a new church but we are still visiting around. I had heard about a month ago that OW has stopped going to our old church. Someone told me that she was embarassed that I muddied her reputation...not sure how I did that since I just exposed the truth!

I will say to anyone who is skeptical that exposure works. I do not think that my WH would have started coming out of the fog with out having his little secret exposed. He knows that all of our firends and family know and that they will let me know if they see or hear anything that suggests that he's not on the up and up. Also it gave our friends and family a chance to support us through a tough time.

It's a learning process and we still have work to do. We are working toward having a fantastic M. We aren't there yet but I am confident that if we both continue to do our part that we can achieve this goal.

To all that are struggling through an A right now. My piece of advice is to stick to the MB plan, and not to deviate and start adding in your own things.

I pray everyone is doing well. I will try to catch up again later.