In reading NUMEROUS posts where the FWW now has to deal with a BH that feels he will always be SECOND to her former OM...

and the FWW being reluctant to give to her BH...

and the BH demanding what the OM got...

BOTH the FWW and the BH seem to forget EVERYTHING but their own pain...

Which is consistent with them BOTH being TAKERS and not GIVERS.

The BH MUST remember that the affair was a fantasy world created by his WW.

There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING REAL about any of it.

NO MATTER WHAT SHE SAYS...

SHE DID NOT LOVE THE OM.

SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH A FANTASY THAT WAS NOT REAL AND COULD NOT EVER BE HERS BECAUSE IT DID NOT EXIST.

WHAT WAS REAL WAS THE PURSUIT OF THE FANTASY, NOT THE ACQUISITION OF IT.

ACQUIRING IT WOULD HAVE RUINED THE FANTASY.

It would have REVEALED THE TRUTH to her...

that her "love" for him never existed...

that he was a FAKE...

YOU are not.

If your FWW is with you now...

it is because she wants to be with YOU.

YOUR JOB IS TO HELP HER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU!!!

MB PLANS WILL HELP YOU DO JUST THAT...

DON'T JUST TALK ABOUT THEM...

DO THEM!!!

NOW...

FWW's...

YOUR BH FEELS THE INEQUALITY IN HIS MIND OF WHAT HE PERCEIVES YOU GIVING THE OM...

AS MORE.

IT WAS NOT.

BECAUSE IT WAS NOT REAL...

Your job...

is to give him...

not what you gave to the OM...

but the EFFORT you gave to get what you wanted then...

which is EXACTLY what you desire now...

the REAL meeting of your EMOTIONAL NEEDS...

and the love of your BH.

THE WAY YOU DO THIS IS BY GIVING...

NOT DEGRADATION, REPULSIVE SEXUAL ACTS OR THE BARTERING OF SEX FOR SOMEONE TO TELL YOU THAT:

"YOU'RE PRETTY AND SMART!!!" (please pull down your pants)

But something which actually exists which is the LOVE you have for your BH...

YOU SHOW HIM THIS THROUGH ENTHUSIASM, ZEAL, PURSUIT, LUST, DESIRE...

and MOST of ALL...

THE EFFORT WHICH YOU GAVE THE FANTASY!!!

THE WAY THAT IS ACCOMPLISHED...

for BOTH the FWW AND the BH...

is to replace the TAKER you BOTH have been wearing because of the RESENTMENT you both have...

and to replace it with the GIVER.

STOP ASKING WHERE IS MINE!!!

To have the MARRIAGE you both desire requires you to humble yourselves...

to forgive...

and to create a NEW MARRIAGE...

not trying to RESURRECT the OLD marriage...

BY CONSTANTLY BRINGING UP THE PAST!!!

YOU BOTH GIVE AS THOUGH THERE HAD NEVER BEEN AN AFFAIR.

100%...

ALL OF THE TIME.

God bless.

Jim

Good post Jim Flint, great advice for those BH and FWW. I did try many of the things that you suggested to me (name change) but it just didn't seem to work enough. Maybe it did but time will tell.

Thank you, Jim - excellent advice. I've gotten a lot of advice on efforts - and how so much of it you might not see working at the surface, but it's going on out of sight...laying a foundation. That's why everybody around here keeps telling me to keep chucking buckets of sand!

My Giver wants to give to my BH - no problems there. I have had to recognize - and it's hard sometimes, and I am not always good at it - that giving is not expecting a response in kind. That kind of thinking is my Taker. Thank you for the reminder to keep my Taker at bay.

On the surface what you wrote well done.

However, no matter how many times the word fantasy can be use to describe every aspect of the affair it does not make the real live SF that took place between the OP and the WS during the affair, fantasy SF.

Thanks for THAT, Capt. Sunshine.

Yes...sex DID happen and I see that as a great barrier to recovery for those betrayed spouses that were virgins at marriage. However, years later now the fact that they had sex is really not much different than the fornicating that my wife (and I) did prior to marriage. It's history.

It was and will always remain sinful and nasty. It's disgusting that it happened and thereafter it's disgusting for anyone to want/desire it.

I know first hand how un-fulfilling my pre-marital sex was and I can't assign anymore significance to my wife's pre-marital NOR her extra-marital sex as anything more than that. In fact...the ease in which the whole entire event occurred is partially a consequence of BOTH of our sinful past (her affair was with an old college boyfriend she'd previously had sex with before I'd even met her...how much easier it was for them to get together again than if she'd remained a virgin all those years ago...combined with my attitude that the sex we'd both had didn't mean we needed to ever take extra-ordinary precautions with old bed mates as that may have cramped MY "friendships" with some old "friends".)

In the long run, IMO, it's a huge waste of brain space for the bs. Sure...in early recovery it's a HUGE hit the ego and self-confidence but in time, once love is restored it shouldn't be an issue.

My wife is in my bed now (not as I write this but figuratively). When we make love...angels sing as they do whenever a married couple has congress. There IS NOT any comparison and I know that because I am confident I am the best my wife has ever been with (which I don't take for granted...this takes a conscious effort) and because I, too, had empty sexual relations outside of His plan, pre-marriage, that I am ashamed of and hold no fond memories of....despite them seeming to be "saucey" (for lack of a better word) experiences at times. I would never consider bringing one of those disgusting moments of my life into our marital bedroom and, the last thing any BS should request or wish for, if they wish to restore marital love, is having their former wayward spouse bring such revulsion into their bedroom.

BH's - when she falls in love with you again...she'll do whatever decent thing you want and "decent" between a husband and wife doesn't have all that many limits.

Mr. Wondering

How I wish that your post would be the end to the vindictive "you can never make it up to him" posts that have sprung up lately, but I don't suppose it will.

Nobody - WH or WW - can make the affair un-happen, but if you focus on what was given away you will never have a recovered marriage. The "giving your H what you gave the OM" issue has NOTHING to do with marriage building, which should be what we try to help with on this board.

I sympathise with those who feel the loss acutely, but for posters should not go from thread to thread targeting WWs to tell them that they can never make it up to their BHs.

That is not help with marriage building.

WS's whether men or women can not undo what they did during the affair.

It has to be accepted by the BS. Some can, some can't. Yet I still do not to see how this can be covered by just compensation. There is no way the PA can be undone.

As to the BS getting what the OP got. Many times on MB the WS and BS are encouraged to reclaim things, acts, and places to "take them back from the OP.

The WS & BS should not have to do anything they don't want to?

What if it was something the WS always wanted to do but the BS never did, and it wasn't anything that wierd and only required two people? Shouldn't both be working towards meeting each other's needs now?

Or the opposite that the BS wanted but WS won't?

No spouse before during or after an affair should be able to expect wayout stuff unless both want it. Then there still need to be limits at no threesomes.

And now I will say this.

I think a WS should not turn down what they did for the OP if their BS want's it because they did it for the OP they claim now to of not really loved. Well they should give the person they love everything that they gave to someone else.

This is not a black and white subject. There are to many gray areas. There are some SF acts that should never be done. But a WS should not deny their BS what they gave away to the OP.

"Thanks for THAT, Capt. Sunshine"

Usually I have always thought for 99% of the time that you gave well thought out and well written answers. I could see how your words helped the thread starter. I wish I could write much better then I do.

However Sargent Stupid for the 1% of the time I never made it personel before.

I was attempting to be sarcastic and not personal. Mrs. W always criticizes me for not using emoticons when I am attempting humor. I should have put a after the Capt. Sunshine.

I just thought your post was a debbie-downer post and I was not attempting to characterize YOU as a debbie-downer person.

Sorry.

I fully understand and appreciate that this is a particular struggle for betrayed husbands (especially virgins) but I like to focus on the hope that all their anxiety and pain on this subject can and will be relieved if and when they restore love to their relationship. A former wayward wife in love with her husband SHOULD recognize this pain and most definitely respond appropriately by at least trying to give the same effort and vigor to her husband sexually as she did OM. I think sometimes that's not fully possible because WW's lose all inhibition in the throes of an adulterous fantasy relationship...natural and personal inhibition which she has almost always had (outside the torrid affair) and will likely carry forward with her in even a restored loving marital relationship. That should be OK. I don't want the empty feeling of demanding specific sexual acts and then getting them without enthusiasm... that would be empty and hardly a reclamation. If and when she (any she...ww) does them...it, I submit, would only be sufficient if done in the natural course of a restored loving marriage...not as a means of obtaining one.

It is my hope that recently bh's focus more on restoring love than on reclaiming sex. I HOPE that if and when such BH falls in love with his wife again (which most BH's are NOT in love with their wives in early recovery when they most often set out to GET such sexual treats or undertake sexual reclamation) then they may not be as concerned with such "treats" because they then love their wife again and wouldn't want to make her uncomfortable sexual at all.

You are right...there is no taking it back. It happened. But focusing on the sexual acts is, IMO, unproductive to marital restoration and romantic love. Hope is found in LOVE and not specific sexual acts.

Mr. W

p.s. - At least I made you a Captain (an Officer rank) instead of the enlisted rank of Sargeant.

Mr. Wondering, I understand what you're saying. And we all know that wanting certain sexual acts can be a selfish demand. But it's really hard to say "Oh...okay...I get it. You'll feel demeaned doing X and Y with me because you want a 'normal' sexual relationship but it was okay with dude because that was dirty and wrong. Nevermind, honey...I don't want those things."

Granted I'd rather claw my eyes out than ever touch my wife again if she had sex with another man but I completely understand being frustrated that the WS would do certain things with the OP and not with the BS.

But I'm still trying to get my head around wanting to keep a WS after they have sex with another person and win them back. So take my opinion with a grain of salt. My first wife cheated, and I was gone.

This kind of statement lets me know that Mrs. W is almost as lucky to have her Mr. as I am to have mine.

It makes me think of I Cor. 13:4-7.

Don't want what the OP got. The OP got an escaped mental patient walking around in my FWW's skin.

I murdered that beast, and I don't care what spell it takes, I'll keep it dead.


While I love the sweet sounding female/wife centered response, I can't help but to feel it's just too Hallmark.

Fact of the matter is, that sex between a married man and woman, who are in love with each other has no limit to it's experiences or explanations. And in those, NEITHER husband nor wife would want to make the other uncomfortable, because their desires and actions are focused on exploring ways to SHARE pleasure with their spouse.

It's not focused on him, except to her. It's not focused on her, except to him.

The OP got a self-centered monstrosity. I just want my wife.

Ha! This sounds like something my DH would say. I have to say, the SF that DH and I have experienced as a committed, married, one-in-the-eyes-of-God couple eclipses any dark ,temporary, shallow thrill I might have experienced during the A. There is no comparison.

Why dwell on rotten bologna when I am married to filet mignon.

It took watching a WW from the outside of the relationship to see that for myself.

My hurt and anger just could not absorb it each time DW said "I wasn't myself."

Now I have watched a coworker transform to accommodate her destructive path. I'm watching her pull the world down around her to protect the addiction.

This is not the person I have worked with over the years.

Now I understand what my DW was trying to tell me.

I feel there are a large number of people coming here for help that do not STAY because we are not holding on to them long enough for them to actually see that MB works...

Most people especially those in tremendous pain will NOT stay in a pain inducing enviorment with simply the thought that it MAY work if you stay long enough...

They want something right now.

A BH that actually SHOWS the WW that she CAN be forgiven will actually hold onto her long enough for Plan A to begin working...

A FWW that actually SHOWS the BH that he can have a rewarding, satisfying Marriage by ALLOWING herself to fall back in love with her BH may KEEP him around long enough for it to occur...

Working the MB plans of meeting each others EN's IMMEDIATELY will give each other the sense that change CAN occur.

We sometimes get caught up with the idea that YES you can fall back in love eventually...

HOWEVER...

By that time the spouse is long gone.

EXPRESSED EMOTIONAL NEEDS THAT ARE CONSISTENT WITH BEING IN LOVE AND REQUESTED RESPECTFULLY AND NOT IMMORAL, UNLAWFUL, OR DEGRADING SHOULD NEVER BE IGNORED!!!

THAT is the reason Dr.Harley's plans work.

It's not all about me.

The trick is to keep the disenchanted with the M spouse around long enough for the plans to work.

Jim

Which makes it impossible if the WW either:

A: Refuses to end her affair and return home.
B: Refuses to meet needs as you described were not immoral, illegal or whatever that she freely gave to the OM.
C: Continues to blame her BH for her decision to have the affair.

You are right, the trick is to entice the disenchanted spouse to work the plans. If she won't do that, then there is no chance to save the marriage.

And if the BS refuses to see any work the WS does until the WS agrees to degrade themselves, then recovery will not happen either. I guess after a point, when a WW has left the A, shown remorse and repentance, been O&H, takes responsibility, etc. A BH has to decide if he wants his wife or if he wants an act. If a specific act is more important than forgiveness and the marriage in the face of a truly repentant FWW, then the BS has other issues to work on.

Blast away. I know who I am an what I've got now, so I am no longer afraid of strangers.

I don't disagree with that. But as I've said before, it's going to be a tough sell to the BH to convince him that an act freely offered to the OM, one that wasn't illegal, immoral, or dangerous is being denied him after respectful requests.

So I simply caution the WW to put themselves in their BH's shoes and ask if she would buy that it's really degrading, or if she's simply harboring some sort of passive agressive resentment that prevents her from meeting a respectful request for something not illegal, immoral or dangerous that her husband has requested.

Because it just may look that way to a BH given the circumstances.

A WW is on shaky credibility, so I really believe it would be a tough sell at that point.

Well, the "act" that sparked this topic was a request for a 3-way, which I think most people would label immoral at best, certainly should be illegal, and is definitely dangerous to the marriage.

Hi EE,

Please note in MY posting I am advocating not an ACT but the expression of two people who are RESPECTFUL and acting consistently with being IN LOVE with each other and asking for EMOTIONAL NEEDS that they have to be honored not duplicating repulsive acts they performed to get what they wanted from their affair partners.

Big difference.

Please read the entire post that said they NEVER do anything that is not asked for in love, respectfully and without BEING DEGRADING!!!

Thanks to everyone to remember what was actually written had NOTHING to do with anything DEGRADING such as a repulsive self centered act like a threeway!!!

Jim