Thanks to the advice of shortening-hope this isn't too long...

So what in the world does a woman mean when she says she "has no needs"? "I love you but I don't need you to give me compliments, I don't need you to tell me how you feel, I don't need you to do anything for me, I don't need you to help me. You can if you want-I don't care." This is what my wife says-constantly. I always did those things anyway. Then she had a texting affair-still in denial about the night they secretly met. This is not about the affair-emotional or physical-it is about lying and deceiving and the inability to admit after being found out.

She still maintains she doesn't "need" anything. She OBVIOUSLY needed something. After confronting her (I found out from her best friend, who she no longer speaks to) she said she was sick of me and our house and had decided (unilaterally) a year prior to leave the marriage. She lied for almost 3 months, treated me horrible, ridiculed and berated me, mocked me, etc. She finally admitted she had been lying for 9 months. Then she said-once, in a whisper-after he moved away, that she was selfish, sorry, and didn't mean to hurt me.

I am more than willing to work on my issues that damage our marriage (I have asked her many times and she has no answer) AFTER we work through the damage the affair, her secrecy and subsequent lying has caused. I can't move on without an explanation of what type of affair it was, how she can expect me to belive anything that comes out of her mouth and why she constantly acts so mean.

I don't think she is truly apathetic-but I think that is what she wants me to believe. It would seem she believes the one who shows interest or concern is the one with no power in a relationship.

Advice from an online marriage therapy course: �Understanding why she feels the way she does or chose to do whatever she did, still leaves you right where you are currently.� That's why the whole idea is to place the focus on your own shoulders and what you want in the relationship�

I disagree. Actually I believe I would gain much needed insight as to how and why she feels the way she does. Understanding the impetus for her actions helps me understand her. Furthermore I don�t think SHE knows. I believe SHE would benefit far more than I would from this valuable insight.

I have been to Anger mgmt, counseling, meditation, read a dozen books, hundreds of hours of internet research, etc�
I now know what I want to have, what I want to give and what I need: Respect, empathy, civil discourse. I am healed. I have learned. She is still in the dark and ignorant or in denial about most everything.
I have asked her many times to read my personal letters, articles, books, etc, and tell me what she thinks-�can we discuss this?��Nothing.

My point is I have done all the work in light of her mistakes. She has done none. She has always agreed to talk or that she wants to fix our marriage. She just always has an excuse. No time, tired, work, favors for family/friends, etc.

Sometimes a martyr:
�Never mind�
�I've got it�
�forget it� -In response to my questioning of, �what did you say/want/need/mean?

Sometimes a apathetic:
�I don�t care� - In response to my questions-about anything.

Sometimes dismissive, hurtfull or just plain mean:
�You begged me to stay-so I did, what do you want from me this time?
�Am I ever going to live this down?�
�You are being ridiculous�
-In response to my questioning of, �I don�t want to live like this anymore, do you?�
I am so incredibly tired of faking my happiness.

KM,

Because you are NOT IN RECOVERY, your WW is still in love with OM, and she feels indifference if not hate for you as a result. She is also likely in secret contact with him and thus her addiction is being fed.

Ask the moderators to move your thread to the surviving an affair.

My guess on why she wants to be married is that you are funding the affair and providing a place for your WW to sleep. You can't continue to suffer this abuse. Please read up here on MB.

God Bless
Gamma

Hi Knightmaster. I would suggest you are wasting your time focusing on understanding a wayward instead of establishing sane boundaries that would result in a recovered marriage. You are in the worst of all possible situations, married to someone who is not interested in recovering your marriage. There is nothing here to save unless she changes her attitude. You would be much better off going into Plan B.

I would give her a chance to earn your forgiveness and if she doesn't get on board, then plan to go into Plan B, which is a separation.

Set her down and explain to her that you want to have a romantic, loving, SAFE marriage and that you won�t stay in a loveless marriage. Tell her you are willing to give her an opportunity to earn your forgiveness. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. This is what it will take to keep you interested:

1. commit to a program of recovery that restores the romantic love in your marriage

2. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle

3. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc

4. no more opposite sex friendships

5. complete honesty about her affair<s> � passing a polygraph

Tell her "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage." Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on her willingness and ability to make radical changes. Her lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. She is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. She must also meet your emotional needs in a way that until now she has failed. Unless she makes a 180 degree turn in her approach to what it means to be a wife, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if she won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage.

In other words, you don't need to "understand" her. You need to understand what it takes to recover a marriage and hold her feet to the fire. As it is now, she has no reason to take you seriously.

What she's actually saying is "I feel totally disconnected from you." This is known in MarriageBuilders as being in the State of Withdrawal. It's one of the Three States of Marriage, and if you've read the Ten Basic Concepts as outlined on every page of this forum, you'd be familiar with it.

She has needs right now; she just doesn't want YOU to meet them because she is In The Fog of her affair.

She's in Withdrawal because of two factors:
1. You have depleted your Love Bank balance. The only way to refill it is to learn to avoid behaviors that make her miserable, and learn to meet her Intimate Emotional Needs.
2. Contrast Effect. Her experiences with the Other Man have been so overwhelmingly positive -- because she doesn't live with him and see his faults -- that her experiences with you look much worse in comparison. This is a big part of The Fog that blinds unfaithful spouses to the truth about their actions.

What do you do about it?

A) Buy a copy of "Surviving An Affair". It's available right here on the MarriageBuilders site, or on Kindle for $9.99 and you can read it on your computer, Kindle, iPad, or one of many other devices in under a minute.
B) Read it cover-to-cover. Twice if you have to.
C) Implement Plan A, with a plan toward Plan B within the next two years if she does not turn around from her destructive course.
D) Snoop like mad so that you have the FACTS of her affair, with nothing else hidden. Don't challenge or interrogate her for these facts; use the Snooping forum here and your own intelligence to figure out ways to keep track of her whereabouts and goings-on. The chances are VERY good that this affair -- or others -- progressed far further than you think it did right now.
E) Have this thread moved to the Surviving An Affair forum, where dedicated forum members can help you triage the gaping wound from the bomb your wife has detonated in your relationship.

And I agree with Melody. Typed this before I saw her response.

You seem to be here because you want to save your marriage. But if you want to divorce your wife due to her infidelity, now is the time. Gather what evidence you need to force the most favorable divorce settlement and move on with your life.

However, if you choose Plan A, from time to time it is important to remind your spouse of your basic requirements for recovery:

1) That she cease call contact with the other man for the rest of her life, and the two of you implement Extraordinary Precautions to prevent a re-occurrence of this affair or one with anyone.
2) That the two of you commit to complete transparency and Radical Honesty with one another.
3) That you commit to a program of marital recovery to build a romantic, life-long relationship together.

The reason I have skipped Plan A here is because he has been dealing with her infidelity for over 2 years now. Nothing has changed since then. So it is time for him to move onto the next step. I suspect Plan A and "unconditional love" is a way of life for this poster, which only breeds neglect and abuse and utter contempt. He has nothing to lose if he files for divorce and goes into Plan B.

I missed that two years thing.

Yeah, probably time to skip right into Plan B. However, I'd caveat that if he hasn't been doing a great job controlling his Love Busters, it would be a good idea to be as pleasant as possible while going through preparations for separation.

Wow. Thanks but obviously I have not explained my situation. After asking for the letter for 4 months I demanded it, she finally wrote the NC letter. It took 2 drafts but she did it. It was succinct and spoke of her poor decisiions/behavior, her love for me, request for NC ever and her desire to regain her integrity. She has been very loving, affectionate, transparent (pw's for ph and pc), available/responsible (telling me where she is at all times, keeping in contact, etc). She is willing to go to therapy/workshops (Money is an issue though so I want to pick the right one-most bang for my buck-so I am researching), defers to me in every situation. She is not contacting him. I have every reason to believe this was just the result of her poor self image and imaturity. This was just fun-lust. I think this has woken her up to where she gets marriage now-she gets the damage affairs cause. She just doesn't get the damage the lies have caused. She is agreeable, and loving most of the time. She simply was never taught how to show empathy or love. I looked at her text with one of her girlfriends who asked why she hadn't attempted to contact me when I was late coming home one night. She replied "Thats not my style". I am convinced she believes showing she is not jealous, concerned, thinking about me, or almost any signs of love (besides hand holding and sex) is a sign of weakness. I need her to be vulnerable to create intimacy. Her friends say she is "not like that" so just go on with our lives and forgive her past indescretions. I feel if she cannot face her faults she will have another affair down the road. She claims she has changed-just not enough for me to want to trust her-and she is ok with that. She is severely warped and I think she suffers from a personality disorder.

KM, did you read my post? There is nothing here to save if she refuses to commit to recovery. Saying "that's not my style" is a refusal to do what it takes to recover your marriage. Unless she makes radical changes in her behavior, you are just setting yourself up for another affair. When a spouse refuses to do the necessary things to earn your forgiveness and give you just compensation after an affair, it makes it impossible to recover your marriage.


People that are in love don't have a problem showing love. It is obvious she is not in love. But this program can turn that around.

You have to raise your standards, though, if you want to have a great marriage. It is clear you have just lowered the bar so low that she is living down to your expectations. Raise the bar!

Requirements for Recovery from an Affair


Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?