Does this mean that she cannot go out to eat with her hula friends after practice? She asked me this. I was open to it, but sometimes, they stay out until 3 AM or so. This does worry me, to tell you the truth.
Or do I just ask her to call me, or check up on her?
This could also be a deal-breaker.....

When you can say just the part I put in bold you'll know she's getting on board with recovery. Until then, she is a wayward who is trying to manipulate your conditions. If you allow this in the short run (ie, by allowing her to set the terms for an overnight at some hula contest) you will be opening the doors for further manipulation. Don't allow that to even get started.

If agreeing to your very basic precautions will send her to her mother's place, then you have already lost. You don't have the power to "send her out the door." If she chooses to leave because she is asked to observe very basic precautions that are designed to protect you from another affair, then you are not in recovery. If she chooses a hula event over your marriage, then you don't have a marriage.

See, most marriages do not ever recover from affairs. They might stay together, but they limp along in a crippled state of the pre-affair marriage. Those marriages are plagued with DEEP RESENTMENT. I see you headed this way because you won't man up and enforce the necessary boundaries for recovery. Your marriage won't recover unless you follow this plan.

If you want her to be serious about recovery, then *YOU* have to get serious. And you are not serious, my friend. She knows you are not serious. You are just playing around here and trying to appease her by allowing her to set the conditions for recovery. BIG MISTAKE.

You need to bring this to a head NOW and get this on the right track. Stop messing around with the most BASIC EPs if you are really serious.

This is getting more ridiculous by the minute. I am not going to bother responding to this. If you REFUSE to follow basic instructions, there is nothing we can do to help you.

JapanDude. Your WW wants to act like a single person. That is the deal breaker.

Are these other hula dancers married? Did they know she was having an affair? I know you were reluctant to expose and this is now the result. She does not have to redeem herself to anyone but you...and you are a pushover. She is free to carry on her single lifestyle and paint you as controlling.


Just another day.

Oh yes she is trying. I find your descriptions of her very trying.

Thing will not break down in 'a few months'. They broke down long ago. They broke down when you accepted she had the right to treat you as cruelly as she pleased. When she decided that you were lucky merely to sniff her perfume in you sleep at 3am when she came home.

You don't have a marriage - you only have the illusion of one.

You don't have a wife. You have a transient guest who only cares about what she can get from you.

You should feel absolutely no fear about losing this marriage - it was lost long ago.

Can you ask her to make you happy without fear? No

Can you tell her your fears, have her take them seriously and then caringly act to resolve your fears? No.

Do her actions caise you fear? Yes.

Like I said, you don't have a marriage. But you do have vows and it is your job to do your best to insist she either live up to them or explain you'll have to leave. If she doesn't, shell be a temporary misery to any man until she gets bored and leaves.

I'm not sure what this 'few months' deadline is. She needs to change her view of you as someone who will accept crumbs yesterday,

Women don't like doormats. They don't stay with doormats.

Give her that list of EPs in writing. Tell her what you expect.

Tell her 'This is what it will take to keep me in the marriage'

And mean it.

You don't have to leave immediately,(plan A for men is six months) but you do have to make the prospect real to her.

Perhaps I am in denial.

Well, no, since you just admitted we out here are correct in our advice and tactics.

Here's where you are struggling: You ain't a S.O.B. by nature. To my knowledge the two fastest recovering BHs here in the last two years were born-n-bred SOBs - mirrormirror and yours truly.

MM beat the bloody CRAP out of the POSOM, in front of his WW. I came within a hair's-breadth of committing the infanticide of POSOM's 11-year-old son. You don't seem to have it within you to understand that you now have to play a split personality - the loving, EN-supplying hubby on a day-to-day basis, and a stern unwavering SOB on matters of your recovery demands. She needs to have limits placed on her, and you have to be the one to do that.

Most BHs choose not to do so, unnecessarily delaying their recovery.

In other words, you need to be man enough to put her in her place when needed! Man up, my friend!!

You must be famous or something, because everyone keeps telling me about you. So I looked up your thread. Just FYI, it brought me comfort to see another BS struggling so much to get up the guts to expose - second guessing, analyzing, all the things I've been doing.

You rock! Hope things are going okay for you:) Thanks for the inspiring example.

Hey, JD, getting ready to expose tonight. OW has 400 or so "friends." So you sent 4-5 messages in quick succession, then waited 1-2 minutes in between, right? And when you said you just got blocked, was that by OM, or by fb? What time of day did you do this, just out of curiosity? Thanks!

JD as a FWW I can only reinforce what many have said to you. Your WW MUST be prepared to drop the Hula sport and over night or late nights out if it had ANY part in her cheating. That includes if it gave her the opportunity to sneak off and cheat on you as a good cover to the family or you. Yes even a indirect connection.

In any event time away is not a good thing for your M especially right now. If you can't go then she doesn't, its pretty simple.

What your WW is doing right now is trying negotiate a way to lessen the consequences to herself if she is not trying to set up opportunities to retain contact with the OM.

If you go along with this negotiation and fail to agree (POJA) to set some firm boundaries.... then I firmly believe she WILL cheat again because NOTHING in your marriage will have significantly changed... the circumstances that allowed the cheating will mostly remain.

If your WW is serious about recovering the M she will be prepared to go to "extensive" actions to demonstrate this. For instance, my work at the time allowed me to spend time after hours out drinking and partying with the mainly divorced 'girls' .... I gave up not only the girls night out but also left my job. Not just moved to another office... I left the whole place and got a new employer. I removed one of the factors which allowed me to cheat. You do this in other areas as well to help affair proof the M.

Your WW comments about 'bringing up the past" are pure crappola. This is no more than the "lets just pretend it never happened and play happy families" which I think every WS man or woman has tried to get away with... you do realise that ??

DO NOT AGREE TO THIS.

Your M will NOT work until you have worked your way through the entire process and part of that IS discussing what happened .... sometimes in very painful and humiliating detail... because as my DH said... I want to know WHAT I am forgiving. my God it was hard, lets not pretend otherwise but it had to be done.

And yes like every other WS I also tried to wriggle my way out of it as well. It's like we all use a manual for "Idiot WS"...... same old same old. I predict one of the next things your WW says is "but it will only hurt you" or words to that effect when you insist on talking about it.

Some men needs lots of details some don't.. but you need to keep asking until YOU feel its all you need.. that you have the truth... its not up to your WW to decide that.. its YOU.

JD you mentioned that you lost a child.. I am so sorry to hear that and I know how painful that is having also lost a child not long before my cheating. Were they related? Yes in some ways they were in my case. No excuse though. Just another factor to address. Painful one of course.

The death of a child not only changes each of you as a spouse but also as a parent forever. I firmly believe it permanently alters a couple�s marriage, and I did not handle it well.

For quite a while, grief is likely to sap you and your partner of energy to solve problems, to talk about things to think things through well, and to come to terms with what has happened.

For weeks, months, or even years, you may feel that you are in some kind of holding pattern, just trying to do the bare minimum to get along. And in that mind set couples often drift apart and become vulnerable to affairs.
It is not uncommon for spouses to hold some suppressed feelings of blame against the other spouse which left unresolved eat away at the M. I wonder if you both have some work there to do there post M recovery?

However right now you need to work on the M and be prepared to set some boundaries for the M to work.... and never threaten some action as a consequence that you will not do.

Listen to the advice you are getting.... if you feel it needs further development then spend the money to ring Dr Harley ... its far cheaper then any divorce.

If you wish to have the best chance to recover your M then follow the MB plans not your own. You only deviate from them when Dr H or one of his team tells you too because their experience and knowledge is better than your feelings and emotions in this fight.

Hope you will continue to be strong and be prepared for the hard task ahead. Just don't get side tracked and do not allow your emotions and fears to rule you.

keep fighting the good fight JD