That is a great start. And I would start thinking about your strategy of appeasement and capitulation, my friend. It has not served you well. Will you take the time to read this article?

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2626499#Post2626499

Wow, kinda describes how things have gone in many ways, not 100% by any stretch, but definitely some truth there. However, I have a feeling she would think that this is not the case at all. I know she feels like she's given everything in the marriage, been submissive, been the good wife, lost her identity. She's expressed those things to me. I read somewhere that usually the unfaithful spouse is the one that's giving less in the marriage. What's weird to me about that is I've had far fewer complaints about our marriage than my wife. I dunno if we're exceptions, if I just have a lower threshold for happiness, or if I'm just a relationally retarded and out of touch with her. But it's got me thinking...but I know I can't change her, I can only change myself and I'm trying to make the efforts to change myself.

Is their a MB weekend coming up 2012 or 2013? It seems like they haven't had one since 2010 based on what I find on the website.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8121_POJA_needs.html

I found this article enlightening, however, I'm concerned that the SF isn't merely an inconvenience for her right now(like suggested in the article), but rather an actual aversion to touch me.

HH, the reason people keep pushing you on the affair is that we don't believe that it is over at all. As I remember, people tried to tell you that on your last thread and you hated hearing it. Somehow that thread went missing and you showed up here again, this time omitting all the details of the affair, such as the fact that it took place during your wife's pregnancy and the fact that she wanted to separate in July to think about divorce, and even the very fact that you had posted here at all.

You seem to want to start a clean slate here by telling us that every single concern we had has been dealt with; the kids are yours (although you do not talk about the DNA test), you have all the facts about the affair (although you do not mention the polygraph that we told you arrange, because we were sure that this affair long predates your twins' conception), she does not want to separate (although you are leaving her alone later this summer in order to do the military service) and she is not in contact, which you know because you have a keylogger.

And yet only now do you reveal to us that the keylogger showed that they were "lurking to keep up to date on each other". This wasn't even a one-way lurking, with your wife looking at him because she pines for him; this was a two-way "keeping up to date on each other". Just exactly how deep a denial are you in about this affair being still on?

I think that you are convinced that this affair will not result in your wife's leaving you, because you know that OM has told his wife he is working on his marriage. If he won't leave his wife, then your wife has nowhere to go.

Well, I'll tell you this with the benefit of my experience.

That was exactly the status of the affair in my marriage. OW was deeply in love with my H, and he was in love with her, but he wasn't prepared to leave his marriage for her. She faced this reality again and again after the D Days in which either I or her H discovered something about the affair, and she asked my H to run away with her, and instead he dumped her. She would be be humiliated and scream words of hating him, but then she (not he) would make the first move, to say that she still missed and loved him, and surely if he cared for her he would see her, and she would realise that making demands on him were not the way to get him back. I know this happened because I spoke to her H at length when I finally exposed and he told me her reaction to the news that my H had no intention of leaving me, and I know it happened several times before, because I read her furious emails and text messages to my H accusing him of having used her.

Yet despite being slapped in the face again and again with the clear fact that my H WAS using her and would never leave me for her, she never gave up trying. They last saw each other in 2006 when my H changed jobs to stop travelling, yet she continued to call him at long intervals - perhaps every six months - at his office where I could not monitor anything, to see how he was - just as a friend you understand, and to monitor how his marriage was going and whether his son was old enough yet for my H to feel that he could leave home. This phone contact continued for 5 more years until last year, when my H was about to reitre and sent her his email addy from our home PC - the first time he had ever emailed her from home. I trapped that email with the keylogger.

OW words of love to my H were not just words. She moved out of her H's bedroom about a year into the affair, citing consideration for his need to sleep early as he left for work at 5.30 each morning. The truth was that she could not bear sleeping with him, as she told my H.

During the affair, she applied for as many jobs as she could with the European Union that would take her abroad, so that she could leave her H. She finally got one in Luxembourg (their country was Belgium) and rented a flat and stayed there Monday to Fridays, returning home to sleep in the spare room and ignore her H all weekend. He didn't want her to take the job and he was very unhappy when she came home on Friday nights, slept in the spare room until midday Saturday, went to the hairdresser and then the supermarket, taking about 5 hours to herself for the rest of Saturday, then stayed away from her H until the small hours on Monday morning when he would take her to the station to catch the train back to Luxembourg. He HATED this but his solution to an unhappy marriage was to appease her. She had had a 4-year PA that ended a few years before the one with my H started, and she had planned to leave her H then. She actually got a job in Luxembourg at that time, too, and rented a flat and told her H she was leaving him with the two kids, then 10 and 7 years. Her H nixed the job by ringing the employer and telling them that they were breaking up a family by offering the job to his wife, and they found a way to break the contract.

His wife was furious and never forgave him, and continued dating and sleeping with any man who would use her (her H didn't know about these others - MY H told me about them), until she found my H and they "fell in love".

The affair was discovered by me 6 weeks in, but as it took place abroad (we live in the UK, and my H travelled to Belgium for a few days each month for work), it was easy to hide. My H simply buried the affair and made a strong effort to woo me back. That was easier for a man like my H to do, who didn't see OW all that often and who could definitely enjoy having sexual relationships with two women. It has not been possible for your wife to use the same trick of having sex with you, because, like most women, she cannot bear having sex with one man if she is in love with another.

My H dumped this woman many times (about 8, to my knowledge), and she always "hated" him for that, but she always reignited contact because she was in love with him, and he was always glad to hear from her because he was in love with her. (He kept telling me that he wasn't in love with her - but then he would say that, wouldn't he. Certainly his behaviour was just as addicted as any other man in an affair.)

My point - and I do have one - is that knowing that my H was staying with me did not stop OW from trying to get my H back. She played her game in different ways; something crying and screaming, once turning up at his office in London (when she was in my country for a few days) crying and begging him to take her back - after he had just dumped her because I had found out that they had met again - sometimes screaming that he was a POS and SHE was dumping HIM, and lately, during the final 5 years, calling only every six months, "to find out how he was". Finally, last April, when her H was making final plans to take early retirement and move back to their home country to wait for her, she phoned my H to suggest that perhaps they could meet again after her H had left. My H might not be able to travel to Belgium ever again under my watchful eye, but she could travel to London for a few days and I would never know. They could meet and have sex in central London hotels. They were actually planning to go through with this when I intercepted the email with the keylogger. My H dumped her yet again, and we'll have to see how the future goes.

I'm telling you my story because I believe that your wife is exactly like OW in my marriage, who is very like the WWs that Dr Harley describes. He says it takes a long time for a wife to become so disillusioned with her marriage that she has an affair, and by the time she is discovered by her H she is so checked out of the marriage that it is almost impossible to win her back. Very often the only hope is for OM to dump her - which is what OM in Dr Harley's book Surviving an Affair did to Sue. Nothing that the BH Jon could do stopped the affair. After Sue moved out, in and back out again, it took OM Greg getting fed up with her depression and finding another woman to finally end the affair. Sue went back to Jon because she had nowhere else to go and nothing to lose by going back, and he was prepared to take her back on that basis. Only when she was home was he able to make tiny deposits in her love bank. And only because Greg had moved on was it not possible to reignite the affair yet again. You are lucky that OM in your situation is married and his wife is willing to work on the marriage. That is your only hope for the affair to end; that his wife will make his life hell until he ends it because your wife is just not worth it. Your wife will not end it on her own, no matter how much she sees that she is being used. She is checked out of your marriage and she sees this man as her saviour and she does not believe that he never loved her.

My urging you to find out when the affair started by polygraphing your wife is not to burden your mind with more details that will turn your stomach, and not because I believe the twins are not yours. I'm urging you to do that because I could see from your first thread that your wife is in love with OM and she did not get there by having non-penetrative sex and an EA that only started after she was pregnant. She got there by having a sexual relationship with him that started many months (years) before your twins were conceived.

And it's not over yet, as you have just told us. Indeed, why would it be? Burying the contact deeper and deeper, and finding other ways (Facebook) to keep in contact without actually contacting, are the hallmarks of all long-running affairs. Now, why does your wife do her part in keeping the affair going when she knows OM will not leave his wife for her? Well, partly because she is addicted to the high of the affair and hasn't yet broken that addiction - because she has not been NC ever- and partly because the affair is much older and deeper than you want to admit.

Nobody here enjoys telling you you are a fool for the sake of it, HH. I'm telling you my story because my H's long affair just about killed me. Some of the men here have told you how difficult it is to stop a wife having an affair because they have been through it, and their personal recoveries have been badly stalled by such issues as lack of sex and lack of love.

We know that there is still contact between them and that this is for a reason. your wife is hoping to get OM to agree to leave with her again, as he did once before - another detail that I remember from your thread that you have somehow hidden. They planned to divorce their spouses and run off together, didn't they? OM won't do this now - but your wife doesn't believe that.

Okay; you've had my best, and I won't be back unless you acknowledge what I say and show some sign of wanting to take it into account. Good luck.

OW and her H (in my sitch) to a tee.

She blamed him for accepting a job in Brussels and moving them from their home country, to a country where she couldn't work and lost her status. She hated becoming what she called a "trailing spouse" and being reduced to being "only" a housewife. She would drop her kids at the expensive private school where other mothers were dropping their kids and then running off to do important work for banks or the European Union or the government, while she went home to make the beds. She tried for years to get permission to work and when she got it her H didn't dare stop her doing whatever she wanted, including applying for jobs all over Europe.

He, meanwhile, was providing a much better standard of living for the whole family than they had been able to afford back home. They had a big detached house (unusual in European cities) and 3 cars, a holiday timeshare and she had lots of furs and jewellery. He loved being a father and family man. Yet she was bitter, bored and resentful and paid him back silently for her plight by shagging around. She got stung before in the four-year affair when her driving instructor wouldn't leave his wife for her, but it did not stop her going back for more with my H. And despite her partial confession to him of that first affair ("they never had sex"), her H had NO CLUE how unhappy she was and that she was tucking in to other men left, right and centre.

This is typical I'm afraid, HH.

They don't run them any more. They run the online course instead.

Women have a sexual aversion when they fall out of love. Women need 2 things to desire sex: an emotional attachment and the prospect of enjoyment. She is emotionally detached from you which is what we are trying to help you overcome right now. When you fall in love again, the sex problem will fix itself.

oh wow. So she has not really ended contact? Does she still have the facebook account? Did you notify the OMW they were still in touch?

Because that would explain why you aren't getting anywhere.

What you describe is the rule rather than the exception. Female waywards are often in the practice of making sacrifices. Sacrificing creates resentment which leads to: "By God, I have given and given, now it is my turn to take!!" Extreme giving leads to extreme taking. And men typically have fewer complaints than women. That is the rule. IT takes much less to make a husband happy than it does a wife.

And while you can't change her, you can change your boundaries and are not obliged to stay in a marriage with a spouse who refuses to meet your needs and give you just compensation.

HH, Sugarcane just gave you super advice and if you want to save your marriage, you will take it. I see you working very hard to sweep this affair under the rug and that will lead to divorce. Either she will leave you for OM or her complete lack of cooperation in restoring the marriage will eventually destroy it.

It will take a much more assertive approach than what I see here. Complacence will ruin any chance you have of turning this around.

I am really disappointed that you left out so many key facts about your situation. It is impossible for me to help someone if I don't have the facts. I am confused why you would have me wasting my time like that. I have a marriage just like you do, and I have taken valuable time out of my life to post to you.

Sugar Cane I appreciate your response, however, I feel like part of your reasoning for feeling the way you do about my wife is from projecting some of your experiences onto our experiences. I admit affairs DO have common threads for sure, and some exist here. However, my wife has been doing everything asked of her by church leaders, parents, even me to an extent(I'm just afraid of driving her away and have relinquished many of my requests for that purpose) but she has heeded my requests and does appear to be making amends. I have zero doubts about some of the concerns you expressed. The timeline fits all the emails, texts and phone logs that I've recovered(she's not that tech savvy to cover these things up - I am very tech savvy, I was just too trusting and dense to ever bother checking up). Her story checks out and I'm comfortable with where things are in that respect. I talked to the OMW a few days before she had her remorse episode and she confirmed their end. It's over. It really is, now she has empathy and compassion for him and wants the best for him, but the romantic part is fading fast I know by the way she talks, it's distinctly different from just a few weeks ago. It's over, I'm assured of it because there are some things that I know matter too much for her to sacrifice for this guy and she's realizing those consequences right now.

I do appreciate your posts. I've left out some details, because I don't want them to be out there for my wife to find one day. I know this is anonymous, but I'm just not comfortable with that. I agree I must be more assertive, but I haven't been complacent, I've been trying to demonstrate patience with her. I love her and care for her, and want her to feel the love I have for her. There are some tactics, like the poly I'm just not comfortable with. I don't think it's necessary based on some of the more personal aspects that have happened between us. I'm not trying to waste your time, I appreciate your advice and I like the bulk of it, but there are a few things I just don't feel are right for my marriage.

I just read a blog post she made on our blog and I know what she's saying is the truth. It just brought tears to my eyes that I know she's working on herself to get over this.

Patience won't save your marriage. A plan of recovery WILL. That sounds like a good excuse to avoid taking necessary action.


And how would you know what is right for your marriage? Do you have experience saving marriages? Your own marriage has crashed on the rocks so it is apparent you don't know how to save a marriage. Your best thinking has led you to a terrible place. If you are insistent on doing it your own way, then I am wasting my time here. You seem to want to cherry pick the advice you are getting here, but that is a recipe for disaster.

It is ludicrous of you to question Sugarcane's objectivity when it is clear you are the least objective person on this thread. Not to mention that she is in a recovered marriage and you are not.

The fact that your wife is probably still in an active affair [as evidenced by your recent discovery] is essential and critical information that anyone who is advising you would have to have. Yet you left that out which means I wasted my time here. I question if you are really serious about recovering your marriage, HH. I know I can't help if I don't have all the facts.

I wish you the best.

The affair is over though, there is no more contact. I'm not cherry picking advice, I'm trying to pick it up where I think we are, I don't think re-hashing the past that's been overcome already is necessary. Just trying to go forward from where we are. I plan on doing the online course with her. I think that will help us tremendously.

Complaining that your wife is still withdrawn and neglecting to mention you just caught her having contact with the OM is not "rehashing the past;" it is imparting critical information about your situation. People can't help you here if you withhold critical details. Good grief.

And yes, you are cherry picking the program. You just told me in your previous post that you were picking and choosing because, in your inexperienced opinion, "there are a few things I just don't feel are right for my marriage." ok.... That is fine with me. I have already recovered my marriage. If you don't want to follow tried and true methods then that is your choice. And it is my choice to make better use of my time.

Projecting our experiences on to posters who show up here in similar circumstances is what we do, HH. It's why we're here! Didn't you come here to find out whether anybody had experience in a situation similar to yours and could add their advice to what Dr Harley has published? Isn't that the point of posting on a peer forum?

Your wife has not done everything you asked of her because she did not end contact several weeks ago. She buried the contact deeper underground and disguised it in the form of checking on his Facebook. Technically she did not "contact" him and was able to look you and your priest in the eye and say she hadn't contacted him at all.

She has empathy and compassion for him?

Yet the romantic feelings have faded away?

Yet you caught them in silent two-way contact?

And she is repulsed by your even touching her, long before it gets to sex?

Good luck with that.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to come across as neglecting your wisdom and advice, I do appreciate it, really I do. I'm grateful for people like you who are willing to go out of your way to help others dealing with the impossible.

At this point, my wife is in another state from me until I finish school. She wants me to come down ASAP, which will likely be sometime this weekend or early next week depending on my circumstances finishing up school. She left to get away from the other man and to get settled. She's not planning on separating from me anymore and she talks about our future together now, even though at times she feels uneasy about it. However, I do have that ODS of 5 weeks hanging over my head later this summer that I simply won't be able to get out of. However, she's living with her parents who are very pro-marriage between us and they live in the middle of nowhere which would make it much more difficult for things to happen. Also, she's on communication lock down, there's simply no way for her to communicate inside the house, which with 3 little children will be the majority of her time and when she goes out one of her parents goes out with her. We're making progress,we really are, it's just not fast enough for my liking.

So my question to you is, what more can I tell you that you'd like to know, and what steps or plan do you recommend I follow at this point(But I'm not doing the polygraph though, that's the one thing I refuse as it's not important to ME, I'm content knowing what I know now, it's truly sufficient).

What specifically should I do myself? And what specifically should my wife do?

So you don't even live together? How did I miss that?