Ironically, Phoenix, it turns out that Phoenix is a fairly common name around here. Not to rain on your unique parade, but that thought kind of gave me a chuckle.

I think you'll find that hope comes from having a plan that has a chance of working. Here at Marriage Builders, there is such a plan, and if you do a lot of looking around, you can find others who have worked that plan and seen success, which will give you more hope. But it's important to notice that hope, alone is not a plan, and so it's important to get started with your personal plan. So I'm going to do my part and badger you to get busy answering the question of how are you going to start working to turn this situation around? I hope there's a big education component in your plan, because there's a lot of reading to do here on Marriage Builders. Once you get the book SAA, that will be a very good place to start.

You've looked at porn, you've had emotional affairs, and your wife is in an emotional affair.

As optimism said, there are others who have been through exactly this, and have turned it around; marriages way worse than yours have been saved.

"You can't" probably sounds like a demand.

And you've now made her aware that you feel she has a habit of being disrespectful. She is going to have to decide for herself what to do about that. If you are smart, you won't try to MAKE her decide to do the right thing right now, because right now, she doesn't love you! Hopefully later after you've worked the plan she will.

And it's a little bit like arguing about the peeling paint on the titanic while the ship is sinking.

The emergencies are: she is having an emotional affair, and she sees no benefit to staying with you, because you've emptied her love bank.


optimism had a great point that because of those past actions, you've probably put up with a lot of inappropriate behavior. It's nice to have a convenient excuse for our own misdeeds.

How long have you been separated from porn, etc.? I'd like to get an idea how much this issue is in the past.


Okay, that was good, but you can do better. Great to offer to come home and help her in an emergency! Even better to offer to come home and be with her.

I have no idea what counselor she is going to, but odds are the counselor is terrible, since most do. I wouldn't encourage it. It'd actually be more productive if the two of you could go out, you know.

Plus, talk to her. Let her vent and open up to you about what is wrong. If she says something disrespectful to you, try to remain calm and try to see things from her perspective. Really, turning your marriage around is going to involve you becoming her companion in her problems. In an affair, a woman talks about her problems with her husband to her affair partner. To the extent that you can become the man she talks to about her problems in life, you will win out as the man in her life.

What was causing her to cry all day? The confrontation the two of you had last night?


Eventually, it's going to be easy for you to respectfully complain about issues like disrespect and abuse addressed at you. But again, at this point, she has checked out of your marriage and has no reason to change for you.

Some more reading material for you to review, Phoenix.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3600_state.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3605_state.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3610_state.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3615_state.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3620_state.html

Read all those links before reading the rest of this post:

Your wife is in the state of conflict. She is willing for you to meet her needs, but not willing to meet yours.

If you meet her needs in this stage, she will move to the state of intimacy, where she is willing to meet your needs.

If you argue with her, she will move from conflict to withdrawal, where not only will she NOT be willing to meet your needs, she will also not even be willing to have you meet hers.

Hey, phoenix, did you take a look at Joe's thread?

I read through Joe's thread...and yes its very simliar to mine.

My wife "ended" her mini-EA the other day. However she is doing a photo-shoot of him and his kid on Saturday. She offered that if I felt uncomfortable I could go as long as I wasn't a distraction. I told her I wanted to show her respect and even though I wasn't comfortable I would trust her. (This aspect is a very very grey area I could use more advice on how to handle)

I read through the stages and right now she is in withdrawl. I have to choose to supress my taker and focus on her taker.

I have to show her respect because right now she doesn't believe me when I am trying to find the right things to do to show her respect and prove I can do it.

She sounds in Conflict to me, but she's probably moving abck and forth between the two of them.

Rather than suppress your Taker, I think what you need is to realize that, in light of the current situation, there is probably not a way to get your needs met NOW, but following the plan may result in your needs being met LATER.


A good marriage is going to require respect all the time.

Don't tell her you are trying to find the right things. Conversations with your wife to try to persuade her of how hard you are trying are going to be useless. Do what is right, and her feelings will follow.

It's not really over if she is still in contact.

You going along doesn't make it any better; in fact, it is degrading to you. Don't get upset with her for making the degrading suggestion, but don't go along with it, either.

Don't trust her. Don't tell her you will trust her. Good marriages don't "trust" each other to see former lovers and have same-sex friends outside of the marriage. Your trust is a feeling that she will eventually inspire.

The best way to handle it would have been to simply say "I'm not okay with you seeing him again." She's already gotten this message at this point, so taking it to a higher level won't help (it will be a love buster).

Who all knows about her relationship? Does his ex-wife know?

The other guy was never married. I think he might have been a partier and is recently a born again christian. They stopped talking 2 days ago.

She told me she couldn't cancel her shoot with him on Saturday because she has to be profesional and wouldn't cancel it.

Phoenix,

Listen to these radio clips. Dr. Harley explains the taker really well.
Radio clip on the taker
Segment #2
Segment #3
Segment #4

Here are some more. Tell me what you think abount them.
Radio clip on passive aggressive
Segment #2

So not sure what to do. Wife told me she isn't talking to this guy anymore...but he posted a thing about caring for a woman and she said "Amen".

She had told me that she wasn't talking to him anymore but to me that crosses the line. I think her mini-EA won't die.

So I guess the real question is...my wife doesn't want to be married because I talked to another girl. She appears to be breaking her word and talking to this guy on Facebook still. If I call her out on it...it just ruins any respect I am trying to show her. She will tell me they are just friends and its a non issue and I am blowing it up.

I feel like its a major catch 22. She has a photoshoot with him this weekend. Should I just keep an eye on it since she isn't even sure she wants to be married?

Did you listen to the radio clips I posted?

Can you email Dr. Harley?

What do you mean photo shoot?

You're still married and she's still your wife. You need to up your snooping?

If she's in an affair then of course she doesn't want to work on the marriage. There are too many here. You need to get to the bottom of it.

I listened to the clips.

I am still snooping. My wife is a photographer and she is doing a photoshoot (planned 3 months ago) with this guy and his son. I think she is putting the "communication" with this guy on hold.

She has started telling people that she has been enabling me and that the only way I'll stop is if she leaves the marriage.

She had a photo shoot at 8 am this morning and I ran out to the store to buy her some stuff for her session. I had to get up at 5:45 am to get it for her. Trying to make a love deposit. Didn't even get a thank you. She looked at what I got and only said "They didn't have these in wood?" Not even a thank you :-(

Pheonix, she doesn't have to "like" it when you stand up for your marriage. This falls into the category of doing what is right for you and your family. It is RIGHT to defend your marriage from outside attacks. Regardless of her reaction. It is not a LB just because she doesn't jump for joy every time you do something she doesn't LIKE.

And oh by the way, she's WAYWARD. She's being unfaithful to you right now. And guess what - it's FUN for her. She's enjoying it. So when you threaten that high she gets, well then she'll come up with anything she can to deter you. ANYTHING. She'll make you think you're crazy and she'll say and do anything to get you to stop interferring.

That doesn't make it right to have relationships with members of the opposite sex while you are married. Doing so is wrong and destructive to a marriage. period. Two married people have promised to make each other their SOLE source of emotional needs. She is breaking her promise to you and it is wrong and destructive.

By not saying something you are risking exactly what you fear - her LOSING respect for you. Someday she'll look back and realize that you are RESPECTABLE for defending your marriage. Someday may be too late. That doesn't change what's right and what's wrong.

got it?

opt

Plan A requires that you not expect anything in return for your efforts. Think of the deeds as pebbles under the water that will eventually add up to a dam. You can't see the results ntill there are so many that they rise above the surface.

Plan A is so hard and so emotionally taxing that Dr. Harley only recommends women do it for a month maximum. Why? because they tend to be emotionally destroyed in the process and start to exhibit severe physical symptoms. Men -- he feels can generally tolerate it longer. I believe due to their ability to compartmentalize.

I must have too much female in me because I couldn't tolerate Plan A for long. I couldn't take the abuse. I guess I don't compartmentalize very well.
I needed Plan B to save my sanity and my health. Folks here tried to encourage me. I couldn't see it, and had great fear of various things like her rich Daddy trying to get retribution on me, and winding up with a messy divorce. So I went straight to Plan D when the waywardness continued. All I can say is I did the best I could with what I had at the time. I hope for you that you have more strength than I did; for your kids sake and for your wife's sake, if nothing else.

opt

When we were going through stuff in Jan...I did plan A from Feb through May until I was so emotionally burnt out I talked to another girl online. All Plan A got me was giving my wife the ability to do whatever she wanted.

So current crisis: Mini-EA:

I have copies of the messages from Facebook where they are supplying each other's emotional needs over a 3 day period. She has stopped talking to him but still has him as a friend on Facebook and has a photoshoot scheduled. She knows I've seen her conversations.

Option 1: Show her the messages I saved and call her out on them and tell her that pouring into each other like that is having an emotional affair and ask her to cancel the photoshoot

Option 2: Let her go to the photoshoot and continue to snoop and see where the situation lands

Option 3: Send the guy on Facebook a message telling him that she is still my wife and he is having an affair with a married woman and as a Christian he should know its wrong.

Right now she isn't even sure if she wants to be married. Her friends say she is "screaming" for her freedom. (Doesn't even wear her wedding ring anymore). She keeps telling people I am a liar and manipulator because I've told people I want to get better and try to fix the marriage. So by talking to anyone else about what she is doing I am told I am manipulative. (Darn straight...I probably am trying to manipulate the situation to save my marriage because its important to me.)

I say all 3 options with the modifications:
Don't "call her out". Be honest. It hurts you greatly to know that she is continuing to have a relationship (or whatever she wants to call it) with this man. Leave it at that. She deserves to know it is painful to you and then can choose her actions (you can't control her actions, but you shouldn't but she can't control your feelings to her behavior...).

Let OM know you are interested in working on your marriage. Honestly tell him what your aim is. Leave out the preaching. He's skorking on another man's wife, he doens't have the moral vocabulary to understand that kind of talk. If he hears the opposite of what your ww is telling him, he might get a bad taste in his mouth about her. It could help him to see how dishonest she is being-- perhaps he WILL have the forsight to not want to be developing something with someone who lies.

Let her scream and dry about her freedom and all that. It means nothing except that she's like every other wayward and until she grows up and puts on the big girl underwear and goes to a lawyer and signs some papers and forks over some dough, she's just another whiney wayward intent on getting what she wants when she wants it the way she wants it. Like a litle baby.

Keep doing what's right, and don't do what's wrong. You can't lose that way.

You can do Plan 1 more than once if you fail the first time(s). It's not a crime.

opt
opt

I tend to always do the wrong thing...so I am putting up alot of thoughts on here so that I don't make the wrong choice out of anger/fear

He will obviously tell my wife that I talked to him and she will get pissed off. Should I give her a head's up before hand?

Right now I can only send him a message on Facebook. The other option is to show up at the photoshoot when she is done with his pictures and talk to him face to face.

I wonder though if I should just wait to see how she comes home after saturday and spending an hour with him doing pictures and see if she talks to him after doing pictures.

Here is a draft of the message I would like to send to him:

"I read through the messages you had sent to my wife on Facebook. I have done things I am not proud of and she has been hurt because of that. I am committed to working on myself to be a better husband to her. I am committed to my marriage and my family. My wife is still married and the conversations you two have had are not appropriate under any circumstances. I am asking you to not talk with her while we go through this difficult time in our lives."

The other thing I could do is go to the photo shoot and watch to see their interaction.