Plan B would be a disaster in your situation. This separation will make it that much harder to recover your marriage. Is there no way to get out of this?

Other than that, you should give Plan A your very best shot. Stop telling her she contradicts herself. Just tell her you want to learn to do a better job of meeting her needs. Tell her the past is gone and you want your future with her to be great.

In the meantime, I would get the book, Fall in Love, Stay in Love and leave it lying around. When you are with her, try to avoid any relationship talk and be as pleasant as possible.

Here's another good clip.
Radio clip on how we get back to the way when we were first married
Tell us what you think.

There's really no way out of it. I'm OWNED by the military for the next 4-5 years. My wife is in charge of finding our family housing on or near the base and she's excited to do it. I don't think the separation will necessarily be an awful thing. I think I agree the relationship talk is bringing us down. We had a really good evening out together going for a jet ski ride together on the same jetski at her parents lake house.

Right now my wife doesn't associate positive memories with our courtship and dating time period. We had a 6 month break up before we got back together and eventually got married. She says that she married me because she knew I cared about her and loved her, but that she didn't necessarily believe she loved me the way she 'ought' to.

It would be like leaving a dying patient and coming back in 5 weeks. Your marriage is on its very last legs, suffering from emotional detachment..............and you leave. Which only makes the detachment worse. You can't fix a marriage if you aren't together. The reason you don't understand how damaging it is to your marriage is because your marriage is on the rocks. If you ever recover, you will understand why separation is so damaging to your marrige.

Have you gone to your commander and asked for a leave?

That is probably fog speak though. EVERY wayward rewrites the history of her marriage and her feelings because she has a new point of comparison.

But that is beside the point. The goal is create romance and passion NOW. It doesn't matter if you had it in the past or not. If you didn't have it in the past, then obviously that would not be your goal

If you listen to the clip Dr. Harley explains the important of 15 hrs of UA and what you need to do to fall back in love.

D-Day was back in March
Direct No contact was establish towards the end of April/Early May
Indirect and absolute No contact was established towards the middle of May

I know from the OM's wife and mutual friends that they are reconciling and working on their marriage currently.

How long does the "FOG" take to lift typically? I mean I've seen certain lifts of it in various forms and it seems like she has moments of being 'normal' again at times, then to recoil back into the fog.

Is this typical?

She truly believes what she felt was real(the feelings she felt were real, but were grounded in lies and deceit making in non-authentic and unsustainable).

And that what she can't get past, how she FEELS about me. Nothing else matters, except THAT feeling to her right now. She has so many guards up to protect herself from allowing me to MEET her needs. I take what I can get in terms of meeting her needs. That's the most frustrating part is feeling like my hands are tied behind my back to meet her needs. I just keep on going, but it's DRAINING to not have your own needs met, and to attempt to try to meet someone else's needs only to have it met with such resistance.

Her attitude is this: You go to your corner, I'll go to my corner and work on improving yourself. Then we'll work on us.

I agree, but I've presented this to her, and she's not willing to do it, right now.

How long does the "FOG" take to lift typically?

No answer is possible to this question, because the "wayward", like the "meteorological" fog strengthens and weakens as environmental factors impact it.

"Disturbance" as in wind currents and BS putting fog-destructing elements in place (such as monitored NC and snooping), accelerate the dispersal. Warmth, as in the sun's impact and the effects of effective UA and EN supply, do the same thing.

This is why Mel (and we all) are concerned about your mandatory absence from your WW at this critical time. You will not be able to perform either of those vital elements while separated.

So until you must leave turn up the heat of your actions, and get as much as possible dispersed prior. There will almost assuredly be some reformation of fog while you're away.

I mean I understand everyone is different, but aren't there like ballpark estimates to the length of the fog? I thought Dr. Harley said 3 weeks gets you through the intense withdrawal symptoms, but the latent ones can last a while longer? 3 months? 6 months? a year?

I totally agree about being gone for 5 weeks. However, I'm just stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have a lot of positives in place as in her parents are squarely in my corner in terms of the marriage. And she'll be living with them throughout the time I'm gone. I've been able to confide in her dad explicitly about what's going on(we have a really good relationship) and I know that she trusts and respects his opinions on these matters. Her mom is completely dumbfounded and baffled by her behavior and wonders why she won't just forgive me for my misdeeds and move forward. She'll also be continually working with our church leader and MC while I'm gone and both of these sources are extremely pro-marriage. So I'm just going to have to have faith that this is enough for that timeframe. I'm definitely concerned about being gone, but it may give her time to miss me and really appreciate me more all that I bring to her life, especially as a father to our extremely young children. I have no other options.

It will only add to the sense of detachment and take it longer for you to recover your marriage. You can't fall in love again if you are not there to meet her needs on a daily basis. That is the point. I guess you will have to just take the hit since you can't get out of this.

Do her parents know about her affair?


Dr Harley said it takes about 3 weeks to get through intense withdrawal symptoms. It usually takes up to 6 months to get through the fog, though. In your case, your wife was just in contact with him in May.

How do you know she is not in contact with him now? Does she go on his facebook page? Does she have any pictures?

Did you explain the reasons to your MIL? Anyone who is familar with wayward wives is not baffled at all. It is classic behavior of a WW.

Typically 6 months from D-day? Or 6 months from firm no-contact?

She really won't let me meet many of her needs outside of being a father to our children. I can't touch her affectionately. She doesn't like it when I call her sweetie or dear. She will pray with me at night, but no longer holds my hand during the prayers, in fact she tried once about 2 weeks ago and freaked out saying it brought back memories of the OM.

We're living in the boonies at her parents house, I'm here 24/7 with her throughout the day, she spends most the day taking care of kids, along with her parents. I'm positive there's been zero contact, I've also had eblaster on her phone and computer. So I'm not worried about it. She's trying to change her heart, but is having a difficult time with her 'feelings'. She says she's done things in our marriage in the past that made her uncomfortable for the sake of being "the good wife" and she won't do anything until she is COMFORTABLE with it.

Her parents know all about the affair and they know quite a bit of the details as well.

I take my exam this week and then we're having a family reunion her at her parents house where all her siblings and their families will be here. Then we go out to my families reunion a week after that on the other side of the country. So we're going to be having a lot 'family time' together over the next 3-4 weeks.

She's trying to change her heart, but is having a difficult time with her 'feelings'.

Did she really say that, and you listen to it, each with a straight face? What the HELL can she do with her "heart"? Shall I translate about the "feelings ?

"If I go through the motions, maybe HH will lay off the necessity of my participating in a plan that has proven to work, and he'll settle for a loveless co-existence."

Feelings are whatever, and as varied as, the person wants to portray them as. Example? "I'm nervous about my job interview," and "I'm excited about my job interview," are basically the same thing. Both reflect the body's reaction to elevated levels of adrenaline and other hormones to assist the speaker in an event of some uncertainty and importance.

It is how the speaker chooses to accept and categorize the situation that stamps the difference.

Someone buying in to the program, not having seen results one day 1, would say, "Okay, I've started it, gotten some experience with it, and will be better at it tomorrow" Someone hoping the program will fail and be abandoned, will spit out the cow-dung that WW did to you.

She says she's done things in our marriage in the past that made her uncomfortable for the sake of being "the good wife" and she won't do anything until she is COMFORTABLE with it.

What things? Sexual activities? Baking cookies for the PTA? Traitorous dealings with enemies of the USA? You gotta help us here, HH.

Up to 6 months from the last contact because that is when withdrawal BEGINS. Even looking at his facebook page will put her back to day 1 of withdrawal, which is why I asked about that.

Yeah, Sexual acts in our past. We had a long discussions about them 2.5 years(after first "emotional" affair w/1 kiss) ago about what she felt was acceptable and what wasn't, how she felt about it and I stopped then. It seems like she's so focused on those things today that I stopped years ago and yet I've respected those wishes since that day. She says things have been wrong in our marriage for a while and she chalks it up to my porn usage and that our relationship was filled with lust. I've owned up to these problems and ceased them and put up EP's to prevent relapses. Her problem today is she has something to compare me to. Sex has always been sub-par since day 1 and now she says she KNOWS she has a libido and that she's not sure she can have that with me based on our past. She won't continue in a loveless(it's mostly just sexless/affectionless right now) marriage and that's why she contemplates a divorce. She admits I'm a good father and a pretty good husband overall and that I try hard at those things even though I have my own bits of selfishness at times.

I mean I can't MAKE her change. I can't MAKE her love me. She wants to do these things for the 'right' reasons, because she "FEELS" something for me. She says she did that for too long, felt OBLIGATED to give sex and she wants to DESIRE sex with me before she'll even think of doing it again. She's not going to go the route of: "Fake it til you make it".

I've used this analogy before.

Would you change the oil in your WW's car if she asked? Even if you couldn't feel it in your heart? Even if she had at times in the past let it go longer than 3,000 miles?

You know the punchline, I'll bet. Changing oil involves getting in more awkward positions, takes longer to clean up from, and, depending on what state you live in, unlike SF,can legally be done by someone else. But if she asked you, you'd comply, right?

Just highlighting the ugliest points of your note:

She says things have been wrong in our marriage for a while...Her problem today is she has something to compare me to...she KNOWS she has a libido and that she's not sure she can have that with me based on our past...She admits I'm a good father and a pretty good husband...she wants to DESIRE sex with me before she'll even think of doing it again. She's not going to go the route of: "Fake it til you make it".

Sooooo, she enjoys your child-raising assistance, with NO recompense. Hey, let's not try fighting human development, my friend. The long path to adulthood for human progeny REQUIRED the species to develop some way to keep the male in proximity for YEARS, and not just dashing back in when the female was in estrus. That glorious adaptation was the availability of sexual activity virtually year-round. It's not "unevolved" to expect some sort of that behaviour; on the contrary, it is an indication of our HIGHER evolution.

Tell her this. As plainly as you read it here. The male human stays around to assist the female (ie: supply ENs) in exchange for her doing the same. There is an implied contract between them, and has been since man first walked upright.

She won't continue in a loveless(it's mostly just sexless/affectionless right now) marriage and that's why she contemplates a divorce.

If she can/will not understand/accept the underlined in a fairly short period of time, grant her her wish. She has unilaterally voided the contract.

I don't really get the oil change analogy. Sounds like apples and kumquats to me, I mean you can't compare sexual union between a husband and wife with changing the oil in her car. It's so much more than that which is why this is so much worse that she's so against it. I've never stopped being her husband through all of this. She claims that I'm just NOW stepping up, but I know that's not true. Sure I could have and should have been better in a lot of things, but these are just excuses. I think she's ultimately upset with herself because she's quit on me. She feels the guilt and the remorse and this is how she's coping with it. I just want my wife back. I miss having my wife in my life. I don't understand why it's THIS difficult for her to come back to me and be my wife again.(Any WW's care to chime in, to give me some perspective on why it's hard to re-commit to BH?) I know we have a lot of issues to work through, however, I'm not willing to sacrifice my family over this. My children deserve both of us in their lives. I'm not willing to divorce her over this. She's acknowledged that we have to get to that level of sexual fulfillment for us to work out and I agree it's essnetial for us. She's claiming that SF is her top emotional need right now. It's never been high on her priority list until the affair, though. I think affection and admiration are two of her tops along with domestic support and recreational companionship. She tells me that you don't have to be together to have love for each other and uses her friend from Canada as an example. However, throughout our marriage she was always asking me to spend more time going on walks, hikes, camping, activities like that etc. When we went on the jet ski ride together, I felt she enjoyed it a lot. So I just think she's incredibly lost in the 'fog'.

However, I know I need to be patient with her, but I don't believe patience is sitting on my hands and waiting for her feelings to change. I've BEEN patient. I just don't know how to help her get on board with active patience. It has to come from another source than me. If I recommend it, it's toast before it starts. I need someone else whom she respects and trusts to step up and make these recommendations to her for her to really get it. She's come a long way from just 6 weeks ago, so I gotta have faith that she's going to continue to progress over these next 6 before I have to go.

HH, Steve Harley might be able to sell her on the prospect of restoring romantic love to your marriage. Can you afford counseling with him?