Yesterday not such a good day. Or maybe it was progress, I don't know.

In the morning I initiated a conversation about the MB books she's reading. "So, what do you think of the books so far? The Love Buster's book?"

Her response was "It sounds like the same stuff we've heard and read elsewhere. Nothing new." Her pessimism and mood grew worse from there.

I asked her what she thought of Harley's POJA. She clearly perceives this to be nothing more than a way to strangle her freedom to do whatever she pleases. She went on about how everyone needs freedom. Repeated something I've heard her say before along the lines of "If marriage means having to be joined at the hip with someone for everything, maybe I'm just not cut out to be married..."

Realizing that there's no way she's ever going to HEAR anything I have to say about MB, I did at least make an attempt to explain that the beauty of the POJA is that we both get something we really want, and that decisions don't result in one person suffering so that the other can be happy.

Highlights from that same conversation:

"All I see is a life with you where I don't get to do anything I want to do."

(Me) That's not true.

"Really, if I want to fly to go visit (traitorous relative or friend X, Y & Z) you're going to be OK with that?"

(Me) You have to understand there is collateral damage as a result of what has happened over the past 15 months (your A, your trashing of BH to friends and family and the resulting betrayal of of our marriage and family by them). Some things will never be the same.

"This all started long before then" Translation: The way those people feel about you has nothing to do with FWW's A or anything she did...

"You (BH) are so needy, I don't know that anyone could actually meet your needs" I'm thinking, if I were a needy guy, I never would have survived this marriage... A man suffering from starvation after 15 months would be more accurate.

"I'm tired of feeling like your project to fix (FWW)." This is a long-standing complaint since D-Day. She is ultra sensitive to this. This is why getting her to read the MB books was a HUGE deal. She rejects the notion that there is anything wrong with her (anything she did wrong is a direct result of something I did wrong).

It seems the only good thing that came out of this is that she (very reluctantly) has agreed to talk to Steve on the phone. I guess I should be happy about this and consider it a victory.

How common is it for a FWS to throw fits of selfishness when presented with the prospect of having to "agree" (POJA) rather than doing whatever the H they want?

Is this her reluctance & expression of selfishness a good sign or a bad sign?

Did anyone else have a WS who was seemingly terrified by the prospect of loosing their freedom and actually having to work as a team with their spouse? If so, what turned them around?

I never got as far as you have with your wayward wife.
But I do know from life that people see examples.
People believe what they see not what they read.

I'd just keep being the best Plan A dude around.

Also remember that waywards defend their actions.

Well, today was the day FWW finally spoke to Steve. I did too, an hour each. Steve shared with me that she does not have any hope that this is going to work out and get better. His theory is this is why she hasn't been willing to do anything tangible to try.

On one hand I'm very happy that she was willing to talk with him. On the other hand, her attitude has regressed in a huge way over the past week. Back to bitchy, cold, unfriendly behavior.
I fear I may snap at some point this summer. There are moments when I am tempted to go get a suitcase from the attic, throw it down, and tell

. . .tell her she has 10 minutes to pack a bag before the taxi arrives to pick you up.

I feel like the guy who has been dying if thirst in the hot sun. A glass of water may be on the way, but I might actually die of thirst before it arrives.

Well it's been a couple months since I posted an update, so here's the latest.

All in all, good news. Progress. We have been working with Steve Harley almost weekly since early July. I have been nothing less than stunned and amazed by SH's skill and ability to reach her. Slowly, methodically we have been going through the steps and exercises that SH has prescribed. FWW has not jumped in with both feet but is clearly making an effort to venture out of her comfort zone to begin working on the MB program.

At this point we've done the EN questionnaires and interview. She was very uncomfortable doing the LB exercise at the time it came up, so we've not yet shared our LB with each other.

A few weeks ago I began to bring up the idea of putting together a schedule for UA with a goal of 20-25 hours a week. Her first reaction was panic and flooding. The idea of a schedule feels very restrictive and controlling to her. SH was instrumental in helping to overcome her objections in a recent session. Yesterday was a milestone in that we actually sat down for an hour and a half to tweak an Excel spreadsheet I put together for planning our UA time and other family activities. So this week will be the first week of "scheduled" UA time in the history of our marriage. There are 25 hours in the plan, with the opportunity for additional/make-up hours to be had every other Saturday when we will go away for the night.

At the end of July we went away together for 3 nights. It was the first time we had spent more than one night away without the kids. It went amazingly well. Shared SF four days in a row, which hasn't happened in -- I can't even remember. It was a fantastic time together and was perhaps a major turning point in our recovery process. When we returned home, she went right back to most of her LB/distancing behaviors. So I learned something important: When we are away/alone together, things are good; the moment we get back to our house, we backslide. In sharing this with SH he had a very interesting suggestion. He said I should consider buying a different house & that the entire house could be a giant trigger for her. I agree.

FWW still has major difficulty with common displays of affection. Kissing, holding hands, hugging, eye contact are 100X more difficult for her than SF. We've not yet begun to work with SH on resolving this beyond his suggestion to me that we stick with the plan of including these affectionate gestures in her daily checklist of meeting my EN's. When it becomes clear that the boxes aren't being checked, that will be the time to deal with it.

The EN daily checklist is another next step we are about to implement. Unable to find a weekly to-do template that matched SH's direction, I developed one in Excel. Each EN category has a list of tasks. Each task has a check-box for each day of the week that you can click with a mouse to mark completed. This will make it easy to send the weekly "data" to SH for review. Happy to share this and the UA calendar template if anyone is interested.

We still have some major issues to resolve surrounding friends and family members who where so poisoned by FWW's slander of me and our marriage that they actually stepped up to help FWW break up our family and/or enable FWW's affair. These will not be easy issues to resolve. I am, however, very much at peace with my position that anyone who took action to help FWW end her marriage, screw-over her husband and children, or enable/perpetuate the A, needs to be eliminated from our lives in a permanent way. Her arguments: "But these are the only relatives I have" and "The reasons they don't like you have nothing to do with what I told them (their dislike for me supposedly predates her A)" are thus far not persuasive with me.

In any case, I'm happy to say things are going much better for me and for our marriage recovery. I'm very appreciative of the help and support I received from others in this forum...

so glad to hear the update.

I would love to see the UA and EN templates. Could you ask the mods if it's ok to share and then maybe add it to here please?
The Importance of Undivided Attention

Bravo to you, Driven!! I am so happy you and your wife are turning this around. What an interesting observation about your home. In looking back I can see how our house that we lived in at the time of his affair, held back our marriage. When we moved to a new home, our marriage leaped into a new realm and we really made exceptional progress. We were talking about this recently.

I am relieved that Steve is able to get through to your wife.

Thank you for sharing that. Really good to know. The whole idea of a "clean, fresh start" in a new place is very appealing to me.

We just sold that post affair house a few months ago and I told the buyer "this was a happy home." She said they knew this! I know that is probably crazy, but I have nothing but happy memories about the home we bought post affair.

Driven,

I didn't know if you saw this?

Yes I saw, but don't know who to contact specifically.

Just hit notify (at the bottom right of each post) and type it in. They will contact you by email (to the one you have on file) with their response.

Hello Mods...

I would like to share with other MB Forum users two Excel templates I created. One is a Weekly UA Time planner, the other is an EN Fulfillment Tracker with daily check boxes (a format suggested by Steve Harley). I'm an engineer/tech-type and couldn't find anything publicly available for either of these tasks -- so I developed my own.

Brainhurts suggested putting the Weekly UA Time Planner in this thread:
The Importance of Undivided Attention

Not sure where would be the best place for the EN Tracker.

Does the forum support attachments? If not, I could create a TinyURL link to a free file share for these.

Let me know what you suggest.

Regards,

Driven2

Thanks Driven for asking.

Haven't heard anything thus far.

Apologies in case I missed it, but do you have spyware on her phone/computer?

You're doing really well Driven.

Be the lighthouse.

I'm being purposely vague in my response in case she participates in the forum eventually, but can assure you that adequate monitoring is in place:)

Good news Driven and I'm glad SH has made progress with your WW. Keep making those deposits, meeting ENs and totally avoiding love busters.