Are you pleasant to be with? Or do you bring up the affair and have angry outbursts?

I am not surprised that you are still angry and are still thinking about it. When the present is not happy, our minds tend to wander to past tragedies.

Holy crap, that was a great post!! Wish you posted more around here!

IC is your place to start, then. spouses will list the non-most-intimate ENs (like FC and FS) when they are not in love. that's why it's important you start to meet IC, affection, RC, etc.

don't just "remember." you guys should fill in the ENQ every week. the important bit is "how do you like to have this need met?" it doesn't do you any good if you think you're meeting it and you're not. (and vice versa.)

you didn't answer about the children.

IC is something we are working on. Really? Everty week? They are very long. Not sure I can sell that.

We have two children. One is 5 and the other will be 2 in April. It;s in my initial post.

I just want to point out that UA time should always be spent meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. Those are the ENs that create the greatest lovebank deposits the fastest.

When you say "IC" do you mean conversation?

What IS IC??

I'll admit to some angry outbursts here and there. I know it's a LB but my emotions have gotten the better of me a few times since the A came out. It's not all the time though. We were actually one of those couples that "never fought". I used to think that was a good thing.

I took IC to mean Intimate Conversation.

FightTheFight,

The single sided attraction hurts alot, it will hurt alot more if you put up with it for another 20 years. That is what I did in my marriage as my W never got back her attraction for me after OM2, but I didn't understand.

Did you make a list of questions about the affair for a polygraph? If your W is holding back significant details about the affair your marriage will never truly recover, you said you didn't know if they had intercourse or not.

The last I heard from the one enabler friend was her calling my W to let her know I had told OMW. She was afraid I was going to out her too.

Do this OWHs a favor and let him know what is going on, most of us here wished someone in the know had done more than just watch the innocent spouse getting victimized. Remember this OW encouraged this knowing full well you have young children.

Let the school board know so that it can go on the OMs record, if he was a supervisor threaten a lawsuit.

God Bless
Gamma

thanks! I have been scratching my head trying to figure it out but that makes perfect sense.

If you will start going out on dates and rebuilding the love in your marriage, you won't be thinking about the affair so much. Before long it will become a distant memory of the past. Having angry outbursts erodes the love your wife feels for you, so everytime you do that, you push her away MORE.

Is there anything in particular that triggers your angry outbursts?

Fighting is HORRIBLE for marriages. Horrible. One fight can cause massive lovebank withdrawals that can take weeks to overcome.

We listened to these last night. It almost sounds just like us! It was good to hear what Dr Harley had to say. There may be hope!

I'm not sure the lady on the show was convinced though. She was only a week out from D-Day. I wonder what happened?

I hear what you are saying, but "never fight" a lot of times means "we avoid conflicts". THAT has led us to IB and just going along with what our spouse wanted. No POJA.

The woman on the show was not yet in love with her husband. It would be helpful to have follow up on her, but we do know that MB works 100% of the time if it's followed by both spouses.

Back a few conversations ago, you asked what Dr. Harley meant by a "distraction" when the woman was talking about body type she prefers. By that, I understand him to mean that body type is way down on the list of what it takes to fall in love. Once your wife is in love with you again, that you have bigger or smaller arms, broad or not-so-broad chest, will not matter in the least. A body type is not what it takes to fall in love; it takes meeting the intimate emotional needs and plenty of UA time that is the most enjoyable time of one's week.

That you are angry is understandable, but you will need to exercise extreme self control and not talk about the affair, once you have all your questions answered. It's not to give the once-adulterous spouse a free pass or a break; rather it's because talking about the affair is so unpleasant and will withdraw love units for both of you. It will NOT help to discuss it. Only rebuilding the romantic love and having a safe marriage will help overcome those feelings of anger. If you want your wife to fall in love with you, you must never raise your voice at her.

I thought it was interesting that he told her she may never have been in love with him. We dated for 6 years before getting married. We were in college, not living together.

I'm not sure we were "in love" the day we got married.

I don't talk about the A any more. I still think about it, but there is really nothing left to say about it. That's primarily the reason I don't want to dredge it back up by involving the toxic friend's husband.

What has made me angry are two things. One was how much energy and passion she put into pursuing him that I don't get. Two is her lack of urgency and action in seeking solutions to our situation. Maybe she just feels hopeless because she doesn't believe she can be attracted to me. I hope the radio segment and Q&A article have planted a seed.

Oh, and after reading the article, she was complaining that it didn't give any specific examples of things to try. Her problem, seems to be in the arousal stage. Any idea of things to try?

Have you seen these?

How to Meet the Need for Sexual Fulfillment #1
Letter 1 Part 2
Meeting the Need for SF Letter 2 Part 1
Letter 2 Part 2

Dr. Harley recommends a book called "Woman's Orgasm" by Klein-Graber. It's no longer in print but I found it on Amazon for a good price. Although its last printing was in 1970, it has some pretty helpful steps and information in it. Plenty of specifics.

Give yourselves time to rebuild the romantic love. This whole process of learning to enjoy SF with you needs to be enjoyable for her and without anxiety. Not saying at all that you are making it that way, but the whole topic can become difficult after an affair.

Avoiding conflicts is better than fighting though. Fighting causes damage that is very hard to overcome. This program will teach you to resolve conflicts in a way that makes you both happy.

FF, this is the most important part of this program. Nothing we tell you to try will have any effect unless you get 20+ hours of undivided attention time. This program will not work without it. So that is where I would suggest you start.