I've read most of this website by now, plus a hundred others trying to find help and a way to restore my relationship. The truth is, by now I've practically given up on this.

My wife had an almost year-long affair with an ex-boyfriend, with friends and family helping her with alibis and cover-ups. That's of course the very, very short version.
The affair ended because I deiscovered it, and we moved to another city.
Now, after 10 months of trying to repair the relationship, she still lies and hides the facts, she still justifies and sends the blame back to me with silly excuses that, also, are not true.
The truth is that, for the most part, the bad state of the relationship prior to the infidelity was due mostly to her egoistic and capricious personality: no matter what I did she always had something to complain about, she would always seek fights where she would go ballistic and extremely offensive. She would always find something to complain about, to be angry about. She would spend ALL our money just days after I got payed and then complain for 2 weeks for our misserable situation blaming me for it. I could tell you a hundred stories on her constant quest for unhappiness. I'm not claiming to be perfect or not having committed any mistakes, but my hindsight of all this time keeps showing me not that she lacked anything, but that she never GAVE anything back in the relationship, no matter my dedication to her and the kids. I never spent a penny on myself, never went out with friends, or did anything for myself. All my time out of work was spent with them, all my money, all I had was given given to the family to find only her complaints. She was never committed to the marriage and I could even say so about her null concern for the kids' wellbeing.
So now, the site says stopping the affair is just compensation, thanks, I should now try to meet HER needs to fix this. This never worked before with her. How about MY need to even know the truth, see some honesty, some regret, some intention to actually fix this on her part?
From what I see from many professionals, from what I FEEL, there is no way we can fix it if she has no remorse, if she has no intention to even take step one for recovery: honesty about the affair. If her attitude, selfishness on all the things I owe to HER in spite of her reluctance to do anything about her infidelity is still there. If all the reasons I see for the bad state of the relationship and her unfaithfulness are still all there and maybe stronger than before, since rather than regret she seems to keep convincing helself more and more that her reasons were valid, in order to avoid confronting her guilt.
After 10 months I feel she is even more self centered, more unapprecitive of anything I do, more unhappy because I just don't let go of the subject. She's fed up that I don't just let go and leave the whole thing behind.
I'm fighting for us and feel my fight is mostly against her, not with her.
Now I'm fed up, tired, disilusioned of her down to the ground. I've ran out of ways to explain the damage she's done, proposing things we need to do to improve, conceding more and more stupid demands to get nothing in return. I'm even running out of love. What moves me is that our kids should not pay for what she did, that they deserve a healthy family, but even this seems to be fading away since I don't see anymore how we can have a 'good' family with her still being just as she's always been, not giving the least bit for us.

Can't forgive out of the blue, sorry. Can't just let go when I see all the reasons for our breakdown still there untouched. Can't go on like this.

How do you know when to just quit? Because I think I'm there and way past that point - only thing that moves me are the kids now and I don't seem to move at all, with all her resistance.

Some guidance, please?

Hi popoid, welcome to Marriage Builders. I would try the steps outlined in Marriage Builders and see if that works for you. The most pressing issues I see here is that you all are fighting, there is an expectation of "remorse" and you are still talking about the affair. The notion of "forgiveness" is certainly not something that Marriage Builders recommends.


A complaint is just a warning that there is something wrong in the marriage. It sounds like she had many complaints but went about them the wrong way. What do you typically do to address her complaints?


Do you have the book Surviving an Affair? You can't GET the program from just reading the website.

Hi. Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I do have the book, and I've gone to several other sources too.

To answer your question, I've always tried to address her complaints and comply. What I'm trying to convey here is the silliness of the complaints. I'd go all out for a Valentines or birthday celebration, for example, and she'd complain she did not LIKE the flowers, that her sister got a better gift from her husband, service at the restaurant was awful and what a cr@ppy day it was, and stuff like that. I got tired of asking what DO you REALLY want, since it all seemed she lacked something else and just whined about silly stuff intead of saying wht the issue really is. Never got that reply. I just kept addressing little silly demands day in and day out with her never really appreciating anything, just finding something else to complain, be angry about.
I now really, honestly feel it's not that she's lacked anything, it's just that she's never been into the relationship, or the family, and just looking for ways to vent out her unhappiness.

I would add the book "Love Busters" to your reading list. Your posting reads like some sort of quest to find the perfect disrespectful judgement to level against your wife.

What do you think a recovered marriage looks like? It is a romantic relationship based on extraordinary care for one another. There is no room for all this negative baggage that you are holding on to. You need to decide if you want your marriage or not, and then put your full effort into achieving the goal. If recovery is what you want, then Marriage Builders has much to offer you. But know this - it is going to be hard work. Nothing is worse than a job half finished, and your marriage doesn't stand a chance if you won't work to make it happen. Being a betrayed husband doesn't cut you much slack. It might not seem fair, but that is the way it is.

What she has lacked in her marriage is respect. This is one of the most disrespectful posts I have read on this forum. Shall we call your complaints about her "silly?" Does she have to address your little, silly problems every day?

I don't know of any other source that is even remotely close to the steps for recovery here. We can help you if you will follow the steps in this program.

This program is not one that can be cherry picked. If you want to turn this around, you have to follow the program in its entirety.

She lacks a happy marriage. She is not into it because you all have fallen out of love. We can help you turn that around.

Thank you, Mr. Eureka for your post.
However, I don't think you're reading me correctly here. I'm giving my all to the recovery. I'm not bringing up the subject every chance I get; quite the contrary, I'm doing my best to be kind and loving to her, doubled my efforts to see what she lacks or needs and pamper her any possible way. She still complains, demands and fights until the infidelity subject necessarily comes up, then she really goes ballistic over how I'M not letting go.
A recovered relationship is supposed to be one where communication and understainding has improved, not degraded. Right? Where BOTH make an effort to correct past failures?
Her infidelity is something that gets thrown on my face every argument we have as if I was the unfaithful one. If I bring the wrong kind of present she sees vengeance on my part for what she did, not my effort to fix things. She's a veteran at turning things around in order to have the 'upper hand' and the last word on any argument. That's just how it is, and I still can't figure out what her issues are and she won't say...

But you don't have a recovered relationship. That is what we are trying to help you with. You obviously cannot correct the past, but you can make the future great.

That begins by stopping the fights and never bringing up the affair again.

Wow. Really?
I'm sorry, it seems I'm in the wrong place after all. I thought her isults were disrespect. I thought being lied to was disrespect. Silly me, I thought being cheated was the worst possible way of disrespect. Turns out not seeing an actual reason for all that is what's so awful about it. My fault.
You're right, I probably deserve the insults, the mistreatments, the lies and the cheating for not considering the color of flours as important as I should. She's totally right to go sleep with whomever she wants to because of my insensitivity and disrespect for her.

My apologies, guys, please carry on in your little Wonderland and have a nice life.

Can you give us an SPECIFIC example of this happening? What was said by you both?

Does any of this justify your disrespect? Your disrespect is making it impossible to recover your marriage. Disrespect does not resolve disrespect, it just ups the ante.

Popoids,

Welcome to marriage builders and I'm truly sorry to hear you are having such a hard time.

It's great to hear that you have Surviving an Affair but it doesn't sound like you guys followed it's outlines (which is very specific and allows no deviation). You said you have been reading other books as well. I think getting advice from different sources only leave you confused it's like when people are learning to drive a car and everyone wants to teach them. Focus on one source because that is the only way you are going to get through this. Marriage Builders has been very successful for most people and has a much higher success rate than any other program out there according to a lot of sources but there may be a program that works better for you. What ever you decide focus on that one.

That aside one thing that is happening right now in your marriage is that you have not stopped talking about the affair. You can't have it both ways, you can't say you want to be in a happy marriage and continue bringing up the affair. The only time you can bring it up is if there is new information about the affair that you need clarification on. One of the reasons you move is so you would have no reminders of the affair, but if you keep bring in it up then you keep resetting the clock. To you it has been 10 months but the reality is it has been since the last time you brought it up.

You did mention exposure but if you haven't done a complete exposure you need to do one.

Part of your agreement to continue being married should of included a plan to fix the reasons for the affair which would of included your role in it. Along with transparency from both of you, agreement to be radically honest, no Love Busters and at less 20-30hrs of Undivided Attention(UA).

It doesn't sound like you guys are having any planned UA and when you have it, you guys are not having fun. In fact it sounds like you guys are spending that time complaining to each other.

I encourage you to get much more familiar with these rules and find a time to talk to your wife in a loving way to come up with a plan for you both to implement them.

If your wife was willing to move to save you marriage I think she wants to save your marriage and has allowed you to take advantage because of what she has done. And if this continues one or both of you will find yourselves in another affair that your marriage may never recover from.

It seems you have the idea of just compensation incorrect. Your WW isn't supposed to be waiting on you hand a foot and her infidelity doesn't put her on a unequal standing in your relationship. Please read the policies on this site again and familiarize yourself with them. Seems like alot of copitualtion is happening on your end.

As for the disrespect your post is riddled with it. There isn't a right or wrong only a matter of perspective. Maybe she has a valid reason for not liking the color of the flowers. Instead of being defensive explore her perspective and come up with a unified solution. As men we have the terrible trait of taking shortcuts to correct something we don't deem significant. When you do this to your spouse it is HIGHLY DISRESPECTFUL AND SUCH ACTION IS VOID OF CARE.

This is a process and you need to take time to see all perspectives before going on a rant that hurts the love bank of your wife. Nevermind what she is doing you can only control yourself. It is counterproductive to go "Well I did this because he/she did that". That never works and you end up stuck in a loop that is commonly known as the blame game.

Check this out, Popoid:

How to Deal with a Quarrelsome and Nagging Wife

I'm sorry Popoid, but there is a lot of disrespect here. Maybe it is very understandable and totally provoked disrespect. But it is still disrespect.

Let me clarify: We are all well aware on these forums just how much of a handful/basic nightmare a wayward wife can be. They can be totally entitled and they do behave as though the affair were the husband's fault. Either that or they act as though they are wearing a permanent scarlet letter and how nobody gets how bleak that is.

Is that your situation? Honestly I cannot tell. It's too hard to read through the lines of your disrespect to see her clearly from where I am sat. I think you're exhausted and emotional, which would be understandable actually.

Help us out a little. Start with answering Melody Lane's question specifically. Give us the specific facts instead of venting about her vague 'silliness' and lets see how we get on.

One of the most common patterns we see here is the man who feels he is giving it his all - but isn't. We can usually help him to see how much more he can give (and will give to give, if he wants to keep his marriage). An example is learning to eliminate disrespectful judgments.

A recovered marriage is one where you are both in love. You don't get there by improving communication, understanding, and correcting past failures. You get there by filling your love banks for each other until you breach the romantic love threshold.

All the disrespect you harbor for your wife is a love buster that empties both her love bank and yours. You will never recover your marriage by following that path.

I was stood behind a fighting couple in the supermarket today whose communication and understanding were perfect. She understood he thought her packing skills were slow because he thought her stupid (he didn't use the word but his tone was crystal) and he understood from her perfectly displayed gritted teeth that she found him insufferable.

They couldn't have been more clear or understanding of each other. But there was no love or respect at all.

How did the affair end, and what spyware do you have in place to ensure that there is no further contact?

Just because you discovered the affair, and moved to a different location, does not mean the affair ended. And if it just went further underground and she is still in contact with the OM, that is obviously going to prevent recovery.