Susie,

You need to eliminate the Facebook and contact Dr. Harley as I suggested and tell him you are unable to spend 20 hours of UA time together.

I can only give you advise on his program and I don't know what to tell you if there is no UA time.

I've seen experienced posters like Melodylane post that UA time is absolutely essential so your customized recovery plan may fail.

You need to date each other as though you were single parents dating someone new.
You would find a way to meet with someone else watching your kids.

It is THAT crucial that you do so.


When there is a will there is a way.

I understand that the UA time is essential, neither him nor I are against it or unwilling, we are working on building up the time. If I was a single parent I would be living close to my family and therefore the child care situation would be non existent. Our reality is, we do not have very many childcare options or a lot of extra funds right now. In about a month funds will be a little less tight and we can hire a babysitter to give us more hours. I appreciate the advise but I am not going to jump and decide divorce because I don't have child care for my kids to go spend 20 hrs a week with my husband. Do we need to spend UA time? Most certainly. Are we making an effort to overcome the obstacles to spend that time together? Yes, we are, even 10hrs can be hard some weeks but we are doing all we can to have that time and add on to it in the coming weeks.

Are you willing to give up Facebook for your marriage?
Will you write to Dr. Harley?

Please read this. False Recovery-Need Voices of Experience

You do realize that a monkey could unblock someone in about 1 second, right? Having a Facebook account means your husband can look up anyone and message anyone.

You are just setting yourself up for failure and that is fine as long as you are willing to accept the consequences. Are you willing and prepared to accept another affair or a resumption of the old affair? Is Facebook worth it to you? If Facebook is worth going through all this over again, then that is fine. Just don't get upset when he has another affair.

I understand some people love Facebook MORE than their marriages and are willing to sacrifice their marriage for Facebook. That is their right and it sounds like you are willing to make that sacrifice.


It takes 20 hours to create romantic love and 15 hours to MAINTAIN. An essential element of recovery is creating a romantic marriage that is better than before. As it is now, you are living in a crippled version of the pre-affair marriage and your husband is MORE susceptible to an affair than he was before.

But this your choice. If you are not interested in recovery and are willing to go through all this again, it your free will to make that choice.

If you decide to recover your marriage, let us know and we can help!

Susie's first post here:

here

here

Here is the checklist from SAA. I would emphasize that this is not the cafeteria plan where you cherry pick selections. This is a comprehensive plan that has to be followed in its entirety if you want it to WORK.

If you refuse to follow the program, you must be prepared for the consequences. I have been on this forum for 13 years and I can tell you where you are headed and it is not going to be pretty. You just have to accept that this will be the consequence of your corner cutting.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse.

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

I am willing to give up individual fb accounts and make a joint account. I ask him about it earlier and he said, he was fine with it cause he doesn't even go on very much anyway. (and I have a keylogger on his computer and installed iKeymonitor on his phone) I know what he does on his phone and computer (that is how I saw the FB message). I have not found any suspicious conversation with the VAR, mostly him listening to the radio or ironically on the phone with me. We are spending ALL the free time together just not UA for 20hrs a week. We have spent about 10hrs a week in the past couple weeks because that is what we have been able to get with the childcare situation and the kids being sick. We spend at least 2hrs every night after the kids are in bed but it is at home, so it doesn't count as UA. Thanks BH, I have read that threat before. He has changed for the better (still not perfect but I have seen him make the effort to follow all my conditions), he is accountable for his time, he calls if he is running late and he does not isolate himself to a different room when we are home. We do spend a lot of time together as a family. I have been driving him to and from work for a week, we go to the kids activities together. We both got tested for STDs. We are making an effort and we are willing to spend the time but what are we suppose to do when we ask someone to babysit (even paid) and they say yes and then cancel with short notice? Or if the babysitter won't babysit the sick kids cause she doesn't want to get sick herself? Well, we put the kids to bed and spend that time together BUT at home, again which doesn't count as UA, so I have not counted that time at all.

Like I said, when you place Facebook BEFORE your marriage, the marriage is unlikely to last. As long as you are willing to accept the consequences. Surely you understand that he can do the same things on a JOINT FB account that he can on an individual account? He can STILL look up the OW, message her and do anything he was able to do on an individual account. He will be perpetually triggered because this is one of the places his affair took place.


Just as long as you accept and understand that 10 hours won't do the trick. 10 hours wouldn't sustain my marriage and we are in love and are YEARS into recovery. It certainly won't turn your marriage into a romantic, passionate marriage. As long as you are prepared to accept failure then that is fine.

I just want you to understand that your half measures will avail you nothing.

Like Dr. Harley said [and I would concur after seeing so many failure in my 13 years on this board]:

Cutting corners only cuts any chance of recovery. Do you accept that consequence?

susie, I really do want you to make it and hate to see you wasting your time on fruitless endeavors. All that needs to happen here is that your husband needs to eliminate his Facebook page and stay off Facebook. There is no reason you need to delete yours too. The EP's address HIS social networking and eliminating the environment that made it possible for his affair to happen. While its not ideal for you to have a FB page, the only one that needs to delete it, is HIM.

And secondly, start taking this UA time seriously. 10 hours will avail you nothing. I understand you can't go out when your kids are sick, but you need to have a solid plan in place for when they are not sick. Down load this UA worksheet, line up babysitters, and get this done RIGHT. You are just spinning your wheels and it is painful to watch. I know you are serious about saving your marriage, but you have to get serious about DOING THE NECESSARY STEPS to accomplish that goal.

Half measures will avail you nothing.

Now, go print this out and sit down with your husband and start planning your dates. UA worksheet

I understand that and we are working towards at least 15hrs but will keep pushing for the 20hrs. What am I supposed to do with my kids? Leave them home alone so I can spend 20hrs with my husband? What bill should I not pay so I can pay for a babysitter 5 days a week?

I will print it. We can plan on making the time, as long as we have reliable childcare which we don't.

Susie,

I really don't understand why you persist in retaining social media. Willing to keep a joint account?

I get that you are likely resistant as his actions have caused all this and resent giving up what you like, but this isn't going to blow over and you need to be more serious about it. EVERY Facebook log-on is a trigger.

You guy are putting the risk of social media above recovery, that really is a red flag about how this is heading into false recovery.

You need to figure it out. Stay on the problem until you find a solution. Don't just sit back and say you can't do it. Find a way to do it.

"Working towards" will avail you nothing. if you want your husband to be in love with you, and vice versa, you need to find a way to be together 20 hours. It is in your best interest to figure it out.

Don't stop until you have found reliable childcare. You can't just give up so easily. We have people here with SEVEN kids on limited incomes who make this happen. You need to make it happen.

Susie, will he delete his Facebook account? Is that the issue?

He said he would if I wanted him to. He asked if he could add his cousins and aunt to mine and a couple of guy friends, so they could still see pics of the kids and he could keep up with them. He has not refused. I just don't want to make him delete it to later find out he opened another cause he really didn't want to delete it... kind of like with the affair phones. he gave me the 1st to make me happy then went and bought a 2nd one. He could do the same with fb. He has logged onto fb 5 times in the past month. I kind of feel if I make him delete it, I risk more than knowing his fb acct password.

And working towards building the time means we are looking for ways to free up some money to afford babysitter but it requires work for example our cars need to be in working conditions so we can free up money that we've had to spend unexpectedly fixing a broken car. I am also looking for a baby to watch during the day to make some cash that in turn would be to pay for someone to babysit mine. But it takes a little time to get there. I am not saying 10hrs will have to do. I am saying that is ALL we've been able to get while figuring childcare and dealing with illness. I think 10hrs is a great improvement from the 0 hours we were spending on UA. And when we make it to 15hrs it will be another step forward. Will it be all we need? NO but that is my whole point, we are not giving up, we are looking for ways to make it possible. It is not like we are sitting here figuring out ways to NOT spend 20hrs together.

That is great! Have him delete it today. You don't avoid EPs because they might do it anyway. If they "do it anyway" then you separate from him. He has to follow the EPs if this is to work. If he starts up a new one, that would be a violation of EPs.


Just keep focusing on that because as long as you are not getting 20 hours, your marriage won't recover. This program does not work without this step. When Dr Harley was in private practice, he refused to counsel people who wouldn't do this step because he said "my program won't work without this step." It is your marriage to lose, but if I were you, I would be trying harder to complete this step.