You will say I am overthinking things but for me these questions are important. I intend to present things in a way that is honest, explicit and detailed.

When I first mentioned 'flirting' in my first post and indiegirl replied 'It's good that you didn't accept sex from your co-workers", I thought to myself "Whoa! What does she think flirting means, exactly??"

I admit my boundaries were very poor in about 7 instances I can think of, including 3 in the last year and a half. I have itemized them in a file on my computer with details about the person, time and what occurred. I will let my wife judge the severity of those infractions. I don't want her to think I was out looking to have an emotional or physical affair, because I wasn't. But I also don't want to downplay them in any way, as I recognize that allowing yourself to have poor boundaries is wrong, could be the first steps towards an A, and could be considered by spouses as an A (I saw varying opinions on a thread on this forum about what actually constitutes an A)

1. Indiegirl brought up sex with co-workers because that is where you are heading unless you turn things around. Basically, you are(were?) trolling for women, whatever else you say (dating sites and flirting at work). That eventually leads to sex with someone other than your wife. I'm glad you were shocked. Your behavior is deplorable. Do you and your wife share passwords? You need to create boundaries between you and anyone who could distract you from your marriage. (So does your wife.)

2. Since you seem to have trouble getting her on-board with UA time, Perhaps you should say "One of the reasons I want to work on creating a romantic marriage with you is because I caught myself trying to flirt with a woman recently. It was wrong and disrespectful of you. I want to make our marriage so irresistible that this never happens again." Followed by the details. Maybe the veteran posters have better suggestions?

3. Since she is so tired at night, have you considered getting a sitter to come in 2 hours before you get off work. This would give your wife time to get a nap or relax. Then she could be re-charged by the time you get home so y'all can do fun stuff in the evenings.

If you think that stuff that happened before marriage equals stuff that happened during marriage, then you are basically saying that marriage doesn't matter. That's the Renter's mindset.

I suggest you send your wife to this forum and show her your thread. Encourage her to start a thread of her own.

Test,

This thread demonstrates that you hide things from her - your true feelings, your flirtations - because you don't want to deal with conflict about it.

Let's be real, this isnt, and never was, about sparing her feelings. It was sparing you from consequences of truth.

And over thinking is really q great way to avoid action. Keep talking, never doing.

You can change this around, but knock off the noble act. This is a character flaw, not a kind gesture to her.

Here's a good show about the effects of porn.
Radio Clip of the Effects of Porn
Segment #2
Segment #3
Segment #4

No. This is the equivalent of blaming her for his behavior with other women. Many people have poor marriages and DO NOT flirt with other people outside of their marriage.

It is also making a connection between her spending UA time and him flirting in a very negative threatening way, IMO. If you do not spend more UA time with me, I will be encouraged to flirt with other women. That is going to do the OPPOSITE of encouraging her to spend more UA time with him.

So in relation to my questions, here is what I have interpreted from everyone's feedback


Sounds like only share the 3 instances of 'flirting' post-marriage. Btw I'm not saying there's no distinction pre-and-post marriage, just wondering why all behavior prior to marriage would be considered irrelevant?


There was no feedback on this point specifically, that I saw, so that is still how I intend to proceed.

From marriage. Everything else would be optional but largely irrelevant.


Sounds like yes, if I look at the exchange between apples123 and unwritten. It's important to not explain, justify actions or tie them to my own issues around ENs and so forth - only present the actions as facts.


Thank you, I appreciate your feedback. Your judgments are also insightful (ie. noble act, being afraid, not being 100% forthright, etc.).

Thanks, I have listened to those when I found them posted from another thread when I decided to stop some months ago. I think the link between porn and PE is a myth though, it's been largely rejected by the medical community.

Just to clarify - there are dating sites hotornot.com and tinder.com that offer a service where you can post your photo and people of the opposite sex will give you a rating out of 10 for attractiveness. Once some statistically significant number of individuals have rated you, the site presents you with your average score. You don't get to see how individual people rated you, only the statistical average. I don't see how this is trolling for women unless you use the dating features of the website.

Before I found MB and understood my spouse's top ENs, I suspected perhaps she no longer found me attractive. I was trying to get an objective read on my attractiveness. I didn't think asking individuals I knew whether they thought I was attractive or not would be a good idea because 1) there's no statistical significance, it's just 1 person's opinion, 2) not sure they would tell me the truth 3) it's socially awkward 4) ideally you want a woman's opinion but such a question clearly violates boundaries.

I also tried anaface.com, where a computer rates you for attractiveness based on measurements of facial symmetry and relative proportions of your facial features, but there are well documented flaws in the algorithm it uses.

If you wanted to get an objective, statistically significant read on your own attractiveness, how else would you go about it?

I regret this whole thing and told my wife about it, but in that instance I wasn't 'trolling women'.

Goodness gracious, do you even read what you post? Of course you were trolling for women!! Tinder is a dating app! You were looking for attention on a dating app! Stop justifying your poor behavior because you allowed yourself to seek attention away from your wife!

Thank you. This is why I always defer to people with more experience.

Married person on a dating site = looking for an affair.

And Tinder is a hook up site. Sex is the primary purpose.

I question the whole idea of wanting to do that. It's an indicator that you are open to receiving admiration from outside of your marriage that you should only be getting from inside your marriage.

Admiration is a strong emotional need for you. Your wife will meet that for you after you have become so skilled at meeting her emotional needs that you are above the romantic love threshold in her love bank all the time. In the meantime, don't go looking to get it met anywhere else.

I am seeing a thread where all of your posts are about your concern for you and there is little concern for your wife shown. I feel pretty confident that she is not getting what she needs in your marriage and that she needs some help in order to get that. I would like to see you ask her to post here and show her your thread ASAP.

I totally agree.

Will your wife come here?

I feel like just about everything I've said in the back-half of this thread - including clarifying the information I've provided you and seeking clarifications on your advice - has been received really poorly. I have other questions and thoughts as you seem like a very experienced group but honestly not sure what to say...

You could start by showing your wife your thread and asking her to post here with you.

We are speaking strongly to you because you don't seem to realize that you are flirting with disaster. This is not to be unkind. But the truth can cut to the bone.

Have you discussed this with your wife yet?

Just wanted to chime in and say regardless of your intentions in posting on these sites, the real issue is that this behavior is almost certainly extremely hurtful to your wife. I can't really imagine a scenario where a spouse of either sex wouldn't be extremely hurt and troubled by this. So that consideration should outrank any others in thinking about this topic.

You asked how someone would establish their attractiveness outside of these sites and I would counter that by asking what your goal is in having someone other than your wife affirm that you are indeed attractive? Whether you mean to or not, your thought processes here are preparing you to have an affair. You have to stop thinking like this or you will end up being unfaithful to your wife.