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Ok, got it! I didn't read it carefully. I'll try to contact Dr. Chalmers.
It is very possible that WW is depressed. Several years after our son was born the media publicized postpartum depression. She saw it on TV and said "That was me!" There was a period after giving birth that she felt unattractive (due to having a C-section) and she was surprised that I still wanted to make love to her.
However, she does tend to let things drag out, I tried to tell her to get various medical and dental issues looked at before and she would procrastinate until the last minute. She told me at her last checkup that she told her doctor about stress and other issues (not our marital issues, I don't believe). But I don't believe the doctor prescribed any AD for her. The doctor told her to eat healthier and exercise more, which she has been.
How do you suggest I broach this subject without seeming judgmental about things?
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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Ok, got it! I didn't read it carefully. I'll try to contact Dr. Chalmers.
It is very possible that WW is depressed. Several years after our son was born the media publicized postpartum depression. She saw it on TV and said "That was me!" There was a period after giving birth that she felt unattractive (due to having a C-section) and she was surprised that I still wanted to make love to her.
However, she does tend to let things drag out, I tried to tell her to get various medical and dental issues looked at before and she would procrastinate until the last minute. She told me at her last checkup that she told her doctor about stress and other issues (not our marital issues, I don't believe). But I don't believe the doctor prescribed any AD for her. The doctor told her to eat healthier and exercise more, which she has been.
How do you suggest I broach this subject without seeming judgmental about things? Call and get an appointment with Dr. Chalmers. Let her coach you on your next steps. Asking her if she is depressed is not a plan of recovery, it is a distraction. She is depressed because her affair was ruined. We already knew this. Your biggest problem is that she is not motivated to recover your marriage. You need to hire a professional who can coach you in bringing your wife on board.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Asking her if she is depressed is not a plan of recovery, it is a distraction. She is depressed because her affair was ruined. We already knew this.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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The solution to a depressed wife is a fantastic marriage with her husband. Which is exactly what the Marriage Builders plan provides, when followed.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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The solution to a depressed wife is a fantastic marriage with her husband. Which is exactly what the Marriage Builders plan provides, when followed. exactly!!
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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I don't believe it is effective to have your friends contact her. I don't understand why you ask them to do that. IT seems you often depend on others to do things for you. If you are going to do that, why not hire someone who actually knows what they are doing? You are now supposed to be in recovery. The biggest obstacle is your wife's motivation. But, you are not going to change that if you ignore the advice I gave you. Apparently, I just wasted my time posting to you, which I find very frustrating.
Originally Posted By: MelodyLane
None of this is blocking your recovery. What is blocking your recovery is her addiction to the OM. But, she can go through withdrawal if you continue to splash reality on her affair. But you prevent that from happening when you tell people not to call her. Um, sorry, but I hope I'm not going crazy myself. Didn't you tell me on 12/28 to have her friends to continue to try contacting WW a couple weeks ago? I'm just following your advice and I told our friends to continue to try, even though she rebuffed them. In any case, they weren't successful even though they diligently tried. I will contact Dr. Chalmers for coaching.
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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Originally Posted By: MelodyLane
None of this is blocking your recovery. What is blocking your recovery is her addiction to the OM. But, she can go through withdrawal if you continue to splash reality on her affair. But you prevent that from happening when you tell people not to call her. Um, sorry, but I hope I'm not going crazy myself. Didn't you tell me on 12/28 to have her friends to continue to try contacting WW a couple weeks ago? I'm just following your advice and I told our friends to continue to try, even though she rebuffed them. In any case, they weren't successful even though they diligently tried. I will contact Dr. Chalmers for coaching. [/quote] I told you to have her friends contact her in EXPOSURE. Exposure is over. She knows they know. Now we are onto recovery methods. These friends have no experience in that regard.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Um, sorry, but I hope I'm not going crazy myself. Didn't you tell me on 12/28 to have her friends to continue to try contacting WW a couple weeks ago? I'm just following your advice and I told our friends to continue to try, even though she rebuffed them. In any case, they weren't successful even though they diligently tried. I would think you should only tell your friends to contact her once during the initial exposure step. Do not keep reminding them to keep reaching out. It makes you look bad if you are calling your wife's friends and saying "Hey did you talk to my WW yet this week?" You will find, as I have found, that some people you expect to really "come through" for you may just avoid your situation. Others that you did not expect to contact your wife will be monumental in their efforts to help. One thing I had to overcome during my exposure step was the thought that I could control everyone and how they interacted with my wife. Do not treat exposure like a chess board, and now you have a bunch of Pawns to play. Just like the interactions between those you exposed to and your WW happen without your interference. You just focus on meeting them ENs.  I told you to have her friends contact her in EXPOSURE. Exposure is over. She knows they know. Now we are onto recovery methods. These friends have no experience in that regard. ^^This^^
Last edited by WrestlerChemist; 01/11/16 05:36 PM.
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Asking her if she is depressed is not a plan of recovery, it is a distraction. She is depressed because her affair was ruined. We already knew this. Ok, got it. It's hard when I'm getting conflicting advice on the forum, from goody2shoes...
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1
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[Yes, I would love to sign her up for counseling with Dr. Chalmers but WW has refused all forms of counseling. Her words were, "I don't want to talk to a stranger." However, she has not talked to anybody other than her mother, cousin, and one friend. I don't believe she talked to this one friend very deeply about our problems either, as she is dealing with a recently discovered tumor. She told my wife that she's a mother of two and didn't have time to read through the email chain I sent with the Exposure letter, which my wife was happy about.
Our other friends continue to contact WW, and WW said this makes her even more upset every time she receives a voicemail, text, or email. I saw the texts and email she sent back to them, saying, "Thanks but I will contact you when I'm ready to tell my side of the story." Lost, this post gave me the impression that you were having these friends contact her in PLACE OF a professional counselor because she does not "want to speak to a stranger." May be I misunderstood you and you didn't mean that at all, but it was written in that context. My suggestion to have these people call her was only in the context of exposure, to let her know they know of the affair.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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I would think you should only tell your friends to contact her once during the initial exposure step. Do not keep reminding them to keep reaching out. It makes you look bad if you are calling your wife's friends and saying "Hey did you talk to my WW yet this week?"
You will find, as I have found, that some people you expect to really "come through" for you may just avoid your situation. Others that you did not expect to contact your wife will be monumental in their efforts to help.
One thing I had to overcome during my exposure step was the thought that I could control everyone and how they interacted with my wife. Do not treat exposure like a chess board, and now you have a bunch of Pawns to play. Just like the interactions between those you exposed to and your WW happen without your interference. Yes, very true. Some of our friends I expected to help just paid lip service to it. Others made great efforts. But in the end WW needs to want to talk to them for that to happen. I just had them contact her ONCE but none of them were able to. They came to me to see how things are going and whether they should try to contact her, which I said yes.
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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Ok, got it. It's hard when I'm getting conflicting advice on the forum, from goody2shoes... I think goody2shoes was just asking you if YOU think she might be depressed - but yah, just forget about that for a bit. I think Dr. Harley's literature does mention that depression and withdrawal are very common for a wayward after the affair. That is why its so vital that you execute the plan so you can back fill her vacancy the affair filled - so she does not fill it with another one. 
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Lost, this post gave me the impression that you were having these friends contact her in PLACE OF a professional counselor because she does not "want to speak to a stranger." May be I misunderstood you and you didn't mean that at all, but it was written in that context.
My suggestion to have these people call her was only in the context of exposure, to let her know they know of the affair. No, not in place of. Just to confirm the Exposure with her. Timeline of Exposure to now has only been a few weeks. Some of our friends are concerned (rightly so) that WW didn't respond to them. They asked me if they should continue trying? I initially told them to back off a bit but you advised that they should keep trying. I'll give Dr. Chalmers a try. Still continuing to work on making the Love Bank deposits...
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1
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Lost, this post gave me the impression that you were having these friends contact her in PLACE OF a professional counselor because she does not "want to speak to a stranger." May be I misunderstood you and you didn't mean that at all, but it was written in that context.
My suggestion to have these people call her was only in the context of exposure, to let her know they know of the affair. No, not in place of. Just to confirm the Exposure with her. Timeline of Exposure to now has only been a few weeks. Some of our friends are concerned (rightly so) that WW didn't respond to them. They asked me if they should continue trying? I initially told them to back off a bit but you advised that they should keep trying. I'll give Dr. Chalmers a try. Still continuing to work on making the Love Bank deposits... Gotcha! Thanks for the clarification.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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I put in a request on the link for Dr. Chalmers. Waiting for them to get back to me on scheduling...
Last night I spent some semi-UA time with WW as usual, giving her a massage. I tried to engage her in conversation but she just pays lip service and watched TV instead. Finally, I asked her if I'm doing something wrong. She said I'm not acting "normally" and I should just behave like I normally do and watch TV. I explained to her that I'm trying to correct my previous mistakes, and addressing her EN's like Being Affectionate and Intimate Conversations. She then blew up and got very angry at me, blaming everything on the Exposure. She said now she has no one to talk to, I even turned her mother and cousin against her! So we went around in circles again, I said I only Exposed her affair to save the marriage, and nothing I wrote was untrue. She then said she doesn't want to talk about it any more, she will "give me an answer next week." What do you guys think that means?!?
Any suggestions on how to deal with this?
I'm positive there has been no contact between her and OM. I have everything monitored and I'm around her whenever I'm off work. The only possibility is if she is using work phone or email to communicate, which I find impossible for her to actually do.
I'm still trying to make LB deposits, I helped her with getting her car repaired, did a bunch of chores around the house, etc. It's been like this since the Exposure, she's either detached from me, or very angry about the Exposure. So I don't think there is anything I'm doing Lovebusting-wise, she just can't get over the Exposure.
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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I explained to her that I'm trying to correct my previous mistakes, and addressing her EN's like Being Affectionate and Intimate Conversations. She then blew up and got very angry at me Don't explain these things to her. Just do.
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So we went around in circles again, I said I only Exposed her affair to save the marriage, and nothing I wrote was untrue. Stop discussing exposure with her. Respond with silence. Debating her like this only withdraws from the lovebank.
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Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1
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I'm positive there has been no contact between her and OM. I have everything monitored and I'm around her whenever I'm off work. The only possibility is if she is using work phone or email to communicate, which I find impossible for her to actually do. Why would that be impossible? Are you monitoring her work phone and email because that is typically the way that waywards communicate. She sounds very much like she is still in touch with her boyfriend.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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No, they are both public, so not possible.
Me-BH, 47
Spouse-WW, 47
Married for 18 years
DS, 11
D-Day #1 - November 1998 (7 months after wedding)
False Recovery, 16 years
D-Day #2 - November 2015
WW filed for D - February 2016
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