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Do you have spyware on his devices?


FWW/BW (me)
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2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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No spyware. His cobtact was talk & text that i can see on my phone bill.


brenda777
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Originally Posted by brenda777
Does anyone just not care? When we are making plans for undivided attention 15 hours a week i do not feel enthusiastic regardless what we plan. We then decide to do it anyway because we don't know what else to do.

No wonder it fails and i care even less. It has been a very long and stressful 5 years with him. I am always stressed and i don't know how to deal with this.
Have you thought about writing Dr. Harley?


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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I already wrote Dr. Harley at least a month ago. No reply, but I imagine he gets many requests.


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Originally Posted by brenda777
I already wrote Dr. Harley at least a month ago. No reply, but I imagine he gets many requests.
Try emailing again, sometimes emails go to their spam. Also, hit Notify and let the MODS know and they can pass it on to Dr. Harley.


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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Just wanted to say goodbye and thanks for the help people tried to give me. I will be moving to the divorce forum. Here are a few things I learned. I really believed that Dr Harley�s overall marriage philosophy was a good one. My husband had some agreement with Dr. Harley but critical at the same time I remember we took the time to fill out Dr. Harleys workbook about needs and love busters a year after our marriage in 2012. I wanted to get someone to keep us accountable but he didn�t. All the time we spent in the workbook was not applied. I continued to listen and read, but my husband was critical of Dr. Harley so I wasn�t allowed to share. I really believed that we could come to just a few POJAs that could turn things around. Without his cooperation, our marriage was doomed but we stayed married for another 5 years.

We both had a one particular need we clearly expressed to each other before marriage. We sincerely thought we could meet each other�s need, but we weren�t aware of the challenges that we�d face in our attempts to meet that one need. Without making pojas to meet the other�s need, the hurt grew and grew until it was no longer tolerable.

I also learned that as a woman I am more sensitive to his annoying habits and his controlling nature to get me to do what he wants. I tried to tell myself that I was the one who needed to accept him as he was. I also realized that I was married to a very anxious man who tries to alleviate his anxiety through anger, control and intimidation. These outbursts were not limited to me, but to his family, my family, church, friends, and customer service workers. I had never seen anything like it and didn�t know what to do. I took much of this inward and was sick and in pain most of the marriage. Since he has moved on, there is a new calm over my body and I am not sick anymore.

In the beginning I think both of us thought we had found the perfect mate because so many of our desires in life were the same When I told him no opposite sex friends, I meant every word. He was to forsake ALL others. We did make a poja, and he agreed on no contact between him and his exwife unless it was an emergency. I trusted him to honor the poja but they could not stop reaching out to each other to get their anxieties soothed when their 40 year old alcoholic daughter acted out again. After 4.5 years I discovered that he felt his secret relationship with his exwife was justified. He had decided from the beginning that he would get what he wanted and just deceive me. I was completely unsuspecting until about 4.5 years of marriage. When I learned the truth, I was flooded with emotion and separated for 10 days. At that point he promised to stop, but he lied again. His need to have his exwife soothe his anxiety trumped being truthful to me.

I also failed to meet his main need because it was very emotionally and physically negative for me. I spent most of the marriage trying to find a way to reframe the negative feelings I felt and satisfy his need. He never seemed to understand how his actions made it really hard for me to enjoy and meet his need. There was no poja made because he felt it was my problem and I needed to solve it so his need was met. He didn�t have any desire to invest time to find a solution to my problem. So I fell into extreme discouragement and began to believe that I would never enjoy meeting his need. After 5 years I developed an aversion to sex and stopped trying.

Making the decision to expect our needs to be met without an enthusiastic joint poja meant marriage disaster. I saw our conflict as OUR conflict, and I knew the solution had to be OUR solution. He felt I just needed to do things his way, that the problem was me. He told me that I just needed to understand his need to talk to his ex and that I just needed to meet his need even if it was negative for me. When I realized the double standard and his belief the fault was all mine and only I needed to change, I filed for divorce. It has been a very long 6 years with a man who refused to change his marriage philosophy. I wish you all well.





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Hi Brenda, thanks for the update. I am sorry to hear your husband never got on board and completely understand your decision. Have you already filed for divorce?


"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

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Melody,
My divorce was final last November. Life is calm now and I am trying to regroup and plan for the future.

Brenda



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Just wanted some advice because things have changed. As I said in February, I divorced my husband Nov 2018. He wanted to continue living with me for financial reasons and I was so depressed, I caved but we lived as roommates. My only rule was that if he decided to turn on his radar and date, he had to move out first. Well....January 27 I am checking his phone bill and discover he and another person have texted 355 times and talked for 12 hours on his phone. I do a reverse lookup and as expected he has a girlfriend and hasn't said a word to me for the past 3 weeks.(he did not know her until after the divorce) I kicked him out, tell him to get his own phone account and I close a credit card that has my name on it. He was mad because I had strained his finances. I tell him that girlfriends are expensive. lol

Anyway, I spent a peaceful couple of weeks making my vision book, taking care of my health, and spending a lot of time spiritually which brought me out of my depression. Then I had a strong impression that I should ask him if he wanted to reconcile. I mentioned it to him, but he said nothing. Later he told me that he asked 10 friends what he should do, create a sex relationship with new girlfriend or reconcile with me. They all said to reconcile since I was willing to consider it. Slowly we moved that direction, he started asking around about her and discovered some very disturbing things about her past. We made a list of "things that must change" in our relationship and decided to try to reconcile.I worked very hard to change my behavior to satisfy 3 needs of his. It has been a roller coaster ride, very emotional, scary for both of us, so many doubts, hurts surfaced and triggered us, and now we both had to deal with the fallout of his girlfriend.

He decided to break up with her by exchanging possessions they had of each other, but they continued to text, call, email and found reasons to see each other. Most of the time I was not aware of what he was doing with her. I was forbidden to see his phone or know he had been there. He was an emotional wreck trying to find a way to keep both of us in his life. he wanted to keep her as a "friend" which was totally unacceptable to me. We had predictable triggering and meltdowns trying to reestablish our relationship while he was trying to let go of her. I was struggling to accept that these things just take time and I couldn't control 2 adults or force him to be honest.

So we had the biggest fight of our life and he verbally abused me with the most hateful thing he has ever said, then he told me he was moving out. That was 12 days ago. I was so angry I sent his girlfriend a text for the first time telling her how awful he was to treat me this way and reveal things about her to me. What she didn't know is that he came back the same day and we have not had another fight since then. Anyway, tonight she sends a group text basically getting even with both of us. Letting each of us know she wanted no more contact with either of us and she had a new boyfriend!

This is all good for me to hear and it has deflated most of the "infatuation" he felt for her. She was very straightforward and I believe she has taken a lot of time to decide what to say to us to end the triangle mess. But she did write some things that were meant to hurt both me and him. When he called to say that she had sent a group text, he was really worried how I would react. of course, when I read it I was feeling very strong emotion, but slowly realized this would draw him to me. She had been involved with her new boyfriend for the past 2 months out of the total 4 my ex had been communicating with her. That should be enough to end his relationship with her. Just knowing she was leading him on at the same time she was sleeping with someone else scared him about what else she was capable of.

Anyway, this has been a very crazy month so far, but we are making summer plans to travel for 3 months. It will be so good to know he won't attempt to see her this summer. And this past weekend he had already deleted her 1500 texts on his phone, he was deleting pictures and throwing away stuff he found. He also is deleting her phone number. I spent a lot of time on Harley's materials and this forum before I divorced him. I am just hoping we can apply what we already know and put our marriage back together.
Brenda


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Have you put EPs in your relationship? Will he change his phone number and all other communication he used with her, so she can’t communicate with him?


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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Originally Posted by brenda777
I spent a lot of time on Harley's materials and this forum before I divorced him. I am just hoping we can apply what we already know and put our marriage back together.

Brenda, just know that nothing you have done here would have been recommended by Marriage Builders. Nothing. This is not a marriage at all cost program and that is what has happened here. Your husband <? boyfriend> used you while he carried on his affair for quite some time. The only reason it ended it because she dumped him. It's only a matter of time until he finds a new sexual relationship or gets the old one back.

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He decided to break up with her by exchanging possessions they had of each other, but they continued to text, call, email and found reasons to see each other. Most of the time I was not aware of what he was doing with her. I was forbidden to see his phone or know he had been there.

This should tell you that this is a bad situation. Why else would he "forbid" you to see his phone? I suspect he is only in the relationship for financial support. He is not serious about your relationship other than what he can get out of you. I am sorry to be so blunt but I assure you this is headed for a very bad place. You are being used...


"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

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one of my conditions for a total reconciliation is that he make his phone totally transparent to me. I can see all emails, texts and phone calls. I am also going to insist he block her. He is already resistant to total transparency so I doubt he will change his number.


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Originally Posted by brenda777
one of my conditions for a total reconciliation is that he make his phone totally transparent to me. I can see all emails, texts and phone calls. I am also going to insist he block her. He is already resistant to total transparency so I doubt he will change his number.

Aren't you already reconciled? You wrote:

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So we had the biggest fight of our life and he verbally abused me with the most hateful thing he has ever said, then he told me he was moving out. That was 12 days ago. I was so angry I sent his girlfriend a text for the first time telling her how awful he was to treat me this way and reveal things about her to me. What she didn't know is that he came back the same dayand we have not had another fight since then.

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He is already resistant to total transparency so I doubt he will change his number.

Right. Because he is only there for one reason, to be supported. This right here should tell you how "serious" he is. He is NOT. People who have nothing to hide, don't hide. This is not the attitude of someone who is serious.


"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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Your boyfriend [then husband] had an affair and you divorced him. He has not taken one single step towards recovery, and likely won't,

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.



"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

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Also, what about the subject that this thread original started with - the way he treated his ex wife and daughters as more important that you? Has that stopped?


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Melody,
I know why it seems that way to you. I couldn't possibly include all the information.

First Issue: First we were married for 6.5 years and he never cheated. he didn't want the divorce and it was very devastating to him. Sometimes divorced people do live together for children or finances, so I gave it a trial period. A few months after our divorce he met a woman who was nice to him and she filled his pain with some happiness and attention. Yes he had an emotional attachment to her, but they did not have sex. I had divorced him and he had every right to date again.

Second issue: I read a lot of online reconciliation advice and all of them said it takes patience and time for people to break off emotional or physical relationships. And it would take time to rebuild an improved new marriage. So I also wanted Harley's advice and I went to marriage builders and read an article he wrote wrote about divorced partners remarrying.
https://www.marriagebuilders.com/should-i-remarry-my-ex-spouse-1.htmpartners

Third issue: the first time I contacted this forum was after discovering he disregarded our poja concerning contact with his ex wife. At about the 5 year mark, i discovered he had secretly been texting, emailing and calling her. This situation has changed. This past month I have talked extensively to his ex wife who surprisingly is very nice. I told her how devastating it was to me to see her and my husband keep a secret communication for 5 years. She was shocked he deleted their texts because there wasn't anything in them that would indicate an affair was going on. She also understood why I would be very suspicious. We have shared our experiences and everything in me makes me believe she has no interest in him at all.They divorced in 2001 and have never reconnected emotionally or physically. My main problem was the deceit he used to keep in contact with her. She also completely understands my frustrations about him. So that issue has been laid to rest. She and I are going to continue to meet and be friends.

Fourth issue is he had made steps to end the relationship with his girlfriend before she dumped him last night. To break these emotional ties usually doesn't happen in one day. It took many days of talking and texting to build the emotional attachment and it will take time to break it. He took these steps early on: First he confronted her about lies she had told him, he began to distrust her, then she tried to explain away her inconsistencies, then he went to a third party to get the truth about her, then he really knew she was lying. At this point he trusted me more than her.

2 weeks later they would exchange possessions and become "friends" and continue communicating even though he was with me. I knew he would need more time to wean himself from her emotionally. I just needed to be the friend he needed to talk to, no matter the subject. I will tell you it was the hardest thing to do: to listen to him explain their relationship to me, but since he slowly released these in our conversations, more trust was built between us.

Then the next 5 weeks would also be very hard and trying. he tells her we are together, He asks when she is returning from Portugal, in anger I tell her he plans to dump her when she comes back from Portugal. At that point she quits all communication with him about May 15. He felt her silence was the end of their communication so he deleted her texts and pictures and starts throwing away any momentos. This was all incredibly encouraging to me. He was headed in the right direction although not quite there yet.

Last night she has the last word by sending the group text, revealing a few things she knew would bother both of us, but said she didn't want any future contact with him because she had a new boyfriend.

Bottom line he never had an affair while I was married to him. He never had sex with anyone after our divorce. He was devastated about the divorce and wants to reconcile with me. Her announcement of having a boyfriend while dating him was the final thing he needed to sever his feelings for her.

BUT you might be right Melody. He may be using me. I am taking things slow, going to work on transparency and honesty. No more broken POJAs and deceitful "stay out of trouble liar" . For some reason his ex wife and I believe he will grant me transparency and honesty over time, but it isn't something I can just demand and get immediately. We made major missteps from the beginning and now we just need to learn how to make corrections and commit to change.

Thanks for your advice
Brenda



Last edited by brenda777; 05/21/19 05:15 PM.

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Brenda, I need to keep in mind that you are not married and since that is the case the same rules would not apply as in a marriage. When there is an affair in a marriage, the affair is not allowed to drag on [taking time to "wean off emotionally" nononono] and the extraordinary precautions are adopted immediately or there is no reconciliation. Women are advised to separate in 3 weeks if those demands are not met. But in your case, your boyfriend was a free agent so those rules do not apply.

It's too bad the ex-wife deleted all the texts so you could see if she is telling the truth. Even so, I wish you the best.


"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

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Looks like semantics are confusing things. Perhaps I am not using the right word. For me being together to work out things is working towards reconciliation. I really don't know if we can make this work so we may never reconcile in a permanent way. After all we have been through, it is going to take time to heal and build a NEW marriage which means we are reconciled.

Is there a better word I could use for this process we are in?.


brenda777
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