I have been looking through the forums for some help on this. What are your opinions regarding getting some focused counseling with either of the Harleys for help through the recovery process? Will those of you who have used the counseling center let me know how it helped? Or is going with the Online MB the best option?

I understand that recovery is very difficult, and I'm on the roller coaster. My FWH and I are both on board with MB and have been attempting to follow through with the program principles for a few months now. Still, the pain is very difficult sometimes, and I am having a hard time managing it. I will look at my husband sometimes as though I've never seen him before and think "HE did THAT to ME!" And the downward spiral starts all over for me.

You forum vets and posters have offered so much awesome help to the people in need here. Thanks so much for all your time and wisdom.

51, if both you and your H are on board here, I would try the online program. They will assign you a coach and guide you through the lessons. Many of us have gone through the program with great results.

Your feelings are very natural and will fade in time. That will happen much faster if you don't talk about it.

Thanks, Mel. We went ahead and signed up for the Online course yesterday. Within a couple of hours, they already sent us our questionnaires. Last night, we started the online seminar. My FWH told me a couple of times already how happy is that we are working on this.

The not talking about A part is tough. The thoughts come and go in intensity. I hate it. But I know he could easily have become a total wayward like I see on the forum here. I am very sad about the A but glad it didn't beat us and that we have a good chance of moving past all the hurt.

Every marriage has some kind of bump, 31 years is long time and worth fighting for.........
The emotions are going full force right now, but focus only on the positives between you and your husband for right now......It is a blessing that he is willing not all of them are you are a lucky woman...........
Don't let something that really didn't mean anything in the big picture ruin what you are going to have, a great marriage and a loving husband.......
I used to clean something when I was overwhelmed with emotions, for a while I had the cleanest house, it helped to stay busy............
I like what I see for the two of you.
jessi

51cd30,

I've noticed some of your posts around the board lately and liked what I was seeing. If you only knew how refreshing it is to finally, after many years and many battles, to see people posting strictly marriage builders advice and doing it well, you'd understand. MB forums weren't always this good.

I just wanted to say thanks for pitching in.

I see you signed up for the online program last June so you're 5 months into this...how is it working for you?

Mr. Wondering

Wondering as well how the online course folks are doing. My husband was adamant that MB was full of crazies, he thought exposure was so horrendous lol. He is now listening to HNHN on ipod and we watched the infidelity video together . He is totally considering MB and dropping the home study course we are doing throuhh our counselor! Sooo excited.

TExasSun, what kind of home study course are you doing through your counselor?

We appreciate the Marriage Builders program and its concepts. MB is so down to earth and logical. After H's fog was gone, he was so grateful I had found MB that he was pretty much on board from the beginning of recovery. He wanted a good solid logical plan to recovery and a better life and so did I. Without MB, we wouldn't have a marriage worth being in. MB is the standard we follow now.

My H wishes so much he had spent his life being a better person. He is quite open now about admitting his overriding selfishness throughout our marriage, which resulted in tremendous amounts of IB and dishonesty.

If we had known about MB years ago, our marriage would have turned out very differently, we think. If he had continued with the LBs, I would have known to get support for doing a great Plan A, then entering Plan B. Either H would have stopped the LBs and started meeting my ENs, or the marriage would have ended, and we wouldn't have dragged out the LBs for so many years.

Instead, we went with traditional marriage counseling. They did their limited best, but with no extraordinary precautions ever discussed or instituted, we never did actually protect our marriage from H's poor boundaries with women. We did the "trust" thing. Yeah, that works real well.

The counselors we hired never discussed the seriousness of the dishonesty or addressed H's masturbation habit, which greatly harmed our sex life. No one said anything about transparency, shared passwords, protecting the marriage with extraordinary precautions. What a waste of money and time traditional counseling turned out to be! We spent time trying to discern why we were arguing and the hour was often so painful, we couldn't talk afterward.

Nearly a year out from D-day now, I went back on a tiny dose of ADs to help me get more on top of my negative emotions from the A. I hate that sometimes they seem to GRAB me and shake me, and it's as though they're in control and not me. That must change. I would have done this much earlier in our recovery, but we moved to this tiny remote island where we currently live--far from my own doctor and the rules for med and pharmacy changed, and I was overwhelmed with just getting through the A.

My H loves MB, because he knows that as long as he's doing his part to meet my needs, I will do my part to meet his. So his upside is lots of SF and a fun companion for recreation. So he has to go with POJA? He likes our life better this way, because there's much less cause for unhappiness now. Any decision we make is made with enthusiastic agreement. We think it's mind-blowing that Dr. H. says the goal is not conflict resolution but staying in love. That's revolutionary!

My biggest concern at the moment and actually all year long is wondering if H will stick with his commitment of making our life together using MB. So far, all this year, he has shown me a better man. He is very sorry for the pain he has caused and we have a plan. It's better than we've ever had in the past.

Anyway, I think I've said enough!

The Torn Asunder program by Dave Carder. I agreed to it (until H came around to MB) mainly because Marriage Builders is in the index of the program and many of the concepts overlap, I believe the author used MB concepts like.EP's etc. It is 10-12 weeks long, but MB is much simpler, UA+EP+EM

That's great, TexasSun.

If your husband likes the audio HNHN, he may love the radio show. There's a free iphone app to play it that I think may run on his ipod. (I am a tech nerd, but know next to nothing about Apple stuff, so I can't say for sure.) Even if he can't run the app, he can still get the show to listen to.

The Torn Asunder program by Dave Carder. I agreed to it (until H came around to MB) mainly because Marriage Builders is in the index of the program and many of the concepts overlap, I believe the author used MB concepts like.EP's etc. It is 10-12 weeks long, but MB is much simpler, UA+EP+EM

Long way, hi! Quick ? Registering for MB program...is the online seminar and accountability program ($995) what you are following? Thanks!

TS, I am pretty sure she is in the online program. I see her posting over there to Dr H.

Thanks Mel! I just can't figure out why it's 50 bucks cheaper to add the Accountability program to the Home Study courses (which include Online seminar) Am I missing something?

FYi...did I mention to you that my FWH first slept with OW immediately after I exposed the EA in Feb.? I wish I had evidence of PA (they had kissed in Jan.) before I exposed. Would have been waaay more effective (I think) Is that a typical response to exposure?

I have no idea. Isn't there a phone # you can call? I would call and see what the difference is.

No, because he didn't do it because of exposure. He just used that as a way to blame you for his bad behavior.

I think I remember a radio show in the last month wherein Dr. Harley said they were adding a couple of features to the Home Study course. For example, now it's possible to view the Online Seminar as part of the home study course. In the past, it was only for the folks who paid the $995.

I believe the private forum is for the Online Seminar folks (those who paid $995.)There's a lot of good info on the private forum that is answered only by Dr. Harley.

We love listening to MB Radio but find all the focus on infidelity triggers us and often leads to meltdowns on my part (we're over a year in recovery from my FWH's A). Does anyone else have a problem with this?

Yes, that happened to us as well. We still listen to MB radio, but we decided not to listen to the infidelity ones together. When H comes home at night, I look at the tags for each section and that's how we decide what to listen to.

Other triggers for us are shows about independent behavior-previously a big problem in our marriage. I had to stop bringing up his past behavior while listening to the broadcasts, since he completely agrees with MB principles now. He realizes now that compared to the MB standard, we were really in the pits. He gets that now, so I don't want to continue raking the past over the coals. It's just too painful, now that we're in recovery.

If you go to the archive and look for the previous day's broadcast, you can just listen to the shows regarding all the other valuable info, like POJA and UA time, etc. That way you and he won't be unpleasantly surprised.

If you just go ahead and keep listening, the triggers diminish with time. Intentionally exposing yourself to a difficult emotional situation in order to acclimatize to it is a psychological technique called "flooding", and eventually you can listen dispassionately. Takes a while, though.

Kind of like how one of the best ways to get rid of "bad circulation" and always feeling cold in your hands & feet is to run around in the cold in just a pair of shorts and a thin t-shirt for ten minutes a day. It's a great fix, and works very consistently, but it's not something everybody is willing to do.

You know, I tried that with OW's name and the city/state where she lives, Door. Her name is VERY common and I hear it all the time and it makes me trigger as does where she lives because H went there twice and that's when it was physical. I tried flooding myself with the darn names. It might be working slowly, I don't know, but I still can't stand that name or city/state! It's been well over a year and I'm still triggering!

Hmmm...maybe if I run around in the cold and shout the name.... LOL. JK, I know those are two separate things. BUT... I wish there was SOME way to lessen the affect. Three of our favorite shows feature a character with OW's name! And now - my DD's recent possible-boyfriend is from the same darn place where OW lives!!! (Not that common a place and very far from where we are. I think it's a sad twist of irony...or something!)

Of course, Long Way is doing a better job of dealing with triggers than I am - or at least has her head on straight about them. She might do better with the flooding technique than I have! LOL

I think it's GREAT that you're listening to the broadcasts together.

She only listens if I ask her to. However, we regularly discuss the stories I hear on the show, and she's very interested.

One of the unfortunate truths about females who have affairs is that typically their husbands were neglecting them. It's not an excuse, but it is a reason. I was one of those husbands. She is doing a great job meeting my needs, avoiding Love Busters, and enforcing EPs these days; I am still trying to be better!

LW's H listens with her too - so good for both of you!

My husband only does stuff when I ask him too as well - but he does so willingly and I figure that's what counts. My H would rather avoid talking about affair situations altogether.

All of us who got here were doing things wrong in our marriages - otherwise we wouldn't be here. I'm going to make all my kids go through the MB program BEFORE they get married!!!

I'm looking for help. I've been married for 20 years this March. My wife and I have been disconnected for the past two years. Still living together but more like great housemates than husband and wife. we are both just exhausted from fighting and dealing with our issues.

We've come close to filing separation papers, but either have. We have both spoken to attorneys. At one point or another in the heat of it all, threats of divorce have come up. I believe at our core we do not want to see the marriage dissolve. When strip away all the built up sh@t, we are two people that can connect and love each other.

We both have lots of issues of hurt, betrayal, disappointment and unhappiness. We don't seem to want to validate each others hurt or accept any responsibility to each other.

We both have handled our hurt poorly. LOTS of miscommunication, misunderstanding and explosive reactions to the misunderstandings.

After looking closely and honestly, we have both engaged in bad behavior that would be considered emotionally abusive. Not because either of us are blind, unintelligent, inherently dysfunctional people (maybe dysfunctional behaviorally), but when hurt we acted out in poor judgement especially when fighting or dealing with emotional stresses.

We have trust issues.
I don't know if there has been martial infidelity on my wife's part. There have been behavior from my wife that I have become suspicious about, insecure and feel betrayed and disrespected over, but I cannot say she has had an affair. When I voice my worries to friends, I've received very mixed responses from "Are You Blind?" to " maybe it's not what it seems.

I began to snoop and I am embarrassed that I have violated our marriage this way. But I do not want to be caught blindsided.

I don't know what to do with my anger, sense of betrayal, my hurt, the lack of sensitivity and understanding.

I don't know where to turn, we have tried therapy but it was short lived, maybe it was the counselor, maybe it was me, I think I was still too hurt and angry and especially when for every hurt I expressed there was a battle to defend or validate my feelings or maybe a lack of acknowledging.

Then the big issue is money. We just could not afford to keep going to these sessions once a week, even if we went to another therapist.

So here I am desperate, sad, worried sick and seeking help.

Welcome to MB, Robbie.

It won't be effective for you to post your story in this thread. You need to start your own thread in an appropriate forum. This forum is for people recovering their marriage, usually from an affair, and you are not at that stage yet, so I would not start a thread here if I were you.

I suggest you go to the forum Marriage Builders 101. Once there, click "new topic" and that starts a new thread. Give the thread a title and then copy your post into that new thread.

Good luck.

I have another thought, Robbie: since you have felt the need to snoop, it is best to rule out an affair. If you had your suspicions then they might well be true. The people in the forum Surviving an Affair are experts at working out when an affair is in progress. They will help you snoop effectively. It might be better for you to start your thread there.

Thanks for both posts

I will follow your suggestions