I've been lurking around this forum for a little over a month or so. I truly appreciate the live saving tools that Dr. Harley has created and the group of people who share their spirit here. Without a doubt, this site has been one of the few things that has helped to keep myself together while I try to recover from a devastating A.

Well, I don�t want to bore you with all the details of my situation. As I�ve discovered in this site, a lot of our experiences have remarkable similarities. The highlight of my situation is that I�m facing a double whammy. My F(?)WW had an A with what I considered to be one of my best friends and long time business partner.

Here�s some preliminary info about the A:
BH: me - 37, WW: � she 37
Married: 12 years
Kids: two DD � 4 and 6
OM: 37 - Business partner and supposedly best friend who I met in college through my WW right about the same time I started dating WW 15 years ago
EA: 5/08 (but could have been longer)
PA: not sure if it happened
DD: July 10 2009 � discovered after stumbling into an astonishing large number of romantic electronic messages sent by WW that occurred on a time span of over a year
Initial NC: July 13 2009 forced by exposure to OMW who was also a good friend of my WW
Last known attempt to break NC: September 1 2009 via Instant Messaging

After DD, I started the process of selling my 50% stake in a very successful company that I co-founded with OM almost 10 years ago. But for various legal reasons it's going to take a while before I can completely leave the company. Needless to say, it�s been a daunting task to try R when I constantly have to see the OM. We don�t really talk but it�s inevitable to run into each other at the office. He�s also tried a lot of petty stuff to sabotage my exit of the company. At the end, he found himself forced to sign off on my exit to avoid me exposing the A and/or serious financial/legal problems (including me taking a stance that would have meant bankruptcy for all).

I reached a selling agreement with external investors but I may not be able to leave the company until summer 2010. So I know that I might just have to be strong and brace myself for a very tough time until certain restrictions allow me to completely leave.

The situation is wearing me down since I have to deal with unpleasantness both at work and at home. Having to be restless at work and at home leaves me little room to heal. I am pretty much 24/7 in a mode where I can't stop thinking about all the variables and the possible actions that I can take to manage surviving the A and leaving the company ASAP.

At home my WW shows little interest in really working towards R. She�s in that seemingly common �get-over-it� WS attitude. She says she loves me and wants us to stay together. But anytime I bring up the A she goes into AO mode and doesn�t even want to talk about it. Most of the times that I bring up the subject, I've really tried to avoid LBing. She just doesn't want to talk about anything that would imply she made a terrible mistake.

I�ve made very clear to her that at this point the primary EN that I want to have satisfied is OH. She thinks that the way to recover is for us to concentrate on "happy" ENs like RC, A and SF. I've been trying to do my best to meet those needs even at times when I don't feel good being close to her. Nevertheless, we�ve been able to go on truly pleasant dates and short vacations without our DDs. I can�t deny that we have a good time when we do things together. But after a while it feels very superficial to try to work on our R with just an approach of kiss and make up. I can't see myself healing if we don't address the A.

We had been doing MC for more than two months now. But last week she decided to cancel our appointment (without asking me) and she said she�s not going back. Her excuse is that she thinks MC wasn�t helping. But I understand that the real reason is that it was getting to the point where she had to confront her mistakes. She�s very reluctant to accept responsibility for her actions. Our counselor has made her accountable for trying to break NC and for not keeping her side of deals that we�ve made in our sessions. Being held accountable has made her very angry and right after our last two MC sessions she threatened me with D. She claims that MC is pointless because she thinks that I am never going to be able to get over the A. She also states that talking about the A makes her uncomfortable to the point where she wants to withdraw.

A few days ago I told her in a calm but clear way that I don�t approve her decision to leave MC. I also told her that from my perspective she�s not doing enough for our R. In this conversation I established that one of my boundaries is that she stays in counseling. She said that she doesn�t want to be in counseling with me. So I gave her the option to do IC but that she'd keep in mind that at some point we may need to go back to MC. She agreed to look for IC but from my side it felt that she accepted it to get me off her back. I'm not going to insist her again about IC but I'm definitely watching to see if she schedules it.

I�m currently in a state where I�m expecting to see her give our R a genuine try. Anything else feels unacceptable. Unfortunately, it seems like my WW is nowhere close to put a decent effort to gain my trust back or to demonstrate true remorse.

Waiting for my WW to get a clue is a virtue that is now escaping me. I�ve been working on R for only 3 months and it seems like an eternity. I am seriously considering going into plan B to protect myself because this situation is taking a huge toll on me. I feel that it may be somewhat premature to go into plan B. My WW seems to be in NC but mostly because the OM hasn�t answered her messages (he didn't really care about her that much). I am not sure if going into plan B when there�s NC in place is a wise move. Especially when there's a lot to risk as I can see that plan B may cause a lot of pain to our DDs. But I am reaching the point where I can�t find the energy to keep carrying my WW out of this mess she created.

I am looking forward to hear your ideas and receive support from this extraordinary group. Specially your opinions about going into plan B in my current situation.

Please feel free to comment and/or ask questions.

Regards

-- ElCamino72

YOu seem very smart and well grounded. This along w/ close friends/family will make it easier to recover. You are the only one who can decided HOW LONG to stay in plan A before moving to B. I for one could NOT do plan A, but people on here have had much success w/ it! Read up on everything here on this site. I would expose this to everyone whom your WW values their opionion of her for accountability.(Her parents, siblings, etc) She is probably still fogged out and in fantasy land, once her fog clears, she will probably feel very remorseful and downright foolish.

DUDE

El Camino, I would not try the IC route, that will be a disaster. Individual counselors do not repair marriages, they help clients act on CURRENT FEELINGS at the expense of the marriage.

Your wife is currently in a state of detachment from you and a state of fantasy addiction for the OM. Can you see how disasterous it would be if she acted on those feelings? An IC does not understand the state of mind of a WS. You could very well end up in what is commonly called a "trial separation" which would spell the end of your marriage.

My suggestion would be to call the Harleys for marriage coaching. They actually know how to save marriages, unlike 84% of marriage counselors. MC has a 84% failure rate and they don't have the slightest idea how to save a marriage.

Steve Harley, for example, is very good at selling waywards on a program of recovery. He is not going to mess around, though. You aren't going to be just touching on the affair 3 months later; he gets down to brass tacks. He assesses the situation, lays out a plan and sells the program. He gets down to business. And he may very well infuriate your wife at first, but that is probably what it is going to take to bring her on board.

Then if she won't get on board, Steve can help you navigate Plan B.

Sorry you find yourself here.

EC,

Welcome to MB...so happy you found this website...so sorry for what brought you here...

What you crave most you're least giving, EC...you want O&H above all...then give it.

When she AO's, state truthfully, "You are abusing me. You abused our marriage with your affair, and now, with your AO's. Stop. Stop it now or you'll have to leave."

Mean it...because for one LB (one AO) she is making a withdrawal of 20 deposits...so working on the fun only, the RC, affection, etc., is keeping your own love bank in the red...and you're allowing it...maybe even encouraging her to do so.

Self-investigate. You do not want this marriage at all costs. You want a thriving, forgiven, loving and in love partnership in your future...which given your choices for contact, won't begin to even have a chance until 2013.

Whoa. The future is going to tear you down long before that. So maybe you really don't want your marriage...otherwise, you would have been O&H in your partnership...allowed the consequences to come from the truth...and not made your marriage second to that...

Are you verifying no contact in all ways you can? Sounds like you are if you last caught her breaking NC on 9/1/09...please know, that started over the clock...you aren't in month three of recovery...you're barely hitting month two...

For you to know that each contact resets the clock on recovery...she hasn't gone through withdrawal...she isn't experiencing the consequences of her actions yet...bring them. If she is verbally abusive, seriously, call the police. Do not tolerate that which continues to hurt The Marriage...

separate your hurt from how she hurt The Marriage...because your hurt isn't clear, it's intense, messy and ongoing injury because, as you recognized, seeing OM daily is like re-stabbing yourself...and that's your choice right now...because you are mitigating the consequences of her choices...of their choices.

Don't do the same with her...do not mitigate so you can stand her until you stop hurting. She's re-injurying with every LB...be O&H and tell her...to stop. Predetermined progressive boundary enforcements...so you aren't going from one choice to the next reactively...

There are steps before you hit Plan B...too early and you aren't doing it for The Marriage...too late, and well, you aren't doing it for The Marriage.

She wiped out your marriage...make the groundrules for YOU for your new marriage...the goal of recovery...do not take abuse (that's your half)...learn healthy boundary enforcements...and that you cause a lot of your own pain...please stop that, too.

You're worth everything...you are her real partner, her true spouse...he is nothing but fantasy...not real, a distracting game, a deadly one...his betrayal of you...says NOTHING about you...and everything about him.

Same for your WW.

Get to really understand this...don't take what you don't control...that evades your real responsibility. Make sure you're O&H with every statement...everything said and not said (lies by omission)...leave the room when she AO's...state why you're leaving and when you'll resume the discussion...next AO, leave the house...same requirements on you to set the duration and state it ahead of time...next AO, you leave for overnight with the children...each time, take them with you...her AO's harm them. Her affair harmed and harms them.

Get to understand this well...accept it...work it through in your head...so you can really save your marriage.

LA

Whatever you do...don't move out.

I see you considering Plan B and fear that you think Plan B means moving out and leaving your dd's with your wife until she wakes up.

However, doing so places you in a horrible position should you divorce. You'll basically be consigning yourself to being an every other weekend and wednesday dinner father.

IF you end up going to Plan B, it's because your wife moved out. She's the one that had the affair and being uncooperative in the recovery...not you.

Mr. W

EC, I would like to touch on one important point. You said:
One of the building blocks of R involves the WS disclosing ALL of the details of the A. In other words, you have a right to ask everything, and she must answer everything. One of the threads recently (I think he/she still posts) was a BS who years later found out some details of the A that the WS lied about earlier. Guess what: it is a brand new d-day, and the recovery clock sets back to zero again.

Because of this (as well as recent attempted contact), it doesn't sound like you have even started recovery yet. I don't blame you for feeling discouraged. You need a plan, and that's what MB provides.

Also, since OM is local, and it was going on for over a year, unfortunately you can be assured that it was a PA. Sorry.

Wow, I am really touched by your thoughts and quick support. It's remarkable to find a group of people willing to share their experience and put time in helping perfect strangers to overcome their issues.


Hey Dude, you're right about how long to stay in Plan A is my decision. This is something I control. I haven't exposed my wife to anybody close to her. I've left our families out of this since I am not convinced that involving them would actually help. I think that involving our families may end up doing more damage than helping. But I am not ruling it out completely.

My wife is the text book case where she really tries to maintain an image of "good girl" in front of family, friends and me. We are one of those couples that a lot of people compliment for being an example of a great marriage - turns out to be nothing further from the truth. Maybe a shake down of this false image may bring a good dose of reality. I may need to consider exposure a little better.

Hey ML, I think you have a very good point. I'll try to reverse the IC tactic. At the beginning of MC she was trying to lead the counselor into blame-shifting but the counselor stopped her on her tracks many times. But IMO even MC has taken way too long to delve into our actual problems.

You may have noticed by now that I am not a native English speaker/writer. For me and my WW it will be a challenge to tackle these issues in a foreign language. I am a little more fluent in English than her. We both speak good enough English (we lived in the continental US for a little over 5yrs). But these conversations are hard to do over the phone in a language that is not our mother tongue. BTW, I'd ask MBers to bear with me in my posts here - expect a lot to be lost in translation. I guess I'll still make an appointment with the Harleys and see how it goes. If anybody knows a good MC that can speak spanish please let me know.

I see what you mean. I've normally avoided conflict with my wife. It's hard to explain because in my line of work I can effectively confront conflict and people say I am good at approaching problems in a non-sense kind of way. But when it comes to my wife I just don't want to make her uncomfortable. I didn't think that taking a firm stance had to do with O&H but I can see where you're going with this.

O&H is something I'll have to put a more conscious effort to improve. My WW tells me that I sound like a robot when I'm so honest with her because she's not used to it. I think that I've been laying all my cards on the table but probably not confronting her when she's trying to mentally abuse me.

She even went as far as tell me that I sound "intimidating" when I try to O&H. I said that the word "intimidation" is very strong because of the physical abuse implications. I've rarely have had AOs with her in our 12 years of marriage. And never been even remotely close to physical abuse. The point is that she tries to manipulate me into not being O&H and her general attitude is very negative when I try. I should reaffirm myself that me being O&H is something I do have control of and that I have to continue practicing.

Yes, that's the hard truth. When you look at it, this means that I haven't even started in this marathon. But I need to keep measuring my run in feet - I shouldn't measure it in miles just yet.

I've been monitoring. In the first month my WW had quite a few attempts to reach the OM. But I haven't seen a response from OM to her messages.

She's got a little sneakier in the way she tries to contact the OM. She puts these general but obviously targeted messages in her status on Fakebook and Massenger. I have confronted her about these messages and she always has an excuse that will insult the intelligence of an ant. The 9/1 NC attempt was a message she put in her status wishing a mysterious "special friend" a happy birthday. When I asked, my WW, said that it was for a girl friend of her. When I investigated, the girl friend's birthday was more than 3 weeks away and the OM's birthday was just the day before. When my WW had no choice but admit the message was directed to the OM, she gave a very empty apology that didn't last 10 seconds and walked away from the room.

Just two weeks ago she was posting more ambiguous stuff in her Fakebook status. After that one I was very clear to her that this message hurt my feelings. Once again she gave me an empty apology. This time I said I wasn't going to accept that apology because it didn't sound sincere. I stayed withdrawn from her (pretty much completely ignoring her) for 4-5 days).

After that I explained her why I didn't accept her apology: 1) she said I'm sorry just once but asked about how I found out about the message at least 10 times, 2) she didn't ask me or say anything about why the message was so hurtful to me, 3) didn't accept her mistake or showed remorse, r) She justified her actions by saying that I know she's stubborn but she loves me. That was last week and she hasn't tried to apologize again. I just can't expect her to apologize but now I am seriously considering canceling her Fakebook, Massenger, Email accounts if used again for WS purposes.

I like this statement so much that I'm placing it in my list of "things to do" that I've been keeping and reading every morning.


This rings true. Now, I am sure that enforcing boundaries will cause a great deal of resistance and conflict. I need to prepare myself the outcome of standing up to her and to stop the abuse. The part of creating my own pain is something that I need to recognize and better understand.

I like the idea of raising the bar everytime. I also need to have planned responses to her AO. Makes a lot of sense.


Hey Mr. W. Last time my WW threatened with D, I told her that I wouldn't stop her. It got to the point where I put her in the position to take the option to leave the house. I said that she shouldn't worry about me or our DDs since I would take care of everything - which I'm really willing to do. She got really mad and offended that I was questioning her love for our DDs. She said that she'd never leave the house. She cited a well known local law about home abandonment and that she wasn't stupid enough to leave because of it.

Right after DDay I stayed out of my house for about 5 days. This has been one of the darkest and hurtful times of my life. Our DDs were clearly affected by the whole ordeal. I come from a family of divorced parents and I don't want my DDs to go through the same. Either one of us leaving the house will be very difficult for our DDs. Becoming a every-other-weekend dad is the single most scary aspect of this situation.

I've consulted my personal attorney and he says that in our jurisdiction is very difficult for the father to get full custody. According to him, only blatant cases where the mother has been convicted of a crime, abandonment or where the mother doesn't have interest in the children is when the father gets custody. This is something I'm willing to fight but I'm being realistic about my chances. When the right moment comes I'll put all my resources behind that battle. But I need to be sure when to do that since I very well know that involving a blood-thirsty lawyer may have no turning back. I am not ruling out D and if I reach the point to make that decision then it will be outright war to what's fair for me and my DDs.


Thanks to all for your advise. It's truly appreciated.

--ElCamino72

Go to a Marriage Builders weekend.

That would be the BEST use of your time and resources!

You are not truly recovering...becuase you can't until she owns her part in this...

Hey IS,

My WW is very reluctant to disclose details. It seems to be a pattern with WS. I got her to talk about the details just once. But after that time, my WW says that she doesn't think it helps to talk again about the details of the A.

The thing is that my WW introduced me to the OM just a few weeks after we started dating back in college (15yrs ago). They knew each other and my WW would tell me that she wanted to introduce me to this guy that according to her was very driven like myself. That person was the OM. Shortly after the OM and I meeting we started talking about forming a company which we did a few years later.

When I confronted my WW in DDay, she confessed that the OM and her used to date before she met me. But she walked away from him when the OM got a girl pregnant. My WW claimed that she never had closure of her relationship with the OM. This was the excuse she gave me for the A. Before DDay, she never even hinted that the OM and her dated. She always talked about him like a good friend.

When my WW and I got married, right after my college graduation, we moved to the US. Back then, for about 3yrs, we lost contact with OM. I remember her asking me if I knew the whereabouts of OM and saying that I should to try to find him. Then one day, out of nowhere, she "miraculously" ran into the OMWs in a business trip of her to another state. That's how we got back in contact with OM. At the time I thought that the great coincidence of my WW finding OM was a sign of fate that he and I were destined to create the company we always talked about in college. What hurts me is that the story of the miracle encounter was one that I cherished and that I told very proudly. Now, even though she won't admit it, I believe that fate had nothing to do with that encounter.

Two years later, back in the dotcom years, we moved near the OM to the north east US (in a whole different state) to start the company. At the time, I remember some situations that prompted me to think that my WW had an estrange relationship with OM. But I'd feel guilty just by thinking that my wife or friend would do something like that and immediately dismissed any suspicion.

We all moved back to our home country and the company really took off. We've lived close to the OM for the last 10years. We live in the same neighborhood and the OM is literally my parent's next door neighbor. So running into him when I visit my parents is yet another trigger. So the point is that I don't really know how long this A has been going on. It could be anything between 12 to 1-1/2years She claims that it started last year but I don't know what to believe.

She swears that it never reached PA. I don't have proof of one way or the other. In one of messages that I discovered, about a week prior to DDay, my WW was asking the OM if "next week we close the deal". That sounded like they hadn't been there yet. But to me it being PA or EA doesn't make much of a difference. Really. I still feel betrayed in a way beyond explanation.

To be honest, the details about the A don't really kill me at this point. In the first month after DDay the lack of knowledge was something that would cause great grief. But at this point I'm just assuming the worst.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

ElCamino,

I think I am going to say about the same thing as everyone else. First, exposure is to end the affair, and frankly from what you have said, she is still in affair mode. She is not only ducking her decisions to have the affair, she is actively seeking more contact with the OM. I would recommend exposing to those in your/her family that might talk with her and help your marriage. That is actually what exposure is: seeking help from those outside your marriage that might help to preserve it.

Next, I would strongly recommend that you do some reading of the articles that Harley has placed on this site. I would recommend the "four rules for a good marriage", I would recommend the articles on the policies of "radical honesty"and "joint agreement".

I believe they will give you some insight into this situation. I understand your concern about counseling in a second/third/whatever language. A lot of recovery is about words and how they are used. Your counselor sounds excellent. I would recommend that you continue with the MC even if your W won't.

I will tell you that your english is excellent and it was not obvious that it is not your native language. I make more typo's than you do that is for sure.

I hope you keep posting and asking questions.

God Bless,

JL

El Camino,

Don't sell yourself short on getting custody or at least 50/50. Every lawyer in every juristicion says this. The reality is MANY fathers fall on their swords when they hear this.

If custody becomes a battle, you need to start preparing now. The good thing is most of things that you need to do will be under the radar and does not involve a lawyer. The kicker? What you do now to prepare will make you a better father. Here's a synopsis on what you need to do.

1. Surf the web or go to your local family court and see if they have self help custody packets. In them you will usually find info on how your state determines custody.

2. Find out how your state determins custody. Learn your state's custody factors. Memorize them. In your free time, go to a local law library and read up on custody cases in your jurisdiction and study how the decisions were made as they relate to the custody factors.

3. Under no circumstances do you move out of the house. If she wants a separation, she can move in with OM. And by the way, the kids stay in the house with you. You will face a ton of pressure to move out from her, your family, your lawyer, her lawyer, etc. Ignore them. Moving out will kill your chances of custody.

4. Be VERY aware if your WW makes hints about abuse, etc. The favorite tactic of a WW is to file a false domestic violence charge against the BH. It will get you out, and she will move the OM in and replace you. Plus it puts her in the drivers seat for all other divorce issues. Trust me, there is nothing worse than having to pay for your house while POSOM gets to live there for free. The kicker? The courts are set up to allow this to happen very easily.

5. Have a digital voice recorder going at all times if WW starts to make hints of abuse. It will save you.

6. Take the kids to school, talk to the teachers, take them to the doctor, sign them up for T Ball. Spend all your free time with them and DOCUMENT it. Help them with homework. If you know WW is out partying with the boyfriend, document how you stayed home while she was with OM. Judges love WW's who leave the kids at home to see their adultry partner. Your goal is to become more involved with the kids than your WW. If reconcilliation is going well, keep doing this. Never stop. Your kids will never forget you spending time with them. The only sure investment in life is spending time with your kids.

7. Read up on two poster's threads : Mortarman and Papaof3. Mortarman has a recovered marriage but was prepared to go to the mattress for custody. Papaof3 fell on his sword early after D-Day and fought a huge uphill battle to get a little less than 50/50. Also, my thread has a lot of good info on false DV charges as well as custody. Unfortunately, with the server crash, most of the stuff around my custody case disappeared.

Hi Lexxxy, at the beginning of last month I actually suggested my WW to go to the Marriage Builders weekend (the one that just happened last weekend). I now regret that I didn't insisted enough. Instead, we went to a weekend vacation without our DDs about 3 weeks ago.

Don't get me wrong, we had a decent time and this weekend was one the best moments we've had in a long time. Except for the first night where our conversation drifted into the A. After a strong discussion about the A the first night (fueled by her drinking too much wine), we decided not to talk about the A for those days. That weekend was the first time we've been to vacation without children since our DDs were born (6 years ago) so it was enjoyable.

She has read SAA and visited the MBs website. She says she likes the concepts but she doesn't seem to really want to commit to it. I obviously can't make her commit or to MB concepts or follow a R plan. I may have to get the schedule of the next MB Weekend and push harder for us to go. I also realize that it may take receptiveness from her part for the MB Weekend to be effective.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

Hi PSUBIKER, I'm sorry to hear what you've been through. The info you're giving me is making me raise the priority of the custody part. However, I want to be sure on when to go to mattresses since at that point there's no reversal. But I agree that I need to be prepared beforehand and not sell my self short in the opportunities of getting custody of my DDs. I'll do more research about custody.

A (perhaps good) side effect of dealing with lawyers in negotiating the sale of the company, is that I have even less desire to deal with D since that would make me go back to mess with legal stuff once again. Selling a company to professional investors is definitely not for the faint of heart � you have to be on top of your game to negotiate your way through a whole lot of pitfalls and be ready to watch a bunch of lawyers go at each other. The back-and-forth between lawyers got really ugly at times. But that doesn't mean that I am going to run away from going to the courts to pursue my case. Actually it was a good practice for emotional detachment considering that my company was something that, until recently, I thought was important.

On the subject of the OM moving into my house, although not impossible, it isn't very likely. I really think he never cared about moving with or having a real life relationship with my WW. I haven't detected any contact from his side and I have my ears very close to the ground on this part. This guy is known for having As left and right. At the time of DDay, I can account for at least 5 women that he kept contact with. I objectively don't think he's got any interest in living with my WW. She is just another woman in his long list. The OMW happily puts up with it so there's no reason for him to change.

--ElCamino72

El C - He doesn't have to actually move in. Are you okay with him dropping in from time to time and having sex with your WW in your bed? Because that's what will happen if you leave.

You are getting a lot of good advice here. Please hang in there, and welcome to MB.
Mulan

The only way to find out if it went PA is to have her take a polygraph. If she refuses, you can trust that it did go PA. Set up an appointment, let her know. There is a very good chance that she would tell you that she did have a PA, instead of risking you finding out everything.

Hi Mulan. You know, I accept that I was speaking BS fog in there. No, I don't want the OM making infidelity visits in my house. So that gives me an stronger argument not to leave the house. I'll hold the fort.

Yesterday, I was leaning towards leaving for Plan B but now I want to stand my ground.

It's nice to feel welcomed in this community. Thanks for the words.

--ElCamino72

ElCamino

I can account for at least 5 women that he kept contact with

If they are also married perhaps their husbands/boyfriends can apply some muscle to OM, drop a dime on them. Your English is very good btw.

NJ

Hi ouchthathurt,
As of now, I honestly don't feel that PA or EA make much of a difference to me. At the end, it was a grave betrayal. I'm OK with assuming that it might have been a PA.

I don't personally believe in the accuracy of a polygraph. So I'd still have some doubts about the results. There may be an intimidation factor with the situation of a polygraph that may get her to confess something. But I'll much rather go Plan B or D than force my WW take a polygraph. My goal is for my WW to earn my trust without me having to rely on a test. I think that I want to rely on facts and the input of close people/counselors/MB to confirm the level of trust that I should grant. Always keeping in mind that I'll never trust blindly again.

Right now, I believe that if we get to establish trust again (which I'm assuming will take a long time) and if she breaks that trust again then there's no more R and I'd go straight into Plan D. I don't think I'll have the guts to try R again.

Thanks for your input

--ElCamino72

Hi NJ,

It seems like all the other women are single. I know that two of them are younger college girls that work as croupiers at different casinos (the OM has developed a gambling problem in the last two years). There are two other women that regularly come to town from out of state for business purposes and I believe they are single. The other woman lives out of state and he visits her when he goes to her town on business.

At this point I want to be careful with directly exposing the OM. I need to be extremely careful with this due to legal reasons and for the sake of me getting out of the company we jointly own in the easiest way possible. I realize that a major obstacle for R is being a co-owner with OM. My sights are now put in effectively breaking that link. After I leave the company, everything is fair game.

Well my spanglish is allright. I am no Shakespeare but I can get the message accross. It's just that I'm not as fluent as I am in Spanish which makes me feel a little retarded.

I gotta say that I get a kick out of writing in MB jargon and acronyms in combination with my spanglish. Certainly, just like it happened to me, it may take a little effort from my WW to figure out the cryptic stuff that goes around here :-) Just kidding � I truly wish she could open up to MB concepts. I�ve been trying to introduce MB to her and she�s shown some interest but she hasn't committed to it yet.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

Hi El Camino,

Polygraphs have been getting better and better. You do need clarity to restore your marriage. Usually the interviewer gets to privately admit before going into consultation.

Your wife knowing of you on this site does not help us giving you tips in handling her. Is she watching this site?

A quick update -

After considering the great advise from you, I decided to make an appointment with the Harleys for MC. Last night, I told my wife that I was going to make the appointment and that she would be welcome to join in. She expressed her concern about doing this in English over the phone. She didn't give me an answer about the counseling and sounded very tentative.

This morning I contacted MB and setup the appointment. She accepted to join in the call and give it a try. She even sounded positive and willing to "work on being together". That's great news for me and gives me a little fuel to continue working on my M.

Ironically, I think that her good reception this morning was in response to a conflict we had earlier today. Last night when she went to bed I did my usual round of snooping. I found some Fakebook activity that I didn't like including her looking at pictures of the OMW.

We've been constantly having conflicts with her usage of Fakebook. I've been very clear that I don't approve her putting messages that may bring confusion to our relationship or viewing pictures/messages of the OM and related people. I just got tired of having this same argument over and over so I proceeded to deactivate her Fakebook account and to remove the mobile Fakebook application from her BlackBerry.

This morning I informed her in a very calm but firm voice that I had deactivated her Fakebook account and also removed it from her phone. I told her that her usage of Fakebook is hurting me and that I had no choice but deactivate the account. I also stated that if she decides to reactivate the account and I detect usage that would cause me pain then I'd proceed to remove all content from the account and permanently cancel it. I also sent an email expressing the same thing. She was petrified and could only say "I know".

This is the second time that I've had to remove her access to a web site. Previously, she was using the online billing of our corporate credit cards to keep tabs on the OM. The first time I detected she was doing this, I gave her a warning. The second time I followed up with with changing the passwords of the account. She was very angry about it but I told her that couldn't permit her to abuse me in that way. The reason I have to resort to these tactics is not revenge but primarily because I have to protect myself from the hurt that she's intentionally bringing to me.

I hope she sees the light soon. Let's see.

--ElCamino72

I can see what you mean, but from my line of work I *know* that a polygraph can be beat. So the result of a polygraph won't bring me full clarity because I would still have some doubt about the results. So I don't feel inclined to go that route.

AFAIK, my WW has read some of the main MB site contents but I believe she hasn't entered into the forums section. She's also read SAA. If I detect her reading this forum then I may stop posting or change tactics (and I'm keeping my ears very close to the ground). So far this forum is a great scape to the tribulations of the A so I'm going to continue using it.

Ironically enough, my WW even sent an email to OMW with the link to MB right after I showed her the site. The OMW asked her to never write to her again. Can you believe that? I mean, how can a WS give marital advise to a OPS? That's crazy... This is proof that WS have actually been abducted by aliens.

Thanks for your comments

--ElCamino72

They are completly BONKERS...Usually REALITY slaps them around enough as their world and reputation come crashing down to snap them out of it over time. But yes, that is totally obsurd!!! You can meet w/ OMW and you can talk about MB, but not your WW!!!

Hey MBers,

Things have been going normal. I'm taking things day to day and avoiding to deviate from getting to that point where R could start to be possible. It's just a matter of every day trying to put the required effort to get there regardless of the challenges I've been confronting. At the same time, I'm trying to keep a nice pace and stay calm.

A really positive note is that last week my WW and I started coaching with Steve Harley. There was no barrier at all with language. We were able to communicate perfectly with Steve. He was able to convince my WW to buy into the program. She's agreed to continue coaching with Steve and follow his instructions. I'm hoping that his coaching will lead us into the road to R.

Steve lay out a plan that feels to be just right for our situation. Although reading SAA and learning from the MB web site on our own has been helpful, coaching with Steve feels way more focused on solving the situation at hand. Steve's approach is different to the MC we've previously attended. He's definitely not wasting time to delve into the heart of the problem. Talking to him gives you a sense that you're in very professional and experienced hands.

His approach is very coach like in the sense that he's very well prepared to explain the Xs and Os of his game plan. So at this point I really want to follow his instructions - it doesn't matter if he's going to have me sit on the bench, pass the ball or get a buzzer beater. I feel confident that with Steve's coaching ability and a great effort from both me and my WW we have can have fair chance to R our M.

Thanks for your help

-- ElCamino72

Hello,

Yesterday I forwarded last month's MB news letter to my WW - you know, the big fat one about about exposure. In the forwarded message I just wrote that our MB coach asked me to send her this info and that we'd talk about it.

She started to read the message by my side in her BlackBerry. Oh boy, oh boy, that opened the proverbial can of worms and out it came a bunch of really nasty looking maggots. In an instant, my WW was visibly upset and looked pretty angry. This is something I anticipated - it's expected that her WS mentality will make a run to the hills in the face of such a blast of reality.

I am not sure if she finished reading the whole newsletter but it didn't take too long before she stormed out of the room. In her way out of the room she picked an empty box and then I heard a noise that sounded like the box being thrown. I remained calm and wasn't really affected by her childish tantrum.

At this point I am not letting my WW manipulate me with what she likes to call "getting emotional" which is a cheap euphemism for AO. I am getting better at removing my WW's power to to bait me into arguments and unnecessary distress. For the time being, I'm just deflecting her AO by continuing to practice emotional detachment. This gives me an opportunity to stay sane while I figure out effective solutions to the actual problems at hand.

While I plan the course of action, I just try to behave around her like a friendly neighbor. My coping technique involves me trying to act like Smiling Bob, the pitchman character for the Extenze "male enhancement suplemment". I do that while humming in my head the Extenze commercial jingle LoL.

My WW has conveniently withdrawn from me since reading the newsletter. Last night she couldn't stop snapping her fingers and was nervously moving her legs non-stop. She was trying very hard to catch my attention by looking anxious. I feel sorry for this pain she's going through but the truth is that this is something she caused to our family with her irresponsible behavior.

This morning, I received a reply where my WW says that just thinking about exposure gives her too much stress. She claims to understand the intention of why the Harleys would recommend exposure but she disagrees with it. My WW believes that although an argument for exposure can be made, since it may help to avoid recurrence of an A, her opinion is that the negative of exposure would outweigh the positive. I'm just wondering if by negative she means losing her extended residence in fantasy land.

My WW stated in her email that if she has to tell her parents about what happened then she'd rather end our relationship. Her drama goes into saying that she knows that she deserves the kind of punishment that exposure may bring but doing so will cause her to end our M. Her email also explains how much it'd would hurt her to end our M on this note.

Her diatribe goes into saying that humiliating their parents by telling them what happened was not part of the deal. She puts end to her written tragedy by saying that she's willing to make our M work but not at the price of causing grief to her parents for something she did. She then closes with the obligatory "I'm sorry" which for many reasons doesn't ring anything close to remorse.

This is one of those cases where the WS is held by her relatives and friends as an exemplary person. Needless to say, she's terrified of losing that status of Good Girl/Mother/Wife (tm).

In the beginning I stayed away from exposure because my foggish BS thinking told me that I didn't want to do it for the wrong reasons (i.e. revenge). Now I know that expose is more than that all female group from the 80s.

I've only revealed the A to the OMW and a couple of my very close friends. The lack of exposure now feels kind of dumb because the time has passed and it's taken some of the sting away. I am still not completely sure how exposure is to be handled at this point. However, everyday it's making more sense to reveal this horrible betrayal to anybody that may have influence in ending my WW gig.

I'm in the process of figuring out a plan that can be executed promptly and safely. I can anticipate that her family is going to feel offended by exposure and that my WW may try a defamation campaign. Who knows, she may even try to take my DDs away with her. I just need to prepare my reaction to any crazy WS action that may result from exposure.

I'd greatly appreciate your comments or suggestions about exposure in my situation.

Thanks

-- ElCamino72

Well, I hope that you don't mind a little venting around here. So please bear with me.

Quick status:

So far, we've done about a dozen counseling sessions with Steve Harley. We originally started working in understanding the why/what of the A and outlining a plan for EP. Unfortunately, my WW failed at completing these steps to my satisfaction.

This resulted in a lot of frustration and the most miserable holidays I've ever had. It got to the point where I was becoming very discouraged so Steve had us switch gears into filling our empty Love Banks.

During the last couple of weeks I've been stepping up my plan A. I've been trying to do even better at meeting her top ENs so that I can deposit as many LUs as possible. But I have to admit that at this point there's a whole lot of "fake-it-to-make-it" in that which is really draining.

My WW has eased her bitterness and anger in the last couple of weeks. But for whatever reason, she doesn't seem willing to let go of her ego if favor of our family. I believe she's more concerned about the embarrassment of her A being brought to light and her perception that I am now trying to control her as a punishment. There's a strong discomfort in her when it comes to owning the A and in admitting that her self-image of perfection has been an illusion.

The thing is that she has been able to grasp the logic behind the MB ideas since she articulates many of the Dr. Harley's concepts really well. But her actions do not reflect that she's prepared to do the heavy lifting involved in R. Her actions seem to be more geared to go back to our previous M. I certainly have no interest in going down that path.

There's little doubt that she's still in wayward mode even if the OM might be out of the picture. What's killing me is the lack of effort. Sometimes it feels like she's doing just barely enough to get me off her back. Trickle truth and lack of remorse are major issues right now. Regardless, I am focused on the goal so I must keep within the plan.

As a positive note, we are going to be attending the MB Weekend at the end of the month. So I'm hoping that it will recharge my batteries to continue executing. Who knows, maybe she'll have that elusive come to jesus moment there :-D

Allright, enough venting. Now back to Plan A.

-- ElCamino72

Trickle truth really wore me down.

H and I are attending the weeked at the end of the month. We will be the really old couple there.

AM

Hi ElCamino72,

I'm so glad that you are coaching with Steve. Keep up the good work and I hope you get some fun time at the weekend. I wish I were going (with WS of course!)

TM

It could happen.

Venting is fine, but not as a full time job.

Hi AM. We'll be the couple speaking spanglish :-)


I'm really looking forward to it. Not only for the MB weekend but also for the great opportunity to deposit LUs.


I know, the venting job doesn't pay well and the benefits suck. You just do it when strictly needed. I actually felt better by letting it out.

Today I had a good short conversation with WW. She actually asked me how well she was meeting my EN. I am really glad she made the approach. Credit where it's due - so I'll take back a little of what I said in the venting.

--ElCamino72

I'm back from the MB Weekend. It was coooold in MN! But the seminar made it well worth the trip.

It was great to get insight from Dr. Harley himself. The MB team are really nice people. I got to put a voice to the face of Steve. Joyce has a really affable personality.

I also took the opportunity to deposit a good amount of LUs in my FWW's LB$. We went on a few dates and accumulated some quality UA time together. I'm trying to adjust to become more affective which is her top EN so I got to practice a little bit during the weekend.

My FWW's reaction was overall good. I think she's warming up to the MB program. Although she's struggling with the POJA concept. She thinks that I might use it to control her by stalling certain decisions. The thing is that she's developed a very independent lifestyle in the last few years. So there are big adjustments to make in that area.

One example of her reluctance to follow the POJA happened just the day before we flew to MN. It had to do with her hairstyle. A few days before the trip, she told me (not asked) that she was going to get blond highlights. I told her that I'd prefer she doesn't change her hair color. She's well aware that her changing hairstyle and hair color are HUGE triggers for me. And she knows how much I prefer her natural hair color.

In part, the hairstyle issue goes back to when she was immersed in the A, she changed her hair color to blond and would blow dry her hair straight during that time. At D-Day, I found she'd sent tons of pictures and messages to OM asking about her hairstyle changes. I remember when I didn't know that she was having an A, that I'd literally beg her to go back to her natural hair and her response used to be "it's my hair - I do whatever I want to do with it".

I've always loved my FWW's natural hair. She's got the most beautiful natural curly hair - really nice ringlets. Since we've dated, her curly hair, has been her physical characteristic that attracts me the most. She knows it very well. So it really hurt me when she'd purposely change it.

Going back to the recent POJA incident, I told her that I didn't have an enthusiastic agreement with her changing hairstyle for the trip. Her counter-argument was that she didn't enthusiastically agree with me controlling her hairstyle.

We tried to negotiate but we couldn't find an agreeable solution. So I told her that we'd come back to it later. She mentioned that she wanted to get her hair done before the trip. I said that according to the POJA, we shouldn't do anything until we have an enthusiastic agreement. She stated that it was unfair because she'd get stuck with doing nothing. Then she jokingly said that she'd still do it because "after a couple of days you'll get over it". I said that it'd really hurt me if she'd proceed knowing that I didn't agree.

The night before the trip she said that she was unhappy about the decision of doing nothing. After further negotiation, I agreed to her getting her hair straight and re-touching the color on the base of the hair with the same she currently has. But I explicitly said that I couldn't agree to the blond highlights she wanted. She said OK and I thought we had an agreement.

Next day when I come back from work I noticed she's got the highlights. I ask her and she denies it - she tries to tell me that it's the same highlights she's always had. It was obvious that she'd just changed the color but she was still denying it. I couldn't believe that she'd still try to lie to my face so badly after all the issues we've had about her dishonesty. She not only violated the POJA but also was blatantly lying. It was really frustrating. To the point where I was considering not going to the MB Weekend. I know, I don't want to make a big deal out of hairstyle but her behavior really hurt me.

I couldn't even look at her during our trip to MN. I was really mad so I avoided talking to her. Our first night in MN we went to a really nice restaurant. She said, I gotta confess that I changed my hair color. But then she went into self-justification mode and blame shifting about me trying to control her. I just told her that her decision to break our agreement and to lie hurt me very much. At that point she let a few tears go, said "I'm sorry" and headed to the restroom.

She didn't really apologize. It felt more like she was angry at me. We didn't discuss it any further and I just went back to the fake-it-to-make-it mode of plan A. It's still a concern that she gets "scott free" out of this violation and I resent her lack of remorse. At what point do I start enforcing a strict boundary on such violations?

Well, the good thing is that Dr. Harley discussed POJA in great details and gave excellent examples - including why it's better to do nothing when in disagreement. So from now on, there aren't going to be any excuses whatsoever. I'm really hoping she buys into it because I can't withstand too many more blatant violations of POJA. My LB$ has been running really low - especially since she's not meeting very well my top ENs which is H&O. And she still shows a lot of IB and dishonesty.

I realize that to get good at POJA we'll both have to do a lot of changes in our decision making process. I expect the MB follow-up program will help us in that specific area.
I'm convinced that the MB weekend and follow up program is our best chance. So I am hopeful that her attitude is going to improve overtime. I am going to try to stay calm, positive and continue sticking to the plan. I can't wait to see some baby steps because I need something to hold on. We'll see.


--ElCamino72

I always asked myself how I�d know if I was in R. When should I begin to say that I am in R?

Seems to me like the answer is when you start to make measurable and consistent progress. Right now, my FWW and I are taking more steps forward than backwards. How can I measure it? LBs have been drastically reduced and we�re doing a lot better at meeting our EN.

Just recently, FWW�s balance in my LB$ has been slowly but surely increasing. Small amounts of LUs are being deposited and not much withdrawn � that sense of progress is something I haven�t felt in a very long time so I'll enjoy it even if it doesn't last.

I think that we still have a way to go before we can say that our M is riding on R road. But MB has given us a map and I can see us getting there.

Can anybody share when was it you realized that R had begun?

--ElCamino72

Little Victories

No disrespect, Mark, but those are not "little victories".

Those are monumental landmarks.

Little victories are the wife actually sitting down to dinner and homework with me and the kids for a change.

Little victories is not seeing the OM's number on her regular or disposable phone for another day.

Little victories are the WW reluctantly accepting a shoulder hug.

Those are the scraps I'm getting right now.

I understand feeling triggery about the hairstyle, but are things like hair colors and hair styles an issues that Harley expects to use POJA with?

EC,

Your battles.

Your victories.

BR,

My daughter decided she wanted her hair to be black. She talked it over with her boyfriend and he told her that he didn't like black hair and really liked her hair color, a dishwater blond, the way it was.

She dyed it black.

MAJOR love buster!

So she realized just how hurt he was by it and called a friend for advice on what to do. The friend told her that she was going to have to live with it for at least 4 - 6 weeks before trying to change it.

She got some new color and tried to get it back to the way it was while he was at work.

He came home and found her a mass of tears.

With hair that was orange, and blue with traces of green.

He wasn't real fond of the new look either.

Choices have consequences.

ALL choices have consequences.

The things we do can affect our spouse either positively or negatively. Seldom are they love bank neutral.

POJA:

Never do anything without the enthusiastic agreement of your spouse.

I don't have a mustache any more because my wife asked me to shave it off. Actually, she said she preferred me without one. Had it when we met. Had it for years. Shaved it off when she asked me to get rid of it.

POJA: "How would you feel about me gaining 50 pounds or so?"
POJA: "How would you feel about my trading in the minivan for a souped up hot rod?"
POJA: "How would you feel if I changed my hair color to purple?"

EVERY choice has consequences. The consequences for the choices we make when we are married affect our spouse as well as ourselves.

Not POJA: "I ate too much and put on 50 pounds because ___." (I was bored while you were at work and didn't think you'd notice)
Not POJA: "I'm sick of being the laughing stock of the softball team and decided I really wanted a hot rod, so I got it."
Not POJA: "I didn't think you'd mind if I dyed my hair a different color. It's MY hair."

IB isn't doing things without our spouse, it's doing things as if our spouse doesn't exist or that what we do doesn't matter to him or her.

Not me happy, you not happy.
Not you happy and me not happy.
You happy; me happy. Both Love Banks get filled up.

Dr Harley says that whenever there is conflict how we resolve it is even more important than finding a resolution.

At least hair grows out and returns to its original color (or some version of the original color depending on how old we are.)

Hi BR,

I know that the hairstyle thing may sound silly.

I've discussed this issue with Steve Harley. The short answer is yes - the POJA applies. There's actually a section for hairstyle, makeup, clothing in the EN Questionnaire under the section of Physical Attractiveness.

POJA prevents one spouse from doing something the other doesn't agree enthusiastically. In my case, I do prefer my FWW to wear certain hairstyle. Don't get me wrong, I am willing to negotiate something that both of us feel enthusiastic about. I don't mean to make a big fuss about hairstyle. The thing that has hurt is her IB where she'd purposely go for a hairstyle that she knows I dislike.

--ElCamino72

Mark,

Thanks for your always insightful clarification with the POJA.

I've read your LV post and it is truly inspiring.

I appreciate it.

--ElCamino72

I did not know this. There have been threads about PA but I think they were mostly about weight and don't recall topics about hair color, nails, etc. I'm a curly head myself and often wonder if non-curlies really understand what a headache the curls can be. The other curlies out there know what I mean.

I hear ya Mark.

I understand what you mean. I've seen how much work it takes to keep curls in good shape. I've seen the headaches of finding curl-friendly hair products and salons that know how to work with curly hair. My FWW used to go to a salon in NYC that specialized in curly hair. I loved how the way they'd fix her hair there.

My FWW and two DDs are curlies. I am fascinated by their hair. People ask them all the time if their ringlets are natural.

--ElCamino72

It can but nice but the fascination can turn into frustation especially when there is contact with moisture. I love my DD's curls...they are looser than mine...make perfect ringlets...she is soooo lucky but she still wants her hair straight.

Hi schtoop,

After reading Mark's LV post, it seems like his WW started to turn around earlier than the typical case. Most of us are not that lucky.

I've been a little over 6 months in this process and it seems like a lifetime. Others go a lot longer with little progress.

The thing is going one step at a time. Your WW not contacting OM may not seem as much now but that's a major milestone in this process. You see, NC is needed to move forward so you DO have a Little Victory there. And it was a direct result of your action of exposure so you should be proud.

I can't recall learning so much about life before. This has been sort of a boot camp. MB has been instrumental in staying hopeful in the face of what seemed as an insurmountable problem. Working the MB program have given me confidence and hope.

Remember that this is a process. Stick to plan A and be patient while not expecting anything in return from your WW. Stay strong and keep fighting for your M.

Best wishes

--ElCamino72

We live in the Caribbean so with the humidity you can imagine that my 3 curlies are in constant frizz panic mode.

Can somebody please explain me why curlies want straight and straight want curls???

--ElCamino72

ElCamino,

Your English is *better* than most native speakers. I'm very picky about spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Trust me, yours is excellent.

The hair, IMO, was a very big deal.

It violated POJA
It was IB on her part
It triggered you, and *she knew it would*
She lied about having done it
She missed an opportunity to deposit "attractive spouse" points

I find her decision to highlight her hair under those conditions exceedingly selfish and cruel.

Just about everything we do affects each other either positively or negatively.

That's a quote from the doctor in case you didn't know...

Oh, and just so you know, the time between discovery and when she turned around was absolute hell on Earth for me.

I discovered the affair while she was visiting her step mother who lived next door to OM and had been visiting any time I was planning to be home for the weekend for a couple of months. It was the rekindling of an EA that had laid dormant for 13 months because neither one of us knew what to do to recover from it.
It also wasn't her only affair during our marriage of over 30 years.

She was scheduled to spend the weekend and part of the upcoming week with me at our vacation property beginning Friday night. She was 400 miles away with OM that night and all the next day. I delayed confronting her till she showed up Sunday afternoon at which time she said she wanted a divorce. She asked for a divorce again two days later after talking to OM and again two days later after talking to him for two hours after leaving me and saying how she had enjoyed her time with me the night before.

I worked 70 hours or more per week for two months so I could get that week off to spend time with her and it was the worst week of my life. I actually began exposure (except for her twin) while she was on her way home from being with OM for 4 days. I had to wait till she was half way home so that if someone tipped her off she couldn't just turn around and head back. A bunch of other people knew before she knew that I knew.

That and my exceptional Plan A ...

Turned things around.


So maybe my Plan A was short, but believe me when I tell you it was pretty intense. It also began even before confrontation. I gave her flowers and fixed dinner and cleaned up before I even confronted her.

And the whole time I wanted to wring her neck...

There will not be another Plan A in my future.

Mark

Let me add to your list that this has not been the only time we've had a conflict about her hairstyle since D-Day. There's been at least 3 episodes of hairstyle related issues in the last few months. She recently asked me if I told on her to Steve Harley about her hairstyle. I jokingly answered: there's been quite a few conversations with Steve about your hair. Can you believe we're paying $200/hr to this guy to talk about hairstyle? She couldn't help to laugh with me.

The A actually started right around the time she had a major makeover and radically changed her hairstyle. The OM made a pass saying something along the line of "with that new look I can do you". This was on one of the many messages that I had the misfortune to read on D-Day. Makes me sick. The things is that OM was a supposedly "best friend". He knew very well how much I liked my FWWs natural hair. I even confided in him that I wasn't too ecstatic with her new style. He took advantage of that situation to play her.

Fortunately, since returning from the MB weekend, my FWW has been more receptive to the POJA. She actually darkened the highlights a few days ago. There's been some promising POJA actions initiated from her during the last week. We haven't had a situation yet where her commitment to the POJA has been tested. But lately, there's definitely a more positive attitude towards. That's one of the reasons I've been feeling that we're headed to a better place.

--ElCamino72

Mark,

Thanks for sharing your sitch. I am sure that was pretty intense. I am amazed at how well you've handled the situation.

I feel you when you say that there's no plan A in your future. Turning into 100% giver after a grave betrayal, watching a WS in withdrawal while keeping a happy face and not even getting a nice gesture in return is simply not meant for humans.

I don't see myself doing another plan A again if my M ever recovers. Specially after we have the MB tools there would be no excuses or reasons for another A. I don't think I'll be able to forgive a second offense. My ground rules are: "two strikes and you're out". This is a clear boundary for me.

BTW, Mark, it's motivating to read about successful MB R stories like yours. It helps people like me to keep going.

I appreciate the support.

--ElCamino72

My husband turned around so fast, it gave me whiplash. Has anyone heard of that happening. DD was 3 months ago and he wrote a letter that day to the OW without me asking. He called our minister and told him that he had been unfaithful, crying and begging for him to help save our marriage. He told his parents. He called our children and did not tell them specifically what had happened but told them that he had treated me with disrespect and not as I should have been treated all of these 25 years (EA lasted 2 months...but involved a lot of lying and tuning his family completely out). He then called my brothers and my parents and told them the same thing...then tells me almost daily through letters, email and conversation that he will spend the rest of his life proving his love to me. He cries sometimes out of shame and also because he sees me get upset about something. He begs for forgiveness, he says that there is nothing left inside of the person he used to be that it is like someone scooped it out and put something good inside. He is the first to identify any parasites in our path. If I cry, or have bad dreams he hugs me and tells me how sorry he is for the terrible pain he has caused. He says he feels better than he has ever felt in his life and has never felt love before like he feels now, he says he wasn't even capable of real love until God shook him to the very core of his being. He is extremely remorseful...continually, and this is no wimpy guy, he has cried probably 30 times about this. He feels so focused and inspired by his new path and new love for his family. Have you ever heard of this happening in this way? I have made very clear my boundaries and he knows how I feel and where I stand on this process of building back trust. Are you aware of any posts similar to my situation? I would love advice or direction to someone similar. Many Thanks.

Wow, everdear, THAT is some story!

And, it relates directly to the biggest source of my pain. Maybe not to this extent, but in my nievite (SP?) I expect some kind of reaction like this when I first discovered my wife's affair. I expected gallons of tears, begging for forgiveness, promises of major life changes.

Instead I got fogbobabble on how she's been empty for years, doesn't love me anymore, no real expression of remorse, and no committment to even try to save our marriage. All of this when SHE was the one who did wrong. That is what cut me to the core, not the actual affair.

After finding MB, now I find out that my story is the norm, and yours is truly remarkable. Good luck on rebuilding your marriage, it looks like you have a great head start.

El Camino, sorry to derail your thread.

El Camino...I am sorry to derail your thread too!

Hello everdear,

I'm sorry you find yourself here but I can say that you are in the right place. I'm fairly new here at MB but in the short time that I've been implementing the MB program it has helped me tremendously. Since I don't have much experience, I don't know what to say about your prompt recovery. I can say that it doesn't look like the typical case that we see around here. Post your sitch and listen carefully to what the vets have to say.

Schtoop,

I understand perfectly how miserable you can feel when the WS doesn't show real remorse. After D-Day I left home for about 5 days. My WW send me numerous messages saying that she regretted hurting me and apologizing. The day I returned home, I thought that I was decided to D. I bought 2 copies of a book about how to tell children that you are getting D and gave one to my WS. She was crying and literally begging for me to give her a chance. Her remorse convinced me to change my mind. That day I promised her that I was going to do my best to give our M the best chance possible.

Unfortunately, that initial remorse didn't last too long. A few days after, when she started to get in withdrawal from OM she turned into a nasty WS. After that glimpse of remorse, I was left with a great deal of anger and abuse from WW and her strong sense of entitlement.

I realize that I was fooled with her fake remorse to come back home. She wasn't ready for me to leave her so she bait me with tears. To this day, she hasn't shown signs of being remorseful. It hurts me and I resent it. But that also taught me to be cautious about expecting apologies or remorse from an offender.

How do I deal with it? I've come to realize that to get into R I don't need her to be remorseful. At this point I just need to be vigilant about NC and build connectedness with her. Those are my immediate goals so I've learned to expect nothing from her in terms of remorse.

Does it mean that I am going to be able to completely R without her showing remorse? I don't know. Time will tell. My hunch is that in time, I am going to need to see some remorse to feel more secure. But, I don't want forced apologies or fake remorse so I am not going to ask for it. It's got to come genuinely from her.

I am working on my current goals of building connectedness with the hope that in the future she may realize how bad she hurt me and thank me for fighting for our marriage. But that's not under my control so, for the moment, I am choosing to let go of that. So I am mainly working towards R for myself. As a growing experience.

Not too long after D-Day I wrote a "mission statement". It was my instinctive way of a pseudo plan A. I've got to admit that it was mostly plan C (for confusion). I wasn't lucky enough to find MB soon so I was trying my best to survive. In essence, most of this mission statement is still valid. I've carried it in my wallet since I wrote it and I typically read it when I am getting frustrated. I like to remind myself that R is my choice - I signed up for it so I'll do my best effort and I am not going to be easily discourage. I am doing it for my benefit so I can't let the actions of others get me off course. This is what I wrote:


I've decided to recover my marriage so I am going to make an enormous effort to achieve that. I'll do it without expecting anything in return. I'll do it because it will make me grow as a person and help me in the long run to heal and be happy wherever I decide to take my life.

I am letting go of any notion that I can get someone to do what I want. I am not going to put myself in a position where I'd be indefinitely unhappy. I am strong enough to make the decisions that will provide me with happiness and follow through.

I'll focus on what is within my control and stay positive. I do have control over how to protect myself and I am willing to do so when necessary while trying to avoid having emotions get the best out of me.

I can use logic under stressful and emotionally loaded situations in order to see through problems and to find solutions in an efficient manner. I've previously come through under extreme situations and this time it is not going to be any different. I will make it out of this with the happiness I deserve.

--ElCamino72

My FWW and I have planned to move to the USA this summer. I've wanted to move even before her A. The time to prepare for relocation has come and we need to get busy if we're going. But I don't see my FWW truly enthusiastic about it.

During the last few weeks her relatives and friends have learned that we're moving. They don't know about FWW's A so they subtly object or blame me for taking her away. What I really hate is that she doesn't tell people anything about her wanting to move.

Her explanation to people is that I've always wanted to move and I've been unhappy here. She tells them that I am selling my business to go back. Yes, that's true but IMO it's a little disingenuous to put it all on me. And I hate to be in the position of the bad guy taking her away from friends and family.

I asked her a couple of days ago about how she felt about our move. She said that it was a great idea because it'd be a good change of pace for me and that our DDs would get to attend better schools. I asked her: Honey, I understand that this is a good move for ME and our DDs, but what about you? She backpedaled a lot and didn't sound too enthused. Even though my FWW won't admit it, she sounds like she's trying to convince herself rather than being positive about us moving.

I told her that we shouldn't be moving unless we both have an enthusiastic agreement. She replied that we don't have much of a choice other than moving. The thing is that the way she sounds is like I am forcing her to move. FWW claims that she doesn't want to be apart from her relatives but she is willing to make the sacrifice.

I am considering pulling the plug on our plans to move. Right now I am feeling discouraged because I can sense that R will be extremely difficult if we don't move away from a whole lot of bad influence that's getting in the way. Can't help to think that if we stay here, the price to R would be to high for me. Additionally, I don't want any sacrifices from her because that can easily backfire.

I'd appreciate your comments and suggestions about this situation.

--ElCamino72

Move.

WW is still foggy. Neither WW or you will heal if you don't move.

My wife has started posting in the forum under the username Rizos. This is a very positive action from her part. I hope that the vets can provide us with further insight.

Here�s a quick update:

- Since last week I�ve been involved in heavy negotiations with OM and the buyers of my share of the company. Having to sit in a table across from OM is the ultimate test of restraint. All I�m thinking is here�s your worst enemy and how can you keep your mind on top of the negotiations when every inch of you wants to jump across the table and smash this POS.
- I had to be rushed to the hospital with a bad case of indigestion and an unbearable stomach ache. This could�ve been compounded by stress. I�ve been feeling like I am physically and mentally breaking down.
- I�ve been feeling quite disconnected from Rizos. I�ve been struggling with her comments to her friends and relatives on the reasons why we�re relocating and that she continues to lie to �protect� me. I�ve confirmed various discrepancies in how she explains certain situations to other people and to myself.
- Per Steve Harley suggestion I tried to express to her my feeling of disconnection. I was very cautious in how I brought this issue up and avoided LBs as Steve suggested. That didn�t go well since her reaction was a barrage of abuse. That felt like the drop that spilled the bucket.

It seems like after Rizos last round of LBs she has realized the impact of her abuse. Since that incident she�s been trying harder to meet my ENs which is refreshing. However, it�s been challenging for her because she doesn�t feel comfortable expressing herself. I�ve requested her to tell me the truth and to tell me what she�s thinking.

I�m looking for a second wind to get back to the previous level of plan A. Right now I�m avoiding LBs but my motivation to meet her ENs is limited.

Do you have any suggestions on how to explain my need for O&H and intimate conversation to Rizos?

Here�s a link to her thread:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2329404

Your help is greatly appreciated.

--ElCamino72

My exit of the company was recently revealed to some of my closest co-workers by OM. Right then, they were given legal papers to sign away intellectual property in a move by the buyers to secure rights to some of the work we've been doing. The co-workers were very upset about me leaving without a heads up and expressed that they were being left out to dry. These are people I know since college and that I personally recruited and relocated to work with me. I told them about the reasons that caused me to leave the company including the details of Rizos� A with my former business partner. They are understandably afraid of the pressure to sign new employment agreements and their job being in jeopardy.

That day, when I got home, Rizos asked me if I was OK. I told her about my guy's concerns. She asked me right away if I revealed them the reason why I'm leaving. I replied yes and her immediate comment was "Well, now it's everybody for themselves. At least I don't have to face these guys again." I said: "Too bad I do have to face them. I'm embarrassed and hurt by having to be in this position". I realized at that instant that my response may have been a DJ and bit my tongue to avoid lashing out. She then realized that her comment was upsetting to me, so she gave me her usual "I'm sorry I hurt you" in a tone that doesn't sound anything like an apology and changed the subject. Her reaction was as cold-hearted as it gets. These guys we know for 15 years and have been very close friends to both of us. The consequences of Rizos's has put their families in a precarious situation while her main concern is her own image.

The fallout of selling my company under these circumstances continues to make huge LU withdrawals and it's physically/mentally grueling. I am opting to take a couple of rounds in a more defensive / counter mode - perhaps a week or two in a tactical regroup stance. I'll still stay highly guarded and avoid LBs. However, during this period I'll be more conservative in meeting Rizos's ENs and put a pause on the MB Weekend follow up program. The tactic is to take a short breather to regain some energy before I jump back to a high level of plan A. I realize that this is a very risky move but I'm willing to do a little rope-a-dope in hopes that I can take the fight into the championship rounds.


--ElCamino72

She's probably still in the WW mindset. You shouldn't expect anything else but that type of reaction at this time. The unfeeling "I'm sorry" (or worse, the pseudo-apologetic "I'm sorry that you are feeling that way" type of comment) is also a typical sign of a WW mindset.

EC,

As recovery progresses it will not be taking a break but learning to work together that will increase your energy and resolve to go on.

Withdrawal is a sign that your Love Bank has taken a serious hit. Withdrawing from her will not improve the way you feel nearly as much as her learning to meet your ENs. As hard as it is, spending time (UA time) together will be more likely to help you heal.

I also know, from reading a bit of what she posted that it seems that your top EN right now is honesty and openness. This is typical for someone who has been lied to for any period of time. I would not discount your need for honesty but warn you that it will probably be getting her to meet your ENs of RC and SF while you meet hers of Conversation and Affection that will be the things that help you to rebuild intimacy and start to feel bonded together again.

These four, the Intimate emotional needs (IENs), are the ones that lead to intimacy and feeling connected. They can also only really be met during time spent alone together and should be the focus of any scheduled UA time, keeping in mind that UA time is the key to making the whole MB thing work. Ideally your UA time should be spent meeting these four IENs together as a group, that is, all four should be done as part of spending UA time together.

Again, I am not discounting that honesty is not your top need right now, but it is more a case of needing most what has been lacking for so long than honesty actually depositing huge values into your Love Bank.

It's sort of like wandering around outside in the winter time without a jacket on. As your body gets colder and colder you have only one need that you can focus on, that of getting inside and warming up. But as you sit by the fire and begin to get warmer, you'll find that you are also quite thirsty and once that has been somewhat satisfied you'll soon come to realize that you also need to eat because of hunger. What you need most is what you don't have enough of or haven't been getting for a while. Like air, you don't even know you need it until you can't breath.

But the four IENs can only be met during UA time and being properly met as a block of all four will make the most rapid and biggest deposits into your Love Banks, in most cases. Honesty, FS, DS, FC, Admiration and PA can all be met at many other times while other people are present and even when you are not together in some cases. But RC, Affection, SF and Intimate Conversation can really only be met when you spend time alone. During this time honesty can come into play but should probably not involve affair issues or other subjects that end up being love busters by triggering your memories of betrayal, which will result in your feeling the same emotions as when you first discovered the betrayal and each act of betrayal that followed.

If 15 hours of UA time is the minimum to sustain a relationship then in a case of having to recreate the intimacy of a relationship even more should be planned. 20 or even 25 hours per week for a few weeks will make a huge difference in the way you each feel about the other, even a weekend away or a short vacation alone can reap huge dividends for both Love Banks, assuming all talk about the affair, recovery from the affair and character issues can be avoided. (NO love busters!)

So while it feels like you need to get away and calm down, stop the drama and let the stress slip away, recovery will be more rapid if you can spend more recreational time together and severely limit the time devoted to "recovery" activity.

Expect the line to continue being "I'm sorry, but..." for a while. "Why" is less important than "how" it happened and "how" will hopefully lead her to "what" she can do to make sure it never happens again. Transparency will allow you to verify when she is being honest independently and that will lessen your need to delve into her every move. Dishonesty of any kind, even hiding the fact that a glass got dropped on the floor and broken will take away huge amounts of trust at a time. If Trust = Credibility + Empathy, transparency will allow you to measure C while she is demonstrating E. By being totally transparent, she can let you see that she is honest and at the same time show you that she is concerned about the way you feel.

It will be what she does to show you care that will help you heal and while she must be the one to do this, you have to allow her to show you that she cares.

Mark

"They are understandably afraid of the pressure to sign new employment agreements and their job being in jeopardy."

How critical is the success of the company if these people leave without signing?

El Camino,

I have been following your story and it hits home with what I've been going through lately.

I don't have any great insight, other than to echo Mark's post above.

Also, you can actually look at the "drop that spilled the bucket" as a positive. My WW is in a similar place as yours when it pertains to being emotionally withdrawn from me and the marriage. In order to start reconnecting, you two have to be able to share your feelings and emotions with each other and know that the other understands. The barage of verbal abuse you took the other day is the beginning of that process. She has a ton of anger (and guilt disguised as anger) that has to come out first. I know that some of these feelings are the usual fog of rewriting history, but there is also a degree of truth in what she is expressing. More importantly, whether its all fog or not, it is what she feels through her warped perception.

Try to steer these kinds of conversations away from insults, personal attacks, or other forms of abuse, but if she's expressing what she feels at the time you need to be attentive and try to empathize. It really is the beginning of the process of opening up.

Try to hang in there with plan A and strive for the 15 hours as Mark advised. I know the feeling of disconnectedness and its hard to plan A under those circumstances, but it needs to be done to break through. Look for any opportunity when she might be opening up to you and be doubly attentive. What comes out will probably be unpleasant and hurtful, but if you can listen to her calmly and try to empathize, it will start opening the door a little.

By the way, your advice to me about not expecting remorse right away, if ever, was very helpful.

EC,

Just a little clarification in case it's needed...

Discussion of the weather will lead to more healing and Love Bank deposits than discussion of the affair. By that I mean that it will be implementing the MB methods and practicing them in your marriage that will eventually pay dividends for both your ability to heal and the potential recovery of your marriage.

During Plan A we learn to meet ENs and avoid Love Busters. In recovery we begin to get back a little of the same and once recovered we continue meeting ENs and avoiding Love Busters in order to maintain our love for each other. The difference between the first and second is that we are no longer fighting the affair and so don't have to provide additional consequences any more for choices being made by the hopefully Former WS. The major difference between the second and third is that we should be getting back enough so that we ourselves are not draining our Love Bank in an effort to Give while not getting.

But each step along the way is a process and not an event.

Dr Harley says that whenever we seek to resolve a conflict our primary goal should always be to sustain our love for each other more so than finding a resolution to the conflict. This is why POJA requires that we do nothing until there is enthusiastic agreement and not coerced or forced agreement such as a sales closing method being employed by one spouse to gain at the expense of the other. Any conflict should be handled in such a way as to make deposits into BOTH Love Banks or to avoid making any withdrawals from either Love Bank.

Understanding why she had an affair isn't very likely to happen; so looking for the reason she hurt you beyond admission that she did is probably fruitless. Usually the best a WS can come up with for a reason, especially at first, is normally just the list of things used to justify the affair at the time it was taking on a life of its own. It will never make sense to you so trying to make sense of it is pretty pointless. It isn't a sensible thing to do to someone you love, which is what the real problem was, she fell out of love.

Discussion of the affair should probably be limited to at most once per week and only last as long as either of you can handle it without love busting. It should be a time set aside for discussion and the answering of questions. Again avoid even asking why, since the best answer anyone will ever be able to give you is that "I didn't care about your feelings" or "I was being totally selfish."

Try writing down questions you would like answered. Keep this list and the day before look over what you have written, editing or modifying or eliminating questions that are less important to know the answers of and only ask her the questions that are most important. The way to tell what is most important is to ask yourself if the answer will cause you to change anything going forward. For example if the affair was only at a motel you might be able to remain in your house but if it happened in your home you might have a need to move to a new house in order to avoid being constantly triggered into remembering the affair.

Only questions that will change your direction based on the answers really need answers. The rest are just a mulling over of the events and feelings and might be able to be dealt with differently than by prying all the details from her as if pulling teeth without benefit of anesthesia. If I ask a question and the answer is "A" and as a result of that answer I will do "X", but if the answer is "B" or almost any other answer I will do "Y" or "Z" instead, then the question is worth asking.

But if the answer is "A" and I will do "X" as a result and if the answer is "B" and I will still do 'X" as the result, then the question really doesn't need an answer because it will not change any condition that follows it no matter what the answer might be. If the outcome will not be affected by the answer, don't ask the question.

It will not be the discussions of the affair that will ultimately lead to healing and recovery. It will be what you do to meet each other's Intimate Emotional Needs and avoid Love Busters that will result in a healthy happy marriage or the lack of the same. So learning to implement the MB process to rebuild the romantic love in your relationship will be the solution to fixing what is broken. This is what makes MB different than all the other methods of marital therapy out there. The first order of business is to be in love with each other. Everything else can follow from that but it was falling in love with each other that brought you together and in the long run it will be what keeps you together in a happy relationship. It is the foundation of your relationship and love for each other will be what sustains that relationship in the long run.

Do not discount calling Steve or Jennifer for a few phone sessions or taking the home or on-line study courses. Better still would be the MB weekend, but actually both learning how to meet ENs and avoiding Love Busters is what will make it all come together.

When a house needs repair it can be tempting to paint and replace windows or fix the roof. We put down new carpeting and cover over the fact that the floor slopes and is buckled because the foundation is defective. No matter how much you spend on paint or windows or carpeting or appliances if the foundation crumbles the house will fall down and all the effort will be for nothing. The foundation of your marriage is your love for each other. Fix that first and the marriage will hold together whether anything else gets fixed completely or not.

Mark

Hi Mark,
Thanks for taking the time to write these insightful posts. I�ve read what you�ve wrote here quite a few times and I am trying to assimilating your message.
Here�s more info about my case so that you can better gauge our state:

Since we began working the MB program, we have put emphasis on the intimate ENs. We were spending a good amount of UA time together for a couple of months. WW claims that it was working great for her. Unfortunately, I can�t say the same. She has been trying to provide me with plenty of affection, SF and RC. I mean, it feels OK when we are meeting each other�s IENs but I can�t say that my LB$ is sustaining growth. What seems to get a lasting bang is when I feel she�s opening her guarded feelings to me. When she�s meeting ENs like SF and RC it feels really nice but the results are not as remarkable.

This is very true. I�ll keep it present.

I have rarely brought the A up in over three months. Back in Nov we�ve had some conversations about the What, When, Where (not Why) of the A. However, I should mention that I still feel that there may be discrepancies in her explanation. So I find myself having a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. What bothers me is not the specifics of undisclosed actions but the lies. I sense that I may be yet another BS victim of trickle truth.

This is a very interesting angle of the POJA. I�ll make note of it.

We�ve done 14 sessions with Steve since Oct when we started coaching with him. We�ve completed the EN and LB questionnaires and quite a few assignments under Steve�s supervision. Additionally, we attended the MB weekend in Jan.

I am still in a self-protection mode and very cautious about meeting her needs. At this time, I don�t think it is cost effective to perform a stellar plan A. For the time being I�ll put about the same effort she�s putting and avoid LBs. I�ll implement this tactic while I regroup and/or put my ducks in a row.

--ElCamino72

They are great resources but not critical to the bottom line.

--ElCamino72

Hi schtoop, thanks for the encouragement. Her anger seems to be deeply rooted. The A was active for more than a year and a half but her relationship with OM goes back to even before I have met her 15 years ago. They had a previous romantic relationship unbeknownst to me. When I look back, I can say that she had been clearly fueling her anger towards me and putting herself in a self-justification position for at least six years. All this negativity she has built up towards me might take a LONG time to fade away. It�s hard to say if I am going to be around when or if the anger ever goes away.

--ElCamino72

Yesterday I went to my parents and while I was out she changed her hairstyle which is a big trigger. She knows how much that bothers me so I took it as a direct attempt to cross my boundaries.

Later that night, I took her hairdryer and smash it to pieces with a hammer. She was about to go to sleep and heard the noise. When she came and asked what was going on, I just responded: "I'm just relieving some stress" and continued with my business without saying anything else.

I didn't feel like I really lost my temper. It was more like I had to consciously get some pressure out of my system. While I don't advocate this type of action, I gotta say that doing so felt good. I don't know if it's right or wrong but I don't feel much guilt. It's like beating up somebody who is trying to mug you.

--ElCamino72

You know, EC, I expected someone else to weigh in on this, but since they haven't as of yet, I guess it is up to me.

While you say that your emotions were under control, all you really controlled was the angry verbiage that you could have used to attack her directly.

I think you let a great teaching moment, or an "Ah-ha" moment slip through your fingers. I think it could have been an opportunity to state what a trigger it was, why it was a trigger and explain how you were hurt by it because of the memories associated with it. This would give her an opportunity to consider her actions from your POV rather that fueling her further anger and entitlement.

Even though left unexpressed verbally, it began with a SD, turned into a DJ and ended with an AO that did great damage to any efforts you were making toward establishing a high Love Bank balance.

What I'm tellin' ya is that it only takes one aweshit to wipe out ten thousand attaboyz...

JMO and we'll see what Steve might say if you talk to him about it.

I understand that it felt good. That's what our Taker is trying to do, make us feel good. It just isn't always conducive to sustaining the feeling of romantic love in our relationship. I'd have liked to have beat the crap out of OM too, but the best that would have gotten me was arrested and jailed.

So what has transpired since this incident?

Mark

Mark,

I have your opinion in very high esteem and I appreciate you taking the time to comment on my situation.

I think I understand what you're saying. I committed a bunch of LBs in an attempt to educate my WW which I know won't work. My actions could only have had a negative effect on my WW.

Now here's the "but": I can't deny that it felt good and that I am still inclined to repel future abuse if necessary. I recognize that this is my taker in action. What is not clear to me is how I can effectively protect myself from continued and deliberate abuse without my taker being in the forefront. Right or wrong, I am just saying what is my current mindset.

I really don't know what else to state to my WW about the triggers. I have tried way too many times to explain her how much these memories bother me. I believe that Steve has explained it to her as well. But she still believes that I am attempting to control her. So we just keep going in circles.

This situation is extremely unhealthy. I know that I can't make her do what I want and the chances of her changing when I need it are not looking good. The option of removing myself from all this craziness is making more sense right now.

--ElCamino72

EC,

What you have to separate to get through this is your emotional response and returning the hurt in like kind. You don't have to hurt her just because you feel hurt.

Boundaries that try to change what other people do to us seldom work. Instead what we need to establish is a boundary that protects us from being hurt. If she changes hair color or style and that triggers you there are really two parts to that. One is the IB to begin with which is where the trigger starts. Her current IB causes you to recall her past IB which led to an affair and you being hurt. Hurting her in return will not stop this cycle. What it will do is cause her to feel even more independent or at least as if she needs to be more independent in order to be happy. Your response reinforces her IB.

But if you could withdraw physically and even emotionally, not just for the sake of withdrawing and never for the purpose of manipulating or hurting her by doing so, but simply step back, process the current event on its own merits and contents without linking it to the affair itself it would prevent you from suffering the devastation of the affair all over again. This would allow you to formulate a way to express your unhappiness and the fact that you feel threatened by her IB in a way that she might actually hear what you are saying and then make a choice to either change or not.

When you take it upon yourself to "handle" a problem, then it is yours to solve. It is only by letting her fix what is under her realm of influence that you can heal as a couple. As long as you are making her issues your problem she isn't fixing anything.

If I had you hold your hand out in front of you and then I began to push on it, what would you do?

You would no doubt push back! It is an instinctive response. She pushes you and you push back. But the other way works the same as well. If you attempt to push her harder to change without giving her something specific that can be fixed by her or if you constantly take that thing from her control and into yours, then she will never do any more than resist the change and push right back against you.

She's attached to the rope already. Start pulling her in rather than trying to push the rope up the hill. Keep taking up the slack until she is right there beside you.

What I think some miss in the analogy of the Giver and the Taker is that our Taker is more than willing for our spouse to be unhappy. It is our Taker that is supposed to ensure that we get what we need to be happy, yet the methods it uses seldom get us what we really need. Instead we hurt our spouse by trying to force the issue.

On the other hand, our Giver must be controlled as well or it will let us become unhappy in order to make our spouse happy. But this does not imply a balancing act between Giver and Taker. It requires controlling BOTH of them by using rational thought and logic instead of letting the emotional part of our brain have free reign. It is in this emotional realm where the Giver and Taker both reside and decisions need to be made regarding our lives based on reality and data rather than on mere emotional content.

Mark

Everything else set aside, that was a REALLY SCARY reaction to any situation. If my H had done that, I would have quietly left the house and not returned until he went through some anger management treatment. That seems like serious bottled up rage to me and I would be fearful that the next time it might be directed at me.

God's Blessings,

Say

Hello say,

I think there's a distinction between an AO and rage. There's no excuse for my AO but I can't say that this incident involved rage or physical threat to anyone.

What your comment made me think is that it would be REALLY SCARY if my WW would falsely accuse me of DV. In that sense, I need to be more careful.

Thanks for your comments.

--ElCamino72

ElCamino,

Apologize to WW for the hairdryer incident.
Make it simple.

"I was wrong to smash the hairdryer. I am sorry. I will control how I behave, from now on."

What Pep said, PLUS go buy her another one.

EC, that was really outrageous and it would scare the hell out of most women. I know it upset your wife and was a huge lovebuster.

I knew it even before your wife said it was.

"But she love busted too..."

Not an excuse to do wrong.

EVER...

Taker talkin'.

AOs always hurt our spouse.

ALWAYS...

That is why they are Love Busters, because they hurt our spouse.

Everything we do affects our spouse either positively or negatively.

MAXIMIZE the positive...

ELIMINATE the negative.

Meet ENs; avoid Love Busters. Follow POJA (even when she doesn't) and be honest, especially emotionally honest (without love busting)

SDs and DJs are the same as AOs BTW and much harder to see in our actions.

IB is what hurt you and you hurt her with the AO and maybe a bit of a DJ since you felt that she meant to hurt you when she was really just being thoughtless (as in not thinking about you)

Oh, and EC, you two need regular date nights when you can do the RC, Affection, Conversation, SF thing...

Makes all the difference in the way the program works. In fact, when the program seems to not be working, I'd say the problem is always not enough UA time meeting the 4 IENs.

Her hair should be back to curly by now. Thank her, hold her, tell her you're sorry about the hair dryer and it won't happen again...

And maybe buy her a new one...

Mark

El Camino:

Hello.


Yes.

I agree totally with everything that Mark has said. I see that you do as well and that is a very good thing.

I have only one thing to add.

She may be expecting the romance from you. That is her cultural heritage and she cannot escape it at this time.

There is something here that is a small thing, often overlooked, that might help.

Maybe treating this as a new romance instead of the recovery of the old one. Get it? Maybe just in small ways at first.

So when you replace the hair dryer, maybe you include the rose. She expects the passion from you, and you gave her the passion of marriage and control. Maybe the passion of courtship would help.

You think?

Larry

This is definitely (100%) rage. It is a double whammy: Not only is it an angry outburst, but you say something negative about her appearance as well. That's two LB's in one fell swoop. Efficient yes, but not very effective towards R.

May I ask why a hair style is a trigger?? I know it is a cliche, but saying anything negative about a woman's appearance usually is not a good recipe for success. I would recommend something like this:

Rizos: "Do you like my hair straight or curly?"
El: "I love your hair both ways."

Rizos: "Do you think I look fat in this jeans?"
El: "Hell no! It makes you look SO hot."

Rizos: "Which shoes do you think goes best with this outfit?"
El: "They both look great. I'd say the ones on your left, but it is a close call. They both look good."

Rizos: "I can't find anything to wear today."
El: "Well you do look great naked, but I don't think you should leave the house that way! Maybe we can get you something new this weekend."

So when Pep wrote that I should apologize to Rizos I finally realized that an apology was in order and planned to do so. But I fell sleep shortly after (Ambien works wonders).

Around midnight, Rizos woke me up and apologized. I immediately reciprocated. I could only be glad to see curly hair again and to put this ugly incident behind.

For the record, I recognize that my AO of smashing the hairdryer is unacceptable behavior and can only have a negative effect. I apologize to Rizos and to anyone I've let down. From now on, I am going to be on top of my actions.

BTW, Rizos told me that if I do that again MelodyLane said she's going to kick my [censored]. That really cracked me up. Getting beat up by ML is not gonna be good for my street cred so I better get my sh!te together

I am grateful that we are receiving support from such an outstanding group. MB folks, you rock!

--ElCamino72

And I would be so upset if it messed up my hair and nails!

Good job on handling it so well.

It was discussed a few pages back. She changed her hair when she got involved with OM. El Camino has strong preferences for her hair natural and recently she went against his explicit wishes that she keep it natural; she highlighted it, and then lied about having done so. There's more to it than that but it involved an affair trigger plus tons of LBs.

Sorry, IS, but I think this is a horrible way to live a marriage.

The Policy of Radical Honesty requires that we be honest even about these things. We don't have to be mean, but for someone who has physical attractiveness as a top EN, lying to keep the peace is never going to result in romantic feelings again.

One of our problems in most marriages is that we aren't honest about things like this. We try to shield our spouse from having hurt feelings and that is really a noble and righteous cause. The problem is that when we do that kind of thing we let stuff slide over and over again and eventually the resentment is almost overwhelming.

If a man (or woman) has physical attractiveness as a top need, a couple of extra pounds doesn't really matter in most cases. But what happens if we lie in an effort to keep the peace (conflict avoidance) is that those couple extra pounds that don't matter get repeated a few times and when the jeans go up a size if we still lie about our true feelings, then before long what we are talking about can be 40 extra pounds or 80 and then the question "Do I look fat in these jeans?" takes on a whole new meaning.

I don't love my wife less now that her jeans are a size 12 than when they were a size 4. I will tell you that I enjoyed looking at her in her jeans a whole lot more when she was a size 4. I'd also say that when women ask such questions they already know the answer. That suggests to me that they want to be lied to and so know they are the ones that are not being honest about feelings.

What most women really want to know is "Do you still love me now that I have gained weight?"

If a few extra pounds are there on the hips and tummy, I am not going to file for divorce. If you weighed 105 when you married and 10 years later weigh 305 don't ask me if the jeans make you look fat...

It ain't the jeans at that point anyway.

Suppose one of his top needs is PA and one of hers is honesty and openness. So he lies to protect her from the truth and her girl friend delivers the bad news that not only does she look fat in those jeans but her husband lied too.

Protecting our spouse's feelings is a good thing. Lying to do it is a really dumb idea if you expect to have a happy marriage for a long time.

And so as not to be picking on the women...

Guys..."I still wear the same size jeans I wore in high school" doesn't count if you now have to wear them at mid-thigh because you can't pull them up any farther.

Two things come into play here. If my wife likes me to look a certain way, I should try to do it because it makes her happy unless dressing that way would make me unhappy and I can't agree enthusiastically about dressing that way in which case I shouldn't do so. (If I want my wife to wear a mini skirt and see-through top to go to the mall on Saturday, something might be wrong with me anyway, but if I ask her to wear a skirt or dress to go out to dinner, getting home to find her in jeans and sweatshirt ain't gonna cut it)

But the second part of this has to do with Independent Behavior. If my wife likes my hair the way it is or if she would prefer that I wear it a different way than I do then she needs to let me know and I need to address her request. And if she tells me she like my hair long and I come home with a crew-cut, I can expect that some of the remaining hair is gonna get pulled out, either by her if she's mad enough, or by me, if she's really mad enough that she makes my life miserable.

Everything we do can affect our spouse either positively or negatively. This includes how we dress, what color our hair is, the style we wear it in and a whole bunch of other stuff we never even thought should matter to another person. But this isn't another person, this is a spouse, someone to whom you have made a vow to become one with. We aren't just individuals when we get married but are now half of something that transcends our individual identity.

And on top of all that, the hair was a trigger and telling EC he shouldn't care is like telling him that he should just get over it and not think about the affair. It judges his emotional reaction to not just the hair but to the affair as wrong because his wife's hair triggered a memory of the affair and it was THAT emotional set he responded to.

He responded with wrong actions, but his feelings were very valid...just not the reaction to those feelings.
[/tj]
Mark

ETA: EC, almost forgot...Good job on the second attempt. Just remember that you won't always get a second chance at this stuff. Gotta get it right the first time.

Yeah, I know...

IMstaying, things like this can be a massive trigger, which is a major lovebuster. Little things that remind a BS of an affair can send him into the ozone and you can see the result here. These triggers will send the average BS right back to Day 1 of recovery. So, he HAS to tell her this is a trigger. With others it might be towns, places, certain songs, a perfume. The couple has to know what the triggers are in order to avoid them so he did the right thing in telling her this.

Radical honesty is always the best policy. Unspoken issues create an air of superficiality that prevents intimacy.

Mark, that was not a thread hijack! I think it is very pertinent to the discussion. Also, to call a spade a spade, there is really some gray area here between POJA and the EN of admiration. Let me discuss in MB terms...

When a W asks "Do you think I look fat in these jeans?", what I hear is really "Can you please give me some Admiration?" If you want her to lose weight, this is not the time to express it. I suppose O&H would have you reply, "Yes, you really need to lose 20 pounds before I would wear jeans again." Or, you could say "I love you no matter what you look like in jeans," which would be equally ineffective. You might as well tell her she is unattractive. If I think my W is asking for admiration, I will give it right then and there.

In fact, it is controlling comments about how his W should look like that can lead to A's. EC's W stated that POSOM liked her hair either way, not just straight. POSOM satisfied her need for admiration, instead of trying to control her appearance to match his tastes like EC. Better that EC support her self confidence rather than let someone else do it for him. That, I believe, is the crux of the issue.

I understand the issue that it triggers EC. Is that his problem or hers? POSOM was indifferent to the hair. She straightens it once per month, and likes herself when she does. She also claims it helps the scalp (I'll take her word).

It is not a fact that EC is trying to control his wife. That may be a perception but it is not fact. The control issue is simply justification in a WS's mind.

I can sympathize with El Camino on this one. The night my wife left our home to go on a date with the OM ( I figured it out after she left), her hair was straightened, that night I asked her not to return to our home. Even though it may sound ridiculous when her hair is straight it takes me right back to that night.

IS,

I considered a tj because it is a discussion really only peripherally related to EC's thread and the discussion is more generic and between us and not really advice for EC.

Why not start another thread or I will when I get time. We can copy the comments made so far onto that thread and continue the discussion there. I do think it is something worth discussing further if you'd like.

Watta,

I am in full sympathy with EC as well. Triggers can be very hard to overcome. It isn't just that we are reminded of the pain, we actually feel the same pain all over again.

For more about this, see the thread about Managing Memories in my sig line.

How are things today, EC?

Mark

ImStaying,

I think the points you're bringing up are good for the discussion at hand. However, you may be missing the point. This is about POJA and a repeated behavior that bothers me. In specific, I can't stand the situation when I'm caught off guard by getting home and finding a hairstyle change by surprise.

You can read more details about this issue a few pages back. BTW, I don't think that I am trying to control her looks. I am open to agree to a hairstyle/look that we can both enjoy. I have even agreed to her wearing her hair straight (I also wrote about it here). But the IB related to this situation is hard to take.

For whatever reason, Rizos believes that my reactions is intended to punish her when in reality it isn't. It feels like we are playing chicken. Other than my inexcusable hammering of the hairdryer, I've been very calmed and collected with my reactions to the repeated episodes of unannounced hairstyle changes.

She also claims that I didn't care about her hairstyle before. Maybe she doesn't remember but I've always cared about it. Long before I even suspected the A I would ask her to wear her curly hair. I've asked/begged her in so many different ways that I don't understand why she won't remember my numerous requests.

I tend to agree with Mark. I don't feel comfortable saying something I don't mean. If I don't like certain look I'll rather carefully say the truth. If there's a look I like, you bet that I'll say it's hot.

The truth is that OM didn't care about straight or curly hair.
A woman can find a thousand POSOM willing to give them false admiration to get in their pants. He took the opportunity to make a pass to Rizos when she first radically changed her hairstyle - and she immediately went for it. For quite a while, she sent him numerous pictures of various changes of hairstyle - all of them straight hair. She'd even inexplicably send the same pictures in separate messages to OMW (who used to be a close friend). But I can hardly see the same effort in looking attractive to me which is sad.

Rizos has a natural beauty that I really admire. I wish I can have the opportunity to express it.

Well, I never imagined to make so much fuss about hair. Hopefully we can straighten this out

--ElCamino72

Hi Larry,

You're completely right. One of her top ENs is affection. She craves romanticism. For a long time I neglected this need. During my plan A I was doing good adjustments in this area. It hasn't come natural but I am working at creating the habit. Rizos had said that it was working great for her. So it is proven that this is key.

We're both born and raised in the same country. But we come from different backgrounds. We are in fact very different when it comes to expressing our emotions.

I'll keep in mind your comment about treating this as a new romance instead of recovering one. That is a very good approach.

She had already bought a new hair drier yesterday so I lost the opportunity to replace it. I'll figure out a way to make it up to her.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

I agree with Mark and EC on this one. I don't want you to lie to me. I just have to be mature enough to know that if I ask a question, I'd better be able to handle the answer.

Believe me, GO never hears the question, "do I look fat in these jeans?" from me. I have eyes. I know what I look like. If I need admiration, I ask him, "what do you love about me?" Thankfully, I have a man who knows how to compliment his wife without being prompted to do so.

EC, you gave Rizos a great compliment in this post: "she has a natural beauty that I really admire". I hope you have said it to her face.

Mark et al,

Today I'm feeling like I have a bad hang over. I know that in the past days my behavior has been reproachable so I am not feeling great about it.

I stayed home and Rizos has been out all morning. She text me a few minutes ago that she was getting a facial.

Tomorrow I finally sign the sale of my company. I never expected to sell my company under these conditions. The whole ordeal of selling the company continues to indirectly withdraw LUs from Rizos LB$. I am going to have to stay as a consultant in the company for the next 6 months. I am looking at it as a lot of time of having to see OM and deal with the fallout.

I need to figure out a way to bootstrap myself to go back to plan A.

Thanks for your support. At this point is greatly needed.

--ElCamino72

Can you do your consulting from home or meet clients away from the office/OM? Is the sale of the company not final until this consulting period is over?

There is hope for both of you guys!

Which country? I already picked up on the cultural differences and the different backgrounds AND EASL. This will help me to provide a more fine tuned response. I have an email address as my signature for a reason.

Larry

That's a lie, and is terrible marital advice.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3900_honesty.html

Your teammate can't meet your emotional needs if you lie about them.

Plus, it would make him a pretty disgusting hypocrite, since what he wants is openness and honesty.

You respectfully say what you need done for a love bank deposit or not done for a love bank withdrawal, without angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments, or selfish demands ... and then you see if you get what you want, or not, at this time. You'll never get it if you don't ask.

Please don't encourage anyone to lie to their wife.

For example:


I already figured that out. I have not posted on this subject to her as yet. But I will when she is ready to see it. The MB program is Cognitive Behavior Therapy and is the only one I have seen that promotes a level of infatuation on a continuing basis.

And that is what she needs. And she can only find it there because it doesn't normally exist in real life. Infatuation happens, then dies, then happens again, usually with someone else, or with an old lover, then dies again. It is a cycle in real life. But she doesn't know that, yet.

MB has the answer because it is real life for the lucky or the smart. And we can give credit to Dr. Harley for figuring it out and codifying it so those who want it can get it, when they work at it and follow the method.

Larry

Perhaps the answer would be better worded: "You are beautiful regardless of hairstyle." That would not be a lie, based on his comment above.

Markos:


No, no, no.

It is a funny way of attempting to teach a guy how to effectively communicate with a woman.

There is a reverse to what you say: How to lie while telling the truth, an invention of a popular writer by the name of Heinlein. Women intuitively understand this. Guys don't mostly, unless they are politicians.

When women talk, they use a knife. When men talk, we use a blunt hammer. It serves only to confuse a woman when we use a hammer in an attempt to be "Honest."

Larry

I am sorry, but most women change hairstyles. How is demanding that a W not change their hairstyle not a selfish demand?

What would the markos POJA answer to the hairstyle be specifically?

Nobody is suggesting that El Camino demand his wife not change her hairstyle.

"Honey, could you please not straighten your hair? It bothers me." -- is a request

"Rizos, if you straighten your hair again, I'm going to break your new hair dryer" -- is a demand

Similarly:

"I'll just straighten my hair today because I like variety and it's really not a big deal" -- is independent behavior, and a selfish demand, and a disrespectful judgment. If the circumstances are right, it might even be an angry outburst and/or dishonesty, as well.

"El Camino, I really want to straighten my hair, but since you don't like it, I won't do it for now" -- is following the POJA, and could well be followed up with negotiation, such as "Do you mind if I straighten my hair when I spend two days with my parents next month?" or "How do you feel about this other hairstyle?"


I have no idea, and it wouldn't matter, anyway. The couple would have to POJA and negotiate to get any meaningful answer.

I'm only a learner at this. For more insight, you should ask a master at POJA, like, say, Mr Wondering...

But IM, that is not true. What does he say to convey his displeasure about her hairdo? If her appearance is causing LOVEBANK withdrawals, how will she know if he doesn't tell her?

Its like my jogging suits. My DH HATES THEM and does not want to be seen with me in them. He also doesn�t like it when I put my hair in a pony tail. How will I know that this causes lovebank withdrawals unless he tells me honestly? My H tells me the truth BECAUSE he loves me and does not want to erode the love we have in our marriage. Being open and honest about things that make you unhappy are the ONLY WAY the other spouse will have chance to change. So when my H tells me �dear, those pants ARE NOT flattering at all� it is not a lovebuster! He is saving me from looking yucky AND protecting his lovebank since Physical appearance is a top need.

In the case of EC�s wife�s hair, it is ESPECIALLY critical to the rebuilding of love in their marriage that she knows he HATES her hair like that. Admiration does not mean dishonesty or unspoken issues. It is a sincere admiration.

Its not a selfish demand at all. It is warning his wife that she is making lovebank withdrawals and giving her a chance to fix it. Whenever our spouse is doing something that makes us unhappy, it should be eliminated.

Here is how you say it:


"Dear, that hairstyle upsets me greatly and triggers my feelings about the affair."

Honestly. He just has to say it.

Or, when my H doesn't like my hair he says:

"I don't like your hair like that."

You're so black and white.

THANK YOU!

He does have a point here. Seriously, the difference is that you are in a recovered marriage. EC is attempting recovery with a W who might not totally "get it" yet.

If I had a spouse who was in an EA because she felt the need to get her EN of admiration filled outside of M, I would try go above and beyond to fill that need. Compliment her natural beauty (deflect the focus on the hair). Then when she wears her hair your preferred way, go nuts with the admiration. She will naturally want to wear her hair for EC. But if he demands that she wear her hair a certain way, that sets them both back.

My W had some running clothes that I thought were not too flattering. So, I bought her some new running outfits, and then made a big deal about how much better she looks in them than the old ones. Guess what - I haven't seen the old ones since Christmas. And I did it without criticizing her or demanding that she wear/not wear something.

Sorry - I just don't think you can invoke the POJA rule every time you don't get your way. Otherwise, your spouse could play the SD card.

Mel:

Look at the way he might have said:


He didn't say (in your scene) that you looked fat. And you understand the program and what he is doing. Others do not understand. I still think it is incumbent that men learn how to be honest with their wives without setting off all sorts of fireworks. For me, this means that hubby understands that he needs a different level of communication than the one he uses with his buddies.

Guy talk:

"Hey Fred, notice the new suit."

Fred:

"Yea, one leg shorter than the other one. Which Salvation Army store did you go to?"

I don't even know why I posted this?

Shut up Larry

We didn't get there by being DISHONEST. We got here by BEING RADICALLY HONEST. If her hair triggers him or he doesn't like it, then he has to tell her the truth in order to recover the marriage - otherwise it is a love bank withdrawal.

Nowhere does Dr Harley advocate dishonesty as a means to recovery, he says just the opposite. Love is created by CHANGING LOVEBUSTERS, not avoiding them,., IM. In fact, the first thing we do in the MB program is fill out lovebusters questionaires so we can take steps to avoid them.


here

Oh no, dishonesty will not result in recovery, it will IMPAIR it.

IM, the hair is a trigger for EC. No one is saying she will never, ever be able to straighten her hair again. EC has even acknowledged this. Now is not the time to argue or dismiss her BH's feelings. The triggers should lessen over time. If WW can't make this simple gesture of consideration for EC when she knows it pains him, R will be an upward battle.

When you say go nuts with admiration, that can also lead to needing too much validation from people. WW's issues are so much bigger than her hairdo and ENs.

re: POJA

The purpose of POJA is not to negotiate getting what we want.

The purpose of POJA is to prevent either one of us from doing anything that will destroy the feelings of romantic love for each other.

If you order a book from this website one of the things you get along with it is a CD(I actually got a tape the first time I ordered something, but cassettes are so yesterday...) On this CD Dr Harley describes his program in just enough detail that if you listen carefully, you really have the entire idea laid out pretty nicely. He talks about how he came up with the idea of the Love Bank and what makes it work. He speeks about Love Busters and about meeting top ENs. He talks about UA and about PORH.

The last clip on the CD is where he talks about negotiating in marriage and this is where he brings up POJA. His statement in that clip is that whenever we try to resolve any conflict in marriage our priority should always be to sustain our love for each other. He says that preserving our love is even more important than finding a solution to our problems.

POJA is NOT a way to veto what our spouse wants to do.
POJA is NOT a way for us to convince our spouse to let us do what we want to do.
POJA is NOT a score keeping method of deciding who will get his or her way now in exchange for the other person getting his or her way later.

POJA is a way to ensure that neither one of us ever gets hurt by something done by our spouse...

OR by ourselves when we agree to something simply to avoid having to deal with it.

When in a state of Intimacy, our Giver wants to run all negotiations with our spouse. We want to give no matter what else happens. We WANT our spouse to be happy above all else, but the problem arises from the fact that our Giver is willing for us to be unhappy in order for our spouse to be happy. So under this premise, POJA keeps us from just granting "permission" when we aren't really so gung-ho about what our spouse is requesting from us.

When we fall out of a state of Intimacy and into a state of Conflict, our Taker wants to run all negotiations with our spouse. Our Taker doesn't care if our spouse is happy or not. It is only concerned that WE are happy even if what we want to do makes our spouse unhappy. In this kind of situation, POJA prevents us from gaining what we want at the expense of our spouse and so at the expense of the balance in our account in his or her Love Bank, meaning, the feelings of romantic love he or she has for us.

Withdrawal becomes an even more difficult case because in Withdrawal, our Taker doesn't even want to deal with our spouse and could care less about him or her being happy and doesn't even want him or her to give us anything at all. At this juncture, both the Giver and the Taker have checked out and have left the building. Under this kind of condition negotiating becomes impossible entirely.

One of the ways we end up with a spouse in Conflict or Withdrawal is by doing things that they are not happy about and are in fact unhappy when we do them. Independent Behavior says to our spouse "I don't care about your feelings at all." It is not normally meant to say that but that is what it says since acting in a way that makes our spouse unhappy by not considering his or her feelings when we act is true thoughtlessness. We were NOT thinking about our spouse at all when we acted.

But when we come back to Dr Harley's most basic of all his basic ideas, the one thing the entire notion of the Love Bank is based on and the one from which all other things he has devised to teach this to us (and that is what all the rest of Marriage Builders is about, teaching us this one point), just about everything we do affects our spouse's emotions either positively or negatively. We either make our spouse happy or we make our spouse unhappy whenever we do anything at all.

Our Taker has certain tools that it uses to try to get us what we need or want. The first three are things that are instinctive. A baby demonstrates these three almost from the moment of birth. The first thing we do is to try to DEMAND what we want. (We later learn to use entitlement as the reason we give for this and that is really a big part of what leads to affairs) When demanding something doesn't get us what we want, we switch to the next tool we have in our box of tricks, Disrespectful Judgments (If you LOVED me you would do whatever I want in order for me to be happy. You would WANT me to be happy instead of unhappy.) We judge our spouse's intent to be making us unhappy.

Tool number three is the Angry Outburst. We throw a tantrum and hope that our spouse will buckle to our demands and let us have what we want. This is the same process a baby uses when he needs changing or wants to be fed or is bored or any other thing he needs at the moment. He demands our attention by fussing and whining until we figure out what he is looking for (communication skills are not at a premium in a 3 month old infant). When that doesn't get him what he wants, he shifts gears and whines pleadingly until we figure it out and if that too fails, he screams, kicks, wails, pitches a fit...

It works for babies. By the time we're 30, not so much. In fact these three almost never get what we want from our spouse.

The next thing we do is IB. We just do whatever we want working from the premise that it is easier to get forgiveness than it is permission. But what that implies is that we already KNOW that our spouse would not be happy if we did what we want to do and went ahead and did it anyway. What does that say about our consideration for his or her feelings?

NONE of this even comes close to the dynamic that came up in EC and Rizos situation. That also has to do with not just IB and failure to consider EC's feelings (which he then reciprocated in kind by his reaction, BTW) but it also speaks to other issues including what his ENs might be (honesty is always the most important thing when you find out you've been lied to, but that is a whole different thread, I think) AND in this case a trigger that is not just a trigger of hair being different but also a trigger of not thinking about his feelings in spite of knowing what he wished.

More on those points if I get time later.

Mark

I am not talking about the WAY IT IS SAID. That misses the point. The discussion is about being honest PERIOD. I have no interest in sitting here wordsmithing with overly sensitive types. Y'all can figure out the right words. The point is that the words have to be SAID.

I repeat myself: nobody is suggesting that El Camino DEMAND she wear her hair a certain way. Are you reading? Would you please go back and read my earlier post, the one where I stated that noone is advocating he make demands of her?

He's not supposed to demand that she follow the POJA. He's supposed to let her know that IF she follows it, it'll help her fill his love bank back up. Then she decides whether she wants to do that or not.


What you are missing is the difference between requests and demands.

For sure. Nobody is suggesting he be a jerk to her in telling her.

At least, I don't think so.

The POINT of this program is to create romantic love. If someone abuses an EN in a way that DRAINS the lovebank, then the purpose is defeated. this is not the need meetin' program, in other words. Meeting needs is a waste of time if you ignore lovebusters and the rest of the program.

For example, if my H's jeans are dirty I don't want to be seen with him. I could say, "oh you look so cute and handsome!!!" <valley gurl squeek> And meet his need for admiration while internally I am disgusted that he looks like a pig in public and am embarrassed.

I suddenly feel don't feel very attracted to him and instead of enjoying my time wiht him, I am thinking about those dirty jeans. How does that possibly help my marriage? How does that make him happy to PRETEND like I admire his appearance when I don't?

That does not make him happy for me to be turned off and aversive to him. It does not make me happy to go out with a guy with dirty jeans. See how dishonesty is a stupid strategy that serves no one?

A better solution would be for me to say �dear, your jeans are dirty.� [sorry, but in the MelodyLane household we are not dysfunctional cripples who walk on eggshells and wordsmith every sentence � we just say what the hell needs to be said]. So he goes in and changes clothes. I am happy and he is happy. We can go out to dinner and enjoy each other.

I think that there is gray area between POJA and SD. Here is something from Dr. Harley on SD:

This sounds a lot like what is happening here.

All this PA talk and now I'm going to have to redo my hair, throw out some clothes and probably 200 other things.

I bet you wear them to WalMart.

You're on that "people who shop at WalMart" video, aren't you? Admit it.

Again, this is not a selfish demand. It is simply being honest about his unhappiness, which is his obligation if he wants his marriage to recover.. That is how love is created. Her hair is a lovebuster and she won't know this unless he tell her.



Radical honesty is a NOT a "selfish demand." It is a requirement for recovery just as Dr Harley states

I think, there is a gray area in my hair.

shaddup you, foreign devil!

With gray hair comes wisdom...does that work?

That area is called "roots."

Aquanet cloud on aisle #18

Uh, if I dare (minefield alert):

In rizos post, she knew it would set him off and did it anyway. Now why do you think that is, was, I guess, the subject before it got to the, uh, roots.

Mark posted a well thought out and lengthy response to the serious question, which is WHY!?

Anyone have a short response ElCamino could use that works?

Shut up Larry

Firearms, matches, and barbeque supplies are stored far, far away from the flammables in aisle #18?

You would think it is, sometimes, from the impression people have. I don't understand how anyone can fix their marriage with just His Needs, Her Needs. It feels like one half of a program. Really less than that, actually, since in addition to Love Busters you also need more basic concepts that I think are better covered here.

I'm supposed to be rereading HNHN and LB soon, so I may reevaluate that impression, but that's how I remember it. I was thinking HNHN for Parents actually presented more of the basic concepts in what I thought was a better way.

And Mark seems to swear by FILSIL, so maybe that's really the best place to start.

Anyway, sorry for the thread hijack.

Third time: nobody is suggesting that El Camino DEMAND his wife follow the POJA. Second time to request: please go back and reread my post above.

I have read your posts, and I respectfully disagree. Dr. Harley describes requests that include punishments:


He may have requested it, but the punishment has turned it into a SD. Dr. Harley goes on to describe


I understand your point, markos. I just interpret it differently. Or perhaps we are just arguing about semantics. But I think we can agree on one thing: instead of a win-win outcome, they both lost.

Nobody is advocating a request that includes a punishment.


You are exactly correct. What he did was WRONG. He made a demand, not a request.

What we are telling him to do is to make requests instead of demands.

Thoughtfully, respectfully, politely say "Honey, please don't wear your hair that way." Or "Honey, please don't wear your hair that way, because..."

Do you disagree with me when I say that those two example sentences are requests, not demands?

Yes, they are requests. I understand your point. But if you don't get your way and create some sort of punishment whenever you don't get your way, it really doesn't matter that it was worded as a request.

IM, if you go back and look at my original post to you, and the quoted material within it at the beginning:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...flat&Number=2335921&#Post2335921


I don't understand why when I say "You respectfully say what you need done or not done" you think this is a selfish demand. This is why I am disagreeing with you.

And I specifically said:


Everybody agrees with you that what he did was wrong and was a demand/love buster.

But your original point seemed to be that no matter what, asking a woman to style her hair a particular way or not style her hair a particular way was a selfish demand. That there's no way to make this a request. I say there IS a way this request can be made, without making a selfish demand.

Going back to your point before that, you encouraged dishonesty and saying that if she asked if he liked her hair straight or curly he should lie and say he liked it both ways. There is simply no way this can be justified on Marriage Builders principles. The Policy of Radical Honesty involves radical honesty. Radical honesty without selfish demands or angry outbursts or disrespectful judgments, of course, which is a pretty fine line to walk. But radical honesty, nonetheless.

You don't encourage anyone to lie to their spouse.

Of course, that is correct. Nobody is saying to do that.

All we are saying is that he should not lie to his spouse; he should be honest about how he feels about her hair. And he should do it WITHOUT angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments, and selfish demands.

But, there is an unintended punishment if I don't comply with my spouse's complaint. And that is that I make lovebank withdrawals. If he loves me less and I WITHDRAW love units because I am thoughtless of his feelings then there is a negative consequence.

The concept of "don't get your way" is not applicable here because we are assuming here that each spouse does not WANT to make the other miserable. We each define what our emotional needs and our lovebusters are; the willingness of the other spouse is assumed. There is no battle of wills as implied in "get your way." Every spouse SHOULD get his own way if the goal is romantic love.

I am sure he could have filled her admiration by not lying. I agree that this would be against MB.

Imstaying, this article might make it a little more clear:

Complaining in Marriage

That is the goal! But in this case they both lost. They both were focused on what the other person is not doing rather than focusing their energy on doing something to fill each other's needs.

Further TJ I'm afraid, but germane to the discussion, I think...

I have a question for ImStaying.

Suppose that your top EN or at least one of the top 5 was Physical Attractiveness and your spouse wore the sweat suits that seem to be all the rage in Texas right now (at least at Walmart among the Aquanet set ). Would it be a Love Buster to for your spouse to show up at a dinner party in a sweat suit? Or even more to the point, would it be a Love Buster for you to ask your spouse to not wear a sweatsuit to the dinner party?

Now imagine that your spouse began wearing sweatsuits and took up jogging as a form of recreational activity at a time that an affair was beginning and the sweatsuits were really more to do with attracting the affair partner than with the jogging that was taking place. NOW what would you think if your spouse showed up at a dinner party wearing a sweatsuit AFTER you had expressed your displeasure with the way they looked in sweatsuits?

"But I really like sweatsuits."
"I should be able to wear something that I feel comfortable in."
"It's just a sweatsuit, for God's sake."
"You should love me for who I am and not what I wear."

NONE of these are valid reasons to wear a sweatsuit though any one of them could be used as justification to wear what is known to be something that makes our spouse unhappy.

The real issue then becomes a case of doing something that makes our spouse unhappy knowing that it will make him or her unhappy and claiming that he or she has no right to be unhappy since we want to be happy ourselves and we can only be happy by doing what makes them unhappy.



But we also have a situation here where not only is the sweatsuit something in and of itself a problem for the spouse who hates sweatsuits or even the fact that wearing a sweatsuit in spite of knowing that it will trigger the memory of the affair in our spouse's mind because our spouse has already told us that is part of the reason they don't want us to wear a sweatsuit. So now when I wear the sweatsuit I am not just accidentally hurting my spouse by not meeting one of the top ENs or even just committing a Love Buster through IB, but I am in fact telling my spouse that I am going to continue exactly the type of self-justified independent behavior that resulted in the affair. It isn't a matter of me being happy any more. It is a case of me telling my spouse that I am not willing that he or she be happy. This where a bit of the honesty problem shows up, IMO.

The real issue comes down to what it means to be married. If I want to do something, no matter what it is and even if it is something that might be viewed by anyone or everyone else as no big deal, or even as something GOOD, and doing that thing would destroy the feeling of love that my spouse has for me, why on Earth would I want to just go ahead and do it? Is the way I wear my hair, or the sweatsuit that I think is comfortable, or the job that I have or the sport that I play more important than my spouse being in love with me?

Rizos didn't fall in love with EC because he let her wear her hair any way she wanted to. She fell in love with him because he met certain ENs until it triggered a directed response in her and he became the stimulus that made her happy. But consider that maybe one of the things that made EC fall in love with Rizos was actually to way she wore her hair at the time they met because it met one of HIS ENs in a way that trigger her to become the stimulus that created the directed response in him.

And I would bet the farm on her not having had an affair because OM didn't care about her hair. He met some EN for her and she let him do it because it made her feel good and happy and triggered a response in her brain.

I'll tell a couple of "hair" stories later if I get to it...

Mark

In addition to filling her need for ADMIRATION, he has to make sure he is being radically honest. This is especially KEY to a person whose top need is admiration. FALSE admiration won't suffice and since they DO want to be admired, it is important the spouse keep them informed of things that DO erode their admiration.

Make sense? It is BECAUSE I love to be admired, that I count on my H to tell me when I do something that is unadmirable to him.

Not at all. Even though he handled it badly, she now clearly understands that he HATES her hair like this. So, they did not lose.

They would have lost if he had said nothing and left her with the FALSE IMPRESSION that he liked her hair while he suffered in silence. Keep in mind that "Unspoken issues in a marital relationship lead to a superficiality that ruins romance."

POJA is NOT about getting your way or not getting your way. POJA is about you BOTH getting what makes you BOTH happy and so makes LB$ deposits into BOTH LB$s and avoids making withdrawals from EITHER LB$.

When enthusiastic agreement is reached you BOTH get your way.

THAT is the point of POJA.

It lets you get YOUR way at the same time your spouse gets his or her way and so love is built instead of being destroyed.

We each see conflict as my way or your way in a romantic relationship because we are each emotionally invested in the relationship. But choices made entirely based on emotions are almost always bad choices.

POJA requires that we find some third way of doing it that does not allow either to gain at the emotional expense of the other. It goes further yet by requiring that whatever we do BOTH parties gain.

To find this type of solution requires that we make choices based on logic, data and reasonable expectations rather than how we feel at the moment.

Mark

BINGO! Mark put this much better than me.

And I will have you know I look very fetching in my sweat suit!!

Well, answer me this. It is a HUGE LOVEBUSTER to me to be groped. It drains my LB quicker than anything. My H says it is a "lovebuster" for him NOT to do it. He is not happy that he can't grope. What is your solution?

Find a way that he can touch you that you are both enthusiastic about?

I find all of this fascinating. Others do as well. The read count for this thread has gone through the roof.

Never mind the t/j aspects. I am positive El Camino will not mind, or at least he shouldn't.


I really, really want to know the answer to that one.

Shut up Larry

shaddup, Larry!!!

It's called Gaslighting...

Or maybe bovine excrement.

While it might make deposits into your account in his Love Bank when he gropes you, it doesn't withdraw love units when he doesn't. He can't do it while you're at work or while he is asleep and he isn't suffering then, is he? Therefor, I would suggest that it isn't a love buster for him not to do it.

Though maybe it is one of his top emotional needs.

Hmmm...

From a pure POJA perspective, he should do no groping until you are enthusiastic about how he gropes you.

Might take several attempts to find the right way, though, so I'd do lots of experimenting if I were him.

Does this have anything to do with why you wear sweatsuits, BTW?



Shaddup Mark...

Agree 100%! He did try that on me in a joking way. But he also stopped groping when i explained to him that it was causing me to AVOID HIM. That got his attention!

Thanks for weighing in on that.

Being that I am constitutionally unable to sometimes take my own advice, I gotta ask for help instead of, er, shaddup Larry.

Something just happened with a hat tip to Poe's best book. . . I may need help later on tonight. And on that cryptic note, I will, indeed, shut up.

Shutting up Larry

Mel you didn't answer my question...


Shaddup Mark

oh no! I just think they look really cute and are very comfortable. For some reason, he hates them.

How are things today, EL C?

Hi Pep,

Thanks for checking up on me.

I closed the sale of the company yesterday yet there was no champagne.

On one side I feel relieved that I'm getting closer to completely cut ties with OM. On the other, I feel a terrible sense of a broken dream. I am grieving the loss of the product of so much sacrifice. As an entrepreneur, I've had envisioned the sale of my company as a happy cashing out event but a grave betrayal left me with a check of tainted money, deeply sad and lonely. Today I am in a emotional place that looks similar to D-Day. It's that familiar pain - yes, physical pain - inside the belly that feels like I just got hit with a bat in the gut and the knot in the throat.

After we were done with the signing, I get congratulations and one of the lawyers says "OK guys shake hands" referring to me and OM. I just said that I'd rather not. So the lawyer insists to me saying "c'mon be a gentleman". I had to refuse again and there I was in a room full of lawyers and bankers looking at me like I am an as$-hole. That was like sitting in a court room with the man that raped your daughter and after the violator gets off-the-hook for a legal technicality the judge asks you to shake hands.

Right now, I am just too hurt to even feel angry about this. Just looking forward to better times

--ElCamino72

I commend you for not shaking hands. It took courage to not give in to the others. I'm sorry about your "broken dream." You will survive. You ARE surviving! Here's to better times, as well.

I wouldn't shake his hands. You were right not to.

What are you going to do for work. Can you start a new company again doing what you did your own?

Hi TR,

I have to be a consultant for the company for the next six months. This was a requirement from the buyers to avoid disruption and for transition purposes. So I still have to deal with OM for quite a while. I still don't know how that one is going to play out. I was asked to vacate my office and move to a common area.

OM and I con-founded this company from scratch 10 years ago. It now has over 70 employees and there's a good group that I regard as family. Most of the company employees were caught by surprise with my exit. So now I am getting a lot of questions from them that for legal purposes I have to be careful in how I answer. Hopefully I can stay out of the office as much as possible.

No, I can't start a new company in this territory. There's a no-compete clause in the sale agreement. I can't be hired or do certain type of work for previous customers for a period of 4 years.

The negotiation of this sale was as ugly as it can get. My primary goal was to get out of the situation as soon as possible so I had to give up a lot for that.

--ElCamino72

EC:

Somehow it all sounds so machiavellian. You were betrayed by the ones you trusted the most. I have walked in your shoes. I hope that you will protect yourself and family from any future assaults that may be lingering in the wings. Your "best friend" was not your best friend and your wife was . . . gullible?

Money and success changes some people. A partner convinces themselves that they really did it all. So they want it all.

Just saying.

Larry

You said a mouthful. This time, don't shut up Larry (just this once )

t/j


It is my lot in life to amuse the easily, uh, amused.

Larry, a Texas legend in his own mind.

What's up EC. How are you doing?

Larry

(thread jack)

I read the pre-edit post.
I think I was "before your time", was I not?

(end thread jack)

EC-

Please put that money somewhere safe!

I am in a better mood today. I tried to stay busy during the weekend by spending time with my DDs and working out. In the mean time, I have been keeping a safe distance from Rizos.

This morning I was looking for a cell phone charger. Rizos told me that I could find it in one of her drawers. When I open the drawer I see the charge right on top of a newspaper clip with OM's picture. To be honest, I felt a little indifferent but still kindly requested her to get rid of it. She didn't say a word about it. I won't let this stuff bother me.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

What in the world did she have that for????

What do you think about reading your spouses posts? I imagine the answer is POJA. But I'd like to hear if there are any guidelines re couples posting here.

I've been trying to stay away from Rizos's new thread (admittedly, I've taken a peek here and there):

He thinks I'm wrong, and I think he's wrong!!!!!

BTW, her thread's title reflects the sad condition of our M. A lot of Rizos actions make me feel like she's trying to compete about who's right in this situation. But that's just me.

I am sure that she'd find many LBs in my thread so I requested her to avoid reading my posts to prevent withdrawing LUs.



--ElCamino72

I don't want to speculate too much about the source of this picture. It's an old article in a local newspaper promoting the company. OM is prominently portrayed in the picture (I am not in the picture). The newspaper page was folded in a way that when I opened the drawer there was the picture of OM looking right at me.

The position of the paper may suggest that this piece of OM "memorabilia" was recently placed there. Perhaps accidentally? Only Rizos could answer that question. But I am not looking for an answer unless Rizos has a need to say how it found its way there.

--ElCamino72

ElC

I have sought answers from rizos on a number of issues and was not successful. That picture maintains the fog, imho. I am reluctant to say more.

Larry

t/j

Pep:

Yes, but not by much. I started in the early 80's. 26 countries! The culture I mentioned was still there. And obvious for those of us who looked. I edited the post because while I did not intend for it to be personal, on reflection it was, somewhat. And that was not my goal at all.

Larry

end t/j

I agree.

DITTO X 2

Kindly inform your wife to please come to her thread.

thank you.

EC

Just as information, I am not new to MB as you can see from my registration. I left for a while for various reasons and I am now back for even more obscure reasons than the ones that caused me to leave.

I just skimmed through your very well done posts to your thread. I found that your narratives effectively communicated your situation and the issues that concerned you. I have been posting to Rizos' thread and ran into situations and attitude that created certain questions in my mind, unanswered questions. Then I read some of your first posts and you confirmed my impressions. I do have a couple of questions that would help me to better understand just a few things, if you don't mind.

1. I don't understand why it was you who had to sell. You did nothing in terms of the A. You may email me if you want the reason to be held confidential but you don't mind sharing with one or two people so long as it is held to that number.

2. Am I correct, this was the second time that Rizos hair had become an issue. The first time would have been just before MB weekend. Did I get that right? If it is the second time, I would find that very, very interesting.

3. You have said that OM is a serial predator/adulterer and that OMW is ok with it. Why then did she inform you? Or do you not know? I do have some grasp of cultural bias in PR and thus why both informing and being okay might apply, but would be interested in your opinion.

4. Do you think that MB weekend and the MB program has helped both of you equally?

You stated that OM was less than cordial. This puzzles me somewhat. I am reluctant to post why in an open forum. Yes, I know, I shouldn't be puzzled; yet I am.

The purpose of my questions is to get you to reflect and if you elect to answer, to see if I can share any insight that might apply based on what you tell me. Since you are in the care of the Harley's, for whom I have absolute respect and admiration both professionally and personally, it would be my purpose to then act as a cheerleader and encourage you to follow their lead with whatever turns up. I think you know what I mean.

I have sent a number of people to the coaching center. And I intend to keep on doing it. One of the purposes of this support group is to help keep each of you focused until your next time with Steve, who is the man with the plan for those who would follow what he teaches. Dr. Harley has saved countless marriages with his infidelity work and bolstered many, many other marriages that had not reached that stage, with his books, this forum and his radio program plus his coaching center. Steve is a acorn that has fallen close to the tree.

Larry

Hi Larry,

Let me answer your questions briefly. If you need further details please feel free to ask.

1) The reason for me to sell my part of the business is that it was the most effective way to move on. In my conversations with my lawyers my premise has always been how to exit as soon as possible. The company was a 50-50% partnership which makes the situation more difficult. My other options would have meant long drawn legal battles, taking a stance to break up the company (big impact to a lot of families) or giving it away to OM. I am convinced that the best option was to sell.

I have wanted to sell the company for a long time. Way before I even suspected the A. But I never imagined that it'd be under these conditions. Selling the company in this economy to professional investors and under extreme circumstances has been THE biggest business challenge I've ever faced. Not for the faint of heart. Perhaps in time I may feel proud of all the negotiation and business maneuvers I took to close the sale.

2) There have been way more than two hair incidents. It has been a recurring issue. Counting since Oct when we started coaching with Steve, there has occurred at least a handful instances of hairstyle situations. Before I did the shameful hairdryer hammering, when a violation occurred, I would just inform her that the hairstyle changes hurt me and that it was a trigger. I'd request her that we should use the POJA about it but she's been reluctant. There have been other recurring abusive actions done in a similar pattern as the hairstyle including D threats and questionable Facebook/Messenger use plus other.

3) OMW didn't inform me of the A. I exposed to her on D-Day. I suspected a lot of OM cheating since when we traveled together he'd go "visit" female friends. After D-Day I found many messages from OM to other victims that are amazingly identical to the ones he used to send Rizos. He kept at least 5 women under the same game during the same year and a half he was in the A with Rizos.

I was in communication with OMW for about a week after D-Day. The last message I received from her was basically saying that she accepts the serial cheating situation with OM. She stopped talking to me when she realized the financial impact of the A.

4) MB has helped me tremendously. I have a whole new set of tools to better reach the goal of having a loving M. I realize that I still need to improve a lot in the execution of the program but I believe in it. I can see that Rizos has come to learn most of the mechanics and logic of the program. She can recite a lot of the Dr. Harley rules/policies. However, I feel that she's been struggling with the implementation - specially of POJA and PORH. Maybe I need to do a better job at helping her be more comfortable doing it but right now it is not clear what else I could be doing.

Thanks for your valuable help to my M.

--ElCamino72

El Camino, did you read this thread over on the weekend forum? here

Hi Mel,

I read the thread. I completely agree with what Dr. Harley responded.

After one of our first coaching with Steve Harley back in Nov I carefully brought the exposure issue to Rizos according to SH instructions. She was initially very upset about it. I even posted details back then on this thread when I brought it up.

In a subsequent session with SH we discussed the exposure issue. Rizos told me that SH explained the reasons of exposure to her and that she understood better. At the time she said that she was willing to tell our relatives. We even talked about how difficult it'd be but that it'd be for the best. I stated that I'd support her in doing so. A few days later she told her two sisters and a friend about the A. But she stopped there. I understood that it was to avoid disrupting the holidays.

Later on, I consulted again exposure with SH but per his suggestion I haven't brought it up again.

The other issue is that I am not even sure of what she actually has told to her sisters and friend. There are situations that lead me to suspect that she may need to further clarify the situation. Additionally, I tend to think that she owes an apology to some of our relatives and friends.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

El Camino

You are welcome. Although I am not sure what, if anything, I may be doing to help you. I am just exploring ideas derived from reading rizos' posts and then your posts to confirm what I had already concluded from reading her's.

Having built a business of a certain size in days gone by, I can read between the lines. It would appear that you have managed to sell something you wanted to sell anyway and that is indeed a very high level accomplishment, considering your situation. The fate of the business is no longer in your hands, and that is as you wanted it to be. It is obvious you have an ability for clear vision both professionally and privately.


Sorry, I got it wrong. Lots of posts to remember. OMW's motivation is obviously economic, so no surprise there. And thus no reason to dwell on the subject.

OM's motivation and skill set is a bit more complex.

As you have noted, he is a serial predator/adulterer. That represents a type of personality that can often translate to problems with employees, partners, customers and the general public. He appears to be adept at keeping women on a string, with practiced communication calculated to pull at their heart strings and emotional structure. In other words, he brings out infatuation in the hearts of his female prey, who then make excuses in their own minds so they continue to have access to the drug like "Fix" as is taught in MB.

The greater his success, the more contempt he has for his prey.

The more I read in your posts that you have written AND what you have not said, the more I am convinced that I can offer very little to you that you do not already know, both from your MB education and from your own excellent powers of observation and ability to think in behalf of both your long term and short term objectives. Therefore, it would seem reasonable for me to continue to pick at Rizos for a chance to help her focus on the realities of her life instead of the fantasy(s).

I did ask her why you were not comfortable associating with her family on a near continuous basis. So far, no answer that is understandable. She also said she would offer to take a lie detector test, something I was surprised to see you reject. After thinking about it, I was no longer surprised. Finally, Rizos is afraid of O&H, for cultural and personal reasons.

I get it.

Larry

Last night Rizos asked me about telling her parents about the A. Due to the sensitive nature of the conversation, I kept it brief and avoided sneaking LBs. Her question was if I thought that not telling would be a deal breaker. I replied that time would tell but that I felt it is a necessary step.

I said that I'd be willing to wait a reasonable time until she can consider the reasons to do it. She asked me why I wanted her to tell, I said that honesty would tremendously help our M, that it'd make amends and that if one of our daughters ever had a similar problem, as a father, I would think that I'd like to know so that I can help. She said something that implied that I was trying to punish her. I told her that if I wanted to punish her I would have already told her parents myself on my terms. Rizos didn't respond but it seems like she's on the fence on this issue. I told her that when the time comes, she can count with my support to her since I know this is a very difficult situation for both of us. The conversation was less tense than others so I'm going to get into a positive mindset.

BTW, there's some external influence from people close to Rizos that do not want her to tell her parents. I think the way to look at it is simple. On one side you have Dr Harley a PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, best selling author, successful marriage counsellor who's helped thousands of couples, world wide authority on affair recovery and happily married for a long time. On the other side, you have people with shaky marriages. The option with a higher degree of long term success should be obvious when you look at it objectively.

Getting help directly from Dr Harley is a blessing that I hope we can both can take advantage for the happiness of both of us and the well-being of our DDs. I mean, let's say that I was in a difficult financial situation and I am receiving specific advise from Warren Buffett himself (highly successful long term investor) and conflicting recommendations from my cousin (who has had a long history of financial problems and is currently bankrupt). If I had to bet my financial future, I'd put my money on Warren's advice without any hesitation.

--ElCamino72

Just posted this to Rizos thread...

Top Ten Reasons to Tell the Truth:

10) It keeps you from having to remember which lie you told whom.
9) It prevents people from hating you if they find out the truth from somebody else.
8) It allows a person to choose to love you knowing who you are rather than loving someone that isn't the real you.
7) It teaches your children the value of being honest.
6) Lying is a Love Buster
5) Failing to tell the truth squanders an opportunity to do something that will make your spouse love you more by meeting an emotional need.
4) Telling the truth opens the lines of communication and allows the other person to provide honest feedback for our lives instead of advice that does not supply us with what we really need.
3) Telling the truth kills the affair once and for all, since it was based entirely on fantasy and lies.
2) Telling the truth is good practice at open communication that improves the likelihood of getting what you want in the future.

In this case, the NUMBER ONE reason to tell the truth:

1) Telling the truth will prevent the grandparents from resenting the father of their grandchildren for taking the grandchildren away from them fearing that he is being manipulative and controlling or that they themselves have done something that has caused them to no longer have access to their grandchildren.

"external influence" = family ?
"external influence" = girlfriend ?

If you want to be rich, learn what rich people do and emulate them.

If you want to be recovered, learn what recovered couples have done to recover and do the same things.

If you want a great marriage, find a couple with a great marriage and learn what they do to make the marriage great. Then do the same things that they do.

Not hard logic to follow, for me.

But then again, my emotions aren't involved in making choices for other people...

Both. Sister(s) and girlfriend.

--ElCamino72

Older?
Younger?

Married?
Divorced?

I suspect that it is the younger one. She divorced a couple of years ago to marry her OM who was her boss.

--ElCamino72

I see.

The dynamic here is:

When a person breaks the accepted rules of a society, they NEED others to also break the same rule, to feel better about themselves.
It's a way of acquiring unwarranted self esteem, by proxy.
It is not done to help her sister, but to make herself "appear" normal.

The only rational response is this:

THERE IS NEVER ANY good reason FOR ADULTERY.

Yes, this is true.

When I found out my mother was committing adultery, I revealed it to the worst choice in the world -- her mother.

You see, my mother had been criticizing her mother for her adulteries for years.

That very same night, witnesses tell me, her mother laid into her terribly, hatefully, insidiously, triumphantly. I was not present but can only imagine how hellish and disgusting it must have been. Like turning a soul over to Satan for gleeful torment.

I getting a sense here that WW does not want to tell her parents because they will get mad. Her sisters are telling her "Don't tell mom and dad (because they will get mad)". Well isnt that the point?

I think you put yourself in a position by agreeing with the wife about who to expose to. It takes away a lot of your choice to protect yourself. I don't know how it would play out if you expose to the in-laws without WW's approval.

100% agree.

El C


I can only imagine the conversations.

That does explain quite a bit. I challenged Rizos that she was afraid to tell her parents for unknown reasons but likely something that happened in the past. She never replied. Now at least one of the reasons has surfaced. BTW, waywards who marry have something less than 5% chance of making a good marriage that lasts, or less.

Larry

What are in-laws views about sis?

Yes, one of the biggest mistakes I did in the beginning was that I didn't widely expose when it mattered. I wasn't lucky enough to find MB until three months after D-Day so I was in plan C for way too long.

Exposure was one of the first issues I asked Steve Harley when I started coaching. What I can say is that there are certain factors in my case where exposure could potentially make the situation more difficult so the plan has taken certain precautions into consideration.

--ElCamino72

For the moment, I'll refrain to comment on this specific one because I don't want to speculate. Even though I may have a different point of view in certain areas that my in-laws, In general I have great affection for them. There's other people in Rizos family of origin that I don't feel as comfortable. I've let her know about this.

--ElCamino72

There are a lot of unanswered communications waiting for rizos on her thread.

Larry

Last night I requested Rizos to talk to my mother about the A. I believe that Rizos should face my mother and tell her what we're doing to R from her A. In addition, I think that Rizos should offer an apology and thank the support we're receiving.

My request was not well received by Rizos. She was visibly upset about it. I believe I didn't commit any LBs in my request. Rizos response felt to contain anger and it seemed like she was assuming that my request is geared to hurt her. Her defensiveness really gets on the way when I try to be open and hoonest.

I'd appreciate your comments about my request. Is there anything wrong to ask Rizos to face my mother?

--ElCamino72

El Camino:

I don't know if there is anything in Dr. Harley's toolkit that would deal with Rizos' mental state. According to what I know about Dr. Harley's concepts, your request was both proper and should be well received by someone who has had 12 hours of direct coaching and the MB weekend plus time on the forum. And who has signed on to use Dr. Harley's concepts for the recovery of an affair and the resulting near destruction of a marriage.

For a long time, I was under the impression that you were not only aware of whatever mental issues rizos had not dealt with effectively and the reason(s) for her seeming to lack the effort to engage the tools she has been given. Now, with your question, I am not sure of your personal thoughts.

She does know a lot, but that doesn't seem to be affecting what she does from time to time. Actively engaging with triggers over her hair multiple times is not what I would expect from a truly repentant wayward. That and other clues led me to believe certain things.

I spent a bit of time "Picking" at rizos and while I succeeded in irritating her, I could not get the level of anger needed to get her to open up very much like I did with mamasita.

Well, that isn't completely true. Rizos did react enough for MelodyLane to get involved and that interchange was effective. You have seen me use the same technique with mamasita, who seems to have finally figured out what I was doing and has decided to once again communicate with me.

By the way, you have provided some very good advice to both mamasita and papasita. Please continue to do so if you are motivated to continue. Helping others is a great way to learn and apply what we learn.

Back to rizos. It is my "Gut" feel that she is harboring some sort of secret. It may be "Secret" guilt or "Secret guilty pleasures." I haven't a clue which, or if that is even real or not. Or it may be something completely off the wall but important to her.

In my opinion, something or some thought process or entitlement issue has arrested her progress along the path of recovery. I say this based on both her forum posts and her exchange with Dr. Harley. You might want to read and digest my post on guilt and shame to see if you can see some clues there. It is in the Other Topics forum.

If I had to guess, which is really what you are asking, Rizos is either continuing to get her infatuation "Fix" from something that keeps her in the fog, or she has an entitlement issue which is maintaining the same thing. Another possibility is that "Public" shame is a HUGE issue with her and to be avoided at all cost. I have seen somewhere approaching at least 300, maybe more, wayward spouses on this forum and I can spot fog talk a mile away. Others share my opinion of rizos state of mine on this perception both by their comment and the back room talk that sometimes goes on here.

But that said, it could be guilt and the fear of public shame. I simply don't know enough to to focus on just one possibility. You may.

So the bottom line is either entitlement, continued immersion in the fog of infatuation, or guilt and shame. Any or all of those combined would certainly create what I have seen and presumably you have seen as well. And of course there may be some other secret carefully hidden by rizos.

Whatever the cause, I do not believe that rizos has subscribed to a full and complete recovery using Dr. Harley's MB concepts as the basis. In many ways, she acts as if she were still in the fog, but those symptoms can also be expressed for some other reasons as I have detailed.

I don't know if you have read my posting thread or not. Near the end of it as it currently stands, is an analysis of Infatuation versus Dr. Harley's concepts. You might find the analysis useful.

Please accept this analysis as a genuine effort to help you and rizos as you each struggle to rebuild your marriage. I am just a person sharing their experience in life for whatever it is worth and I could very well be way off the target. Perhaps JL or Schoolbus or Mel or one of the other more learned folks on here will get interested in rizos and add their own perception.

All the best

Larry

OM is your parents' neighbor, right?

Hi Larry,

Thanks for the insight.

Last night, Rizos asked me "besides your mother, who else you want me to tell?". Her tone sounded like she wants to get it over with - didn't sound like she genuinely wants to address this issue. I expressed to her that it hurts when she gets defensive. She just muttered an empty sounding "I'm sorry".

She may end up talking to my mother just like when she spoke to her mother (possibly to get me off her back). I question if this is progress when every step is taken so reluctantly.

I posed my concern as a question because I want to leave space to be corrected for any possible mistakes that I could be making.

What I have perceived that is hindering Rizos motivation to R is a misguided ego. Many times our struggles come from her tendency to see our R as a competition of "who's right or wrong". She is in fact extremely afraid of public shame and very reluctant to apologize for her mistakes. For many reasons she's not able to differentiate humility and humiliation.

SH once explained to me that some people can't accept their mistakes because that causes them to feel such a strong feeling of failure that they prefer to lose everything before taking responsibility. People in this situation have an extreme fear that accepting a mistake will make them face a part of them that they hate. They'd rather fight everybody back with self righteousness to keep them from looking into themselves.

We'll see.

--ElCamino72

Yes, OM is my parents' next door neighbor.

As a little more background, I had exposed to my parents back in Dec (five months after DDay). When Rizos didn't come with me to my parents house on to their Xmas party, everybody was asking about her. I told my parents that we were having marital problems and kept it at that. This was a shock to them since they couldn't imagine us having problems.

When I told my parents that our M was in trouble I told them that I didn't want to go into details to avoid further ruining Xmas. For whatever reason, my father pulled me to the side and advised me to be careful about the temptations of other women. His implication that I was having an A was hurtful and Rizos actions had put me in this position.

Next day I explained my parents the whole situation which they found to be nothing but incredible. Specially since OM was a longtime friend and my parents next door neighbor.

About a week later, I told Rizos that I had exposed to my parents which she didn't take well either. Nevertheless, Rizos had visited my parents right after exposure and they still treated her normally. Both of my parents have expressed support to our M and to Rizos (who they say they love like a daughter). However, the issue has not been spoken in front of Rizos and everybody has continued like nothing has happened.

Rizos told me a few days ago that my mother called her and during their conversation my mother ask how was our M going. Rizos told her that we were doing OK and changed the subject. IMHO, I think she missed the perfect opportunity right there. I mean, I am not looking for Rizos to get on her knees and beg. I think she should just to own her mistakes and briefly say what is right in this situation.

I am going to be the first one to admit that I don't have the greatest relationship with my mother. However, during this situation my parents have been very supportive of both of us. Many times, our DDs stay with my mother when Rizos and I go for RC or UA time.

I can tell my parents are stressed about our M problems. They had the illusion that Rizos and I had the perfect M and that image was shattered. I've explained to them that we're working under the best program for R. However, I sense that Rizos avoiding the issue with them is causing doubts. I think we need to clear this issue and provide some assurance to them that we're working on having a successful M and a safe environment for their granddaughters. A brief conversation about our present and hopes for the future may go a long way for my parents.

--ElCamino72

I don't think that I have ever posted to you, ElCamino but I have followeded your thread from the beginning. The problem with any program is that it cannot change the personalities of the participants. My FWH is and has always been reluctant to apologize and slow in forgiving. His entire family is like that and it is very much a learned response. Defensiveness runs rampant in his family. That has very much hampered our R but I see him overcompensating in other areas. He is awesome at filling my ENs which is a good thing because he struggles with LBs.

I have no illusions that he will ever become an olive branch bearing, MB fanatic like I am but the changes that I see are truly wonderful when I compare his actions and reactions to his pre D-day behavior. I am almost always content with that except on those days when my taker reminds me that he not I broke our vows and turned our world upside down. At those times, I try to remind myself that we both married imperfect people and that he more than likely will never be SMB's wonderfully repentant, MB poster boy FWH but he is mine.

It has taken nearly three years for me to reach this point of understanding though. My prayers remain with you and your R.

God's Blessings,

Say

EC,

I saw your post yesterday while at work which for some reason has become a lot of work and so I didn't find time to answer you and since I don't spend much time here after I get home these days, I never got around to it.

I see Say has alluded to the thought I was going to look at so I guess that is covered but I did want to look at this:But this is your perception, right? This is what you think drives her the way she goes. It is what you believe about here motives and intentions. It is what you respond to by your actions...

Do you see the dilemma in acting and choosing to react to perceptions that may or may not be reality? You are reacting to something you think she feels without knowing if she even feels that way. This places the two of you into an instantaneous adversarial position, you trying to get her to change her views and her resisting being pushed to change and all based on how you think she might feel about it.

So did Steve ever tell you that the way to respond to this was to force the person to examine themselves, stand up to their fears and do what they are so reluctant to do? I realize that he might have said that this was the way they should handle it themselves, by standing up to their fears and challenging their own way of thinking and do what they don't want to do but did he say that it is up to you to get her to do that?

Some of the possible ways this could shake out in the long run:

* Rizos could one day feel remorse for hurting your parents and apologize of her own accord. (They already know most of the story though only from your POV and maybe they don't need to hear all the foggy self justification quite yet anyway)

* You can keep pressing her to stand up and confess and say that she is sorry. 'OK. So I'm not perfect. I am SO SORRY...' (Doesn't sound like a sincere apology to me but probably what can be expected under such terms)

* Rizos might never admit to your parents what is going on now, what happened then or any of the dynamics and lies from the affair. They might still choose to forgive her since you have forgiven her or they might refuse to forgive her whether you forgive her or not. (She broke her vows to you, not them)

* Her parents are a different story. She needs to explain to them why you are talking about leaving with their grandchildren. (Your parents already know since YOU told them) But you guys could end up hating each other for years over whether or not she is willing to stand up and admit her affair to people who already know about it. I just don't see the win in this being so big that the cost is worth it.

As the marriage improves you might be able to get POJA agreement out of her to apologize to your parents. But forcing it and making it a requirement of continuing recovery just doesn't strike me as a battle I'd have to win right now.

The idea that was used by Germany in WWII and has shown itself to still be a valid way to overpower an enemy in war is to choose the path of least resistance and to simply overwhelm the defenders, driving relentlessly and single minded toward a goal, such as the capital of the enemy or their command centers etc. You don't waste time engaging every unit you encounter and end up slogging it out step by step along the way but instead get on the road, drive toward the goal avoiding getting caught up in skirmishes, just shooting back as you drive past the defenders.

When you reach your goal, the troops that are defending are disorganized at best, scared to death since you just ran over every other resistance and now you get to pick the one battle that will win the entire conflict and get the enemy to surrender. Other little battles will still happen after that and the "underground" might still hold out for a long time, but the "war" will be won and over .

What I am suggesting here EC is that you realize that the war is more important than winning even a single battle along the road to recovery. You don't even have to be right to recover if you do what leads to recovery. Be sure that this is a battle that you must win to recover before you engage in it. Can it be fought later after the main battle has been won? Can you only love her again if she confesses to your folks? Can you only keep trying if she does it now? Would skipping it and moving on to the next objective mean that you can't move on because you will have to keep fighting about this forever until it happens?

Is this the line in the sand?

Is this the hill you will be willing to die on?

Is it the missing piece that will result in recovery if it happens and will prevent recovery if it does not?

Is this the one thing she needs to do that will make everything turn out the way you envision your marriage? Does recovery hinge on this piece? Is her surrender on this the only way for you to win the war?

Mark

El Camino:

I don't think that Mark has read rizos thread. Or he may have and is taking the opportunity to make sure you have covered all your bases without addressing rizos' issues.


Ok, my original guess was correct. You do know what is going on with rizos.

Another word for SH's explanation is one of the ways that "Entitlement" manifests itself. People go to great lengths to avoid the guilt and shame. See my post on Guilt in the Other Topics section.

In my opinion, SH is telling you something there. He is explaining how rizos could have 12 sessions with the two of you and an MB weekend and still not get it. He is telling you why she would leave emotional bombs for you to discover such as the picture or the hair or not exposing.

See KaylaAndy's comments to her. KA has been here for a very long time, one of the longest of those still posting. She knows women and she understands affairs.

SH is also addressing emotional types and why they have affairs. Dr. Harley in his general teaching of how to recover from affairs does not dwell on emotional types. He wants to focus on recovery. He does discuss emotional types in his other writings. For example, freeloaders, renters and buyers.


In one of your posts, you mention that rizos and your now ex-partner and her affair partner, once dated. Take a look at what Dr. Harley has said and think. A light bulb should go off in your head.

You were up late last night, probably thinking. You want all this to make sense. And it doesn't make sense in the way you would like for it to make sense. This is in the realm of betrayed "Fog," itself not much discussed here in those words, but certainly a very real emotion and a very real confusion.

Since you have read Love Busters, I assume that rizos has as well. Yet something is blocking her emotional access to the concepts. It could be that she doesn't understand that infatuation is a temporary emotion and not real love. Many, many, many women fall in this category. And they BLOCK any attempt to explain otherwise. The feelings are that strong, akin to those found in meth or crack. It is nature's joke.

Well, when I think of rizos, I think of Maureen O'Hara in her role staring in McClintock, a romantic comedy with John Wayne. I just can't help myself. Sorry, these are not the days and times for a John Wayne simple solution.

Larry

Quick comments on your responses.

Saynomore, your post resonates with my situation. It gives me a lot of food for thought.

Larry, I can see where you�re going but I�m a little obtuse when it comes to psychology. I wish that things were a little more black and white. I�ll definitely read the threads that you refer.

Regarding my quote of SH, I realize that I am skating on thin ice when I bring his comments on this forum � and I am doing it possibly out of context too. I must say that I haven�t yet fully grasped some of the concepts of his coaching so I don�t want to sound like I am putting words in his mouth. I do have a lot of respect for SH so I wouldn�t like my (mis)interpretation of his coaching to be misconstrued here.

To settle the argument, I have to be honest and say that SH�s coaching regarding this issue resembles in many ways what Mark is posting here. However, I have struggled badly to absorb this point of view.

Anyways, I don�t necessarily see the outcome of my request to talk to my parents as a condition to continue R. This is not (yet) the island that I�m willing to die on (I relate better to the Pacific side of WW2). But I feel that I wouldn�t be honest if I don�t bring it up. It is a request, so I guess that it is up to Rizos to listen to it, express her feelings about it and POJA the issue (meaning only doing it if we reach an enthusiastic agreement about it).

I�ve been challenged by SH about other issues in a similar way to Mark�s 2x4 post. In fact, BEFORE the hairdryer incident, SH asked me point blank if I was willing to draw the line on the hairstyle issue. My response at the time was NO. I replied that I felt silly to give up attempting to R my M based on hairstyle. However, I do struggle wondering where and when I draw the line.

Winning the war has a potential great reward but the cost of failure is HUGE. I am scared to death of spending a few years trying to R just to obtain a marginally better M that I currently have. On the other side, I can�t see myself being a part-time father.

Is that the dilemma that I need to figure out?

I feel extremely lucky to have you folks as friends. Thanks so much for your help.

--ElCamino72

SH has a wall. When he talks to you, he is working to see that you are doing the best you can and help you with emotional tools so you can do better. He is not going to talk about rizos much to you.

When he talks to rizos, he is doing the same thing.

His goal is that both of you make the effort to move forward. And that takes time. It also means you take responsibility for what you do. And he allocates the responsibility for what rizos does to rizos, not to you unless you are engaging in a direct contradiction to the lessons you have been taught, such as Love Busters and the like.

Keep your own self clean.

Expecting rizos to assume responsibility for herself is not a bad thing, it is the setting of boundaries. I hate to use the word "expect."

You have an unequal power struggle with rizos. You do not want to be a part-time Dad. And she uses that power even at times when she doesn't have to. I have seen her do it. The reality is that a mother should never, ever want her children to have a part-time father if he is a good guy, like I presume you are. That only works if rizos is thinking in the best interest of her kids and isn't in a fog mentality cloud where her thoughts and values are muddled.

I note that your signature has either changed or I got the wrong impression from rizos. Somewhere I got the impression that the affair was purely emotional. Now I see PA in your signature. Perhaps I didn't notice it before.

Larry

EC,

I didn't even bring the lumber on that one...

Hi Larry,

I changed my sig recently but the PA part has been there for a while. Rizos admitted to meeting up with OM about 5 times for kissing and hugging. She says that this occurred in our home and in his house. This was revealed back in Nov when we did the WHAT part of the A under MB coaching.

BTW, I'm still digesting your previous posts here.

--ElCamino72

Hi El Camino

I just walked in the door and there you were. Your thread is one I look for as soon as I log in.

ElC, I said a LOT in those posts to you, but you do have to read between the lines a bit. I did that on purpose. You are a very smart guy. What I wanted you to do was think about possibilities so whatever conclusions you drew was because of what you observed instead of what I said.

I can suspect all I want, but you are the man who is in a position to figure it out, not me. Reading a lot of the threads on here will give you a great deal of background on many of the manifestations of wayward thinking, in fact, probably more than MB weekend and your sessions with SH, both centered around recovery.

Those who have been here for some time have a nose for wayward words and thought processes, if you can call it thought. Mostly wayward thinking involves emotion and emotional outbursts and defenses. I am not quite at the level yet, but sometimes I can smell it.

I do understand the PA issue. I understand your culture in most of its forms, including the level you are at. I also understand the legal ramifications as well. Basically, a "Boss" can do whatever he wants without too much public shame, while a woman and mother is very limited in what she can do, if you understand where I am going with that statement. Much of your culture is still somewhat "Ranchero" in the way it operates.

It is my opinion that rizos is getting some sort of wayward "Fix" by some means which keeps her confused and unable to totally commit. I haven't a clue how. I am reluctant to say more in a place as public as this.

Larry

Does this remind you of anything?

I always wondered if that camera in the corner of my living room was on...

It looked just like our house, I swear...

Mark

I prefer the ending scene to McClintock

Larry

Larry, I hear you loud and clear. Funny thing is that in my line of work I am skilled in geeky stuff like network intrusion detection, protocol decoding, pattern matching, forensic analysis and backchannel recognition. Outside of network security these skills have only been useful for amusing party tricks. Now I am learning to apply some of that knowledge IRL to fine tune my APS (Affair Prevention System).

Fixing the ramifications of the intrusion, kicking and keeping the attackers out is consuming a lot of CPU cycles. But I know very well that restoring a compromised system is significantly harder and more costly than penetrating it so that�s why it is cheaper to protect it from the beginning - I�ve made a living out of this fact in the technology space and now I know from experience that the same applies to M.

OK that�s enough. Please don't think I've gone nuts here. I'm just trying to keep up with the Larry-cryptic style

You're right about our culture. Down here, it's fairly common for guys to have a mistresses. In addition to what you say, our society views a man who has been cheated by his wife as someone terribly weak. To illustrate this, the single most used offensive word in here means that your wife cheats on you. AFAIK, there is not a single word in common English used to mean the same. The most used insult in English involves your mother but in my region's Spanish involves your wife. I know you are an observer of culture, so that gives you a perspective of the local "macho" customs.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

ROTFL... too funny.

Now I know where SIL gets dress ideas.

Well, it's more like I Love Lucy in here... BABALU!

--ElCamino72

Yes, well...


I knew about that too, but wasn't going to mention it. Problem is that cultural view is eat up with stupid on that point. For a fact, I know that it isn't just husbands who find recreational companionship in places other than the marriage bed. And a significant number of men know it but don't want to admit it.

For obvious reasons.

Most men in your culture would sooner go for a Proctology examination than catch wife doing someone other than with him.

Oh well.

And I got your cryptic message. Like I said, I would be more candid in a conversation where I was not looking over my shoulder at who might be reading what I could say.

Larry

Oh and for the record, I picked up some time back that your business was one where client trust was an absolute. And that you had wanted for some time to sever yourself from that company.

I understood that completely, especially when you revealed what you did about your partner.

Larry

[video:youtube]AFLLw7JcU74[/video]

--ElCamino72

Ok, ok, here it is:





Larry

El Camino,

Your advice helped me a lot a few weeks ago, so I'm going to try to return the favor even though I'm probably not the right one to be giving it out.

I don't know if this is consistent with MB or not, but here's a realization I made a couple of days ago that has brought me a lot of peace.

We cannot control how our WW's think, feel, or act. Therefore, it is pointless to try to do so. I see that you spend a lot of time and energy stewing over her actions like changing her hairstyle or now exposing to her parents. All this stewing doesn't influence her actions one iota and just makes you miserable, which I'm sure your wife picks up on and is counter productive to creating the loving environment that is so critical to plan "A". What we see as logical boundaries are viewed by WW as trying to control, and unfortunately perception is indeed reality.

I have now found peace in that I will still keep up the positive changes I've made to myself and to live by MB principles as much as she'll let me, but not to expect any changes by her or in her. Be the best I can be, enjoy my kids, do things that make me happy, and go on with life. If she comes around then great, if she doesn't then I'm fine with that too.

Since Schtoop mentioned one of my favorite words...Boundaries

Boundaries that attempt to control the actions of someone else, whether to get them to do something or to make them stop doing something are NOT boundaries at all. They are attempts at manipulation. Boundaries can only define what I will do, the way I will react, the things I will say, the life I will live.

A boundary is NOT a line in the sand that says don't cross this or else. It is rather a line that you recognize as being an attack on your own personhood (am I making words up today?) and take actions to avoid being attacked before the attack happens or at least before it can turn really nasty and do you and your marriage harm.

In a marriage marked by both husband and wife being in a state of Intimacy there really is no need to have boundaries to define interactions between us. The only boundaries in a loving fully engaged healthy marriage are marital boundaries that prevent outsiders from harming the relationship.

Any time we state something and say it is a boundary but it has to do with a desired change in the actions of our spouse, it is not a boundary at all but merely a thinly disguised Selfish Demand, an instinctive tool of our Taker that tries to get us our way from our spouse.

Mark

Schtoop has in effect recommended a perpetual Plan A and that may work for him. It is up to you to decide if it works for you. On the other hand, it would appear that your wife is still in somewhat of a wayward mind set. Something continues to trigger her. And then she triggers you, an uncomfortable path for either of you to soldier on.

Perhaps the move to the States will help put time and distance in place and thus the possibility of a more complete recovery and the start of the kind of relationship that MB concepts can help achieve.

Larry

I have never heard anyone who used the word "boundaries" say this, ever.

Where were you twenty years ago when my mother (wayward) was eating up "boundaries" from one of her counselors and using it to torment my Dad?

Hey schtoop, good to see you around. Your sitch comes to my mind quite frequently. I hope that you continue to progress in your R.

You are making a great point. Good or bad, my (over)analysis engine has not taken a break since D-Day

I can say that I was in that peaceful place you describe for a couple of months during the peak of my plan A. Even before my MB coaching I also cycled on and off out of being comfortable in letting go. Just recently I�ve had to adjust my approach to regroup a little bit. I may find a way back to be impervious to wayward behavior but at this time I choose to remain guarded.

The dynamic of this group is awesome. Your opinions help to put different perspectives to my M issues. I do take every angle into consideration.

--ElCamino72

Mark,
Where I get lost in the boundary concept is how to deal with the situation where your defenses have been broken and the enemy has crossed the lines (going back to your previous Blitzrkrieg ref). Isn�t that time to repel the adversary forces and THEN put boundaries in place to keep them out?

--ElCamino72

Larry,
Moving to the States is the big bet that could propel my marriage recovery. It also has a modest chance of prolonging and increasing the cost of personal recovery. I guess all BS eventually get to that moment where you either fold or go all in.

--ElCamino72

Oh, I�ll take a guess. Mark was probably spending way too much time on Ham Radio. I suspect that the extended exposure to RF has been the cause of his extraordinary cerebral development.

OK, I'll shut up now. I've been up for 30hrs straight at work in a long drawn conference call with support of various vendors having interoperability issues. I am doing the role of mediator for the end customer. My job right now is to be the Steve Harley between large technology companies that hate each other.

--ElCamino72

Mark is not and never was a HAM. I did however hang out with a lot of them and have worked in electronics and RF most of my life. Even my hobbies revolved around electronics for many years.

EC, One of the problems we always have with the idea of boundaries is this notion that when a boundary is breached imminent retribution is required to prevent the violation from continuing. This might be the solution for a nation being invaded by another nation with armed troops but it doesn't work very well in interpersonal actions within an ongoing relationship.

In days of long ago, cities often had walls for protection. The gates could be closed and any invaders were prevented from entering the city and doing harm to the inhabitants. This worked well enough as a defensive boundary as long as the enemies were limited in strength and pretty much little more than bands of marauding thugs.

But a more serious attack by well organized troops with a supply infrastructure that allowed them to be resupplied over a longer period of time was the death knell of walled defenses and massive buttresses. The problem is that when the attack continues for a long period of time, the very walls that were meant to prevent harm caused the inhabitants to be unable to acquire the things they needed for daily life. That is, while the attackers were kept without, the city dwellers were prevented from having access to crops, live stock and other food sources and often water as well. So the walls meant to protect became not a salvation but a prison that limited the movements of those living behind those walls to the point where surrender or starvation were the only real options.

As time went on retaliation became the biggest deterrent to border disputes. Smaller less powerful countries might still engage in such disputes today but the USA for example is not invaded for fear of reprisals that would overwhelm the attacking forces very quickly. Sustained warfare is very unlikely for very long if 100% of an overwhelming force is brought to bear against an enemy.

But in a marriage we can't simply live under constant threat of retribution or rely on overwhelming might to resolve conflicts. When our spouse does something that hurts us, if we are not at a place in the relationship where they are willing to stop harming us simply because we inform them that their actions have been harmful, our only real choices are to disengage from the assault on our position until the harmful actions have stopped.

Retribution will not ever restore the romantic love in a relationship. Retaliation cannot protect us from harm while at the same time sustain the relationship. Protecting ourselves has to become a stop gap measure that can only solve the immediate problem of being harmed, hopefully to address the real problem at a later time when emotional responses are under control by both of us.

Dr Harley has said repeatedly, and I quote him several times per week these days, that whenever we seek to resolve a conflict in our marriage the primary consideration needs to be sustaining the love relationship over and above even finding resolution. We need to seek a way to deposit love units into both Love Banks and avoid withdrawing them from either as pour most important priority.

So if when our �boundaries� are breached we react by returning harm for harm, retribution for retaliation, we will rapidly spiral downward away from Intimacy, through Conflict where our Taker will get stronger as we plummet further into Withdrawal where we will simply stop caring all together.

The first thing we must do in order to establish a boundary is to identify its purpose and intent. I might have a boundary that prevents my wife from hurting me by having an affair again. My boundary enforcement for this will likely be immediate divorce. But if she causes me to feel hurt by her Independent Behavior at times, even though her actions hurt me, I do not have make sure she hurts whenever she has hurt me. Rather, I should seek a way to prevent her IB from doing me more harm.

AOs are the ones everyone deals with, so look at that situation for a second. If I start shouting at my wife in anger over something, maybe even her Independent Behavior, it hurts her. As I hurt her I am withdrawing love units because an association is occurring between my presence and her pain. If she yells back, or refuses to cook dinner for a month, or decides to not have sex with me any longer, and then I get hurt as well. We have no resolution to the conflict but simply mutual dissatisfaction. The boundary of not letting me yell at her cannot be enforced by hard line tactics of retaliating and seeking retribution every time I violate her boundary.

If on the other hand, her response is to walk away from me, maybe announcing that she is disengaging so that I understand that I am violating her boundary, her rights, then the ball is back in my court. If I pursue her, she has the right to leave the house, if I am angry enough that she feels sufficiently threatened, she might go to her sister�s house for the night and ultimately if my methods of dealing with her do not change she has the right to divorce me in order to protect herself.

But responding to my AO by having her own or by withholding meeting my ENs cannot make me less likely to have another AO and might actually increase the strength of position of my Taker which is the part of me that resorts to AOs in order to accomplish something I want.

Now if I am trying to set a boundary for her that she cannot withhold my ENs, then I have already overstepped my sphere of ownership since I cannot set a boundary that defines her actions, only mine.

A boundary can only be a way to identify what is ours and what is not ours. When a boundary is violated it is because someone has overstepped their boundary and is encroaching on what is under our own control. Any consequence for that action must also be under our control and not designed to try to make them change their actions because that is not under our control but theirs.

There are certain motivations that get people to act or change the way they act. Fear of pain is one. Fear of loss another. These are the consequences we talk about when we state that there are consequences to our actions as it relates to enforcing boundaries. In marriage, the ultimate boundary enforcement is divorce, but setting the consequence of over drafting the checking account as divorce is probably overstepping our bounds and attempting to control the other person. Fear can be a strong motivator but it is not nearly as strong a motivator as reward.

Ideally the change in action should be its own reward but until that becomes so then rewarding the preferred action is a much stronger motivator than punishing inappropriate action. If I state up front that if my spouse does X then I will punish by doing Y I am not talking about enforcing a boundary but am really trying to manipulate her into acting a certain way or not acting a certain way.

Now if a guy walks up to be on the street and takes a swing at me, he had better be prepared to feel retaliation which though not as swift as it might have been twenty years ago will likely be more punitive since in the last 20 years I have learned to be much less tolerant before turning loose my wrath (comes from years in the retail business I guess). But if a guy cuts me off on the highway on the way to work I don�t have to push his car off the road because he violated my boundaries and impeded my rightful progress.

Some of this falls under a category I refer to as stupidity and ignorance as well. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity and ignorance. If the other person�s intent was not to do harm to me, then I don�t need to punish them but simply ensure that I am not harmed by their stupidity and ignorance.

From a boundary in marriage perspective, unless my spouse is doing something to harm me, I don�t need to be protected from her actions at all. So a boundary doesn�t even need to exist. So if we are both in a state of intimacy and are both seeking to make the other happy, our Takers are already under control and we are not actively trying to harm each other and so protecting ourselves from harm transfers from the us to our spouse since it will be our spouse who initiates any future harm and can prevent it from happening by not acting in a way that will harm us. Therefore, we don�t need to establish any boundaries at all.

But when the relationship falls into disrepair and love busters abound then we both need boundaries to avoid from being hurt since our spouse is no longer giving us that protection from his or her own selfishness. This is the protection part of MB and not boundaries since if my spouse is protecting me from thoughtlessness then I don�t have to. It is only when our spouse is engaged in love busters that we even need to establish boundaries and then only in order to supply ourselves with that protection not being give to us by them.


Mark

Hi Mark,

I've read your excellent explanation a few times. I think that I'm starting to understand the concept a little better.

However, I'm still failing to understand how you can prevent becoming a doormat in a situation where you are repeatedly getting hit with exactly the same LB. I don't think that stating my hurt (which is already known) over and over until something changes is reasonable.

Taking your example, I am not going to make a big deal of the checking account being over draft once or twice. But if you continue to do it after I have clearly stated that over drafting bothers me then the ball is my court since you don't seem to care. So, is taking the check book away an acceptable solution? Or should I just opt between stating my hurt and/or plan B/D?

I have no interest in seeking retribution to LBs. However, sometimes it is necessary that I protect myself from direct and repeated attacks.

Looking forward to your comments

-- ElCamino72

One thought...

POJA rules!

Ultimately the final boundary enforcement in marriage is divorce. Before you get to that point there might be thousands of things you could try, some of which you might be able to think up on your own and some that others can suggest. One thing that NEVER works is to Love Bust in any way in return.

An AO does NOT stop AOs. IB does NOT prevent IB. The bottom line is that YOU can only control YOU.

What I am driving at here is that in marriage, if things are bad enough that they need to change then you can only change what you have control over and that is what YOU do, not what your wife does. If what she does HURTS you, then you have two options. You can end the relationship or figure out a way to not be hurt while trying to get her to change her actions. Yes, there might be consequences for her actions, but those consequences can only relate to what you will do when she does something that hurts you in some way.

Retaliation will NOT balance the account, tie the score or settle the debt. It will only ensure continued downward spiral of her Love Bank as well as yours.

You guys BOTH need to learn how to use POJA since POJA will eliminate almost 100% of your need to protect yourselves from each other.

I get the cycle here, EC. My wife would do something that was IB. I would get mad. For my family we always settled things logically, with debate and calm discussion. First we went into the back yard and tried to convince each other with agricultural implements, but then we would talk things over and settle it. (I had three brothers and I am the oldest). What I learned was that when my wife thought I'd get mad and have an AO, she would be more inclined to IB. She'd do something on her own without considering my feelings and I would retaliate with AOs, SDs and DJs until she felt as bad as I felt and then she'd respond with her own DJs, AOs and SDs and decide right then that I was trying to control her and so the next time she'd do the IB thing again and we'd repeat the whole cycle.

Years back on his Cook County Jail album, B B King did a version of How Blue Can You Get that was a classic, IME. In the middle of the song he does this monologue, usually based on some recent experience of his own or dependent on the audience at hand. For those serving time in jail, this really gets to the heart of the blues. So during this monologue, he begins with this:

"Fellas. I said Fellas!

Fellas, when your woman don't do like you think she should, don't be goin' up side of her head.

You know what I'm talkin' about.
Don't beat her!

If you beat her you only do one thing.

I said if you beat her you only do one thing!

<What's that?>

You make her a little smarter and she won't let you catch her the next time."

My point is that retaliation, punitive measures and stubborn adherence to single minded position will seldom win a battle. It will almost always result in an extension of the war.

If I ask you to put up your hand in front of you and push on it, what is your response?

Unless you think long and hard first, your normal response is to push back. The harder I push, the harder you push. Soon we're locked in this battle of wills and strength that neither of us is willing to disengage from. Eventually one of us might knock the other down and declare victory, but both of us are exhausted, not speaking to each other and the loser is perhaps hurt physically.

Now here's the thing. I didn't tell you to PUSH BACK, only to put your hand out. When I pushed, it was instinct to push back.

As it applies to her IB or any other thing she does that you wish to see changed...You KNOW when the hand is being asked to be put up. Disengage THEN. Or better yet, long before the fact discuss the hurtful action in a way that states the fact that it hurts you and when it happens you will disengage. The ball is now in her court. If she does the act again, then move up a level in response without hurting her in return with your own love busters.

Example: Something she says that you take offense at.

Level 1) "I can't have this conversation now. This kind of thing hurts me." Then walk away.
Level 2) You know, I told you that this is unacceptable" and walk away, go for a walk around the block or take a ride somewhere.
Level 3) ""I will not take this kind of abuse" and go to your parents.

You go up one notch at a time, withdrawing further, longer each time until she is willing to attempt to correct her actions.

If it isn't bad enough to divorce over, then it isn't worth making her feel bad enough about to withdraw from you over.

And here's the deal...

Be certain that it isn't a refusal to go along with what you want that is at stake here. She does NOT have to comply with all requests and neither do you. But that is what POJA is for. Keep in mind POJA does NOT ensure that you get what you want only that you don't hurt each other. It prevents IB and it prevents agreement in order to avoid conflict.

Have you read Dr Harley's story of the couple where the wife ran up their credit cards with her IB of overspending? The husband's solution was to cut up her credit card and impose a strict budget on her spending. She kept spending any way. It wasn't until they negotiated a budget she was willing to accept that she stuck to it. Because it was HER budget as well as HIS.

If you are under attack, get out of the line of fire.

If it is other actions you wish to see changed then POJA is the solution.

You keep coming back to discussion, negotiation, brain storming for a solution and trying to gain a resolution.

The MOST important thing is that you neither one hurt the other as the result of the conflict. Failure to keep that in mind will result in getting farther away from each other instead of closer together. If you are both committed to making the marriage work, everything needs to go on the POJA table. If one fails and opts for IB, then you go on and try again on the next conflict which will probably not be long in coming.

If she is in withdrawal and you begin to do things right, meeting her ENs and avoiding Love Busters, then she will begin to move from Withdrawal into Conflict. Then guess what happens...

At that point, her TAKER wants you to make her happy and she demands more, gets angrier when it isn't happening the way she wants, makes DJs, acts independently, repeats annoying habits because her Taker is running the show and she has no desire to try to make you happy. Love busters at this point only moves her back out of Conflict into Withdrawal and though the conflict itself stops, there is no resolution only disengagement and you have to work even harder to lure her back into even wanting you to try to make her happy which again produces conflict.

Making her stop her actions or do what she doesn't want to do is not about boundaries. It is trying to control or manipulate and THAT will always be met with resistance.

We still repeat the IB=AO cycle at our house from time to time, EC. We still argue tooth and nail. The difference now is that we both recognize when it is happening and have tools to use that don't rely on our instincts of SDs, DJs and AOs or IB to make it work out. We haven't talked about "the affair" in over two years though we have discussed "affairs" on occasion.

Your goal needs to be to stop her from withdrawing from your Love Bank while at the same time avoid withdrawing from her Love Bank. That needs to be the goal for the rest of your marriage. No losers, just winners; you, her, the kids, extended family and friends. EVERY solution to EVERY problem needs to have that goal as its focus.

If a marriage is unfixable there is only one option left. Talkin' 'bout the D word here. But if you are in love with each other even major issues have a way of falling by the way and the worst conflicts can be resolved or lived with though no resolution is forthcoming.

One thing is required to make recovery possible. That is a commitment to making the marriage into one that will make you both happy. This requires NC with the OM. It requires that you each establish boundaries that protect your marriage and boundaries that protect each other from your own selfish actions and desires. But you only have control over yourself and can only change your own behavior, your own actions and reactions. You can never control hers. You can't even prevent her from having another affair. Only she can do that.

Now making the marriage a great one requires a whole bunch of things but they can all be summed up into four basic parts:

Care (Meeting each other's emotional needs)

Protection (Identifying and eliminating Love Busters)

Time (Spending time with each other meeting each other's top emotional needs, especially the needs of conversation [no affair talk or discussion of hard issues allowed here] affection, sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship)

Honesty (RADICAL but not insulting or abusive, emotional honesty being most important and all done without Love Busters of any sort)

If you would like I can address the specifics of the overdraft later...

Mark

Great post Schtoop Inspirational stuff

Hi EC

Just thought I would add my 2cents.

Firstly I do not think there is one plaster that is going to fit all situations. We can not always make a woman do what we want and that would not ultimately be desirable.

I think what we need to do is manage each situation as it comes up and in doing so not leave ourselves looking like a doormat.

With the cheque book, we can not make them be sensible but we can educate them. I sat my ex wife down pulled out the bank statements and calmly showed her where all the money was going. I pointed out $20 is not much but 5 times a day is $3000 a month, $36000 a year, $360000 over 10 years. They do get the idea and then I suggest cutting up the credit card. I put her on a cash budget and she was far happier with this.

With your hairdryer incident you know it is only a hair style.
I know you think she is taking the p#ss but you have to look at bigger picture.
What you have now is a whole lot of tension, over what? A hair style.
Wife may have curly hair and you may think this is victory, but I can imagine wife being like, "Oh God, I have to dress like a clown otherwise EC will start sulking or have a tantrum".
This is not a good look for you. A hollow victory.

Someone here has to be the adult.
When wife straightens hair, if it was me (And I know MelodyLane wont like this) I would say "You know I am really starting to like you with straight hair." You might think you are loosing here but in her eyes she is now doing what you want. It knocks it dead as an issue. If she decides to annoy you further and curl her hair, well thats good too.
This way it seems like you are in control. This is a good look.

I have no problem saying no to a woman but we do have to choose our battles and manage the outcomes so that we appear to be in control. Sometimes it necessary to go with the flow and in these situations I try a make out it is my idea.

Well heck, I won't take many words: Usually when a woman is going out of her way to make you unhappy, it is because she is, usually about something she is unwilling to admit. We are supposed to guess. Women aren't wired like men. Sometimes I think that is a good thing.

Larry

Jack, its not that *I* wouldn't like it, that is not the issue. It is that your suggestion is not an effective strategy for recovery. Affair triggers should be avoided and eliminated as much as possible, not ignored. He won't be "knocking dead" the issue if he is triggered. He will be
a walking rage machine.

If anything triggers a betrayed spouse who is recovering from an affair, it should be eliminated. That benefits them both and aides their recovery. Wearing your hair in a manner that upsets your spouse causes incompatibility and instability in the marriage. If he just sucks it up, pretty soon he is eaten up with resentment.

The advice to avoid affair triggers is not *MY* advice, it is DR HARLEY'S advice. And that is what we are here for, after all, since he is the one who knows how to save marriages.

Jack, none of this is in line with Marriage Builders concepts. Have you read any of the material here? I am puzzled why you are here giving advice when you know nothing about the material? Do you know that ElCamino and his wife are working with Dr Harley directly?

Hi JB,

One of the things I've learned in the short time that I've been working on the MB program is about "educating" my wife. Without a doubt that doesn't work - I have the scars to prove it.

I suggest you take a look at the basic concepts of MB. In specific see Disrespectful Judgments under the Love Busters section:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3402_disrespect.html

Actually, one of the areas where I need to continue making progress is in eliminating my bad habit of trying to educate my spouse. I have slowly come to learn that it can only hurt my marriage in the long run. It may seem counter-intuitive but, if you look really deep into it, you'll find that DJ are a nasty way to show that your view is superior to your spouse's.

Please take the to read the MB concepts - you won't regret it. Some of Dr. Harley's ideas may sound a little radical so you should study the concepts as a whole to understand the logic. Even though I am struggling in implementing some parts of the program, I believe that MB is the right tool to gain a great marriage.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

to jack...

No man is a prophet in his own castle. A man can lead by example, but he better keep his mouth shut about what he is doing.

Got it?

Larry

As a woman I have to say, if you as a man try to educate me, you are not going to reach me.

Now if you say "hey honey let's try this new concept TOGETHER and see what happens if we BOTH do it" I might think on it a little more.

Jack, stop it. Go read Dr. Harley's stuff so you can debate and advise based on what you know instead of what you guess.

Larry

Mark,
It typically takes me a couple of days to absorb your posts. Great stuff!

What I am realizing is what is at stake is the principle of the POJA. Our marriage should be run under the POJA in order to be successful. So what I really need to seek is a full commitment to POJA. Instead of arguing about hairstyle, family visitations, or others petty stuff, our focus should be on buying into the principle of the POJA.

So right now, the island that I'm willing to die on is the principle of the POJA. That's where I'll draw the line on the sand. I expect to achieve a marriage that uses the POJA to resolve conflicts. So if there's another hairstyle issue, instead of focusing in the action, I'll raise a complain regarding a violation of the POJA principle. Instead of talking about curly/straight hair, the conversation you be about our commitment to the rules that protect our M. I my spouse believe in POJA or doesn't want to commit to consistently executing it then I may need to use a boundary.

I just had a brief conversation with Rizos. She approached me with the concern that we're in withdrawal from each other. In addition to other concerns such as me wanting a "perfect marriage". I replied that we should strive to obtain a great loving marriage. Anything less will not be worth the effort. So that's why we should commit to the MB program.

In our first coaching session with Steve Harley he assigned roles to us. I am the patient, Rizos the physician and SH the supervisor. Rizos is supposed to be taking care of my wound. I let her do her job. If I have a complain, I take it to the supervisor. I never felt that Rizos adopted the physician role. Her defensiveness has been a huge impediment to perform the physician role. Her motto continues to be that I should "move on"

Anyways, her act of approaching me was a good gesture so I'm happy about that one. We decided to avoid LBs and get a more active use of POJA as a starting point to get ourselves out of withdrawal.

--ElCamino72

El C


I got that, as you know, a long time ago. So what did Steve say about it?

Larry

I've told Steve that I am suing the hospital for malpractice

I know he's taken the issue with Rizos but since those conversations are done separate I don't have the exact details. There were some adjustments in Rizos' treating me as a patient but that didn't last too long. I am not sure if that approach still applies. But it feel like it didn't last long enough.

--ElCamino72

EC,

You don't need to commit to POJA or get a commitment from her to POJA you need to follow POJA...Both of you need to do it but you don't have to wait for her to start doing it.

According to Dr Harley, the most important part of resolving any conflict in marriage is preserving your love for each other. It is more important than any conflict and more important than any resolution to the conflict. It is important when you are wrong but also when you are right. Right and wrong are not as important to your marriage as being in love with each other.

What will save your marriage and what will make it a great one will be the two of you deeply in love with each other. If you are in love with each other, almost any other issue in the marriage can be handled even if it never gets resolved. How you try to fix it matters more than getting it fixed.

As for the moving on and getting over it and all that jazz...BTDT. What makes it so hard as a BS is that you really do eventually have to decide to go forward since remaining stuck in the past prevents you from living in the present and that is what keeps any Love Bank deposits the WS is trying to make from getting through.

Some of it has to do with triggers and some of it has to do with intertwined triggers. When an affair is so interconnected in personal life and business and a double betrayal is involved one memory leads to another which feeds back to the other side again which ramps up the emotions and feed back the other way and before long you are living out your whole life all over again and it keeps you from even feeling anything other than sorrow and pain. Getting past that back and forth, one betrayal feeding the other kind of dynamic memory equation is hard but I think that if the first step memories that feed into that storm can be managed (not changed but replaced with other memories by actively thinking about something else when they come up) that the whole process can be taken down a notch at a time until the whole thing falls apart.

This is something that Rizos can only marginally help you with, BTW. You are the one who sees the cloud building and so you are the one who has to change the way it is all coming together. You know when you think of something that is going to trigger you. If you can identify it sooner, you can actively begin to think of something more pleasant rather than heading into that spiral of one thought feeding an emotion which triggers another thought which leads to more emotion and so on until you are paralyzed by emotion and unable to act in order to dig out of the mess.

The secret is in learning to recognize that first trigger and knocking it down before the emotional content appears. You have about 1 1/2 or two minutes at most to do this before the emotion shows up, so you have to learn to recognize it for what it is before the emotions flood over you. This is where Rizos can really help BTW is if you can learn to communicate to her the process of eliminating the emotional content of triggers she might be able to do little things that can layer on more new memories that don't lead you back into the betrayal stuff.

As for her tending to your wounds, in my case my wife got to tend to a real wound 6 months or so into recovery. I had a wound (the result of an infection) that tried to eat the skin starting with the skin on the side of my ribcage and I ended up having two surgeries, one to stop the infection and the second to fix the 4 X 8 inch whole in my side that had no skin, fat or any other covering all the way to the muscle underneath. Between the two surgeries, my wife changed the dressings every day, and pretty much took care of me in ways I had never experienced from her before.

Remember, EC, that POJA isn't just about you getting what you want or stopping her from her IB. It is all about not hurting each other as you learn to deal with conflicts and not hurting each other is the most important part of the whole deal. I'd go so far as to say that your goal should be to not hurt her even when she hurts you. You don't have to go back and make things right once they are done wrong, since you can't really change what already happened anyway. The best you can accomplish, IMO, is doing no further damage so that you guys can be in love with each other.

Being in love is what brought you together and loving each other is what will keep your marriage going. Everything that either of you does can either add to that or diminish it. You are either building love or destroying it with each word, act or reaction. If you eliminate all the things that damage love and only do things that build it up, you will live a long happy life together.

I know people always talk about how love isn't enough, but you can't be happily married if it isn't present. When it is you can work with almost anything that comes along...

Mark

Things have been better in the last few days. I really needed a breather from the LBs atmosphere so I'm catching a good break. Last Saturday, Rizos had a moment that felt like a genuine effort to amend. Not much was said but her approach had a remorseful tone which I don't think I've heard before in this process.

She also talked to my mother over the weekend which I recognize as a huge effort to do what's right. In addition, there have been positive attempts to POJA some issues. For a few days we've been doing much better at meeting our needs. Now I just need to continue executing my part to sustain it.

I spent the last month in a defensive stance waiting for the right moment to make a come back. This is it, the time to get out of the shell and charge again. Here come the championship rounds. This is the last stand - where it gets decided what kind of R will follow.

We'll see.

--ElCamino72

Last week, Rizos asked me about my feelings towards one her sisters. I have previously complained to Rizos about my issues with their relationship. Rizos asked me point blank if I wanted her to end contact with her sister. My answer was yes - I'd prefer we don't have contact with her. I am not demanding or asking her to break her relationship with her sister but I am requesting that we POJA the issue.

Rizos states that not having a relationship with her sister is an LB for her so she feels this is a deadlock where one of us will inevitably end up with a bankrupt LB$ This is an emotionally loaded issue for Rizos - there have been tears when the issue is discussed and suspicion that this is yet another way for me to control her.

Do you have any ideas on how we can resolve this matter or recommendations that we can throw at POJA negotiations?

I'll appreciate your comments or suggestions.

Thanks

El Camino, take it to Dr Harley and let him be the bad guy. You know what he is going to say.

You're right ML. I'll take it to the good Dr. Just wanted to run it by here so that I don't go bothering Dr. Harley with an out of whack question.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

EC, I'm not sure this is the best attitude right now.

Recovery, and getting to where you can start recovery, is a process. It is a marathon, not a sprint. I'm glad you guys are at a better place right now and this is certainly a great opportunity to advance things. But, there will be many more downtimes as well as many more good opportunities.

Try to take advantage of the favorable turns when they happen, and also try to work through and not dwell too much on the downturns.

I can see some of myself in you, in that we really dwell on the negative or what we perceive as the way things should be done. Unfortunately, acting on these obsessions is always viewed as controlling by our spouses.

Hello schtoop,

Hope you're doing well. BTW, I'd like to see an update to your thread.


Yes, this process is a long grueling marathon.

The way I see it is that in order to participate in the real marathon which is recovery, you need to go through qualification races (Plan A and possibly Plan B). I am currently running the Plan A race. At some point in this race, I realized that I needed to take the pace down a few notches to save myself for the later legs. Now I am going to increase the pace for the last push. Depending on the results of the Plan A race, I get to know which one follows.

The balance that I�ve been trying to figure out is that I don�t want to burn myself out or get injured in Plan A which could prevent me from having the opportunity to participate in the other races. At the same time I want to run fast enough to qualify directly to the M recovery race. It's not a sprint but as a contested race, the pace of the last lap is bound to get really fast.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

EC,

She's with you and not him, has NC with him, talks to SH on the phone, posts on MB for advice...You're MILES ahead of most of the field.

Qualifying races ended a long time ago, my friend. This is the one that counts. You are either going to win or lose based on where you finish THIS race and not some hypothetical future event.

The way things go under MB is that you learn what her ENs are and begin to meet them. You also learn what Love Busters you commit and rid your life of them entirely.

At the same time, she is learning to do the same things. You each learn at a different pace; you each learn the most important piece of the whole thing for your spouse at a different time in the process and you learn to handle conflict in ways that actually cause your love to grow for each other instead of destroying what is left.

Now here's the thing, you start learning this in Plan A, you keep learning it in recovery and you keep learning an applying it for the rest of your marriage. There aren't any breaks. Slow downs don't just slow progress, they reverse it. In a MB marriage you will meet her EN, avoid Love Busters, follow POJA and PORH and spend ever more time with your wife until one of you dies. That is what a MB marriage IS.

Now just so you know, it isn't always so crappy, but triggers are gonna happen for a lot longer than you want them to and you are going to have days you want to run over her with the car. On those days, you have to meet her ENs and avoid Love Busters, follow POJA and PORH and spend time with her. Those are the things that overcome the crappy days, EC. If you need a break, take a short break to clear your thoughts so you can control AOs et al and get on with the program. If you take a day off or a week vacation from building your marriage, the work already done will erode and you'll have to do it all over again.

What I'm telling you is you don't get to save energy for later because this IS later. And just so you realize that your analogy isn't falling on deaf ears, I was a runner. I never did a full marathon but did 10 K and 5 k routinely and ran the mile and two mile in high school, sometimes both at the same meet. I ran marathon distance on occasion just not for time. (made the 1000 mile club one year) I understand that feeling of "I am so tired and there is so far to go and I just need to catch my breath and..." Marathon guys called it "the wall" and when it hits (you don't hit it, it hits you) you either quickly overcome the desire to stop and rest or your race is over. Sometimes it hurts like hell and sometimes you feel like you will die if you don't stop for just a second or two. Your head might feel light, your feet hurt, your legs feel like lead, your heart is telling you "That's all she's got, Captain" and your lungs went on strike about 200 yards before you knew they were unhappy with their contract. You just KNOW you will die if you don't stop right this second...

And 5 minutes later you are passing people who didn't figure out how to get past that feeling as you begin to build toward the Finnish. The guys who win this event are the ones who overcome the desire to quit and rest. THAT is why people call it a marathon and not just because it takes so long. You can't win it in the first mile, but you can lose it in the first 10 yards.

Mark

A good way to POJA sisters:

Get specific about the nature of the complaint:

What is is about her being around her sister that bothers you?

• Rizos behaves disrespectfully when she gets home from such a visit?
• Do you feel that she doesn't talk about you kindly behind your back?
  
• Does she dress or talk in a way that was similar to when she was cheating on you?
• Is her sister openly disrespectful of you?
• Is her sister engaging in affairs?
  
  

Get really specific about what it is that bothers you. Is it something Rizos does in your relationship while under the influence of SIL, or is it SIL's behavior and attitude itself?

If it's something Rizos does and can change, then POJA that and see what happens. If it's SIL, Rizos can work on being a peacemaker and laying down some boundaries that she won't tolerate SIL disrespecting you under any circumstances.

Make sense?

EC,

I have updated my status. Thanks for the push.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2313483&page=17

Hi Mark,

As usual, you make excellent arguments. However, I would like to fully understand the logic and remove some doubts about my course of action.

So it seems like I may be handling R with the wrong plan. I�ve considered myself to be in plan A since Nov. Are you saying that I should be approaching the process like I�m past the plan A part of R?

I am content with being "ahead of most of the field". Our process has many things going well. For one, exposure and business pressure quickly killed OM's side of the A after DDay. So that helped us where others have struggled tremendously.

Additionally, I am really happy that we are both learning to practice MB concepts. Counseling with Steve Harley and the Weekend program are HUGE pluses. We�ve been acquiring the tools to create and maintain a great M. One where Rizos and I can be deeply in love.

However, for various reasons, I don't sense that we're running in the path to a great M. Yes, the circumstances have helped to stop the A but many times I find that my compass points that we're headed to our previous M. That's a place I don't want to go back.

I am willing to prepare and run the toughest marathon imaginable but I want know there is a significant prize at the finish line. I don�t want to run just for the sake of it or to obtain a marginal place. I want to train and compete for the big purse: a great M. So, how can I measure that we're running to win?

Thanks

--ElCamino72

Hi KA,
There are a number of things that bother me about SiL including:

• SiL divorced her previous husband to shortly after marry her current husband who used to be her boss.
• SiL�s husband has a constant need to tell me how much money he makes and how good he is to his family. He�s gone as far as pull me to the side to question my dedication to my daughters. If one of my relatives would be that disrespectful to Rizos, there�s no doubt I�d be all over their case.
• SiL took the role of "fashion advisor" to Rizos which led to a radical make over a couple of years ago. For quite a while I used to think that Rizos wanted to look like a twin of SiL. I never felt comfortable with that look. I�ve always noticed that SiL makes comments about Rizos look that I feel to be disrespectful.

BTW, Dr. Harley responded to my question regarding SiL in the Weekend forum in this thread: POJA SiL. His recommendation was for us to avoid contact with until we�re more advanced in the R process.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

EC,

What I'm telling you is that if you are holding back, waiting to see if the prize is worth the effort, you will never get the prize.

The only way to get the top spot is to go all out unless you have so much more talent that you can run just hard enough to win. The problem is that you don't even know what your competition really is and unless you give it 100% you are going to end up without much of a chance of getting what you want.

Or for the poker fans, you can lose everything by going all in, but you can't win unless you do.

Your wife is watching to see if the changes you made in Plan A were real and lasting or if they were a trick to keep her from leaving. Since the changes were all things that you need to be doing for the rest of your life anyway, why not just do them full tilt right from the start?

Instead of worrying about whether or not she is going to be the wife you desire, be the husband she needs to become that wife.

Meet her ENs, avoid Love Busters, follow POJA, remain radically honest, spend time with her...This is how you get a great marriage and how you keep a marriage great long term. Just do these things because these are the things that will create deeper love for each other. Solving the "issues" won't make you fall in love with each other. Delving into the problems of FOO stuff won't make your marriage great.

You married because you fell in love. Your marriage began with so much potential because you fell in love. Your marriage took a turn for the worse when you fell out of love with each other and other stuff took the place of falling in love. Fall in love again. THAT is what will give you the great marriage you BOTH want.

Care
Protection
Honesty
Time

Like Nike says: Just do it...

If you do those four things, you will be able to solve any problem OR you will be in love even if the problems never get fully solved. The answer to a great marriage is being in love with each other, and doing only things that keep you in love with each other while doing NOTHING that makes you fall out of love with each other.

And you can only control what YOU do to that end...

POJA
PORH
UA
Meeting each other's ENs

When something needs to be fixed it is more important to avoid hurting each other than it is to fix the problem.

Marriages fail because people fall out of love with each other.

People fall out of love with each other because they don't provide Care, Protection, Honesty and Time.

Why run a race at all if you aren't running to win?

WINNING is the prize, not the trophy you receive.

You can't win if you don't run fast enough and long enough to reach the finish line. You can do your best and lose, but you can't do less than your best and win. You can't run half way and win. You can't run half speed and win. You can't give half effort and win.

If you are going to run...

Then RUN!!!

You don't have to sprint, but you have to keep running...

Walking or taking a break will NOT get you to the finish in first place. There is no trophy for analyzing the value of the reward. Winning IS the reward.

You don't have to lead every mile, just be in the lead when you reach the line but you can't get to the lead by taking a break or a detour along the way.

I guess I'm done 'cause I'm out of ways to say it...

You can't get a great marriage by taking a break from
Care
Protection
Honesty and
Time...
These are the things that make us fall in love.
They are what make a marriage great.

Mark

Mark,

So is it

Care
Protection
Honesty and
Time...

?

I notice there's a pattern in your message . OK. I get it.

Nothing to lose and everything to gain. So here I go. Watch me put blinders on and run like I belong in the Kenyan marathon national team.

Thanks for your patience.

--ElCamino72

The crazy making has been recently bringing the worst out of me. Living full of anger and resentment is not where I want to be. A couple of weeks ago, I sensed that my end of the rope was near so I resorted to completely ignore Rizos.

What�s making things worse for me is that we now have the tools. So there should be no excuses. Our biggest problem has been the implementation of the POJA. My tolerance for IB is now very low. Specially for behavior that Rizos knows will hurt me and she still continues to do it without consideration.

We had a session with Steve today and things are a little calmer at home. Still, I can�t help to feel down and lonely. Today is my birthday but I just can�t shake some bad memories from last year's birthday. I am fighting to stay afloat. I guess that�s why they call this process "surviving".

Looking forward to better times.

--ElCamino72

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{El Camino}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

I am so sorry you are having a rough time.

EC,

Sorry you are feeling down, my friend. Don't lose your hope because it is what gives you the will to continue trying.

Some of what you are feeling is likely "simple" triggers. Brush up on trying to manipulate your own emotions through active changes in what you think about. (Managing Memories from my sig line)

Mark

Happy birthday, El Camino.

Be glad for the life that you were given and not its burdens.

Rejoice!

I understand a lot better what Mark referred in one of his posts above as "the wall" when making the marathon analogy.

Last week I was convinced that my M had finally fallen apart. But all of the sudden I am now back in the good race. It's amazing how a little turn of events can get you back on track when you thought that you were completely lost.

Big lesson I learned: don't loose hope - gotta fight through the rough patches.

Thanks for your support.

--ElCamino72

A couple of days ago, we used the POJA for our Father's day plans. We agreed to visit PIL early then go camping to the beach. This morning DD5 came down with a nasty cough and fever so we had to cancel our plans to go to the beach.

I tell Rizos that if she wants to pay a quick visit to FIL that I could stay to take care of DD5. Rizos tells me that she's staying with us at home. I ask her if she's sure. She replies that she wants to spend father's day with her husband. So far great. Right?

Then I fall sleep. Later, I can hear Rizos on the phone downstairs. For some reason, she typically goes where I can't hear her when talking over the phone with her relatives. That's something that bothers me and she knows it. I don't understand the secretiveness.

So after calls and messages, it seems like Rizos changed her mind about staying. She gets ready while I am half asleep. Then wakes me up to leave food and she's immediately gone.

When Rizos comes back, she asked if I'm OK. She already KNOWS that I am not OK so I don't know why she's asking. I keep my cool and just reply that I am not happy. She immediately storms out of the room.

So how do I feel? I feel relegated. I feel defenseless against people that interfere with our M. I feel that I am being treated with dishonesty.

Above all, I am really tired of constantly having to deal with my growing anger and resentment.

So here we go again back to square zero.

--ElCamino72

Independent behavior. She has not learned to consistently curb her IB. That is the problem. It is a hard thing to learn, ELC. She has to learn how to do this before she drains your lovebank completely.

Can you check with your coach to help her with this?

Hi ML,

Thanks for your immediate response.

Our last two recent coaching sessions have concentrated on IB. S. Harley has been making great efforts to help us in that area. Rizos has homework regarding IB. We've been reading together the IB chapters. Our next coaching session should be by the end of this week.

To me it's very puzzling that Rizos really understands the logic behind the IB concept but struggles badly to remove it from our M.
Rizos can talk in great detail about IB and other MB concepts. She's an extremely intelligent person - holds a degree in mechanical engineering and did very well in college and her career. However, the MB concepts have proved to be quite a challenge when it comes to execution.

My LB$ just goes bankrupt with these IB incidents. I used to widthstand it better but now it hits me a lot harder. I gotta find strength.

--ElCamino72

Rizos has been recently making really big deposits in my LB$ It's like an armored vehicle full of LU coming in. We are working harder in avoiding LU withdrawals. Our LB$ accounts are making gains. What a wonderful feeling!

Our job now is to keep up the progress and build connectedness.

The time for us to move is getting closer. Our plan is to relocate to the DC Metro area in a couple of months. I can't wait.

--ElCamino72

EC,

Just be sure that Rizos is on board with the move. Much easier to do than to undo.

Jes sayin'...

POJA.

ENTHUSIASTIC AGREEMENT...

Mark

Remember this on the downturns, ElC. It has been this good, and if things are bad one day, they can still be this good again.

And be sure to reciprocate!

Okay, I may be the lone voice in this opinion but here goes. I don't understand how this is IB on her part.

You OFFERED to let her go visit her dad. She declined. Was this a sacrifice on her part? (that would be her mistake). She says she wants to spend father's day with you. You fall asleep (that would be your mistake). While you're asleep did she begin to feel resentful that she made a sacrifice to stay home with you and then you fall asleep on her? (her mistake). She decides to go ahead since you're sleeping anyway. She feels guilty when she gets home but doesn't really admit it. You're mad and don't really admit it. (both of your mistakes?)

Am I reading this right?

I don't think this was a true POJA to begin with. I think Rizos probably felt she was making a sacrifice and became resentful when you fell asleep and didn't appreciate her sacrifice. Dr. Harley has a lot to say about this.

Am I just totally off the wall with this? Just tell me to go away if I am.

Hi Mark,

Rizos says that she's enthusiastic about our move. I am taking her word and her actions (looking for a place, schools, etc.) Recently, she even brought to my attention an example from Dr Harley when him and Joyce negotiated moving from CA to MN. This is a topic that I have checked with her many times (perhaps to a fault).

I personally believe that relocation will give us the best chance to R. However, I am more than willing to negotiate a change plans if that is not what she wants.

--ElCamino72

What downturns are you talkin about? C'mon brother don't rain on my parade

Seriously, I know what you mean. That's great advice. I was talking with S. Harley the same thing yesterday.

Certainly, I'll reciprocate.

Thanks
man.

--ElCamino72

@princess

I understand what you mean. Perhaps additional details not included in my post may clarify.

One of the conflicts we've had in the past (previously discussed in this thread) has been with younger SIL. A week before father's day, we had agreed to visit FIL at a time where we could avoid contact with SIL.

On fathers day, Rizos called her father to let him know that we were not going to make it because DD5 fell sick. A little while after that, Rizos gets a couple of text messages from SIL.

I perceived that these messages had the effect of changing her mind and the content was disrespectful to me. I had to find out this on my own and didn't get any feedback of the situation from Rizos other than she unilaterally decided to go.

I felt that she acted independently on the circumstances. Especially on an issue that's well known to be very sensitive for us.

You might be right that me falling sleep was a mistake that she resented. Unfortunately DD5 caught a fever and that threw a monkey wrench in our original agreement. However, I wouldn't have taken any offense if Rizos had woken me up and told me what she wanted.

But I don't want to dwell in our past mistakes. Just recently, we have made good progress in the use of the POJA with the help of S Harley and folks here (thanks to MelodyLane, the phrase "crazy POJA" has turned into a popular saying in our household ). For example, last week we dealt with a similar situation where the outcome was positive. I have to say that, in this case, we handled it in a way that made me feel much safer.

I welcome your thoughts since that may help me to see other perspectives. That is what so great about this forum.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

Hey, El C; I heard it through the grapevine that your reciprocation needs to be turned up a notch, or adjusted a bit. Hang in there; it isn't easy to learn what all you need to do. But you can learn it.

Hi markos,

That's valuable info. I really appreciate the heads up. I'll make adjustments.

The last couple of weeks have been a little bitter sweet. On one side Rizos and I are making solid progress. This is creating a very positive feeling that's bringing us closer. On the other side, my situation of having to work as a consultant in OM's company is increasingly becoming unbearable.

Just a few days ago about 10 people were fired from the company I used to co-own with OM. This included a good friend of mine who was suddenly fired. I recruited this guy a few years ago. He left a good job at a fortune 100 company and took a pay cut to come to work with me. He just had a new baby a week ago. I feel terrible about this guy with a newborn and no job in this economy.

All this fallout is out of my control and there's nothing I can do about it. I still have a couple of months in my consulting contract. We're looking for a way out this mess. Hopefully we can move sooner.

I know that me and Rizos can overcome all this. We have the tools. Our M will be stronger than ever.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

The last few days have been rough. I feel conflicted because we�ve made significant advances in several areas but at the same time there are lingering issues that are still getting in the way of our R. I don�t understand well why my tolerance to these issues is very low right now. Additionally, I�ve been feeling depressed (visited my psychiatrist a few days ago to adjust medication) and I am constantly battling with getting myself out of withdrawal.

The other day was the first anniversary of D-Day. It�s hard to forget the dark times following D-Day. However, those moments are somewhat removed from my current reality so these memories are something I can manage. The way I have to look at it is that having survived the first year is a great sign that we can make it.

Our challenges are more related to current situations.

The condition at work in OM�s company continues to be difficult. Tomorrow we�re off to VA for a week to make arrangements for our relocation. Last Friday I received a call implying legal action if I wasn�t present for a project during that week. The intimidation attempt sent me through the roof. It�s inevitable that the problems with the company fallout to cause LUs withdrawal from both of our LB$s. There�s a little over a month left in my contract so the situation should get better soon. I still feel for the people who have lost their jobs and have been affected by the ordeal but that situation is beyond our control.

My other major grievance is that SIL is still trying to interfere with our M. Just recently, she texted Rizos this gem: �[�] I don�t agree with your decision since REAL love must have NO conditions. [�] I�m still going to be your sister and I�ll be here unconditionally [...]�. I take this message as a direct attack to our M. This �unconditional love� crap is coming from somebody living in an affairage � makes me sick. Wrong can�t be right. There�s no middle ground. I feel unprotected when people are allowed to get between us and then I am expected to compromise to safeguard their feelings. I mean, how can I POJA getting LBed?

I am hoping that our relocation will put distance between our M and these problems. I can be content with us making a better situation for us by separating from these problems. OTOH, we need to keep in mind that time and distance alone are not a solution. We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us.

Comments and/or suggestions are welcomed.

--ElCamino72

I think you are triggering because you are nearing the day you will be completely out of the business. Not that you want to be partners with the OM.

That you got screw with the PA and then got screwed again with the way you had to sell the business.

It seems that the OM will be out of business within one year. Keep us posted on that if you ever hear anything.

There's a lot of triggering related to the way that I'm leaving the business. The main one is every time I run into OM. I can't trust myself much longer to avoid smashing this POS. A few times I have stared him down and said a few non-amicable words to him. He won't even look me in the eye and always runs away like the coward he is.

I know, I shouldn't be stupid enough to get in trouble just to kick the crap out of this cockroach. I just try to get a lot of this aggression out of me by working out like a maniac and with some really intense sparring sessions in my MMA/jiu-jitsu training. A good side effect is that my physical fitness and fight game is as good as it's ever been. Even better than when I was in the Army in my early twenties.

There's been a couple of sad situations with my co-workers. On Friday a group of folks wanted to make a get together to say goodbye. They've been insisting a lot to have a little party for me "to cheer me up". I declined the offer to avoid being LBed with the triggers of the conversations that will sure come up. These are people who've been in the trenches with me in so many battles. Blowing off my guys is very hard for me to do.

The company just had its worst year ever since it was created 10 years ago. Never before there were lay offs. Motivation is at its lowest and the really good people are looking to leave. The business only reached 13% of sales forecast this quarter. That's from a company that in every previous quarter had double digit growth. This is a big concern because the company still owes us a seven figure amount which is due as annual payments over the next four years.

Another concern is that now I have to look for a new job in the area we're planning to move. This means that I have to get up from my recent slip into depression. So I must find the strength. It isn't easy but I've done it before and I can do it again.

--ElCamino72

I am done.� We rented our house and I decided to leave on my own.� There isn't anything good left for me to give.� I am completely drained.� Time to shift my focus to personal recovery and to get my self confidence back.

It's overwhelmently sad. Not what I had planned but I gave it all.

I appreciate the support.

--ElCamino72

WTH?

EC, just when you wife is starting to GET IT, you are done and walking away...

Sometimes you just can't go on anymore.

Only ElC knows his limits.

I understand. I've taken way too many blows. Need to protect myself. The IB problem is more than I bargained.

I didn't go into the fight thinking that I'd go out this way. Nobody wins. Just gotta recognize when enough is enough.

--ElCamino72

ELcamino, I figured you were at the bottom when Rizos told me you asked for divorce.

Do you have the strength to ride this out? You are almost at a place where you don't have to ever see the OM again. You are almost out of there.

In my own recovery, I hit a very bad place around the 9 month mark where the shock wore off and FURY set in. I asked myself why I was settling for such a loser, a low cheating man who was not worthy of me.

I learned later this was the climax of recovery because after this short phase I went into a very peaceful period that led to some real recovery and a great degree of happiness.

Are you at the 9-10 month mark?

I don't think I have ever posted to you but I am sorry this is where you find yourself.

If Rizos is lovebusting you (IB), not doing a great job at meeting your ENs...in combination with being triggered by seeing OM and being in that first year of recovery, it's kinda easy for me to understand how you could be feeling hopeless about the M.

Recovery has not been smooth for me. My H has slipped into bad habits the further we get into R and has had struggles w/AOs and dishonesty. Accountability and being told by a third party (Steve H and talking directly to Dr H) in addition to being told by me that I am feeling pretty hopeless about the M seems to be reaching him...finally... Unfortunately some people are harder to reach than others LOL but it doesn't mean things can't turn around for your M.

I guess I am urging you to stick with it a little bit more, especially given that Rizos sounds committed to stopping the lovebusters and meeting your ENs and she's got Mel guiding her, I really think you could feel a world of difference in a relatively short period of time...especially since you are finally getting POSOM out of the picture.

Hang in there!

el c
I see you reaching the end of your rope.

Why?

Because WW's affair never ended till now.

Why?

No NC for you as well. Every day you had to see the OM. Forced to sell out your business in a one sided deal.

Get on that plane and give your WW and kids a chance. Recovery was never going to happen until all ties with the OM were cut an NC in place.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Give YOU another chance too. Your kids deserve for you to try a little longer. What would all of this time have been about if you were gonna throw in the towel now? Hang on a bit longer please.

It's been a little over a year since d-day.� The hardest time of my life without a doubt (and I am sure being through a lot of crap in life).

I have pondered the timing of my decision.� It sucks because just a week ago I thought that a fresh start was just around the corner.�

So it didn't cross my mind that I'd find myself taking this direction now after so much.� We actually rented our house here in PR and found a place in VA in a nice neighborhood and a great school for DDs.� My job search in the area was going really well.� I had two very good job� interviews lined up for this week and several other opportunities on the table. So I also ask myself why can I just sock it up and keep trying. It's hard to explain. All I know is that I just had it.

Can I continue trying to R?� Maybe yes.� But it looks like boderline suicide going in that direction.� The IB issue hasn't got much better and I no longer tolerate the pain it brings. I took too much of it recently and it put me beyond the threshold.

If there's ever a good moment to split, this may be it.� Moving to another state seems very risky for my personal recovery hopes and difficult to undo.� I am not convinced that relocation alone is going to solve our problems.� Yes, it could get me away from a lot of negativity and that may help but the IB and reluctance to use the POJA is still going to follow us. There's too much of it to overcome in a reasonable time frame.� I'm just not willing to compromise anymore.

I don't want to keep investing in plans together cause the way things are it's very likely that I'll soon end up all beat up again. I can tell that this is not like other times�I felt down during this process. This time I lost ALL hope.

I am aware that divorce is not something to be throwing around lightly. I am going into it knowing the sad repercussions. So I'm really broken. I hear your urges. Can't help to feel awful about quitting but at this point is about personal survival. I don't have it anymore.

The girls are staying with me today at a resort. That's helping to keep me together.

Thanks you all for been there.

--ElCamino72

Hi ElC,

I don't recall the family you have in PR, but what is left for you there? Your girls will be in VA and you a couple of potential jobs. You can always return to PR later but what is there for you now...besides OM and triggers?

Sorry for your pain. I think you have given all you have to give. You have been following the MB program and talking to Dr Harley and Steve.

Your M has had the best chance I've seen here in a while. But unfortunately your WW just doesn't get it! She had all the MB support available to her and she has refused to follow it.

SHE had the A. She has ruined your lives. Let her deal with the consequences, and you focus on your own recovery.

After that who knows.....

The questions I have for you are, what is your next step? What is your plan? What are you going to do next? Where are you going to live? Can you stay in PR and have your DDs living a life without you in VA?

Chances are that we'll soon end up back here anyways so relocation seems like wasting more time and money. Also the idea of doing anything together with Rizos feels counterproductive.

I do not agree with the girls moving to VA.

There isn't much of a plan yet since I wasn't preparing for this.

--ElCamino72

Then why not take it one step at a time and go ahead with the plan you already had in place. Seriously, what do you have to lose at this point?

You have ONE plan right now, and that is the move to VA. you struggled to get past the feelings from this move. You did a lot of work. Just a little push over the hump.

From the stolen words of Steve, "What would your ideal sitch be? For you to be happily married to the mother of your children?" How can you make that a possibility? I know it looks bleak right now, Rizos has made some headroom. WSs seem to take a lot longer to "get" MB. Maybe Rizos will be ready to start picking up the ball on the recovery stuff. Give her a chance. You have come so far.

I've received a few messages from Rizos in the last couple of days.� I also just read some of her recent posts.� Maybe it's just me because I have skin in the game but I find it uhm... amusing.

So you ask� "what do you have to lose?"� Right now all I have left is my self respect.� Can't let that be taken away from me.

The plan failed so it makes no sense to continue. BTW, I strongly disagree with letting Rizos take my daughters away to VA.

--ElCamino72

I just read through your thread and first off do not listen to "My Family"...OMG talk about someone who is just NEGATIVE.

ELC, you do not need anything negative right now.

That being said. I have read so much on this site, and I also am a BS, just one year out from DD as well. Its weird because I read what Melody said about the 9 month mark and that mark may or may not hit everyone at the same time, but I also hit it a couple months ago. I was so upset because I thought I was doing so well and anger set in and depression and questions. Just like you.

I stuck it out and I'm better now and I know you will be too. Do not let Satan win and destroy another family...PLEASE!!! You have your DD's to think of and you owe it to them who you choose to bring into this world to try EVERYTHING to make this marriage work and I do not believe you have. Not EVERYTHING.

Go to VA try a change of location, if after a year or 2,,,,yes I said a year or 2 and both of you truly doing the MB way 100% it is not working OK, then do whatever.

I am so happy I stayed and fought for my marriage, can't say I was always in that mind set. I wake up every morning and look over at my sleeping husband and thank God he is there.

After reading your posts you are an intelligent man, I think you are going to be OK. Be strong, give your DD's a great example of what they will one day look for in their H's. I will be praying for you all!!!

HU

ElC, I wasn't suggesting that Rizos take your children away from you. I was hoping that you would go WITH them. WITH YOUR CHILDREN. You don't have a plan. I was suggesting that you go along with the plan.

Lemme put it to you this way. When were you supposed to leave to go to VA? You have no house right now right? The house you have is IN VA. Your children need a place to live. They need some stability in their life right now. I didn't imply that you need to live with Rizos BUT you should get outta PR for a while. there are too many triggers for you there. Many people warned you that this might happen with the constant dealings with OM.

Seriously, what are you going to do? Where are your children going to sleep at night? Where are they going to call HOME?

There are a lot of things you are dealing with all at once and I know that you see Rizos as the cause of the destruction of your life. You have had to give up so much and I am in NO WAY suggesting that you give up your children too. What are you going to do? Get a plan in place. If you really are going to D Rizos, that is your choice. I see some posters suggesting that there is a chance that you could change your mind. There is a chance that you COULD recover your marriage. Wouldn't THAT be in the best interest of your children? Could you give it a try in a new place? Could you remove yourself from all things to deal with the A and see if you really CAN get your marriage back?

Work the whole MB plan and see where it takes you. Could it be possible that one day, you would look back at THIS CHOICE and say, "What if?" Would you be able to love with that choice? Will you be able to look into your daughter's faces and be able to tell them, truthfully that you did EVERYTHING POSSIBLE? Not asking you to give the word, just some more time.

Do yourself and your wife a favor. Create a list of EVERYTHING it would take for you to stay married. Kind of like plan B conditions. A lot of times talking about this stuff stirs up too many emotions and nothing gets communicated very well. Put these requests in like a contract form that you can point out if the contract is being breached. If you have completely laid it out and the contract continues to be broken, then you can feel free to move on and Rizos would have nothing to complain about because she agreed to the contract.

It makes no sense to for me to continue supporting a cruel relationship.� Moving to VA would be like approving the wrongdoings of a person who clearly still feels entitled to continue her selfish behavior and has little empathy. I paid dearly for my mistakes and have been humbled by the loss. I realize the cost to save my M is more than I had to give. My mind is only thinking about removing myself ASAP from this mess at all cost.

--ElCamino72

What about your children?

I can't grieve enough the long term effects that this desicion is going to have on the girls. I've been terrified all along about the prospects of my DDs growing up in a broken home. But I can't let that stop me from taking a stand for what is right. What kind of example would I make for them if I settle for an abusive relationship?

--ElCamino72

I think your girls would rather come from a broken home than have a broken father.

I know this is a marriage-building site, but reading the posts from Rizos, my take is that she really does not understand what part she played in the outcome of all of this, the blame shifting still continues.

Affairs have a trickle affect that are far reaching and Rizos' posts comes across of her putting herself first and not trying to understand where your pain is coming from.

Sorry that you feel this is your only option ElC.

No reason for him not to be with his children. Why should he have to lose daily access to his children because he's no longer willing to work with a LB'ing unfaithful wife?

She can demonstrate if she's really about recovering her marriage, which may mean understanding the damage she's done and accepting that one of the natural consequences is that he doesn't want her to be part of the family unit at this point in time.

I don't think he's said he doesn't want to have a family with his children. He's simply saying he doesn't want to be with her. Nothing in that indicates that he wants to abandon his children. He simply no longer sees his wife as a member of the team.

So why should he lose daily access to his children?

I think you missed my point or I made it badly. I'm saying if you're giving up on this marriage (which is understandable) please don't give up on your girls. What is stopping you from taking them with YOU wherever you decide to end up? I think you're the better parent right now because clearly Rizzos is in "me me me" mode and that can't be good for your girls. They deserve better.

I haven't been here in a while. Rizos told me about the developments of a particular thread here so I decided to take a look and write a quick update.

It's hard to believe that it's been over 2 years since DDay. Rizos and I still live together but there isn't a whole lot of hope in R and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. So there isn't anything special to report there.

I still occasionally think about the nasty consequences the A brought to my live. Those thoughts make me angry but I've learned to harness those feelings to fuel my confidence - I know I'm strong enough to make it through the toughest times.

During the A tribulations, I used to repeat to myself the all too common mantra of the recent BS: "do not have expectations". Over time, I've changed it to "expect the worse from other people and the best from myself". That seems to be working a whole lot better.

Anyways, we moved to the US and so far I'm really happy with the area. Our DDs seem to be thriving and doing really well in school. I recently started a new company and secured a pretty nice contract with a very prestigious agency. The business potential here looks really positive.

Just wanted to say hello and thank all the good MB folks who supported me during difficult times.

--ElCamino72

Hi ElCamino!

Hi Melody!

Rizos and I were talking about you today. Nice to see you are still running a tight ship around here :-)

--ElCamino72

heheheeeee...

How is that crazy Irish chick??

Those Irish chicks are nuts. At least she's been wearing her hair curly so I haven't killed any blow drivers lately

How are things in the great state of Texas?

Hi, ElCamino! It's good to see you around!

ElCamino,

It is good to read you here again. I remember you well from the MB weekend. There is no way I could forget 3 below zero weather in MN. Glad to hear the business and DDs are doing well.

Do you still work any MB plan? My H and I still chart our UA time. We are on week 83 and found it made a significant difference in our feelings.

AM

AM

Hey markos. It's nice to read you.

armymama, let's say that the memories of that MB weekend are always going to be frozen in our minds. I'm glad that you've made progress. We aren't working any MB plan. Right now the situation is plan RM (roommate). There wasn't much left for me to give after last year's fallout.

--ElCamino72

EC,

Good to hear from you again! Glad things are working out in VA.

Sorry that you haven't been able to move forward in your recovery, don't know what to say.

I remember when you left you had reached you limit and pretty much shut down. Rizzos seemed distraught and wanted to anything necessary to get on the recovery path. Has she slowed down, or have you just never been able to turn the switch back on again?

It's important to resolve this at some point. Plan RM isn't fair for anyone.

Especially your kids.

I am curious why you are still together if you are not following any plan of recovery.

Are you still open to recovery?

Hi schtoop, thanks for stopping by. I hope things are well on your side.

After our break down last year, I couldn't find a reason to turn the switch back on. It got to a point where I had it with the continued IB and lack of openess. I just didn't feel that the right conditions existed for me to commit. Too much squeeze for too little juice.

Regards

--ElCamino72

Prisca

I agree, there is nothing fair about this situation. It's a pick your poison type of scenario. I guess the main reason we're still together is that status quo creates the less amount inconvinience for everybody.

I wouldn't completely rule out me opening up to recovery. However, as of now, it may very well fall under the miracles category.

--ElCamino72

ElCamino,

Do you have caring love in your household? Do you still have a hope for romantic love?

When things were bad in our house, I still cared about my H. And one time, we talked about dissolving the marriage. But we both still had hope that we could fashion the marriage into something wonderful for both of us. Our vision for the end of our marriage was/is one of being really elderly, walking hand in hand and dying in each other's arms, totally in love.

We agreed that the MB program offered the best chance of that. We follow the program without deviation. If we wander even the tiniest bit, we re-direct and get back on the MB track. Our status now is that H is in love with me and usually, normally, almost always, I am in love with H.



AM