I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief. This is only my opinion, and I wish I would've taken my own advice years earlier.
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc. Sure, there are some positive stories of reconciliation on Marriage Builders, but this place is not an accurate cross-section of real life. No matter how much you love your WS, no matter what they promise, odds are that they will either cheat again at some point, you'll be stuck in mediocre-at-best marriage, or both.
You can't really rebuild trust after being betrayed like that. Some people claim they have, but I simply don't believe them. I think they are deluding themselves out of fear of ending the marriage. They can't do better than a cheater? Really? I can.
These WSs deserve to dropped like a bad habit, and every BS deserves better. If you don't think you deserve a partner who HAS NEVER cheated on you, then you should take a hard look at your self-esteem. Unconditional love should only apply to your kids, if anyone at all. I don't think it's healthy to continue to love someone who physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured you so they could have an orgasm or an ego boost.
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
Sorry to hear your M ended, mine too. However MB prepared me to survive WW' A and helped me move on. I have no regret doing painful plan A then plan B.
I am now happily married and using MB. It worth all the pain I have to go through.
-rh-
Damn, that was harsh.
However, I think you're missing a big point.
What you wrote here absolutely applies when only one of the marriage partners is on board with trying to recover the marriage. What surprised me the most is that the reluctant one is usually the wayward. Totally the opposite of what I would have thought before living through it myself.
I'm still committed to saving my marriage, but that committment is weakening daily. It's just hard to shoulder the whole load and be the only one trying to change.
I think there's a common thread that goes through all of these stories. The successful recoveries only happen when BOTH parties are fully committed. Otherwise, the outcome is nearly certain.
I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief. This is only my opinion, and I wish I would've taken my own advice years earlier.
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc. Sure, there are some positive stories of reconciliation on Marriage Builders, but this place is not an accurate cross-section of real life. No matter how much you love your WS, no matter what they promise, odds are that they will either cheat again at some point, you'll be stuck in mediocre-at-best marriage, or both.
You can't really rebuild trust after being betrayed like that. Some people claim they have, but I simply don't believe them. I think they are deluding themselves out of fear of ending the marriage. They can't do better than a cheater? Really? I can.
These WSs deserve to dropped like a bad habit, and every BS deserves better. If you don't think you deserve a partner who HAS NEVER cheated on you, then you should take a hard look at your self-esteem. Unconditional love should only apply to your kids, if anyone at all. I don't think it's healthy to continue to love someone who physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured you so they could have an orgasm or an ego boost.
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
I'm sorry terrible things happened to you, Krazy, and I hope you're moving on in a healthy way.
I have to say that my sitch is different than yours. Everyone's got their own personal elements in the A's they're dealing with.
Another poster said something a few days ago that I've decided to wear on my heart: words to the effect of "I didn't vow to love him and stay with him just when times are good." I made a promise to myself and everyone in that church when we married. I intend to keep those vows, even in knowing this terrible thing he did.
The only way I would release myself from my vows would be if he were to hurt me again, knowing the terrible fallout we've had to cope with. And I do trust that that will never happen again. Trust, but verify.
To each his/her own, but I don't understand the desire to keep your vows when they've already broken theirs.
I know I can do better than a cheater. I will, or I'll be alone. Staying makes you a doormat, because they got away with it. They can ramble on forever about how remorseful they are, how the guilt is killing them, etc., but at the end of the day they fooled around, and kept their spouse.
Why not incorporate a "One time piece of tail on the side" clause in your wedding vows?
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me
RA ?
Krazy, I understand your perspective, but have you ever considered there might be more to some situations. For example, I can't remember if there are kids involved in your case, but for me, a quickie divorce would mean that some skanky OW would have half-custody of my children. I'd rather chew on glass than to have that happen.
From my perspective, it would have been selfish of me to just walk, and tell my kids, "sorry, good luck spending half your life with the WH and his young OW." I invested way too much in them to just abandon them.
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me
RA ?
Never. I wised up and realized I deserve better. I refuse to believe that a former cheater is the best I can do.
To each his/her own, but I don't understand the desire to keep your vows when they've already broken theirs.
I know I can do better than a cheater. I will, or I'll be alone. Staying makes you a doormat, because they got away with it. They can ramble on forever about how remorseful they are, how the guilt is killing them, etc., but at the end of the day they fooled around, and kept their spouse.
Why not incorporate a "One time piece of tail on the side" clause in your wedding vows?
It's not a game of even-steven. We'd go nuts splitting hairs over who met whose emotional needs better if the idea was to be King of the Mountain. Life sucks. Or is great. Depends on how you look at it, and depends on what you do with what you're dealt. I think life is great!
BTW, the easiest thing I could have done would have been to walk. Staying has shown me a person I didn't know I was, and I like that person.
And if I'd walked, I'd be leaving someone who has now become the perfect husband. Why would I let someone else have that after all the work I've done?
Krazy, I understand your perspective, but have you ever considered there might be more to some situations. For example, I can't remember if there are kids involved in your case, but for me, a quickie divorce would mean that some skanky OW would have half-custody of my children. I'd rather chew on glass than to have that happen.
From my perspective, it would have been selfish of me to just walk, and tell my kids, "sorry, good luck spending half your life with the WH and his young OW." I invested way too much in them to just abandon them.
Kids are never an excuse to get married, or to stay married. As long as you are married, they get to spend 100% of their time around a WS. How is that any better?
I tend to agree with you, Krazy. MB success stats are so skewed. 100%! It is to laugh.
Oh wait, fine print. Both BS and WS first must be fully on board with the program and, hmmm, reconciliation has to actually succeed. Yay, another success! Only then is their case put into the yet-another-success bin. Which seems to be the only bin available, actually.
IMO D first. Then see if you might want to get back together at your leisure. Usually best not to though. I wasted 5 years trying MB. D at my leisure is now the plan. D should have been the plan from the beginning. Come on, a continuous 10-year VLTA? How could that ever have been reconciled, MB or not MB? I was a fool to think it could be.
I
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
Glad you're happy! ITA!!!
They're inhumane!
Fog my rear! Ingrained entitlement is more like it.
I don't know if you get MB counseling but 3 years of trying will bankrupt Love Bank for sure.
-rh-
Hey Krazy, nice to see you!
I have to say I understand Krazy's pov quite well, but I also understand those who do make every attempt to recover their marriage. Is it easier to walk? Not necessarily when you factor in extenuating circumstances such as children and finances. There are many reasons to attempt recovery, not the least of which is the basic knowledge that you KNOW you did everything you could. And anybody that remembers Krazy's sitch knows that he did.
The one thing I agree wholeheartedly with Krazy on is that our WS's DO NOT DESERVE us at all. And no amount of overanalyzing who didn't meet whose ENs will make a difference. When you lay all your cards on the table, waywards are simply undeserving of a faithful spouse. Period. Some just happen to be very fortunate that their BS will even consider giving them a second chance. And great for you if you (the BS) can do that. But it's not for everyone.
To each his/her own, but I don't understand the desire to keep your vows when they've already broken theirs.
I know I can do better than a cheater. I will, or I'll be alone. Staying makes you a doormat, because they got away with it. They can ramble on forever about how remorseful they are, how the guilt is killing them, etc., but at the end of the day they fooled around, and kept their spouse.
Why not incorporate a "One time piece of tail on the side" clause in your wedding vows?
It's not a game of even-steven. We'd go nuts splitting hairs over who met whose emotional needs better if the idea was to be King of the Mountain. Life sucks. Or is great. Depends on how you look at it, and depends on what you do with what you're dealt. I think life is great!
BTW, the easiest thing I could have done would have been to walk. Staying has shown me a person I didn't know I was, and I like that person.
And if I'd walked, I'd be leaving someone who has now become the perfect husband. Why would I let someone else have that after all the work I've done?
The fact that leaving is easier than staying after infidelity is the biggest indicator that it's the correct course of action, in my opinion.
Krazy, I understand your perspective, but have you ever considered there might be more to some situations. For example, I can't remember if there are kids involved in your case, but for me, a quickie divorce would mean that some skanky OW would have half-custody of my children. I'd rather chew on glass than to have that happen.
From my perspective, it would have been selfish of me to just walk, and tell my kids, "sorry, good luck spending half your life with the WH and his young OW." I invested way too much in them to just abandon them.
Kids are never an excuse to get married, or to stay married. As long as you are married, they get to spend 100% of their time around a WS. How is that any better?
Well, Krazy, you didn't answer my question about whether you had kids or not. First of all, my H, while maybe of weak character, is more likely to remain a FWH than a WxH married to an OW with half custody of my dis. This way they get to spend 100% of their time with me, which I have to say is MUCH BETTER.
But I understand your bitterness.
OK, I just went back and read your first posts from 2007. Looks like the pain of discovery was too much for you. Maybe you would have recovered had you just bashed the OM in the kneecaps. It seems like it's more about pride and disrespect than it is about family. I just don't understand how you feel ok about leaving your children with a wayward in an unchecked situation.
I mean, you have very limited influence over your children as your WXW continues her skanky behavior. Is that really what your daughter needs to see as a role model? At least while with you, the WW has to tone it down or keep it in darkness. I dunno.
K71,
Quick question, do you feel MB helped improve you, or improved your chances of a better next relationship.
Gamma
Every BS has the right to divorce there WS or FWS at any point. They wayward gave the BS that right when they cheated.
Krazy tried, but he just couldn't get past it.
He divorced without a RA.
You did it right Krazy, you have my respect!
(But I am sorry MB could not work for you)Question
How is/did XFWW taking the fallout of her choosing to cheat?
(Divorce)
The fact that leaving is easier than staying after infidelity is the biggest indicator that it's the correct course of action, in my opinion.
I have always found for me that the harder path is the more rewarding and therefore correct choice. But that's just me.
The fact that leaving is easier than staying after infidelity is the biggest indicator that it's the correct course of action, in my opinion.
Easy doesn't necessarily equal better, though. I go with my gut instinct every time, which is sometimes the harder road. It hasn't failed me yet, though.
Again, A's have their own personalized agony for every poster. Each person has to look at what they've been dealt and go from there. I'd be the last one to say married people have to stay together regardless of what happens.
OK, I just went back and read your first posts from 2007. Looks like the pain of discovery was too much for you. Maybe you would have recovered had you just bashed the OM in the kneecaps. It seems like it's more about pride and disrespect than it is about family. I just don't understand how you feel ok about leaving your children with a wayward in an unchecked situation.
I mean, you have very limited influence over your children as your WXW continues her skanky behavior. Is that really what your daughter needs to see as a role model? At least while with you, the WW has to tone it down or keep it in darkness. I dunno.
Ick, no! I'd rather my children not have a currently wayward spouse in the home. I might be stuck by law letting the wayward spouse have the children half of the time, and there might be nothing I could do about it (though I'd certainly try). But I sure wouldn't stay with an unrepentant adulterer just for that. I don't think that makes a better life for children, at all.
Now, a formerly wayward spouse, that's different. But that would have to be someone who has no contact and is living the Marriage Builders principles.
Just to be clear, Krazy's wife made it to FWW status.
But in the long run her betrayal was just to much.
OK, I just went back and read your first posts from 2007. Looks like the pain of discovery was too much for you. Maybe you would have recovered had you just bashed the OM in the kneecaps. It seems like it's more about pride and disrespect than it is about family. I just don't understand how you feel ok about leaving your children with a wayward in an unchecked situation.
I mean, you have very limited influence over your children as your WXW continues her skanky behavior. Is that really what your daughter needs to see as a role model? At least while with you, the WW has to tone it down or keep it in darkness. I dunno.
Ick, no! I'd rather my children not have a currently wayward spouse in the home. I might be stuck by law letting the wayward spouse have the children half of the time, and there might be nothing I could do about it (though I'd certainly try). But I sure wouldn't stay with an unrepentant adulterer just for that. I don't think that makes a better life for children, at all.
Now, a formerly wayward spouse, that's different. But that would have to be someone who has no contact and is living the Marriage Builders principles.
Just to be clear--my H is a FWH. But if we separated, I don't know that his boundaries are strong enough to stay that way. Which is why I'm keeping a close eye. I agree, having a cheating spouse would be gross, but I thought Krazy's wife was a FWW. Maybe I'm wrong?
Hey Krazy! Good to see you!!!
Glad you feel better.....
but I thought Krazy's wife was a FWW. Maybe I'm wrong?
Reading Krazy's posts, I always got the idea that she was going through the motions and never really earned her 'F'. Just my impression.
Krazy, glad to hear from you again and I'm glad you're doing better.
Krazy, rebuilding isn't for everyone but for me and my FWH, rebuilding was essential because although he did a bad thing by having the A, he is a wonderful person and I want him in my life and he wants me in his life also. My DH has become an even greater man. He realizes just how awful his A was and he has done a 360. I love him both in good times and bad times and I have no regrets for staying M to him.
She was a FWW as far as I know, but to me that is irrelevant. Is a "former" rapist innocent because they are sorry and served their prison time? No. Would I befriend one because they are remorseful? No.
It's frustrating to read about so many people in pain.
Betrayal, depression, anxiety, anger, keyloggers, VARs, cell phone records, exposure, gaslighting, denial, loss of self-esteem, "Are they or aren't they?" "Will they again?" "How could they do that to me?"
It all goes away after you divorce, and those losses are a larger gain than you could possibly have by staying with a cheater, even if they are "reformed". In my opinion.
It's frustrating to read about so many people in pain.
Betrayal, depression, anxiety, anger, keyloggers, VARs, cell phone records, exposure, gaslighting, denial, loss of self-esteem, "Are they or aren't they?" "Will they again?" "How could they do that to me?"
It all goes away after you divorce, and those losses are a larger gain than you could possibly have by staying with a cheater, even if they are "reformed". In my opinion.
So if you remarry do you think those thoughts will come back? Do you see yourself as no longer being able to have a committed relationship because of your xW's A?
She was a FWW as far as I know, but to me that is irrelevant. Is a "former" rapist innocent because they are sorry and served their prison time? No. Would I befriend one because they are remorseful? No.
But you're ok with your kids spending half their young lives with this woman, unsupervised?
No matter how much you love your WS, no matter what they promise, odds are that they will either cheat again at some point, you'll be stuck in mediocre-at-best marriage, or both.
My FWW is and was worth the "odds".
I owed it to her, our daughter and myself [my vows] to give her/us a chance.
I did "deserve better" and I've got it...now...with my FWW.
It sounds like you THOUGHT your wife/family was worth the gamble too. Just because in hindsight, it appears "the odds" didn't pay off for you doesn't mean the "effort" was completely worthless. You did the best you knew how. I'm very sorry you regret the three years you wasted "trying". I like to think I wouldn't have "tried" for so long myself, but I'll never know as just a few months after "no contact" myself, it no longer felt like I was actively "trying" to recover myself (meaning my wife was on board and it was something we did TOGETHER without strenuous effort er forcing it on my part). Regret is really not my thing but I hope you can move past it and find/build a life of value and wonderful healthy relationships.
Mr. Wondering
It's frustrating to read about so many people in pain.
Then what compels you to stay here and "read about" it?
Mr. W
I rarely do anymore, but I was here long enough that it became a habit.
It's easy for a lottery winner to claim that a buying a ticket is a wise way to spend your money.
So Krazy, your child/children are OK with plan D? No hard feelings there? Also, had you walked immediately, you wouldn't have learned what you now know. Don't you think you might have had some regrets, had you not given it a try?
Your analogy about the lottery winner cuts both ways: it's easy for the guy who decided on plan D to decide that that is the best way for everyone.
I have read your entire saga, Krazy and I am very sorry for all of the pain that you suffered through during the A and the three years that you attempted R. I can understand your bitterness.
There are some things on this forum that I cannot fully embrace such as the "one size fits all" mentality that discounts personality but the fact remains that this is a marriage building site. MY DH was worth the effort. Our M is not perfect but it was not before the A.
I don't feel like a winning lottery ticket winner. My DH never came fully onboard with MB but he has embraced what his belief system and personality will allow. I could have pulled the D lever because I think that this is a perfect program and he does not but we pretty much POJAed the whole thing and it has helped us to have a much better M and to regain respect, love and admiration for each other and even a different type of trust than we had before.
You do a great disservice to those newbies on here who will use this program to their advantage and eventual R, either of their M or personal R, by saying that the easy way is always the best. Perhaps it would have been the best for you. It would have been a disaster for my M and my family and I would have lost the opportunity to enjoy this brand new, more mature relationship with my spouse.
I am very grateful for this program, the harleys and the good people who offer their help and support.
God's Blessings,
Say
So Krazy, your child/children are OK with plan D? No hard feelings there?
I would hope those children would place the guilt for the divorce where it belongs.
I'm a long time lurker, but this one drew me out of lurkdom. In June 2006 I discovered my wife's 1 1/2 year long affair. Like many here my world was absolutely shattered. I never thought that something like that could happen to us. Today nearly 4 years later, I am very secure in who I am, I have no problems with my self-esteem or sense of self worth. I also have a marriage that is recovered and in many ways is far better than the relationship we had prior to the affair.
Granted, when I confronted my wife on d-day, she confessed, immediately ended the affair and went no contact. She did display remorse and spent her energies trying to recover our marriage. She also did not put me through the indignity of a withdrawal from her affair partner. Shortly after I discovered MB and with the help of JL and some others who are no longer posting I feel we have recovered our marriage. Is the affair a distant memory that is buried in some remote region of my mind? No. We still discuss certain aspects of it, but this I feel is due to the role we have played in the lives of some family and friends who have also undergone the trauma that an affair afflicts. Yes I do bear scars, but those scars would remain whether we recovered the marriage or not and would then play a part in any future relationships.
Today I am very happy, I love my my wife, I am part of a family unit that is intact. I have a wife that loves me and reminds me of it regularily. She contributes daily to my well-being. In many ways it's hard to associate who she is today with the person she was 6 or so years ago. I would not trade anything for what I have today other than the ability to go back in time and erase the affair from our experience.
I would also like to say that the the price she has paid for her actions is far greater than the price I have paid for recovery. I can go through life with the knowledge that I have kept my vows. She to this day mourns what she perceives as the loss of her integrity. The hit to her own self esteem is far greater than the hit to mine and today I do have a concern about her self image. I need to be there to comfort and help her when she does get overwhelmed with the memory of the choices she has made.
Please don't question my sense of my own self worth or self esteem. What I have today I value more than anything else on earth. It's my choice and she was/is worth it.
Regards
Betrayal, depression, anxiety, anger, keyloggers, VARs, cell phone records, exposure, gaslighting, denial, loss of self-esteem, "Are they or aren't they?" "Will they again?" "How could they do that to me?"
It all goes away after your M is fully recovered too. At least, for me it has. Almost everything listed above is what one goes through directly following an A. I agree that this is a rough period. But it doesn't last forever. Nothing on the above list describes a happy, healthy, recovered relationship, which is possible after an A.
I don't think of my H as a "cheater" anymore. I don't think of myself that way either. We aren't the same people we were back then. We have precautions in place to make sure that neither of us strays again, but they are no different than the precautions that any other couple need to take, whether there has been an A in the marriage or not. Complete O&H is necessary in any M, not just one that has involved an A. I don't feel the constant need to check my H's email or cell phone records anymore. I have access to them, if I want to, but I just don't feel that it's necessary to obsessively check these things anymore. He has access to all of my records as well.
I don't feel anxious or angry or depressed anymore. I feel very grateful to have a wonderful, loving, sweet, sensitive, caring, forgiving man in my life that I am proud to call my H. It may not end this way for everyone, but it is possible to have a fulfilling relationship with your spouse after an A. To place a blanket statement on every M that involves an A and tell everyone to go straight to Plan D if their spouse ever strays is irresponsible and wrong, IMHO.
I rarely do anymore, but I was here long enough that it became a habit.
It's easy for a lottery winner to claim that a buying a ticket is a wise way to spend your money.
I certainly am fortunate to have won first prize but I did much more than just "buy a lottery ticket". I wasn't "lucky" by accident/chance. I/we "invested" in a plan. The MB plan and it, along with God...worked to save our marriage. Other than one book "SAA" and HNHN on CD...I spent nothing on the plan (until we went to the MB weekend two years into recovery).
That's the problem with telling people it's utterly hopeless. What I see as a prize today(my FWW) you believe is worthless. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, I just think it's unhealthy for you as you progress through your regrets to tell others seeking hope that it's hopeless. Do you really want to continue here being the voice of NO HOPE? IMO, if it's truly hopeless, the hopeful will progress to that understanding utilizing MB. One way or another...we guide them to their answer (respectful of the fact that they show up here seeking "hope").
My hope for you...is peace.
Mr. Wondering
I'm a long time lurker, but this one drew me out of lurkdom. In June 2006 I discovered my wife's 1 1/2 year long affair. Like many here my world was absolutely shattered. I never thought that something like that could happen to us. Today nearly 4 years later, I am very secure in who I am, I have no problems with my self-esteem or sense of self worth. I also have a marriage that is recovered and in many ways is far better than the relationship we had prior to the affair.
Granted, when I confronted my wife on d-day, she confessed, immediately ended the affair and went no contact. She did display remorse and spent her energies trying to recover our marriage. She also did not put me through the indignity of a withdrawal from her affair partner. Shortly after I discovered MB and with the help of JL and some others who are no longer posting I feel we have recovered our marriage. Is the affair a distant memory that is buried in some remote region of my mind? No. We still discuss certain aspects of it, but this I feel is due to the role we have played in the lives of some family and friends who have also undergone the trauma that an affair afflicts. Yes I do bear scars, but those scars would remain whether we recovered the marriage or not and would then play a part in any future relationships.
Today I am very happy, I love my my wife, I am part of a family unit that is intact. I have a wife that loves me and reminds me of it regularily. She contributes daily to my well-being. In many ways it's hard to associate who she is today with the person she was 6 or so years ago. I would not trade anything for what I have today other than the ability to go back in time and erase the affair from our experience.
I would also like to say that the the price she has paid for her actions is far greater than the price I have paid for recovery. I can go through life with the knowledge that I have kept my vows. She to this day mourns what she perceives as the loss of her integrity. The hit to her own self esteem is far greater than the hit to mine and today I do have a concern about her self image. I need to be there to comfort and help her when she does get overwhelmed with the memory of the choices she has made.
Please don't question my sense of my own self worth or self esteem. What I have today I value more than anything else on earth. It's my choice and she was/is worth it.
Regards
Very nicely put...tmi.
Mr. W
p.s.- Believe it or not, good ole JL still posts here quite regularly. Thankfully.
So Krazy, your child/children are OK with plan D? No hard feelings there?
I would hope those children would place the guilt for the divorce where it belongs.
And where is that? Sure, the WAYWARD is guilty for the affair. But if the wayward works on recovery, then BOTH parties have to accept responsibility for the DIVORCE. Just looking at it through a kid's eyes...
Great thread - good conversation. Being new in the R process, I still have the 'why the hell am I doing this' days and the 'why am I doing all the work - she's the one who broke our vows' days as well as the 'I still love her and I love my kids and I will fight to save our family unit' days.
I don't know for sure if we'll be together forever. I do know for sure that I'm a better man, husband and father because of what I've learned here and from our MC and from just dealing with the after effects of D-Day. I also know that if I had gone straight to Plan D, I would have regretted it the rest of my life.
I'm sure the MB plan isn't for everyone and I'm sure the 100% success stat is skewed (you can make numbers look like you want them to look), but there no doubt in my mind that the principles are sound, and that if BOTH spouses want the marriage to work, it will. Then again, in some cases Plan D should be considered a success for some situations.
Thanks for getting this thread going - anything that generates good conversation from opposing views is worthwhile.
MB success stats are so skewed. 100%! It is to laugh.
I'm sure the 100% success stat is skewed
Where did this 100% come from?
I thought the national was 30%, with actual MB board users coming in slightly higher at less than 50%
MB success stats are so skewed. 100%! It is to laugh.
I'm sure the 100% success stat is skewed
Where did this 100% come from?
I thought the national was 30%, with actual MB board users coming in slightly higher at less than 50%
Gack, that dead horse has been kicked tooo many times!
It just comes down to people opposing the idea that The MB Program has a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee!
I do not possess the one best answer for anyone else. Apparently, you do.
I guess you just got schooled Pep!
(I am making a funny by the way)
The fact that leaving is easier than staying after infidelity is the biggest indicator that it's the correct course of action, in my opinion.
The fact that it is easier means it is correct.
Forget the hard, difficult road.
I should have forgone college and grad school.
That much education sure as hell was not the easier road.
Obviously, the hard road indicates the incorrect course of action.
I'm going to needlepoint a pillow:
"The easy way is the best way"
I get where you're coming from, however every situation is different. Now in my case, if my husband wasn't trying to work on our marriage and I was working at it alone, I would be out, gone, no where to be found by him. In that type of situation, I do think the other party should leave.
I know this may be corny, but people do make mistakes. We've all made them. It's like you're saying you get one shot and that's it. I do believe in a 2nd chance. I don't believe in a 3rd. He get's one screw up from me and that's it. If it happens again, there wont even be a discussion, I'll be ghost.
You are not perfect, none of us are. Trust me I'm not making up excuses for the WS. Some of them really just made a mistake, but then you do have some that are in Love with the OW/M, feelings are attached and they have fallen out of love with their spouse. In a case like that, I wouldn't waste my time and energy, I would take you up on you advice.
GO PEP!!!! 
Writer, it just pisses me off.
What the hell type of advice says:
"Take the easy road"
?????????????????????????
What if a BS thinks murder/suicide is the easy road?
Nonsense must be called out for what it is, really bad advice.
I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief. This is only my opinion, and I wish I would've taken my own advice years earlier.
I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board either, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief just like you. This is only my opinion, but I think you should have cut your losses from day one as well and just walked away. You would have been spared much pain and anguish! It was impossible for you to for you to work a recovery with the mental images of walking in on your wife having sex with OM.
This is no fault of yours, it's all on her!
You can't really rebuild trust after being betrayed like that. Some people claim they have, but I simply don't believe them. I think they are deluding themselves out of fear of ending the marriage. They can't do better than a cheater? Really? I can.
You're right, all BS'es could do better than a cheater!
And you don't need anyones permission to call other BS'es liars, you're entitled to that opinion! (my opinion is that you're over the top calling other BS'es deluded liars though)
These WSs deserve to be dropped like a bad habit,
You're absolutely 100% correct! I deserved nothing!
and every BS deserves better.
Again, you're absolutely 100% correct! They deserve so much better!
YOU deserved so much better!
If you don't think you deserve a partner who HAS NEVER cheated on you, then you should take a hard look at your self-esteem. Unconditional love should only apply to your kids, if anyone at all. I don't think it's healthy to continue to love someone who physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured you so they could have an orgasm or an ego boost.
Again, you're absolutely 100% correct! BS'es deserve so much better!
and yes, even Dr. Harley agrees with you, unconditional love is not healthy in a marriage!
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
You're right, we deserve to be dumped!
And your right again, I don't deserve any of the grace given to me by my wife.
There is nothing I can ever do to deserve that much grace! She is the most amazing woman I know!
Krazy, as I said earlier, you would have been spared much pain and anguish if you had just dumped your WW immediately!
In hindsight, it's obvious that it was impossible for you to work a recovery with all the mental images of walking in on your wife having sex with OM.
Again, her adultery and the divorce is no fault of yours, it's all on her!
Krazy, I pray that there will come a time that you are finally able let go of your anger and hate!
{{{{{{{{{{{KRAZY71}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc.
Krazy - It's NOT your opinion I object to.
I am fine with your opinion.
What I find so distasteful is your intolerance for the opinions and personal choices of other betrayed spouses.
**edit**
I don't agree with Krazy, either, perhaps mainly because I didn't (and wouldn't) do what he suggests (he didn't either, remember?). Appy is a friend, and he didn't either, though he agrees with Krazy.
I repsect their opinions, though, as I know they respect the choices I've made in my si2ation.
-ol' 2long
MB success stats are so skewed. 100%! It is to laugh.
I'm sure the 100% success stat is skewed
Where did this 100% come from?
I thought the national was 30%, with actual MB board users coming in slightly higher at less than 50%
Gack, that dead horse has been kicked tooo many times!
It just comes down to people opposing the idea that The MB Program has a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee!
Please don't misinterpret me. I am not opposed to anything. I have seen more than few times where the claim has been made that people who participate in the MB Program have a near 100% success rate of saving their marriage. I do find that hard to believe, and if that's not the case then I stand corrected.
I am a firm believer in the program, but nothing works 100% of the time for 100% of people
Krazy, I pray that there will come a time that you are finally able let go of your anger and hate!
{{{{{{{{{{{KRAZY71}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Krazy gets hugs and support, and then, Krazy kicks our butts, and then, Krazy gets more hugs and support .... and then STILL more hugs and support, and understanding.
And well wishes.
My apologies for my sarcasm.
It's not nice of me to kick a fellow BS when he's down.
*shrug*
Unconditional love should only apply to your kids, if anyone at all. I don't think it's healthy to continue to love someone who physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured you so they could have an orgasm or an ego boost.
Again, you're absolutely 100% correct! BS'es deserve so much better!
and yes, even Dr. Harley agrees with you, unconditional love is not healthy in a marriage!
This kind of "love" has nothing 2 do with unconditional love. Dr Harley is correct that this kind of love is not healthy in a marriage. But Dr Harley doesn't really understand what unconditional love
IS - but nevertheless this demonstrates how badly things can go when anything is misunders2d and thus misapplied.
-ol' 2long
I am a firm believer in the program, but nothing works 100% of the time for 100% of people
Dr Harley has been terribly misquoted on this issue. Not to mention that some have taken his words about his success rate and applied it to Plan A and Plan B. In Plan A he states it works to end the affair in 15% of the cases. He never guarantees anything in the case of the affair and he never guarantees anything in the case of a spouse who won't use the program. He obviously
CAN'T make someone use the program against their will. But here is what he has said about his program ["Program" in this sense meaning the implementation of his Basic Concepts]
When I found that the model I've developed had helped over 90% of those I was counseling, I gave up my career as a college professor and started counseling full-time. At the time, I didn't assume that it would save all of the marriages it seemed to help, because I felt there were factors beyond a couple's control. But after 35 years of experience with this model, I'm not convinced that it works with 100% of couples who follow it. I've yet to witness one couple out of the tens of thousands I've seen, that did not experience a healthy and happy marriage by following this model. Personally, I feel it's the only answer to the question, how can a couple have a great marriage for life?
But it�s very difficult to prove that one model of marital satisfaction is superior to another. The ultimate test is to randomly assign couples to various models and to measure their marital satisfaction after the provisions of each model have been implemented.
The training of therapists is a huge problem: How can we be sure that the therapist assigned to each model was properly trained? And there�s also the problem of representation and random assignment: Does the group of volunteer couples represent the population at large? And is the assignment to treatment groups really random? There�s also the ethical problem of assigning couples to a control group where they receive no effective treatment. When they divorce, does the researcher bear any responsibility? Finally, if someone who has a stake in the outcome does the research, it usually shows that their approach is best. Shouldn�t studies of alternative models of marital satisfaction be conducted by those neutral to the outcome?
My own personal experience led me to the model I�ve been using for the past 35 years. But that�s not proof of it�s superiority over other models. What I need is objective studies conducted by those who have no bias that compare this model to others. That�s hard to find even among those who have published hundreds of articles on martial therapy.
But I can direct you to three studies that support my enthusiasm. They all deal with my book, His Needs, Her Needs, the popular application of my model, and the effect it has on couples that read it.
The readers of Marriage Partnership Magazine were asked which self-help book on marriage helped their marriages the most. In that survey, His Needs, Her Needs came out on top. I didn�t know that the survey was even being conducted, so when I called the editor after the results came in, I was curious to know more. He told me that it not only was the top choice, but it was far ahead of second place (Ron R. Lee. Best Books for a Better Marriage: Reader�s Survey . Marriage Partnership Magazine, Spring 1998).
In a national survey that I sponsored, people were asked if any self-help book on marriage solved their marital problems. Out of 57 books that were read, only three were reported to have actually solved marital problems. The three were the Bible, James Dobson�s Love for a Lifetime, and His Needs, Her Needs (Lynn Hanacek Gravel. Americans and Marriage: National Survey of US Adults. Barna Research Group, 2001).
Finally, five out of six couples that read His Needs Her Needs were found to experience significant improvement in marital satisfaction (Julie D. Braswell. The Impact of Reading a Self-Help Book on the Topic of Gender Differences on One�s Perceived Quality of Marriage. Doctoral Dissertation, 1998, Azusa Pacific University.
Granted, these findings are not conclusive evidence that the model I use is superior to every other model of marital satisfaction. But when you find one that works for every couple that actually follows it, you have to be impressed. And coming as I did from almost zero effectiveness to almost complete success, I can�t begin to tell you how convinced I am that it�s the solution to a very difficult problem we face in our society.
I hope this helps answer your question.
Best wishes,
Willard F. Harley, Jr.
FWIW, recovery is hard and painful BUT divorce with kids is a long road of potential hell. It forever ties you to the ww who will probably never become a fww to the now ex-betrayed but you still have to deal with all their baggage and bad influences on your children. My friend would give anything to avoid traveling every other weekend 200+ miles just to share custody with a mean spirted xww.
Dr Harley has been terribly misquoted on this issue. Not to mention that some have taken his words about his success rate and applied it to Plan A and Plan B. In Plan A he states it works to end the affair in 15% of the cases. He never guarantees anything in the case of the affair and he never guarantees anything in the case of a spouse who won't use the program. He obviously make someone use the program against their will. But here is what he has said about his program ["Program" in this sense meaning the implementation of his Basic Concepts]
My favorite post of yours ever, Mel!
-ol' 2long
Pepperband, I made it clear that I was only stating my opinion.
Guess what? This IS me giving support. It's tragic to watch someone go through what every BS goes through. Divorce isn't fun. It's not pleasant. But it WILL get a BS out of a situation that will likely end badly at some point, anyway.
Like I said before, there are exceptions. A small minority people do recover their marriages. What fraction of those remain happy marriages, who knows?
I understand that some people don't want to hear it. Some people SHOULD hear it. They are victims of abuse, and like many abuse victims, they adopt a "If he does it again, THEN I'm out!" mentality.
If a man beat his wife and put her in the hospital, would you encourage her to stay, too? Every BS is a victim of ABUSE. I guess that's not so obvious when bruises and broken bones aren't involved.
Guess what? This IS me giving support.
. . . .But after 35 years of experience with this model, I'm not convinced that it works with 100% of couples who follow it. I've yet to witness one couple out of the tens of thousands I've seen, that did not experience a healthy and happy marriage by following this model . . .
. . . Granted, these findings are not conclusive evidence that the model I use is superior to every other model of marital satisfaction. But when you find one that works for every couple that actually follows it, you have to be impressed. . . .
I'm guessing that these are the lines that are causing the controversy. It's important to note that the program will work if BOTH spouses follow it 100%, and that's the catch. Most people, including our original poster, are/were in situations where only one spouse followed the program, so it's only logical that success rates would be a whole lot lower.
BUT (and this is a big but) it should also be noted that there are many, many situations where even having one spouse follow the principles made a huge difference. I'm not sure Mrs. Linus and I would be in R mode right now if I hadn't found this place and read books like SAA and HNHN. Following Plan A worked for me (I'm glad to be one of the 15%, Mel
). The Dr. rocks, no doubt about that.
I'm guessing that these are the lines that are causing the controversy. It's important to note that the program will work if BOTH spouses follow it 100%, and that's the catch.
Yep! It's much like a diet in that you have to actually USE it for it to work!
I had a woman once tell me with a straight face about my diet "DID YOU KNOW IF YOU QUIT THAT DIET YOU GAIN ALL THE WEIGHT BACK??"
She really did say that. I am not kidding. When I asked her if she actually KNEW of a diet that would work
when you aren't on it, she gave me a very blank look.
Anyway, Marriage Builders is just like any other program, one has to actually work it in order for it to work.
I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief. This is only my opinion, and I wish I would've taken my own advice years earlier.
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc...
�Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
I would like to lend some
qualified support to Krazy�s commentary above. Yes, his analysis may seem harsh, rigid, and even contrary to MB�s purpose (and it some respects all of that is true).
Before I continue, let me state the following caveats for the record:
1. I have tremendous respect for the work and insights of Dr. Harley.
2. I have tremendous admiration for all the good people here who dispense excellent advice based on MB principles.
3. I congratulate and salute all those here, former-WSs included, who did the hard work and recovered improved, healthy marriages after the tragedy of an affair.
4. I fully believe that Dr. Harley�s plans and techniques are the best way to accomplish the above�if the BS wants that and if the appropriate conditions present themselves.I do think it behooves all of us here to recognize that Dr. Harley�s/MB�s goal is NOT fighting for �marriage at any cost no matter what�. In fact, upon discovery of the affair, the BS has every right�legally and morally�to unilaterally proceed immediately to divorce and never look back�EVEN IF the WS is truly repentant and the affair is truly over. Dr. Harley himself has stated that he would choose immediate Plan D if his wife ever strayed�that�s quite an endorsement from a man who is clearly an expert on this subject. (We can debate whether this applies to a pure-EA situation or not, but it surely does once ANY KIND OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY has transpired and we all know that the vast majority of affairs are PAs whether admitted or not.)
A great many elements must occur, within a reasonable amount of time, for a
real recovery to become possible:
The affair must end�permanently and completely.
The WS must wrestle their personal demons to the ground�both internally and WITH THE BS.
The WS must openly, honestly, sincerely, and humbly confess and repent.
The WS must learn and grow a great deal as a person. No blame-shifting or �sweeping under the rug�.
The couple must emotionally re-connect, re-value each other via ENs, POJA, EPs, etc.
Neither the pre-conditions nor the affair must ever be repeated by either.
All in all, it is�not impossible�but a fairly tall order that requires tremendous long-suffering, effort, and introspection in a MUTUALLY-EMPATHETIC fashion. It is way, way more than just �saying sorry and coming home�.
If you newly suspect or know about your spouse�s adultery, you have to find out all you can right away�with a solid knowledge of MB principles. Find out about the OP�s life-situation and potential exposure-targets (hire a PI if needed). Assess your WS�s level of emotional-addiction (he/she will tell you if you understand what to listen for and how to interpret it). Once you have the info, I would urge a recently-BS to take a hard, rational look at the situation. Echoing Krazy71, a BS should imho
strongly consider immediate divorce rather than wasting years of their life under the following circumstances:
1. The affair happened within the first 5 years of the marriage.
Don�t waste your time with a WS like this�he/she never took the marriage seriously from the get-go. A no-brainer.2. This isn�t your WS�s first inappropriate extra-marital relationship.
See #1. Someone repeatedly distracted by anything shiny on the side of the road is not marriage-material. Another no-brainer.3. The exposure potential is not very �target rich�.
If OP�s career/job can�t be jeopardized, if OP is unmarried or already divorcing, if family members �go along� or are detached, you don�t have much pressure to bring to bear on breaking the affair.4. Your WS is clearly emotionally-addicted to the OP.
The more irrational, fantasy-driven, scapegoating-towards-you, and defending-the-OP your WS is, the more deeply he/she is addicted. They are illogically and powerfully attached to the OP. You are, at the very least, looking at a looooong road.5. (get ready, this may be controversial) Your WS is � a WW!
Unless you catch the relationship in its infancy (rare), she will be heavily-addicted. She won�t give her OM up voluntarily (much more rare for a WW than a WH). The only realistic hope is to get him to dump her via exposure pressure that threatens something more important to him than her (career, finances, his marriage/kids). If #3 is present, you are hosed. I have seen many, many emotionally-addicted, active WW affairs both here on MB and in real life and I can tell you it is vanishingly rare to break the affair and save the marriage unless the OM dumps the WW in fairly short order. The usual result, like with Krazy, MissMyFamily, PSUBIKER, and myself, is that the WW is a �not-worth-it-lost-cause� who stays tightly glued to her lover, no matter what the sacrifice and how big a slimeball-loser the guy is. Think hard about it, BHs, cuz divorce is basically just Plan B without the added pain of (a likely futile) prolonged disappointment-limbo.My 2 cents from the School of Hard Knocks�
[quote=Krazy71]
Echoing Krazy71, a BS should imho strongly consider immediate divorce rather than wasting years of their life under the following circumstances:
1. The affair happened within the first 5 years of the marriage.
Don�t waste your time with a WS like this�he/she never took the marriage seriously from the get-go. A no-brainer.
2. This isn�t your WS�s first inappropriate extra-marital relationship.
See #1. Someone repeatedly distracted by anything shiny on the side of the road is not marriage-material. Another no-brainer.
3. The exposure potential is not very �target rich�.
If OP�s career/job can�t be jeopardized, if OP is unmarried or already divorcing, if family members �go along� or are detached, you don�t have much pressure to bring to bear on breaking the affair.
4. Your WS is clearly emotionally-addicted to the OP.
The more irrational, fantasy-driven, scapegoating-towards-you, and defending-the-OP your WS is, the more deeply he/she is addicted. They are illogically and powerfully attached to the OP. You are, at the very least, looking at a looooong road.
5. (get ready, this may be controversial) Your WS is � a WW!
Unless you catch the relationship in its infancy (rare), she will be heavily-addicted. She won�t give her OM up voluntarily (much more rare for a WW than a WH). The only realistic hope is to get him to dump her via exposure pressure that threatens something more important to him than her (career, finances, his marriage/kids). If #3 is present, you are hosed. I have seen many, many emotionally-addicted, active WW affairs both here on MB and in real life and I can tell you it is vanishingly rare to break the affair and save the marriage unless the OM dumps the WW in fairly short order. The usual result, like with Krazy, MissMyFamily, PSUBIKER, and myself, is that the WW is a �not-worth-it-lost-cause� who stays tightly glued to her lover, no matter what the sacrifice and how big a slimeball-loser the guy is. Think hard about it, BHs, cuz divorce is basically just Plan B without the added pain of (a likely futile) prolonged disappointment-limbo.
My 2 cents from the School of Hard Knocks�
1. My H's EA started 1 week after our wedding. Actually, it was with an ex-girlfriend that he never quite got over, so it was really going on before we got married. I just didn't know it.
2. Can't speak to that one. My H had one very long-term A and I had one fairly short-term A.
3. Again, not my situation, so I will leave it alone.
4. My H was so addicted to the OP that he had an on-again, off-again EA with her for 10 years. He'd been "in love" with her since he was 15.
5. I am a FWW. I did give up the OM voluntarily. He D'd his wife and asked me to marry him and I still chose to stay with my H and work on my M. I stuck by that decision, even after discovering that I was pregnant with the OM's baby 2 weeks after ending the A. There are a few other FWW's on this site who ended the A on their own and didn't have to be "dumped" by the OM.
My H and I are very happily in R now.
See, the problem with blanket statements like these is that they just don't work. There is no one-answer fits all. People are individuals and not stereotypes. For every "rule" you can find, there are plenty of exceptions.
Really, the only person who can decide whether or not they want to fight for their M is the BS. To issue a blanket statement, such as "every BS should go right to Plan D" or BS's with a wayward that falls into certain categories should go right to Plan D, are wrong. You can have an opinion as to what is right for you, but telling other people what to do is wrong.
I sometimes wonder if people are posting while they're drunk or high, or just in an ecstasy of bitterness.
To any newbies who might have felt discouraged by Krazy's post, consider the following instead.
Infidelity is an appalling trauma. Few of us are prepared for this to happen to us; we're not equipped to deal with it. We start off much too small for this overwhelming disaster.
Straight away, we have to make a choice - stay small, or grow big. Growing big - which means developing self-honesty, defending boundaries, fighting down panic, enduring injustice - is painful and difficult. Staying small - which usually means amputating the problem marriage - requires only the effort to get through the divorce.
Stick around here for a few years, and you'll notice that those who choose to grow don't lose out in the long run. The marriage may not recover; they may decide they don't WANT to recover the marriage, but they come out of the whole deal a much more enlightened, wise and self-aware person than they would ever have been otherwise. They have a much better chance of success in a subsequent marriage, IF they've done the hard work on themselves.
Stick around, and you'll notice another pattern. A lot of people who ran away from infidelity in a previous marriage end up with yet another unfaithful spouse. If you haven't worked out how you ended up at d-day the first time round, chances are good that you'll repeat the same patterns, and end up with the same result.
MB is not a magic formula for fixing marriages. It's a tool you can use to build a healthy marriage - IF you're both prepared to do the work, and IF there's enough emotional health available to build on. That's not the case for every broken marriage, and not every marriage can or should be saved.
Don't be put off making the effort just because there's a possibility you won't end up with a 'fixed' marriage. You won't lose out, whatever happens.
The tragedy is to fudge the work, end up with a divorce anyway, then complain the whole program didn't work. Shame on you, Krazy.
TA
I rarely do anymore, but I was here long enough that it became a habit.
It's easy for a lottery winner to claim that a buying a ticket is a wise way to spend your money.
I certainly am fortunate to have won first prize but I did much more than just "buy a lottery ticket". I wasn't "lucky" by accident/chance. I/we "invested" in a plan. The MB plan and it, along with God...worked to save our marriage. Other than one book "SAA" and HNHN on CD...I spent nothing on the plan (until we went to the MB weekend two years into recovery).
That's the problem with telling people it's utterly hopeless. What I see as a prize today(my FWW) you believe is worthless. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, I just think it's unhealthy for you as you progress through your regrets to tell others seeking hope that it's hopeless. Do you really want to continue here being the voice of NO HOPE? IMO, if it's truly hopeless, the hopeful will progress to that understanding utilizing MB. One way or another...we guide them to their answer (respectful of the fact that they show up here seeking "hope").
My hope for you...is peace.
Mr. Wondering
In many ways you DID buy a lottery ticket. How? The outcome was not ONLY due to you performing the MB program. You have to have a spouse who is willing to respond.
So in that sense, you DID buy a lottery ticket.
There are many who do the work, and don't get the same result. I've asked the questions, what percentage of BS who do the program under MB professional coaching end up with a spouse who ends her affair, and gets with the program?
The BS's work while important, is not the only factor in this. There is the "lottery ticket" factor where they have a WW who is willing to "wake up" and see the BH working to save the marriage.
Dr Harley will tell you, few do. As it has been said over and over again, it's far less likely for a WW to return than it is for a WH to return.
Remember, we are talking about his observations of his clients marriages. Those men are doing the work just like BWs do the work.
After having tried the MB program to win a WW back to the marriage, I too would not advise a BH to spend more than 30 days on such a program, if even that.
Why? Because in most cases, if she doesn't end the affair and apologize immediately like the long time lurker said in this thread, there is little chance that she'll return to the marriage.
If she didn't come out and say, "I'm not happy." in a simple, unambiguous statement before she decided an affair was the best course of action, she is not a safe partner. She is an abuser, period.
If the WW doesn't end her abuse and seek help immediately, then let her go. Cut her from the team.
I've gone so far as to make sure I'm not having any more kids, I feel so strongly about this.
I believe in the MB program to build a good marriage. However, given my prior experience and what I've learned, I would not advise most men to seek to win back a WW. Spend your resources on the legal fight.
Until women stop filing 2/3rds of all divorces, and if you read what Dr H says, he cannot convince those who are actually betrayed or abused to file. Therefore, the vast majority of those filing are NOT fleeing an unfaithful or abusive husband. As long as this is the trend, as long as women feel they can just bail out of a marriage if they are not happy in numbers that are 2x to 3x's as often as men do, and as long as men are falsely portraited as the ones who abandon their families when the numbers indicate otherwise, that it's the mothers who are ending their marriages in numbers far, far greater, I will never advise a man put much effort into winning a wayward wife back.
It's just not worth it in the current cultural climate.
6. The adultery went on longer than the 6 sigma 2 years (from SAA). Like, oh, say 10 maybe 12 years.
6. The adultery went on longer than the 6 sigma 2 years (from SAA). Like, oh, say 10 maybe 12 years.
Well, my H voluntarily wrote a NC letter to the OW and cut off all contact after a 10-year EA.
5. (get ready, this may be controversial) Your WS is � a WW!
Unless you catch the relationship in its infancy (rare), she will be heavily-addicted. She won�t give her OM up voluntarily (much more rare for a WW than a WH). The only realistic hope is to get him to dump her via exposure pressure that threatens something more important to him than her (career, finances, his marriage/kids). If #3 is present, you are hosed. I have seen many, many emotionally-addicted, active WW affairs both here on MB and in real life and I can tell you it is vanishingly rare to break the affair and save the marriage unless the OM dumps the WW in fairly short order. The usual result, like with Krazy, MissMyFamily, PSUBIKER, and myself, is that the WW is a �not-worth-it-lost-cause� who stays tightly glued to her lover, no matter what the sacrifice and how big a slimeball-loser the guy is. Think hard about it, BHs, cuz divorce is basically just Plan B without the added pain of (a likely futile) prolonged disappointment-limbo.
My 2 cents from the School of Hard Knocks�
You can add me to your list of graduates of the school.
I'd give it from 30 minutes to 30 days for a wayward wife to end the affair, put verifiable no-contact into place. If it hasn't happened by then, no way am I going to do another 6+ month plan A to win a WW who apparently has poor boundaries and a sense of entitlement so large that she feels justified in having an affair over say using the POJA to negotiate for her needs to be met in some specific way.
6. The adultery went on longer than the 6 sigma 2 years (from SAA). Like, oh, say 10 maybe 12 years.
Well, my H voluntarily wrote a NC letter to the OW and cut off all contact after a 10-year EA.
There we have it. The contraindication.
If both spouses are adulterers recovery is guaranteed, 100%.
Why didn't someone tell me this earlier?
MB is not a magic formula for fixing marriages. It's a tool you can use to build a healthy marriage - IF you're both prepared to do the work, and IF there's enough emotional health available to build on. That's not the case for every broken marriage, and not every marriage can or should be saved.
Well put.
[There are many who do the work, and don't get the same result. I've asked the questions, what percentage of BS who do the program under MB professional coaching end up with a spouse who ends her affair, and gets with the program?
The BS's work while important, is not the only factor in this. There is the "lottery ticket" factor where they have a WW who is willing to "wake up" and see the BH working to save the marriage.
This is a critical point. This program can�t work unless BOTH parties engage in recovering the marriage. There is only so much a BS can do and if the WS won�t get on board, there is no program in the world that can force a reluctant spouse to engage against her will.
And Marriage Builders addresses those situations by prescribing PLAN B. Dr Harley has addressed this situation ad nauseaum in his writings on Plan B and in his articles about �When to Call it Quits,� �Unconditional Love,� etc.
Sometimes the definition of success is DIVORCE and I think that is important to remember.
That being said, I have seen so very many recovered marriages over the years that I think it is a huge mistake not to try [unless it is an especially abusive spouse]. Folks usually know within a year if a marriage is going to work or not.
And some of you guys are married to some of the most heartless, manipulative, entitled witches I have ever seen����and are usually OBLIVIOUS to it. For some reason these women tend to marry the gullible, conflict avoider men and that is where it gets bad. Look how many clueless fools who show up here every month who have left their own homes to give his cheating wife some �space.� MY GOD. That is about as clueless as you can get. Those men actually need protection from women because they don�t stand a chance. I am going to start charging you MEN commission for having to use my CLUE BAT on these dudes.
Never left my home. It didn't matter. Same result. She was a prior stay at home mom, so I had ZERO chance of custody.
Couldn't find a lawyer who would fight for custody against a stay at home mom. Marital fidelity doesn't matter.
So in most jurisdictions, it's not a fair fight for the betrayed husband.
Just don't have kids, that's my new motto.
I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief. This is only my opinion, and I wish I would've taken my own advice years earlier.
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc. Sure, there are some positive stories of reconciliation on Marriage Builders, but this place is not an accurate cross-section of real life. No matter how much you love your WS, no matter what they promise, odds are that they will either cheat again at some point, you'll be stuck in mediocre-at-best marriage, or both.
You can't really rebuild trust after being betrayed like that. Some people claim they have, but I simply don't believe them. I think they are deluding themselves out of fear of ending the marriage. They can't do better than a cheater? Really? I can.
These WSs deserve to dropped like a bad habit, and every BS deserves better. If you don't think you deserve a partner who HAS NEVER cheated on you, then you should take a hard look at your self-esteem. Unconditional love should only apply to your kids, if anyone at all. I don't think it's healthy to continue to love someone who physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured you so they could have an orgasm or an ego boost.
Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
First, this was not stated as your opinion, it was given as advice for ALL BS'.
What is true about your statement and I will say universially true, is that if a BS is a person that does not have the ability to forgive, then they should do what Krazy is suggesting. Forgiveness is giving something something to someone that does not deserve it. If you earned something you don't need forgiveness.
Krazy, I found your advice more than a little disengenious. First you are by your own admission a person that cannot forgive. Second, you have no clue what your future brings, but there are worse than a cheating W trust me on that. I hope to God you never have to stand over your child as they go into surgery with less than a 50/50 chance of coming out. Or be told by your Dr. to give them a last kiss before they take them in.
I have been cheated on by a fiance and I was crushed, well over 40 years later I still remember it and can feel it if I seek that feeling . I walked partly because I was clueless. But, I can tell you there ARE worse feelings and you having children better get on your knees and pray you never experience them.
You left because you cannot forgive and that implies that there was no chance for you to save your marriage. To tell other BS' that they are best to just walk is leaving a big part of the story out. It is their call and the call of the Ws.
So given this I don't care much for your opinion or advice as it only goes to a subset of folks
JL
PS: My fiance was murdered a few years later by her then boyfriend. I have spent over 40 years wondering if I had tried whould she still be alive. I'll never know and my life has been much better than good. So I don't have any complaints, but still I wonder. I worry about a man, that is so certain that he doesn't wonder.
1. My H's EA started 1 week after our wedding. Actually, it was with an ex-girlfriend that he never quite got over, so it was really going on before we got married. I just didn't know it.
2. Can't speak to that one. My H had one very long-term A and I had one fairly short-term A.
3. Again, not my situation, so I will leave it alone.
4. My H was so addicted to the OP that he had an on-again, off-again EA with her for 10 years. He'd been "in love" with her since he was 15.
5. I am a FWW. I did give up the OM voluntarily. He D'd his wife and asked me to marry him and I still chose to stay with my H and work on my M. I stuck by that decision, even after discovering that I was pregnant with the OM's baby 2 weeks after ending the A. There are a few other FWW's on this site who ended the A on their own and didn't have to be "dumped" by the OM.
My H and I are very happily in R now.
See, the problem with blanket statements like these is that they just don't work. There is no one-answer fits all.
Writer,
Of course there isn�t. That is why my echoing of Krazy�s original post was clearly marked �qualified� and why the word �consider� was used with regard to Plan D. I sincerely congratulate you and your husband on your R. But�
1. Wow�that was a courageous choice you made and I am glad it worked out for you. I doubt anyone would blame someone for divorcing/annulling a marriage that was betrayed only 1 week into its tenure. What would you have done if it had been a PA? Would that have changed your mind? Frankly, EA or PA, an affair only 1 week after the wedding is not something that most people would ever WANT to recover from.
2. Well, you can speak to it as your H had 2 affairs. Again, I salute your courage and applaud your success, but multiple affairs is (and should be) a deal-breaker for most people.
3. OK
4. Hard for me to understand how someone could tolerate 10 years of betrayal, disloyalty, and disrespect like that from someone who pledged to be faithful till death do us part, but I congratulate you both on your very miraculous recovery.
5. Amazing. Amazingly uncommon. I have heard of a few fWWs here who have voluntarily dumped their OM. I believe them even if sometimes I wonder how truly and deeply emotionally-addicted they were at the time. I have seen 6 such affairs over the years in real life. All 6 women divorced their husbands for their lovers despite their husbands� desire to save the marriages (good men are very devoted�even to unworthy women). None of them left their OM voluntarily. 4 of the 6 affair-married. 2 of the 6 were dumped post-divorce by the OM. Of the 4 that affair-married, 3 of them became re-divorced within 5 years.
Exceptions exist to every �rule�.
Common things are common though.
It�s up to each individual to analyze their situation and decide the risk/benefit ratio for themselves.
I believe wholeheartedly in marriage and HATE DIVORCE. Unfortunately, while it takes 2 to marry, it only takes one to cheat and divorce. Wasting years of your life in limbo trying to reconcile with an unrepentant cheater & liar is a tough prospect to swallow sometimes.
Wasting years of your life in limbo trying to reconcile with an unrepentant cheater & liar is a tough prospect to swallow sometimes.
His WW ended her A on discovery.
There was NC.
Krazy was unable to surmount his difficulties, and was unable to achieve forgiveness, recovery, and reconciliation of his marriage.
Therefore, since Krazy was not up to the task, no other betrayed spouses ought to attempt recovery. Because Krazy says so.
Therefore, since Krazy was not up to the task, no other betrayed spouses ought to attempt recovery. Because Krazy says so.
Well, they are either a fool, or a liar (or both) and their claims are nothing but self denial ... or they are simply lucky, like a dumb lottery winner.
It must be true, because it is Krazy's experience, therefore applicable to the rest of us.
SDWC Man: ??? My H only had one A, one OW. I call it an EA, since they never had sex, but they did do other things of a physical/intimate nature, so there was some PA elements as well. I never know quite what to call it.
The fact that there are exceptions to the rule is the very thing that invalidates Krazy's original approach - that absolutely EVERY BS should choose D, that no M can be R after an A, that somehow, the BS is settling for less than a happy, healthy M if they choose to stay with their WS. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that. Just because that was HIS experience, doesn't make it everyone else's. It's the blanket statements here that are really bothering me.
Mr. Wondering [emphasis by SDCW]
In many ways you DID buy a lottery ticket. How? The outcome was not ONLY due to you performing the MB program. You have to have a spouse who is willing to respond.
So in that sense, you DID buy a lottery ticket.
There are many who do the work, and don't get the same result. I've asked the questions, what percentage of BS who do the program under MB professional coaching end up with a spouse who ends her affair, and gets with the program?
The BS's work while important, is not the only factor in this. There is the "lottery ticket" factor where they have a WW who is willing to "wake up" and see the BH working to save the marriage.
Dr Harley will tell you, few do. As it has been said over and over again, it's far less likely for a WW to return than it is for a WH to return.
Remember, we are talking about his observations of his clients marriages. Those men are doing the work just like BWs do the work.
After having tried the MB program to win a WW back to the marriage, I too would not advise a BH to spend more than 30 days on such a program, if even that.
Why? Because in most cases, if she doesn't end the affair and apologize immediately like the long time lurker said in this thread, there is little chance that she'll return to the marriage.
If she didn't come out and say, "I'm not happy." in a simple, unambiguous statement before she decided an affair was the best course of action, she is not a safe partner. She is an abuser, period.
If the WW doesn't end her abuse and seek help immediately, then let her go. Cut her from the team.
I've gone so far as to make sure I'm not having any more kids, I feel so strongly about this.
I believe in the MB program to build a good marriage. However, given my prior experience and what I've learned, I would not advise most men to seek to win back a WW. Spend your resources on the legal fight.
Until women stop filing 2/3rds of all divorces, and if you read what Dr H says, he cannot convince those who are actually betrayed or abused to file. Therefore, the vast majority of those filing are NOT fleeing an unfaithful or abusive husband. As long as this is the trend, as long as women feel they can just bail out of a marriage if they are not happy in numbers that are 2x to 3x's as often as men do, and as long as men are falsely portraited as the ones who abandon their families when the numbers indicate otherwise, that it's the mothers who are ending their marriages in numbers far, far greater, I will never advise a man put much effort into winning a wayward wife back.
It's just not worth it in the current cultural climate.
EE,
That was a superb post in describing the quandary a devoted, honorable, �heart-in-the-right-place� BH sadly faces when he�s has a fogged-out, completely insane, stubbornly unrepentant WW on his hands. These women are a different animal that usually even a man of Dr. Harley�s considerable talents can�t reach.
Thank you so much for tackling this politically-incorrect topic in such a penetrating and accurate way. Hardworking, noble, decent, faithful, loyal, marriage-minded men are FEW AND FAR BETWEEN out there and usually these WWs find that out the hard way�years later after they have wrecked marriages, families, friendships, and children all over temporary �feelings�.
BTW, its over 2/3rds�woman file for 70% of divorces in the USA and very rarely is that because their husband beat the crap out of them, gambled away their life-savings, or snorted cocaine every night. It�s usually because she�s cheating and thinks she�s found her new �soulmate�, selling-out everything she has and believes in in the process. Somehow, our society seems to view male infidelity as evil ("he should have kept it in his pants") and female infidelity as understandable ("she just fell in love").
The double-standard is disgusting, especially since WWs reconcile their marriages with substantially less frequency than WHs do.
The fact that leaving is easier than staying after infidelity is the biggest indicator that it's the correct course of action, in my opinion.
Just catching up on this thread.
FWIW, in my sitch, which is severely complicated with an OC and my personal infertility struggle for years, it is easier to STAY.
Staying means that the "world" continues to think our M is perfect. We are all smiles on the outside. Staying means I am honoring my commitment (even though H chose not to). To date, I cannot face the agony of disappointing our friends and extended family. Granted, I feel we are well on the road to recovery.....So am I staying for the right reasons? Likely not.
AND..........statistically speaking, IF I did leave and remarry, the "statistical" chance that new H would be a cheater is likely. So why not stick it out with one I love and have a history with? Why take a chance of having to walk this journey a second time with a new H?
Rip me, shred me, cut me to pieces, but unless H totally falls off the deep end and continues his wayward behavior, I will fight this fight. I will stay in this marriage. I will not go down that easy.
SDWC Man: ??? My H only had one A, one OW. I call it an EA, since they never had sex, but they did do other things of a physical/intimate nature, so there was some PA elements as well. I never know quite what to call it.
Writer,
I stand corrected about your H having more than 1 affair--I misread your post, my apologies.
Now that I have re-read it, I realize that you had (your words here) �one fairly short-term affair�. As I suspected, it is therefore likely that you did not have a high level of emotional-addiction to your OM as originally assumed. I commend you for voluntarily leaving the affair, but my point thus remains valid.
You dealt with a WH who had a largely unreciprocated EA with his ex-girlfriend and you yourself apparently had a short fling with an OM that thankfully did not progress to the point of full-blown fog-addiction.
No offense, but you don�t personally know what it is like to deal with a romantically-addicted, cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs, WW. Be very glad you haven�t had that experience.
SDWC Man: ??? My H only had one A, one OW. I call it an EA, since they never had sex, but they did do other things of a physical/intimate nature, so there was some PA elements as well. I never know quite what to call it.
Writer,
I stand corrected about your H having more than 1 affair--I misread your post, my apologies.
Now that I have re-read it, I realize that you had (your words here) �one fairly short-term affair�. As I suspected, it is therefore likely that you did not have a high level of emotional-addiction to your OM as originally assumed. I commend you for voluntarily leaving the affair, but my point thus remains valid.
You dealt with a WH who had a largely unreciprocated EA with his ex-girlfriend and you yourself apparently had a short fling with an OM that thankfully did not progress to the point of full-blown fog-addiction.
No offense, but you don�t personally know what it is like to deal with a romantically-addicted, cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs, WW. Be very glad you haven�t had that experience.
A few more corrections. My A was "short" compared to my H's. My A lasted 6 months, which may not be particularly short compared to many on this board. I was deeply fogged during that 6 months. I was absolutely convinced that there was no hope for my M, that I was "in love" with the OM, that we were going to get married and live happily-ever-after. I thought we were soul-mates, meant to be, blah, blah, blah... In other words, I was very cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs. I can see all of that now. I couldn't see my hand in front of my own face back then.
Luckily, my H did a fairly perfect rendition of a Plan A without even knowing what one was, and it worked. I came to the realization that he really did care about our M and this (very slowly) broke up the fog before I left and made what surely would have been the worst mistake of my life.
2nd correction: My H's EA was very reciprocated by the OW. She was "stuck" in a bad M with a much older man whom she left my H for and married because he was more financially stable and therefore able to take care of her. I know she never would have left her H and her financial security for my H (who earned much less) but she was a big-time cake eater. She wanted them both - her H for the money, and mine for the companionship - and she would have been perfectly happy stringing them both along for the rest of her life.
I have dealt with a WW - me. And, my H was very addicted to his OW. Hence the reason why he maintained this very unhealthy relationship for 10 years.
However, we both finally realized how stupid and selfish we were being and made a conscious decision to grow up and get our heads screwed on straight. It can be done. An A does not have to mean the automatic end of a M, which I think is what Krazy is advocating.
Krazy71,
I do empathize with the situation that was thrust upon you, but there are some things about all this pain and drama that I will probably never understand.
If stats are correct and only 15% survive infidelity, that would indicate that 85% do not.
It would now seem obvious that you have chosen to be in the 85% catagory and that's OK with me and pretty much every other BS on these forums.
What puzzels me, is why is it you felt it necessary to come back here and chide, berate, and disrespect those who chose differntly than yourself??
In all of your original thread, no one ever disrespected you for chosing to end your M. So, I must ask, why are you trying to taser those who chose differently??
Why is it the 85 percenters always choose to point and wag a finger at those who aspire to be the 15 percenters who didn't leave and made a resurrected and dead M turn the corner into a new and rewarding M???
I feel now, as I did when reading your original thread. That would include sorrow and empathy for your pain.
Take a couple of deep breaths, Krazy, seek God's peace and temper your bitterness. You don't know what lies in store for you down the line if you seek that peace.
All Blessings,
Jerry
If stats are correct and only 15% survive infidelity, that would indicate that 85% do not.
Jerry, a much higher percentage survive infidelity, around 65%. Only 15% of affairs end in
Plan A, in Dr Harley's experience.
A few more corrections. My A was "short" compared to my H's. My A lasted 6 months, which may not be particularly short compared to many on this board. I was deeply fogged during that 6 months. I was absolutely convinced that there was no hope for my M, that I was "in love" with the OM, that we were going to get married and live happily-ever-after. I thought we were soul-mates, meant to be, blah, blah, blah... In other words, I was very cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs. I can see all of that now. I couldn't see my hand in front of my own face back then.
Luckily, my H did a fairly perfect rendition of a Plan A without even knowing what one was, and it worked. I came to the realization that he really did care about our M and this (very slowly) broke up the fog before I left and made what surely would have been the worst mistake of my life.
Writer,
If you could bottle whatever fairy-dust it was that made you de-fog from the emotional addiction in time to save your marriage, you would be very wealthy in short order
Very, very few WWs reconcile the way you did, as Dr. Harley freely admits.
Very, very few WWs reconcile the way you did, as Dr. Harley freely admits.
Where does Dr Harley freely admit this? Can you give a source, please?
krazy71
I say this in jest and respectfully, you are krazy!
Your marriage followed the tidy bowl man ( for those not old enough to remember down the drain ).
Why because it was not recoverable. You put in three years to recover and it did not happen. Your sad, angry, mad. You need to vent. Vent but realize MB is not 100% effective. No expert on marriage is 100% effective. Don't remember your details. Don't need to at this point.
You gave it your best shot. Not every marriage can be saved and not every marriage should be saved.
Walk away proud because you were the better man then and have become an even better man now.
I'm a long time lurker, but this one drew me out of lurkdom. In June 2006 I discovered my wife's 1 1/2 year long affair. Like many here my world was absolutely shattered. I never thought that something like that could happen to us. Today nearly 4 years later, I am very secure in who I am, I have no problems with my self-esteem or sense of self worth. I also have a marriage that is recovered and in many ways is far better than the relationship we had prior to the affair.
Granted, when I confronted my wife on d-day, she confessed, immediately ended the affair and went no contact. She did display remorse and spent her energies trying to recover our marriage. She also did not put me through the indignity of a withdrawal from her affair partner. Shortly after I discovered MB and with the help of JL and some others who are no longer posting I feel we have recovered our marriage. Is the affair a distant memory that is buried in some remote region of my mind? No. We still discuss certain aspects of it, but this I feel is due to the role we have played in the lives of some family and friends who have also undergone the trauma that an affair afflicts. Yes I do bear scars, but those scars would remain whether we recovered the marriage or not and would then play a part in any future relationships.
Today I am very happy, I love my my wife, I am part of a family unit that is intact. I have a wife that loves me and reminds me of it regularily. She contributes daily to my well-being. In many ways it's hard to associate who she is today with the person she was 6 or so years ago. I would not trade anything for what I have today other than the ability to go back in time and erase the affair from our experience.
I would also like to say that the the price she has paid for her actions is far greater than the price I have paid for recovery. I can go through life with the knowledge that I have kept my vows. She to this day mourns what she perceives as the loss of her integrity. The hit to her own self esteem is far greater than the hit to mine and today I do have a concern about her self image. I need to be there to comfort and help her when she does get overwhelmed with the memory of the choices she has made.
Please don't question my sense of my own self worth or self esteem. What I have today I value more than anything else on earth. It's my choice and she was/is worth it.
Regards
tmi57,
Wow! I am only 15 months past d-day, but your story parallels mine down to the last sentence--immediate NC, great remorse, no withdrawal, WS's regret and poor self-esteem. Recovery is never easy, but some of our fellow MBers have had it so much worse than we have.
GY
So Krazy, your child/children are OK with plan D? No hard feelings there?
I would hope those children would place the guilt for the divorce where it belongs.
And where is that? Sure, the WAYWARD is guilty for the affair. But if the wayward works on recovery, then BOTH parties have to accept responsibility for the DIVORCE. Just looking at it through a kid's eyes...
Not sure if anyone got back to this - 48 posts since this was written! Anyway, just because a wayward works on recovery doesn't place any blame of the divorce on the BS AT ALL!!! Look at it through a kids eyes - "I can do whatever I want and just say sorry and there will be no consequences!" That's what you are teaching them!
Adultery and its consequences are actually pretty simple for even very young children to understand. Mommy had/has a boyfriend. That's not allowed when she is married. Because she broke the rules, we can't be married anymore. It doesn't matter if mommy tried to recover the marriage or not - divorce is a fair consequence to her adultery.
Sorry to hear about your sit but sometimes there is no sex its just an EA. That means I screwed up too. I think in those cases you can recover and move forward. At, least Im banking on it since I am in the middle of it right now. Just starting my plan A.
I am new here but I must say..
I myself... go from trying and doing my very best to make this work here...
I feel most of the time I am the only one working at it..
I talk and talk to him telling him my feelings and what I need here...
But it doesn't seem to do any good ...
He will be good for a couple of days then back to the same old way...
But then the net day I get it in my head that I am not ready to give up...
I am back and forth on what to do...
But I just got the book Surviving the Affair and have been reading and know that what I feel from day to day can change...
How long I will do this I have no clue right now...
Very, very few WWs reconcile the way you did, as Dr. Harley freely admits.
Where does Dr Harley freely admit this? Can you give a source, please?
Steve Harley told me this when I was working with him. He said the BH has a much more difficult time winning back the WW, because she has not just physically, but also emotionally left the marriage.
Other things Dr H. says are,
Men's perceived failure to satisfy their wives is punctuated by the fact that women file for divorce twice as often as men. In other words, their unhappiness with marriage often results in divorce.
....
When all forms of spousal neglect are grouped together, we find that it is far ahead of all the other reasons combined that women leave men. Surprisingly few women divorce because of physical abuse, infidelity, alcoholism, criminal behavior, fraud, or other serious grounds. In fact, I find myself bewildered by women in serious physical danger refusing to leave men that threaten their safety.
Simply stated, women leave men when they are neglected. Neglect accounts for almost all of the reasons women leave and divorce men.
I would say they leave when the FEEL neglected. It doesn't even take real neglect, but merely the idea that they are neglected, and those who leave feel justified because they feel they are missing out on something.
Does this sound like men who are neglecting their wives?
When I talk to their husbands, they usually have a very different explanation as to why their wives feel the way they do. They often feel that the expectations of women in general, and their wives in particular, have grown completely out of reach. These men, who feel that they've made a gigantic effort to be caring and sensitive to their wives, get no credit whatsoever for their sizeable contribution to the family. They feel under enormous pressure to improve their financial support, improve the way they raise their children, and improve the way they treat their wives. Many men I see are emotionally exhausted and feel that for all their effort, they get nothing but criticism.
So what do we do. Do we validate the feelings of the wives, but discount the feelings of the husbands. Both have shared feelings here. She feels neglected, he feels unappreciated for the efforts he's emotionally exhausted and criticized.
And this is BEFORE she has her affair. Then, after he's totally beaten down, she chooses an affair.
I can tell you, the first time I heard my ex-wife say she was unhappy was when she was already in her affair with the OM. She never once, in 7 years of married life together said those words to me until she followed them by announcing she wasn't in love with me and wanted to move out.
It wasn't like I wasn't there. I left my job that had me traveling 50% of the time to be home. But that wasn't enough. I suggested we carve out time to be together, just the two of us (instinctively wanting 15 hours a week of UA) only to be rejected.
Sorry, women may by more books, etc. But buying books and complaining to your husband doesn't mean you are more concerned or committed to your marriage.
Not choosing to divorce your spouse is a far more reliable measure of commitment. If you are committed, you don't leave, you don't threaten divorce, you don't engage in behaviors that are destructive to your marriage.
As long as women file for divorce 2-3x more often than men, one will NOT convince me women are more concerned, invested, or however it's described, to their marriages.
Committed people don't choose divorce.
Now this is a great thread! Much more insightful than the usual, "Do exactly as I say or you have no chance!" commentary.
Echoing Krazy71, a BS should imho strongly consider immediate divorce rather than wasting years of their life under the following circumstances:
1. The affair happened within the first 5 years of the marriage.
Don�t waste your time with a WS like this�he/she never took the marriage seriously from the get-go. A no-brainer.
2. This isn�t your WS�s first inappropriate extra-marital relationship.
See #1. Someone repeatedly distracted by anything shiny on the side of the road is not marriage-material. Another no-brainer.
3. The exposure potential is not very �target rich�.
If OP�s career/job can�t be jeopardized, if OP is unmarried or already divorcing, if family members �go along� or are detached, you don�t have much pressure to bring to bear on breaking the affair.
4. Your WS is clearly emotionally-addicted to the OP.
The more irrational, fantasy-driven, scapegoating-towards-you, and defending-the-OP your WS is, the more deeply he/she is addicted. They are illogically and powerfully attached to the OP. You are, at the very least, looking at a looooong road.
5. (get ready, this may be controversial) Your WS is � a WW!
Unless you catch the relationship in its infancy (rare), she will be heavily-addicted. She won�t give her OM up voluntarily (much more rare for a WW than a WH). The only realistic hope is to get him to dump her via exposure pressure that threatens something more important to him than her (career, finances, his marriage/kids). If #3 is present, you are hosed. I have seen many, many emotionally-addicted, active WW affairs both here on MB and in real life and I can tell you it is vanishingly rare to break the affair and save the marriage unless the OM dumps the WW in fairly short order. The usual result, like with Krazy, MissMyFamily, PSUBIKER, and myself, is that the WW is a �not-worth-it-lost-cause� who stays tightly glued to her lover, no matter what the sacrifice and how big a slimeball-loser the guy is. Think hard about it, BHs, cuz divorce is basically just Plan B without the added pain of (a likely futile) prolonged disappointment-limbo.
Well, I've got 3,4, and 5 going for me. No wonder it's been such a struggle. It's been one and half months since D-day and I've already gone through 4 or 5 cycles of dicovering contact, confronting her about it.
The last time she said she saw him so that they could close things as friends and that she was now fully committed to NC.
In the following week I found a credit card charge to the bar he frequents (I was camping with the kids) and yet another prepay phone purchased at Target.
I am at the point of seriously considering cutting my losses.
When I went back and read more of Krazy's posts, it dawned on me: a lot of his problems came from inside. Clearly, the rage toward the OM, who he didn't even know before DDay, was rage that maybe should have been addressed in counseling sessions (both IC and MC).
Pride seems to be the underlying factor here. "How could HE do this to ME?"
Well, guess what? It probably wasn't about you at all.
The fact that NC was established but you were unable to forgive and move on, in my opinion, was more about YOU than it was about her.
Why do I say this?
Because I'll readily admit that my recovery is stalled because of the same reason.
But I don't blame my FWH for my inability to get past it. That's on me.
When I think back sometimes, I think, "hey it would have been easier if I had just kicked his butt out that first hour." But then, when I look at my children, I realize that I would have only seen half as much of them for the past 5 years. Then some OW could have seen them the other half. How could I protect my children from an OW if my then-WH was fogged out? I couldn't.
So, yes, I took the more difficult path. But it was less selfish.
Because guess what?
Once you have kids, it's not just about you anymore.
I certainly won't have any regrets from spending 5, 10, or 15 years in a less-than-perfect marriage, if my kids get to see me each and every day. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Granted, there's an even higher road--learning to forgive and move on with recovery. But I, like you, am unable to achieve that at this time. Who knows? Maybe some day I will. But until then, I hold my family together.
When I went back and read more of Krazy's posts, it dawned on me: a lot of his problems came from inside.
I really wish that other people would do what imanotherone did, instead of making invalid assumptions. It's really easy to look up old posts, and it often gives a clearer picture of what's going on.
From Krazy's first thread:
She has done nearly everything right since, and we are working on R.
So how does she feel about adultery now?
She really hates it. She despises what she did. She went out and bought "Not Just Friends" on her own, and read it. She cringes when infidelity is mentioned on TV or in movies, just like I do.
She can't believe what type of person she had become.
After re-reading my own post, I can't help but wonder if at least some of my anger is unresolved anger from my childhood. My mom started the cheating...my father knocked her up WHILE SHE WAS STILL MARRIED TO HER 1ST HUSBAND. She then divorced him and married my dad. Charming, isn't it?
Let me be clear: of course Krazy could have initiated divorce proceedings right on Dday. No one would have faulted him, everyone would have understood. No one is faulting him now - it's his choice. He has received nothing but support from this forum, as far as I can see.
But let's not pretend that Krazy's wife has been some kind of unrepentant wayward, and that because she is female, his recovery never had a chance. Because that's just wrong, and worse, it's misleading to newcoming BHs.
Furthermore, I can understand some BSs taking umbrage at Krazy's insistence that recovery with a wayward is, well, crazy and futile. It's just not so, particularly if both spouses are committed to saving the marriage and changing their behavior.
As a FWS, I am going *way* out on a limb here, even posting to this thread. So, why am I doing it? Because my H read this forum when our recovery was in its infancy, and I don't like to think about how he would have felt if someone had told him that recovery was impossible. He already felt awful, but at least he had hope when he read some of Dr. Harleys material. And he was open to counseling w/SH.
I feel blessed that he chose me, chose us, chose our family, chose recovery, chose the "harder" path. But then, that's like him, he's not an easy road kind of guy.
pk
Excellent post, PK. You said what I tried to.
God's Blessings,
Say
>I feel blessed that he chose me, chose us, chose our family, chose recovery, chose the "harder" path. But then, that's like him, he's not an easy road kind of guy.
I'd be willing to bet my left big toe that he feels equally blessed.
I know I do.
Today is my 15 year anniversary.
To apply a cookie cutter action for these situations (as Krazy suggests) is a load of hooey.
I sometimes wonder if people are posting while they're drunk or high, or just in an ecstasy of bitterness.
To any newbies who might have felt discouraged by Krazy's post, consider the following instead.
Infidelity is an appalling trauma. Few of us are prepared for this to happen to us; we're not equipped to deal with it. We start off much too small for this overwhelming disaster.
Straight away, we have to make a choice - stay small, or grow big. Growing big - which means developing self-honesty, defending boundaries, fighting down panic, enduring injustice - is painful and difficult. Staying small - which usually means amputating the problem marriage - requires only the effort to get through the divorce.
Stick around here for a few years, and you'll notice that those who choose to grow don't lose out in the long run. The marriage may not recover; they may decide they don't WANT to recover the marriage, but they come out of the whole deal a much more enlightened, wise and self-aware person than they would ever have been otherwise. They have a much better chance of success in a subsequent marriage, IF they've done the hard work on themselves.
Stick around, and you'll notice another pattern. A lot of people who ran away from infidelity in a previous marriage end up with yet another unfaithful spouse. If you haven't worked out how you ended up at d-day the first time round, chances are good that you'll repeat the same patterns, and end up with the same result.
MB is not a magic formula for fixing marriages. It's a tool you can use to build a healthy marriage - IF you're both prepared to do the work, and IF there's enough emotional health available to build on. That's not the case for every broken marriage, and not every marriage can or should be saved.
Don't be put off making the effort just because there's a possibility you won't end up with a 'fixed' marriage. You won't lose out, whatever happens.
The tragedy is to fudge the work, end up with a divorce anyway, then complain the whole program didn't work. Shame on you, Krazy.
TA
Well. I don't have a thing to add to this except HUZZAH, TA!
Happy Anniversary, Dealan-de!
I am at the point of seriously considering cutting my losses.
schtoop, this is the danger of threads like this, it dashes the hopes of perfectly viable marriages that might have made it if they tried. Sure, some don't, but MANY DO. There are many recovered marriages on this board where the wife was the WS. You could be one of them, but you won't be if you give up before you try.
Secondly, I want to echo Pepperband, imanotherone, and penaltykill about Krazy's marriage. His marriage is ending, not because his wife wouldn't get on board, BUT BECAUSE HE CANNOT GET OVER HIS RESENTMENT. His wife ended her affair and did her best to commit to rebuilding. Krazy could not overcome his resentment. SOME CANNOT and that does not mean they are at fault, it just is what it is.
PK, I am glad that you took the time to post here. These newly BH�s need to see that there is hope.
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
Just as a WW may (not often) look to see if her BH really gets it, is really committed to meeting her needs, the same is true for a BH. He has to watch to see if the WW not only ends the affair, but does what Dr H calls provide just compensation.
It's not enough to say, "The affair is wrong, I can't believe I did that." What did she do to repair the damage? What did she do to help him heal?
Maybe she did, maybe she didn't.
If I understand this whole meeting needs and avoiding LB's thing, it's not just about self, and admitting when one has done wrong. It's also about stepping up and helping your spouse heal. It's about making it safe for your spouse to remain married to you.
Was Krazy angry? Yep. Did he have a lot in his past? Yep. Yet when one marries another person, you vow to be there for that person, past and all. And if you trigger something from that past, then you have to work extra hard at repairing the damage you've done.
Ending the affair is only the FIRST step.
It could be Krazy just couldn't let go of the anger. It could have been his XWW didn't do anything that effectively defused the anger she planted in his life.
Are there any percentages or statistics on marriages that survive a WW who has continued contact 6 months after DDay, has repeatedly lied even in counseling sessions, and has stated to the OM that she terribly misses him and that he has been her best friend and kindred spirit through all of this?
I love my wife and kids, but am I just wasting my time thinking she will come back? What do the percentages say?
3. The exposure potential is not very �target rich�.
If OP�s career/job can�t be jeopardized, if OP is unmarried or already divorcing, if family members �go along� or are detached, you don�t have much pressure to bring to bear on breaking the affair.
Had this.
WW was living with OM and his parent's. They encouraged her to, went with her to, and paid for her to file for divorce.
OM's job was a joke.
And WW's family were initialy in the "What ever makes you happy" camp
4. Your WS is clearly emotionally-addicted to the OP.
The more irrational, fantasy-driven, scapegoating-towards-you, and defending-the-OP your WS is, the more deeply he/she is addicted. They are illogically and powerfully attached to the OP. You are, at the very least, looking at a looooong road.
Got that.
OM was soulmate, meant to be, never happier, finley found what she was missing, and I was the devil.
5. (get ready, this may be controversial) Your WS is � a WW!
[i]Unless you catch the relationship in its infancy (rare), she will be heavily-addicted. She won�t give her OM up voluntarily (much more rare for a WW than a WH). The only realistic hope is to get him to dump her via exposure pressure that threatens something more important to him than her (career, finances, his marriage/kids). If #3 is present, you are hosed. I have seen many, many emotionally-addicted, active WW affairs both here on MB and in real life and I can tell you it is vanishingly rare to break the affair and save the marriage unless the OM dumps the WW in fairly short order. The usual result, like with Krazy, MissMyFamily, PSUBIKER, and myself, is that the WW is a �not-worth-it-lost-cause� who stays tightly glued to her lover, no matter what the sacrifice and how big a slimeball-loser the guy is. Think hard about it, BHs, cuz divorce is basically just Plan B without the added pain of (a likely futile) prolonged disappointment-limbo.[/i
I agree, wayward wives that are emotionally attached are way, Way, WAY harder and less likely to ever even consider returning to the marriage.
Still, my wife left OM. With OM asking, begging, and pleading for her not to.
Yea, she was
insanely fogged out for 6 months, and decreasingly foggy for the next year after that.
So it CAN happen.
But I agree, It is much rarer for a WW to leave OM, than BH to leave OW.
I am at the point of seriously considering cutting my losses.
schtoop, this is the danger of threads like this, it dashes the hopes of perfectly viable marriages that might have made it if they tried. Sure, some don't, but MANY DO. There are many recovered marriages on this board where the wife was the WS. You could be one of them, but you won't be if you give up before you try.
Secondly, I want to echo Pepperband, imanotherone, and penaltykill about Krazy's marriage. His marriage is ending, not because his wife wouldn't get on board, BUT BECAUSE HE CANNOT GET OVER HIS RESENTMENT. His wife ended her affair and did her best to commit to rebuilding. Krazy could not overcome his resentment. SOME CANNOT and that does not mean they are at fault, it just is what it is.
PK, I am glad that you took the time to post here. These newly BH�s need to see that there is hope.
He doesn't have to give up, but he may need to change plans. If she's still lying to him, still sneaking phones, etc, maybe it's time for plan B.
I know, Dr H recommends 6 months for BH and a much shorter time for BW. The problem is, if she continues to cake eat, she'll become more attracted to the OM and less to her H.
So I'm not saying end the marriage. I'm saying move to plan B much quicker. If she's not willing to end her affair after being put out by her BH, then she's not a safe spouse.
So I'd recommend getting the documentation, and if his state has divorce for cause, file for divorce stating she is being unfaithful. Have her put out of the house, she can be an EOW mom, and some 3rd party can handle any child issues.
She can pay CS and be a part time parent if the affair is that important.
It doesn't mean he has to allow the divorce to go final. But it does send a clear message that he will not share his wife with another, so if she wants to be his wife, she'll have to prove she is a trustworthy partner.
Perhaps when being serviced the WW can receive the MB phone number with a note saying if you don't want to divorce, call these people and do everything they say. When they say you are a safe wife, we'll talk.
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
Was Krazy angry? Yep. Did he have a lot in his past? Yep. Yet when one marries another person, you vow to be there for that person, past and all. And if you trigger something from that past, then you have to work extra hard at repairing the damage you've done.
Ending the affair is only the FIRST step.
It could be Krazy just couldn't let go of the anger. It could have been his XWW didn't do anything that effectively defused the anger she planted in his life.
Krazy's own posts indicate that his WW was doing something. I don't think she planted anger in his life. It sounds like Krazy has been angry for quite a while. How he chose to react to the A was his decision. Sure, there's going to be anger. Pain, rage, the whole nine yards. But at some point the BS has to make a decision that has to come from within: Accept and recover from what happened. Or leave. There's no one-size-fits-all, so it was within his right to decide that R was not where he wanted to be. Choosing to remain in a state of anger seems unproductive for him, now that he has made this decision.
[He doesn't have to give up, but he may need to change plans. If she's still lying to him, still sneaking phones, etc, maybe it's time for plan B.
I agree a change of plans is in order. But he has not taken our advice on this. He is doing his own plan.
[I agree, wayward wives that are emotionally attached are way, Way, WAY harder and less likely to ever even consider returning to the marriage.
I don't think you guys understand the RULE is that the WW is emotionally attached. They are so emotionally attached that they are
ADDICTED. That is the rule, rather than the exception. It is the very rare exception of a woman who hops in bed to violate her vows when she is not emotionally attached. That would decsribe the vast majority of the recovered marriages with WW's on this board in my experience. Few women are sexually motivated.
I understand this won't be a popular opinion on this particular board, but sometimes I'll read a few topics and shake my head in disbelief. This is only my opinion, and I wish I would've taken my own advice years earlier.
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc...
�Dump them. I walked out on my ex after trying for 3 years to get over what she did to me. It was the best move I've made in my entire life. She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
I would like to lend some
qualified support to Krazy�s commentary above. Yes, his analysis may seem harsh, rigid, and even contrary to MB�s purpose (and it some respects all of that is true).
Before I continue, let me state the following caveats for the record:
1. I have tremendous respect for the work and insights of Dr. Harley.
2. I have tremendous admiration for all the good people here who dispense excellent advice based on MB principles.
3. I congratulate and salute all those here, former-WSs included, who did the hard work and recovered improved, healthy marriages after the tragedy of an affair.
4. I fully believe that Dr. Harley�s plans and techniques are the best way to accomplish the above�if the BS wants that and if the appropriate conditions present themselves.I totally agree with Krazy as well. It is not what i did nor what i probably will do, but i agree with him entirely. I also agree with the above post.
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
YES, and she was taking that responsibility. She tried to heal the marriage. In Krazy's own words:
She has done nearly everything right since, and we are working on R.
Quote:So how does she feel about adultery now?
She really hates it. She despises what she did. She went out and bought "Not Just Friends" on her own, and read it. She cringes when infidelity is mentioned on TV or in movies, just like I do.
She can't believe what type of person she had become.
Quote:After re-reading my own post, I can't help but wonder if at least some of my anger is unresolved anger from my childhood. My mom started the cheating...my father knocked her up WHILE SHE WAS STILL MARRIED TO HER 1ST HUSBAND. She then divorced him and married my dad. Charming, isn't it?
Well, guess it is time for me to put in my two cents worth.
I didn't make it. I'm divorced. It was four years before I gave up. Well, maybe not that long. Actually it was three years before I quit trying so hard.
I suffered the indignity of watching my XWW go through withdrawals over the OM.
I watched her virtually spit on him a year or so ago when he came slithering along to see which way the wind was blowing these days.
I watched as my XWW made TWO (2) bad decisions for romance after we split up. I was sad but not surprised.
My honor is intact. Is her's?
Honestly, there were other factors leading to the divorce, not just the adultery.
Does all that make me unqualified to offer help and advice here?
Does all that make me an inferior person, a second class poster?
Does all that make me a bitter person? I can only answer this one.
I believe there is hope for everyone who doesn't give up. I preach that hope with every post I make. I get it, or at least I think I do.
And sometimes, to be honest, not everyone understands where I am going with some of my posts. I do, every time, or I don't post.
Sorry for all the "I's."
Larry
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
Was Krazy angry? Yep. Did he have a lot in his past? Yep. Yet when one marries another person, you vow to be there for that person, past and all. And if you trigger something from that past, then you have to work extra hard at repairing the damage you've done.
Ending the affair is only the FIRST step.
It could be Krazy just couldn't let go of the anger. It could have been his XWW didn't do anything that effectively defused the anger she planted in his life.
Krazy's own posts indicate that his WW was doing something. I don't think she planted anger in his life. It sounds like Krazy has been angry for quite a while. How he chose to react to the A was his decision. Sure, there's going to be anger. Pain, rage, the whole nine yards. But at some point the BS has to make a decision that has to come from within: Accept and recover from what happened. Or leave. There's no one-size-fits-all, so it was within his right to decide that R was not where he wanted to be. Choosing to remain in a state of anger seems unproductive for him, now that he has made this decision.
Right or wrong, folks make decisions based on what think is a rational basis. A WW choose the OM because she believes he will do a better job of meeting her needs than her BH. (And by shutting out her BH as Dr H and other have said they do, they make sure that this comes true. In many places Dr H has said WW allow their BH's to meet few needs, if any.)
So wouldn't Krazy decide the same way. After three years, he came to the conclusion that his anger was not going to get better with his wife around.
We can only speculate as to why, in either direction. Those speculating that he didn't resolve his anger are still speculating. The same would be true if anyone was seriously suggesting that she was doing little to help resolve that anger.
What we can reasonably surmise is that Krazy did not perceive the situation would get better, so he chose divorce.
Now we can speculate on if it was his inability to address that anger, or her inability to provide just compensation for the affair and it's damage.
As I said in another thread, an affair is like an earthquake in an ocean. It creates a tsunami that may take some time to play out, and it does a great deal of damage long after the affair is over.
One cannot discount the long term damage Krazy's wife did with her earth shattering affair. Perhaps it took three years of that damaging wave before Krazy said enough.
We really don't know.
My post was stated as an opinion. Paragraph one, sentence two.
I did not berate or disrespect anyone. Just because you don't agree, doesn't mean you've been disrespected.
I'm not angry at all these days. Divorce, for me, has been a blessing.
And, any BS who claims to have done the MB process and is happily married after their spouse's infidelity.......
Well, they are either a fool, or a liar (or both) and their claims are nothing but self denial ... or they are simply lucky, like a dumb lottery winner.
This is me to a T
and
I'm
PROUD OF IT
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
YES, and she was taking that responsibility. She tried to heal the marriage. In Krazy's own words:
She has done nearly everything right since, and we are working on R.
Quote:So how does she feel about adultery now?
She really hates it. She despises what she did. She went out and bought "Not Just Friends" on her own, and read it. She cringes when infidelity is mentioned on TV or in movies, just like I do.
She can't believe what type of person she had become.
Quote:After re-reading my own post, I can't help but wonder if at least some of my anger is unresolved anger from my childhood. My mom started the cheating...my father knocked her up WHILE SHE WAS STILL MARRIED TO HER 1ST HUSBAND. She then divorced him and married my dad. Charming, isn't it?
So she, knowing that he experienced that in his life decided an affair was her best course of action.
I guess my problem with all of this is that folks appear to be defending MB, instead of focusing on the damage her affair apparently did.
Even in the face of her doing everything right, according to Krazy, even that wasn't enough to save the marriage.
Why? She had broken trust.
I still wonder if he would STILL say she did everything right. After all, if she was building trust, why would he think that his best course of action was to divorce?
Time alters perspectives, and perhaps after three years, he realized that she wasn't doing everything right.
Maybe he just thought he choose badly and used his get out of jail for free card, citing her affair.
Who really knows.
But folks generally don't divorce folks who they think are meeting their needs and providing extra-ordinary protections for the marriage.
Or maybe, if we are going to speculate, Krazy didn't think it was fair for her to suffer his anger, so he let her go.
Ok, so you stated that it was an opinion, and then "in your opinion" began to take potshots at everyone who, in your view, only claims to have a recovered marriage?
Everyone, including Pep, who knows how to needlepoint???
BS's, do not give up on hope, or discount the power of God. There may be a time and place for some of you to walk away, and that' a valid choice. Just don't give up easily on the basis of a few despairing posters.
God wants to give hope and healing during and after adultery, and often is able to reach even hardened and apparently hopeless WS's. Be at peace, no matter the storm. Submit to God's leading, and you'll know if/when you've come to the right tim to walk away.
Chances are, it's not yet.
onestly, there were other factors leading to the divorce, not just the adultery.
Does all that make me unqualified to offer help and advice here?
Of course it doesnt. But you don't come here and tell others there is no hope when there is and try to discourage them from trying. That is CRIMINAL, IMO. You try to help people save their marriages, even though yours didn't make it.
You don't try to spread the misery.
The bottom line is that there is nothing that offers a 100% guarantee except death and taxes. Do we only do things that are EASY or come with a 100% guarantee? If that is the case, then we would do nothing. If we only did things that came with a 100% guarantee, we would NEVER improve, never grow. I wouldn�t be celebrating 25 years of sobriety on April 27th, I wouldn�t be smoke free for 13 years this October, I would be fat as a cow because, after all, there is no 100% guarantee for diet and exercise! Other people fail on diets all the time! So why try?
When I want something in life, I don�t seek out those who failed, I seek out those who SUCCEEDED and ask them how they did it. If I want to save my marriage, I will seek out those who did that successfully. If I decide to end my marriage, I will seek out those who divorced and moved onto a happy, productive life.
But I would NEVER hang around someone who was insistent on telling me how to FAIL at my goal. That is insane. Stick to people who can tell you how it can BE DONE, not how it cannot be done.
What's with all the speculation? What's the point?
I've tried recovering a marriage after infidelity, and I've experienced divorce.
IN MY OPINION, most people would be better off going straight to Plan D.
Did I mention this was my opinion?
BTW, I'm not despairing, nor does divorce automatically equal misery.
I am at the point of seriously considering cutting my losses.
schtoop, this is the danger of threads like this, it dashes the hopes of perfectly viable marriages that might have made it if they tried. Sure, some don't, but MANY DO. There are many recovered marriages on this board where the wife was the WS. You could be one of them, but you won't be if you give up before you try.
Secondly, I want to echo Pepperband, imanotherone, and penaltykill about Krazy's marriage. His marriage is ending, not because his wife wouldn't get on board, BUT BECAUSE HE CANNOT GET OVER HIS RESENTMENT. His wife ended her affair and did her best to commit to rebuilding. Krazy could not overcome his resentment. SOME CANNOT and that does not mean they are at fault, it just is what it is.
PK, I am glad that you took the time to post here. These newly BH�s need to see that there is hope.
The point of the thread notwithstanding, ML...I read Schtoop's post as utter frustration with his WW refusing to go along with a plan for recovery. She has now..twice? three times? gone behind Schtoop's back and contacted OM. I don't blame him for having second thoughts. Perhaps if he had posted this on his own thread rather than here, it would have stood out for what it is: viable and understandable doubts about the recovery of his marriage. Only he can make that decision of course, but if he's really given it his all, and just can not get her to commit, I wouldn't blame him for cutting his losses sooner rather than later. How many times can you allow yourself to be abused before you say "enough!"
Caveat: I've not read Schtoop's whole thread so I don't know where he is in the process. I'm guessing that he hasn't gone Plan B yet and perhaps that is the next logical step here.
So she, knowing that he experienced that in his life decided an affair was her best course of action.
I guess my problem with all of this is that folks appear to be defending MB, instead of focusing on the damage her affair apparently did.
Even in the face of her doing everything right, according to Krazy, even that wasn't enough to save the marriage.
Why? She had broken trust.
Of course she is at fault. He is not resentful because of his own fault, he is resentful because of her affair. No one denies that. The point is that she did TRY. That differentiates his experience from those that never do. It can�t be said that she didn�t try.
And don�t get me wrong, I am not blaming Krazy for leaving the marriage. That was the right thing to do since he couldn�t overcome his resentment.
I think it would serve folks well to read how Krazy agonized over telling his WW.
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=156454&Number=2225358#Post2225358Remember, Krazy WALKED IN on his wife doing the deed with the OM.
I totally get this as it happened to me in college with a long time girlfriend and a friend of mine. So I can empathize with how he may have felt after such an experience.
She may have been doing nearly everything. But apparently, that wasn't enough. How do you erase that image from his mind?
Maybe I'd say if one has been betrayed before, don't bother trying recovery the next time, as it will only bring back those past hurts.
Like I've said, if it should happen to me again, I'd probably just walk away to save myself the grief of another failed attempt to reconcile a marriage, not to mention having to fight the urges to simply kill everyone involved in the affair.
I don't think waywards understand how sometimes those thoughts play out in the minds of the ones they betray.
99% of us don't act on those thoughts. The other 1% end up on Lifetime or some other docu-drama network, LOL.
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
Just as a WW may (not often) look to see if her BH really gets it, is really committed to meeting her needs, the same is true for a BH. He has to watch to see if the WW not only ends the affair, but does what Dr H calls provide just compensation.
It's not enough to say, "The affair is wrong, I can't believe I did that." What did she do to repair the damage? What did she do to help him heal?
Maybe she did, maybe she didn't.
To your first question, was Krazy's anger and resentment his alone to deal with--I say YES!!!!!!!
You see, that is the ONLY thing he can control He can't control what his then WW did, and couldn't control what happened in her life, but he COULD control how he would respond to her attempts at reconciliation. He COULD control how he dealt with his rage.
Actually he DID. He CHOSE to remain enraged.
I do the same thing. But I OWN the consequences. I don't blame the MB program.
And Krazy clearly stated that his FWW did tons of things to try to recover the marriage.
[
The point of the thread notwithstanding, ML...I read Schtoop's post as utter frustration with his WW refusing to go along with a plan for recovery. She has now..twice? three times? gone behind Schtoop's back and contacted OM. I don't blame him for having second thoughts.
Unfortunately, schtoop has not taken much of our advice regarding exposure, etc, so he hasn't done a very thorough Plan A at all saying he didn't "need to do exactly" what we advised. The result has been numerous "closure" meetings between his wife and her lover. Affairs thrive on secrecy, after all, and he did it his own way.
IN MY OPINION, most people would be better off going straight to Plan D.
But, you aren't qualified to speak for most people, you can only speak for yourself. I was not "better off" going to Plan D and neither were many of the others here who are in a full recovery.
Did I mention this was my opinion?
Yes
I don't think It's what you said, it's how you said it that is bothering folks.
Also, this is a pro marriage site, filled with people looking for hope and guidance after an affair. And others looking to give hope and guidance to them.
Your message is all gloom and doom about marriage after an affair.
You yourself stated in the first post that you knew it would not be popular, so why are you acting surprised?
Me, I'm happy for you.
I think any BS has the RIGHT to divorce any time they want to, for any reason they want to.
But I don't support discouraging BS's that want to try recovery.
So is Krazy's anger and resentment only his to deal with? Or does his WW/XW bear some responsibility in healing?
Just as a WW may (not often) look to see if her BH really gets it, is really committed to meeting her needs, the same is true for a BH. He has to watch to see if the WW not only ends the affair, but does what Dr H calls provide just compensation.
It's not enough to say, "The affair is wrong, I can't believe I did that." What did she do to repair the damage? What did she do to help him heal?
Maybe she did, maybe she didn't.
To your first question, was Krazy's anger and resentment his alone to deal with--I say YES!!!!!!!
You see, that is the ONLY thing he can control He can't control what his then WW did, and couldn't control what happened in her life, but he COULD control how he would respond to her attempts at reconciliation. He COULD control how he dealt with his rage.
Actually he DID. He CHOSE to remain enraged.
I do the same thing. But I OWN the consequences. I don't blame the MB program.
And Krazy clearly stated that his FWW did tons of things to try to recover the marriage.
Well, if one uses that logic, then the anger, disappointment or whatever that convinces a WW or WH to have an affair is theirs alone and there is no need for plan A or B.
Let them go, and once they work it out, then maybe we let them come back to the marriage.
It just doesn't work that way in a marriage. If my spouse has a problem, WE have a problem. If my spouse is angry, WE have a problem.
Otherwise, what is the point of having a spouse if anger or any other negative emotion is theirs along to work out.
So I disagree, if my spouse is angry, especially over something I did, WE have a problem, and it's not wise to just let her work it out on her own.
What's with all the speculation? What's the point?
I've tried recovering a marriage after infidelity, and I've experienced divorce.
IN MY OPINION, most people would be better off going straight to Plan D.
Did I mention this was my opinion?
I guess I'm confused, then. Why are you on a marriage building site to espouse your opinion that most people are better off going to Plan D? Why are you not on a Divorce site, saying that to support people who are choosing/chose divorce?
Me, I'm happy for you.
I think any BS has the RIGHT to divorce any time they want to, for any reason they want to.
But I don't support discouraging BS's that want to try recovery.
Ditto for me.
So she, knowing that he experienced that in his life decided an affair was her best course of action.
I guess my problem with all of this is that folks appear to be defending MB, instead of focusing on the damage her affair apparently did.
Even in the face of her doing everything right, according to Krazy, even that wasn't enough to save the marriage.
Why? She had broken trust.
OK, even as a BS, I'm going to have to cry foul on this one. I don't thin that even Krazy thinks his wife CHOSE to have this affair because she knew, based on his past, that it would crush him. Most A's happen because the wayward was THOUGHTLESS, not acting out of malice.
As angry as I still am at my FWH, I would never say that he had his A because he WANTED to krush me. It was because he was only thinking about himself.
[
The point of the thread notwithstanding, ML...I read Schtoop's post as utter frustration with his WW refusing to go along with a plan for recovery. She has now..twice? three times? gone behind Schtoop's back and contacted OM. I don't blame him for having second thoughts.
Unfortunately, schtoop has not taken much of our advice regarding exposure, etc, so he hasn't done a very thorough Plan A at all. Affairs thrive on secrecy, after all.
You left out my caveat where I explained I hadn't read the whole thread so didn't know if what plan Schtoop was (or was not) executing.
It's subtle, ML, but by quoting only part of my post, you changed the meaning slightly.
Just wanted readers to be clear that I wrote that having NOT read Schtoop's thread. A subtle, but important distinction.
I'm as qualified to encourage divorce as you are to encourage recovery.
The people here at MB aren't an accurate cross-section of people. It's not surprising that there is a higher than average number of successfuly recovered marriages at a site called "Marriage Builders".
Instead of a blanket discouragement, how about brainstorming the things that make choosing plan D the best option.
Because we know, there are some cases where plan D is the right choice. There are other cases where recovery has a chance.
So what are the absolute killers, that when they are present, plan D is the best course of action.
So instead of blanket statements, where is plan D indicated?
It's not surprising that are a higher than average number of successfuly recovered marriages at a site called "Marriage Builders".
There could be a reason for that.
[
The point of the thread notwithstanding, ML...I read Schtoop's post as utter frustration with his WW refusing to go along with a plan for recovery. She has now..twice? three times? gone behind Schtoop's back and contacted OM. I don't blame him for having second thoughts.
Unfortunately, schtoop has not taken much of our advice regarding exposure, etc, so he hasn't done a very thorough Plan A at all. Affairs thrive on secrecy, after all.
You left out my caveat where I explained I hadn't read the whole thread so didn't know if what plan Schtoop was (or was not) executing.
It's subtle, ML, but by quoting only part of my post, you changed the meaning slightly.
Just wanted readers to be clear that I wrote that having NOT read Schtoop's thread. A subtle, but important distinction.
Might be a good idea to actually read the thread before you comment, huh?
What's with all the speculation? What's the point?
I've tried recovering a marriage after infidelity, and I've experienced divorce.
IN MY OPINION, most people would be better off going straight to Plan D.
Did I mention this was my opinion?
I guess I'm confused, then. Why are you on a marriage building site to espouse your opinion that most people are better off going to Plan D? Why are you not on a Divorce site, saying that to support people who are choosing/chose divorce?
You are right. I'll drop it.
[
The point of the thread notwithstanding, ML...I read Schtoop's post as utter frustration with his WW refusing to go along with a plan for recovery. She has now..twice? three times? gone behind Schtoop's back and contacted OM. I don't blame him for having second thoughts.
Unfortunately, schtoop has not taken much of our advice regarding exposure, etc, so he hasn't done a very thorough Plan A at all. Affairs thrive on secrecy, after all.
You left out my caveat where I explained I hadn't read the whole thread so didn't know if what plan Schtoop was (or was not) executing.
It's subtle, ML, but by quoting only part of my post, you changed the meaning slightly.
Just wanted readers to be clear that I wrote that having NOT read Schtoop's thread. A subtle, but important distinction.
Might be a good idea to actually read the thread before you comment, huh?
In an ideal world, yes. In my limited time today, no.
I still think that Schtoop's reasons for doubting the recovery of his marriage stand, based ONLY on what he posted here today. I added that caveat STRICTLY so people here on the board wouldn't take me to task for what I don't know. You know...admit the objection up front so your buyer can't throw it out there as an obstacle.
Therefore, this is not an obstacle.
Thank you. Back to krazy's topic.
Carry on.
I'm as qualified to encourage divorce as you are to encourage recovery.
The people here at MB aren't an accurate cross-section of people. It's not surprising that there is a higher than average number of successfuly recovered marriages at a site called "Marriage Builders".
So, again, why are you not on a Divorce Support Forum? Of COURSE there will be a higher than average number of recovered marriages here! It's a site designed to encourage recovery! You're not going to find a lot of Chemical Engineers on a Needlepoint Discussion Forum - it wasn't designed for Chemical Engineers!
You're not going to find Scientologists spreading their religion on a Baptist Discussion Forum for the same reason! The Baptist posters would accuse them of flaming and would probably bar them from the site!
Marriage Builders is a site encouraging the Building of Marriages!
I'm as qualified to encourage divorce as you are to encourage recovery.
No, I am not qualified to decide what is best for others and neither are you. You have stated that you believe that divorce is right for ALL marriages that suffer infidelity and you are simply not qualified to discern that for others.
And you do this on a marital RECOVERY BOARD.
So she, knowing that he experienced that in his life decided an affair was her best course of action.
I guess my problem with all of this is that folks appear to be defending MB, instead of focusing on the damage her affair apparently did.
Even in the face of her doing everything right, according to Krazy, even that wasn't enough to save the marriage.
Why? She had broken trust.
OK, even as a BS, I'm going to have to cry foul on this one. I don't thin that even Krazy thinks his wife CHOSE to have this affair because she knew, based on his past, that it would crush him. Most A's happen because the wayward was THOUGHTLESS, not acting out of malice.
As angry as I still am at my FWH, I would never say that he had his A because he WANTED to krush me. It was because he was only thinking about himself.
I didn't say it was malicious, I was saying the same thing. It was thoughtless. Good grief, I said that she chose an affair as the best course of action knowing that was in his past. I didn't say she chose it BECAUSE of it. She chose the affair while being knowledgeable of his past.
So you can sugar coat it and say it's thoughtless. You can twist my words to mean something I didn't say. I.E. you used the word malice, when I did not mean, nor even come close to saying malice.
Frankly, you nor I could know if she had malice in her heart. But we both know she likely knew of his past and chose the affair anyway.
That makes it worse, knowing how something is more hurtful and selfishly or maliciously or without regard, choosing it anyway.
Regardless why she chooses it, it cannot be denied that given prior hurts, the act is even MORE hurtful.
So I disagree, if my spouse is angry, especially over something I did, WE have a problem, and it's not wise to just let her work it out on her own.
IF the WS has shown absolutely NO remorse, then I would say you're correct. But IF the FWS is doing everything (by Krazy's own account) to reconcile, then no, I think it's up to the individual to work on their recovery.
I could easily sit here like Krazy and say it's ALL MY FWH's fault that we haven't recovered, but that would not be honest. If I'm truly honest with myself, I understand that in a relationship, I am responsible for working with my demons.
Heck, for all I know, my own personal sense of pride and some early childhood trauma could be responsible for my failure to forgive. I can't blame my H for that. Sure, I blame him for the A, but how I react to his attempts at recovery are mine to own.
Anything else, in my opinion, would be a cop-out.
So what are the absolute killers, that when they are present, plan D is the best course of action.
Thats differant for diferant people.
It's not surprising that are a higher than average number of successfuly recovered marriages at a site called "Marriage Builders".
There could be a reason for that.
x2
>
To apply a cookie cutter action for these situations (as Krazy suggests) is a load of hooey.
This message got lost and I absolutely agree with you.
Happy Anniversary !.
-rh-
[I still think that Schtoop's reasons for doubting the recovery of his marriage stand, based ONLY on what he posted here today. I added that caveat STRICTLY so people here on the board wouldn't take me to task for what I don't know. You know...admit the objection up front so your buyer can't throw it out there as an obstacle.
But again, you wouldn't know because you haven't bothered to read his story. Admitting that fact does not give credence to the opinion.
So I disagree, if my spouse is angry, especially over something I did, WE have a problem, and it's not wise to just let her work it out on her own.
IF the WS has shown absolutely NO remorse, then I would say you're correct. But IF the FWS is doing everything (by Krazy's own account) to reconcile, then no, I think it's up to the individual to work on their recovery.
I could easily sit here like Krazy and say it's ALL MY FWH's fault that we haven't recovered, but that would not be honest. If I'm truly honest with myself, I understand that in a relationship, I am responsible for working with my demons.
Heck, for all I know, my own personal sense of pride and some early childhood trauma could be responsible for my failure to forgive. I can't blame my H for that. Sure, I blame him for the A, but how I react to his attempts at recovery are mine to own.
Anything else, in my opinion, would be a cop-out.
Yet sometimes, everything in our power is not enough.
How was Krazy's wife supposed to erase the images he had of walking in on her and her lover? It would be interesting to hear him tell how she attempted to address that source of anger.
Or what about the damage done to him because he had experienced prior betrayal. What actions did she take.
All we have is a vague assurance that she did everything.
Maybe she did.
Apparently it wasn't enough.
Sometimes, someone does so much damage to us, with their behavior, that there is no recovery.
Are you suggesting we blame the victim for the damage done by the betrayer?
You're not going to find a lot of Chemical Engineers on a Needlepoint Discussion Forum
I'll bet there are lots of CE's on Pep's Needlepoint Discussin Forum.
So what are the absolute killers, that when they are present, plan D is the best course of action.
Thats differant for diferant people.
It's not surprising that are a higher than average number of successfuly recovered marriages at a site called "Marriage Builders".
There could be a reason for that.
x2
OK, so you are saying that some may put up with abuse and affairs, but others might find that unacceptable.
How about we apply the Dr H standard to marriage.
According to what we understand about MB, what are the absolute deal breakers that indicate plan D?
So I disagree, if my spouse is angry, especially over something I did, WE have a problem, and it's not wise to just let her work it out on her own.
IF the WS has shown absolutely NO remorse, then I would say you're correct. But IF the FWS is doing everything (by Krazy's own account) to reconcile, then no, I think it's up to the individual to work on their recovery.
I could easily sit here like Krazy and say it's ALL MY FWH's fault that we haven't recovered, but that would not be honest. If I'm truly honest with myself, I understand that in a relationship, I am responsible for working with my demons.
Heck, for all I know, my own personal sense of pride and some early childhood trauma could be responsible for my failure to forgive. I can't blame my H for that. Sure, I blame him for the A, but how I react to his attempts at recovery are mine to own.
Anything else, in my opinion, would be a cop-out.
PS, I don't think you've read Krazy's story. I don't think he totally blames his XWW and says it's all her fault. Go back and look at the thread I posted before.
He thought it was a character flaw in himself. Odd thing is many who are critical of his posting here were telling him the same things I'm saying, that sometimes the damage is too great.
Trust me, Enlightened, one does NOT have to see the couple in the act to have the image burned into their brains. In fact, although it's a shocking sight, I'd argue that the image in my head of my H with a woman 20 years my junior is probably much worse in my imagination that it is in real life. In real life, there are fat rolls, ugly birthmarks, less-than-spectacular sized... whatever body parts.
So, yes, walking in on the act is horrific, but the IMAGE is no worse than for any betrayed.
I don't blame the victim for the damage done by the betrayer. I just think that the victim also has to do their own heavy lifting if their response is the only thing that is keeping recovery from beginning.
You're not going to find a lot of Chemical Engineers on a Needlepoint Discussion Forum
I'll bet there are lots of CE's on Pep's Needlepoint Discussin Forum.
I saw that one coming as soon as I typed it, LOL
Not so...I and many others are very happy for Krazy in his D.
We obect to his blanket characterizations of the choice many of us have made to recover our marriages, and his "opinion" that if we say we're happily recovered, we are dishonest.
How was Krazy's wife supposed to erase the images he had of walking in on her and her lover? It would be interesting to hear him tell how she attempted to address that source of anger.
I don't think Krazy can ever be blamed for the resentment he feels. He tried everything to make this work so I don't blame him one bit. What happened was so egregious that he can't erase those visions from his head.
The only point I wanted to make is that his situation did not end over his WS�s reluctance to end her affair and try to repair the marriage. It ended because her adultery was so egregious that it would have taken a lobotomy to get over it. This was more than most people could take psychologically. I would not recover from such an affair either probably.
Sheesh! Why didn�t you people tell me I had been misspelling �egregious� all these years!?? Duh!
[I still think that Schtoop's reasons for doubting the recovery of his marriage stand, based ONLY on what he posted here today. I added that caveat STRICTLY so people here on the board wouldn't take me to task for what I don't know. You know...admit the objection up front so your buyer can't throw it out there as an obstacle.
But again, you wouldn't know because you haven't bothered to read his story. Admitting that fact does not give credence to the opinion.
1. Using the word "bothered" implies I don't care enough to read his story.
Wrong
2. I actually have read some of this thread but haven't read most of it. Didn't want to misquote him or misread where he was.
I have credence to post an opinion at any time I choose to do so. I haven't seen anything yet in the TOS that prohibit that. I posted my caveat. My opinion still stands.
[
PS, I don't think you've read Krazy's story. I don't think he totally blames his XWW and says it's all her fault. Go back and look at the thread I posted before.
He thought it was a character flaw in himself. Odd thing is many who are critical of his posting here were telling him the same things I'm saying, that sometimes the damage is too great.
That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. There are other mitigating circumstances in his case. He says as much more than once. So why, armed with that knowledge, would he assume that NO ONE can recover their M? Not everyone, in fact, only a small minority, have those kinds of emotional baggage. I am speaking from first-hand experience.
According to what we understand about MB, what are the absolute deal breakers that indicate plan D?
There are no absolutes, there are typicals and usuallies.
As in Dr. Harley "Usually" advises divorce if "Blank"
But he never says "Always" divorce if "Blank", and neither do any MB teachings that I know of.
It all depends on the WS and the BS.
Bliss -
I have credence to post an opinion at any time I choose to do so. I haven't seen anything yet in the TOS that prohibit that. I posted my caveat. My opinion still stands.
And thank you for your opinion!
Not so...I and many others are very happy for Krazy in his D.
We obect to his blanket characterizations of the choice many of us have made to recover our marriages, and his "opinion" that if we say we're happily recovered, we are dishonest.
Perfectly stated!
He thought it was a character flaw in himself. Odd thing is many who are critical of his posting here were telling him the same things I'm saying, that sometimes the damage is too great.
EE, I agree that sometimes the damage is too great. Even Dr Harley states this. And this certainly is not a marriage at all costs site, I think we all agree on that. But to tell everyone that recovery is hopeless, that everyone should get a divorce just because YOUR OWN MARRIAGE did not make it is counterproductive. And is not the purpose of this forum.
People can and do recover their marriages every day on this forum and IRL. Newcomers need to understand that.
I would never presume to tell some of the divorced champions on here that they should have recovered their marriages just because I recovered mine.
Some of the finest posters on here are D'd, and stayed D'd even when their spouse wanted back.
Nuthin wrong with that!
onestly, there were other factors leading to the divorce, not just the adultery.
Does all that make me unqualified to offer help and advice here?
Of course it doesnt. But you don't come here and tell others there is no hope when there is and try to discourage them from trying. That is CRIMINAL, IMO. You try to help people save their marriages, even though yours didn't make it.
You don't try to spread the misery.
I can almost always count on Mel to see where I am going. Maybe the common Texas roots have something to do with it.
See, two things happened to me. My XWW had an adulterous affair and I learned a lot. I think I grew as a person. Ok, so my story ended in a negative.
I turned it into a positive.
And frankly, I have too many attaboys from all sorts of people along with very, very few negatives to feel as if I am either a second class citizen or someone who isn't helping.
See, I am focused on what I gained instead of what I lost.
Somehow that feels better to me.
Krazy, get over it, as the waywards like to say. You learned a lot. Life lessons can be negative or positive. Either way, if you try, you grow as a person. The things that happen to you, either self inflicted or imposed, become part of who you are.
And if you like who you are, it is a good thing.
Larry
God wants to give hope and healing during and after adultery, and often is able to reach even hardened and apparently hopeless WS's. Be at peace, no matter the storm. Submit to God's leading, and you'll know if/when you've come to the right time to walk away.
Chances are, it's not yet.
The best thing I've read here in a long time.
My H had two A's.
My H had a VLTA that was very emotionally entrenched.
I went through four YEARS of false recoveries.
We are recovering. He is doing the hard work after years of hardening his heart.
There is often hope. Things can get better.
One caveat: This is costly. It isn't rainbows and butterflies. The duration of pain that I went through left a lot of damage and it is hard, hard work to get to personal recovery after all that. There are good and wise reasons why most recommend that a plan A be short.
But on good days, I think that God can heal even me.
Krazy's attitude is completely understandable. Had I walked in and seen what he saw, the coroner would have been called in. I have a baseball bat near the bed in case of intruders. Just because I hit in the .180 range back in the day doesn't mean I couldn't have connected with Pond Scum several times. Hard to miss a POS that big. His head would have been treated like a pinata. Wouldn't have touched her...but him -- whole 'nother ballgame.
Having said that, you can't make blanket statements. There is no one perfect solution for everyone. Circumstances are different, and you have to adjust approaches to account for that fact.
It's been a while, but if I recall, Krazy's XW wasn't willing to do certain things that would have been necessary and retreaded into WW ways toward the end of things.
He did all he could, and given the circumstances of discovery, it would have taken a miracle for R to truly occur.
Can anyone recall a fully recovered R when the BS walked in on the WS and the OP? Ever?
One thing I wanted to point out as encouragement to any newbie BH's reading this thread. There's been a lot of chatter here about it being harder to extract a WW from an affair than a WH. I agree with that assessment. Most WH's don't want to get divorced whereas most WW's divorce is an consideration.
HOWEVER, IMO, once extracted WW's are generally better at recovery and more willing to work the program. They are more willing to be open about the situation, discuss it, make changes, etc. Whereas, FWH's want to sweep everything under the rug and not discuss it or really change. Don't believe me...notice that there are 10 times more FWW's on these boards than FWH's.
In addition, just because more WH's end their affairs and return to the marriage doesn't mean that they are more likely to creat a MB marriage of extraordinary care. Fact is...men generally have more to lose in divorce (money..kids) and stay with no intention of changing.
Thus...my best estimation is that BH's are MORE likely to achieve a fully recovered MB marriage of romantic love and extraordinary care in the long run (the ultimate goal of MB btw) despite being at a disadvantage at the outset breaking up the affair.
Mr. Wondering
p.s. - btw...there was a list of items earlier that I think SDCWman posted that I could have checked off 3 1/2 of 5. My situation wasn't a good one at all and yet we still recovered. Point being there is no way of knowing up front and, IMO regretting "trying" is easier to get over than the forever unknown regret of not trying.
What it comes down to, is you have to make an effort and give it your best shot.
Not for the WS, but for yourself. If and when you throw in the towel, you have to know you tried. Wondering "what if" down the road is another form of torture.
You can't really rebuild trust after being betrayed like that. Some people claim they have, but I simply don't believe them. I think they are deluding themselves out of fear of ending the marriage.
I did not berate or disrespect anyone.
The hell you didn't !
I very much feel berated and disrespected, by you.
Krazy's attitude is completely understandable. Had I walked in and seen what he saw, the coroner would have been called in. I have a baseball bat near the bed in case of intruders. Just because I hit in the .180 range back in the day doesn't mean I couldn't have connected with Pond Scum several times. Hard to miss a POS that big. His head would have been treated like a pinata. Wouldn't have touched her...but him -- whole 'nother ballgame.
<snip>
Can anyone recall a fully recovered R when the BS walked in on the WS and the OP? Ever?
I only know of one other time the BS walked in on the WS & OP, so I can't speak to that question since I don't have anecdotal evidence.
Krazy is well within his rights to refuse to continue with WW after seeing what he saw. That's not my issue. My issue is that he is on a marriage
building site declaring that he believes, as a survivor of an A, that all marriages touched by A's need to end in divorce.
His words, being presented as his "opinion" and then immediately as his "advice":
"
This is only my opinion(emphasis mine), and I wish I would've taken my own advice (emphasis mine) years earlier.
How should you deal with your spouse's affair(s)? You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc. Sure, there are some positive stories of reconciliation on Marriage Builders, but this place is not an accurate cross-section of real life. No matter how much you love your WS, no matter what they promise, odds are that they will either cheat again at some point, you'll be stuck in mediocre-at-best marriage, or both."
This is not the forum for such a slash and burn approach to relationships. I am suggesting that he move to a Divorce Support forum, where he may be better equipped to dispense advice and opinions based on his D experience.
Trust me, Enlightened, one does NOT have to see the couple in the act to have the image burned into their brains. In fact, although it's a shocking sight, I'd argue that the image in my head of my H with a woman 20 years my junior is probably much worse in my imagination that it is in real life. In real life, there are fat rolls, ugly birthmarks, less-than-spectacular sized... whatever body parts.
So, yes, walking in on the act is horrific, but the IMAGE is no worse than for any betrayed..
You COULD argue that the imagination is worse BUT since you have never experienced the actual act of your H boinking OW it wouldn't go very far........
You cannot judge which is worse without experiencing both......
As far as those wanting to argue about Krazy's WW trying to recover, well, I personaly never truly got that impression, even WHILE he was saying otherwise. As far as her earning the "F", in MY OPINION, had she truly earned it then she wouldn't have been emailing ex-boyfriends with sexual content while he was hardly removed from the home....
Krazy's WW a FWW??? Not by my standards.....
Krazy,
I told you this before, the very first post I ever read by you my first thought was, "What an a$$....". Your resentment and anger was very prominent (the first post I read was not your first post ever....). Then I learned more about you and what you had experienced, all while being in the midst of my Hs affair, and began to really admire you.
The first post on this thread, while I don't agree with all of it, it not so anger filled. It sounds as if you made some peace with your decision to divorce.....something you definately didn't enter into lightly. I pray you continue on you journey and find the answers you seek.....I wish you well
not2fun
Then get over it Pepperband. Krazy is not longer answering this board so I guess he got the message.
We are here to support one another and Krazy might have just worded things wrong but he made some good points.
It is not that good to respond to anger with more anger.
blessing
Not-
You are correct that I don't have two different D-day discoveries to compare to, but I will say that, horrific as it may be to walk in on the act, it can't be much worse than, say, the conception of an OC or the passing along of an untreatable STD...
And there are plenty of marriages on here that survived those incidents that could be called "greater than the garden variety."
Just sayin' it's too easy to lay the whole thing on him "walking in on the act."
Let's ask this, Krazy--what if, instead of walking in on the act, you discovered a stack of love notes, lingere, and sexy photos? Would you have had an easier time, in your estimation, of getting over this with your M intact?
Then get over it Pepperband. Krazy is not longer answering this board so I guess he got the message.
We are here to support one another and Krazy might have just worded things wrong but he made some good points.
It is not that good to respond to anger with more anger.
blessing
I'm not ready, just yet.
Thanks for the advice.
I feel BETRAYED after spending time supporting someone, Atena.
You know what that's like, don't you?
Just offer me a cookie, why don'cha? 
Then get over it Pepperband. Krazy is not longer answering this board so I guess he got the message.
We are here to support one another and Krazy might have just worded things wrong but he made some good points.
It is not that good to respond to anger with more anger.
blessing
I think you're missing the point Atena. Pep and others have called it irresponsible for Krazy to tell newcomers to just divorce. How would you have felt, when you came here, new and vulnerable, just to be told "no one ever gets over it, so you should just D?"
ONe could argue that you've endured a lot--so why not just quit? Because you think there is a chance, right? Krazy shouldn't tell people they have no chance, because that's simply false. And dangerous.
We are here to support one another and Krazy might have just worded things wrong but he made some good points.
Who is Krazy
supporting when he comes here and says:
"You can't really rebuild trust after being betrayed like that. Some people claim they have, but I simply don't believe them. I think they are deluding themselves out of fear of ending the marriage. They can't do better than a cheater? Really? I can."
Telling RECOVERED people they are "deluded" and/or dishonest is not supportive, it is disrespectful and false.
I believe that Krazy should tell people whatever he wants. This is an open board and it is good to get different opinions. People who post here for help will certainly have the opportunity to be told that D is not the only solution.
My H had 2 A. I should have let him go after his first, but we had a false R and now he had a second one. Fatal one.
I have been going thru this sh"t for 6 years now....if someone would have told me to D after the first A I would have not listened.
I am not willing to D after the second A either.
But look at LadyLong legs, she D right away...it really depends on the person and what they are willing to put up with.
I do not beleive anything Krazy says will effect a BS spouse decision because that very BS is going to get lots more MB talk from all the rest of the posters here than Krazy could possibly post on his own.
Maybe Krazy is ungrateful, and that is not good. I do not like that. But he is entitled to his opinion. My 2 cents
blessing
Krazy doesn't even believe what he says. He says
You should divorce them asap. Period. No second chances, regardless of finances, kids, etc.
Yet just a few months ago he commented
Despite everything she did to me, when I see the destruction I left in my wake...
What happened to him was unfair, and his being traumatized is understandable. But he remains very conflicted on the subject, that is clear. His original post on this thread was an attempt to provoke support for his divorce decision and to cover up his true feelings towards divorce.
Tough thread to keep up with.
One thing I wanted to point out as encouragement to any newbie BH's reading this thread. There's been a lot of chatter here about it being harder to extract a WW from an affair than a WH. I agree with that assessment. Most WH's don't want to get divorced whereas most WW's divorce is an consideration.
HOWEVER, IMO, once extracted WW's are generally better at recovery and more willing to work the program. They are more willing to be open about the situation, discuss it, make changes, etc. Whereas, FWH's want to sweep everything under the rug and not discuss it or really change. Don't believe me...notice that there are 10 times more FWW's on these boards than FWH's.
In addition, just because more WH's end their affairs and return to the marriage doesn't mean that they are more likely to creat a MB marriage of extraordinary care. Fact is...men generally have more to lose in divorce (money..kids) and stay with no intention of changing.
Thus...my best estimation is that BH's are MORE likely to achieve a fully recovered MB marriage of romantic love and extraordinary care in the long run (the ultimate goal of MB btw) despite being at a disadvantage at the outset breaking up the affair.
Mr. Wondering
I think this is a slam dunk Mr. W.
Maybe Krazy is ungrateful, and that is not good. I do not like that. But he is entitled to his opinion. My 2 cents
blessing
I agree he is entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own set of FACTS, nor he is qualified to decide what is best for anyone other than himself. He is not qualified to tell others their marriage is "not worth it." It is simply a FALSE ASSERTION that those who are in recovered marriages here are "deluded."
And sure, he can come here and tell people they should dump their WS and that it is hopeless, but others can tell him that he is WRONG.
I'm holding onto a thin hope, that Krazy will apologize to the once betrayed, and now recovered MB posters he has besmirched.
Not just me. All of us.
Krazy came to this site, an angry wounded man.
Krazy received support & understanding, even when it was difficult to support/comfort such an angry, wounded man.
When Krazy decided to separate/divorce ... he got support and understanding.
An apology for insulting those that helped Krazy, and a "thank you" for that support, would be a wonderful thing.
Atena, if you don't think people will take advice from posters here, why do you post? I know for a fact that many M's have been saved as a result of the great advice received here.
If there were an OP on here suggesting someone go out and cheat, do you think s/he is "entitled to their opinion?"
Huh-uh. No way, pal. Just peddle that stuff somewhere else.
We are allowed to disagree on this board. I certainly don't disagree with everything Krazy says, and can see a lot of myself in his story, but that doesn't mean I can condone what he says when he makes a blanket statement that "all BS's should go to plan D."
What if I came on here and said, "All spouses of someone who travels internationally should go to plan D because all that travel will eventually lead to a D." Could be, my personal and anecdotal info tells me this is the case, but I still am not doing anyone any favors in doing this.
What if based on my experience, my H, and every other man who ever cheated on me had brown hair? Would it be appropriate to say, "divorce your H if he has brown hair?" No. So if someone comes on here with blanket statements, he may get flamed for it.
Just offer me a cookie, why don'cha? :stickout
I have a WHOLE trunk full of Girl Scout cookies..... Which variety floats your boat sweetie????.....
mmmmmmm.....
girl scout cookies.....
But he is entitled to his opinion. My 2 cents
My rare, but **** spectacular **** hissy fit = my 2 cents.
Then get over it Pepperband
Luuuuuv your new sig line Pep!
GET OVER IT!!!!!!
I got your opinion Pepper. YOu are entitled to it of course. And to as many cookies as you like.
Cheers
Just offer me a cookie, why don'cha? :stickout
I have a WHOLE trunk full of Girl Scout cookies..... Which variety floats your boat sweetie????.....
Just offer me a cookie, why don'cha? :stickout
I have a WHOLE trunk full of Girl Scout cookies..... Which variety floats your boat sweetie????.....
Weren't those the ones that got recalled because they smelled funny?
Just sayin!
I have found that the tastiest way to eat those is by mouth. The fastest way to realize their outcome is to just glue them to my butt.
Just offer me a cookie, why don'cha? :stickout
I have a WHOLE trunk full of Girl Scout cookies..... Which variety floats your boat sweetie????.....
On it's way dear..... OH, and I threw in a box of Tagalongs ( my personal fav!!!) for you enjoyment.....
you people and your junkfood!
mmmmmmmmmm peanut butter mmmmmmmmmm
you people and your junkfood! Ignored
[font:Comic Sans MS]I'm holding onto a thin hope, that Krazy will apologize to the once betrayed, and now recovered MB posters he has besmirched.
Not just me. All of us.
I don't need an apology from Krazy Pep.
He can think I am a delusional liar/lottery winner all he wants. It doesn't affect me.
Thats just his perception, perception is not always reality.
I don't need an apology from Krazy.
An apology would mostly benefit Krazy, don'cha'know?
I hold out this hope, Krazy will soften his heart.
For his sake. It cannot be pleasant, being Krazy.
Krazy stated his opinion, why does he need to apologise? Unless a wayward has a complete change of heart and becomes nearly a different, better person....they are not worth being married to. It does not take a rocket scientist(or someone who has been in an affair) to determine this. If you have children and you have to remain married it is bad if your cheater does not have this complete change of heart.
It is still bad to be married to a cheater without a complete change of heart, mind and spirit. Children or not.
What would he be apologising for? His beliefs? The blunt and direct way he expressed himself?
you people and your junkfood!
:::spitting my diet coke all over my monitor:::
Junk food? JUNK food?? Those thin, crispy, burst-in-your mouth bites of sugary goodness? Those sweet, gland-aching pieces crunchy coconut and drizzled chocolate? Those minty-chocolated pieces of heaven that, when frozen, are sought after as nectar of the Gods?
Not that
I eat the stuff, of course...I buy them for my kids...
I don't need an apology from Krazy.
An apology would mostly benefit Krazy, don'cha'know?
I hold out this hope, Krazy will soften his heart.
For his sake. It cannot be pleasant, being Krazy.
Pep,
You are speaking to someone who did not feel the need to apologize to many whom he caused pain.... And in fact, called the ones he hurt hypocrites.... Good try on the lesson though. Maybe it won't fall on deaf ears this time ...
you people and your junkfood!
:::spitting my diet coke all over my monitor:::
Junk food? JUNK food?? Those thin, crispy, burst-in-your mouth bites of sugary goodness? Those sweet, gland-aching pieces crunchy coconut and drizzled chocolate? Those minty-chocolated pieces of heaven that, when frozen, are sought after as nectar of the Gods?
Not that
I eat the stuff, of course...I buy them for my kids...
Call me a traditionalist.
Trefoils.
It was the Lemonades I think, that got recalled. Not in all areas.
My trainer says:
"What you eat in private, shows up in public"
BS's, do not give up on hope, or discount the power of God. There may be a time and place for some of you to walk away, and that' a valid choice. Just don't give up easily on the basis of a few despairing posters.
God wants to give hope and healing during and after adultery, and often is able to reach even hardened and apparently hopeless WS's. Be at peace, no matter the storm. Submit to God's leading, and you'll know if/when you've come to the right tim to walk away.
Chances are, it's not yet.
We have to have hope even when it feels hopeless -- that is when we turn it over. Well said Neak
Pep,
You are speaking to someone who did not feel the need to apologize to many whom he caused pain.... And in fact, called the ones he hurt hypocrites.... Good try on the lesson though. Maybe it won't fall on deaf ears this time ...
Oh boy
I asked a question directly to a BW on here who I believed would not be offended by the question. The question was asked with the hopes of helping to understand her WH, and possibly through this understanding help her in recovery. And yes, I was also curious because of the phenomenon of affairing down.
The question was worded with an apology before being asked. I asked it as sensitively as I knew how. I thought this question relevant to the situation and as a BS I would not mind being asked this question if it was done for the purposes of better understanding a WS and with positive intentions.
I had no private means of asking the question, the public board was the only way.
The thread starter, who the question was directed to, was not offended by it. And she answered it with no hesitations.
A few posters commented that I should not have asked it.
You where
OUTRAGED!! Said you did not care if the BW/thread starter/person it was directed toward was not offended. Basically called me a jerk, and that I should be ashamed of myself, especially as a BS. And then demanded an apology.
I agreed not to ask the question again, but would not apologize.
This outraged you even more.
So
(And I guess this is where you think I called everyone a hypocrite) I pointed out where I had asked a BH the EXACT SAME QUESTION and no one so much as batted an eye. And yes, I do think this is a double standard.
Oh boy
Thanks Pep
Hey, where�d all these damn cookie crumbs come from?
For the record, I empathize with Krazy.
Four or so years after DD2 of the VLTA I started to realize I was done. Wife was not in any known adultery any longer either. Many here would declare she was a FWW even.
I had a fork in me anyway.
Surprised the heck out of me. Being done sort of crept up on me unawares. To be completely clear, I was done on DDay2. I suppressed, repressed and otherwise ironed it out of me. On the strong and recurring recommendations of MB. And on keeping busy with MB recovery methods.
Evidently, one can�t keep a good done down forever.
Sounds like a CW tune.
Anyway, it is me that�s done. Don�t care what she does or does not do any more. I�m done.
I recommend being done to any and all comers.
eta: And if it's forgiveness anyone questions, well, I do forgiver her. If forgiveness is cancelling all debt, removing all recompense and need for atonement then she has forgiveness. Completely. She owes me absolutely nothing. Don�t want anything whatsoever from her at all. I hope she lives a long and happy life. Far from me.
She doesn't deserve me, and your WS/FWS doesn't deserve you, and never will.
I agree with the above, but not so much the rest. Dealing with this A crap is a struggle but there is still good in my marriage. Sorry that you still find yourself dealing with the anger but it would have been there with or w/o a D.
Prayers to you Krazy.
Pass the thin mints.
Frankly, I agree with Krazy.
While I have never been married or cheated on, I have been abused enough that I will *not* put up with cheating (which is a form of abuse, as you all would agree) in any form or fashion.
Some of us think we have enough scars as is. Without inviting someone to make more.
This is a great thread. I first found this site a little over 9 months ago when I found out about my wifes affair. I found hope in reading about other couples being able to survive the affairs.
I have learned a lot about myself through this entire process. I am a stronger man for having gone through the affair my wife had. I have learned to love myself and make changes within to never allow this to happen again, or to at least see the HUGE red flags.
I know that for me I wouldnt stay together for the kids. I have 3 of them and they pick up on the emotions between my wife and myself and for me its not worth it for them to think thats normal. I am now thinking that my wife will never change and that I will never be able to trust her again.
The OP thread hit me like a ton of bricks and I feel no bitterness towards my wife, more sadness of a love and friendship lost. Can we get that back? I dont know and that is very sad. I can see it from both angles, but I think that this thread will help some people to just cut their losses at the jump and spare themselves years of anguish trying to recover a marriage that is beyond repair.
This is a great thread. I first found this site a little over 9 months ago when I found out about my wifes affair. I found hope in reading about other couples being able to survive the affairs.
I have learned a lot about myself through this entire process. I am a stronger man for having gone through the affair my wife had. I have learned to love myself and make changes within to never allow this to happen again, or to at least see the HUGE red flags.
I know that for me I wouldnt stay together for the kids. I have 3 of them and they pick up on the emotions between my wife and myself and for me its not worth it for them to think thats normal. I am now thinking that my wife will never change and that I will never be able to trust her again.
The OP thread hit me like a ton of bricks and I feel no bitterness towards my wife, more sadness of a love and friendship lost. Can we get that back? I dont know and that is very sad. I can see it from both angles, but I think that this thread will help some people to just cut their losses at the jump and spare themselves years of anguish trying to recover a marriage that is beyond repair.
Jenkins...
You posted this on October 25, 2009:
So I have put plan A into motion. I gave her a list of requests that I have. I asked her to get a new phone, one with accessible email by me, no contact with other man, no texting other men and that our lives be transparent. I told her that this is what I will accept from my significant other. So we will see.
You also set a boundary back then that she give up her blackberry and she refused immediately. Did you ever resolve that issue/boundary?
When you started Plan A...you were already seperated and some court documents were already set in place.
IMO...though it's only been 5 months...if you are really DONE then you allowed your love bank to deplete completely without going to Plan B at all. Thus, you are LONG past Plan B time (maybe you are in it...I'm not sure but I don't see it in your posting history).
If you ARE still Plan A'ing...your post above should be a good indication to you that you are done Plan A'ing so Plan B is in order. Doesn't have to be a long Plan B and you can file for divorce in the process (divorces take time).
Sorry...I'm kinda tired and talking in circles. You haven't posted much of your story since Oct so I'm unsure where you are in this process.
Mr. W
From my position - completely recovered and very happy in our marriage after an extremely inauspicious start which my H and I really couldn't see us recovering from - I really don't know what to say.
I guess I'll just say our recovery was worth it. It could have ended in divorce, I'm very, very pleased it didn't. I'm very, very pleased I married the man I married. He's worth his weight in gold. If he had followed the "Krazy" plan or the "Aphelion" plan we wouldn't be where we are now. Happy, happy, happy and waiting to be grandparents.
The things I love about our house and our marriage is the laughter and the affection, the in jokes and the 36 years of history.
We're done here folks. Let's get back to Marriage Building please.