My wife of 5 years had an affair with a mutual friend. They knew each other only a month and a half (in total!), and the second time he met us, he got her drunk, got her alone, and kissed her. She argued and said they just have to be friends, and he continued making romantic advances for 3 weeks... until they worked. They had built an EA, and it went physical for something around a week before I made her confess to me. D-Day was November 3rd. At my request, she cut off contact with the OM the following morning. Told our mutual friends that we could not see the OM ever again, and gave me her email and facebook passwords. She slept variously on the couch and in hotels that first week, and then left town for the second week, and finally left the country to go stay with her family for a month (all at my instigation, and frankly, under my watchful eye).

After humming and hawing, and many of the typical WS comments that I see posted by so many others here ("maybe I'm just not cut out for monogamy." "Maybe I would be happier alone." "I deserve to be alone." "I love you but I'm not IN love with you", and others), she has committed to working to save our marriage. We are both seeing a therapist in individual and couples sessions. She is working HARD and PAINFULLY on keeping NC.

This weekend she finally broke the deception and told me the whole truth, in response to my expressed need for openness and honesty. I knew she hadn't told me everything before, of course no one does. To me, this felt like the whole truth. There were enough personal revelations and visible pain that I believe it... and it fits with the timeline and details that I already have. I know that one night while she was away she got drunk, and broke NC by emailing the OM from her (formerly) secret email account to say "I miss you". The next morning she wrote a message pretending to be from a friend saying "I'm deleting this account for my friend. Please do not respond." and she deleted the account (I'm still verifying that one)

But basically, she has been putting in the effort to make this work, and I see that. I've told her about my emotional needs as I've been figuring them out myself, and she's been trying to meet them. But she's still really visibly in withdrawal. She has enormous depressive swings, and terrible urges to contact the OM. She talks about having such a terrible fear of the unknown, since she doesn't have a "life line" to him to know what he's going through. She's (unreasonably, I think) afraid of a physical response from him... and I think more concerned for his emotional response. To me, this is all classic withdrawal.

But I'm ready for Recovery. I'm revving my engine, and actually EXCITED about building a new, stronger relationship out of the ashes. When she's in a funk like that though, any step I make to try and support or help her only intensifies her guilt. She feels worse, more hopeless. And she craves contact with the OM.

So I'm thankful that I have a wife who relatively easily has recommitted to our marriage, and who is so visibly trying to match deeds to her promises. She is really trying to comfort me, and we have the feeling of trying to work through this TOGETHER.

BUT the withdrawal is really wearing on me. This guy was an [censored], in a big way. And to know that she still has longing for him... is killing me. I know I just have to be patient... but how long does this last? She only KNEW him for 6 weeks, I had really thought that 6 weeks would be enough to get through it. But she still doesn't have the strength to start re-investing in meaningful ways, ie filling out the emotional needs questionnaire. So much of what we do still amounts to distracting her from her pain. A big part of it seems to be coming back home to this city, where there are so many triggers to remind her of the OM.

So I'm looking for advice from the MB community. How long did withdrawal last for you? What did you do to get through it? Should I consider that drunk, one way email as a breach of NC, starting everything over again? How did you help your WS get from Withdrawal into Recovery?

Hi losttexpat, welcome to Marriage Builders. A couple of things stand out to me. If your wife gets in trouble when she drinks, it might be a good idea to stop drinking. An important part of recovery from an affair is eliminating the conditions that led to the affair. In her case it is alcohol and her inappropriate boundaries around men. So in addition to alcohol, she needs to get rid of her opposite sex friendships. That would include social networking sites, which seem to be a breeding ground for affairs.

Withdrawal can take up to 6 months but every time she contacts him [or even looks at his picture] put her back to day 1 of recovery. Is she gawking at his picture on facebook?

Most marriages do not recover from infidelity because they don't/won't take the steps necessary to recovery. They end up in a crippled version of the pre-affair marriage and are more vulnerable after the affair than before. Here is what it takes to recover:

here

Thank you for your fast and considerate answer!

I didn't realize that just seeing a picture could be such a setback, but of course it makes sense. She un friended him on facebook, and with his account restrictions that means she can only see his profile picture and name. But he was a mutual friend and a part of our life here... not to mention hitting on my wife aggressively... so he's in almost every picture we have from the last 2 months! Do we actually have to go back and delete all those pictures?

Now that I say (type) it like that, it would be a huge relief to me. Not just to have no contact, but to have him erased from our life entirely. I suppose that's my answer right there.

Many of the betrayed get rid of everything their FWS wore; one person on this forum burned the couch where he discovered his wife and AP embracing. We got rid of every single reference we could find and even dumped a woman friend of FWH who had supported the A.

I used to google the OW's name out of a horrible morbid curiosity until I heard Dr. H. address that in a radio show saying that not only does the WS need to never be in any sort of contact with the AP, including googling or looking the person up in FB, the BS needs to avoid it as well.

Life is full of enough triggers without having the obvious ones in front of our faces.

Furthermore, many people completely delete their FB accounts or at the least, share an account. Be aware that if you share mutual friends, his name will pop up in comments from time to time.

Yeah. Actually, I think the first step is to engage her in more of the directing and planning for the recovery. She had a really problematic relationship with her parents when she was a kid, where they snooped in her diary and otherwise broke her confidence through breaches of privacy. This has big consequences in the present situation - just asking for access to her accounts sets off an old, deep defensive trigger in her. She's working on that in therapy, but in the immediate sense it means that we're still negotiating ways to build transparency and trust again, without setting off that old instinct.

I realized today that what I really want is to block his facebook page from our internet connection, take down all the pictures of him from our facebook photos, untag her and I from other people's photos with him in it... and remove all photos of him from her hard drive. My wife is obsessive about keeping photos, so I probably will have to just move them to a USB drive that I keep in my possession. We can talk about restoring them in a few years (when neither of us will want to!). The problem is, asking for that would definitely set off her defenses. Not because it's unreasonable or because she doesn't understand it... just because it's someone intruding on her privacy.

So I think it would be much more effective to make that decision with her, by bringing her into this process. I've talked a lot about this site, and I think it's time for us to start reading it together, and maybe posting to the forums together. That's gotta happen sometime, and it may as well be now as we try and move into Recovery. Anyway I expect the photos thing to be a fairly obvious step we can both agree on when it comes out of an external, neutral source like this.

One thing that's nice - we have no mutual friends with the OM anymore. Every one of them dumped him after we exposed the affair. Even his best friend of 7 years... and that was based on the old, sugar coated version of events that had them just caught unawares by chemistry. If they knew that he had been hitting on her from the first... whooo boy. So yeah, there's no expectation of his name coming up anywhere again. It's still a trigger for her to see the people who WERE mutual friends of course, but I'm not sure what to do about that except give it time.

There should be no discussion of revisiting these pictures. Delete them for eternity. She should never see those again. Nor should you dangle a carrot in front of her, implying that the day may come when you'll give those back to her.
Flinging open the bathroom door during her morning constitutional is invading her privacy. I think the two of you need to redefine 'privacy' to understand the difference between that and 'secrecy'. Why do they not know this? They should know the whole story so they can protect their wives and family from him. I find it unlikely that he has been completely shunned. Keep an eye on that. If these people are triggering her, she should not see these people.

lostexpat, I can see what the basic problem is and why you haven't recovered. You have lowered the bar so low that your wife is just living down to your expectations. In order for a marriage to recover, extraordinary precautions must be put in place to prevent a repeat affair. In your case, the fact that she sees him on facebook keeps her in the fog. And the fact that she is not transparent with you, keeps you in a state of tension becaues you not protected.

She is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe.

I would insist that she delete her facebook account and open up her life entirely to you. She should give you access to everything - that is not even negotiable. Her childhood problems have nothing to do with the present and are irrelevant. I would not save any pictures of the OM for the future so don't even say that.

Set her down and explain to her that you want to have a romantic, loving, SAFE marriage and that you won�t stay in a loveless marriage. Tell her you are willing to give her an opportunity to earn your forgiveness. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. This is what it will take to keep you interested:

1. end all contact with the OM for life - including deleting her facebook page

2. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle

3. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc

4. no more opposite sex friendships

5. commit to a program of recovery that restores the romantic love in your marriage

Tell her "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage." Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on her willingness and ability to make radical changes. Her lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. She is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. She must also meet your emotional needs in a way that until now she has failed. Unless she makes a 180 degree turn in her approach to what it means to be a wife, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if she won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage.

This is putting the fox in charge of protecting the hen house.




This is wayward logic and manipulative. She is an adult now and honestly why would this require therapy. It is recommended for parents to snoop on their children to PROTECT them.

lostexpat, you need to be the strong one and take control. Don't be afraid of WW's anger...you will not recover this way.

Be strong, cool and confident.

I just love pokerface!!

Wow. Thanks.

lostexpat, your wife's thinking is cloudy enough; please don't do yourself the disservice of muddling things further by joining her in it.

Blaming her parents is silly. All this amounts to is ducking responsibility for her own choices & conduct. And remarkably, she's got you abetting her in ducking responsibility.

The problem at hand isn't that she's been denied adequate privacy during her life. The problem facing your marriage is that she's been doing things that she knew & knows are quite fully wrong, and thus feels a desire to conceal & keep them secret. As maritalbliss noted, "privacy" and "secrecy" are not the same things.

You cannot have "partial transparency," anymore than one can be "partially pregnant." Either she'll be completely transparent with her internet & phone habits & her associations, or she'll be continuing to hide things. Partial transparency won't allow you feel emotionally safe with her and won't allow the two of you to recover & improve your marriage.

And the photo files? If you were dealing with a cocaine addict, would you try to take away her stash by dangling out the hope of letting her have a snort later, after passage of time? Do you think that would help or hurt the process of breaking the addiction? It's the same deal here. You shouldn't dangle out the prospect of her getting her "fix" of OM later on. OM needs to be over & done. She needs to begin to accept that there's forever no going back, not to retard the beginning of that acceptance. Figuratively speaking, that chapter of her life needs to be closed, torn out & burned beyond any hope of subsequent reconstitution. Delete the photos of OM forthwith. Keep no copies in any format. This ought not to be negotiable.

Thanks to everyone for the replies!

I definitely take the advice on just deleting this portion of history for us, and not offering the carrot of another hit in the future. I love the way gloveoil put it, thinking about a cocaine addict.

But the privacy thing for her is more than just a duck. I'm sorry I can't go into detail here, but she is a child abuse victim. Not in an "oh woe is me" way - in a "hiding the bruises" way. The wrong approach to getting total transparency doesn't risk her anger. That would be fine. It risks her seriously hurting herself or worse. So aggressive demands at her privacy are not an option.

I DO believe that we need total transparency, but it cannot come from an aggressive demand, like the NC did. We all understand here that emotional needs are ranked for people, and meeting certain needs can be enormous for the right person. Love busters can work the same way. For this person, DEMANDS, specifically at her privacy, are explosively destructive. For example, she did give me complete access to her email, facebook, and phone. But there was a slow, long conversation to make that happen. Figuring out a real total access system has to be the same way.

BTW - I already have access to her phone passwords, email, facebook, phone bills... all of it. I'm not sure myself how to make the access more complete! Part of the reason we have to discuss is to find other ways to add transparency.

I'll talk to her tonight about blocking him from her facebook, and deleting the photos. I'll make those changes myself, a) so I know they're really done, and b) so she doesn't get the dopamine kick from seeing them "one last time".

In other news... When she finally came clean about the details, it plugged a huge hole in the account. We're both starting to feel the glow from deposits that stick, now. There are more love busters to find and root out, and we've only just begun identifying emotional needs, but it's wonderful to start having times where I feel connection to my partner again.

If you are accurate, then she is mentally unstable.
Please, do not have children with her.

If you find yourself in the situation of continually "walking on eggshells" around her, I recommend you buy a book.

The book is called Stop Walking on Eggshells *** LInk*** to Amazon site

She is mentally ill on the verge of suicide? If not, then she is wasting her time. Most people were "child abuse victims;" it has nothing to do with adulthood. Going back into her childhood is a waste of time and a distraction. It just brings problems of the past into the present.

Once again, extraordinary precautions are not negotiable. That is what is necessary to recover a marriage. And if you are serious about recovering your marriage, you will place the safety of your marriage above your fear of her anger. Remember, the goal here is to save your marriage, not to avoid her anger at any cost.

Your wife has remained in the fog by keeping her facebook account all this time. That is why your marriage has never recovered. You should make it clear this is a boundary of YOURS and insist she delete it. That is ridiculous to maintain such a reminder of the OM. Just delete the account entirely. Blocking him is a waste of time because it takes 2 seconds to unblock him. Just delete it.

Rather than make demands, just explain to her that these are your boundaries for personal protection. You have nothing to lose excpet a bad marriage.

I'm sorry to hear that, lostex, but that doesn't wash. I'm a child abuse victim as well. You don't even want to know some of the things that happened to me, but as an adult I've learned the importance of talking about those experiences. It would serve no purpose to t/j your thread with it, so suffice it to say that I'm am very candid about what happened to me and I don't keep it inside. Doing so is like a cancer.

What happened in my childhood, while horrible, is something I don't use to excuse my adult choices. Everyone has had something happen in their childhood that wasn't 'Ozzie and Harriet' material. As an adult, your WW needs to accept that she is a big girl who is capable of making big girl decisions. And when those decisions are bad ones, she needs to accept the responsibility or consequences, like a big girl. Childhood incidents don't relieve her from behaving like an adult.

Your WW also needs to learn that it is freeing to NOT keep secrets. It is freeing to be AN OPEN BOOK. It is imprisoning to carry secrets and harbor bad thoughts. She is not helping herself by doing so. My FWH embraces complete honesty and being open with me. He says it makes HIM feel good. It's a win/win.

He can unblocked in 2 seconds. And since she has been gawking at him on FB all this time, just being on FB is a trigger. Really, facebook is NOT worth it. Just delete it. Tell her this is your boundary. And stick to your boundary.

No one has ever died from not having a silly facebook account. It is not worth all this trouble.

QFT. I got rid of my FB account months ago. I haven't missed it for a second, and the world has continued spinning per schedule.

I just saw this. My FWH got rid of his car because it was the 'scene' of some of their dalliances. But even the fact that she was IN it was a trigger for me.

BTW - re "inviting the fox into the henhouse" - at some point you have to move into recovery as a team, BOTH working out your emotional needs and meeting each others'... building your recovery plan, reading "surviving an affair" and "his needs, her needs" together etc. So what was the threshold for all of you? When did saving your marriage go from something that one person did DESPITE the actions of their spouse, to something that two people did together?

My spouse has cut off contact, given me transparency, and has demonstrated a commitment to saving the marriage by trying to meet my emotional needs. She has said again and again that she's willing to do "whatever it takes" to save our marriage and build a passionate relationship again, and she has acted in a way that backs that up, responding to my every request about this. So I feel like we're at that threshold where we have to start doing this as a team. She still has bouts of depression, and still has times when she has to distract herself to keep from trying to contact the OM (she has a list of people to call, including me... and another list of things to do that she finds grounding and centering)... but the majority of the time she is visibly making an effort for the relationship. I really feel that she is on my team here.

When I wrote the original post, it was after one of the times where she was having a hard time "holding on" and not going for her fix. I felt like it would never be over. But the more I read and learn, the more it seems that most WSs have those sorts of addiction pangs on and off for months... so maybe it's just something we have to push through during the first months of recovery?

It became a joint effort once EPs were in place and the fog wore off.


She has not cut off contact and you have stated she cannot be transparent because she was abused as a poor child and is in "therapy." She has not really cut off contact if she sees the OM facebook. That is enough to keep her in the fog. If she is willing to do whatever it takes, then ask her to delete facebook and become completely transparent.


You are not at that threshhold if EPs are not being observed. Do a better job of implementing EPs so that the fog rolls away and THEN she will really be at the threshhold.


She is in a perpetual state of withdrawal and as such, perpetually compares YOU to the fogged out fantasy feelings she had with the OM. You can never win that way. Just looking at his picture brings her right back into the fog.

Is the OM married? And if so, does his wife know?

But in order to withdraw, all contact must end. Withdrawal doesn't START until every reminder, every trigger is removed.

Unfortunately, removing facebook from our lives is not an option. We are in show business, and facebook is a major way that we communicate with fans and colleagues. We could, however, switch to a joint facebook account, and have me manage it. I can also block his facebook account from our internet connection entirely.

I understand that extraordinary precautions are not negotiable. But keep your eye on the GOAL here: total transparency. There are many ways to achieve that, and many elements that can be involved. Do we review the phone bills together every month? Share passwords for all our accounts? Have keyloggers on our computers? Keep a GPS logging her movements at all times? Have her call me every hour to check in? They're all valid options and all could be a part of a solution. But the solution has to be something that makes me comfortable, and that she is aware of.

In the end, at some point I have to just trust that she's being honest. If she really wanted to cheat again, even with all of those measures she could borrow a friend's phone and make contact. She could stop at an internet cafe, create a gmail account, and send him a message in under 5 minutes. She could create a new facebook account and write to him again. I can't be everywhere at once, and I can't spend my entire life watching hidden camera footage of her.

These rules and systems are there to help reinforce my trust, and to make it harder for her to contact him again when she gets the urge. But they are not the transparency itself. What I am demanding is the goal: total transparency. What I am not demanding is a specific way to achieve it. Some measures I feel I HAVE to have, like access to her accounts and phone. Others ARE negotiable, like a GPS tracker that watches her every movement. We already ARE together 99% of the time, so that's not an issue for me (even during the affair she was always where she said she was. when they were meeting, I knew they were meeting. but without a security camera, I could not have known that they were [censored]ing).

Anyway - amazing and empowering to hear of the lengths that people have gone to remove triggers from their lives. We moved apartments, stopped going to any of the same restaurants etc, and don't even venture back into the old part of town. Changed day jobs - he had nothing to do with the old jobs, but they were too much of a reminder of the old life. There's no car to sell, or couch to burn. Deleting the photos will really make it like those months never existed... and I like that.

Hi MelodyLane - Sorry, but what are EPs? I can't find them in the list of abbreviations. Emotional Protections?

For the other parts of your post:

* She IS being transparent and has met every request I've made. But I can't walk in and DEMAND them because of her past. I have to actually discuss them, explain them, and give her some ownership of them in order for them to work.

* I'm definitely hearing from everyone that just seeing a picture is enough to restart withdrawal. So deleting the pictures is clearly a necessary step.

* Facebook is a required part of our professional lives, so the accounts can't disappear, as I mentioned in my last post. There are options there, though. In any case, I have access to her account and she can't see anything from him except his profile picture and name. Blocking would make it more complete.

* OM is not married. Our mutual friends all know, and have all ditched him - including his former best friend, who has been one of my biggest supporters through this. I just got the full story myself in the last week, and I will make sure they all know.

As another note - we even wiped her phone completely, and restored from the last backup, from before she knew him. All of the text messages, his number, any photos... everything is gone. The photos kicking around facebook are the last thing I can think of that we could eliminate without moving from the city... and she did take a month out of the country right afterwards.

EDIT: "But in order to withdraw, all contact must end. Withdrawal doesn't START until every reminder, every trigger is removed."

How can you get EVERY trigger? There are always going to be some left over that you can't control... you see someone on the street wearing the same hat he wore. When they met to talk, they always met at a starbucks. I can't get anywhere without a starbucks! My understanding is that you eliminate all the reminders that you can, avoid the others, and just deal with the remaining ones.

But again, she would be free to look up the OM's picture. What can be blocked can be just as easily unblocked. Maybe another option would be for her not to be on the computer unless you are there.


EPs means that she is completely transparent and you have stated she does not agree to this though. Addionally, there is no point in having a keylogger on her computer if she knows about it. If she knows about it, she would obviously not use that computer to do anything wrong; she would find ANOTHER way. So it makes no sense to have a keylogger if you tell her about it. That negates the whole purpose.


That is the kind of thinking that leads to affairs. It is not a lack of trust that ruins marriages but a lack of boundaries. It is too much trust that allows affairs to take place.


http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5062_qa.html


Again, you wouldn't tell her about having a GPS because that would negate the point. If she knows about it, she can find ways around it.

Can you remove her access to facebook? Of course you can! If starbucks triggers her, then you would stay away from starbucks. Just because you cannot remove EVERY trigger does not mean you do not remove those you CAN.

EP's are extraordinary precautions.

But previously you said that "we're still negotiating ways to build transparency." So I feel that your story is changing as we give solutions. We can't very well help you if the story is evolving. This is you wrote previously.



Dr Harley suggests MOVING when the triggers are this great.

To your knowledge, how often has she hurt herself?
Has she ever been placed in a "psychiatric hold" because of hurting herself.? Or, threats to hurt herself?
Please, do not change the story and try to say "it's not that bad".
You went down this road to demonstrate why you must be oh-so-careful ....
So, how high risk is she really?

Ah yeah - I see how that's confusing wording. Sorry! "still negotiating" means still talking about it and looking for other ways to do it... but in the meantime I still have all the access I mentioned. Nothing is changing in the transparency plan, unless we agree on a different plan. She's not comfortable with this one, but I told her that until we can find another way to do this, we're sticking with what's there. I'm happy to talk about alternatives with her, but transparency itself is not optional. Sorry for the confusing wording there, I see how it caused a lot of the replies!

"it makes no sense to have a keylogger if you tell her about it."

I'm not sure that I understand here. She has come to the table and is willing to do "anything it takes". She has not had contact with the OM, and has suffered through that cold turkey. We didn't realize that we had to do so thorough a purge of photos etc, but we can add that on. So what I'm looking for are SHARED ways to set boundaries and reinforce trust.

But what you seem to be suggesting is that I should still be snooping on her without consent. Why? The affair was over a month and a half ago. Snooping at this point would seem to UNDERMINE trust. She knows I have zero trust for her. She knows I have to keep extraordinary tabs on her and watch her "walk the walk" for her to earn that back. How can she possibly rebuild real happy associations with me if she feels like big brother is watching her every move? Sorry if my tone is off, but I honestly don't understand why I should snoop on her AFTER she's admitted to everything and is making good faith efforts to fix things.

Obviously, you've not been studying Dr Harley's plans for recovery.

First off, it is not snooping if she knows. Of course you shouldn't have her "consent;" that defeats the purpose. You just don't tell her about your resources. And obviously, snooping will not be effective if she does know. It is not "untrustworthy" to snoop. It is untrustworthy to have an affair. Snooping is your way of protecting your marriage.

The reason you snoop is to protect your marriage from a repeat affair. Snooping BUILDS trust because watching her when doesn't know you are watching gives you reassurance.

You should not have "good faith", that is how affairs are allowed to happen. Your "faith" should be based on EVIDENCE, not on HOPE. Hope is not a plan and will not protect your marriage.

Snooping does not "undermine" trust, it rebuilds your trust. Can you think of anything that would more effective in rebuilding your trust of her than being able to verify her faithfulness when she thinks you are not watching? There is nothing more effective at rebuilding your trust because you gain enormous protection for your marriage.

Ah, I see.

It would certainly help rebuild trust for ME... but it still seems tremendously undermining for the other side if it ever comes out. I can see it as a temporary measure... but as a life-long thing? Doesn't that contradict Radical Honesty?

Radical honesty is not intended to be used when there has been an affair when it involves snooping. You should snoop as long as you want to protect your marriage. So, if you want to protect your marriage frmo an affair for 6 months, then do it for 6 months. If you want to protect your marriage lifelong, then it should be life long.

There is nothing undermining about that. Why would she care if she knew?

My H has said that I am welcome to do whatever I need to do to make sure our marrige is safe. He has no idea what that entails or how often I confirm our safety. Nor does he care. As a matter of fact, he likes being totally open and honest to me. He has nothing to hide.

We are about three years post-DDay. I don't check things as much as I used to, but there are still times when I'll do a little 'maintenance' checking. He knows. He doesn't care. It doesn't create any mistrust issues for us. Why should it?

themmaybe I don't understand your meaning when you say "protect" your marriage. We all want to protect our marriages for life... that's why we use the policy of radical honesty. That's why we'really here in the first place!

If you only mean protect your marriage in the sense of "there's an immediate threat, so I take extra measures," then this is a temporary thing until the threat of recurrence passes and I feel like I trust her again. That I can understand.

Maritalbliss - thank you for the object example! That made more sense to me than the abstract discussion...

Bottom line, I'm not comfortable keeping secrets from my wife. I don't lie anywhere in my life, and I try to be an open book with everyone. But I could be happy with the arrangement you described. We can both agree to be open books for each other, and that any measure one feels like they need to take to verify that is OK.

But what do you do if your spouse is not being honest? Especially with a spouse who has a history of adultery? Then you can't depend on her to be radically honest. In that case, your snooping would quickly dig out any problems in their early stages. You could PROTECT your marriage from an affair.

You should not TRUST your spouse. What you should do is take steps to prevent a repeat affair. One of the very best ways is snooping. We have had many affairs PREVENTED by snooping because the spouse stopped a flirtation before it took off.

But being an "open book" when it comes to snooping leaves you vulnerable is not wise. If you are an "open book" about having a keylogger on her computer, spyware on her phone or a GPS on her car, then you have done nothing to prevent an affair. She should NEVER KNOW about your tactics, in other words.

If she knows your methods, then she will know HOW to circumvent them. This is why it is important to keep them a secret.

You should more uncomfortable about NOT having these protective measures in place. Are you uncomfortable with her having an affair?

here

Sorry expat. The affair is far from "over". The mental and physical effects are still happening.

When you stop smoking Heroin there are still various debilitating withdrawal effects. Exposure to Heroin is a sure fire way to go back to smoking it. Only way to break a Heroin addiction is extraordinary precautions to avoid relapse.

Affairs are similar to chemical addictions.

Expat,
I'm sorry if these questions have been asked and answered already. I'm in a hurry and didn't read the entire thread. Has your wife gone to a psychiatrist for anti-depressants?
If you can, read my first post. You will see that I was a lot like your wife. It's been 4 months since my last point of "indirect" (yea, FB) contact and I can finally say that I am through withdrawl and out of the fog. It takes a long time and everyone on here is right. Everytime she looks at anything regarding her POSOM, it will take her back to Day 1.
She needs meds if she is suicidal (again, read my post....I was). She needs to get out of the depression before you can move forward in healing your marriage. Her emotions are too strong to be rational.
I hope this helps.......don't give up.........it takes time but she'll get there.
CT

The above is why, I suspect, most are recommending the continued snooping. +/- 60 days since D-Day isn't that long ago.


And having to have a "long conversation" to get access to email, etc. is a bit noticeable.

Pay attention to her reaction when she learns that you have deleted all photographs of OM. That should be telling, and I hope that you see a positive response from her.

Just keep tabs on her for now.

Ok. Let me re-word the fox and hen house. I think it is a great idea to engage WW to work jointly with you on planning UA time, meeting ENs, and reading the lit. This is exactly how you re-build the romantic love. But this is only one step of the plan.

It will all be for naught if the conditions that allowed the A to happen are not eliminated. This means ALL the conditions...not just the ones that are convenient. Your WW seems to be stuck on her privacy and in reality IS NOT willing to do whatever it takes.

I am sorry that your WW has had a troubled past. That is a terrible thing to endure. But it by no means gives her the right to privacy in the sense that she can have the ability to have secrets from you.

Boundaries are not negotiable. That is letting the fox guard the hen house.

Checking back in with updates.

From talking to my WW:

* She agreed without blinking that I should delete the photos from FB, but insisted that she hadn't looked at his profile page in weeks. I verified in her browser history, this was probably a projection on my part. I'VE been looking at his facebook page, but I've blocked it for both of us now, anyways.

* She said that she didn't feel like she was still in such difficult withdrawal... that it had been days since her last urge to contact him, and that she has really good tactics to distract herself and call other people instead. She showed me her list of people to call.

* I said "well if you're not having those urges to contact him, then what are those dark moods I see?" Her response was that it's guilt. Every time she sees me hurting... and sometimes when she sees me strong, too, she's reminded of how awful the damage is. I know she is overwhelmed with guilt, and that explanation makes sense to me. I think I was projecting "withdrawal" onto just general depression and upset-ness, because I wasn't asking her what she was thinking about. It's very easy for me to go off on my own mental tangent of second-guessing her thoughts, and I drive myself crazy with it!

* When she goes into a really dark place, she has thoughts like "I don't deserve someone who would forgive me," "you would be better off with someone else, who doesn't hurt you like this," and "I just don't know if I believe that we can be happy together." I know it's the fog talking, but WOW it hurts to hear. Thankfully she's not making decisions in that state of mind...but I don't know that she is recognizing the peaks and lows of the roller coaster all that well yet.

* She expressed frustration that she doesn't see a path forward... doesn't know how to rebuild what we lost, or how there's a road to happiness. I've explained in great summary the plan for recovery (1- ID and eliminate LBs, 2 - ID and build habits around ENs, 3- check in regularly on success of 1/2, 4 - implement RH and PJA), but of course she needs more than just a sketch... and she really needs to feel like there are success stories out there.

OTHERWISE:

* I've installed a keylogger on her computer, to help me check up on her. I've also got one picked out for her iphone, when I get the chance. I believe she's telling the truth about not contacting him, but frankly the reassurance would help! Thanks to everyone who worked to explain and convince me of this.

* One of the hardest things for us right now is our different needs. Affection is my #1 emotional need NORMALLY. When I'm hurting... it can become an incredibly strong craving. When she's in a dark place, she feels like she needs space to get over it, the same way I need affection. So our instincts set us up to do the OPPOSITE of what the other needs when we're hurting! When I see her in a funk, my every urge is to go and hold her, give her reassurance that I want to work this out... but that makes her guilt worse. And when she sees me in pain, her urge is to leave me alone for a few minutes to deal with it. We've addressed this and so far she's done a fantastic job of feeding me affection when I'm in a slump. But it's really hard for me to give her space when she's in a slump. Honestly I think the issue is that she hasn't identified any of her ENs yet. So when I'm making deposits, they're just "best guess", and watching to see what gets a good reaction. I forwarded her the "surviving an affair" article about 3 weeks ago, but she was 90 leagues under the fog at the time and hasn't read any of this stuff yet.



I think the next step is to start working through "the program" on this site together. Building a plan for recovery, identifying LBs and ENs etc. I think that reading people's stories, seeing the forum, and just reading the good Doctor's words will give her a lot of hope - I know it has done that for me! But I'm concerned about how best to introduce it. For other people who started this... do you think it matters how it starts? If a spouse starts the program because their partner wants to, or "is making them do it", does that just sabotage things from the get go? Is it important for her to start hunting for this information on her own, as well?

Also, how do you guys read this material together, just from a purely mechanical standpoint? Do you read over each others' shoulders? Read to each other? Does it really matter?

Good job! The best way to do it is read 2-3 chapters at a time separately, and then discuss. You use a yellow highlighter and she uses a pink highlighter and highlight things that are important to you that you want your spouse to read. Go through the lessons in the back of Surviving an Affair.

I would then go onto the book Lovebusters and do the lessons in the back of each chapter. <? I think the most recent version has Q&A at the end of each chapter - someone look in your book please>

Also get the workbook Five Steps to Romantic Love workbook and follow the program outlined in there. Before you do any of this, tear out the Undivided Attention worksheet in the back of workbook and make copies. Scheduling your UA time [20+ hours per week] is the most important part of the program BECAUSE THE PROGRAM DOES NOT WORK WITHOUT IT. All the need meeting and avoiding lovebusters will amount to a BIG FAT NOTHING if you are not getting in at least 15 hours of UA time a week. Trust me on this one!

Explain to her that you are not going to rebuild what you lost. That is dead and gone. What this will do is CREATE ROMANTIC LOVE. The entire goal here is for you both to fall in love. Falling in love is the goal and is the measure of success.

Recovery means building a better marriage than what you had before.

And the FASTEST way to do that is to spend 20+ hours per week meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, rec companionship and sexual fulfillment. That time should be scheduled and spent away from friends, family, children and no tv or movies! <-----this will make the biggest difference in the shortest amount of time. Your wife will feel her feelings of love coming back in a few weeks.

MelodyLane, you are an angel


1) We don't have the books, and don't actually have the money for them at the moment. (moving apartments was BRUTALLY expensive... we're lucky we can afford groceries at the moment). I was planning on starting with the articles on the website, and moving to the books later. Is this a mistake?

2) I'm honestly a bit apprehensive about the books. From my understanding they are written from a strong Christian perspective, and we are not religious. I'm concerned that they aren't written with us as an audience in mind.

3) As I read #2, I think it's a stupid reason... the concepts are valid and worth pursuing, so who cares about the religion? Of course, I haven't read these books so I don't know what I'm talking about...



20+ hours a week should be easy for us. We are both self-employed out of the home, share the same hobbies and friends... in fact trying to find ONE separate activity is something we both prioritize. I understand the difference between "time in the same room" and UA. What I mean is, it's easy for us to get that time together... especially over the holidays with everyone we know out of town!

BUT I have no idea how to get to SF together. I'm still incredibly attracted to her, but the mind movies are brutal. and on her side, the guilt is tremendous. I can't imagine how we're going to be able to open up to each other enough to make love again any time soon. Is there a thread or article somewhere we can read about this?

Actually... one more element. Conversation is a bit tricky for us, because we are together easily 95% of our day. "what did you do today" is not a useful subject of discussion, because we were both there! (This is part of why we're looking for separate activities) I'm trying to engage her in talking in more depth about people, what she thinks about places, her history, etc... but sometimes it's a bit... strained. Any suggestions?

They are written for everyone, Christian, secular, whatever. It has nothing to with religion.


Just start doing it tonight. You should start right away. That is part of recovery.

If you don't have the money for books now, then I would suggest emailing Dr Harley's radio show with a marriage question. He will read it and answer it on the air and SEND YOU A BOOK FOR FREE!

The more you are together, the more you will enjoy each others company, so don't look for separate activities! The best marriages are the ones that spend the most time together.

Check this out: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5056_qa.html

Thanks for the link- I read that one a couple of weeks ago, and it's worth a re-read.

As for separate activities... I feel I need to back myself up here. We've lived in a 400 square foot studio apartment together for the last 2.5 years. We worked together from home (I was her immediate boss), perform together, rehearse together, study together... I mean we have literally spent 24x7 within easy spitting distance of each other for 2.5 years. We did have a brief hiatus, where we were in a 750 square foot apartment with two rooms for three months. That apartment was a 2 hour journey from the nearest town, so we were under effective house arrest for the time.

I think it's hard for people to understand that kind of claustrophobia without living it. Russia just finished an experiment to test the ability of people to survive a trip to mars with their sanity intact - a year and a half of 6 people in a 1600 sqft living space. To see if they would go crazy. They could have just called me and asked.

We didn't go crazy. In a lot of ways, we had a great time. We came out of it with a ton of inside jokes, and knowing every intimate detail about each other. With so little outside stimulation, you really plumb the depths! The down side is that it murdered our real world relationship skills and communication, which is part of what made this A possible in the first place!

My point is, YES the strongest couples are the ones who spend the most time together, TO A POINT. If you spend 24x7 almost always alone together for 800 days... it turns out that people do have needs for other input, and for "me time".

I'm hoping that by running the marriage builders plan, we'll get to the point where separate activities seems like a crazy idea... but in the meantime, it's really nice to have some news to come home with.

No one is suggesting that you don't socialize with others or isolate yourself. If you are together you can be with other people, you know. Dr Harley and Mrs Harley have the best marriage and they are together 24/7. The more time you are together - provided you have a good marriage - the stronger and happier your marriage will be. It is only in bad marriages that they have trouble with this.

I'm sorry... you mean I should just sit my wife down and say "let's have sex tonight," and make it happen no matter how we feel?

I could probably manage it, but I don't think she's in a place where she can. She feels so guilty, and terrible about her own sexuality. A big part of the cause of the A is that we haven't been passionate about each other in ages... in short, she's not turned on by me at the moment, and she's working so hard to be honest with herself that she doesn't want to fake anything. I expect I just have to be patient and make my deposits until she feels better.

I read my own reply and started thinking. Actually she's perfectly willing to make herself do some things to meet my ENs, and SF is definitely one of them. I actually think that it's one of her top ones, too... so maybe this will all be more straightforward when we talk through figuring out her ENs.

First thing tomorrow: read the section of the site on ENs with her, and fill out the worksheets together.

LEP,

Besides which you don't want to have sex with WW until she has been tested for STDs. HPV causes cancer these days so you can never be too careful.

God Bless
Gamma

Gamma - yes, she's already been tested. Clean, thank goodness.

Yep, go jump her bones! Have some fun. Having sex will help her feel more bonded to you IMMEDIATELY. Don't wait on this. Get to it!

Take a shower, put on some hot smelling cologne, take her for a romantic dinner and move in for the kill.

I would like nothing more... but seriously, she's not even comfortable with me making sexy jokes with her. I really feel I need to build some intimacy.

But hey, wth do I know, right? Maybe tomorrow we spend the day meeting each others' ENs, go for a great dinner (I know just the place), and then... well it certainly plays out well in my mind.

Just explain the concept of UA time to her. She needs to bring the body and the mind will follow. She will feel more like it if she just DOES it. You should be meeting each others intimate emotional needs NOW. NOW. Not later. That is how recovery happens.

Recovery is an ACTION PLAN that is based on actions. You don't wait for the feelings FIRST because the feelings follow actions. Do the actions and her feelings will follow.

Make a PLAN to go out tomorrow for the sole purpose of meeting the top 4 3 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, rec companionship and sexual fulfillment. Don't leave it to chance. Make a PLAN to meet those top 4 ENs. Tomorrow and for 4 other dates in the week.

I got a better idea... Take her in the shower with you. wash her and let her know that she is no longer acting the part of a dirty adultress, but is making herself clean. let her know you are reconsumating your marriage to her in love.

make it romantic. make it something special.

CV

The reason I suggest this approach is simple. It is something intimate. Intimacy breeds attraction. You want her to feel she isn't being used again, and that you aren't simply using her. That it is more than just getting satisfaction, but a true act of love.

sadly, when we both get into the shower in this new apartment, it's more comic than romantic. It's tiny! Like scrubbing down inside a clown car!

Your point is taken, though. There are other things we can do that are really intimate. For example, we love to give each other backrubs... actually she's been helping me do it better, how to be more sensual and make a connection when I do it. There's a very good candidate.

If you want some high comedy, jump in the tub and try to figure out where all the limbs go! My H and I have done that, and I've found that the physical closeness and the laughter builds a ton of intimacy.

Is your wife still suicidal? If she is, she needs help. Don't treat her depression too lightly.

Well... no luck for me. Even sexual flirting makes her uncomfortable and defensive. She has zero sex drive at the moment. Honestly mine is pretty depressed too so it's not a terrible concern for now. Actually she says that fear that I'm going to press for sex is the reason she's much less physicallly affectionate with me when we're home together. We're both very physically affectionate people, so it was bothering me that she would push me away. I told her that I think one of our problems in the old relationship was too much pressure around sex and that it would be natural for her to have some aversion there... and so I assured her that I was not looking for sex with her until we BOTH wanted to do it. I said that I want zero pressure around it, but that it is something we should work on because it IS so important in building intimacy. She agreed, and was much more physically affectionate with me when we got home. We held each other for long periods and even cuddled and drew pictures on each others backs with our fingers when we went to bed. I can FEEL intimacy building when we do that, it's very positive.

Frankly, I'm dying for our first UA date together. We have intentionally stayed home over Christmas while everyone we know is away, so we can have "us building " time. We're furnishing and decorating our first unfurnished apartment together during this time; it's a project we can do together that makes us both feel good. I'd rather an activity that gets us out of the house, but hey I'll take what I can get.

She says that she's made the mental decision to try with me, but that her heart isn't in it yet. She's still struggling with feelings that she or I might be happier single, not built for monogamy, can't be happy together etc. I recognize that feeling of hopelessness, and for me, this website was a big part of the solution. But honestly so was time, and actually feeling like I had a way to make am effort.

Today we start reading Basic Concepts together. I'm printing it off, and we're each going to highlight sections that we think are significant, and then we'll talk it through. I just hope we can stay on this positive track together.

That was a disaster. She got through basic concepts to the point of printing out the EN worksheet... and at the first page stopped, looked at me, and said "I can't do this right now."

She said that she feels like I am meeting all of the needs it asks for in the sheet... but there's nothing there about having space, and that's all she wants right now.

First of all - I have everything possible in place, and I know she is not continuing the A. She hasn't looked at pictures of him or anything like that in about 2 weeks, and she tells me she doesn't even miss him any more, that the urges to contact have mostly passed. But she still has this terrible depression.

It's classic depression, too. Sleeps all the time, no will to get out of bed, can't get anything done... constantly moping.

It really turned ugly tonight. I explained that what I really need is for us to figure out how to make our time together NOT PAINFUL. That right now, spending time in each others' presence is draining the life out of both of us, and that's not a path to recovery. I made her explain what it is about my presence that is so draining for her. She said that when she looks at me, she doesn't see a strong man, she doesn't feel safe, she feels like I'm a parental figure (in her life, that means an invasive, intrusive person who tells you what to do), and she feels suffocated.

She has repeatedly asked me for space in the last few days, and I've tried to get out of the house to give it to her. We've lived in EXTREMELY close quarters for 2.5 years btw... and I've been working from home, while she's unemployed. And it's christmas so everyone is out of town and everything is closed.

So I'm trying to give her space. When I do, it's like a totaly different person when I come back. She is just so... recharged.

I listened to her list of emotions about me, and I explained that they aren't going to go away by magic; we have to actually change the way we interact to fix them... even if they're temporary, they're still important to deal with. The biggest one is the feeling of pressure. So I said "ok, what if we live together as room mates for a couple of weeks? We'll still share the bed when we feel like (we have a spare bed for the nights when we DON'T want to), and we'll still cook and take care of each other, but zero romantic or relationship building pressure." She also has some other small things, like she hates it when I wake her up, and she finds flirting too aggressive right now.

I said that was fine, but here is what I need on my side of things in order to manage it:

* Frequent affection, in any way she can show it. When she's not comfortable with physical affection, verbal and other forms are fine too. I don't even need "I love yous" all the time, just frequent reminders that we're in this together and we'll get through it would be helpful.
* Real conversation. She's been totally monosyllabic with me lately, and it's driven me crazy. I'm TRYING to engage her in real conversation, but that's a two person endeavor.
* Fun activities. We have to go out more or less once a day to do something we both enjoy together.

Sound familiar? Affection, Conversation, and Recreation. 3 of the 4 cornerstone ENs. I'm happy to be a room mate if we're hitting those targets. I don't think it will stay just room mates for long.

I also reiterated the base conditions for moving forward, because she had started to complain about the email/FB access to her accounts.

1) No more secret second lives. I'm happy with any method for her to prove that she's actually doing what she says she's doing, if she wants to suggest an alternative. But until then, email and FB access it is.

2) She has to stop the conditions that led to the A. That means transitioning her close male friendships to OUR close male friendships. Fortunately they're all mutual friends, with whom I wasn't playing a very active role before, so this won't be difficult. It also means a big cutback on alcohol, which she had already self-imposed.

3) We have to cut out any reminders of the A and OM to make sure there's no chance of a recurrance. This is tough for her, because it means deleting some photos entirely... I offered to do it together with her, so she doesn't feel quite so assaulted. But the photos have to go.

We agreed on those, but dammit it was a huge withdrawal of a conversation. Exhausting.

I feel like we're back to square 1 here. What's more, our MC is off for the holidays until January, so we don't have anyone to help us through this for another two weeks. Honestly I don't know if I can manage that... after conversations like this it's all I can do to keep from throwing in the towel.

How do you know she is not in touch with the OM when you are "giving her space?"

Look for an affair phone in the house.

The keylogger and cell spyware is clean, right?

Her being in contact explains all of the rest of what you described in your post .

I agree Northwood. I have the exact same feeling. I think she is still in touch with the OM.

I have to admit that it certainly looks like she has taken a hit from the crack pipe.

Do you have a VAR in the house?

If you have a regular (landline) phone in your house, you might try "breaking" it to force her onto a logged cell phone.

No landline. Logging from the keylogger is clean. I haven't had access to her cellphone to install a keylogger there. But she swears up and down that she's not in contact, and she doesn't even have the urge to contact him very often any more. I can't find any evidence that she's gone back to him, or is even connecting with him. When she talks it's about being married to me, or being incapable of monogamy. She says it hurts her to see me trying so hard. Well of course I'm trying so hard!

It hasn't even been a week since full disclosure. It feels like months ago, but still. What if she's still just in withdrawal? I have been all over her to do relationship work. Does that pressure make withdrawal worse?

Or more to the point, how the heck do I deal with her in withdrawal? It's why I say she's in a classic depression: she can't experience pleasure at all. It makes her miserable to be around, to be honest. But it really seems like I'm a drain on her strength. We try to talk about nice, fun things, but we have a limited range of those to work with at the moment. Conversation is strained, and inevitably leads back to the thing we both have on our minds: us. When she's depressed, she is plainly forcing herself to be there and really wants "us" to end. When she has energy, she wants to spend ever more time together and be cuddly.

I'm still in love with the woman. It's absolutely killing me for her to be so dead inside. Part of it is, like I said, I have nothing to do right now. I've taken up tae kwon do and go twice a week. I go out for long walks across the city. I play music. But I'm on holiday from work - there are still so many hours in the day with nothing to fill them but her, or thoughts of her! It doesn't help that I can't seem to sleep for longer than 5-6 hours a night anymore. I wish I could just hide in sleep for a good 8-10 hours a night. I'd say I want to throw myself into work, but doing that is a big part of how this mess started! I don't WANT to be the guy who throws himself into work anymore. I want to be the fun, funny, interesting person I've discovered though Plan A.

Hi Expat,

Haven't read your whole thread, but if you are having relationship talk with her that's not going to make things better in this stage.

Why don't you take her out of the house?
To go for a picknick, play badminton, go hiking,
go find some natural christmas deco outside, be creative.

Sitting in a house while mourning another man and talking about what went wrong did not make her fall in love with you in the old days and it will not now!

Even if everything is closed, you can play board games while not talking about relationship problems.
That is not to say that important things should not be talked about, but you cannot expect wonders for the time being. Just do your best and sit this one out. You can lead her out of the fog.

Just be loving but firm. You are the hero here. You are NOT the pudle prize. YOU have the power to tell her where and if your relationship is going. Don't ask her about her feelings, at this stage all you get will probably be fog babble.

And allthough you are not to watch tv all the time during times of undivided attention, thare is nothing wrong with watching a comedy or a nice movie together (Dickens christmas carol gets anyone thinking about the meaning of life). If you sit together and rub her feet or scratch her back it can take your mind off things and change your mood (must pick the right movie though - no adultery or follow your heart movies, but either something cheerful, or one you can talk about later, and nothing that makes one sad.

Look, she obviously has too much time on her hands and you should NOT give her space. Do something together that distracts the two of you. Redecorating sounds great, but top it of with a date, even if you only go out for ice cream.

Stay strong and God bless,

Happyheart

Hi HappyHeart - thanks for your encouragement.

I'm really at my limit here. This is all stuff that she has to process - they're her demons to deal with. I'm basically a psychologically healthy person. I wasn't perfect in our relationship, and there were lots of things I could have done better. But her turning around like this... it's killing me.

I have the opportunity to go away to Hawaii with my parents and siblings for a couple of weeks. And I think I really need that, for me. I'm going to give the decision some time, but if there's no improvement today, later on I'll tell my wife about it. She should go out of town too, back to her friends and family. I agree that she should NOT just stay in this city all alone to mope.

To be honest I don't think the affair is the problem here. It never was. It was just a symptom of a much deeper unhappiness and lack of self that she felt, that she has to work through.

Today I looked up divorce law. I'm really losing hope here. Merry Christmas indeed.

Why not take her with you to Hawai? If she does not have a job, she can.

After all, if it doesn't work in Hawaii where else could it work?

I said those same things about this time last year. My wife does suffer from depression, so I get where you're coming from with living with someone with that.

But being in an affair makes it worse.

Put spyware on that phone so that you'll know for sure.


Sheesh, take her to Hawaii with you like happyheart suggested!

If all y'all do is sit and stare at each other, it'd drive anyone crazy. You need a change of scenery...c'mon now

Lostexpat,

I dont know if you have been following my thread but currently I am in a place pretty similar to yours, only a few weeks out from NC and a month out from DDay. I completely understand what you are feeling- you feel like you are giving it all you got but not really getting back what you need to feel better- its so hard having to be the strong one when the WS is the one who screwed up not you- I daily think about ending the relationship because of the pain that he has caused me, but I just keep telling myself to take it one day at a time. I try to channel my bad energy into filling his ENs- ( if im having a really bad day i actually go out and by my WH a small gift)- And slowly, very slowly my WH seems to be more receptive to my attempts to fill his ENs ( granted i constantly second guess whether he is just responding back to keep me from kicking him out, but im trying really hard not to seccond guess his actions and go with the flow)

I totally agree with the other posters who say not to talk about the relationship right now, that just seems to aggravate things and my WH just gets me upset or he gets angry every time we do and that is certainly not helping fill the love bank.

This is probably the issue right here. She is talking to him on the phone still. I would STOP giving her "space" so she can't talk to him anymore. I predict she will get pretty mean about giving her "space" when she isn't able to speak to him for awhile. So be prepared for that. "Space" is code for "need space to see/speak with my affair partner.

Are you looking on her cell phone for the history? What about the cell phone bill? Do you have access to it?

I have access to the phone bills and call logs, and I check her phone regularly. No calls afaik.

Taking her to Hawaii would be really hard. First of all there's a ton of pressure from my family. Going away with them... trying to repair under the microscope would be brutal. *I* don't like the thought, never mind her!

She'll get out of town, too. I think I have to remember that fog doesn't clear the instant you cut off contact. She has only really been 4 weeks without contact (in week 3 she got drunk and sent him a message from her secret account... which has since been deleted). Then in week 5 she came back to this city and in a lot of ways, suddenly had to deal with the whole thing again. She is just starting to come out of the depression... she can barely get out of the house to run errands!

At this point I think this is the end of the fog one day at a time. Frustrating as all hell though. She and I both still have sharp downswings in mood, when we just have to not be in the room together. When we're both tired AND depressed, it can get ugly.

Scientistmom, that's a pretty darn good description right there. Strength!

Lost, I keep up with a lot of posts through email and I clicked on a link to one of yours but I guess you deleted it for some reason. In it you mention that your WW is reading Eat, Pray, Love. I just want to warn you that that book is about the worst book on the planet that a WW trying to recover should be reading. It reeks of a wayward mentality of entitlement! If I were you I'd find a way to misplace it! They did choose the perfect actress to star in the movie though. Ugh!

Yeah, right after I wrote that post she came inbthe room to print the EN worksheet. While I was writingshe had been reading the basic concepts! So the premise of the post was wrong and I deleted it.

I can't control what she's reading. She's almost done the book mow anyway, and she talks to me about it. She's pretty clear that she isn't reading it as advice. Says it makes her feel good because its the story of someone else's path to self-fulfilment after a personal breakdown. A big part of this is my wife's feeling of loss of self, like she has no idea of her own identity any more. She's tryong to work that through with our therapist, and I'm being Mr strength, supporting her and reminding her of wh she is, and that I love her for it.

I'm seeing too many episodes of "relationship talk". She and you both need to experience some genuine joy and fun together and this is the perfect season. Take her ice skating or something new. DO NOT talk about emotional needs or how to fix the damage.

Just go to her - say - let's take a break and go have some fun. Do some perfume or cologne testing at the mall. Listen to a Messiah Sing In concert. Do something that takes the pressure off of repairing the relationship and just do something that will serve that purpose without being obvious.

This morning I checked the keylogger and discovered that in her "recovery journal" (something our therapist suggested we both keep), she had written a letter to the OM. Cue crap about how she still looks for him everywhere, how she misses him and still loves him. She knew I wanted to delete all the photos and she looked through them one last time. In the letter she talks about keeping one, her favorite. And she talks about wanting to try for our marriage to work, and how she has to build up my trust in her again, as well as her trust in herself.

So I learned a few things.

1) she genuinely wants to try to make our marriage work. That's a good thing.
2) she's still in withdrawal (sigh).
3) she doesn't see any contradiction between keeping one photo and mooning over this jerk, and rebuilding my trust. Privately, I call this kind of nonsense the Fog horn. Because it cues very loudly that this is fog talking, and its best to cover your ears!

I told her today that we have to delete the photos. She insisted on doing it with me there to see rather than having me do it myself. She showed some impressive hiding places as she deleted them all. She says she didn't realize that photos were a violation of NC (neither did I until Melody and others on this board explained). I explained that anything that gives the emotional kick of a connection with the jerk is a breach. She's allowed to write whatever she wants in her journal, but no reminders. She suggested a few other small reminders that I should get rid of, and I did.

It was a damn hard conversation. ANOTHER one. KaylaAndy you are so right that we have to stop having these, but dammit she just set us back to day one od withdrawal again!

So clearly I can't go away and leave her here, it will wreck everything. I said I would be OK with going away if she had concrete plans to get out of town herself, and I guess we'll talk about those tomorrow. As it is, the conversation was too emotionally charged to be useful continuing. I blew up at her really badly at one point when she was resisting deleting the photos and calling me controlling. Agh.

We spent the rest of the day decorating our christmas tree and being positive. Tonight we go out to see some supportive family friends.

She is back to being physically cold with me. She lets me give her a Peck on the cheek now and again, and I can hug her (she responds well to that at least), but no reciprocation from her at the moment.

So I'm back to withdral, with strengthened EP to keep her from backsliding. At this point the only thing she could do to get anything from him would be to walk to his house. She says she would leave me first. She says "I can't promise that I wont do it, but I can promise to try, and if I have to do it, to at least leave you first." Small comfort.

I have to give this some time to cool off. Too many seroous talks in too short of a time doesn't help my cause! But I will be keeping my eyes open for one last picture, though it didn't look like she left one. Otherwise I guess I'm back to plan A. Merry Christmas to me!

lostexpat, you did GREAT! The fact that she has been looking at the OM's pictures might be an explanation for why she is still so foggy. I would still keep your eyes peeled for secret phones and any other avenues of contact.


That would be ok if you are going away WITH HER, but you should not be traveling apart. You should pledge to never spend the night apart again.


This is a huge problem and makes me wonder if she is not doing this now. This would explain why she needs "space." Let her know if she walks to his house it is a deal breaker. How far do you live from him? If you live close enough to walk, you might want to MOVE. Trying is not doing and you have to have protection.

Is this why she wants "space?" Is she walking to his house? Is he coming over when you are gone?

Mel, I have a question about expat's situation, and you probably know the answer.

What do we advise on recent (or even distant) way wards writing about their feelings after the affair in a journal? I think it must keep them wallowing and focusing on what they are missing (puke) rather than using exercises and techniques to stop thinking about the affair. I think keeping a journal could prolong withdrawal.

Perhaps Dr H has talked about his on the radio, but if not, what do posters think - especially ones who have been through withdrawal?

I agree. Pining away for her addiction only keeps her feelings on the front burner. That is a good point.

I was just wondering that, myself. This wayward appears to be keeping the torch burning by journalling about how much she misses POSOM.

A recovery journal should focus on recovery. And writing letters to the OM is not recovery. That being said, you can't really address this without giving away your keylogger. Is there a way you can address this without giving that up? I think it is valuable that you can read her journal for now in order to keep tabs on her.

First of all, we're not really in walking distance. It would be an hour or so... she'd have to take the subway etc. From the content of her journal letter, I know she hasn't seen or heard from him. So that's something.

Second, I agree about pining in a journal being a bad thing. I think the best way to handle it is to talk to the therapist about it, and make sure the therapist clarifies the purpose of the journal. Its definitely not worth giving up the keylogger for!

As for travel... I need this time with my family, for me. She can travel and be with supportive family, and have 2-3 sessions with the therapist a week. Those are good things. And she feels like she needs time to feel like herself again - read "get through withdrawal". Frankly I don't have the strength to be close to her as she gets through withdrawal again. Having time away will be a blessing.

Being apart is not good for your marriage, though. Your marriage totally affects your quality of life, so when you are apart, you add to the detachment at a very vulnerable time. Spending the nights apart is NOT GOOD for even good marriages. Your marriage is on life support. I would reconsider any plans that take you apart from each other over night. It is NOT GOOD for your marriage.

I don't like the sound of this. Going through withdrawal is NOT a good time for a wayward to be away from their spouse. This is part of the heavy lifting, lost.

How does the therapist help your marriage? What is she/he doing for your marriage EXACTLY? Most therapists cause more harm than good. Is this one helping?

If you go away without her, she WILL go see the OM. I know because I am a WW. If my husband had left me to "find myself" while I was in withdrawl, I would have run to POSOM. I, too, wrote letters to my POSOM. It does keep the fire burning.
I don't know why you won't address her issue of depression. Is she suicidal? Her depression has to be treated before you can work the MB program. Dr. Harley is right about that.
This is the last time I will ask you about it. I'm concerned for your wife's mental stability.

Hi comedy -
I'm not really addressing the suicidal aspect because I think its a red Herring here. She has talked about hurting herself, for the first time in about ten years. She mentioned to the marriage counselor that she had suicidal thoughts after our first big "discussion" after she got back. To my knowledge those haven't recurred, and I don't think she is suicidal. But I was worried for a bit, there.

I can't do anything about the letter to the POSOM.right now. Its not a daily occurrence ; it only happened once after a big fight. So I have to wait that one out for a bit. It is a bigger problem that we haven't gone a day without a serious talk since she's been back. That's the pressure she's really talking about and resisting. Every day a new blowup or challenge or demand. I have to stop that, but its been very hard.

The other part of the pressure she's pushing against is the pressure for physical affection and sex. I have a great need for physical affection, as well as for sex. And I still thrill at her touch, and still want to make love to her. When I cool my heels she tends to initiate affection more, and we can snowball to quite intimate cuddling. But she shuts off when she feels like there might be sex coming. Even when she's clearly enjoying everything. It kills me to think that this is because her body still belongs to the POSOM. It makes me feel like she's cake eating even without him around. Unfortunately I can't talk to her about it without initiating another serious talk. So I'm trying tobjust let the conversation, affection, and recreation do their work. Trusting that sex will come with a bit of time.

Day 1 has been pretty good. I'm still waking up with mild anxiety attacks at about 8am, and the only way to relieve it is to get up and go for a long walk, take some time to do things that recharge ME. When my WW woke up we agreed to stick together during the holidays, though now she is considering going to hawaii with me. It's an open invitation from my family, but it all depends on her comfort level. I don't want to force her into a situation where she feels intense guilt for the past 24x7, that would just build a lot of negativity. We have another option of going to visit her cousin and friends, on vacation in a small town a few hours away... that would be lower key, have more options for activities together and apart as we're feeling like it. Either way we're going to try and stick it out together to find a way of living where I'm not a dependent emotional leech, and she's not feeling pressured to move into relationship rebuilding until she's ready. The deal we struck:

* no "serious" relationship talks at least until we can sit down with our therapist to do it (Jan 2 IIRC). These daily talks are killing us, and all the important stuff is out there now.

* no mention of the A between us until that same date

* When one of us is in a funk, the other will try to give them what they express a need for. IE in my case I often need physical affection. She often needs space from my helicopter relationship building so she can "breathe it out" and come back (meaning I leave the room or just sit quietly while she gets through it).

* More or less daily: we will get out of the house to do something we both enjoy, together.

* We will both make an effort to have real conversation with each other, not stonewalling.

* We will allow physical affection and SF to happen organically, but we both understand that one should not always lead to the other. This was a big frustration for her in the old relationship, that affection always had to lead to sex. Our rule for now is that affection is good, and we will follow where it leads when we feel like it honestly... but that we will both respect each other's "veto" when things leave the comfort zone.

So day 1 was pretty good. We did slip up and tlak seriously briefly about her coming to hawaii. She mentioned "I just have to hope that OM wants me to be happy and move on in my life. I can't stand the thought otherwise. No contact is really hard." I said "Yes, no contact is really hard. Even when you know why you have to do it, it doesn't make it easy. But you have to stop worrying about what he thinks. What he - what you both did was disgusting and hurtful to everyone and everything you love. I understand that it hurts, but you have to stop romanticizing it. This wasn't some great love, it was a terrible thing to do. This is a guy who made a move on a married woman the second time he met her. Don't waste your thought on him." She cut me off at the end and said we had to stop talking about it. Fair enough, no serious talks!

But it hurts of course. It's very hard to think that while I'm captain of the Plan A team, being loving, interested, good looking, and respectful, her heart is still with this POSOM. I know that she's fighting it and that's just withdrawal... and she doesn't rub it in my face or anything... but it still hurts. When she doesn't want to let me hold or touch her, it's because of the POSOM.

I just keep reminding myself of three things:

* It's who she is TODAY that matters. The past is done and nothing can change it... but who she is TODAY is someone who is trying to fix things.

* Be the lighthouse. Dont' respond, just listen and be the damn lighthouse.

* He stole her away from me while I was present but not fighting... I can DEFINITELY take her away from him while he's gone. Time and absence are on my side. Just gotta be awesome, build tension between us, and let time do it's thing.

Hopefully.

I just don't understand marriages where spouses have separate holidays. You should never have got to the stage of considering going to Hawaii with your family while she does something alone. Married people just shouldn't do that! That kind of separate activity is indicative of independent behaviour and separate existences more generally in your marriage.

Your plan all along should either have been for you to go together, or not go together. You don't say what the final decision is on Hawaii, but whether you go there, or go away with your friends, or don't go anywhere at all, you need to spend breaks and holidays together.

lostexpat, are you married?

lost, is SF one of your top ENs? Because this agreement the two of you made has effectively ended SF as you may want it. She has been given permission by you to refuse SF indefinitely because it's out of her 'comfort zone'.

She has a valid complaint if it's true that affection has always led to SF. Affection shouldn't necessarily 'lead' to SF. Those are two separate ENs, although they often dovetail. She's right to feel resentful if that has always been the case in the past. She may have felt that you were taking advantage of her need for affection as a means to an end: SF for you.

But the way you're addressing this makes me concerned that the two of you will become 'cuddle buddies' because anything more than that will be outside of her 'comfort zone' and she'll 'veto' it.

I'm a firm believer that spouses should have sex as often as possible. SF typically isn't a No.1 need of a wife, but the affection and intimacy that revolves around SF typically IS. Frequent SF blends a couple of pretty big ENs for both spouses. I would revisit this 'veto' agreement. I'm afraid it's going to come back to bite you. I would suggest that you renegotiate this and come to an agreement regarding a schedule for SF. Agree that, at other times, the two of you will be affectionate, but will not have SF.

My honest feeling is that she is not interested in having SF with you and this is a nifty way for her to dodge it - with your blessing, no less.

Vacations should always taken together. I'm not sure what the deal is with you going on vacation with your family and without her. If she's not comfortable going, go somewhere else together.

The deal with the separate vacation is that originally it was supposed to be both of us. Then this happened, and it became neither of us. Then we had a big blowup about this whole thing - she was "depressed" and stonewalling me, and I was frustrated as hell, because I thought she was out of Withdrawal. I just threw up my hands. Where we are, we have no support network to speak of. We've only lived in this country for 3 months! So when I'm really in a low place, I have no one to turn to except the phone. After the blowup, I was feeling completely hopeless... I thought "that's it, I'm just going away with my family. I need this to recharge. It won't help us any to be separate for that time, but if she's out of town I know she won't see the OM. It will just be space for her to come out of her depression and to see the therapist for extra sessions." Basically, it's exhausting giving all my energy to this relationship and person when she's not giving anything but negativity back, and I was running on empty.

Then I found out that the reason she was depressed was that she spent a night pining over pictures. Back to day 1 of Withdrawal, and in that state I definitely can't be apart from her. So we're planning the holiday together, but whether we go to Hawaii or more locally depends on what we decide today. Anyway the goal is to find a way of living together where we aren't making huge withdrawals every day with relationship talk. My private goal is to build in behaviors that make deposits in the core ENs. She won't get them all because she's in W, but I will and it will give me strength for when she's really slumping.

Melody, yes we are married.

Maritalbliss, this is a temporary agreement. Yes SF is a top need for me. It's also a top need for her. We do need to figure out how to have affection without sex, and I'm ok with doing it this way for a little bit. I am only in the last week feeling ready to start having sex with her again... and she's still in Withdrawal, so it makes sense that she's conflicted and in pain about the whole prospect. We're still just trying to spend more than 48 hours without fighting or bringing up "the relationship"!

Day 1 as I mentioned was quite good. After I posted, we talked about her aversion to too much affection or sex... seh said there were two things going on for her.

1) She was afraid of giving me false hope, like giving affection would make me think that she had "made her choice" and we were back together again. ("made her choice": she says she has decided to stay and try for the relationship, but her heart isn't there yet. "Made her choice" means that heart and mind are both on board... or in MB parlance, that Withdrawal is really over.)

2) Sometimes it just gets too intense and she feels uncomfortable. She doesn't know why, it's just sometimes something inside her stops saying "go go go this feels great" and starts saying "stop".

I said that number 2 is natural and normal and something we should respect for the time being. I think it will diminish and disappear with LB deposits, probably fairly quickly. Then I said "you shouldn't worry about number 1. I know that you're in a really painful place right now, starting Withdrawal all over again. That takes a few weeks to get through, and I'm not expecting that your heart will be 100% committed until that's over. But in the meantime, affection and sex are two of the best ways to build connection to each other, and we shouldn't block them out."

After that talk, she got much more physically affectionate with me. We talked (nicely, respectfully) for a long time... she needed to vent some fog-induced fears that it won't work out, that she's not made for monogamy, etc etc and I was in a place to listen without letting it hurt me. As always, the chain of reasoning just takes us to "I don't know what will happen in the future, we just have to take this one step at a time. When we're in a stronger place together, we'll be able to take better stock of the future."

Anyway it was a Deposit kind of talk, even if it was about relationship fears. We held each other a lot and I gave a back rub... that very easily could have gone sexual, but I kept it at just affection to keep her comfortable. In basically 24 hours we went from nil to Conversation, Recreational Activities, and Affection, with an open door to Sexual Fulfillment. I figure those are fantastic gains!

So Bliss, at this point I'm just happy to have 3 of the 4 core needs being fulfilled for each other on a daily basis. She's in withdrawal and can't receive all of the deposits, but she can receive a lot of them and does respond positively. On a track like that I don't think it will take long to get to SF, and if it does we will work out options like a schedule... but in the meantime, we seem to have found a track with lots of deposits together during a really hard time, so I'm not pushing my luck. I'm trying to think like the POSOM who seduced her in the first place - take your time, just build deposits and be patient.

This is very good, lost. I wasn't aware that SF was a top EN for her. If that's the case then the agreement the two of you made sounds temporary and you'll work back to having SF.

I think you're doing great getting her through withdrawal - keep going!

Well that was quick. Late sleep today, a walk together, a very nice dinner we cooked together. At one point during the walk she stopped me on the street, mid-sentence to tell me she loves me. We talked about our shared passion, music. It's amazing to see our connection catch fire when both our eyes are shining with our passion for the subject! And she initiated SF after dinner. It was wonderful, tearful, and passionate. Very happy with how things are going.


Of course she's right: my heart wants so badly to believe that withdrawal is over, but I know it isn't, yet. Maybe this was a good day, or maybe she pushed herself for me. Maybe she was crying out of love and remorse, or maybe she [censored] crying because she wanted the OM. I don't know and I'm pushing those thoughts out of my head. I'm just trusting that this course.of behavior together WILL get her through withdrawal and back to feeling enough affection for me to do the rest of the MB steps together. Sometimes you just gotta have faith.

This is very good, lost. Very encouraging. Yes, she's still in withdrawal, but it sounds very promising. Just be aware that there will be downslopes on this rollercoaster. Know that, and ride them out when they occur.

Recovery's tough, and it's not for sissies I think you have what it takes.

Agh yeah I had a big downslope yesterday night. We talked about sex and what he gave her sexually that I didn't (or hadn't for years in her foggy telling). Of course I know that the WS is crazy about the OP, and that leads to fantastic sex, with an added boost to the new person chemistry that would be there in any circumstance. But knowing that consciously doesn't make the anger go away, and it doesn't stop the mind movies. It gave me a tremendous alpha urge... to go beat my chest and possess her like an object. Real primal gorilla stuff.

Of course, right now any of that is just frightening to her. For now at least, I have to be ultimate beta to support her through this. So it's a zero sum train of thought.

I'll be honest: I'm scared. She and I both want to be passionate about each other again... wet-at-the-thought kind of passionate, as well as mistaken-for-newlyweds kind of passionate. But I don't know if that's possible in a long term relationship. We both felt tired of working to feel sexual with each other. Does that get better?

Deep breath. We're making great progress. Every day is its own struggle but one foot in front of the other, right? Sometimes I wish I could just walk away go bury my head in the rush of a new affection. This is a hard struggle.

To give you some hope:

That your wife also wants a passionate relationship with you is a very good start. Many waywards don't get there for a long while.

The mind movies are torture for both genders. They start to fade in time, if recovery is going well and you are each filling each others love banks with lots of deposits and making no withdrawals. Time really helps.

As to passion, others will be along to tell you their stories, but in short, yes, you can have a wonderful passion even in a long-term relationship. As a very monogamous woman, instead of saying "even in a long-term relationship," I say "especially" in a long-term relationship. He and I have a deep understanding of what we each like and know our responses and feel completely at ease with each other in the bedroom.

It IS different from when we first married and the passion was very new, but people often tell us we are like newlyweds, because we hold hands when we walk and are warmly courteous when speaking with each other in public.

At home, throughout this year, my H has a newly-discovered drive for SF. At first, we did the hysterical bonding, but we really don't think it's HB anymore. We have a very passionate love life, now that we both understand how to implement the behavioral changes that make it easier to be passionate, which basically comes down to meeting each others ENs and avoiding LBs. Making sure we make the time is important, too.

For now, my suggestion would be NOT to work hard at feeling sexual with each other. You and your W should spend about 20 hours of UA time a week together and make these the most enjoyable times of your week. Talk, be affectionate, go on dates. The rest will happen as you each fall in love with the other again.

Thank you for the hope longway. I need it right now! We're definitely on a positive track... I'd say about 10% of our day is spent in a funk or discussion, and the rest is basically positive. By the end of every day since Xmas, we have both been in a very affectionate, cuddly place. Tomorrow is our 5 year wedding anniversary. We're going to get dressed up to the nines, and go to the opera (a favorite activity for both of us). I'm working on a plan for drinks afterwards.

I am still thinking about her comments about sex. Thankfully the mind movies are fading and I can push them aside when I want to. But I'm not used to being "just ok" in the sack. I was always frustrated by my wife's reticence to talk about her sexual needs and wants - IMO that's the only way to become truly fantastic for each other in bed - and the way she alluded to "certain skills" really bothers me. When she's comfortable talking about sex with each other again (I guess right now it conjures images of the OM or her guilt, but she is very direct about not being comfortable with it), I think the approach has to be not "what did OM do so well," but rather "what can I improve?" She comments that sexual compatibility is just automatic and you can't learn "certain skills"... which sounds like hurtful fog to me.

Anyway, thanks for the support and encouragement. I'm gonna keep on trucking in the current track to try and find some stability.

She believes that the "great sex" she enjoyed with OM is because of his bedroom skills. In actuality, she probably enjoyed the sex with him because she felt emotionally close to him. (Sorry, I know....) As she begins to feel that closeness with you, she will be able to share more with you. It is incumbent on every woman to learn what makes her feel great in bed and then share that info with her husband.


My H pretty easy to please in bed. I can count on doing this and that, and he's thrilled. For me, and likely for other women as well, the feelings change from one time to the next. This time, I may want him to touch one way, and the next time another. This place, or that place. He makes a good solid guess and then I have to let him know. It's my orgasm not his, so it's my responsibility to help him help me get there.

Sexual compatibility is not automatic, not at all. It is built on learning what makes the other happy in bed and, for women, on emotional closeness.

Anyone can learn the skills; it's not some kind of magical mystical "gift" bestowed a few lucky people.

She will likely feel better about SF once she feels very close to you again.

Congratulations on your wedding anniversary. If we had found MB in our fifth year of marriage, we would have been so much better off. Happy night at the opera.

Ok, I think I officially have to move my thread into the "In Recovery" section. Today my wife told me that for the last couple of days she's felt like the fog has lifted, and she can see her real priorities again. Obviously there are layers of fog to get through, and she's got a ways to go before she can see the OM as the pig I see... but all the same I asked her what she meant.

In a nutshell... she feels like her heart is in the effort now. She has bug plans for our anniversary, and she really wants to move forward with recovering and building our relationship into something incredible. That doesn't mean.that she doesn't have slumps anymore, and it doesn't mean that she isn't still on a powder keg of emotion in some ways. But it means that shereally feels that she wants to rebuild, body and soul.

Thank you MB types for supporting me and helping me get this far! I'm looking forward to consolidating our gains with another week of concentrated affection, conversation, recreational companionship and sexual fulfilment.... (we've been scheduling daily UA activities, and plan to continue it for the next several weeks at least). Then I look forward to diving into active recovery as a team.

The best Christmas present ever.

Did she write the NC letter? Did you approve of it and mail it yourself?

Has she agreed to become completely transparent?

What EP's have you both put in place to affair proof your M?

MB only works if you take all the steps.

She agreed to NC the day of disclosure. We had to improve the EP a couple of times since then, but this last one (a week ago) SHE was suggesting triggers to eliminate.

There is no way to contact the om without actually going to his home... and I'm not sure that he still lives there anyway. His FB is blocked, all photos are deleted, his phone number and email address, and all messages to/from him are deleted. The secret email account she used to communicate with him is deleted. We've moved, and both changed jobs. She was off the continent for a month. We have both been on vacation at home together for the 3 weeks since the time away, so she's had no opportunity to contact him even if she could. I have a keylogger and phone records to make sure no contact does happen.

As for affair proofing the marriage going forward... no more male friendships (apart from one very gay friend), no drinking beyond one glass when we're out. No outings with an odd non-coupled person. She's reporting her texts, phone calls, and daily activities to me. We've killed a couple of big love busters, and are going to do a more thorough job of hunting them down in the new year. We've identified a couple of big emotional needs, and we'll also hunt down more of those in the new year. For the time being, we're committed to going out and sharing a recreational activity together once a day, and we're clear on what defines UA as opposed to just time together. Actually we have a ton of UA built into our lives at the moment anyway, but having dedicated time is wonderful. We have established policies of total honesty, with boundaries around the A, and a POJA with negotiation strategies. For now the PORH and POJA are rudimentary, but they are there. We're both feeling the glow of constant deposits, and it's wonderful. There's still work to do, but we're on a solid track.

We just celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary, and re-took our vows to each other. We're both excited to start more concentrated work on making our relationship deposit faster, and on what we call "titanium armor plating" the marriage so this cannot happen again.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to a structured recovery, and to continuing to build our affection for each other.

An update, much later. We're at 6 months since initial D-Day, and things are greatly greatly improved. We're checking in on our ENs every couple of months, and really working to build affection. Life has started to catch up with us, and lately it's been a bit of a challenge making time and energy for real UA time together, but basically we've been on a good path.

We have a lingering problem around sex, though. We were trying to have sex 2-3 times a week, based on our matching needs on the EN questionnaire. Sometimes it was good, emotionally connected sex, and sometimes my wife or I were totally disconnected, which is a huge LB for us. After a couple of weeks where we were really busy and had zero energy for each other, I was feeling really bad. SF is #2 on my EN sheet, and not receiving that form of affection has a big effect on me. I was building resentment up and it was not good. But every time I brought up sex with my wife, I got a big explosion. It's been a hot button issue for us in the past, and recent history only made that worse.

Basically, though my wife professes to be attracted to me, it never translates into sexual excitement. She never initiates, and when I make a comment inviting sex, she shuts down. For my part, I can't help connecting this to the affair, and how she managed to be sexually excited about this piece of trash... but she doesn't feel that way about me. It drives me up the wall, and it's big trigger that sends me into old, angry memories. Now we're at a place where sex is getting negatively loaded, sometimes it feels like I just want nothing to do with it anymore.

Our sex life was great before the affair. Our issues were around frequency, not enjoyment or connection or anything like that. But now, she never seems to want it, and when she does, it's unsatisfying. She can always use a vibrator to reach orgasm, but basically anything I do doesn't seem to connect. And disconnected sex hurts worse than no sex. I know Dr. Harley says that no matter what it was like before an affair, sex after an affair is lousy. He also says that it takes about 6 months for good sex to return.

Any advice? How have others turned the corner from lousy post-affair sex to good, connected sex again?

It is absolutely essential to schedule at least 20 hours of UA time each week. Fifteen is the minimum for a marriage that's not in trouble. Then keep those appointments with each other.

Those 20 hours of UA time should be the most enjoyable hours of the week for both of you. It should be spent meeting each other's emotional needs. Have fun together, be affectionate, talk about your days. Dr. H. says to even schedule SF for the time of day when both are energetic.

If your wife has the EN of affection, and many women do, this is essential in creating the environment of the marriage. Affection should not be given solely in the context of SF. It should be frequently displayed in the ways your W loves. Check on this every couple of weeks to make sure you are meeting that need in the way she likes.

Once she is in love with you, she will enjoy SF with you again.

If you are need some guided help, I suggest the Online Program. We signed up last year, and it really helped us stay on track.