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I am Father's Eyes husband. We are currently working the Marriage Builders program. I wanted to start a thread to get some feedback from former wayward husbands.
Also, I wanted to thank all of those who gave my wife advice. If it wasn't for you all, I might not be here now. You all were right on the money. - spot on.
I am open to suggestions or advice.
SLT
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Hi SLT!! Welcome to Marriage Builders!
Most of us here who are familiar with Marriage Builders can help with your questions. Was there something specific you wanted to get feedback on?
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Thanks for the welcome. I like your straight forward advice, Melody.
I am working on meeting my wife's EN's, but I am struggling with creative ways to show her affection. Truth is, I've always struggled with that. Also, I want to help her feel safe in our marriage again. Any advice on that?
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Hi, slt, welcome to marriage builders. have you watched dr harleys video yet?
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Hi Markos. Thanks. We did watch the one on infidelity. Are there any others that you would recommend?
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Affection: dr harley has some q&a articles on this you should read. some affection is symbolic, i.e, a hug. Some affection is an act of care, i.e. simply doing the dishes or grocery shopping. All affection communicates "i care about you." But the symbolic acts wont mean anything unless the concrete acts of care are there, too.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Thanks. I'll check those out.
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Helping your wife be safe: you will need to read what dr harley says about extraordinary precautions, and find and read herpapabear's extraordinary precautions thread. do not have opposite sex friendships. Do not keep any secrets, even secrets to "protect" your wife. Reveal to your wife all of the conditions that led to your affair and make rules for yourself that will keep you out of those conditions from now on.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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I didn't see any articles on affection. Are they under the articles tab? Sorry, I'm not very good with computers.
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I have done all of that except read herpapabears thread. I will read that. Thank you.
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I didn't see any articles on affection. Are they under the articles tab? Sorry, I'm not very good with computers. ' SLT, there is a good chapter on this subject in His Needs, Her Needs that is more thorough, but this article is pretty good too: How to Meet the Need for Affection
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Hi Markos. Thanks. We did watch the one on infidelity. Are there any others that you would recommend? eventually you need to watch them all! but if you have watched the infidelity video, i recommend you read all the articles on how to survive infidelity under questions and answers. then read the book surviving an affair.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Most of the articles are actually under questions and answers, rather than articles.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Welcome, SLT. I'll be back with some questions for ya, probably not til tomorrow or Saturday.
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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I am Father's Eyes husband. We are currently working the Marriage Builders program. I wanted to start a thread to get some feedback from former wayward husbands.
Also, I wanted to thank all of those who gave my wife advice. If it wasn't for you all, I might not be here now. You all were right on the money. - spot on.
I am open to suggestions or advice.
SLT Welcome, SLT. I understand that your and FE are 'working the program'. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts ARE about 'the program'. What are your thoughts about Marriage Builders? BTW, the decision to end your affair is easily the best decision you will ever have made, short of marrying FE in the first place. You, sir, have dodged a bullet. You may not know that yet, but you eventually will.
D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!
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SLT, I'm someone who was in your shoes in a lot of ways. Once upon a time, I never thought I'd go off-track the way I did. But I ended up getting into an affair with a fellow singer (also married) on the church music team -- how's that for makin' a mess outta things? In a matter of weeks, I went from being everybody's idea of a great husband, great dad to really believing I loved two women. Sometimes people get even more messed-up than that, but it doesn't really get too much more messed-up than that.
I sure never thought I'd be talking about this stuff with strangers on an internet forum. I never thought I'd get much out of reading a 'self-help' book like "Surviving An Affair." And I would've told you that talking about stuff like "emotional needs" and "love-bank deposits" was some touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo that a tough guy like me would have no use for.
I'm gonna leave you with a couple of thoughts for now, and also ask you some questions, so listen up:
THOUGHTS:
--On a lot of days, I thought I'd never be able to fix what I had broken. Part of saving your marriage is accepting that this is true. When you & I lied & cheated, we broke things we can't ever fix -- like perfect trust. But the way you get past that is, you build something better than that. You can't rebuild perfect trust, but you can build a better marriage than what you had before the affair.
-- And that has to be your goal. You may have been thinking that you just wish you could get back to how things were before the affair. Nope -- That wasn't good enough, was it? It ain't gonna be good enough. Instead, your & your wife's goal has to be to get to a marriage that's better than it was before the affair. The way you help your wife & yourself get over this mess is that you make the present & the future better than the past.
-- There are explanations for what you did, but there are not excuses. A recently wayward spouse isn't always able to know the difference, and a betrayed spouse is not always ready to care about the difference. Just keep this in mind when you're about to say something to your wife.
-- You've heard the saying "Talk is cheap." Well, keep in mind that your word is worth next to nothing right now. The only things that will buy you credit with your wife right now are (1) actions and (2) complete, 100% honesty. You can't just read your way out of this mess, you can't just pray your way out of it, and you can't just talk your way out of it at all. Actions & honesty are what you can do.
-- Be patient: It's said that when both spouses are on-board with saving the marriage and putting in good effort, it takes around two years for a couple to feel that their marriage has "recovered." That means you can't expect her hurt to be gone for a long time. And she'll have days, ups-&-downs that people say are like an emotional roller-coaster. The overall trajectory should be in the direction of getting better, if you are honest, if you have no contact with the affair-partner, if you make a good effort to learn & meet your wife's emotional needs, and if you give her a fair chance to identify & meet your emotional needs.
-- Have no more contact with the affair-partner, none, not ever: This is the most important thing for you. You can roll all kinds of stuff around in your head about things you feel you need to say to her, questions you might want to ask her, trying to get some kind of "closure", but I guarantee you that it's not worth it. During the past two years, you went & got yourself hooked on the free attention that you were getting from her. It's the same as coming off crack cocaine, right down to the effect on brain-chemistry. You need to go through withdrawal. You can't afford a relapse. You're hitting with two strikes in the count -- one more strike & you're gone.
QUESTIONS:
-- How do you think it came to be that you ended up getting mixed up with some lady from down at the marina?
-- Why do you think it happened?
Your answers will give me a better picture of your mindset -- the areas where you may be seeing things straight already, and the areas where you might not yet be seeing things the right way. (Important: Don't tell me what you think I might want to hear, or what you think FathersEyes wants to hear. Just give it to me straight, and we'll take it from there.)
--Finally, if you could give a run-down of where you stand on each of the actions on FathersEyes' "conditions" list, that'd be helpful.
And if YOU have questions, ask. I'm not here to beat you up, but I will tell ya that if I hear something that sounds like b.s., I'll call you on it -- and you shouldn't want it any other way.
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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Good morning, SLT. I was on my phone last night and was not able to provide links for you. I'm hoping you found things on your own, but just in case you didn't: Dr. Harley's video: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi1001_infidelity0.htmlI didn't mention these articles last night, but I suggest you read them first. Can't We Just Forgive and Forget, parts 1, 2, and 3: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.htmlhttp://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042b_qa.htmlhttp://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042c_qa.htmlHow to Survive Infidelity: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5525_qa.html(There are 30 articles in this section. The links are on the left sidebar. The first one is "Coping with infidelity: beginning (part 1)." The last one is "What are Plan A and Plan B?" I recommend you read them all.) Surviving an Affair (book): http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6070_sa.htmlYou can also find this on Amazon, or elsewhere. Extraordinary precautions, by HerPapaBear, former wayward husband: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2557828
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Thank you. I have read that. We need to get His Needs her Needs. We had the one for parents, but gave it to our daughter and her husband.
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Maritalbliss,
I think Marriage Builders is a good program. So far, so good. Just wish we would have found it years ago.
As far as dodging a bullet goes, I already realize it. I realized when I thought I lost my wife for good.
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Thanks for all the links, Markos. I have read the articles and we are reading Surviving an Affair together. We will watch the videos this week.
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