I�m new here and I really need help. Sorry this is long but I will try to make it all relevant!

My husband and I are 49 years old, have been married 25 years, and have one daughter who is 16. Seven years ago I discovered he was having an EA with a coworker. He ended it but of course not Harley-style because I didn�t know about Harley or MB. It turned into a PA and I didn�t find out until five years ago when he had to tell me she was 8 months pregnant, it was over, that he had told her he would not leave the marriage, and she moved six hours away to raise the baby on her own (she�s divorced with one other small child) with his generous child support (my H is a high-income earner).

We had paternity testing and got a lawyer and got everything in place. I thought we would be okay. However, the affair never really ended. She came back to town often to see grandparents and my H had liasons with her. He used his work phone to text her or talk to her, so I could never see anything. I was hit with multiple d-days. We did marriage counseling and retreats, read a lot of books, I tried to be a better wife.

He said the primary reason he fell in love with her was because she fully accepted him and I did not. From the time we met at 20, he had a very high sex drive (1-2 times per day) and I could not meet that. He also desired a lot of kinky sex which I think is due to an addiction to pornography, and sex was rarely pleasurable for me because I never felt it was about being with ME as much as making a story for him to be aroused by. Lots of role play and story-telling. No kissing or tenderness. This crept into the marriage beginning in the first few years but by the time he met the OW (year 18), I was just doing �my duty� in the bedroom with little interest and he could tell. He felt unloved because I "didn�t accept him." So the OW�s attention made him feel special.

Last year, his love child turned 4 years old and he told me he was feeling very sad and guilty about NC because she was now forming memories and would be asking about who her father was. He told me he wanted to start a relationship with the OC by driving to the OW�s town regularly and I was NOT invited. I begged him for a way to have a relationship with the OC without �unchaperoned� contact with the OW but he didn�t want to upset the OW. I knew what that meant, so I kicked him out and filed for divorce.

Five days after he moved into an apartment, the OW told him she was in love with another man in her hometown and she wouldn�t be seeing my H anymore. They ended their relationship for good, as my H�s fog burst wide open and he realized he could be replaced�their love was not so special.

I was elated because I want to save my marriage so badly. The problem is, my H won�t come home. We have been separated 3 months. I agreed that he should stay for a while to grieve/withdraw from the affair, because I didn�t want to see him go through that. But it�s hard because he doesn�t act like he wants the marriage to be restored. He says he doesn�t love himself and he needs to learn to do that before he can love me again. He feels ashamed for the husband he was and what he did to me, the OW, and the children involved. (He had also pressured the OW to have an abortion and he doesn�t believe in that but he felt so scared back then, so it haunts him to this day that he almost had this little girl killed but that the OW �protected� her life.)

I discovered Harley two months ago and just finished Love Busters, HN/HN, and Surviving an Affair. I told my H that I would like to restore balances in both our love banks and I was going to be an amazing wife. But he is not sure he wants to try. I think he may have some clinical depression but he won�t seek help� (Also, he was abused by his father as a child and I think a lot of issues from that are making him have some kind of crisis in the wake of all this. He says he has to meditate and talk to his child self with comfort to feel okay each day. And he is downloading a lot of books on anxiety which is not typical of him.)

This weekend, he dropped a big bomb on me. He told me that he isn�t feeling anything for me because his number one emotional need, sexual fulfillment, is not being met (I have not been having sex with him during the separation, on the advice of our marriage counselor). So now I am thinking if I can just love bomb him with all his EN�s, especially the sex, affection, and admiration, maybe I can restore my marriage, even if he won�t say he wants to restore it. But this seems opposite to the Plan B plan, and I don�t know if I will just feel like a doormat (more than I already do) and build resentment. Plus I don't know if it's possible to replenish his love bank if we are separated, it will be twice as hard (he lives 30 minutes away from me now, in the city, and I still live in the 'burbs but work in the city). If it would work, I am willing to try, but I don't know if it would be counter-productive.

Please advise!!!

Welcome to MB.

He hasn't come back hat in hand, begging to be taken back, as Dr Harley recommends. Wives should not take their wayward husbands back unless they (spontaneously) beg to be taken back. He hasn't done this.

Let him be, and move on without him. No good can come from any more contact from you.

So you don't think he just needs more time to get through withdrawal?

He doesn't want a divorce, he says he just wants more time to work on himself. He says he can't come home and "act like everything is fine" because it's not: he is a mess. He needs time to meditate, pray, heal himself.

He is willing to give me the divorce and a generous settlement because of his guilt. I just don't know if it's time to take it.

Hi Grace, welcome to Marriage Builders. Sugarcane is right, this is not a good situation for you. Trying to meet his needs will make you LESS attractive, not more. The more you try to chase him, the less attractive you become and the more damage it will cause to your emotional and physical health. Dr. Harley would suggest you shut this down and go into a very dark Plan B. Are you familiar with Plan B?

He has been wayward for a very long time so this won't be easy to fix, but I would not even consider taking him back unless your marriage is 100% affair proofed and he stops all porn use. His desire for weird sex is from his porn use. Men who watch porn stop making love and use sex only to get off. They repel women with their kinky sex desires.

The reason you stopped desiring sex with him is because he was not meeting YOUR NEEDS and was a thoughtless sex partner:
He never made it pleasurable for you, which is how sexual aversions are created. Dr Harley would tell you to NEVER meet his need for sex in a way that is repellant to you because that is how aversions are created.

He just wants to keep you on the sidelines while he wastes time. I would strongly suggest you file for divorce to get legal protection and go into Plan B. He is not serious about your marriage.

You should jump all over that. Go into a dark Plan B and if he makes a RADICAL CHANGE in his approach to being a husband, you can reconsider. I doubt that will ever happen because he is not fighting for you.

I agree, go into Plan B.
How to Plan B Correctly

The Plan B is a little odd, because his affair is over. I am not sure what I am demanding except for him to come home. I already tried to threaten him that he needs to come home for our daughter's sake and he says he if I made him come home right now, we would not have a healthy marriage. He says he is sick and needs time to heal so he can come home for the right reasons and be a good partner.

I am also afraid to Plan B because it's going to make him angry (esp. changing the locks and packing up all his stuff), which threatens the good settlement. I am just trying to be friendly until I legally get what I need to feel secure.

I guess I could get the divorce and then Plan B fully.

Plan B is not about killing the affair, but about protecting you from abuse. This situation is not good for your health.

How long would it take to take care of the legal stuff?

Welcome to MB Grace.

You have been dealing with a very wayward man for a very long time. Not only through this ongoing affair, but also the pornography use. And he has been blaming you for all of it by saying you don't meet his needs. I can tell that has already damaged you mentally because you are shouldering the blame and 'trying to be a better wife' and you are also single handedly trying to fix a marriage that HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BREAKING. You need to get far far away from this destructive situation so you can start to repair the damage he has caused you.

Understand this, you had nothing to do with him having an affair. You could have been the perfect wife, meeting his needs 100%, and he would still have had an affair. Affairs are caused by having poor boundaries around the opposite sex, NOT because your spouse is not meeting your needs. Many spouses do not meet each others needs but do not have affairs.

Plan B is to protect your mental and physical health from dealing with this wayward craziness, and you clearly need it. In Plan B you have no contact whatsoever with him or his OW or his crazy wayward lifestyle. You don't look at his FB, you don't let your friends talk about him in front of you, you don't even let yourself sit and ponder what he's doing at the moment. Can you do this? I can tell it has been a very long time since you have focused on your happiness instead of on him and what he is doing and how to single handedly get him to simply stay with you and have a marriage at all cost. You need to change this mentality and decide you matter too.

Oh poor WH

Can you see in this post that he has absolutely NO REGARD for you??? YOU are the victim here, not him. YOU are the one who has had to put up with his waywardness for years, and yet the focus is on how damaging this has been TO HIM.

Although MB is a 'marriage building' site, it does not by any means support 'marriage at all cost.' Just being married is not the goal. Just getting him to stay with you is not the goal. You cannot have a great marriage alone, and you cannot fix his wayward lifestyle or mentality, you cannot affair proof your marriage, alone. Until he comes to you *hat in hand* to beg your forgiveness and agree to do absolutely anything necessary to affair proof the marriage and make it better than it has ever been, you should not even consider going back to him.

Plan B.

Plan B is intended to protect the BS from the emotional fallout of an affair and/or the WS' refusal to work on recovery.

What is he "sick" with? Does he have cancer? If he has cancer, he would obviously want to be in his home working on his marriage. Or does he want to keep you on the sidelines while he pursues affairs and porn?



That's fine. Its ok if he is angry. But you should have nothing to do wth him. You have been unknowingly enabling him for a very long time, which has made you the most unattractive option to him. He has had no motivation or reason to stop his destructive behavior. Your approach has made the situation much worse.

I want to add that your husband has been wayward for so long that this is entrenched behavior. It will take ALOT to motivate him to change. More enabling and appeasing will not do the trick. It will just further erode your mental and physical health, making you even more unattractive.

Have you considered getting counseling for yourself to help you stand up for yourself? Your behavior is very dysfunctional. You seem to have no defense mechanisms much like a battered wife.

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Are you able to discern when you are being manipulated? The above is a prime example of manipulation. This is like the rapist saying he has to "heal" from raping his victims.

MelodyLane, Unwritten, SugarCane, you are all right. He is emotionally and psychologically abusive. I guess I forgive him because he seems to be dealing with psychological turmoil and I have so much empathy (I never had to give up a biological child at birth, who I also had wished dead, so I try to think about this and what he must be dealing with).

Goody2shoes, I can have the legal stuff wrapped up pretty quickly, I think. We have a mediator and a settlement in draft. I filed last year so our waiting time is up and we can have a divorce anytime now.

Everytime I think of making it final, I get so sad. I am not strong and I don't know why.

MelodyLane, I have had lots of individual counseling, one with a psychologist and one with a Christian counselor. Neither has observed me as having no defense mechanisms like a battered wife, even though I have told them stories that to me seem psychologically/emotionally abusive. They both say that if I can endure the separation, maybe our marriage could come back on track, because my H is trying to be a better man. ?!?!

Just know that there is a huge difference between ENABLING and compassion. It is not compassionate to help someone engage in destructive behavior. That is all you have done here.

You have made alot of excuses for him and it has only made him WORSE. I realize you are a nice person, but misplaced compassion gives power to evil. Your "forgiveness" is inappropriate and destructive.


You will feel much stronger if you push this divorce through and go into Plan B. Staying in touch with this abusive, uncaring man has sapped your strength. But strength is a CHOICE and you can make the choice today to be strong and take action. You will never be strong as long as you make yourself available to be abused.

I am sorry to hear this, because it is very obvious to the outside observer that you have allowed yourself to be abused. This is one of the worst cases I have seen.

And how would they know if your "marriage could come back on track" if they don't know how to save marriages? Marriages don't resolve themselves by magic fairy dust. There has to be a plan.

My Christian counselor (a young pastor but super-smart and I do believe he is the better of my two therapists) is also counseling my H. He says my H has lost his way and become ego-centered but if he finds his way back to a God-centered life, we will meet there in our marriage and it will be fulfilling again. My H does admit he is ego-centered. He keeps saying things like, "I want to be God-centered but it's so hard to truly love Jesus, to love your enemy, give up all your possessions and humble yourself" etc. So maybe he is having a crisis of faith admist all of this. Or maybe it's just his manipulation of me.

That is cute, but talk is cheap. Talk that is not accompanied with action is meaningless. If your husband wanted to be a good husband, he could make that choice today. Waywards are just like alcoholics in that they talk alot, but never act on it. This is why you need to ignore his words and watch his actions. He has been destructive for YEARS and has no intention of changing that.

Your marriage will never become fulfilling without a plan. What you describe is not a plan. Hope is not a plan. This program, developed by a CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGIST, Dr Bill Harley, gives you a plan, but at the end of the day, if your husband does not CHOOSE to change his destructive behaviors, there will be no marriage. Jesus will not force anyone to act against his will.

Your husband is having a "crisis" of willful destructive behavior and that will not change until he chooses to change. Until that happens, you should not associate with works of darkness.