Need your opinions on what to do next. Since the last update, much has happened.
A quick recap:

6/1/02: WW gets back from best friend’s bachelorette party and tells H that OM’s ex-GF called her for info. WW hadn’t spoken to OM for a week or more. H didn’t believe WW, so he calls OM himself. Now WW and OM are talking again.

6/8/02: H moves out of house. Living with friend. Only contact between H and WW is text messaging or email for “business” purposes. WW is now seeing OM regularly. H begins to date.

6/17/02: OM & WW decide to spend time apart since neither ever had any alone time between relationships.

6/17 – 6/19: Spending some time alone for the first time, WW starts to realize that things with OM will never work. Begins to focus on repairing marriage.

6/19: OM and WW decide to end things for good, over the phone. WW is very confident that this is the last contact. Had good feeling while ending it, felt she did the right thing.

6/21: Still contacting H over emails, WW let H know that things were final with OM. H still apprehensive and WW still wanting alone time to dig deep within herself. Not much withdrawal happening...seems to be the easiest NC (from OM) so far.

6/22: WW’s dog is sick and goes to the vet. Diagnosis is cancerous tumor and she won’t live more than a week. H calls WW while she’s at the vet to tell her that his grandmother just died. More and more phone contact being made now between H and WW because of all the recent events. H wants to spend time with dying dog, and WW is helping MIL with obituary, food preparation, etc. No contact is almost impossible at this point.

6/24: Put dog to sleep. H wanted to be there. Got dinner together.

6/25: More phone contact regarding funeral arrangements, whether or not we should attend together, etc.

6/26: Funeral today. Talk begins about whether to repair the marriage. Spend more time together or apart? Weren’t sure, but according to SAA, says the best way to spend withdrawal is together, not apart, since it keeps the WS from contacting OM. WW had no problem with not contacting OM at this time. WW and H both get 3 days bereavement for the death in the family, so discussion came up about a weekend getaway. Much fighting up until this point...should we... shouldn’t we, will it be a waste of time...etc. Finally we got online and found a cheap vaca and agreed to book it and see if there was anything left to salvage.

6/27 –6/30: From Thurs to Sun went on vaca. Not much was accomplished. WW was non-responsive to most of H’s affections. Fights started over this. WW needs H to be very patient, as it is difficult to get used to this again. H seems to think WW can jump right back into the swing of things with no problem. WW thinks the opposite. H cannot understand. H thought WW was mistreating him...not being polite, courteous. WW was PMSing.

Now we’re home and we don’t know where to go from here. H thinks he can be treated better elsewhere, but would like to work on marriage. WW would like to work on marriage, but needs H to be much more patient. H tends to “force” kisses and hugs, but WW feels he is hovering or pushing himself on WW. H feels if WW wants to work on marriage, hugs, kisses and affection should not be a problem. H can understand jumping into bed may be an issue, but H would just like affection. WW feels that the kisses will lead to more and this makes her very uncomfortable, and tends to make her anxious.

Wondering now...where the hell do we stand? We’re not in Plan B (because we’re still in contact), we’re not in recovery (because he doesn’t live at home), and we’re not separated (because we are spending time together.) So what are we? We both agree we would like to have a healthy marriage together. But what should we do at this point? Continue no contact so that WW can start to appreciate H more? Or continue contact and hope that WW’s attitude changes and H’s patience grows? Right now, we are at odds most of the time. We feel we didn’t get to spend enough time apart in order for WW to appreciate the marriage. We discussed the option to call the Harley’s.

Any help or opinion would be appreciated.

The Funks

IAF you should not be married. You haven't grown up and become a mature sensitive adult. Having an affair, continuing to have an affair while appearing to be reconciling, and then using a stupid arguement as a pretext for leaving to be with the OM shows a complete immaturity and lack of understanding what marriage is all about. As for breaking up with the OM to go back to your H. Big deal! What did you accomplish? You scarred your marriage. You showed that you had no commitment to your marriage. You showed how easy you become infatuated with another man and just as easy leave him just as you did with your husband. In a previous post by your husband he describes how you behaved the same way before you got married It should be obvious to you that something is wrong and that you need therapy. As things stand now your husband would be foolish to depend on you to be there in the years ahead.

Hi folks,

Tomaz,

You seem to be working against the goals of the MarriageBuilder's web site. Why are you so hostile?

InAFunk's message was signed "The Funks" implying that both H and W participated in the posting - and clearly indicated that both are interested in trying to reconstruct their marriage.

So why are you so eager to destroy it?

InAFunk surely is not a perfect person, nor am I, nor are you - nor even is Steve Harley. But I think it is way out of line to pass judgement on her and tell her that she "should not be married" etc. The things you are saying might be classified as disrespectful judgements. Let's all try to conduct ourselves here in a friendly manner.

-AD

Thanks AD...yes, we both had "joint agreement" that we would post this topic. We wrote it together. We are both very unsure how to continue from this point...not sure which option would benefit us the most.

After H left last night, I felt a feeling of relief because of the quiet time I finally had after spending 4 days talking about our issues. It just gets exhausting after awhile. We're just both so frustrated with each other right now and looking for a way to cope with ourselves and our issues without hurting the other or making the other uncomfortable.

H called this morning to say good morning and we had a nice conversation...no LB.

I'll ignore the post from Tomaz because I know there is much better advice out there than what he/she had to offer. Obviously not a promotor of the Harley principles. We'd rather both try at this than to give up so quickly.

IAF

Get counseling.

Hold off on all expectations of each other for now (set yourselves a reasonable length of time and decide to sit down and check progress again at that point)

Decide to work TOGETHER (without it there is no marriage)

I just got a copy of His Needs Her Needs and I think it applies to the "groping vs affection" issues you guys are dealing with. You might try reading it, it's really good.

Thanks H4F...

About counseling, thing that sucks is that my C said she couldn't see me anymore because I cancelled without enough noticed more than once. Both times I can think of involved my dying dog. My counseling is through my EAP program at work, and there is only one more C to choose from and we went to her already and weren't crazy about her. But I guess she's better than nothing at this point. H is not in any kind of Cing as of right now.

I bought the HNHN audio tapes and I have listened to them and so has H. I believe it's a condensed version of the book (2 tapes long)...does anyone know if the book has much more info in it than the tapes?

Try the Harleys then! I know what you mean about counselors. Our first one was HORRIBLE. Practically signed off the marriage before any kind of work had really been done. I agree she wasn't getting a huge amount of cooperation, but in my opinion if she'd even dealt with the A AT ALL we might have gotten somewhere. Most counselors tend to just sweep it under the rug and try to go from here.

I would assume the tapes would still have the basic ideas in it. Hubby and I are reading it together. They talked about how men NEED sex and women NEED affection. One without the other is practically impossible. They explain it in such a good way so that both men and women can start to see it from the others point of view. It's more of a misunderstanding than insensitivity. My hubby used to do a lot of the groping and grabbing too, and I used to get really mad. Now I get tons of hugs and kisses, and an occcasional flirty squeeze. MUCH BETTER!! Maybe Mr Funk could try that more?

Really guys, it's 90% attitude, and 10% training. Before I was sure I wanted my marriage and would do anything to keep it, if my hubby did the littlest thing wrong it was such a major deal. Now, if he does a major thing wrong...it's still such a minor deal. One night I actually found myself TRYING to get FURIOUS!! Because I just knew I should be! He did a very insensitive thing and I was mad! But...I just couldn't get ticked enough to blow up over it. LOL! Finally, we took a bath together and I made a smartaleck comment about how he was in big trouble. He said WHY? So I told him. He looked at me and said, you don't look mad? Well, I'm TRYING TO BE! I guess I think it shows a huge progression on our attitudes and how safe we feel in our marriage. If I didn't feel safe, I would have been deeply hurt and angry. But I knew he didn't mean to do it and in the scheme of things it wasn't worth getting furious over.

It takes time. None of this will happen overnight. If you want a happy, healthy marriage with each other, you can have it. But if you want instant proof or gratification you won't get it.

7/1/02 Make appointment with the Harleys. WW and BH will find out a game plan for themselves as individuals, as well as for the marriage.

Scrape your pennies, and commit to one phone call together, k? Will you do that? It is SO worth it. Some people blow $165 on a date night at dinner and a movie. Invest that $$ into a phone call that could save your family.

Mr and Mrs Funk:

I was just wondering, while driving in to work today, what happened to you folks?

I think it's good that you posted together. Don't be too concerned that you guys are having tense moments trying to find each other's boundaries right now. You'll find, with time, that your discussions will involve less and less LBing every time. When you can talk about the things that hurt you the most about what the other has done, without LBing, then true recovery will be easy... ...well, not EASY, but much more rewarding!

Welcome back, and take it easy.
I wish you all the best.