I'm new to this, and I don't know if this is the right place or not. I just need help.

This weekend, my H of 22 years and I went on a "fun" jaunt up into the mountains. I had great expectations of a wonderful, romantic weekend. We have had a great R up until now, best friends...the works. On Saturday night, suddenly he tells me he's not happy anymore, doesn't love me anymore and he doesn't want his life to go on like it is now. He can't tell me what I've done wrong, he can't tell me what I can do right. He doesn't want to hurt me, but he's just not happy with our life together. We don't have any money problems, we live in a brand new custom made home that he wanted to build (I was happy with the old one). I guess the signs have been there for a few years that he was searching for something, but I missed them completely.

I don't know what to do. I do know that I need to start protecting my financial interests, and I will start that process this morning. I'm waiting for a counselors office to open to try to get us into counseling. Right now, I'm just hurt and alone.

Any advise out there?

Kim,
First of all let me say how sorry I am that you are here. But, you will find a lot of information, help and support from the people here. I'm fairly new at this, and my situation differs from yours, but I'll try and help you where I can.

First, read everything you can on this site. Order His Needs/Her Needs (HN/HN) now and start reading it as soon as it comes in. Read up on the principles on this site. If you devote the majority of your day it will take you a couple of days to get through the information. This will give you a foundation when HN/HN arrives. Read about Plan A and what it is designed for.

Your husband may very well be going through a mid-life crisis. Or, he may have someone else he's going to, or he may be depressed. Only he knows, but you will find information on this site and in the book that will help you. If it helps any my wife is saying many of the same things. Actually, everything you said in your post she has said to me. My wife is only 27, but psychologically speaking she is displaying EVERY sign of a mid-life crisis. She however, fell in love with another man which confused her even more and brought out more hurt and lonliness.

I wish you the best of luck. Know that there are many people here that will walk you through the steps it will take to overcome this obsticle.

My wife pulled the same stuff on me last August, and I am still fighting for my family's well being. I hate to break it to you, but sounds like he may have eyes for someone else. That is the case with my W and the story you give matches. I have some divorced friends whom I talk with, and their story matched mine. Now do not go off the handle, he may not be physically doing anything, but his emotions could be with someone else. One tell tale sign - How are things in the bedroom?

Kim,
This forum is targeted toward dealing with infidelity...but many many betrayed spouses heard "I'm just unhappy/I don't love you anymore" long before they found out about an affair so you'll find a lot of us will be suspicious of your husband having an affair. And, really, the advice for MLC vs affair isn't much different.

Counseling is a very good idea. So is protecting yourself financially, if that is possible. Often once the unhappy spouse gets to the point of sharing that unhappiness with the other spouse, changes not only in routine, but spending, have already taken place.

A good place to start among the Marriage Builder materials is the book HIS NEEDS HER NEEDS by Willard Harley. If you understand both your emotional needs and those of your husband, you can evaluate if and how you meet those needs.

With either MLC or an affair, it can take some time to work through the issues and make changes to restore the marriage bond, but with your husband still living at home, you have some opportunity to do what you can to be a good marriage partner and find out what he needs and wants.

Well, you've given me some food for thought. I agree that he is probably emotionally involved with AW, and I'm sure that I know who it is. The OW is also married. At the moment, I believe that their relationship is a very friendly one, however, her marriage is rocky and I believe that she may be casting her nets for #3H. I can't control her, I can only control myself and try to make my relationship better.

As far as our sex life, he has moved into the other bedroom. He did this about 2 months ago (right after he and suspected OW had taken a business trip to Seattle) on the pretense that he couldn't sleep because the dog snored. On Friday night, I dressed in stuff he really like, and we made love quickly, with little passion. He has been having some problems keeping and maintaining erections, but he did manage to finish Friday night.

I can financially protect myself as I control the family finances, he has taken a particularly strange interest in them in the last few weeks, which now tells me that he is thinking about getting rid of me. I think it's time I opened a separate savings account and started dumping some money in there.

Help, please!!!!!!

You have not given many details, so it is hard to know. However, it is EXTREMELY common for someone who is having an affair to say just what your husband said (it's almost as if they are all reading from the same script). So, if I were you, I would have my radar up. Now, obviously, this warning comes from my own experience, but my wife was the last person you would suspect of an affair. Many signs were there, but I just did not connect the dots, because an affair was SO unlike her. I thought. Besides, many of the most common, expected signs were missing - different affairs "look" different, despite the underlying similarities.

That said, it is certainly possible that this is just an MLC-type thing. In either case, the following applies. If you think your marriage is good, and he is thinking of leaving, and saying he "doesn't love you anymore", there is SOMETHING you are missing. If you are going to save your marriage, this is the place to find the tools to do so. I read about 5 good marriage books that did me absolutely no good before I found this site. I will say that after reading Harley's materials, I realized I had no idea of how to have a great marriage, nor did I have the tools to make me great. Reading Harley's books gave us both a vision for what a good marriage should look like and the tools to get there.

So, my advice is: Buy Harely's book "Fall in Love, Stay in Love", and read it through with your husband. If he is not willing to do this with you, that should be a big warning light that it is even more likely that he is having an affair. While you are waiting for the book to arrive, read through the Basic Concepts of this web site from beginning to end. It is sort of a Reader's Digest condensed version of Harley's ideas about marriage, which are elaborated in the book. Also read through What Are Plan A and Plan B?. That Q&A emphasizes using Plan A in cases of infidelity, but Harley also recommends using it to bring a spouse out of withdrawal. If your H is not willing to read through the book w/ you, it is likely you will need to use it to try to coax him out of withdrawal.

The other thing I will emphasize about the book is that it is not much better than the other 5 I read, unless you take the questionaires. The problem with most marriage books is that they tend to say "women need this" and "men need this", and my wife and I were not typical, so much of the advice does not apply. Harley says: "Women generically need this, and men generically need that, and here are some questionaires to fill out that will show you how to apply this to your particular wife and your particular husband". The differences in the two approaches were invaluable to us.

Next is marriage counseling. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

Lastly is the spiritual aspect: I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. This is hard. (OK, you may not have an affiar to deal with like I did, but change is always hard.) I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You posted while I was composing the last post - from your additional info I'd say the odds are 100% he is having an emotional affiar, and about 99% for the physical affair. Therefore let me add a couple of things. HN/HN is great (I recommended FIL/SIL in part because it contains most of what is in HN/HN. But for you, your first book from Harley should be Survivng an Affair.

After reading through the Basic Concepts section, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity I recommend “Surviving an Affair”, (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore because IMO it is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them.

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

One thing to head off a common misconception: Unmet Emotional Needs as described in HN/HN do not cause affairs, they cause lousy marriages. If you read Harley thoroughly and carefully, he does not say unmet EN's cause affairs, either, though it is a so common a misconception among his readers that I would say he should do some re-writing of his material. Reading SAA, it can be easy to conclude that unmet needs are the reason for affairs. Not so. Affairs are entirely the responsibility of those involved, and the reasons vary.

Our MC worked w/ Bill Harley for 8 years, and one of his biggest dis-agreements w/ Bill was on this very issue, because according to him, in about 80% of men's affairs unmet EN's had very little to do with it. Yes, there were usually unmet EN's in their marriages, because no marriage is perfect. But, having the wife find out about and meet his most important EN's did not stop the affairs from re-kindling or stop the husband from having another. Harley is aware of this, which is why his plan for recovery is a lot more complicated than: 1.) Take the EN questionaire. 2.) Meet your husbands EN's. Our MC said that in his opinion, for that 80%, if the wife had been meeting the husband's top 5 EN's PERFECTLY, the husband still would have had the affair. If you want to learn more, read "The State of Affairs", by Todd Mulliken, particularly the chapter on "The Double Life Man".

Kim,
Given the additional information, I switch my vote for priority book to Surviving the Affair as well.

A co-worker affair partner is one of the more difficult scenarios because "no contact" between the WS & OW is not an immediate option, unless one of them changes jobs.

I think the timing of his moving out of your bedroom is suspicious. It isn't really logical for him to move out of the room, instead of the dog.

Sometimes with MLC, an affair is one of the ways the person tries to "self-medicate" or fix themselves, rather than a true attachment. That however doesn't make the betrayal any less painful for the betrayed.

I just can't believe that his relationship with OW is physical....yet. I do believe that he has found someone that he feels like he can talk to about anything, although he used to feel that way about me. I've ordered one of the books, I'll go on and order the other two as soon as I'm finished here. I have made an appointment with a MC for Friday. He is willing to go, but he doesn't see much use in it.

I guess my details are sketchy because I don't know what is happening. In three days, I have gone from feeling love, contentment, enrichment and happiness to absolute despair. I can't answer the phone without crying, and I have no idea how I will face work tomorrow. I've thought that the easiest solution would be to drive my car in the garage, leave it running and close the door. (Don't worry, I think I'm okay)

He talks about plans for the future, and it confuses me because now I don't know if I'm in on those plans or not. He wants to buy the kids a house, but if we're not going to be together it won't be a possibility. I'm sorry for writing with confusion.....it's just that I am.

So sorry to hear of your situation and hurt. I will be watching closely because I am in a very similar situation, hopefuly we can both learn and survive. My W of 23 years suddenly tells me almost three months ago that she is not happy, no longer has feelings for me, just needs to be away on her own. Then actually tells my girls she feels this way, hurting us all. Said she had felt this way for some time. Sex had been almost zero for three months before that. I suggested MC, anything to try to get us back on track, but she refused. Sorry to say but found out 2/16 she has been having A. I only hope that it has not gone this far for you. Stay here, there are a lot of good people who will try to get you through this. Read their advice, learn from others successes and failures. And, most importantly, try not to be to hard on yourself. Your H may have made a bad decision but so far you have not.

Robert, 45, married 23 years, 2 girls(15,17), still stunned.

So, are things getting better for you? If so, what have you done to make the situation better? I'm really at a loss, because H tells me that there is nothing I can do, nothing I've done wrong and it can't be fixed. Did you experience the same thing?

Emotional Infidelity EA or PA, they are both betrayals, and what is happening emotionally is almost the same in either case. In some way's an EA is worse, because the WS can hide behind "We're just friends", and continue to avoid admitting there is a problem. But, the sex in a PA is just a physical expression of an emotional reality. It makes the emotional reality concrete. To say the emotional reality has not yet been made concrete, and therefore the problem is not all that bed, is just burying your head in the sand.

If anything, I am certainly no longer burying my head in the sand. I understand completely that an emotional affair is just as damaging as a physical one. I'm living it. I almost wish it would progress to a physical one, this way perhaps, only perhaps, H would get through it quicker. OW is is almost a clone of my personality, only that she is needier and perhaps is making him feel like he can make a difference in her life, and no longer needs to make a difference in mine. I do have habits that are probably driving him nuts, I'm working on those now. With little to go on, that's about all I can do.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I'm really at a loss, because H tells me that there is nothing I can do, nothing I've done wrong and it can't be fixed. Did you experience the same thing? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not exactly. My wife said: "It was not about you, it was not about the OM, it was not about sex. It's all my fault." (Before and during the affair she called me "The Greatest Husband in the World", in public, and in the OM's presence. She was wrong about all but "It's all my fault.", though there were some elements of truth in the other four statements. Sorting out the truth and falsehoods of those things were a big part of recovery, understanding what a good marriage should look like and what was missing from ours, what a good sex life should look like, how a good husband should act and what she got from the OM she should have been getting from me.

Anyway, the MB prescription in your situation is Plan A. Please read the Plan A/Plan B link above.

My wife said that feeling like I did not need her was a significant part of why she was able to have an affair.

In support of Lor, my WS had a MLC affair which was for self-medication, even according to Steve H. He has insisted that he is not in love with OW, more of a means to handle his depression.

I worked on PLAN A. Recovery is likely for us. I would recommend reading all you can about PLAN A and get all the help you can from folks on this forum.

Hang in there!!!

"It was not about you, it was not about the OM, it was not about sex. It's all my fault." (Before and during the affair she called me "The Greatest Husband in the World", in public, and in the OM's presence.

My God, Do they all have a script? Those have been almost his exact words.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> My God, Do they all have a script? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">No, but there is a thread around here somewhere with a list of stupid things that WS's say. I had a conversation with the OM, and almost everything he said was on the list. It is sort of funny and sad at the same time.

Okay, so I've read over the plan A stuff. H & OW will always have to have some sort of relationship, they work together. If they continue down the path they are on, they won't be working together for long. My temptation is to skip to Plan B, move out and let him see what it's like to be alone....he'll end up that way if he doesn't try to make the MC work.

I'm so confused B-(

Kim,

It may help to see if the counselor can give you some medication for depression. I know you probably don't mean what you said in your previous post but the worse thing you could do legally is to move out of the house. Your husband sounds like he is in a mlc and there is definately hope that this marriage can be saved.