Night Tony. Keep in mind that women often are looking to have emotional needs filled, while the man may be looking for sex.

Your wife may be depressed.

One thing I will add here. Keep your family out of this from now on. You and your wife are perfectly capable of fixing this or divorcing. Do NOT even speak to your or her family any more. Their opinions are worthless and will not help you in the least. The best decision I made was when I told my family to shut their collective mouths. Get counseling, read books, seek advice here, etc. Avoid your family like the plague.

One of my wise guides told me recently that ANY criticism from your wife is real, and must be dealt with. I believe that he is right. Maybe the criticism is more dramatic or makes more of the issues - but it REALLY IS TRUE.

You will learn as you read Harley's books that showing respect to your spouse is one of the great needs. If she says you do not respect her - possibly there is just ONE LITTLE THING that makes her think this. If so - find it and change it. If she says you do not make time for her - IT IS TRUE. Find out what it is that makes her think that.

One of the keys to successful recovery is talking. Lots of talking. Like 30 hours A WEEK of talking, and quality time. You will learn all of this as you spend time reading through this site, and through His Needs, Her Needs - by Dr. Harley.

We have all been there. We know the pain. The difficulty doing ANYTHING at work. The soul searching.

There is someone here almost 24/7. You can always come here, and let it all come out. There are some wise people here. Listen to them.

Take your time. Time will heal your pain.

I agree with WAT - burn the note. Let her light the match. Make it a special ceremony of destroying the past, and building a new future.

Bring your yelling and screaming here. We will listen. WE KNOW. WE KNOW.

Find pleasant things to talk about with your wife, and start building some good memories that are current. As you build current pleasant memories, they will begin to displace the ones that haunt you.

I would have given anything (both of 'em) for the opportunity you have right now.

Go build some pleasant, current memories.

I will pray for you.

FAR

To follow up on Believer's line of thought, please read the book His Needs/Her Needs.

From what I have read your W is giving you truthful info mixed in with WS babble. Yep she is still babbling. Not as much as others but still is and that will make any recovery hard for both of you. Yet that is one of the side effects of the A and you will both need to learn how to deal with it.

Also please know that you as a BS are going to go through grieving type stages. Frustration and anger will be what u w/b picking up along the way and at times you may feel like the M ain't worth it. After all u were betrayed. Right?!?!? Ok....that's correct but note that your heart and mind are NOT in sync. Getting mixed signals from your inerts? Happened to most of us.

After you read Surviving an Affair and His Needs/Her Needs (where you will learn HOW to communicate with the female gender in general <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )...... I recommend you either get a good MC or call Jennifer C @ MB for some phone MC counseling. Jennifer is really good in helping the WSW's.

Also both of u take the EN questionnaire so you can see what each other's top 5 out of 10 ENs are for each other. It maybe surprises....or not. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

take care,
L.

Tony,

I copied this from another thread Mr Goodstuff posted it for another person, but it might help you as well. Sorry you are here, study hard read the books and you will be able to work through this and have a much better marriage than you ever thought possible.

Good Luck & Prayers.

[color:"blue"] Quote:
I want to paraphrase an old post by a fellow named 2ofakind. I always admired him for his candor and logical way of thinking. He was a wayward spouse that rebuilt his marriage (with the help of his wife) into something really great. He helped me to take a step back in my marriage and view it from a distance. When I took a step forward back into the marriage I was better prepared to recover.

I was at month two and my wayward wife desperately wanted to save our marriage just as Honeygirl wants to save yours. It was me that was slowing the process. I was hurt, betrayed and crushed. I felt little hope or self-encouragement to move forward yet I stayed. I needed something more, something that would allow me to act instead of idly standing bye while my wife tried to soothe my damaged ego. I could not bring myself to accept her overtures.

It was 2ofaKind that suggested that it was ME who would decide whether of not I was willing to ALLOW recovery. He said something like,

“You CAN choose divorce and not even God will blame you, but you are staying and your choice to stay has consequences just like your wife’s choices. It means that you do not get to hold on to the “you are bad, I am good” trump card indefinitely. Ouch. Sure, in the initial phase of recovery you can expect her to do all of the heavy lifting and you can afford to be a bit self-righteous in your indignation. After all you were the good spouse and she was the bad spouse. Unfortunately as you are discovering, this is not a tenable position because if you are going to go from a walking trauma case back to a healthy, secure and happy human being in a solid relationship you need to get back to being equals. You might say, “I didn’t do anything to deserve this, she had the affair, it’s not fair”.

No, it isn't. It sucks actually but that does not make it any less true. If you choose recovery then you both must be responsible for it's success or failure. Obviously, if she keeps up contact or other destructive habits (privacy concerns, hiding things, unhealthy behaviors) all bets are off. If however, you have a horrified, repentant and desperate to reconcile wife and are unwilling to participate in the work then you are to blame for YOUR actions. While all of your choices may currently SUCK in a really big way, they are your choices. Your acknowledgment and acceptance of your choice to choose recovery makes you a responsible party to its success or failure. Further, it gives you back a little control over your life and that builds self-esteem.

For the first few months it is AMAZINGLY convenient to pull out the affair whenever an argument is going awry, isn't it? “Honey, it's your turn to do the laundry” ... “Well that may be true but YOU HAD AN AFFAIR!” Helluva trump card, ain't it? Putting it back in the deck will be a lot easier if you remind yourself that you are choosing recovery for the same reason your spouse is choosing to be faithful and repair the horrific damage she has done to the marriage - because all things considered, being happy and having a happy family is more important than being right.”

You have made note that your self-esteem has been wiped clean by your wife’s terrible betrayal. Believe me when I say that I know how you feel, unfortunately from firsthand experience. You may not have thought of this but you are not alone. There is another person whose self-esteem has taken a direct hit. You guessed it, your wife. Here’s the worst part. While yours gets better, hers gets worse. Remember this as one day it will fall to you to help her along. She wants to be a good person and she will look to you to legitimize her once again.

Please consider these words as you travel your road.

Mr. G
End Quote. [/color]

Actually, it's quite common for WSs to not know why they did it...that's why it's so important for them start the process of understanding why...IC is highly recommended.

It took me many months to finally understand why I did what I did. Before that, when I would be asked, I was entirely sincere in answering "I don't know"

The important thing is that she is doing the right things to FIND OUT why and not trying to sweep it under the rug.