My wife and I have been married for 25 years this month. This summer I had an emotional affair with a woman and my wife and I seperated for 2 months. I am just barely out of withdrawl. My wife continues in and out of anger with me. This is the third time I have done this.

We married after 3 months of dating and I told her just recently I married her out of obligation ( we had sex before hand and so I married her ) and not love.

Naturally to start a repair to the marriage and satisfy each others emotional needs we both need to commit to the marriage. This seems to be where we get stuck. She feels I will/may not be able to do this and I may say anything to keep her at home, especially since I married her out of obligation. I fear she is right but at the same time feel Dr, Harleys correct when he says those who satisfy our important emotional needs will become irresistable to us. I want to give that a try but don't at the same time, if that makes any sense.

Naturally her patience for another emotional affair or otherwise ( in the near/distant future ) will completely destroy us both. She believes we are in a state of limbo as it were ( while we both decide on this commitment issue ) and cannot stay here long before she decides for us. I seem to be a bit more comfortable but have always been a procrastinator. Is it to soon to make the commitment and get started with a repair or are we headed south ?

Perhaps to complicate things we have lost two children to accidental deaths, one 5 years ago and one 10 years ago.

Welcome to marriagebuilders, Barcel. I think your situation is very promising, because at least one of you (you!!!) are looking for help.

I hope your wife will agree to do a little reading here too. It is a wonderful program and can work miracles.

Losing a child puts a marriage at great risk. I forget the exact statistics, but something like 80% of couples that lose a child end up divorced.

The two of you have stuck it out this far, so I would guess that you are very strongly bonded.

Have you been through any kind of grief counseling?

Thanks believer,

No real grief counseling has been pursued except personal research on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD.

The wife and I have both spend some good time on this site the last 3 days as I just found it. It has been a tremendous eye opener.

Be sure to check out the emotional needs questionairre. That is a great place to start. Find out what your needs are, and her top needs, and start meeting them.

Also it is very important to spend 15 hours each week doing fun things together.

Your wife is probably extremely hurt right now. But the two of you CAN have a much better marriage than before.

Stick with us, and we will help you through this.

I agree with believer 100%. Dr Harley's stuff works. Implement it and your marriage will rock.

I assume this statement hurt her very much. Is she reading any of the information here with you? Is she reading this thread? If so, she can be assured that a wayward spouse will say very hurtful things while in the affair and also during withdrawal. This state of mind is called "the fog". When the fog lifts, often the wayward spouse is horrified at their past behavior and statements. My guess is that you were in the fog when you said this, and that you actually don't mean it. Do you think so, Barcel?



I was stuck here too, but our marriage counselor is really good. She asked me: can you commit to the marriage for a short time, like 9 months? During this time you will both try hard to rebuild. If it doesn't work, you can always bail out later.

I liked this approach because, as you point out, it is very difficult to predict early in recovery whether it will be worth the effort. It is normal for both of you to be wary at this point.

So- how about that? Can you commit to 9 months or a year of "marriagebuilding" and then re-evaluate after that? If you both try hard during this short time, chances are very good that you will be glad you did.

You have been married 25 years and have already been through some very difficult times. I think there is more between you two than "obligation". Personally, I think you have a good chance at working it out.

Give it a shot?

Barcel,

For a minute.....I'd like you to revisit your first three months with your wife. This is important, because one of the things that happens during the emotional dynamics of an affair is the tendency to rewrite history. More times than I can count....the wayward spouse relates that not only is he/she not in love with their spouse right now....but they often say "I was <never> in love with my spouse. It's frighteningly common. Please don't get caught in this trap. It's hard to remember "feelings" from 25 years ago. Really really think back and put yourself back into her arms in those early months of infatuation and making love. In a fogged state....when your object of infatuation is someone else....it's impossible to remember how you felt....but if you're really getting through withdrawal, perhaps you may be able to do it now. Your biochemistry plays tricks on your memory.....so I'm going to ask you to stop saying that your marriage was an "obligation" for a while because 1) it's incredibly hurtful to your wife 2) your perceptions of the past are being altered by affair biochemistry and 3) it's probably not true.

I'm not saying it doesn't "feel" true....only that your feelings are being driven by something very powerful....something that blinds you and lies to you.

Secondly, I'm going to give you a very difficult assignment. Part of reconciliation is expressing remorse, accepting responsibility and making restitution for the pain your choices have caused. Great grief creates great need.....and you responded to your needs in a way that added to your wife's grief....multiple times. Perhaps you've done some of this in real life....and are not expressing it here....but I'd like to talk a little bit about what that looks like and what I hear in your post because I believe it's one of the things that will keep you trapped in "limbo".

*Take full responsibility for the affairs. Don't blame it on lack of love for your wife...or "obligation". Don't blame it grief. Don't blame it on your wife's inability to fill your needs. Your wife is fifty percent responsible for the "state" of your marriage....but you are 100% responsible for the decision to have EAs. Make a list of all the "other" possible choices...productive choices you could have made instead.

*Accepting that responsibility is the first and vital step of learning new ways cope with adversity....productive instead of destructive....ways to impact incompatibility and lack of intimacy. How have you demonstrated that you are capable of committing to a better coping strategy than affairs? If you don't know.....then it's going to be very difficult for your wife to believe that the future can be different. All marriages go through times when the partners don't feel in love....and question whether love ever existed at all. Challenges heighten those feelings....affairs make them seem TRUE.....and the loss of two children are such enormous challenges, that I'm not at all surprised that it's shaken up your feelings for each other. Especially in situations with shared grief....where neither of you is quite capable of soothing the other's grief because you're suffering so acutely yourself....it's not unusual to turn to people who aren't grieving....but it's wrong and it's destructive.

*My husband had multiple affairs too....and one of the realities is that while we didn't have a perfect marriage....choosing affairs still boils down to "character". One of the hardest things he had to overcome was the recognition that he had a weak character....this hurt him and made him feel shame....but at the same time...it was an opportunity to build his spirit and reconnect with his faith. He is both a better husband and man because of facing his own fallability and rebuilding his character. It's sobering to look at the dark side of our personalities.....and recognize that there is work to do....but you have to understand that even if your wife is willing to fill all your needs, and even if that triggers romantic love....putting safeguards in place to avoid temptation is essential since you've proven that you are suseptible to investing energy <outside> rather than inside of your marriage.

What do safeguards look like? Well they are extra-ordinary precautions that you put into place to protect your marriage, you and your wife.

*commitment to counseling with PRO MARRIAGE counselor.

*transparent honesty

*accountability for time and money....open your life to scruting (credit card bills, phone records, passwords, email accounts etc.) You have to demonstrate trustworthiness to rebuild trust.

*willingness to meet your wife's needs.

*remorse

*full responsibility for your choices

*commitment to 15 hours a week of undivided attention with your wife.


It almost sounds like you're willing to give your wife a <chance> to use Harley's strategies and possibly trigger romantic feelings in you (for her). This may happen....but it's the wrong mind set. You've "wronged" your wife....and it's YOU who has the burden of responsibility to HER...not the other way around. You were the only one who received an emotional benefit from these affairs....your wife just had added grief to the loss of her children. So if you aren't sure that you want to make the effort to rebuild the intimacy and love in your marriage, you aren't doing her any favors by "letting" her try to win back your love.

*Win back HER love....and she will love you and do the same. Commit to YOUR part of it....demonstrate consistently over time that you are capable of being the husband she deserves.

*Call the Harleys....they're the experts. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

*Encourage your wife to post so that we can help her deal with this issue from her end....but remember that our advice to "you" will be about "you".

Best of luck to you my friend!! Welcome to MB!

Thanks for the input SaturnRising. I appreciate hearing someone got stuck where we did.

Today it came to me that maybe we can try something along the lines of 9 months of serious effort like you have mentioned. I am excited about it.

Both of us have completed the emotional needs questionaire and it was a real eye opener. I am convinced that I can fall in Love with her and vice versa if we both apply what we have learned.

Today I am going to ask her if we can implement it sortta different for a time, maybe a few months. I strongly feel that I married her out of obligation, ( fear of failure in front of dad, he has since died ). Anyway, I want to give her back some major dignity, I hope that is the right term here, I am going to propose that I sleep in the basement, and make serious effort to court her for a time as if we both were single. In the meantime we both apply what we learn and continue to learn till we fall in Love or accept that we can't do this anymore.

Sound Good ?

Wow, you guys are great !

Ok I have to reply to you as well, you are very insightful as well. We have to run out for an hour but I will get her involved in this billboard as well.

Great!

I hope you read Starfish's words carefully. She hit the nail on the head. That girl does it every time.

Also hope your wife will chime in too. We can help her.

I think I am going to print that.

We now have an agreement to commit to start with, and we both are quite happy about it. Instead of making a commitment we may not be able to keep we placed some distance for comfort and can work on the emotional needs/respect.

I must say I cannot believe once again how quickly we were able to sort out what was happening after only several nights reading this website. The man should be given a medal for his research. Who can sort out Love, but he did it.

I can imagine Dr Harley's his astonishment, research is something you do with the answer staring you in the face right from the begining, you just can't see it. This man let the evidence lead him to the conclusion, instead of having the conclusion all figured out and gone looking for the evidence. There is a lot of respect for this man's work no doubt.

Another thing, within 15 minutes of reading the emotional needs page I knew I had found where I would find the method to sort out what was all tied up inside of both of us. We began with the emotional needs questionaire then tried to move ahead with a solution, the commitment which I spoke of in my first post and the anxiety associated with it. Another day of soul searching brought up some more truth that had to be confronted. All issues that others have had to face and had empathy and workable solutions for. I posted quite frankly not expecting to have such a generous response from people who can relate. I was actually afraid to read some replys but very glad I did.

Thankyou all for your candid support.