I strongly believe that my marriage will survive. I just want to heal and someday make this pain go away. I hope that someday she will show some signs of remorse or attempt to help me work on our marriage. Do you think that it is wise to keep my plan A going and maybe someday she might show some signs that I am looking for? I know that this is something that you just can't keep inside forever. Thanks for your help.

Continue Plan A, and do some more reading on it. There are some experts here that can help. The problem is that you cannot be a doormat. It is a delicate balance.

I promise you the pain does end, and you will be happy again.

Things went o.k. over the holidays. I guess the hardest part for me is how I deal with things. I still feel so depressed and just still in shock sometimes. The thoughts and images of her doing that really upset me, obviously. Whenever we have sex I can't help but feeling like I am being compared. I keep trying my best to continue Plan A, but it's hard. I just wish I knew that someday she will come around and at least act that she is remorseful about all she did. It hurts me that she just ignores it. I wish she would seek some counseling. As far as I know she has told NOBODY. How can someone keep all that in? How is she doing it? Everyone is different I guess. Thank God for this website so I can vent.

I just talked to my wife a little bit ago. She told me she loved me so I said then don't hurt me again. She said she wouldn't. Which really doesn't mean much to me. My new question is this. Back when I first found her emails to OM, I printed them and keep them here at work with me. Sometimes I am compelled to pull them out and read them again. When I do, though, it makes me feel terrible and brings everything back. SHould I even keep them or maybe keep them and not look at them. SOmetimes I feel like rubbing her face in them. (not litterally, lol) What would you do about them? I keep them and copies of all the phone records and some other stuff.

Stop reading the emails. You know what is in them. Don't dwell on them.

Your feelings are perfectly normal, and will pass. At some point she will regret what she did. It's still early.

rockbottom,

Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

You said that after your affair was discovered, So when you discovered her affair, why didn’t you give her conditions?

You also said that you had not slept together for the past year. Which of the two of you initiated separate sleeping arrangments? What discussions did you have around the sleeping arrangements? Were you having sex even though you were sleeping apart?

You said, Based on what you’ve written here, it does not seem that she has always been this way. Rather, it looks like she started being susceptible to the attentions of other men right around the time your marriage started going south. Is that the way you see it?

You said, From the way you describe it, I get the impression you have not been in the habit of listening to her talk about her day at work. In fact, you sound a little surprised that you enjoyed listening – as if you expected the activity of listening to be terribly tedious for you. But I may be misreading that. What do you think?

You’ve mentioned this at least twice: As you indicated, this could well be fog talk. But just to help me get a better picture, what can you tell me about the ways you showed your love for your wife before you ever suspected any affairs?

Finally, what are your wife’s 5 most important emotional needs? What are you doing to meet them?

Here's my answers Curios:

why didn’t you give her conditions?
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I'm not sure. Maybe the guilt I had for being a WWS myself at one time. I really don't know. I think maybe because I know what it's like to be in her shoes. I think mostly I was afraid, I guess.

Which of the two of you initiated separate sleeping arrangments? What discussions did you have around the sleeping arrangements? Were you having sex even though you were sleeping apart?
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It just slowly happened. She would either just fall asleep on the couchand just stay there, or she would say I would snore soshe would just sleep onthe couch. After a while it just became the norm. We still had sex occasionally, and at the time I thought it was great. Looking back now, I see a lot of wrong things that we did as far as sex goes.

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Based on what you’ve written here, it does not seem that she has always been this way. Rather, it looks like she started being susceptible to the attentions of other men right around the time your marriage started going south. Is that the way you see it?
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It's funny, now that you mention it, that's exactly how I see it now. Once our marriage started going south is about the time that she started to take notice, or realize it, as she says.
From the way you describe it, I get the impression you have not been in the habit of listening to her talk about her day at work. In fact, you sound a little surprised that you enjoyed listening – as if you expected the activity of listening to be terribly tedious for you. But I may be misreading that. What do you think?
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I admit that I was not a very good listener. In fact I admit to a lot of LB over the years. I know that I wasn't the greatest husband. I'm trying to change now.

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As you indicated, this could well be fog talk. But just to help me get a better picture, what can you tell me about the ways you showed your love for your wife before you ever suspected any affairs?

I guess I tried to show my love for her by telling her now and then. We have been thru a lot of pain in our past. Nine years ago we had a baby boy born with a heart defect (in fact today would be his ninth birthday) who died five days after he was born. We were devestated. I tried to be there for my wife and comfort her the best I could. In fact she thinks that I never really dealt with his death much because I was too busy worrying about her. We filed bankruptcy a few years ago and she also had a misscarriage not too long ago.
I guess I thought I was showing her my love by being there for her in all those bad times. I know that I LB a lot by verbally abusing her. Not that I would yell and scream at her, but I would belittle her on some things that she like dand stuff. I see that now and I am changing.

Finally, what are your wife’s 5 most important emotional needs? What are you doing to meet them?
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Right now I am reading His Needs, Her Needs. I want to give her the EN test. I guess I have been avoiding it because she has been telling me that the books I'm reading is just filling myhead with junk. I will have her do the EN list.

Thank you for your reply.

rockbottom,

This is good news: What I’m hearing is that your wife does not have a longstanding emotional problem. So your plan needs to focus on building a marriage that is mutually satisfying. If instead she had a longstanding emotional problem, any work on the marriage would probably have to wait until her personal issues were addressed.

This is bad news:It’s bad because of this: Needing to vent and express your pain, hurt, indignation, etc. is completely human. However, you have established with your wife a record of verbal abuse. So if you express your anger over her affair in a way that resembles your past habits of verbal abuse, she’s just going to think, “See? There he goes again! I can’t love a man who engages in this sort of abuse!” I want to stress that you have a right to your feelings of hurt, rage, etc. But until you learn how to express those feelings in a way that is not abusive, I don’t think you can make any progress with your Plan A efforts [notice here I’m not saying that you don’t get to express your feelings – just that you must express them in a loving and non-destructive way]. You mentioned that you are in counseling. Are you working with your counselor on this issue?

In cases like this, my understanding is that the first, most important step is to stop all lovebusters. Until you do that, your efforts to meet emtional needs will not be effective. So my advice to you is to devote your current energies to identifying your LBs, planning strategies to end them, and following through.

I see your points. I can tell lately that she seems to be showing more of her feelings to me. I can see a small break in the fog I think. The problem is as she comes out more and more, I tend to throw little jabs in there now and then. I have to learn just to shut up. It's almost like I see how much I can push my limits until she gets mad. I think my little comments are because I never was that good at communicating. I know I have to work on my LB. I will. Thanks for your analasis. (sp) Lately she has wanted me to come to bed with her and has been telling me that she loves me. I guess it's been pretty good. I have to learn how to deal with my pain and anger in other ways. I will learn. This weekend she wants to go watch a movie with me so that should be fun.

I have a question about exposure. Exposure is only used if the A is still going on right? I'm almost positive that my W A is over and things are going o.k. (I think). Is there any reason I should expose it to anyone else? She has told no one about it. I just think that at this point (my D Day was Oct 8 2006) it wouldn't make much sense to expose it. What do you think?

Tonight I blew it. I jabbed and jabbed at her until she blew up. Right now she stormed out of the house to go for a walk. She told me that she just wants to give up and that she feels suicidal. I am a big idiot. I am/was trying not to dig at her but I couldn't keep my big mouth shut. I hope that I can do a better job with Plan A. Me and my big mouth. She was starting to show good signs lately. I am such an [censored]! I just hope she comes home and doesn't do anything stupid <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Happy New Year all! I hope 2007 is better than 2006.
Well,since my last post things have been going rather well. After my last post things were ok. We both apologized to each other and things were o.k.
This past Saturday we were without our kids (a rare treat). I really believe that not ever having, or making time for us was a big factor in our rut.
So we went out and had a nice dinner, then we just went shopping at the mall. I actually enjoyed being her while she looked at clothes inher stores. Usually we just split up and went our seperate ways when we shopped. It seems so simple in a way to see all the little things that we did or didn't do for each other. Plan A was working good for me that night. After we got home we both talked about what a good time we had and how we must make more time for each other in the future. I could really feel heropening up to me and connecting. It felt so good.
We talked some and she started to tell me how stupid she felt for having her A. I told her thatit felt so good to hear these things. And it did.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my M will survive. A lot of it is up to me. The problem is that I am my own worst enemy. I have to try to control my thoughts about what actually happened. I still get, what I call, anxiety attacks whenever I think of things that they did together. I am also trying to control myself whenever I feel a trigger. It is so hard. I still dig at her now and then. I'm trying to control myself better. Well, just thought I would share my latest. Thanks for listening.
Jim

Sounds good. Getting anxiety when thinking about the affair is normal. As you build new memories together, the bad ones will fade.

I hope you will keep finding ways to spend 15 hours a week doing fun things together. That is essential in recovery.

If things are bothering you, post it here. That way you can get it out, without bashing your wife.

Thanks for the response. The anxiety or whatever it is I'm feeling really is hard. I do find posting here helps some. The thoughts about the A are just eating me up inside.

The 15 hours seem like a lot, I'll try to do what I can.

Now, the A is definitely over, exposed, and she has no contact - is that correct?

I don't believe that the A was ever exposed.

Let your wife know of your triggers so she can avoid them, so you don't go LBing on her. And if you do, she understands what caused your outburst.

Now that she is starting to give more to the M, you need to gently nudge her to the MB program, fill out the EN questionnaires, go to MC, and learn to protect your M for a future A. Like I said, just gentle nudges, don't push her too hard or she will push back. When she pushes back, just back off for a while and start gentling nudging again after things have cooled off. Resist the temptation to allow her to just sweep this under the rug. Forgive but never forget.

Rock wrote:
So we went out and had a nice dinner, then we just went shopping at the mall. I actually enjoyed being her while she looked at clothes inher stores. Usually we just split up and went our seperate ways when we shopped. It seems so simple in a way to see all the little things that we did or didn't do for each other. Plan A was working good for me that night.


M2L:

This is great! Plan A is about making Rock better as a person, H and father. We all know that women love to shop and spending time with her shopping has to add to her LBank. I like to shop with my wife and I let her know if something does or doesn't look good on her.

Keep doing these things that are light in nature and not too overly romanced at this point. It seems like a WS can handle only so much at a time.

Listen to Jim, he is good and with any luck he can get his wife mad at you too. LOL - just a joke. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Your doing better than you think.

M2L

rockbottom,
Great update.
Didn't you say that you are seeing a counselor? Are you working with your counselor on how you handle your anger and your triggers? I ask because I seem to remember you saying that you believe that your habit of making mean remarks contributed to making your wife vulnerable to an affair in the first place. If that is so, then these jabs you now give your wife are the reflection of a long-held behavior (exacerbated obviously by the pain of the affair). Counselors can be great for helping you learn strategies for changing long-held behaviors. Good Luck!

I am certain that the A is over. It really never did get exposed.

Thanks for the advice. I do like the little nudges idea. I know that I really can't push too much. It was so nice to see results from my actions. Thanks, you guys are so muchhelp!