W gave me cell phone password but only after mega LB's and I fear that we are not going to recover, We almost got to the point where she threw in the towel b/c I keep talking R/M - And told her I went to talk w/ him - I know I shouldn't have done that but I did.

I just want her back so bad, She said I dont have any patience and that she had been trying - Said she was off for 6 days and she was giving us a chance and dreads the conversations every night and I am guilty of that.

She says now I have everybody on my side and she isnt going to settle anymore - She needs to find out why she doesnt have close friends, Why she cant trust anyone and especially me - Says she put me first all the time even over the kids and I hurt her and nothing to me was never enough.

I dont know what to believe and I feel I dont have the patience or strength to wait for this to work - She say she has moral and that she never crossed them - I said well maybe you didnt but can you see how someone would believe that and her response was the Bible says we are known by the company we keep or something to that effect.

How do people wait these things out - I am so drawn to her like I havent been in awhile and miss her in so many ways
She is more beautiful and captivating, Can it just be b/c she doesnt seem to want or need me that I feel this way?

Is it b/c I want this so bad I am willing to see past all this - I wonder if my thinking is healthy?

We have 2 kids and house but feel like its so hard now to overcome and my basic human needs (EN's) are not being met and feel I cant survive w/o her right now - I feel like garbage and need to be loved - I dont know how long I can go on w/o these things and keeping my eye on the prize hasn't helped and feel that I may be nearing a point of making a decision just so I know which way we go.

W says she is going to make appt for next week w/ C we saw in early Nov - But she didnt open up then and just told C that she wanted time and space and I really havent given her more than a few days w/o R/M talk even after all I have read saying to avoid it.

I keep asking why we cant work on this together but she says these are issues that go deeper but why cant she see that I want us to survive - She started writing something in a journal tonight and wondered whether she was baiting me - She talked of a argument we had around her BDAY (9/9) that the next big fight and it was over - Well next big fight was late Oct which has led us to where we are.
She also talked of getting to a point where she was hating me b/c I made her feel pathetic and useless - I felt she was shutting down but didnt know the depth. She said she was afraid to talk w/ me but I feel cheated that I could have known but she didnt tell me and that I couldn't or didnt see when I had opportunity.

She also wrote about how when she made her stand in Oct that I asked for couseling and "like a dummy I (she) agreed"

I know I did something stupid tonight b/c I told her that I went to confront and she is saying she cant take it anymore can I be wrong on this "friendship" she had always stood by me even when I treated her rotten and now I cannot even believe her?

What do I do!?

Need to know if I still let everything fall as far as the exposure, Part of me wants to believe W - The other part of me feels it could be part of a ploy to get me to recant b/c of my fear of losing her.

I feel like a WS with all my vacillating - I havent been sleeping well - Going against advice, MIL suggested also not bringing R/M and that she was going to toalk to W Sat but now I feel if I tell her that I havent been able to detach and pushing my W that I am going to lose allies but if I am right about OM then all I did was enable this further.

W says she os calling C - But she doesnt want to hear anything right now - Also about her giving me cell phone password felt good at first - But could I be pushing this further underground?

If she is right and I expose to employer wont that make her want to run even farther.

I am sorry I dont follow advice as well as I should but feel terrible where I find myself

(((SMACKING YOU WITH A MB 2x4)))

Why would your wife want to come back to you? You are a complete mess, and you are LBing the ****** out of her. Maybe if you scream at her into submission she might agree to stay with you out of fear. Is that what you want? Tens of MB posters have told you there story of how they managed to save their marriage. If you can't stick with the plan, you need IC to get you through this. YOU haven't made the changes in YOURSELF that are necessary to get your WW to WANT to stay in this M. Have you forgotten the CARROT and the STICK of Plan A? Yes, the STICK involved trying to break up your WW and OM, but the CARROT is the most important part - making the changes in YOURSELF that got you into this mess IN THE FIRST PLACE! What do you want to do? Do you want to save your marriage, or do you want to tell your WW how sh!tty she has been as you run her out of your M? Well, right now your are doing the latter. I would recommend apologizing for your LBing tirade last night, and explain how you know you still need to work on yourself to make this a marriage that your WW WANTS and FEELS SAFE to come back to. If you can't handle this YOU need IC and antidepressants. This is not your WW's problem, this is yours.

Do you know how sh!tty I was treated before my WW started having an affair? I'm a 26 year old guy who got SF TWICE A MONTH. My wife has OCD when it comes to cleanliness, and I got yelled at ALL THE TIME including not taking my shoes off the split second that I walked in the door or even putting creases on my d*mn couch cushions. Half the time I had to sit on my d*mn hardwood floors to watch TV. My WW has cheated on me, I haven't been kissed or had SF in 5 months, and my WW still will not commit to the marriage. Yet throughout all of this, I still keep it together with not LBing. You see, instead of calmly addressing the problems in our marriage, I would lose my temper and LB out of control as well as purposely neglect my WW's emotional needs. I need her to trust that I won't go back to the same way before we can truly start working on our issues again in a calm and respectful fashion. You need to figure that out as well.

If you want to save your marriage, it's in your hands.

I have been smacking myself with the 2x4 since last night,
I did apologize, For every positive step I still take backwards steps, I just think in some ways I cannot detach and Plan A properly living this way - I can see that in some ways my SD's are still with me in full force.

I feel on a major level we were codependent and now she has broken that cycle for herself and I feel like a junkie missing my fix, I do want my M to work but the person that lives deep inside me wants instant gratification.

I know that everyone has said this is a marathon and not a sprint but I have felt so useless - I guess now in some ways I am even pushing people away on this site who have been trying to help me and maybe I just need to step away from everything until I can work out my issues, If I cant take advice and use it properly as well as making the changes that need to be made maybe I am not worth being in a relationship.

I must be in some major depression/obsession and still feel like I can "fix" this quickly which I know isnt healthy.

I have good minutes and hours but cannot translate those into days and weeks so maybe I am a mental weakling maybe I do not deserve a M or maybe W does need to get away from this for her own sanity.

First of all, she did not break the cycle for herself, she just found another man to become codependent on. If she were breaking the cycle she would have left you and THEN found someone else.


Are you saying there is no hope for you? That you can't change yourself? IF that is how you feel than I truly feel sorry for you. However, I think most people can change, they are just at a loss as to how. I think you are a prime candidate for IC to help you lovingly detach from your WW and make the personal changes necessary to be in a committed relationship with your WW or anyone else for that matter. No one ever said this would be easy. If the MB program was easy, wouldn't everyone use it, and wouldn't the divorce rate be much lower than 50%? Weak people take the easy way out, never truly addressing their own faults, and when they remarry those same problems creep up again. That is why the divorce rate for second and third marriages is much higher.

You can do this dg, but you need to get some help. Get some IC, and speak with SH to get a plan. It may seem expensive, but it is a lot cheaper than divorce, and that is the road you are headed down if you don't get any help. Do this for you, your wife, and your children. Stand up and be strong. They need you now more than ever.

I just reread the carrot and the stick, If I can put myself and my needs on hold I know I can do this. I guess I thought that for the first time in 3 yrs that we have had time off together would have helped us but my R/M talks have not done ay good.

My neediness, clinging and feeling sorry for myself has caused her to question many things and that can't be good.

After apologizing last night - I promised no more R/M talk as long as she followed through with seeing a C - She has a hard time w/ believing me but I have a hard time with beliving her b/c she is somewhat of a compulsive liar - Either to avoid confrontation or to protect herself.

MIL said she has noticed this as well for a long time but has always accepted W b/c it's her D.

I feel I could follow through if I didnt have to worry about lies and/or half truths.

Why has she stayed - If she was truly to the point where she thought she was hating me - What C would see that this M could be healthy with so much baggage on both sides and if she has lied to everyone around her why would she even tell a C the truth?

Has she stayed b/c she may have seen some positives? Or purely selfish reasons - Financial, for the kids or out of guilt of her own or my issues?


Do I tell MIL what has happened since I last spoke w/ her 24 hrs ago and risk losing any ally I have? Do I just let it take its course as MIL was going to talk w/ her tomorrow?

Can anybody believe that this "friendship" was/is purely a friendship - W is so damn convincing and making me feel guilty for turning people against her.

When I apologized last night, She started talking to me in a tone from the past where I felt comfortable something I havent heard in some time, Said she hoped with C she could find herself and to hopefulness to remain in M but I keep playing the believe nothing you hear and %50 of what you see

You have got to allow for some times of normalcy in your lives. Jim gave you a well deserved 2x4. If you think for a second that this is all going to be fixed in the next couple of weeks, and that "aha" moment is just around the corner, you are sadly mistaken. This process takes time.

Your W is/was in an EA with another man. She cannot turn those feelings off, like a light switch. The ONLY way she loses those feelings is by returning them towards you, because she's ATTRACTED to you. How can she be attracted to a man that wants to remind her that she's behaved poorly every day, or is it every few hours, or every hour, or what?

Set up times for the R/M talks. Make rules. Two R/M discussions a week, anything may be said or asked, limit of talk 1/2 hour, and NO LOVEBUSTERS.

Now the ground is level. She can ask you questions about YOUR behavior, part of which is what led the marraige to being vulnerable, as well. Now she won't feel badgered, smothered, controlled.

You have got to come to terms with all this, and fight this like a well thought out battle over the course of a year. This is not simple, like swatting a fly and the buzzing is over!

This is where you gain maturity and wisdom, that will help you the rest of your life.

Get up, dust yourself off, set your resolve, and make those changes in YOU that are critical in this process. What a great New Years resolution!

Best wishes,
SD

I am certainly going to try, Do I give MIL heads up where we are today which is different than 24 hrs ago or do I let this take the course and answer MIL's questions later?

Called W 30 mins ago, Just to see if she would mind if I told C we saw in early Nov could refer me to someone to help me as W told me I could choose her C b/c I was looking for someone pro M and W said I could and that she was comfortable w/ this woman and that I should take solace that she would be willing to discuss her issues w/ someone that I had originally felt comfortable with.

I originally did all the footwork to meet w/ C and we only went once - But W dragged her feet saying it was too busy at work, that I didnt give her time/space like she told the C she needed/wanted but I felt she was putting no effort forth at all and just looking for someone to ok S or D which she actually admitted to me that is why she sought out Pastor but when she didnt get answer that she was expecting she withdrew from there too.

Now this C had replied to my inital email saying something like - Dear husband I admire the way you take responsibility for your actions and that your W sounds discouraged and would look forward to helping you build your preferred M - Do I email? w/o giving too many details to our sitch but rather looking for help or do I stay away and let W contact and maybe I consult w/ Steve Harley?

Save money on counseling by contacting Steve Harley. Expensive, but actually cheaper in the long run. The Harleys have excellent results, and I have NEVER talked to anyone here who wasn't happy with them.

Sadly, I tried to save money. It ended up costing be a thousand times their fee, and I'm divorced on top of it.

I will contact Steve Harley soon, You know the Lord must have known I needed something - My MIL just called and I told her everything that has happened in the last 24 hrs the whole truth and she is still behind me as much as hse ever has been and still believes in our M, her daughter and me.

I cannot believe how good that makes me feel - Even though I broke down and cried like a baby - Maybe I needed to cry to let all the pain out - My MIL said that with my being a
(new christian) that birthing is painful and I didnt think of it like that.

She feels my W knows what is right and to not trust my W right now but trust in the Lord. She is still going to attempt to talk w/ my W tomorrow.

I decided against contacting C - Since I will be contacting Steve Harley.

After W gave me passowrd for cell bills she wants me to believe nothing happened - At first in my mind I said I could b/c I thought that would bring her to a place but realize I cannot do that - And I will snoop still but as far as confronting her I am just going to leave that up to others.

I havent decided now how to confront OM again as I stupidly told her my intentions and employer is an option but the only proof I have is now getting old of they are covering tracks.

MIL says even if it is as W says and just "friendship" that it is wrong outside of M to confide w/ member of opposite sex or to someone not committed to the couples M.

Hopefully by me attending church whenever I want and making sure my children are there on time, Dealing w/ my issues and keeping up w/ positive Plan A - W will see I am for real and not just for the short term - She never left although she would have let me leave.

In some way maybe I forced A to end but worry whether she will stay in withdrawal while working there - And I guess with all R/M talk and LB's - How can I force anything right now.

What a hole I dug, You would have thought I was WS with all the help you guys tried to give me - I didnt listen and act accordingly - Believed what I thought would benefit me and acted on it - The other stuff thought I knew my W better.

Shows you how much I know, Now just probably added time to our sentance - You know I just was hoping to get her to admit things so we could have a place to build from - Instead of building from the place I was - Kept thinking we needed to do this together and went against many MB tried and proven methods - Especially when many of you told me I was in a better place than most.

Sorry instead of getting as down as I did yesterday I should have went for a drive, or posted here instead of letting thiongs consume me.

It may well be that your WW told the OM by now that you were going to confront the OM. He will now have his ducks in a row, and be able to counter everything you may accuse him of. Never show the enemy your battle plan before you go into battle.

You have got to slow down and use your brain more and your heart less when making conversation with your WW. This is a chess game, and you need to use the MB plan instead of just flying by the seat of your pants.

With that said, I made a bunch of mistakes, because I didn't find MB until 5 months after D-day. So, you can still be successful in your efforts, but please, for your own sake, use the plan, and stop going off half-cocked! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Do the confrontation with the OM as soon as you can, so if he hasn't been informed by your WW, he can deal with your confrontation without having been forewarned.

Cool, calm and collected. You MUST stay in control. If you have even the slightest doubt, take a trusted friend to protect you from yourself.

Best wishes,
SD

you know I m not even sure I can confront him face to face right now - My anger has boilerd up that he has stolen my W - from me and I know it takes 2 to tango but the pain I have been feeling and the hurt of this whole thing has brought a festering anger to him right now.

The only thing I feel I can do is write a letter and hope that jerk reads it - Dont know if I have the willpower to hold back and as I said there arent too many friends that are supoortive of me w/ W's A - Figure I should cut my losses and protect my children.

Hopefully W will see that I will be worth coming back to, MIL believes in me and I know the Lord believes in our M.

I know her faith is weak but w/ MIL and SIL help maybe W will see that it is right and hse can be happy

dg, don't even bother with him right now if you think you won't be able to not punch him out. I couldnt do it myself. I would just get the goods on this affair, because I very much believe that is what you are dealing with. Stop the relationship talk, just get the goods and focus on attracting her back.

I have found out that at times generously letting you see cell phone bills means we have found a way to do this more covertly. A short while after I went through this I found a charger for 2 voice pagers in her car.

By the way, I don't know if that is your situation. I can only speak of my experience. On ebig mistake that the BS often makes is giving the WS too much information. Please know that she doesn't need to know everything you know. BE SELECTIVE in what you share with her.

You know in some way I believe its over now, That is why she finally gave me the cell password and the fact that we have been together a lot since the Fri before Xmas.

I do think withdrawal will be hard if it is over although I am not going to stop snooping as much as I can.

Also as I said in earlier post from last nite W started writing in a journal but she jumped all over the place - From an argument in Sept. where she promised herself that the next big fight we haad she was done and that she felt she was starting to hate me.
She didnt do much to hide it considering all my snooping so I wonder if it was a "plant"

The fight happened on Oct. 25th and as usual I became quiet and not talking w/ her - Critical, And then she told me she "didnt" think she wanted to be married anymore.

After trying to change behaviors except talking about R/M I asked her to see C which in her journal she wrote
"like a dummy I agreed"

As I see it the phone conversations started around Oct 20th and I will double check cell records - So was she baiting me to throw me off with journal or could it be coincedence or that maybe she and him were friends first and it progressed.

She did a google search on Oct 17th which was his address but she had asked me about google earth a friend showed me and we had on pc for awhile.

Even though I liked this C I am wondering if I now seem like a psycho w/ all I have been doing - R/M talks and
"comando tactics" as she calls them.

I have been 95% truthful w/ MIL except for 2 incidents where I was physical w/ my W about 6 yrs ago - W accepted apology and said if I ever did those things again she was gone - That was enough for me to keep that part of me in check

Also I don't think she will be going to church w/ us tonight she went in @ 5:00am which is 3 hrs earlier than usual but its the end of the month and calendar year so I know things get busy.

Once she is out of the house - She doesnt think about any of us - Not even to call and say Hi to the kids.

I did go past OM house about 4:20 and he was home - No sign of her car - So I guess this is the part where I focus on me and kids and get us to church - MIL says right now I should not trust W for anything - Trust the Lord and that W is going to have to come clean about half truths and fabrications - MIL has told me that W has always had that issue

If it is over, then this is good news. Now, you can concentrate on meeting her EN(while still snooping). As one member said before, a R/M talk night(once or twice a week) might be a good idea. Just try to stay calm and away from LB.


As hard as it is, don't let what she says affect your Plan A. She is saying things that she wouldn't otherwise to justify, validate, etc. Just calm down and focus on meeting the EN in order to attract her back.

Also, you have a great ally in the MIL to help you keep the WW on track.

The C thing was in early Nov - W is now talking about seeing the same C that I initially asked her to see and in the journal that she only started writing last night was the statement concerning "like a dummy I agreed.

Another mention in this journal was concerning my "commando tactics" - She said something to the effect that
"I know were having marital problems" but this is getting out of hand - Like I said I dont know if she was baiting me to see if I would read it and try to discuss it But I am not going to do that - If I get a chance to read it again I will but I will not use anything I find.
Yes MIL is a Godsend - She is so supportive even though I caused a lot in our M