Momtoa&z - you said -
Are you my wife's twin? She could have easily written your very insightful post

Nope, no twin, just one of those "aha" moments. I have never been really happy, at least not for an extended period of time. Happiness always depended on what was going on in my life, if there was a bad day, argument, whatever...I'm unhappy. Chronic unhappiness = depression = low self esteem, and that's the equation of my life pretty much. Does not dismiss what I did by any means. It shows me that I need to learn a whole new set of skills. I expected marriage to make me happy. But nothing could really make me happy. My DH is not perfect, but even if he was, I think I still wouldn't have been happy. Why is that? I have absolutely no idea, but sure wish I did and knew what to do about it. It certainly isn't that I've been given everything. We were financially strapped, my parents were not involved in my life, my mother was emotionally unavailable. I think maintaining happiness, despite external circumstances is a life skill most people learn, probably growing up from their families and somehow I just didn't get that. I tried...I knew I was unhappy, downright miserable a lot of the time, I just had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

My wife certainly thought I was responsible for her happiness and unhappiness. This has been a major change for her.

Wonderful when the lightbulb goes off isn't it.

Which is exactly why I consider myself "broken." Although I do not think I have half a brain, I do know that some of us are not given a manual for happiness and are not born with such insight or into a family that teaches you those things. This is something I'm learning all too gosh darned late in life...but I'm working on it.

Yes and No.

Yes it's good that I'm finally learning...but no, the realization that I've spent over half my life unhappy and that quite possibly it's my own fault is almost debilitating. All those years I can't get back. Being unhappy at my own wedding, I can't undo...too much life I've lost being unhappy already. It's not a pleasant feeling. It's something I'm having a hard time coming to grips with.

Yes but having made the realisation you can change for the future and look ahead. Don't let yesterday make tomorrow miserable as well.

I know that. I realize that. It's just hard. It's like when someone is saying...remember when....?...wasn't that a great time...?...and I'm thinking...no, I wasn't happy then, what should've been a good time, wasn't to me...it's hard to get past that I've missed out...

Are you happy NOW?

momA-Z/ I can relate to that...my WS has been searching...searching...searching for ways to be happy...she even said "I have everything I ever wanted...home..kids..wonderful wife...stimulating career..but I'm just not happy" we did the I'm not happy dance for years..as it continued to resurface and I,We did many things to try to fix it...but I think it comes down to her not knowing how to be happy...she had been on the verge of an A for years, and looking back prob had a few EA's that were undiagnosed.

the thing that absolutely kills me is...I met everyone of her EN's...very few LB's...so in plan A I felt lost...the only changes I made were about me..self asserting. and my LB has always been low...she almost never met my EN's...so now I ask myself "why do I want to save this M?" I'm in plan B btw.

HNP, thanks for venting...I feel the same way...my WS said just last week..."If I came home I could probably try to make up for my mistakes...but I know it will take a lot for you to forgive me and I don't know how long I can live like that" my unspoken thoughts were "oh, poor baby!!!!!!" give me a break!!!! the message I got was...I'll come back if I don't have to do any work at making things better..you just accept my appology...NOT!!!!!! ugh!

I have had TWO marriages where adultery took place since 1999. In one marriage, spanning 20 years and producing 2 sons, I was such a terrible, abusive wife that I may as well have set up the date and drove him to the OW's house. His #1 EN was SF, so I cut him off. I met NONE of his needs. NONE.

I lovebusted him on a daily basis for years. I am not excusing him at all, but I view him as a starving man who found a buffet and lost himself. He is still with the OW today.

In my current marriage, I had absolutely no responsibility for his affair, or the sad state of our marriage. [outside of using tragically poor judgment marrying him in the first place] I found out he had not given up his old girlfriends 4 months after we married. This is not my own self serving justification, but the edict of the EN and lovebusters questionaires, given to us by a MC using the MB program. I did everything to make my H happy and he agrees with this. He was committed to maintaining a single lifestyle and defrauded me into marrying him.

It has all worked out for the best, but I understand how folks can get their backs up when told they "failed" to meet their WS' needs. Sometimes that is not the case. And sometimes, as starfish noted, there was no opportunity.

I think that we tend to look at ENs from the wrong end of the equation. We look BACK to before the A and try to see if we could have done anything differently than we did. But I don't think that is even the right way to look at ENs.

BC #1: The love bank.

Going on the assumption that the Love Bank is a valid concept and that it is a way to measure the meeting of ENs by anyone we meet, if meeting ENs is the way deposits are made, we can build up a surplus in our account by doing just that.

A checking account (or savings) can be viewed the same way. If we live pay-check to pay-check and have a zero balance every Friday morning, we have no "cushion" for the week we get sick, the power goes out and we get sent home, or the tire goes flat on the car and we have to pay out extra bucks for something. Having worked construction (start with a hole in the ground and work yourself out of a job) I had to deal with projecting what I would earn in a year and budget based on that rather than the $1300.00 net checks during the really busy days of summer. When you get a chance to deposit extra, do it so that the price of gas going up a nickel doesn't force you into bankruptcy.

Likewise with the Love Bank. If we are engaged in meeting our spouse's ENs on a regular basis, we have a sufficient cushion to get us through those hard times of travel, long hours at work or illness. When we let our account get dangerously low and one of these factors comes up, we no longer have enough to cover the check.

For over a year before her A, my W was travelling out of state 3 or 4 days every week to help a relative. OM was the guy next door and at a time when I was not able to make deposits, he was able to build a surplus with little effort on his part. The fact that this was the case does not excuse her A, on the contrary, it proves that it was her weakness at fault since during this entire episode I did NOT decide to have an A since MY ENs weren't being met either.

Does failing to meet ENs "cause" an A? NO!

Can meeting ENs properly prevent an A? Maybe. I might even say a qualified "yes."

The real question is can meeting ENs build love in someone? That is the whole key, IMO. If love can be built, meeting ENs is as good as any explanation for how to do it. That is why it needs to be stressed as part of Plan A. It isn't an explanation of what went wrong, but a way to rebuild the love that has been lost. A WS doesn't have an A because of unmet needs, they have an A because they don't feel love (or loving) toward their S.

Love busters aren't the only way the account gets depleted. Day to day life has a certain amount of "overhead" that eats away at our accounts all the time. We need to keep our account balance up, since we can't get an equity loan in this case.

JMO

Wasn't it Frank Gunzberg who said, "Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy. It's supposed to make you married."

Mark

To me, there is reason to think that some WS's are weak and choose to take the easy way out. Instead of going to their partner and talking, or insisting on counseling, they fall into an A, even claiming "It just happened".

Mark, this is the best description I've read on EN's and the LB$. It is almost word for word how our MC described it to us as well. (Our MC was pro marriage and understood all the MB concepts - she had most of Dr Harley's books on her bookshelf).

It always amazes me that so many BS's embrace the concept of Plan A and Plan B but refuse to acknowledge the EN's as the building blocks of marriage and integral to the whole MB concepts.

B, you and I will always disagree on this but that's ok.

I wouldn't say my LB$ was empty at the time of the A but it was pretty close to it due to a lot of circumstances that had occurred in the previous year. As our MC said, we'd forgotten to protect our marriage and that often happens after a very long marriage (28 years at the time of the A) because we thought that as we'd got through everything else that life had thrown at us through the years, we were just fine and would get through the worst our marriage had to endure. The deaths of three of our parents in one year.

I know it's a choice to have an A and I know I made that choice. I know all WS's say "it just happened" but it's very much as written in the 15 steps of an A, one step leads to another and it no longer feels like choice, it feels like it's out of your control. Our MC also said that men in particular don't admit they are having an A until "capitulation" ie SF. Women see it much, much sooner. I knew I was having an A the first time I met the OM for lunch (no physical contact WHATSOEVER) and didn't tell my H.

My H was in NO WAY responsible for my A but both of us letting our LB$ get so empty could have been.

no no and no

an affair of the heart happends when
one spouse allows IMPORTANT emotional needs to be consistently met outside the marriage
(the EN list Harley says are the most important ones in a marriage)

not every marriage touched by affairs is an emotionally needy relationship

a good marriage where the ENs are bilaterally doing pretty good can get derailed ~single-handedly~ by the spouse dropping his/her guard and ALLOWING their vulnerabilities in the EN department to be met by an outsider

the faithful spouse can be the most GIVING one in the marriage PRIOR to the unfaithful spouse going astray

yep
yep
yep

there are OTHER explainations for the ONS and other categories of affairs

Pep

I'm as happy as I can be aside from lugging around this guilt, which by the way, I'm aware I deserve and accept.

This whole happiness thing...what exactly does it mean? I expect that it means different things to different people. Different people can tolerate varying levels of discomfort/problems in their lives and be happy, some more than others. I think I have a lower threshold. It may be worth mentioning I was diagnosed with depression ten years ago. DH thinks that was a big contributing factor to what happened and I fought that for a while but I now accept that. What I need to learn to do is be happy despite the normal everydray stresses, arguments, etc...I have a hard time letting things go.

I am getting better...

PS

the EN list concept is intended to be used as a tool to keep spouses IN LOVE with each other

the EN list concept is NOT an affair prevention tool

Pep

Pep, when we did the EN questionnaire after the A, according to my H I was meeting every single one of his ENs, and then some. I scored 10, or whatever the score is, on every one.

I don't know about getting the EN's met "consistently" outside the M. I know that I was suddenly getting the attention that I was lacking at home. Not my H's fault, my fault for not seeing the incredibly depressed state he was in and running away instead of dealing with it. I'm a textbook example of "if only I'd found MB sooner." If the OM hadn't turned up when he did (old boyfriend as most people know) at the time he did, I'd never have been an unfaithful wife.

I think EN's sometimes have something to do with it, but also think like Frank Pittman who says affairs often happen in very good marriages.

All I can go by is my experience. Looking back, none of my EN's were met by my ex. I did get them met through friends, work, kids, etc, though. He took the easy way out and had an affair.

In the end, it turned out not to be the easy way out. He is no longer with OW, and miserable. And all for nothing.

To me, there is so much that is good in the world, and so many choices, and it is a shame some go astray. There are other ways to take care of "needs".

But I respect your views, as you are looking at things from your experience. And I'm very grateful to you and the others here who come and post the other side. It takes caring and courage.

Thanks B.

going back for seconds and thirds and fourths ... etc

or....

recognizing temptation and turning around & head in the other direction and never going back to see if it will feel good a second time

everyone has tempting opportunities ... irregardless of how things are going at home

Pep