Okay, I've been told to work on myself (until we can be together in person and I tell my husband the truth). I know part of that is thinking up ways to protect my marital boundaries. I think I've thought of those. I will eventually do a phone session with S. Harley when I have the money. Have no money for IC. What else is there? What do I need to think of next?

BTW I was just reading a very old thread on stupid things waywards say. So I think I know now what NOT to say.

Also...I'm wondering what sort of questions I can expect when I tell him. Do BH's ask different questions than a BW would?

I'm wondering what to say if - well, maybe when - he asks me "why?" because I know I have to avoid anything that could be interpreted as blaming him. Here's my uncensored answer as I see it right now. I would appreciate some feedback, whether it be on presentation or to tell me my whole thinking on this is wrong. Here goes:

I felt frustrated that I could not find a solution to our sexual problems.[He knows we have problems in this area - this part will not be a surprise.] I chose the worst possible way of coping with that by giving up and looking outside the marriage. At the time I was thinking that it was "just sex" and wouldn't affect the rest of our marriage and that it would only hurt you if I got caught. I eventually realized that was screwy thinking and that I had given up too soon, too easily. So I quit.

Aph, I am going to bring this issue here instead of discussing it on skinsgal thread. Skinsgal came here looking for MARRIAGE BUILDERS advice and you told her something completely contrary to MB off the top of your head. You gave her misleading advice about her H's reaction to her weight problem. She is in crisis mode and the last thing she needs is to be MISLED; she needs HELP from MARRIAGE BUILDERS.

If you want to help people, I would suggest 2 things:

1. fix yourself first. You have huge marital problems and are in no position to help anyone. You cannot help others if you can't help yourself

2. LEARN MARRIAGE BUILDERS PRINCIPLES before you presume to give others advice. Folks are here to learn about MARRIAGE BUILDERS, not to hear my personal philosophy or yours.

If you feel you have a better program than Dr. Harley, then write some books and start your own forum, but around here, it is MARRIAGE BUILDERS [the sign on the door, after all] PRINCIPLES that we help the newcomers with.

I would appreciate if you would remember this and leave the newcomers to those who KNOW Marriage Builders principles. That is what these people come here for, after all.

bump

Why? The answer is not "because you....".

The answer is "I sought a solution to MY problems by having an A."

I told my H he'd "become old and depressed." I thought (at the foggy time) I was quite justified in saying that and couldn't understand why he was so hurt.

Working on yourself also means understanding what makes you behave in certain ways and why destructive behaviour is part of that.

Working on yourself means becoming self aware and aware of the effect you have on the people around you. It's learning to have a positive effect on people. People always tell me I don't listen to them and that I interrupt them when they're speaking. It's selfish behaviour and I'm learning not to do it.

MelodyLane,

Nothing I said is contrary to MB. I read His Needs, Her Needs. Some people like to have an attractive spouse, fine that's one need. But where in MB does it say you can get your cheating husband back by losing weight? She said she lost 30 pounds and her husband still didn't come back, so obviously there is something else going on. She also said she feels she can't compete because the OW is prettier. Well there is ALWAYS going to be someone else prettier. What's the point in making her feel bad about her looks?

Yes, Aph, you did say something contrary to MB. You don't even understand Plan A yet here you are misleading this woman because you think it will "make her feel bad." She is going to feel much worse if she loses her H because she won't meet his needs.

Please get your own house in order and LEARN about MB principles before you try to help others. Thanks.

I was a BH Aph, but I don't know if what I can tell you has much value. My experience was different from the one your fella's in for. My ex was a$$ over teakettle for her affair partner and today she is "married" to him. Quite a different situation.

When I found out about my former wife's affair I wanted the truth. I didn't want something to make me feel better, I wanted the real information. Whether it was easy or hard to hear was irrelevant. I didn't need my feelings protected, I needed to know what I was facing so I could figure out what to do about it.

Your mileage may vary. Some men hear about a past affair and get a lawyer. Some are fully engaged from the start. Some just check out and make a bigger commitment to their TVs.

If your husband detaches and stays that way, then you're in for a long haul. That sort of man doesn't participate in Internet forums about marriage, so you won't get much insight on him here.

Has FLT2H ever responded to you? Don't know if she's around much nowadays.

GC

MelodyLane,

1- you are always so fond of telling me that my husband has the right to choose to leave me once he knows the truth. Well, this woman we're talking about also has the right to decide whether or not she wants a man who is going to leave her everytime someone prettier comes along. At least I didn't leave. If her weight really is the only thing that made him leave (which I'm still not convinced of) she's better off having someone else appreciate her new figure.

2- You need to look at your own house. You have a history of physical abuse against your husband coupled with bullying behavior on these boards, not just in conversation with me but in conversation with just about everyone. I never claimed to be an expert on marriage, but having grown up with a father who was physically abusive and who later got help, I have become an expert on anger management problems and you are a textbook case. You think you are helping people here, but you're not. You're just taking your own anger out. No wonder you love guilt and shame. They are your tools to getting revenge by proxy on your husband for what he did to you. You need to get some anger management counseling. In the meantime, I'm not reading anymore of your posts. You are verbally abusive in most of what you write to most of the people you post to. I've had it, and I'm not taking it anymore. End of thread jack.

KiwiJ, Thank you. I appreciate your input.

graycloud, I don't believe I've ever seen FLT2H, no. Maybe I'll check old posts, though, thanks.

So, between what the two of you are saying...I need to take responsibility for my choices but yet also be totally honest about my reasons and what was lacking in the marriage. I think I can do that.

Aph, first off, my house in order. My marriage is recovered and I fully understand and advocate MB principles.

But, this is not about me or your crackpot, fuzzy analysis of my personality, but about helping newcomers learn Marriage Builders.

When newcomers come here, they come to learn about MARRIAGE BUILDERS principles, not about your personal philosophy or mine. You do newcomers a disservice when you post advice that is ignorant and in direct contradiction to Marriage Builders. It is confusing to them and helps no one. You have absolutely no understanding of Plan A and yet here you are doling out bad advice to her.

Nor are you in any position to help anyone with your own marriage in such a mess because of your own serial cheating. You can't help anyone else until you learn to help yourself. Fix yourself first, APh.

Aphaeresis,

I understand your feelings about MelodyLane's tactics, but those tactics have helped many B/S pull their head out of the sand, and do what needs to be done.

So she is blunt and rude at times, but she also motivates people into action.

I am a MelodyLane fan. She was instrumental in pounding into my hard head what needed to be done to save my marriage.

Some people show they care by being nice and holding your hand, she happens to show her care by being honest, straight, and direct.

I will take honest and direct anytime over having my hand held, and I am sure the b/s that have benefited from her advice over the years feel the same way.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, kds, but don't worry. Her attack on me stems from her anger at my challenge about the contradictory advice she doled out to a newcomer and I recognize it as such. It was just a diversion. Her opinion of me is her personal problem, not mine. Thanks, friend. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Honestly, Aph, can you not see my point? These people come here in the throes of despair and they desperately need help. Marriage Builders is a tried and true program that represents their best hope of survival. They need to get accurate and effective advice that is likely to work. The principles were developed by Dr. Willard Harley, a psychologist who SPECIALIZES in adultery and has a long, successful track record spanning 35 years. His methods are their best hope. They come here for THAT.

You and I are not qualified to advise these people based on our own expertise. What do I know? What do you know? I am not a trained psychologist, ARE YOU? I sell soft drinks! The best that we can do to help them is to tell them what an experienced PROFESSIONAL, Dr Harley, would advise, based on his books and articles. I don't imagine for a second that I am smarter than him when it comes to saving marriages. Any such belief would be arrogant, and more importantly a GREAT DISSERVICE to those who come here bleeding and wounded in search of HELP.

I applaud you for trying to help folks, but please learn the program and practice the principles in your own life before you try to help others. Become qualified and experienced in MB principles before you attempt to help others, lest you mislead and confuse them. That helps no one.

Aph,

You would be doing yourself a favor to listen to Mel. She gives good advice. Sometimes the best advice is the very advice you DON'T want to hear.

And in this case, you are very foggy right now. I have, however, seen some change in you, and you are moving in the right direction. Not there yet, but moving on the feeder road toward the highway. Not on the entrance ramp, yet, though, Aph.

Working on yourself. I would say you need to understand MB principles more fully, yes.


Praise: You've read HNHN. Good.

To-do: Read After the Affair, or Surviving an Affair. Personally, my FWH got a lot more our of After the Affair. For some reason, it resonated with the wayward part of him, and it did help me. But order and read one of them. Better yet, read both.



You really need more thorough understanding of your own behavior. I still see a great deal of justification/rationalization in your writing here. You see the problems in your marriage with sex as leading to your affairs. Your "explanation" as written above to your BH will not be helpful, from where I stand. My FWH gave a similar explanation. It was only sex, if he didn't get caught nobody would be hurt, yadda-yadda. Now, what kind of a crappaganza did you expect?

But not once prior to his affair did he ever just talk with me about his feelings. You should fully expect your husband to feel about like I did, because regardless of the fact that you say your husband was "aware" of the issues, he is not likely to expect you to solve the problem by having multiple affairs.

Additionally, being "aware" of issues and having true interactions and a mutually discussed planned course of action to solve the issue within the marriage are very different things. For example, my husband could tell me that he didn't like the peas we had for dinner. That makes me "aware" he didn't like those peas, right? But maybe what is not said is that he does not and has never liked peas, in fact despises peas, never wants them in the house, etc. There is a difference in what I see as being communicated.

I wonder what the communication is/was between you and your BH regarding the problems in your marriage prior to your affairs? The style of communication (by the way, this is my field of expertise, my profession) that you reveal on these boards shows a tendency to change topics quite rapidly when confronted or challenged with facts or opinions in conflict with your own. I see that you shut off others who do not agree with you. It would therefore not be surprising that when your husband and you "discuss" issues that he finds it difficult to keep you in the room for a full discussion, or that one or both of you storm out and things never really are completely ironed out or resolved. Later, neither of you bring up the topic again, or it is left to fester and you sort of "agree to disagree" or somehow work out a way of doing things that avoids a true solution but sweeps the problem out of the way for a long enough time and ultimately it fades out. Has this been the case?

When working on yourself, please consider that one of the first things you will need to do in order to save your marriage will be to change your communication style.

First on the order of business in this regard is to increase your willingness to listen to a wider point of view - most importantly, to people who you see as critical of you. It is going to be very difficult for you to talk to your husband, because he WILL say things to you that will hurt you. You can count on this.

On this board, we can and will prepare you for that.

But you have to be willing to hear the worst here, and understand WHY we say what we say. You have to be willing to take these 2X4s now, because IF there is any hope for you to save your marriage, you must be able to take them later, from your husband.

And MB can help you do that. But you have to learn to communicate, understand....

LISTEN
LISTEN
LISTEN

Go back and read the website again.
You have made progress. Don't get me wrong.
But you do need to make a slight change - that is, even if you don't like what you are reading, read it anyway. Just because the information is not pleasing to the palate doesn't mean it isn't good for you.



SB

Aph...Bwahahahahaha...MelodyLane and Anger Management Issues...That is FUNNY...And seriously, UNTRUE...I know, I've met her and her husband...FABULOUS PEOPLE AND MARRIAGE...Aph, your anger is really all I see in your posts to her...No Kidding...Stop, Listen and Learn...ML is right about this one...No question...It may be hard for you to swallow, but remember, this is the place for you to practice your humbleness...It'll go a very long way for you...

Mrs. W

Aph...

Your being frustrated about your sex life is NOT why you chose to cheat...Dig deeper, that's not it...Think about your maturity level/development...your own issues with intimacy...your own level of commitment...your need for outside approval...things like that...

If I read correctly, your husband is unable to climax...How did that affect YOUR sexual satisfaction anyway?

Mrs. W

kds,

I've made a few posts trying to help people dealing with a depressed spouse. I have experience with depression and know all symptoms and what to expect from a depressed spouse. I've had several people tell me my information was helpful. Her telling me I'm so messed up I can't possibly help anyone right now was a gross generalization that was neither helpful nor true.

schoolbus,

Okay, two more books for my reading list then <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Then what would be helpful? Because I didn't mean to imply the sex problems CAUSED my infidelities.
It was my decision to give up on finding a solution that led to my infidelities. So it was all me, and I know that.


No, I definitely act different here. I am very slow to warm up to people. It was usually me who brought up the conversations and he who ended them.

What happened is complicated because there are multiple problems.
He has a physical problem getting in the way, although that's not the only problem, and he
always has some excuse as to why he can't make an appointment with a doctor now. Unfortunately,
the last time he went, the doctor was no help at all. So now he wants to see someone specializing in his particular type of problem but he can't right now because he's looking for a job. There really have been times when he could have gone, though. It took him three years to even tell me there was a problem.

The second problem is that we don't like the same things. We would discuss this, try something, he wouldn't like it so we'd try something else and he wouldnt' like that either. He used to do things just to please me, but he was so unenthusiastic that it turned me off. We
used to fight about it, but that got us nowhere. So our solution at that point was that he gave me permission to cyber as long as it wasn't with anyone that he knew. Looking back, I think that was a mistake.

The other problem is that there is an aggressiveness, passion and energy that is just lacking. I tried to tell him I want him to be more energetic, or dominant or that I want us to feel a "sense of urgency" but his response is always that he has no idea what I'm talking about. I try to
tell him I want to do something different and he suggests a new position. But what I want has nothing to do with positions. It's something I had brought up from time to time, he didn't get it most of the time and once accused me of trying to turn him into a different person. Sometimes I suggested specific actions and that worked but the next time he'd just go back to his usual pattern unless I brought it up again.

The combination of everything just left me feeling very unwanted and frustrated that I couldn't get through to him. Throughout all this, he usually didn't want to have these conversations. I was always the one to bring it up. The sense I got from him was that I was making a big deal over something that just wasn't important. So did I fail to communicate how important a good sex life was to me?
Well, yeah that's a definite possibility. But learning to say, "honey I'm so frustrated with our sex life that I think of other men all the time" is very counter-intuitive. Yet it probably would have helped a great deal.

Aph, your post to this newcomer had nothing to do with "depression," but with Plan A, something you know nothing about. The advice you gave her was "not helpful" because it was contradictory to MB principles. And yes, you are very fogged out and need to help yourself before you start handing out "advice" to others. Fix yourself first, Aph...

Mrs.W wrote
Well I could say I'm immature but that doesn't really explain why I picked this particular form of destructive behavior rather than some other form of immature, destructive behavior.

Commitment? Unlike other cheating spouses here, I really did not have any desire to leave my husband for someone else. But somehow my commitment to stay was different than my (lack of) commitment to monogamy.

Need for outside approval? That might have something to do with it because to me sex has to include a feeling that the other person really, really wants me or it's just no fun. Well, not AS fun.


Ah, Mrs. W, if you could read my mind you'd know how crazy such a question sounds to me <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I LOVE to get a reaction. A man's enthusiasm and desire to be with me and my ability to elicit a response is what I love most about sex. With my OMs, the married ones in particular, I knew I was doing things for them that they'd never get from their wives and they looked at me like I was some sort of sex goddess. (Sorry to BWs for that comment; I am just trying to be honest about what I felt at the time.) What I want most is to feel wanted, desired. The thought of never experiencing that again for the rest of my life was very depressing to me. Still is.