MIM - good question. Don't know yet. Probably when I spend so much time and effort and finally believe that I can't fix it by myself. I can't predict how long that will take me though.

Tyk - I was operating off the premise that if you behave a certain way for long enough you will eventually feel it. Kind of like choosing to love or be happy. As long as I was acting like I loved unselfishly and acted happy my emotions would change to match the behavior. Obviously that didn't work out as nicely as I had envisioned. I can't remember the saying exactly but something like "if you act happy, you will be happy." I see now that the notion of act happy, be happy is total nonsense to me and doesn't work.

And yes, I do see how the facade of pretending to be happy and not giving H a chance to prove me wrong did build a ton of resentment on my part. And you are 110% accurate in that I caused the resentment, not H. Working on that now too.

What you just said is the crux of my entire marriage - I didnt trust that H would love me before the affair if he ever knew the real me (thus my pretending). Now that I had my affair, that mistrust in his ability to love me is magnified because I proved what a bad person I really am. And if there was ever a chance of him loving the real me, he won't now for sure because I just proved what a horrible person I really am.

But you see that you are continuing in the exact same way, doing the exact same thing that led to the A in the first place? Only now you aren't just pretending to be happy, now you're pretending to be happy and faithful.

I just don't see how that is sustainable in the long run. What's to keep you from falling back into the same self generated resentment trap? Why do you have so little faith in your husband that you think he can't handle the truth? Will it be easy? No. Has it been easy? Is it easy now? It sounds like you've done some work trying to understand yourself, but you're still in many ways doing the same things.

Then the correct time to do it is NOW.



The answer to your dilemma is to simply tell him and stop stealing from him the choice to choose who he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Quite likely he will surprise you and want to continue the M. And if he doesn't, at the very least you no longer have to fear how he really feels about you and what that might mean for your relationship.

We all make bad choices at some point in our lives Norcal, (though I must admit, deciding to have an A ranks right up there amongst the worst things we can choose to do). However, by continuing to lie to your H, you are choosing to continue to do him wrong - do you see this?

Oh, I hate that! I just spent 20 minutes on my reply, hit "continue", then I get an error message and everything disappears.

Answer was:

I know the self generated resentment trap isn't sustainable. We are working on stuff together and I am working on how I do things. We are both doing things differently because we both want to change the results.

Right now I can only come up with one reason as to why I have so little faith in my husband to think he can't handle the truth. And that is me projecting my feelings on him. If I can't stand myself for having the affair, how can I expect that he would still love me?

I am doing many things the same, but many things differently and am learning more and more together with H.

Don't want to TJ rprynne's thread and original question on why WS wouldn't trust his motives as a BS. I just wanted to offer my persepctive that maybe his WS didn't trust him before so she trusts even less after even though it is her issue. As in my case, me not trusting in H's love is my stuff, not H's lack of love.

MIM - I know all the right reasons to disclose. I still read through my own thread on whether to tell or not for more clarity. So yes, I do see I am continuing to wrong H. Again, I don't know how long it will take me to see the futility in what I am currently doing.

rprynne likes thread jacks, he said so the last time I jacked his thread!

Next time you lose a post, if you just click "back" when you get the error message, you can copy the text of your message, then go back to the thread and hit reply again and paste it. Happens to me all the time, I think its when someone posts a reply in between when you click "reply" and "post".

Norcal: I would say that the BS here should be evidence enough for you that your H could be capable of forgiving you, especially since you are apparently repentant and are learning from your mistakes.

I hope you gain the courage to do so and I hope your H is able to forgive you. Thanks for the replies to my questions as well.

Rprynne,

Okay. And…? What…? Dismissed it? Think it’s likely? Just not sure? Believe it doesn’t really matter?




First of all, I wholeheartedly agree that she would be better off if she did those things. However, it’s not your responsibility to be her emotional health care provider. (I know you know that. Just reminding you, okay?) I believe you will BOTH be better off if she does what you propose… But you can only control/take care of… you.

Have you clearly defined what “give M recovery a try” means? Have you decided how long you will wait for her to get on board before you cut bait? And if she agrees to those four things… and follows through for a set amount of time… and still isn’t in love with you… will you really be able to let her go w/ your respect and friendship? Really? Are you sure?

I’m not questioning your sincerity, R. I hope it doesn’t seem that way. I’m just asking you to do a gut check on this point. Here’s why…

Unless I have misinterpreted some of your posts, you seem to be of the belief that anyone who follows MB can be “in love” with anyone else. And that a person can just “decide” to love her spouse. I have done in my own marriage, what you have asked MT to do in yours. And your advice to me continues to be along the lines of – forget about the past, focus on today, and decide to love him. I appreciate that advice b/c as far as I can see, it’s my ONLY hope at this point.

But it also makes me wonder… when it comes time for your “resolution”… and MT says, “I tried. It didn’t work.”… if you will believe her. Or will you think, “You obviously didn’t try hard enough. Why can’t you just decide to love me?”.


I would certainly fall into that category, as well. I definitely didn’t feel like doing it. At all. My 2005 affair had a lot of the hallmarks of an exit affair. I WANTED out! I stayed in… based on principles. And I would agree that that’s the way it BEGINS for a lot of W’s. You grit your teeth and take those first few steps because you believe you should. But from what I have observed… most of those who go on to succeed at R their M’s… move from forcing themselves to do it… to wanting to do it in pretty short order.

Again, though, I do agree with you… you have to be willing to take those first few steps… pushing against your own feelings.




Interesting statement, rprynne. I hardly know where to begin with that one. Are you up for a lengthy discussion on the role of feelings/emotions in our lives and what it means to be authentic?



When she tells you the truth… and it’s not what you want to hear… or it doesn’t mesh with your perception of things… how do you respond? (hint: think back to your conversations about her lack of feelings for you when you got married.)



I don’t have any bright ideas beyond what you’ve already done. You can set the stage… which you have done... but you can not force her to “perform”. The only thing I can think of is to once again reflect on whether or not you’ve really created a safe environment for her to bare her soul.

--SC

Wow. Lots of responses. I'll try to comment on the ones that struck me.



My first question, is this really about trusting your H's motivations or is it about trusting his abilities? People lose faith in other people's abilities to "get the job done". In M's, we do it because we have observed our partner's failures. Usually painfully so. But here's the catch if one is not being authentic. They have set their partner up to fail. And even worse, that data is then used to proove that they can not be successful. It's a bit of rigged experiment.

This is sort of like filling out an ENq and then lying about it because you don't won't to hurt your spouses feelings. It can appear that the spouse is incapable of meeting your most important EN's, but the reality is unknown, because they have never tried.


Agree, I try to make it safe.


No need to be sorry. I think you provided some useful insights.



Your statement suggests that your premise was if I fill my day with small units of happiness (derived by avoiding conflict, avoiding potential blows to your self esteem, avoiding fears), that they will have cumulative effect that leads to a large amount of happiness.

I mean when I see that, two things come to mind. The first is perhaps your premise is correct. Small units may add up to a big item. But the execution seems flawed. Sort of trapped (i get these confused sometimes) in a cycle of self imposed negative punishment (the removal of something painful). Would a better strategy be to seek out positive reinforcement (the addition of something pleasant). Im no expert, but negative punishment seems to lead on a downward spiral, but positive reinforcement is an upward thing. KWIM.

The second, is the premise that small units will eventually lead to large cumulative effect. Certainly this is part of the premise of the love bank. But, IMHO, deposits in the love bank are a decaying asset. Time erodes the negative and positive balances. Or at least their is an element of reversion to the mean or reversion to neutrality. Anyway, my point is I don't know that small units (even if provided on a daily basis) ever add up to a large balance that crosses the threshold required for "romantic" love. If not, then one needs some big deposits in the love bank. Which would make a greater deposit in your love bank. When a person professes their love and admiration for a person you are pretending to be, or when a person professes their love and admiration for the person you really are?


Similar to my point above. This would be a big deposit.


But, my oh my, what if he did? Risk vs. return. I sympathize with how hard it is, but IMHO, its a matter of risk tolerance. In my observations many WS's overstate the return from the A and understate the risk. They completely reverse their position on risk tolerance when it comes to their BS. Understate the returns and overstate the risks.


I don't know. Its probably likely. I don't dismiss it, but its on her side of the line, so to speak. I could create 1,000 scenarios about this or that. Kind of why I had the follow up question of if this is the case, what can I do, except wait to see if she works through it or move on. Its a shame. MT once said to me, "that's you. You decide what has to be done and you do it, you're built that way" To some that may be a compliment, but to me it was disrespectful. It says, your personal demons are easy to deal with. They aren't, I just deal with them. So, I don't discount MT's personal demons, I just wish she would see that dealing with them is not a matter of measuring their severity.


No, I have not defined it. I have said that the definition of that could be POJA'd.

Yes, I have a time line. It is essentially the same one I had at my first d-day, with one extension.

Yes, I could let her go. I know sometimes this may be hard to believe, but I don't want MT to be unhappy. Yes, just like any other BS, my first reactions on d-day were tinged with fear and uncertainty and a general desire to have her just stay in the M. But those feelings quickly change. It doesn't take long to realize that I am not going to be happy if MT is not happy. Very few BS's wants their WS to be unhappy. What they want is them to test it out. They want the chance to see what would happen if we created an environment that gave the M, and each others love, the best opportunity. I/we never got that chance.


No, I do not believe in all cases that if you follow MB you can be "in love". What I believe is that it can not be predicted. The only way to know for sure with a particular person is to perform a "clean" experiment. My advice to people is usually directed towards "cleaning" up the experiment. I think BS and WS owe it to themselves to truly test it out.

SC - I admire you for going back to your M. I admire the fact that you are making an effort. It is possible you never loved your H. It is possible that you married for the wrong reasons. But, IMHO, those are sunk costs and you can't change the past. My advice to you is centered around one thing. Whatever happens, whatever the outcome, you will be happier if you know you made a true effort. I think you know this, and its why you seek out advice. Now, I don't believe you have to follow every bit of advice to pass the test of did you make a true effort. You are the only one who gets to keep the score on that. What I have tried to say is that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are linked and interrelated. Based on your posts, it sounds to me (and I may be wrong) that you are constraining your feelings via your thoughts and behaviors. This is not a power of positive thinking speech, its merely a statement that, based on what you've posted, it sounds like you have introduced bias into your experiment. You seem to express that you do not think "fake it till you make it" will work, and I think this this influences whether it will. It sounds as if you have not adopted PORH, in as much as it does not sound like you have told your H what you are feeling. These factors can introduce bias into your experiment. So what to do. Well, you can conclude that my premise is wrong (i.e. thoughts, feelings, behaviors are not related). You can conclude that I'm incorrectly reading the data (i.e. you really do think "fake it till you make it" will work). You can modify the experiment (i.e. open up to your H about your feelings). Finally, you can can all the MB principles and try something different. What really matters, IMHO, is whatever you do, will you believe you made a true effort.


I could give you an answer as to what I think, but the reality is, I don't know. But, similar to some of my points above, this is a risk vs return analysis for MT, and my opinion as to whether she tried hard enough is irrelevent. What does she gain by trying and succeding vs. not trying vs. trying and failing. IMHO, if you rank those in order trying and succeding would be best, followed by trying and failing, followed by not trying. Its impossible to predict success or failure, so you remove those from the decision criteria and your left with try or don't try, with try ranked ahead. Of course her analysis may be different.


And let me ask, how many of your sucesses have been preceded by doing something you didn't feel like doing?


Any time. I have some fairly lengthy insights on the human experience. I believe in a "transactional" relationship model, with a "experiential" development model.


In the past, I responded poorly. I won't lie. I took advantage of MT's nature. I was manipulative. Now when I say that, most people will think "ah, you must be a cruel person". But I think this is the mistake people make when someone says your WS is manipulating you. You don't have to be evil or consciously aware that you are doing it in order to be manipulative. You learn, you pick it up over time, it comes innately after multple interactions with a person. This is sort of the death spiral of my M. Who knows when it first happened, but my WW told me something I didn't want to hear which made me unhappy and I responded negatively, and she changed her tune (which was being inauthentic), which made me happy. Repeat, repeat, repeat. So yes, after I few years she's miserable and I think everything is AOK. What can I say, I grew up in a family were conflict avoidance was not a problem. We fought. Regularly. MT grew up in a family where conflict avoidance was the rule. They never fight. Bad mix, wish we had spotted it sooner.

How do I respond now? As best I can, with a poker face. But, and this goes back to the trust thing, my response has now become irrelevent. MT has already decided how I will feel about something she tells me, and if I don't express that feeling, she assumes I'm lying.

You know, I realized after d-day, that I did not "know" MT. What I knew was a presentation of herself. That presentation of herself influenced who I was. Because of that, MT does not "know" me. I wish all the folks who are not being open and honest with their spouse would realize this dynamic. If you are acting, your spouse will respond to your performance. Stop acting and you would be surprised at what you learn about them. You might just connect.


As best I can.

I had a great Thanksgiving. I called my WW on Thanksgiving, to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving and that her and her sister have a great time together. She didn't wish me a Happy Thanksgiving she just asked, "I thought we were going to talk when you got, back. I don't understand why you are checking on me." She is very paranoid that everything I do is to check on her. If I ask about her friends, or how her day was, or if she went shopping it is all to check on her. She seems very paranoid, that everything I do has an ulterior motive. I sent her parents an Email to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving and she was pissed that I did it so that they would pressure her to get back together with me. Is there a reason all of my PLAN A efforts are being misconstrued? I am really trying to be a better man, and she is telling me everything I do to be better is wrong? Is this a fairly normal thing? Is it because she is trying to protect her affair. I guess I should just do the right things and let her figure out for herself that I am sincere.

Ryan.

FYI for those that are intersted. My WW says she wants to move back home and give things a try. She said she was willing to do MC, but not with the Harley's anymore. I don't know if I understand that.

Back to my point about trust, she also said she was worried that if we tried to work things out and it didn't work, that I would hate her. I asked why she would think that and she said because that's "what I told her". I just don't get this. Its exactly opposite of what I told her.

Anyway, she said she was going to try to get a leave of absence from work and move back, and if her company wouldn't agree to that, she would quit her job.

I asked why she was moving back and she said because her IC told her that she would never be able to fix her intimacy issues if she didn't address our M.

RP,

What are your requirements, other than MC, for her moving back in?

LA

I am happy for you though discouraged that she wants to come back for the wrong reasons.

She's not coming back because it's the right thing to do or to make amends and repent for her deceipt rather because her IC thinks she needs to address HER intimacy issues.

Doesn't mean it won't work. It's a typically foggy reason to try and better than not getting any shot.

I truly hope your perseverence is rewarded.

Use MB principles yourself and see whomever she wants. Try to find a guy/girl counselor that uses MB principles but advise them NOT to address them as such.

Best of luck,

Mr. Wondering

What does it mean to "address" your marriage EXACTLY? Does it mean she is committed to fixing the problem in her MARRIAGE? Or does that mean she wants to come home to perform some experiment to fix something inside HER? Perhaps to say goodbye?

I would be asking her this: are you committed to coming home and fixing our marriage?

If she can't answer in the affirmative, I would fear she planned to come home for other reasons, such as a) alleviating her guilt by assuring herself she "did everything," b) lonliness at the holidays, c) some quest for personal growth that is no way related to fixing your marriage.

None of those reasons would be to your benefit and would instead cause you great harm.

The thing about IC is that they are focused on only PERSONAL pursuits at the expense of the marriage, so I would keep that in mind.

I am very concerned about her refusal to counsel with the Harleys. Did she give a reason? Because the usual reason for avoiding Steve Harley is because he cannot be snowed. He has a GREAT BS detector.

rprynne, does she have a case of wayward holiday lonliness? It is not uncommon that a wayward will try and come back for the holidays to "try things out" only to leave 3 days after Christmas.

I think that's good news no matter what her reasons are for coming home. It will give her the opportunity to witness the work you've done on yourself, and give you the opportunity to see first hand where she's at.

I hope it goes well.

Tyk, he has been through this before, though.

Yeah. I'm not setting off any fireworks. I've been down this path before.


Kind of what I thought.


Well, I don't really know. She was the one that brought up MC and I don't think she plans to move in with me, just back to our house. I moved into an apartment closer to work.

For lack of a better way to say it, I'm not at the negotiating table anymore. The last false recovery sort of ended that. About 4 months ago she asked if I would wait six months before doing anything. I said I would. Now she said she wants to do this. I said fine. Probably less than an ideal approach to recovery, but their just doesn't seem to be any POJA or anything like that. All I get is take it or leave it offers. Some I take, some I leave. This is one where it seemed to be okay to take the offer. If anyone disagrees, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.


I don't know. MT does not share much about her IC. If I had to guess, I would say that her IC has told her something to the effect of she is running away from her problems and that isn't going to work, etc.


She did not give a reason. I think this has more to do with the fact that she never bought in to the MB approach, coupled with the fact that she probably feels she let SH down.


Well, first I'll say I won't believe she is coming home till I see it. Second, I'm not really sure of her reasons. Most likely, her reasons are less than ideal. But I don't think she is ever going to get to the ideal reasons. She isn't going to commit to it until she's sure it will make her happy, and she can't be sure it will make her happy unless she commits to it. Bit of a catch 22.


Its not this. Nothing she has said has changed my holiday plans or was presented in a way to get me to change my plans.

Thats an impossible standard, though. She can't be happy unless and until she commits to it and works hard on the marriage. Even then, there are no guarantees she will be successful. But her happiness is contingent on herself, not on some unknown element. If that is her standard, then I would agree that this is doomed from the start.

The most important question for you, IMO, is what will she do to ensure that you won't be hurt again in a false recovery? I don't know about you, rprynne, but I would not be willing to take that risk again unless she had a very convincing and compelling selling story. And her selling story, thus far, does not contain any benefit FOR YOU.

She only talks about what SHE WANTS. Well, customers buy things based on what they want, not what the seller wants. Where are your benefits? I don't know any VP's who would buy anything from me just because it benefited me. They would take a pass, and I think you should too unless and until she produces a darn good reason for you to buy.


Not yet, you mean. But she knows they will change if she comes back, right?

I absolutely think you should leave it, Rprynne.

Unless you hear the words and see the actions of "I will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to repair this marriage", tell her thanks but no thanks.

For all the reasons Mel states, and because you are worth more and so is your marriage.

And because, as a woman, I know that taking what ever she happens to throw your way, for her own purposes entirely, will not gain her respect. And if she does not respect you, she will not submit wholly to your marriage.

Do not feed her selfish, entitlement Rprynne.

My gosh, coming home because her IC said she needs to work on her intimacy issues, without a care to how it will effect you....well it is just so selfish. Pisses me off, really.

However, since it is her house still, too, I suppose she can go stay in it if she wants. But I would tell her that unless she is 100% committed to you and the marriage to stay away from you while she is in town.

Tell her you changed your mind, based on her reasons, or better yet her lack of reasons... not enough to keep you interested in rebuilding. More insulting than anything else.

agreed