Yes, you can have those feelings in your marriage. Those EXACT feelings. And they will LAST because the marriage is not doomed like an affair. The reason that affairs fail is because they are based on deceit and thoughtlessness. Eventually those traits destroy the feelings of passion. Not so with a marriage.

Yes it's very good to admire a woman who will eff someone besides her husband. It's such a great quality!

You do realize she was effing him after leaving you?

Got STD?

p.s. we need your wife to COME HERE. Please bring her HERE.

She has her own thread now, melody. Hopefully she will join us.

HU:

About this:


YOU CAN.

It starts with you.

You had it when you married Mrs HU.

Then can work, mortgage, kids, responsibility, no more football, "can't you do anything right!" etc., etc....

You CAN get it back.

My attitude during the A was even worse than yours.

We found MB BEFORE D-day. Had we not, I would be divorced now. Flamingo would have toasted me in the courtroom.

When was the last time you bought flowers for your W?

LG

reading this thread is really a struggle for me. This line of thinking is exactly what I was dealing with in my marriage (LG you nailed that one). We are now separated again; WH has moved on to another woman and he only sees his son one day a week and every other weekend.


Hu, I hope you can find a way to WORK toward a better marriage. I could care less how you FEEL right now, I care more what you are DOING right now to save your marriage and fight for those things that you want--the love, admiration, joy, fulfillment. You can have it all if you WORK for it.

I haven't heard you talk about what you are DOING to save your marriage. I'd be interested in that.

HU, I am glad you are still reading.

There is a lot of structured help to be found here to make your marriage thrive. There are many concrete actions you can take that will help you build a good life with your wife.

You need a plan for marital recovery. And you need to follow the steps of the plan even though your feelings and desire for the easy way of the affair are making it hard to do that.

If you will commit to following a concrete plan together with your wife, things will get much better after a while.

The plan looks like this:
1. Establish NC in a way that your wife can verify. Become transparent to her-- email passwords, cell phone records, absolutely no secrets. She should do the same for you. Begin spending 15 hours a week giving each other positive undivided attention (recreational activities that are enjoyable for both of you are good for this.) Most people think that sounds impossible, but it isn't. It is a skill that can be learned.
2. Learn about Emotional Needs-- both of you fill out the questionnaire and share the results with each other, and commit to meeting the other's most important needs. Again, these are skills that can be learned by anyone who is willing.
3. Learn about Love Busters and how to avoid them.

I think the home study course offered through this website might really be useful to you. It is a 6 month plan that will take you and your wife step by step through the building blocks of a good marriage. It is concrete, private, and not judgmental.

Read, read, read the free articles on this website. They contain tons of useful information.

Keep talking to us.

hu7668,

Since you asked about withdrawal, here's a couple of things from Dr. Harley that might help you:

And since I see you asked about your wife meeting your ENs, here's from Dr. Harley...
I hope that you will really give the MB concepts a chance to help you and your W. I can tell you they have helped myself and my H tremendously even though we have a ways to go...we are closer than we ever were pre-A and my H didn't think we could ever be more than "friends" (he as pretty adamant about this) when he was foggy so give it some time. Good luck.

Let me answer you and lousygolfer at same time since you have asked the same questions.

After I found this place I bought the books and we started did the tests. For my wife I scored 5 and 6 on all of the emotional needs. I have continued to make sure I am meeting her needs as I always have. As a FYI I bring her flowers ever Saturday morning.

The biggest changes has been to identify what my needs are. Then once identified speak up about them, when they are not meet.

We are also working on the spending time together. This is tough one because of different interest but we are compromising.

We both constantly keep on the lookout for LB, we do call each other out on them.

I realized a lot of the problems lied with me an my inability to communicate with my wife. I get uncomfortable talking face to face about sensitive subjects. So I changed to writing her e-mails and notes to discuss issues, which has worked out wonderfully.

So in short I continue to meet her EN and she is learning (with my input now) how to meet mine. I know I need to be patient about when things click. Which is why I brought up the withdrawal question. I am no longer withdrawing from the OW, I miss the feelings she brought out in me. So I miss what she represented but not her.

When we discuss the affair I am open and honest. My wife frankly does not want to talk about it. She says the past is the past and we need to move forward. My accounts have never been a secret from her she is free to look in my electronic accounts and phone stuff. I don't go anywhere after work unless it is somewhere we have already discussed, but this was already in place.

I fully believe in the MB concepts they are great. I am recommending them to people I know right and left. Just would've been easier to of known about them years ago instead of now.

"Feelings" follow action and it will take a lot of "actions" for your BW to feel strongly for you ever again. The sooner you get to work on restoring HER FEELINGS for you....the sooner you can rebuild a marriage of extraordinary care (the MB ideal).

BTW...you admit you come here for help and need assistance with your thinking, thus you are self-admitted "foggy", so there is no reason to take being called "foggy" offensively. It will take you years to clean out the fog that was created in your brain when you spent 3 years in a fog machine (the Affair).


Your Betrayed Wife is likely foggy too. Different fog but foggy nonetheless. Her life has been ripped up from under her and she has been victimized in the worst way. Many consider it worse than losing a child or being rapped. It's THAT bad and it's completely understandable that she is also not thinking straight right now (i.e. - foggy).

SOOOOO...don't sweat it.

Anyway...here is a link that may help you with your initial questions about withdrawal and reasons you should maintain no contact forever:

LINK TO 31 REASONS

Good luck,

Mr. W <---Mrs. W's other half

Two suggestions.

One, figure out all the ways you might be tempted to contact OW and do what you can to thwart them, preferably by bringing your wife into your methods. Bringing your wife in gets you in the habit of openness and transparency with her, which will greatly help her healing. It also helps you to develop the habit of thinking about your wife instead of OW.

If you might be tempted to contact by email, put a rule on your email program that will auto-forward any email you send to OW to your wife instead. Sure, it's anything but foolproof - all you have to do is delete the rule. BUT it makes you stop for a moment and think about what you're doing. It gives you a second to stand up and take a quick walk around the building. A moment to call your wife and tell her you're feeling weak. Most BWs would LOVE for their WH to call them and say "I am having a hard time, I need your help." That honesty and vulnerability are a HUGE thing to a BS.

If you feel tempted to call her, make sure your wife has access to all the cellphone records, put a recorder on your home line. Not sure what to do about the work line, I'll have to ponder that a bit.

If you feel tempted to drive by OWs home or her place of work, put a GPS tracker on your car so your wife knows where you are at all times.

Second, focus on meeting your wife's ENs. Find out what they are and do something every day to meet them.

Now, your heart isn't 100% into the marriage, so you probably don't really feel like going all out to meet her ENs. And I'm guessing that when you try, your BW doesn't respond strongly or quickly - she has her own stuff to work through right now. So trying to meet her ENs is probably not a real attractive proposition for you.

However.

Don't do it because you love her, or because you want to see changes in her. You're an IT guy. You problem solve, you're a perfectionist, and you're competitive. See how creative you can be, how original -- SOLVE the problem of how to best meet each EN. Be creative. Put time and energy into it. Try to outdo yourself. Make it almost into a game or a sport. By the time you get really good at this game, your heart will be much more into the M and so will your W. Think of it almost as a way to pass the time until things get better.

Love is not a feeling. It's something you do.

Love is being 100% honest. What you had with your OW was not love, but lust.

No one is saying it didn't feel good. It probably did.

But love is FAR more than just a feeling.

It was you that wanted to talk facts and black and white things. So get your hands around the fact that love is much more than a feeling. Love is a verb, it's something you do.

So the question we all have for you, what actions are you going to take today to demonstrate to your wife that you love her?

Some have made some really good suggestions.

Dropping the defensive, entitlement attitude, telling her that what you did was wrong, selfish and was as far from loving her as you could possibly get, and that you would like to ask her forgiveness.

[quote=MelodyLane]p.s. we need your wife to COME HERE. Please bring her HERE. [/quote

Mel, she did post on her thread.

Hi HU

Well from one WS to another. You are 5 months down the line from D-Day. These feelings of withdrawal you are going through are normal. The previous post referred to the A as a form of addiction. It is.....

Let me guess you have thoughts of "Am I doing the right thing for myself to stay in my marriage?" "I wonder how it would have been if things worked out differently with the OW?"
These are basic standard emotions that a WS go through.

I think the best way to answer the real question of hand on how to deal with it is actually quite simple. Dr Harley has article on coping with infidelity.... It was mentioned in the previous posts and the link was also posted. Do yourself a favour and read it and watch the DVD as well. I didn't really understand until my H came home one day and confessed that there is a lady friend that has been a very good friend and ear to all his emotions and heartache he has been going through . He admitted that he was developing feelings for her . He told me that he told the lady friend that he thinks it is in every ones best interest if they did not continue with the friendship . I had a only a taste of the feelings that he must have felt seeing that he chose to remain faithful to me Emotionally and Physically. HU TRUST ME Dr Harley is not kidding. AT ALL. I thought I died and gone to hell and that was just because of the thought that he too could have an A. The table changed and I realised if the possibility of him having an A made me feel that way what it must have done to him knowing that I had an EA and PA . I felt dirty, shocked in myself of being able to do something as bad as that to some one I claimed I cared for.

When ever the withdrawal feelings start I watch the DVD OVER AND OVER. And I have a heart to heart with myself.

Basic questions I ask myself.

1. If I die today and I have to appear in front of God one day what will my response be if He asks me why did I had an A.?
I know that He will not ask me what part my H and the OP had, but why I chose to break a Vow that I made to Him and my spouse.
So I rather want to ensure that He is rather proud of me for repenting my sin and to turn my life over to Him.

2. I remind myself that the Devil does not want to see my marriage work and will put thoughts in my mind that is not pure.
Round about there I pray and ask Jesus to get that thought for me. Work like a charm Devil is no contest to my Best friend

3. If I had to investigate my integrity do I want to be known one day by my children as a liar and a cheat? Or do I rather want to set a good example for them? That one is easy. Just because I made a mistake once in my life I CHOOSE to learn from it and NOT to repeat it again.

4. What we think, turns in to what we feel, which in turn lead to action. Common rule in life. So keep busy with other things. Work, exercise OR do what I do take all that energy and focus it on my H. I flirt like crazy with my H and make lists of all his positive attributes and things I love about him.
In a nutshell take the negative energy and turn it to positive action


With regards to the fact that you don't really care about the OW husband.... Well I wish I could be the same it would make my life so much easier, because I don't get the withdrawal anymore, but the guilt is eating me up inside. That is because I know how I felt and I cannot imagine that there must be another woman out there that is going through so much worse, because of MY ACTIONS. I have apologised to her over the phone, but I hope there will be a day that I can actually look her in the face and tell her how sorry I am for what I have done to her and her family.

You still have a long way to go, but let's be honest until you make a conscious decision that the OW is in NO WAY part of your life you will not be able to recover. Yes she will always be part of your history, but she must be "a page in your diary" and not a have a part in your heart.

Do yourself a favour and educate yourself on every article on MB, but most important execution execution execution of each aspect is the most important. As a WS I can give you a guarantee - if you are truly serious about reconciling your marriage and you apply every aspect you will have a better marriage that what your A ever was.


Ok Ok I'm done sharing

God Bless

Ade

Oh, please.

You have not ALWAYS met her EN. You had an AFFAIR. Which need is that?

Is the intepretation of a 5/6 on all of her emotional needs yours or hers? Are you meeting them as YOU would want met or as SHE needs to have them met?

If you are getting this information from her..... do you believe it to be the TRUTH? Or is she leading you to believe that you are so that arguments are avoided?

If you truly want to make her happy - you'll make sure you are meeting her needs as SHE needs them met not just as you see fit.

Did you have differing opinions on the EN and what each what REALLY meant - what specific acts were covered under a specific need?

Fox

She is the one that filled out the questionair not me.

Do you think I am dumb and don't understand the EN concept? Sorry to tell you this but I always (even before the A) meet her needs in the way she wanted them met not me. I never worried about my emotional needs and that my friend was the problem. She thought she was meeting mine, since I never said anything. She meet mine in the way she felt they needed to be. Or worse she meet the needs she found important which (surprise surprise) I different then mine.

What I should question her answers? I guess that open and honest that is one of her big EN is not true? Because without real feeback there is no way to address your concerns now is there.

Arguments? We avoid those we both grew up in families where there we frequent and public arguments. We discuss our issues in a calm manor.

It's not ONLY about meeting EN's ,Hu.

What Extraordinary precautions are in place so that you do not repeat offend? In what ways are you showing your wife that you are committed to recovery? If you are not committed to recovery, how do you expect it to work?

In other words, how are you protecting your wife and family? Are you asking THEM how you can protect them and what will make your BW feel safer?

Bringing flowers home is really lovely, but protecting your wife in a way that she feels safe is even better.

I already

1) Gave her all of my accounts
2) Account for my time
3) Don't do crap unless pre-approved.

Unless I am going to work strictly at home and never leave there is no way to setup extraordinary precautions to make sure I never stray again. That will only happen if I am happy at home, which no amount of spying or monitoring will ever accomplish. Know why I can say this? Because I was more then willing to be caught and deal with the consequences during my affair. Losing my house and cash really means little to me that is just stuff. The only big fear I had was losing my child. The only thing that will guarantee I never stray is WANTING to be in my marriage. We are working on that everyday.

You sound so defensive. There is no need. Right now, I'm just trying to gather information from you. Using the phrase...


sounds like you feel like being held accountable for your time spent outside the home is a PUNISHMENT. It's not; it's about safety, the safety of your marriage, safety for you and your wife and daughter. You will lose your child, as a full time parent, if you continue along for too long in your current state. You are not a child and your wife is not your warden.

Do you make it clear to members of the opposite sex that you are not interested in an affair, or do you flirt, knowing that your wife will have NO idea that you are doing it? Are you getting your needs met outside the marriage?

If I come off defensive it for a reason.

Yes I feel like checking in I am a child and you know what does not sit well with me. You know what when you are the one supplying the house, food, utilities, cars, etc... feeling like you are watched like a child is a fine line to be on.

Matter of fact I was at a bar last night with a friend of mine. I was getting hit on and I laughed it off. Oh yes the wife knew I was there. Matter of fact I did not flirt back which is NOT what I normally would do.

I try to make sure my wife meets all of my needs. I have made myself a promise if I ever feel like I am not and I am looking outside of my marriage I'm divorcing before going the "easy" route again.