So I'm pretty sure at this point my marriage is unrecoverable. After 15 months, I have tried to change the status quo and get her to invest in our recovery. I am just drained of trying to get willing participation in discussing and learning from the affair. She doesn't want to talk about it, and feels that I am the enemy for suggesting it.

I emailed her the links to the stories of tst and Not2L8 to show her that this is not a forum for bashing waywards, and that if help and guidance is desired, it is available. Her response was "I'm not putting myself out there on a message board for a public flogging just so you feel better." I have run out of ideas on how to convince her that my goal has never been to drag her through the mud, and that those conclusions are the product of her thought process, not mine.

I sent her my definition of recovery and my 4 requirements to reach it. I am unwilling to compromise on these so we'll see what she says. She is very busy though and probably very mad at me right now, so I may not hear from her for awhile.

Here are the 4 requirements I sent her:

1) Willingness to discuss all details of the affair without defensiveness or resentment with me until I feel satisfied. This would take the form of a complete story from first contact to last and how it related to what was going on between us at the time. The purpose is so I can understand the events and eliminate the power that the mystery has over me.
She has been answering direct questions, but does not show any willingness to talk unless prompted

2) Willingness to read and discuss the material in the books we have bought, including "Not Just Friends", etc...
She has read most of this book along with SAA and HNHN, but has not talked much about it

3) Willingness to discuss what allowed you to escalate the affair rather than end it and talk to me. The purpose of this would be learn where we needed stronger boundaries to protect the marriage.
Haven't gotten to this topic yet. Probably won't at this point

4) Willingness to explore our emotional needs and come up with a plan regarding how we will meet them to keep the love strong between us.
We have talked briefly about this. I would guess that her top 3 are Admiration, Affection, and Conversation. She has told me though that she doesn't believe she has the right to expect her ENs to be met right now, and has hesitated to list what she thinks they are


I have been trying for 15 months to achieve these goals. She is a good woman, who I think is just mired in her own guilt and is unwilling to resurrect more guilty feelings by discussing the affair. I think that is her only motivation for not helping me through this. If she still resists, I really don't think there are any options left open to me. What I see as recovery, she sees as punishment.

Andrew-
I am so sorry for the pain you are going through. Believe me, I know how difficult this is.

But please allow me to give you a little bit of tough love here.

You are still so young - and you two have no children yet.

If your W is not actively looking for ways to improve your M, improve herself, and gaurd against future A's, then it really would be best to take steps to D now, while you are still young enough to find a woman who does want a good M, who does want to be faithful.

You can not "teach" her to be faithful. You can not make her grow up and learn how to be respectful. If she wants to just forget it happened, sweep it under the rug, and move on with the same old M, then you are 100% doomed to experience all of this again. Only the next time there may be a precious child in the family who will cry himself to sleep wondering where is Mommy? Why does she have a new BF? and why is Daddy so sad?

You have tried. Your W is not willing. How much more time do you want to put into this? I know you love her - but you will need more than love to build a long term, loving, respectful family.
This woman may not be capable of that.

This was my H while he still had things to hide...he was very withdrawn Once he told me "everything", he was a different person. He said it was a huge burden and he was riddled with guilt. Once he revealed all his secrets and NC was established, we were really able to begin working on R.

My guess...she still has some things she hasn't told you.

Otherwise...I'm not familiar with the details of your story...are you absolutely certain there is NC?

You are right, WOF5, and my willingness to wait patiently is not open ended. I know what kind of marriage I want, and I won't accept anything less fulfilling than that.

I think my wife IS capable of all the things you mentioned, actively working to better our marriage, protect herself from affairs, ... TBH, I don't even think she is a risk for another affair. I think she went the opposite way. I could be completely wrong here, but I think she is consumed by shame and self-loathing right now and is looking for relief. That relief comes for her in NOT talking about the affair.

Without the benefit of an IC or MC where she is, I have been trying to help her see that talking about the affair would be the start of healing for her too, but I am clearly not qualified to successfully do that. Maybe I just need to take a step back, wait till she finishes her deployment, and then try to get her professional help in working through her guilt.

andrew,

Look around these forums at those who claim to be in some form of R. Those BH's who have truly successfully R their M have ONE thing in common ... they had a remorseful, repentent, honest and open FWW who was willing to face their demons and HELP their BH's heal.

Those BH's who don't have this type of FWW remain in a form of perpetual limbo waiting for the inevitable demise of their M, or simply awaiting with anticipation "till death do us part".

You have proven yourself to be a good man ... you have done your part by agreeing to accept the fact of your W's failings and work to make a better M than before for both of you. Unfortunately, your W has not reciprocated your efforts ... in effect, she is still putting her comfort ahead of your own.

Do what you must do, and then rest comfortably in the knowledge that you have done all you can with what you had to work with and move forward with your life towards the happiness you deserve and have EARNED.

Yes, I am positive that there is more stuff that she hasn't told me. She just revealed that she did in fact sleep with him at least twice. Im not sure what else she could be holding back other than the amount of times it happened or how long it had been going on.

I can't verify NC if he emailed her at work, since its a military network. She has been deployed for 4.5 months and accounted for her time before she left, so I really don't think its a resurgence. Maybe there have been work emails. I'll never know unless she tells me.

Thanks MyRev. That is almost verbatim what I have sent her.


I guess I am just having a hard time because I am positive that she COULD be honest and open, fulfilling all my expectations, IF I could get through the last wall. What I have been coming to realize though is breaching that wall may be an insurmountable task for me. She needs to choose to tear down that wall and be vulnerable, but who knows when/if that will happen. I cannot exist in this state much longer. There are limits to every man's willpower.

I don't know about this. My YS is in the Army. One day he did not have access to internet and called and asked me to log into his military email account (which is web-based). He gave me the log in and the password and I was able to access it with no problem. Now, I don't know if that changes depending on rank but if it doesn't, you could simply ask her for ALL logins and passwords to EVERY account, including work.

Since I'm not military, I could be totally wrong about the way it works.

My H held onto what he considered the most hurtful information until the end.

We were at the MC office and I told him I didn't want any more d-days. I told him I was willing to wipe the slate clean and offer forgiveness but that he had to tell me everything or it wasn't going to work. It was clear to him that it was a firm boundary. The MC totally backed me up.

Once it was all out, it was such a changing point in our R... That's why I didn't follow through with the polygraph(which he enthusiastically agreed to do). It was such a difference in his attitude and willingness to talk to me that I was confident he was finally being honest with me.

I hope that she decides to get honest w/you and actively participate in R.

Well, I finally called the Harley's and had my first session with Steve. I gave him the whole backstory and he advised me to stop pushing for details right now. Due to the distance, we can't rebuild the love very easily, and what I have been doing is putting more distance between us. He suggested that right now my wife probably feels hopeless and empty. That she doesn't believe I will ever forgive her or be able to get past the hurt.

I'm going to focus on just being positive and supporting of her for the remaining months of her deployment and then we can concentrate on counseling with the Harley's when she is back in the states. If this approach doesn't work, I'll know that I tried everything, but I am hopeful. Steve sounded very optimistic as well. He did not suggest that I would be better off moving to divorce since its a short marriage and we have no kids.

It would be great if she could find the time to call Steve just for a partial session, but it may not be possible to plan that given her schedule and restricted access to phones.

Honestly, I think the Harleys base whether or not a M should be saved on whether or not the people in the M WANT to save it. They may encourage ppl to try to save it MORE if they have children or a long history-- but IMHO, they don't encourage ppl NOT to try to save it, unless that is what the BS wants.

We have only been married a short time (3 years) and have no kids... and Jennifer never once suggested that our M wasn't worth saving because of that.

I also know of others on this board in the same boat... no kids, short M... and have also called the Harleys, and the Harleys (Jennifer again in this case) did not say that you should scrap the M.

Whether or not to attempt to recover the M should be based more on whether or not there's a member of the M WILLING to try to save it-- not on length of time together or whether or not they have kids. I sometimes think this board is WAY too fast to advise that people bail after an A if there's no kids or a short M. Sometimes the BS should bail just because the WS is an idiot... but that has nothing to do with the length of the M or whether or not kids are involved.

I think that some people on this board have taken this to an extreme, IMHO. I don't think even the Harleys would say "throw in the towel!" to a BS that has been married a short time with no kids-- unless that is what the BS wants.

JMHO.

E.

Dr. Harley has suggested just that(he stated in most cases with a young couple with no kids, short M, he suggests divorce). Obviously if someone wants to save their marriage though, they will help them.

Nobody suggested that to me.

IMO, you need to stop giving advice like this to people who have decided to recover. It's their decision, and you and Dr. Harley both need to respect it.

introvert, people come here to GET Dr Harleys advice. THAT IS WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR. Of course it is an individual decision to take it or not, but he does give that advice. And as far as I know, he does help those that decide not to divorce.

Nor will I stop giving that advice. It is good advice in most cases.

Agreed. I think that once a BS has decided to try to recover the M, the advice should center around that, unless regardless of M length or kids, the advice would be to leave (I've seen some ppl around here in plan A for far, far too long... or even plan B for too long, wihtout going to plan D...but that would be the advice for that BS, even if they had been married 30 years with 4 kids... to leave... to D....).

Jennifer, not once, said to me "well you have only been married 3 years, and you have no kids, are you SURE you want to do this?". She expressed hope for our M- and she was right. Things were still real bad when I first started talking with her, and I'm proud to say today that we are well on our way to recovering... and I have a lot more hope for us.

If this is true MEDC, I want to see one case where someone has called the Harleys and the Harleys said to a BS that wanted to save their M-- "don't bother, you are young and you don't have kids" (and the "don't bother" advice was SPECIFICALLY because of a short M or no kids, not because the WS was a total moron and the BS needed to get away, regardless of length of M or kids). It wasn't even IMPLIED. The idea wasn't "well we think you should D, but if you want to save your M, we'll help you"... the idea was "your M has a lot of hope, I think that we can get through this, the change has to come from you first... this is what you need to do...".

MEDC-- where does this come from? And why is this now 4 cases I know of ON THIS BOARD who have called the Harleys with a short M and no kids where it wasn't even implied that they should D? And I haven't been on this board THAT long, so there's gotta be more floating around here.

I just think it is highly oversimplified. I know we've debated this to death before-- but I think that this board is all about the Harley's method, and there's quite a few examples of Harley advice that goes directly against what is said here. In fact, Jennifer actually suggested I STOP posting here when I mentioned that I was getting conflicting advice a long time ago when things were bad (I was getting the "no kids, short M, then bail" speech from several here...)-- she said that sometimes when you get so much conflicting advice you end up all over the road and without a specific plan-- so to just follow her plan and to forget what was said here (or elsewhere for that matter). And these are THEIR BOARDS! So that pretty much acknowledges that sometimes the advice here is counterproductive.

E.

well, two questions Introvert...

what advice? I made a statement here based on Dr. H's own words.

what makes you think I care about what information you think I should give to other posters? I don't say that to be rude...it's just that some people make decisions to stay...because they don't see any other way. Some people decide to stay (and defend) abusers...I would be remiss to not suggest that they leave...even though their stated preference is to stay.

You offer your advice...and I will offer mine.

Ugh, I shouldn't have written that line into my post. I don't really want that sort of sidebar here.

I did throw it in there though because Dr. Harley has advised that before in certain cases, take BetrayedHubby75 for instance. Dr. Harley told him specifically, he would be better off walking away. In my case, after hearing my story he suggested no such thing, so I took some hope in that. He seemed to think it likely that my wife just feels hopeless that we will be able to get past it, so we developed a plan based on that. If it doesn't work and the marriage ends, I know I will be ok, but Im committed to trying every avenue of approach until there are none remaining.

I don't have a problem with that advice. I have a problem with how some of you seem to ignore that the BS isn't going to take that very advice, yet you still give it. It's counterproductive for people to say "short M, no kids, still young....Dr. Harley says to divorce", when the BS has already decided on trying to recover.

When the BS is trying to recover, and tell you that they have NOT been counselled by Steve or Jennifer to D, because of their young, no kids marriage....then what exactly are you guys doing besides making an already hard decision harder?

introvert, I don't give that advice - nor does Dr Harley to my knowledge - when a BS decides to stay in a childless marriage. Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, such as abuse or a brand new marriage.

Andrew, Dr Harley would have told you plainly if he thought you should get a divorce. Don't worry about it, just stick to your plans, friend.