She told me that she wanted to work on our M because it was the right thing to do and she wants to keep our family together. She just doesn't believe that she can feel anything for me again.

She is still set on the fact that she doesn't feel any passion towards me and that we have nothing in common.

She had a long talk with her Aunt on Saturday night. Her Aunt went through a similiar time in her life when her kids were young. This was after we had talked so it wasn't a factor in her deciding to work on our M. From what WW said I think the conversation helped her look at our M.

OK, if she seems remorseful and wants to try, are you willing to give your Plan A another shot?

Have you identified what your LBers were? I thought I had ID'd all of mine and after counseling with the Harleys, I found out I was DJ'ing all over the place.

Do you know what ENs you were not meeting? It seems like a running theme here is RC for those w/kids. Can you get a sitter and get out a couple nights a week?

Our MC told us to go to a bar where we could sit side by side(less intimidating than sitting face to face when trying to R), get food and drinks and just relax and talk and try to reconnect and that seemed to work out really great for us...

How do you feel you met your W's EN for conversation pre-A? I found this was an area I needed to work on as well...

Keep your eyes wide open for contact as these improvements won't make much difference if she is still out pursuing OM.

Both of our parents are willing and able to watch our girls for us any time we need. We have already talked with them about that. A couple weeks ago we went out to a bar and had supper and then just hung out for a while. We played trivia and just talked for a couple hours. It was nice but again she wasn't trully all there.

I know I have soem LB's left. I had some the other day when we talked about money. I have gotten better but this is the one issue that I really need to watch myself when it comes up.

I have mentioned to her about taking the EN questionaire here. She is open to it. We did one with our MC but didn't get into enough. I know what her top EN's are, but I want to do this together so we can talk about it afterwards. Is this a bad idea now? I don't think it is but you may have a different opinion.

Before the A I was not meeting her need for conversation or any of her needs very well at all.

I would say:
Call the Harleys. It is worth the money. Put it on a credit card if need be.

Your WW is remorseful, wants to feel something for you but just doesn't, has agreed to NC, then that is the best way for you to be proactive in saving your M...they are the experts at helping spouses learn what is required to keep the feeling of love in a M.

I also think your WW's attitude after your coaching session would also give you some good information as to how commited she is at trying to R...

One on my wife's biggest needs is to be complimented. She wants to be told she looks good. I have known about this need forever. I neglected this need and others during our M, which contributed to getting us here. For the past 8 months I have been doing my best to meet her EN's. There has been a lot of lying on her part during this time. Now that we have gotten to the point of her saying she wants to work on our M, she isn't very receptive to me trying to meet her EN's.

An example, this morning I sent her a text message telling her how sexy she looked this morning. She responds with "ok?". I know she is hesitant to believe that my actions are genuine at this time. She thinks I am doing it because I have to.

Is this normal for her to not be responsive to me now? We are getting along good and I haven't found any evidence of OM.

You are likely currently being seen as an impediment to her "happiness". She's likely not going to appreciate comments like that from you at this time, and she may think that there's an ulterior motive involved.

She does think that I only say those things because I want something. We went over this with our MC.

Do I keep meeting this need? Even when I tell her she looks nice when she gets ready she thinks I have reason for saying it other than to tell her how I feel and make her feel good.

NoName,

This is my impression of what you've told us about your WW.

I think you have a problem with "respect" ... your WW has little to no respect for you, and as such isn't really interested in your opinions, especially about her.

Somewhere along the line, you are going to have to stand up for yourself. It would be my advice to look into the 180 ... it has a lot of the same details of Plan A, but with an IMPORTANT twist, in that it re-establishes you as a seperate person who is ready to move on with his life, either with or without his WW. It will make you feel MUCH better about yourself, and it will send a very STRONG message to your WW that you are prepared to move on. It basically shifts your focus from your WW to YOU.

Read up on it and see if it could be for you. Admittedly, its not for every BH, because it will take a strong "WILL" to change yourself and for you to let loose of those ingrained needy, clingy tendancies.

I will take a look a the 180. I saw it in another post awhile back, I will look it up.

When wife's friend was going throuh this she kept telling me that her friend didn't have any respect for her H anymore. She said her friend wanted him to stand up for himself. Since my wife and her friend have followed very similar paths I probably should have figured this out on my own.

I will read up.

I have found the 180 and read it a couple times. Now I have some questions.

Since she has said that she wants to try and work on our M is the 180 a good idea?

We talked about scheduling a date night each week. Should I not push this now?

By doing the 180 I am going to make myself more distant from her to show her I am able to move on without her. I can do this but is it a good idea now? I'm afraid that if I become more distant she will feel that we are back where we were before the EA.

I started my bowling league last night so I will now be out of the house one night a week. I can find some other things to do to keep myself busy, I don't have a problem with that.

I am willing to give this a try if you guys think it is a good move. I understand the respect thing. I really need to make myself a stronger person through this. I suppose this will do it. But should I do it if she is willing to "try"?

NoName,

This part of our story may be somewhat similar. I was not getting the affection, admiration, SF that I wanted from FogFree pre-A. I am ashamed of myself for it, but I started being a needy, clingy, begging wienie, when it came to my interactions with FogFree.

Finding out about her A JOLTED me into action. I started pouring over every bit of information that I could, and I came upon my own personal "revelation" (hence my username) from one of the corniest places. You remember that old Serenity Prayer ... the one that starts:


God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

... and in that INSTANT something clicked in my head. I saw myself for the weak husband that I had become, and I immediately reconnected with my former confidence after "MY REVELATION".

You see, I realized I couldn't change what had happened, but by d@mned, I wasn't going to live the rest of my life as anyone's DOORMAT. I found the courage, which was always within me, to change that bad behavior for the much stronger and attractive behavior that reconnected with FogFree.

I can still remember vividly the day I came home as the new and improved (actually it was the old MyRev) version of myself, and FogFree's reaction to me was nearly as immediate. She had fallen in love originally with that guy with the swagger and confidence ... and was repulsed by the needy, clingy, begging wienie I had become.

She now found herself back in the presence of her HUSBAND, and she responded as my WIFE. As with all of us in R, we have had our ups and downs, but we have never had to deal with either of us acting outside of our roles in our M again.

Something drew your WW to you originally, and I'd say its time to reconnect with whatever qualities those were.

If you think it would be helpful to better understand your WW's perspective, I will ask FogFree this evening to post about her perceptions of our situation and how it may be beneficial to you to reconnect with your WW.

I have to say that you pretty much described me before her A. Since then I have for the most part given up on the SF but I still crave the affection that she used to show.

I haven't focused as much on who I used to be as much as I have what we had together. I guess I should make myself the man she fell in love with rather than dwelling on what we used to have. I guess that is why everybody tells me to take care of myself and show her I am independent.


I would be interested to read that. I think it would help for me to see that perspective.

When you compliment how sexy she looks do you think she thinks that you're doing it so it will lead to SF? If so she will be suspicious of your motives.

What about "That _________ color looks good on you". Or "I love how your smile lights up a room" or those kinds of things? Would she be receptive to that?

She takes it as I'm looking for SF. When I make other comments like that shirt looks nice or any other compliment, she usually assumes I'm doing it for a reason. She just doesn't take it as genuine. This is an area that I severely neglected in the past. Because of this I can understand why she is leery of believing it will last.

Come to think about it she is more receptive to other compliments. I told her this weekend when she put on a new pair of workout shorts that they looked nice. She did accept that one. Maybe I should try to tone it down a bit.

In my prior marriage I always felt like my husband wanted me only for sex. I would venture that he told me I was sexy at least once a day- however I always thought he wanted SF and that was the only reason he told me that. That is why I questioned it.

Personally I would have prefered to hear "You're a good mom" or a simple thank you for something I did for him or the kids but he wouldn't know that because he wouldn't take or read the EN's questionaire from this site.

That's just me however not saying it would work with your WW.

Of course she is going to question your motives and the things you do because she thinks you're just doing it to get her to stay. Show her that the change is permanent by sticking with it and she may come along and believe you.

I know she thinks I say it in order to get SF from her. She wants me to compliment her, this is her biggest EN. She wants to be admired. I will find another way to do it.

I am planning on keeping the changes I've made in myself up. Hopefully she will see them as genuine. In the meantime I am going to start working on myself and getting back to who I used to be.

My wife is emailing a female friend today. They are now starting to talk about us. Here is what she wrote.


Nothing to new with us. I'm still trying to decide what to do with my life. Everyday is a struggle. One day I say I'm gonna work and save this marriage and the next day I'm like I can't do this anymore. This has been going on for a year and I just don't know what the right this is to do anymore............

I don't know why she is still undecided since she told me on Saturday that she wanted to work on our M.

This is expected, considering your situation. Your WW is still letting her feelings decide for her what she wants.

Does that friend know about your W's wayward behaviour?

NN,

I am the FWW of MyRev. He asked me to read your thread and asked if I could maybe somehow give you some perspective--I'll do my best!

[/quote]

I haven't focused as much on who I used to be as much as I have what we had together. I guess I should make myself the man she fell in love with rather than dwelling on what we used to have. I guess that is why everybody tells me to take care of myself and show her I am independent.

[/quote]

PLEASE--re-read that entire paragraph AGAIN AND AGAIN! She DID fall in love with you once--what were you like then? I'll bet you were fun, confident,a good conversationalist, etc. What do you think happened Pre-A to make you change? Did you just get in a rut, get complacent, or even have a major life upheaval?

In our situation, we got in a rut and basically stopped "dating". It wasn't intentional, but we would find ourselves just sitting around in the evenings, not doing anything other than complaining what was on TV (when some basketball game wasn't on!!) and sharing a cocktail and b1tching about our day. A couple of years ago, MyRev started having AO's regularly. Granted, they weren't really directed at me, but I was the one who got to witness and experience them. I would try to talk to him about them, but wasn't really getting anywhere. (I was and still sometimes am the ultimate conflict avoider--how I wish I had found this site 2 years ago!!) So it got to the point where I would just detach myself from him when these AO's happened. Instead of just confronting him like I should have, I just let him rant about something, while I would withdraw into my shell. I didn't even realize how much I had EMOTIONALLY distanced myself from him until after my A. After his blowups (from which he usually did recover quickly and would move on), he would then try to gain my attention, and ask for affection, not realizing that watching these AO's was a turn-off for me, and the more I would withdraw, the more he would demand/ask for attention/affection/SF. Get my drift?? It became a vicious circle. His neediness was NOT attractive--where was my confident, cocky, independent MR???

Post A, MR had his revelation. I could sense an IMMEDIATE change in him that evening--I was seeing the guy that I had fallen in love with all of those years ago!! He had a gleam in his eye, the swagger was back, the confidence was there--all of the things that I found and still find super sexy!! It makes me sick to this day that it took the horrible thing that I did to change him this way. I hurt him like no one else has ever hurt him--and that is something that I have to live with for the rest of my life. I am so blessed that he has chosen to stay and work on our marriage--which I must say is a darned good one! We are still recovering, and have ups and downs, but the ups are much more frequent than the downs. We now know what EN's are, LB's, etc., and we are taking extraordinary CARE with our marriage now.

Sorry for the ramble, but when I think of things to say, I have to get them out! I don't post here often, but read every other day or so.

NN--my main point is this--become again the guy that she fell in love with. Think hard--what was he like? How have you changed? What can you do differently now? You can only change you--no one else. And please--I am in NO WAY blaming you for her affair. She has to take complete and utter responsibility for that. Once that is done and she is committed to recovery, you are only responsible for your half of the marriage--she is responsible for the other half. If she is committed, I GUARANTEE you that if you act with confidence, independence, and a purpose in life, she will notice!! Stand up for yourself and your marriage. Take it from a woman--no man is attractive that whines, acts wishy-washy, or begs for attention. Stand tall, act with confidence, act happy (even if you're not all of the time!), and actually BECOME the man that can and will make it and be a better person--with or without her.

As for your compliments of her--sounds like you need to tone them down--she is having a hard time adjusting to the "new you". She may very well think you are just doing this for SF. Break her in gently with these compliments, don't give them TOO often and she'll come to expect and appreciate them in the future!!

Best of luck, NN! I hope that something that I have said helps you in some small way.

Yes this friend does know everything about our M.