I did not understand EN's at all. Right or wrong, this led to my W having an A. Story here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2110791&fpart=2

My question is about the EN's and disconnect part of the situation. My W became TOTALLY disconnected. Like a switch was thrown, she totally wrote off our realtionship. I understand all the fog and spin and so on and I went through that.

I have been in PLAN A and it is going good...maybe too good. We are not nearly 100% connected. As I continue to be the H she should have had all these years, she has not been the W that she WAS all these years. She had met all my EN's and I was at about 1.5 of hers. The situation is now reversed. As time goes on, I feel like I am becoming disconnected from her and getting tired of it. I am afraid that bt the time she totally reconnects, I will have given up and be ready to refile for D.

Can anyone offer and insight on this? Happen to anyone else?

How about the basic facts of your wife's affair? Length, when d-day was etc.

I know I could trawl through your other thread but why not just make it easy for everyone and post some basic details here?

If d-day was recent, she may be in withdrawal.

No need to troll through my thread. Click the link and it opens right to the facts. Just read the first post.

You're right! I don't need to trawl through a single thing! Neither does anyone else!

Hasn't happened to me. I think your situation is still in early stage (June). You are expecting to much to soon. Recovery is a process and takes time. Have you both completed EN and Love Buster questionnaires? Look at how long it took for your Relationship to go astray. Things are not going to get fixed in a couple of months, especially if there is a lot of resentment built up.

Is she remorseful?
Has she admited to a PA?

Nope...zero remorse. I expected and hoped to see some remorse until I bought and read Surviving an Affair. Page 84. It really helped me accept the possibility of not seeing remorse. I thought I was OWED remorse. I now understand that it may never happen. I can live with that.


Nope...."they're just friends". If you read my story, there is no question about an EA and, for reasons stated in my story, I feel it was more. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say a PA never happened. Based on admissions, phone calls and text messages, there is no doubt it was an EA. She admitted having feelings for him but calls it a friendship.

Has she done the questionnaires here?

G

Have you asked her to take a polygraph?

Tell her that you think there was a full blown PA...ask her to take a poly...if she refuses, then you have your answer.

We did not sit down and fill out the paper but I read them direct from the book and her basic EN's pretty much match the top 5. We talked about EN's two days ago and I asked her if she felt like all of hers were being met. She said they were and she was pretty happy with that. I know I am meeting her needs and I understand that after years of not meeting them, it will take a while for her to believe the change in me is sincere.



No way. Pushing her at this point would be a big step backwards. I met with MC this morning and we discussed her A. As an example, earlier this week, W and I got onto the subject about another person we know who was involved in a full blown A. The second the subject came up, her mood changed to distant, disconnected and staring off into space. MC feels that she may be feeling very guilty about the A and have a very low opinion of herself about what she has done. In all the years I have known her, she always said the only valid reason for a D was an A. Knowing her like I do, I am sure this is killing her inside; to know that she has done the worst possible thing to her spouse that a person could do. To have done something that she herself has despised all her life.

I mentioned in a different thread that she is the kind of person who must have an emotional attachment for there to be sex. Her emotional attachment to me is not completely there so no SF for me. With SF being one of my needs and being totally absent at the present time, I think it is only a matter of time before the "emotional plug" is ripped from me and I start feeling nothing for her. That means there will be two people no longer willing to fight for our marriage.

I thought you have questions about whether the A progressed to a PA or not?

If you have these questions...you need answers or your wasting your time.

Maybe you are just scared of finding out the whole truth? I was too...but I needed my questions answered, either way.

I'm sure it was a PA.

When wives are secretly contacting other men there is invariably sex involved.

I would force the poly or the door.

But that's just me. I couldn't plan A an unremorseful wayward.

For me, it would be plan GTFO until you stop lying!

Poly or a$$ to the curb.

What is your religious affliation?

So when are you going to bring it up?
Six months from now? A year?
"Hon, I know things are going good and all, and we're recovering well, but... would you take a polygraph?"

Now is the best time in the world to bring it up.
YOU need to know the truth, for your own peace of mind.
SHE was potentially in a PA and may be carrying the guilt of that knowledge with her.

There is potentially a huge lie in the middle of your Recovery and it's got to be brought out and dealt with. Now. Not later. If she's lying then the truth can come out and the two of you can begin to rebuild on honesty. If she's telling the truth then you can relax and be free to work on Recovery, knowing there are no secrets.


Possibly just guilt from EA but possible guilt from knowing it was PA and she's hiding the truth from you. Fear that the truth will come out. Wanting to tell you but not knowing how. Fear she'll lose you.

You need honesty more than you need SF right now.

Have you both done the his and hers Lovebuster questionnaire before the EN? It seems like you've got lovebusters going on. Is she aware of the withdrawals she's making to your lovebank? It seems like you are carrying all the burden of R explaining the questionnairs to her instead of involving her. I don't think this is a good thing. Your enabling her to not have to participate fully in R. You need to expect more out of her in participating herself in the questionnaires and reading the articles. It was my H commitment to R that kept me around.

G

I can't say this is the case for you, but what you describe is exactly how my FWW was during our false recoveries.

It may be six months or a year. That's OK. Lifeschoice posted a great response to me in another thread. http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2118234 She started to reconect with her H and did not admit to the A until 8 months later. He had no idea there was even an A. As she reconnected, the guilt set it. I have a feeling that is what will happen here. We are pulling in closer and closer as each day passes.

If you read LC's post, she makes a great point. W needs to feel safe when she tells me. She viewed me as having an anger problem. I did not think I did but it is HER perception that matters. I would yell and slam a door on occasion. After reading about anger, I learned that things like that put fear into a W and make them feel unloved. I would have NEVER though that. I have never hit my wife so I never thought that would make her fearful. Unloved from slamming a door? No way! Again, her perception matters, not mine. So as of now, I have not been doing anything like that. No more anger. It was easy to turn off because it was not really anger to me...more like little venting which I do not need to do.

Now, between meeting her EN's (making her feel loved) and no anger (no more fear), she is starting to pull in closer. When she feels safe & secure, she will talk. We have been disconnecting over many years, slowly pulling apart. Now here I am, all of a sudden a new person, being the spouse she deserved and expected when we got married 17 years ago. She is suspicious of this "instant" change. I know it is real. I feel totally different. I have emotional feelings that I never had before. She needs to see this change over a period of time before she will believe it is real. She even asked if I was messing with her, trying to make her happy and then walking out on her. I understand the suspicion.

LC took 8 months from the first feeling of reconnection to admitting the A to her H. D-day for me was mid June. We then had 6 full weeks of massive LB's. We filed for D against each other, name calling, etc. Although my LB's were worse, within the hour, I knew I had made a mistake. I was the one still in love with her. All my EN's were always being met. I fought for dropping the D, going to counseling and making us work. Counseling started the 2nd week of July but LB's continued for a few weeks. The D was dropped the first week of August which is when the LB's totally stopped. I view that as our starting point of R.

I have kind of drifted off the topic of the possibility of my disconnecting while waiting for her. But I hope this explains why, at this time, I cannot just start demanding a polygraph. It may not be needed once she gets to the point where LC got. That was 8 months. We are still in the first month.

We read the EN's but did not do it in writing. I also just finished reading the LB Questionnaire. I don't think it is necessary to fill out. When reading it from my point, everything I would fill out about her was a zero. She did no LB's through our marriage. She always met all of my EN's. However, I know that if she were to fill it out, all of my numbers would be in the 4 - 6 range with the exception of dishonesty. I missed the EN's for years and was a LB. That's different now but she needs to see that change over time.

Jim,



Have you flat out told her the part I made bold? If not, do it. Even if you did already, do it again. Assure her that you don't want what you had before, hence the changes and how you would really like to change your marriage to something you both can love. Don't say anything about knowing she is suspicious, just talk about how great you feel now and how much you want to have a wonderful marriage with her, etc, etc.

If she acts suspicious of your efforts or even if she doesn't directly to you, mention these changes are coming about because of what you are learning in the books you have been reading, really seeing where things went wrong and how happy you are you found this helpful information before it was too late.

LC

Oh yea. I told her many times. One of those times is when she mentioned that she was afraid I was messing with her. She mentions not trusting this new "version" of me. I started the changes in early July. I keep a daily log of everything that goes on. It started out for legal reasons because she filed for D. Even with the D off, I still update it daily so I can review progress and it helps me clear my head.

I reviewed that log this week and she commented in the third week of July that I seem to have changed but she thought it would not last. That was 6 weeks ago but we have 10+ years of missed EN's that need to be overcome.