I agree with the whole enthusiastic agreement in negotiation. But, come on it only works that way if both people agree to enthusiastic agreement, and well how do you get that to happen?

My wife wants time away from me. I am fine with that. But I am not fine when 100% of her time away she is parting at bars and not coming home until wee hours of the night. I would love to negotiate, but she wont let it happen. If she want to spend time with real friends doing real things during regular hours I am ok with it! but she does not do that, and I am afraid to even ask cause she just gets pissed.

I would rather we were just together all the time, but I am willing to negotiate, but she is not.

My #1 need is truth/honesty and I dont think she is giving it to me.

I have no idea what to do, but every time she has a night away from me it takes me 2 days to build up my shield and get some confidence, but by then I have "ruined" our time together and now it is time for her to go out to get drunk at the bars again.

Have you snooped to see if she is hooking up with other men?

I know that she is hanging around a group of people mostly guys when she goes out. There have been a few stories of things that don't add up in my mind. I am not going to follow her around, but it is very possible that something is happening.

Do you want truth and honesty or do you want her to negotiate?

I ask this as either/or because she is crossing marital boundaries...the issue seems to you to be amount of Independent Behavior (IB...look under Love Busters) when in fact, it's unhealthy marital boundaries.

You want the truth, you get it. Not from her...you find it on your own. You snoop and check...you state here's what you're enthusiastic about...not her time away, where she has it...bars are out for you because drinking promotes dangerous behaviors.

You socialize together as a couple with other couples. No opposite-sex friends, hang-out buds...you do more get-togethers as a couple with other families...and have separate time with members of the same sex. If you don't have these relationships, 88, you develop them.

Follow the four rules of marriage...read up on this website...work on ascertaining the truth (an affair or not...even an EA); eliminating your LBs and meeting her ENs. Focus on this and choose to not do that which you will resent.

If you feel lied to, check out to see if you are lying, too...by omission...not sharing how difficult this is, if you're thinking of divorce...share your DJ that she refuses to negotiate...make sure you see your part...where you're focusing making her rather than protection marital boundaries.

I found when I set my goal for clarity, then I stopped feeling trapped...and when I craved honesty, I was least giving it to myself.

LA

Well right now I don't think I have truth/honesty nor has she negotiated. To be honest I would take either, but if I could only choose one I guess it would be to negotiate.

I am being honest with her. I tell her how it makes me feel when she does not answer my calls. I tell her why I feel the way i do. I tell her why her behavior does not work for me; what is a LB and what are EN's not being met (we have done both questionnaires). But she is not willing to negotiate on her time away.

All the things you say make sense to me, but if anything I just get told to deal with it - she needs time away from me; claiming the only thing that will work. She tells me if i cant handle it then we should separate. I am 100% against that.

That is not acceptable to me, but if we can't negotiate then we are screwed.

It takes me a couple days to get over the LBs she dishes out, and during that time I can not bring myself to fake it. I can't bring myself to work hard to meet her EN's.

How do I get her to negotiate if she is not willing to?

You hire a PI to follow her, you put a keylogger on her computer, you check her phone records, and you put a voice-activated recorder under the seat of her car so you can hear what's going on in her car.

You probably won't want to know, but you need to.

You then confront her with the evidence and put your foot down. Why on earth would you agree to her going out without you to bars in the first place? It has to stop.

Don't even waste time on negotiating anything until you get that solved.

I can pretty much guarantee that she will leave for sure if I did such things. She has her own EN/LB's and having her followed and then confronting her and telling her I just did that won't do our relationship any good.

If you base what you do on her possible response, then you have no place to negotiate. You've already decided to be married at all cost.

Which makes sense now why you crave her to negotiate--because you've chosen not to do so.

See, you asked for reasonable, healthy boundaries to IB...a healthy time limit on how late she stays out, and with whom...preventive protection for your marriage. Harley believes in extraordinary precautions...and they work. Don't tempt yourself with your choices.

She's not willing to do that. Okay. So the issue isn't about what she's doing...it's when/where and with whom. Get specific.

Three parts to marriage...there's you, her and The Marriage. What you are unwilling to do for her, you can do for The Marriage.

If you won't ascertain The Truth of her choices (you can wait to find out by contracting an incurable STD instead), because you believe she will then choose to leave the marriage, then you aren't respecting she's already left the marriage. She has broken her vows to honor, cherish, make her marriage her top priority. What you aren't seeing is that you, too are not honoring, cherishing, protecting the marriage.

A WS is in a wayward state of mind...full of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. Not who we met and fell in love with...like an alien abduction. Full of justifications, bad decisions and then justifying more those bad decisions and continuing to make them.

If it were reversed, and you were in the fog, would you want your dear wife to bring you reality in any way she could? See, the fog from the wayward state of mind is thick...reality isn't part of it...takes a lot of SELF-deception to generate and maintain it. Our real partners, our allies, work hard to break the fog...to state The Truth of our actions separate from our justifications, reasonings, excuses.

A deep act of love you won't do because you fear losing your marriage...and it's already lost in the sense that it's mutually shared as top priority...which means you, her and The Marriage come first. Her self-time comes before the marriage...she already is ready to blame you for the break up...which is fogspeak, and another red-flag to an affair.

You've shared how you're affected...have you also shared what you have learned? "You know, I can see now from our behaviors our marriage is now at great risk for an affair, either yours or mine. We aren't following the healthy rules of marriage, my LBs and yours are destroying our love banks right now. I think we're at high risk for divorce."

There's Plan A and Plan B...sounds to me like you've done quite a bit of Plan A except for verifying the truth, asking for support of your marriage or dealing honestly with your wife...you've looked at your LBs and eliminated them, is that correct? You've identified her ENs and strived now to be aware of meeting them...there's no counseling, no recommitment, though, to the marriage...so her affair with her IB, if you may, continues.

Still up to you to go to Plan B. You can respect she chooses to not be together...you can separate, go dark, give her the PBL for the roadmap to recover your marriage. You can hold yourself to this being you fighting for your marriage.

You can't do it if you're afraid she'll leave you. You can choose, with awareness, to stay as you are, and erode your love bank into a deep negative balance until you get to where separation is appealing.

What a way to live, though, eh? We urge you to discover the truth...because you're obviously fighting a wayward mind...we have the tools for that here...still, up to you to understand the extent, duration and object(s) of focus for your WW. Until you have seen the enemy, you cannot begin the battle, can you?

Don't go in the loop of not knowing, not wanting to know, not doing because she'll do this or not do that...you may be lying to yourself to make this her fault in some way...hey, you each have your parts, and you are both equal in power and have identical limits...even playing field. Make sure you really know what's going on so you know better how to proceed.

And if you choose not to, then own your choice. It's your life, your marriage...and know that whatever happens, this will repeat again and again in your life until you get your part. It's how it works...not as punishment...so we learn we are half of every relationship we have. We cannot choose the other half...can't make their choices...and what we crave we are most likely least giving.

LA

Amazing post. thank you. I have a lot of things to think about...

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Right now, you are just her sugar daddy anyway. You certainly aren't her husband.

You have to look at this in the perspective that she is cheating on you. Whether it's just to get drunk with the girls, or to flirt with guys, or an actual affair, she has already thrown you away. Because you let her.

Nothing is going to change until you man up. Sorry, but true.

What is your definition of "man up"?

You see her in the kitchen in the morning, you give her a hug and kiss and, holding her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes, say "Honey, before you leave, let's sit down for a minute. I need to talk."

Once you're sitting, you take her hand and say "Honey, I love you more than life itself. But the marriage we have right now is killing me and we need to do something. When a man and woman marry, it's because they want to be together. But I'm seeing more and more signals from you that you don't want to be together with me. Why else would you spend all your spare time in bars, with other men? I need to know what it is you're getting from doing that, so that I can learn to provide it for you. It's what I'm supposed to do - I'm your husband and I want to be the person who fills all your needs and grants all your wishes.

"I'm sure you have all kinds of rationalizations for what you're doing, but it can't continue. This isn't a marriage any more. Tell me what you think needs to happen."

Listen to her, unless she blows you off (at which point you refuse to accept the blowoff, and you continue to bring up the subject). Negotiate together so that you both get what you need, as long as it doesn't include other men.

If she tries to bully you, which she probably will since she thinks you're weak, THEN you stand up to her and start telling her what you can and cannot accept in a marriage. Do NOT let it die. This needs to be the hill you die on, because your marriage will never survive anyway with this behavior.

good advice, now I gotta man up and take it.

talked tonight and she agreed to negotiate. we are going to have the talk tomorrow night. I am not too optimistic we will be able to come to a spot in the middle. Will have to see how it goes.

I am having some negotiating troubles too.

The main thing to remember is that what she is doing is wrong to do in a marriage. And that you have just as much right to happiness as she does; she has been acting like as long as she gets to do what she wants, it's a great marriage. Well, that's not how it works. What is she giving for YOU? In other words, be firm and protect yourself, fight for your rights. Don't worry about making her mad; she's been using that to manipulate you so that you'll let her live a single life out of your fear of her leaving. You have GOT to let that go; she'll do what she wants. If she leaves over this, what kind of marriage did you have?

I think she is starting to realize all the destruction she is doing. Not only to me, to our marriage, but to herself as well. I won't get into too much details, but just being unhealthy with the drinking and whatnot coupled with tough times at work (she also goes to school).

We are going to talk this weekend, but right now she is staying with a friend and she is actually trying to figure things out in her head. I think that is good, and I believe her where she is tonight. I think this is the first time she has actually stopped to think about things, which is a step of some sort.

I told her that we have to negotiate and we have to come to some common ground, she can't continue to do destructive things to the marriage - without those basic need and boundaries met there is no reason to bother.

This is the first night she has not been home in a long time that I was not freaked out, worried, jealous, etc. I think that is good - i need that too.

I hope we are able to talk rationally and come to an agreement that we actually both agree to. If we can get past that, then I am looking forward to starting to work through the things that can actually build our love banks back up. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't but I am hoping we can at least get to the point where we can try.

You should print out the Love Busters questionnaire and have it ready for when she comes home. Tell her that you want her to tell you what YOU have been doing wrong, so you would like her to fill out the LB questionnaire (she tells you what she doesn't like about what you do), so that you can stop doing those things! How can she say no to that? It's not a contract to stay together, it's just a checklist of ways for you to try to make her happier.

Do yours, too, and if she's amenable, go ahead and give it to her to read, so she will get a picture of what she is doing to YOU.

That is the best first start. More later, but do that first.

We actually already did them (LB questionnaires). Although the default types of LBs are sorta off base for our issues. We did add a couple ourselves.

I think she knows what she is doing to me, she just has to make the decision to stop.