I am new to Marriage Builders and am just learning a little about Dr. Harley's basic concepts. My wife and I both read His Needs Her Needs more than 15 years ago, but haven't read it since.

We had a major blow up and crisis in our marriage about 13 months ago and have been in counseling for about 7 months. It involved my wife emailing an ex behind my back. The conversation was not "adulterous" but some things were said by both of them that were inappropriate. I read all the emails and the fact they had a sexual relationship while dating and engaged made it tough for me to take. They had not spoken in 24 years.

This blew the lid off a sick marriage and a lot of garbage spewed out that should have been dealt with years ago. The ensuing war over this has been brutal. We do not believe in divorce, but the pain we have inflicted on each other has stretched that commitment to the breaking point many times. I have done stupid things like practically stalking her and compulsively wondering who she's talking to and emailing. This ordeal has uncovered a part of me I didn't think existed.

We have gone through 2 counselors and have an appointment with a 3rd next week. Our story is long and I won't get into it with this first post, but if anybody needs more details I will try to flesh out the story. I don't want to rehash and wallow in it. I've done enough of that already.

My MAIN QUESTION: Does the policy of Radical Honesty and the concept of avoiding Independent Behavior extend to a spouse's demand for personal privacy? Specifically, my wife demands that I have no right to access her private journals or writings without her permission. Recently, she had a tantrum over the fact that I copied some pages from a so-called journal from about 5 years ago. She had previously shown this exact journal to me several years ago. I said "So, you could be writing that you really still love your ex and wish you had married him and it's none of my business?" She said "That's right."

Also, she chafes at the idea of me knowing her email passwords and checking her cell phone records.

I don't want to be a snoop but considering what happened it's my position that she should be totally transparent. I am completely open with her and she can read anything of mine, including journals, emails, etc., without asking permission. I have nothing that I wouldn't want her to read.

I am looking for insight from those who know Dr. Harley's material thoroughly, but anyone else can chime in.

Thanks.

ottert these are all HUGE !!!!!!

If your wife has nothing to hide than she should not object to you having access to any of the above.

You should move this over to GQII for more help from the vets!!!

Still_Crazy

I appreciate the suggestion. I went over there to GQII and it looks like that's for people dealing with full-on adultery and affairs. I want to stay out of that for the time being because I am convinced there has not been literal adultery.

Are you saying this section gets little traffic, so I should move over there to get some responses?

I posted this a while ago in the Resolving Conflicts section, but a poster suggested I move it here so the "veterans" can have a go at it.

I resisted moving it to the Infidelity section because I don't believe I am a victim of full-on adultery or even a literal EA, but here goes:

I am new to Marriage Builders and am just learning a little about Dr. Harley's basic concepts. My wife and I both read His Needs Her Needs more than 15 years ago, but haven't read it since.

We had a major blow up and crisis in our marriage about 13 months ago and have been in counseling for about 7 months. It involved my wife emailing an ex behind my back. The conversation was not "adulterous" but some things were said by both of them that were inappropriate. I read all the emails and the fact they had a sexual relationship while dating and engaged 25+ years ago made witnessing this tough for me to take. Before this they had not spoken in 24 years.

Thankfully, there has been no further contact between them and my wife has promised there won't be.

This blew the lid off a sick marriage and a lot of garbage spewed out that should have been dealt with years ago. The ensuing war over this has been brutal. We do not believe in divorce, but the pain we have inflicted on each other has stretched that commitment to the breaking point many times. I have done stupid things like practically stalking her and compulsively wondering who she's talking to and emailing. This ordeal has uncovered a part of me I didn't think existed.

We have gone through 2 counselors and have an appointment with a 3rd next week. Our story is long and I won't get into it with this first post, but if anybody needs more details I will try to flesh out the story. I don't want to rehash and wallow in it. I've done enough of that already.

My MAIN QUESTION: Does the policy of Radical Honesty and the concept of avoiding Independent Behavior extend to a spouse's demand for personal privacy? Specifically, my wife demands that I have no right to access her private journals or writings without her permission. Recently, she had a tantrum over the fact that I copied some pages from a so-called journal from about 5 years ago. She had previously shown this exact journal to me several years ago. I said "So, you could be writing that you really still love your ex and wish you had married him and it's none of my business?" She said "That's right."

Also, she chafes at the idea of me knowing her email passwords and checking her cell phone records.

I don't want to be a snoop but considering what happened it's my position that she should be totally transparent. I am completely open with her and she can read anything of mine, including journals, emails, etc., without asking permission. I have nothing that I wouldn't want her to read.

I am looking for insight from those who know Dr. Harley's material thoroughly, but anyone else can chime in.

Thanks.

Unfortunately ottert what i am saying is that your wife already has had an affair. Even if she did not have anything physical with the OM she was talking to him behind your back and getting her needs met by someone other than you which is an emaotional affair (EA).

And you will get way more traffic there just be prepared for what you hear and REALLY LISTEN even though it will be hard to comprehend that someone you love could do this to you.

Please look at my response on your other thread in resolving conflict.

Well, I guess I have to eat my words about it not being adultery, because I said I didn't think it was adultery or an EA. But I have to be honest, I agree with you. The reason I said what I did is I really wanted to avoid going down into this pit again.

I spent the better part of this past year trying to convince my W that what she did WAS an emotional affair. She goes NUCLEAR any time I suggest it. This led to our marriage nearly ending because she has vehemently refused to acknowledge the true nature of what she did.

A little background: When I confronted her she said she had felt for our entire marriage that she should apologize to him for seeing/talking to me while she was still engaged and for the way she broke up with him. She said she had prayed for an opportunity to seek his forgiveness. I never knew any of this. When he emailed her at her work last year, she saw it as an answer to prayer. She did apologize in one of her emails, but they talked about a lot of other stuff. Her apology took up maybe 15-20% of her emails to him.

She sounded beside herself that they were talking "after all these years". I learned that she cried when she realized it was him emailing her. He called her the pet name he used when they were dating; she told him she still thinks of him and his parents; he told her that part of him still loves her and always will; when she told him she had prayed for a chance to apologize, she referenced the Dan Fogelberg song "Same Old Lang Syne" about two lovers having a chance reunion and spending hours together; she told him "now's your chance to say all the things you always wished you could" (she told me that she meant by this that he could finally chew her out, but he used it as permission to get way too affectionate).

They basically had a 4-day reunion, chit-chatting and catching up on each other's lives, etc. It was just wrong, plain and simple.

When I confronted her, she hatefully told me it was none of my business and that I couldn't tell her who to talk to. She said she would end their conversation "when I get good and ready." She has since somewhat apologized for saying all this, but has shown very little remorse or repentant attitude of heart.

Well do not listen to her, she is going to LIE to protect herself. No matter what she says it was an EA and may still be by the way she is acting.

I hope the vets stop by soon they are much better at helping you to make a plan than me.

There has been NC since her last email to him more than a year ago. I was there when she wrote it and she told him not to contact her again and that she would not be emailing him again. I believe her on this.

The problem I have is not in worrying that this contact with him is ongoing, but that she doesn't seem to understand the damage her betrayal did. She doesn't even think she did anything unfaithful since her "intent" was not to re-start a romantic relationship with him. This is one of the reasons she keeps insisting on her privacy. She thinks I should trust her because she says she wasn't unfaithful.

My contention is that insisting on privacy is a breeding ground for affairs and at the very least a lack of trust. We are totally at odds on this.

Any help on my original question about Independent Behavior and Radical Honesty? Anybody?

You are only going to continue down a destructive path with typical marriage counselors. Go straight to the Harley's for the assistance your marriage needs....

Call Marriage Builders and schedule an appointment for counseling.

LINK to COACHING CENTER

Her INTENTion doesn't line up with her actions. Her actions were betrayal regardless of intent.

Call the Harley's!

What if the counselor incorporates Dr. Harley's principles? The one we are going to next week uses Joe Beam's Dynamic Marriage 8-week course from Family Dynamics. On the Family Dynamics website, they endorse and sell 3 of Dr. Harley's books - "His Needs Her Needs", "Love Busters" and "Surviving an Affair".

So, indirectly at least, I would think our new counselor should be open to Dr. Harley's basic principles.

Trust is something that needs to be earned, not insisted upon.

For your (W?)W to earn your trust, she's got to act in a trustworthy manner. Instead, she's insisting that you trust her, even though she is NOT acting in a trustworthy manner.

Finally, your (W?)W is confusing privacy with secrecy IMO.



Hands up, all the FWWs here who did not initially INTEND to start a relationship with your OP.

Frankly, I don't believe your (W)W has ended contact because she still has the "mindset" of a WW, and a keylogger on her PC will likely confirm that.

My wife emailed an ex-boyfriend for a couple of years when she was unhappy with me. She vented about me to him, and he vented to her about his own wife. She came precariously close to an Emotional Affair - she developed some feelings for him, but she never told him how she felt, and she turned down his proposition to have an affair.

I discovered this by snooping. In the interests of Radical Honesty, after I was sure we were on the right track toward rebuilding our marriage, I admitted to her that I'd snooped.

Her response spoke volumes about her commitment to the marriage.

She was not angry. She never insisted on privacy, and never complained about my violating her privacy. She has never changed the password on her (formerly secret) email account, and has in fact asked me to go in there several times in the past four years. She has never opened a new secret email account. (I'm in IT, I've verified all this).

My wife does not consider herself to have had an EA, and says, as does yours, that her intent was just to have someone to talk to. Her actions, though, have told me that she is whole-heartedly committed to the marriage.

Your wife's actions tell otherwise, although she may not consciously realize it.

Why would you go indirectly when you can go DIRECT to the source?

Privacy is using the toilet with the door closed.

Secrecy is having hidden correspondence with former lovers.

Let your wife pee alone, suspect everything else!

ottert,

Hate to tell you, buddy, but your wife has already given her heart to this old flame. Quite possibly, more than her heart. She is acting full-out wayward.

The "privacy" cr@p is just that. Anyone with nothing to hide hides nothing. Period. All us BS's get the "privacy" garbage. When she says, "You're invading my privacy," a good comeback is, "No. I'm revealing your secrecy." That stopped my FWH's tirade dead in its tracks (although it didn't stop his affair...that took much more MB.)

Snoop until you find out exactly what's going on, and do NOT let her know your methods. All that will do is drive things further underground. Do NOT tell her about this web site or the advice you get here. Agree you should move this to GQII--much more traffic, and ergo, help. (Use Notify button at bottom of post and ask the mods to move it.)

Read, read, read up on Plan A, because that's what you need right now. Your wife has fallen out of love with you, and Plan A is designed to make you the man she fell in love with years ago. It will also improve YOU. (C'mon, you know you've gotten sloppy--we all did. And we're all dealing with affairs. NOT that it's our fault--our waywards are 100% to blame for that decision, but all of us contributed 50% to the vulnerable state our marriages were in.)

Get the books His Needs Her Needs and Love Busters, and maybe Surviving An Affair (available inexpensively on this site's bookstore) and get busy reading and learning. They will show you a lot you can do to be proactive in breaking up the affair and winning your wife back.

Come here to vent instead of raging at her. Love busting her will only make the OW more attractive. Hard, I know, but you must really work at being pleasant and respectful toward her. There is a lot you must do that will seem counter-intuitive to you, but trust us, the Marriage Builder plan is your best shot.

Stay with us. We'll help you protect your heart during this awful time.

Right Here Waiting

Does anybody here insist on having private diaries/journals?

Some people, like my wife, believe in this in a marriage. I don't. She says it's just a place to put her thoughts on paper and sort them out, not to hide anything from me.

I don't get it.

I keep a journal.

My FWW knows I keep a journal.

My FWW also knows that the journal may contain things she does not like.

I would not stop her from reading it, if she decided to do so.

If it's not to hide anything from you then why is she?

Suspect everything at this point.

Get a keylogger on the computer and a couple of digital voice recorders for her car and the house.

Unfortunately I suspect you will find out much more than you already know.