1st night:
She doesn't know if she want to spend the rest of her life with me. She says that its her not me, she says she doesn't want me to change, but that we are so different. She says we have nothing in common. I asked if she would go to counciling with me and she aggreed.
2nd day:
Within a few minutes in the counciling session the Dr. reported to my wife that she was having a mid-life crisis. He asked that we come up with things we had in common and rank them.
2nd week:
She had 5 to 7 things we had in common but was picking them apart because of how I behaved when we did them. I came up with 48 things and reduce them down to 28 for times sake, she agree with all but 1 of them.

Since I found out how my wife felt, i've backed way off to the point the she has most if not all of the power in our relationship. Although this is not healthy long term, I felt my options were limited. If she left I would have less than if she stayed in these conditions. I continually reminded her how much I love her, how wonderful she is, how important to me she is and that I really wanted to find a way to repair our relationship.

2 days ago:
She reported that she now thinks of me as a friend, telling me that she is shocked at this because she has never thought this way in our 19 yrs together. She say although this was nice, she wasn't sure it was a step in the right direction for our relationship stating that she couldn't feel romantically about a friend.

Yesterday:
She's disconnected from me, but polite. While smoking together she decides to listen to music vs a conversation with me. At night I lean over and give her a romantic kiss and stroke her back - she say that she continues to view me as a friend now and believes if she were to be romantic with me, it would destroy your friendship. I told her I dreamed of a day when we could be close friends and lovers.

Am I on the right track?

Welcome to Marriage Builders, WBIT...although I'm sorry for the circumstances which brought you here...glad you searched and found this board.

Have you checked thoroughly to determine your wife isn't having an affair? What she says and does really sounds like she is in one right now...

Emotional Affairs (EAs) don't have the phsyical component, and harm the marriage as much as PAs...please verify through checking on cell records, phone records, emails, posts, etc. that she is not emotionally involved with someone else.

Also, do the Emotional Needs (ENs) questionnaires on this website, and the Love Busters (LBs) ones while she is willing. She might not be shortly...and again, she will continue to seemingly reject you while she wallows in her entitlement, built up from resentment and lack of respect.

Find out your half of the marriage...for though you may be pretty good at making many love deposits, you may not see where just one LB withdraws 20 of them...leaving you increasingly in the red.

And remember all the great times throughout the 19 years...for she may be rewriting those times...you both fell in love with each other, attracted from being "opposites"...which now is a sore spot. That's normal...very common...don't despair.

Did your counselor ask both of you if you were in an affair right off the bat, looking each of you in the eye? EAs can be one-sided, someone holding onto a fantasy of a previous relationship person throughout their marriage, to block intimacy...definitely can precipitate a mid-life crisis...which is mostly about issues within ourselves we refuse to resolve enough times, we are brought to our proverbial knees...

and take down those we love most with us, to theirs...

If you're more concerned about power within the relationship, please consider why...because making your marriage, The Marriage, number one is another way to back off from making your wife want the marriage.

Stay present, radically honest, respectful and bring reality...you KNOW she loves you, has acted from love for many years...your choice what you believe, hence, your experience...

know also that when we STOP acting from love, we stop having loving feelings...so it really is about her choices, not about who you are...

mind what you do and don't do...see if where you act from resentment, fear or retaliation...or don't act. Mind your stuff, know it and share it with her. Act intimately in this way...maybe it's the intimacy blockers crumbling, finally...opening the way to the third stage of marriage...mature love...

or not. Find out. It's your job. Let us know if this marriage is your top priority. What YOU say, think, feel, etc.

Read Harley's works...about the four rules of marriage, the basic concepts, coping with infidelity...

and know you're not alone.

LA

Thank GOD you read my message!

I have asked if she was having an affair on the first not, she reported no, her father, her friend, my father all asked her the same thing which she reported that she was not. On that first night however she did say she'd thought about it.

Both of us have had affairs in the past, first her then me and in the aftermath we agreed that we'd never do this again to each other. She say she really does love me and wouldn't want to hurt me that way again, how she didn't she wouldn't, she said she would not like to.

LA, I was a real jerk often to my wife. Controlling, opinionated and over bearing, all because of my insecurities my the very begining in our relationship. I developed habits of dominating our conversations to prevent her from hurting me. I have apologized to her repeatedly over the last 3 weeks and have really been a different person with her. That what led to the "friends statement".

I dream of a future with this amazing woman.....

W

WBIT,

Seldom will someone who is involved in an affair admit that they are, especially in the case of a wife who might not have yet crossed the "line" she thinks makes an affair real, hasn't yet had sex with OM.

To many women an affair isn't at all about sex. It is about other Emotional Needs (ENs) getting met that have nothing to do with any sort of physical relationship. Since it isn't about sex they believe that they aren't cheating because they have not crossed that "line."

But if someone else is able to meet some of her ENs, whether she even realizes it or not, she will begin to develop feelings for that person and so will find herself addicted to the feelings she gets from him. Even then she will understand at some level that what she is doing is depriving her marriage and YOU of what is rightfully yours. In order to continue with what she is doing, even if it is still just a fantasy in her own mind, she will begin to make an unfair comparison between you and OM.

This comparison will be a list of the things she is missing in her relationship with you, the things about you that annoy her, the things you do wrong, the things you have neglected doing that she might suddenly find very important to her. She will also list all the wonderful things about OM that she envisions without ever really having to have a daily viable relationship with him.

OM will become her soul mate in her own thoughts and fantasies. You will become the one preventing her from having this fantasy relationship. All of this will be the way she will try to justify to herself continuing down the road she is on. Left unchecked, it will progress to the point where she will either admit to OM that she has feelings for him or her focus will shift to searching for that fantasy relationship with someone else if she thinks that OM is unavailable to her.

If your wife is not having an affair, not even an Emotional Affair (see Not Just Friends) she sounds like she is on the verge by virtue of being extremely vulnerable right now. Unless you can reverse this trend, your marriage is in serious trouble.

My recommendation is that you do some snooping into what she is doing when you are not together. You really can't discuss with her what she is or is not doing because if she is having an affair of any kind, she isn't likely to admit it and if you confront her and make her uncomfortable to be around you before you have proof she will probably just gaslight you into backing off from snooping all together. Try to check her emails, IM logs etc if possible. Also keep a sharp eye on the cellphone logs and look for a sudden increase in calls to one number or handful of numbers that did not appear before. If you can check the caller ID and other sources for the home phone, look at those as well. Be forewarned that if she is having an affair and she catches on to you snooping that she will be livid, will accused you of prying into her life, call you controlling, and say she needs to have privacy. She might also cut off your ability to snoop, so until you have something, you need to protect your sources.

Also be aware that you don't have to have iron-clad proof that will hold up in court. If she is having some kind of affair, she already knows that she is and you don't have to convince her though she will do all that she can to deny it. One of the biggest red flags can be that if you question her about some guy she is in contact with an inordinate amount of time she will answer that they are "JUST friends."

But whether or not she is having an affair, you still need to stop the slide before your relationship is broken so badly that recovery becomes much more difficult. I suggest that you go to the bookstore on this site (or seek other place to acquire) either two books; His Needs/Her Needs and Love Busters or if you would prefer to begin with just one book get Fall In Love /Stay In Love since it contains much of the information in the other two.

Be sure you have read all of the basic concepts and ask any questions if you have any.

Mark

Please listen to Mark...he's God-sent, undoubtedly...

and understand that to ask if someone is having an affair is crazy.

You remember having to lie to yourself very much to justify yours...and she had to self-deceive a lot to have hers...

so that pinkie-swearing you won't do that again because it hurt so much is MORE fantasy...

and it felt totally real and true at the time you said it.

You choose to love this woman and want to save your marriage.

You recognize a lot of what you have and have not done; your half of the marriage.

You realize how much healing, growing, knowing and understanding is yet to be done for you, her and The Marriage.

Then write your scores, sir. Write your boundaries...you hold yourself to honesty (which is how we don't have affairs, btw), so you verify facts...independently.

You hold yourself to respecting others are capable of truly horrible choices...so you comprehend she may or may not deceive you.

And you know how deeply wishful you are for not having done what you did...and for wanting her to not have done what she did...

knowing you cannot undo or change the past. Indelible.

Respect she is capable of great deceit, resentment, entitlement and lacks respect of herself, you and The Marriage.

And even then, she stayed married.

Also, consider the possibility that infidelity was more than you thought it was...that it wasn't an aberration, an oops, a revenge...it may possibly be a sick coping skill, a way to justify destroying what she loves most...to herself.

Consider it as a formula...entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect (MB member Gimble).

And that you both did not do real recovery...which takes new choices, seeing each other as new, every day, and new beliefs...so you have a new experience.

and that what you are experiencing right now...and what she is...could be the reinjury to rebreak the broken leg which didn't heal correctly...

not necessarily the end...

you don't know...

and your own code says honesty...so you cannot assume or DJ...because that's dishonest...and you realize you need to verify The Truth of actions independently of her truth...for she may believe it...self-deception is the darkest...it's the fog-generator...fueled by the formula above.

To ask is to legitimize and participate in the fraud. Don't do it.

And when you do something and realize you're abating the crime, stop. Own. Amend.

That's different. That's what you've been searching for.

LA

Okay I know you're not dumb enough to think that she would actually admit it if she were. That tells me that there is someone who is catching her attention, and she is playing the 'what if' game. You can do nothing productive until you install a keylogger on her computer and check her phone/text records.

If you do that, and find nothing, THEN work on eliminating Love Busters and meeting Emotional Needs. But don't waste your time until you have snooped.

That said, in the offside chance it IS just a MLC, your time is best spent discussing with her what she feels she missed out on in life with you, and determining how YOU can be in the picture that gives her this missed life.

Actually, it wouldn't be a waste of time at all to begin learning about her ENs and how to meet them, identify love busters and get rid of them from your life for good...

These are things that can turn a marriage around even if there IS an affair. If there is none they can work even better because you don't have to do them while having your guts ripped out by the one you love.


Please, WBIT, take the time to read the basic concepts and to learn how to identify her top Emotional Needs and how to stop any Love Busters that might be depleting her Love Bank. These are really things a husband should do for his wife anyway and at least by doing them you will making yourself a better husband whether you find anything or not.

If she has really just considered it at this point, making her love you more than ever can stop her from following through. And if she has begun an affair, emotional or physical, it will be doing these things that might be able to save your marriage.

Mark

Mark, you're right. It's never too early to improve yourself and your marriage. My bad.