I am new to this forum, but have read a number of very informative posts. I have done a few searches for information on the reason I joined MB, but haven't found too much. If anyone knows of a similar circumstance and can direct me, I will appreciate if very much.

A bit about me first -- I have been married 25 years, have 3 adult children, and am generally very happy with choices I have made in life. No problems ever with kids, money, job, etc. My wife and I have been very successful managers of our family and raising kids. We rarely, if ever fight about anything. Disagreements, yes, but nothing serious. I consider my wife my best friend. Both of us have been completely faithful.

So, you are starting to wonder what the problem is? Well, as best as I can pinpoint, about 20 years ago (after 2nd child) my wife had less and less affection for me, in all ways. I attributed this to pressures of kids, job, etc. and put it in the background as much as possible. 12 years ago, after the kids were pretty self sufficient and efforts to gain a little affection failed miserably I made up my mind to accept this for the duration and separate 10 years later (that would have been 3 years ago), when 2 children were in college and on their own. That didn't happen as the pressures of paying for college and fairness to 3rd child made me put the separation aside and continue a rather lonely existance. Now that all 3 children are "launched", I find that this loneliness is gaining in significance for me and is a daily theme in my thoughts. I can name the dates and circumstances of the 3 times she has initiated any affection of any kind in the last 20 years, it was that significant to me. I am not kidding about knowing the dates. BTW, I pay close attention to hygene on all counts -- head to toe, and am in excellent physical shape. And most consider me at least fairly good looking (I think).

Well, there's more. And I'm not entirely proud of this, but it happened. I said completely faithful, but that's probably not true. From this forum I became acquainted with the idea "emotional affair". Probably I am guilty. Long story short, I had a high school sweet heart (now married, separated, and divorcing) that I never really completely got over. 10 years ago she sent me a friendly note of condolence (dealth in family) and we have been in sporatic contact ever since -- nothing but friendly notes. Last April it had been quite a few months since I had heard from her, so sent her a note. This is when I learned of her long separation for the first time. Our notes became longer and a little more personal. Due to travel, I was able to see her (lives many hours away from where I am) for a couple of hours this summer for the first time in over 25 years. We had a comfortable, enjoyable chat about life in general and old friends. Now we write to each other about once per week or so -- nothing racy or inappropriate, but not the sort of letters a spouse should discover either. This has made me remember how extremely happy I was once with someone who is very affectionate -- I had almost trained myself to ignore that, but the training has all been undone.

I have come to the conclusion that I may have missed my chance to live my life with a soulmate. Can a person really become affectionate after such a long pattern of not being? Is there a way that I can initiate this and be successful? I can't imagine a person can be encouraged to be affectionate. I have made several hints, but have never directly confronted my wife about it. I was afraid of the
likely response, which would probably have precipitated a separation many years ago when it really bothered me greatly. My kids and their security were more important to me than that, so I continued with my indirect but unsuccessful approach. I know this story is almost too much to be believed, but it's true. Any advice would be appreciated.

Well, you've got the soulmate fog going on, Lk...that's for sure.

Your EA has distorted your thinking quite a bit. The woman who as been your wife, by your side, thinking she'll leave you after the kids are grown and launched well...filling up with resentment, like you, is your wife of 25 years. She's your real life mate...and probably feels very much as you do...very disappointed in one EN you do not meet.

All you have to do is print out all of your emails to your OW and lay them out in front of your best friend, your wife...and say, "I'm going to be open and honest to try to save our marriage. I have lied to you for 25 years about my great need for Affection. I have been scorecarding all the rejection, notating the three times of affection. This is huge for me, lying by omission to you, not knowing I was destroying our marriage on my half.

Now I'm in an EA with someone I've made out to be heavily affectionate. I've made you the problem...if only I had regular, reliable, sincere affection from you, our marriage would be fabulous. I lied to you because I feared your response. I told myself you would have left the marriage many years ago if I had been honest. I decided to think for you, not know you as the capable person you are, my real partner in my life."

First, you must choose your goal...did you come here to save your marriage? Many end after so many years of lying...being taught by your behavior that affection wasn't your #1 EN because you were okay with not getting it as far as she knew...for every day she wasn't and you didn't say, and you said you were okay, reinforced her behavior.

And I bet her resentment told her to NOT touch you...I'm going to bet you haven't met her #1 EN of Openness and Honesty...very painful...how she creates resentment from it not being me--like the grime we build up that blocks our true loving feelings.

Hints are DJs...and half-lies...great for justifying fantasy, crushing reality. You've suffered very real pain for a very long time. You kept taking your indirect approach and expecting different results.

If you're choosing your marriage, then you must begin holding yourself to transparency, true intimacy, which is radical honesty...follow the four rules of marriage...tell her everything, share your stuff as your own...even your fears. Then listen to hers...don't defend or refute...listen to her to know her...for she is new today...unknown...soulmates usually are...

and never contact old OW again. Period. And if you choose to divorce, or your BW does over infidelity (you allowed another woman to meet your ENs...affection is physical, verbal, mental, emotional...and you compared this fantasy stranger (truly is stranger and would be until you'd lived with her for 25 years) to your real wife...then don't have any contact with OW until the divorce is final.

You betrayed yourself, your partner and your marriage by training yourself to not be honest, to not ask for what you wanted most from your wife...tons of pain in that. I believe your wife will be devastated at your duplicity and might even share her own.

Choose to save or divorce...you made yourself promises to do so and have lived for that...it's here. You get the choice to act from honesty and love first, though...instead of continue the deception. For your sake, please pick honesty and your marriage. Otherwise, you really can't look anyone in the eye and said you did everything you could. And you didn't let your wife...didn't give her the option.

LA

So, in reality, you've made the decision to be dishonest and sneaky.
If you think this is OK, then tell your wife.
She might want to search for her soul mate too.

Lk,

Reading your post broke my heart. It is the story of my marriage, with the roles reversed. I was your wife.

Like most of us here, my husband and I were unaware of most of the things Dr. Harley (who created this site, and the Marriage Builders program) calls the most important emotional needs. I needed my H to talk to me honestly, deeply...to tell me who he was and what he wanted. I told him that many times during our first 20 years, but he wouldn't do it, probably because I didn't know how important affection was to him. And he never said...he just decided that he'd married the wrong woman. And he came to hate me, for reasons I never knew.

We were both so lonely. I coped by throwing myself into the kids, my job and my friends. I would have preferred a deep, satisfying relationship with him. I suggested counseling. He refused every time, was already shut down. By his own admission later, he was quietly nursing his resentment and becoming colder and colder emotionally.

I figured this is just what happens in very long-term marriages, and adapted as best I could. We didn't fight, we just didn't enjoy love...

But all of that set the stage for him to have a full-blown affair after we'd been married for 37 years. Of course, he lied to me about it after I discovered it. I was traumatized and heartbroken. Couldn't eat, couldn't sleep for months, as he continued his affair for some time. How could he throw me away like that? I agonized.

I tell you this because my situation appears to be a mirror image of yours, with the exception that you have not yet physically betrayed your wife. I pray you don't make it worse by doing so, but it will most certainly happen if you don't man up and lay it all out on the table for your wife. LA is right when she says your wife is probably no happier than you are. She's just found other avenues of comfort (kids, job, family, friends) in an effort to adapt over the years to your withdrawal.

Based on how things worked out for us (and many couples on this forum) the best hope you have of building the marriage you've always wanted with your wife is to learn about the program Dr Harley created many years ago--and apply it to yourself. Before you create a greater hell than you've lived already for yourself, your wife and your grown kids, read the basic concepts linked to this site's home page and Dr. Harley's books His Needs Her Needs and Love Busters. Once you've done that, make a phone appointment with Steve Harley at
the MB counseling center. He can give you even more clarity about your situation than LovingAnyway just did, and help you build the marriage you and your wife deserve.

Or you can just follow your feelings, involve yourself more deeply with your high-school fantasy woman, and ultimately blow everyone's world apart, as so many here have done and will regret to their dying day.

The choice is yours, of course, but I hope you will learn from those of us who have experienced this torture. There IS another way...

Ouch. But much of what you say, although maybe a little harsh, is accurate and I think good advice. I wouldn't go so far as to say there is an OW -- just trying to explain where I am. I'll use the abbreviation of OW anyway. The story of the OW is a very complicated one, but that's not really the issue for me at the moment. I am gathering the courage to have a full disclosure dicussion with my wife and deal with the consequences. The most likely outcome I think is that she will either tell me she is gay or that she has no feelings for me. I really don't think she is capable of affection for people -- she has a hard time hugging her own children and her own family members. Even her own father remarked to me that she was an unaffectionate child.

Anyway, I chuckled at your comment that I have the "soulmate fog going on". Probably so. I won't take the approach that you suggest by laying all out about the "OW". That seems cruel, unnecessary, and very confrontational. I don't keep letters anyway. But, I do really appreciate your insights, your frankness, and the time you have taken. It helps.

Yes, I suppose a decision was made. But it was more of a drifting decision -- not a deliberate, single moment of decision making. My wife knows about "OW", but only historically and periodically disparages my "near miss". Kind of made it hard to mention the contact. I don't really think it is okay, but the point was that this is a point of reference for me of how happy I really could be, not that anything can possible come of it. It's not possible for many reasons. But, your point is well taken. I think this correspondence does cloud judgment. Thanks.

JustUss2 -- Thanks for your reply. I think you have been very encouraging to me. I just need to gather the courage to have this conversation. We've never been good at that -- conversations about feelings, needs, etc. I'm not on the verge of any sort of affair. Almost regret including the "OW" part now. What I was hoping to find out is if people who seem to be entirely unaffectionate can change. And can they change on their own? I don't want affection from someone who feels they have to be affectionate to maintain their security. It's like accepting an apology from a child that was forced by a parent to say it. It doesn't have meaning then. That's in part why I waited as long as I have, hoping the affection would come because it was really there, not because I complained about it. Thanks again.

Lk, thank you for responding to my post.

Affection is my #2 EN, so I'm pretty reactive about it. I tried to control that in my post to you.

"What I was hoping to find out is if people who seem to be entirely unaffectionate can change. And can they change on their own? I don't want affection from someone who feels they have to be affectionate to maintain their security. It's like accepting an apology from a child that was forced by a parent to say it. It doesn't have meaning then. That's in part why I waited as long as I have, hoping the affection would come because it was really there, not because I complained about it. Thanks again."

Actions follow feelings.

In conflict, my DH and I choose to reach out and touch the others' hand, and no, we DON'T feel like it at the moment...it's our physical affirmation that we do want to connect, that we choose to love...especially when we don't feel like it.

And when we do this, we feel loving feelings, even in high conflict. We are acting from our beliefs, not reacting to our feelings. It's what was missing from 15 years of our marriage.

You can force a child to act in ways they do not want to--their survival can depend on the parent.

You cannot force any adult to act in ways they do not CHOOSE to...their actual survival does not depend on you.

Your DJs harm you inside...part of that soulmate fog...because you've been assuming your BW for years. You say you guys do not connect intimately--talking about feelings, needs, etc. You don't have an intimate marriage, of truly being known (totality) and knowing (totality).

To know if your BW would change (everyone can, and you know that), would be to know why affection is difficult for her...to know if she feels actual pain from contact...or not...what her deep fears are, her beliefs...

and you don't know them.

I'm using "BW" because you said you know that to be honest about the communications (print out emails) would be cruel to your BW. That would be her call to read them or not. Your transparency is required of you...you can't make her read them. You can only offer an avenue of information.

Affection is a two way street...you cannot touch someone and NOT feel touched. It's part of the beauty of human connection. You denied yourself half of meeting your Affection EN...you cut yourself off and said it was from feared rejection.

What if you break apart your marriage, find someone affectionate, and then your top EN becomes FC or FS or DS? Conversation? What if your W expresses a lot of verbal affection through conversation, attention, listening? Then what? We tend to focus on what we lack, and then after we obsess, we lose all the rest of what we took for granted.

We were living in abundance and made our experience lack because of what we chose to focus on. To not address. To make our spouse into the problem...and we are left grieving, for years, our losses...especially of trust in ourselves when we realized how much we lied to ourselves, manipulated and distorted reality because of our own focus.

OW's are fantasy...they don't live with you, see all of you, your actions, reactions...you're great on paper, from your head...not real. You don't deal with the mundane, and your view of the marriage (which is one-sided) is all that is expressed. So is OW's about hers...not real, treated as reality.

Which is why those fantasy relationships end. They aren't real. And you usually lose (like experiencing grandchildren together, retirement, etc.) everything and then realize that it wasn't real at all. Remorse and regret are really tough to deal with...especially when you hate yourself for falling for your self-deception.

Your real wife has provided you with real security, family commitment, domestic support, financial security, creating your nucleus family. For you guys to have gone this long serving your self-images instead of real selves blows my mind. You each negotiated this unhealthy balance and worked hard to maintain it. I can see where your EN for Affection would violate it...break it to bits...because for your BW, that might very well be too intimate for her.

Would you call the Harleys for the best advice on what to do? Telling them you do not do radical honesty? I'm perplexed here and I'm sorry.

Just as she's your real wife...so too have you been her real partner. Until you began maintaining a relationship with another woman behind her back. You weren't honest, and no, your BW doesn't know you compare her lack to this OW's abundance...that you have OW in your head as your possible soulmate and who you should have been with...nor do your children.

Do you really believe what's in your mind, what your focus is on, does not show in your actions, your choices? Reflect in your mood and non-verbal communication?

Why are your ENs complaints? Why would you expect your BW to be able to mind-read your ENs, and you, hers? Confrontation is STILL connection...we connect through conflict...and grow intimately...you don't want that, it seems. Not worth it? I don't understand that...because the bravest of men are those who are honest.

Good men do evil when they stand by and do nothing. Not unnecessary, not cruel (the acts you took in talking to this OW behind your marriage was cruel, not the informing part), and yes, confrontational.

I believe marriages are worth fighting for...not fighting you or BW...fighting for The Marriage.

Conflict avoidance ends marriages more often than anything else...because it bars connection, employs deception...and I don't think you're the only CA here...I believe your BW is as well. CA is about control, not love. Not acts of kindness for a spouse...it's used to control their response through limiting information...precludes real connection. It's fantasy and many wayward spouses are conflict avoiders.

What I'm thoroughly impressed with in your first post is how you did not create and maintain resentment for other things your BW did and didn't do in the marriage...you stayed focused on the one EN (seems to me), while negotiating well in all the other ENs...especially parenting. I believe you were well-invested in your partnership and loved how you knew best...

do you want to know how to love better and do better? Feel more loved by your real wife?

LA

LA -- Thank you again for all your very direct thoughts. You think and view things much differently than I do, but that is what I am discovering is so helpful about this forum. Another perspective on anything is the best -- I have been working on that. I need to think over what you have said and decipher all the abbreviations -- some aren't listed so I am guessing. Some response though --

"To know if your BW would change (everyone can, and you know that), would be to know why affection is difficult for her...to know if she feels actual pain from contact...or not...what her deep fears are, her beliefs...and you don't know them."

I am not sure she can change, but you are right, I don't really know. Now that the other aspects of life are moving on, I need to risk knowing.

"Affection is a two way street...you cannot touch someone and NOT feel touched. It's part of the beauty of human connection. You denied yourself half of meeting your Affection EN...you cut yourself off and said it was from feared rejection."

That's my point. I am very affectionate. But I have gotten nothing in return from my wife. It is always one way. Sometimes I give up for a few weeks. You'd think there would be a reaction to that, but nothing. Apparently you can touch someone and not feel touched.

"What if you break apart your marriage, find someone affectionate, and then your top EN becomes FC or FS or DS? Conversation? What if your W expresses a lot of verbal affection through conversation, attention, listening? Then what? We tend to focus on what we lack, and then after we obsess, we lose all the rest of what we took for granted."

Not sure what the FS, DS is, but notion -- giving up the good after focusing on one thing -- that is what has kept me in the game this long. I am very happy with everything about my life. Well a million dollars might help (hah, hah!), but really, I am very lucky. I didn't want to gamble everything on a more intimiate human connection and then mess up the rest. And I fear, by confronting this, that could happen anyway. My wife is fun. We like the same things. We do a lot of stuff together, some separate. She's a great mother. She just won't touch me!

"Conflict avoidance ends marriages more often than anything else...because it bars connection, employs deception...and I don't think you're the only CA here...I believe your BW is as well. CA is about control, not love. Not acts of kindness for a spouse...it's used to control their response through limiting information...precludes real connection. It's fantasy and many wayward spouses are conflict avoiders."

Maybe you are right. I am a big conflict avoider. I know that. Not sure what CA is, though. Cheating [censored]? Just kidding. As I have been saying, this can't go on, so the only route is some conflict.

Just to clarify, You continue to maybe make too much of the "OW". As I said, she is firmly rooted hundreds of miles away and I am firmly rooted where I am. The reason I even included that part of my post is that recalling a past relationship more vividly made me realize again what I have missed and what I need. That's it. The "OW" is no fantasy -- I knew her intimately for 6 years, so I know all the mundane along with the good about her. And she knows little about my wife and nothing about our relationship -- none of her business and she doesn't ask. I don't know the reasons for "OW's" marital problems or ask either, just that she was very unhappy. Anyway, thought I'd try to clarify that a little as I don't want it to be in the way.

Thanks again. I really appreciate the obvious time you have put into responding to a complete stranger. It may seem like I am sitting on the fence and doing nothing, but I've been sick (feeling better) and now all children are in the house, so no privacy.....
LKB

Thank you for reading my responses, Lk...considering them.

FS - Financial Security (one of the ENs Dr. Harley mentions)
DS - Domestic Support (another EN)

My BW and OW references are because I do believe you had/have an Emotional Affair (EA)...as long as you have contact, it continues.

Did you sit down with your spouse and tell her about the emails? Say that you're considering the possibility of this other woman (OW) being your soulmate? Needing affection and considering leaving the marriage for someone who would happily meet that EN?

I say this because you focus on affection, again, when Openness and Honesty are sorely missing...may mean neither you nor your wife have this EN. I can't imagine. Part of Affection is acceptance of who you really are...and without O&H, that's just a guess, isn't it?

You don't know if your equal partner, your wife, can change? That belief means you don't know if you can change...and because of it, I'm not sure what you're doing on a marriage building board. Because if change is based on "can" instead "will" or "choice", if it's a condition (some have it, some don't), then you're sunk, aren't you? Would that justify you leaving your marriage, if she can't change?

You already set her up to fail meeting your Affection EN...because you said you would block her acts of affection, not allow those deposits to get into your love bank, if she didn't feel like being affectionate and acted that way.

What if the way for her to become actively affectionate, until it's habitual, nearly natural, is to act and then feel afterwards? Touch you to affirm she's with you, wants to meet your ENs, even if she doesn't feel like it? Then you really get out the door, don't you, given your restrictions?

How honest are you really with yourself? Did you feel stunned that you have no idea as to why your wife isn't affectionate, doesn't crave it, if she can stand your touch (or if it was an LB Love Buster for her, robbing deposits you made out of her love bank) or not?

What risk is there in knowing your wife? Knowing her for who she is, her stuff, right now? Do you both have this contract to not know one another? To not get too close, be truly partners in intimacy, or one will leave the other?

My point about physical affection is when you touch something, you feel it...her skin touches you. She allowed you to give her physical affection...and no, that's not what you're going for...didn't want you DISCOUNTING (which I hear you doing a lot) what she does DO.

When we focus on a single EN, this happens...reality gets distorted...through distorted perception. Looking at the whole, pulling back your focus, can actually lessen your desperation quite a bit, if you allow it...adjusting your lens to really see the whole...and not through fear (fear of risk or loss)...and not to compensate, adjust, cope.

Every time you tell yourself "I've gotten nothing in return" you're at the level of a four-year-old. Nothing...isn't real or specific. Again, I asked about the verbal and non-verbal affection, separate from the physical you're focused on.

Be more specific for your talk...you want to be reached for, touched, lightly, non-sexually and sexually...you want silent acceptance and reassurance, to feel desired and leaned on literally...fill in your blanks here...these are what I remember...as my DH's top EN is Affection, and mine.

Would you consider that your belief Affection is only one way helps to starve you and your marriage? The very act of affection gives you feelings as a result...however, choosing to believe it's one way is giving you that experience...draining, taking, giving with NOTHING in return...when in reality, you're not getting what you want, when you want it, in the way you want it.

Lots of hidden conditions. I'm not solving your issue by getting you to acknowledge that affection is a two way street inherently...you may well keep your love bank going with your own acts of affection and now what it to thrive, overflow, with getting her to meet your EN for affection. Would you consider you've lasted this long without this primary EN not being met BECAUSE in part it is, though not to the level you would like or is reasonably healthy in general?

Her choice to not act from affection is important. Worth knowing...just as your need for it is worth her knowing. When you say affection, are you including SF (sexual fulfillment) or has that been met reasonably well through your marriage?

Hand in hand with focusing on lack, is the secret goal of getting your spouse to change...one obsession feeds the other in a loop which is hard to break...so you doing to get her to do...or you stop doing to get her to notice, comment, become aware...is constant self-betrayal and deception.

Stating what you're doing, why you're doing it...that's intimacy...being known part. Stating you're acting affectionate to get her to react affectionately is required. Making her into a mind-reader, basing your intimacy on assumptions isn't real nor really respectful.


Are you speaking about gambling with your wife by stating your focus on this one EN, ranking it, telling her of your pain, perceiving her non-acts as rejection? Do you believe if you did, told her of your struggle, your daily resentment, that she would cut you off from recreational intimacy? From conversation, family commitment (FC)?

I'd like to understand what you risk, what you feel is would be gambling...

lol to your CA ideas...Conflict Avoider (CA)...and you nailed it above where some conflict avoidance is prudent...like anything else, too much does as much harm as too little of it.

Respectful conflict IS connecting...know this when you reveal to her what you did and with whom and answer all her questions.

(Distance doesn't matter, Lk, when it comes to written verbal affection to someone not your wife.)

If you had to vividly recall the past to notice you're not getting what you want right now...and if you had not recalled the past vividly, you would not be as focused on what you lack...

Because you did that you changed your want...you deepened your discontent...and again, might be a good thing had you instantly been honest with your wife as to what you were doing and why, how you were reliving old emotions with old girl, and now you have deepened need of physical affection (and don't rewrite your marital history making it your top EN never being met...that one way street). See, you took truth to an extreme...both lack of it (not informing as you went along about what you were sharing with a woman outside your marriage) and too much...hear your wife's marital history, how she views it...to get more balanced.

I get you didn't get why I called OW "fantasy"...you knew her 6 years over 30 years ago? Then you don't know her...she's not real...your wife really is...I don't know how to phrase that...unless you believe people really don't change...even contrary to seeing your wife, yourself, your kids...everyone change over time...then this can't be possible. The OW doesn't know you know you intimately today...you can shortcut all you want to believing you know each other now, intimately, via email...and you don't.

And I would bet that million dollars (if I had it) that if you really got to know OW today, abandon your marriage...within one year she would be VERY MUCH like your wife.

My own personal guess...

You allowed the past to give you great dissatisfaction to your present, more than before, and old girl as the vehicle to that...great to know you didn't share intimate stuff about yourself, your marriage or your wife with her, nor listen to her share about her marriage, her husband, herself, either.

Because that's how we break our vows.

And as long as you would have said the same things to old girl with your wife standing there as you typed, then you're in the clear of an EA. No secrets or lying by omission.

Since you now feel this lack intensely, tell your wife. Leave the house, share it during your 15 hours of Undivided Attention (UA) this week. Yes, even with the holidays, do it. It's important. There's no risk...this is your wife. Her goal is your happiness, contentment...she's your true partner in this life.

Sorry about your bout of illness. I didn't think you were doing nothing--I didn't know. Have you thought about what top EN she may have that you haven't met?

LA