dang Bubbles,
That makes perfect sense!!

I am trying to force myself love a woman whose character I do not like or disliked from the very beginning. No wonder my heart is not moved in anyway with her attempts to R. My heart is so callus towards her.

My heart is so callus towards her

Correction..callus from accepting love or affection from her..

@Crusade7,

While I understand the desire to say that you never liked your spouse, I think it's worthwhile to mention that Dr. Harley's program builds love in a marriage regardless of history, reasons for marrying, and more. If your goal is to build romantic love so that you can have a happy marriage, whether or not you really liked her before is irrelevant. You can fall in love again and enjoy the heck out of each other if you and your spouse both follow the Four Rules for a Successful Marriage.

Crusade,

Ok, I am going to be really blunt with you. Cat is right women often lose respect for men who don't act like men. What the heck does that mean? It means within their cultural expectations they may expect men to be kind, loving, and supply financial support, but they don't want competition in the housework department.

You have painted yourself into an interesting corner, and you are the one holding the bucket and the paint brush not your W.

You say her family will disown her. You say it will bring shame on her. You say she understood the consequences and still did it. And then you say Well DUH!

You also said she did not treat you with respect or kindness or love BEFORE the affair. While I don't exactly know what culture you are talking about, you said Asian, I will tell you I don't know of a single culture where her behavior would be accepted, tolerated or without shame. Do YOU??

You did not answer my previous questions and based on what you have said she has no plan to protect you, the marriage, JUST HERSELF. She is doing this so she does not endure the consequences of her actions and YET, she is not healing you. She is not seeing what she has done as something really bad, other than the consequences. And that is the point isn't it???

People who only act if there are strong consequences are not people who act out of love, kindness, respect for themselves or their spouse. A test of ones character is what they will do when no one is watching.

You don't like her character, why would you force yourself to love it? You don't respect her approach to life, why would you love it?

Crusade, your excuse that your culture makes this hard is just that an excuse. You need to man up and decide what is acceptable in your life and what is not. So far you are the one without boundaries not your W.

Oh and in case you are wondering, I AM telling you to divorce her...until and unless she starts to act out of love and not fear. That starts with her telling her family or you telling her family what she has done. She might be mad if you do, but will she still want to stay with you if you do? You see if her family knows, then the fear of exposure is gone. The leverage is gone. She now faces her consequences and then you will see what her decisions are like.

Your children need to know how to address this stuff. You mentioned her father having affairs and her mother putting up with it, I believe. No matter who, if that is the case, then are you surprised that the lesson she learned is that it is alright to do this? What lesson do you want to teach your children??? How do you want them to act when they grow up? Do you want them to think that their mother's morals are just fine??

What may well be best for this family is a strong dose of honesty.

Please think about it.

God Bless,

JL

JL,

I appreciate you being frank.

I have made the decision awhile ago to try work on this M becasue it was the wise thing to do. Now, a year later, I doubt I can go on like this becasue my heart is not engaging to everything she is doing right. Should I just make the decision to activly wait it out in trying to trust my W with my heart and life or should I just quit now becuase the damage has been done. I say activly waiting becuase during this time we are trying to meet each other's EN, counsiling, Accountabliltiy.


What steps has she made? I like to believe she has been open book. She has given me all her passwords, phone records and I have not doubt she is in contact with the OM for over a year. The last day she had contact with OM was the day after he left telling him to NC. She has been in counsiling. She has been nurturing. She has been trying to be much more plesant to be around. She has been trying to change the her selfish ways.

Can you explain on what steps she needs to show to protect our marriage and me? The only thing she has not done is tell her family.

Thanks

JL,

I also don't know what I want from my W anymore. I been self sufficent all this time that I didn't need to go to her for EN. What can she offer me now?
Love? I lived it without it for so long I don't know how to accept it anymore. I won't be truly happy unless I am willing to tust someone with my needs, wants, fears and dreams...I don;t know if my FWW can offer that anymore or if I want to accept that from her.

The wise thing would be to suck it up and continue in the marriage and try to be truly happy. This would require the most effort, riskiest venture and possibly the most rewarding.
But if am not able to allow my FWW to love me than D is the only other option. This D option is the scariest becasue of the the unknown.

I really do appreciate everyone's wise counsel and patience in helping me sort this through.

If I understand correctly, it takes most marriages around 2 years to fully recover. I'd hold off on planning for any drastic changes until then.

Typically, resentment is triggered when your spouse treats you in a way that reminds you of the affair. Have the two of you thoroughly analyzed what Love Busters you're engaging in toward one another? What about evaluating how well you are meeting one another's most important emotional needs?

I 2nd what JL said and CRusade it is very hard to live with someone you don't trust anymore.

Please be careful with your decision and the future of your childrens lives. I don't know if it would be posible for me to get over what you have been thru but even so, the trust would probably never return. Do you want to trust her with your life? With your childrens lives?

I understand we need to forgive and move on when our children make bad choices but this is supposed to
be an adult. If my late wife,(who had affairs with both drugs and OM), had done someone in my house, I would have freaked as well as been crushed. She knew the differance between right and wrong and chose to do wrong but outside the house.

We are really alone and we can only hope we pick good friends that will not waver. If you decide to end your marriage with her it would not mean that you didn't love her. It seem to me she only cares if she gets in trouble, not that she is hurting anyone.

I just got off the phone with my mom and asked her if should she blame me for leaving my FWW.
All I heard was to "stay for the kids"," You will ruining their lives", "you had the choice when this first happened but you chose to try and work it out", "it was partially your fault for allowing someone to live with you"..

If I decide to D I won't even have the freakin support of family..

Your mom is dead wrong. You have no part in her decision to cheat.
Look, it sounds like she has been a poor excuse as a partner for a long time.
Why not give her the chance to work the MB program. See if she has what it takes to be a decent, loving spouse.
If she is unwilling to make the effort, you have your answer. The kids will be alright, probably better off not witnessing a loveless marriage.

Thanks Z...Just pretty bumbed. Getting that response from your own mother is a huge blow.

You don't need their effing support.

If you decide to D, and they won't support you whether they agree with you or not, then they weren't much of a family to begin with.

Staying for the kids is dumb.

Crusade,

As you said you made the decision to try and work it out. You are a year into this, which as Barnboy points out is a tough place to be. However, you have also said many things that I think need to be addressed by you.

I am on your case and blunt because I think you are lying to yourself and to your W. You cannot make a good decision until you face the reality of your situation. You apparently not articulating to your W what you are saying to us, and I would strongly recommend counseling where you can express what you have to us. Your marriage has little chance unless and until you can address the following things.

Is she trying or is she succeeding?? If she is trying but not succeeding, you need to tell her this.

She could offer what she has never offered before, love, care, protection, and friendship. That is what she could offer. Do you absolutely need them? Not like air, food, water, but they would make your life nice. On the other hand, what she has given you so far you DEFINETLY don't need. You don't need lies, you don't need cheating, you don't need disrespect, you don't need an enemy.

Have you told her or a counselor this? If not you should. Step one she has to be able to offer it, step two you need to be able to accept it, but frankly you won't be able to accept it until you feel safe. You don't now.

I don't know if our counsel and most particularly mine is wise or not. But, I think you are again confusing yourself. It would not be a wise thing to suck it up, if you feell and act like you are now. Your children would learn a terrible lesson.

What good could come of this? Let's consider that for a moment. If your W actually changed and became a loving and trustworthy woman, and you grow and can be the husband she needs as well, then the kids learn: forgiveness, they learn to keep trying, they learn that people can change and learn from their mistakes, they learn that love can be rebuilt, etc.
If your W really does not change much, they learn what a miserable marriage really is. They learn that cheating has no punishment/consequences, just as your WW did. They learn that marriage is supposed to be a life sentence to misery. They learn that people in marriages are unhappy. They learn many things and most of them are negative. You and your W need to discuss this.

First, you don't know if you will or will not have support from your family. That is an assumption that you don't have data for. Your mom (don't you just love them?) is thinking of the kids first. but she is wrong about you ruining their lives, it is your W. I presume she knows about your W's affair. Just because you tried and are trying to save the marriage doesn't mean that the fault of its dissolution shifts to being yours. You are not at fault for her affair. You are not at fault if you cannot rebuild what was destroyed. It is not your fault that your W cannot "make up" for what she has done, both before the affair, during the affair and even after the affair. Somethings get broken and they cannot be fixed, although the information and approaches on this site give you the best chance for that.

Crusade, you are busy avoiding the big issues and they are not what your Mom thinks, they are not what her inlaws think, and they really are not tied to protecting your children as you will protect them as best you can. The issue is you and your W, and ultimately what is best for the children. She has not set a good example for what a marriage is or should be. Staying and enforcing this example is not best for your children. Divorcing is also not good for kids in general. The only win-win is from big changes in your W and you healing. That is what you two need to be focusing on.

God Bless,
JL

Mr Crusade, think about this. Your MOTHER has probably had a lot of influence on your life. Even now, she calls the shots as to weather you will leave your wife or stay.

NOW, your wife has had influence on you as you cooked, cleaned and asked very little of her in the marriage.

Do you see a similarity?

If you knew what a woman should and could be like (loving, giving, caring, warm, hard working, contributing, non cheating) then you would be amazed.

These nice woman ARE NOT LIKE YOUR MOTHER
These nice woman ARE NOT LIKE YOUR WIFE

You have perhaps NOT experianced these great women in your life YET.

Look at your mother, observe your wife. See where you have been controlled by these woman. All your life.

Here's a little blurb from my situation that may help you.
My XWW was never affectionate or supportive or very nice to me. This was true pretty much from early in in the marriage, but I wanted the relationship to work out so badly, I hung in and kept trying.
Toward the end of our marriage, with the cheating in place, but unknown to me, she got even more abusive. She did something that hurt me incredibly and, eventually, after trying to suck it up for a long time, I went to her and told her how badly she had hurt me(this was before discovering her cheating and was something else, entirely).
Her response was very telling. She just looked at me like i was a bug and said " I don't care at all how you feel."

I realted this to my therapist, who I began seeing after the affair and after she moved out to be with the OM. He said to me " Zelmo, for once she was telling you the truth."

See, I had been in denial a very long time, thinking if I could just do things differently, come up with the right formula or avoid doing whatever it was(pretty much everything) that was pissing her off, things would improve.
It's hard to be objective about oneself. But, I am pretty sure that just about everyone that knows me IRL thinks pretty highly of me. I have a lot of friends and am like by just about all the lawyers and judges I deal with. But, my XWW really disliked me and made it apparent from shortly after we got married. Up to that point, she seeemed to really like me. It was like a light switch was flipped after enmenshment.

So, take a good hard look and try to be honest. Even if there had been no infidelity , did she act lovingly toward you. It sounds like you were starving for a long time. This won't change unless she gets a lot of help for her brokeness.

For once I agree with Zelmo. Why not follow one of the Harley's recommended courses to restore your love together?

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi9000_courses.html

To follow the home-study course using the 3 books costs less than $50 from amazon.com. FWW and I read from them once a week, one chapter each time. The conversations we had surrounding the discussion questions initially felt very awkward, but now I look forward and relish those opportunities to have very frank discussions about our relationship... and then spend the rest of the week just enjoying one another's company.

All sound advice Crusade. You are not teaching your children the most important thing they can ever learn.
You must SHOW them that love is an action. You must SHOW them that love is not just a chore, its a decision to act fearlessly to stand up for truth. You must SHOW them that you demand respect for YOUR actions of love.

I stayed in a marriage that had so many problems because I also felt that it would be better for my children. My children saw the good side of my wife and watched her degrade into an emotional disaster because of denial. In my case I tried to help her and forgave over and over untill so much time went by the issues that effected my wife wore me down and I lost my own self-respect. It WILL wear you down Crusade. You are only human. You WILL lose perspective and respect for yourself and the respect of others

Now I have no carreer, broke, disabled and am trying to salvage my life. I will be OK but I would not have to settle for OK if I had let God deal with my wifes problems. What I realize now is that I would have been better off letting her die in the streets with her stubborness. God was allways there for her it was her mental issues that HE wanted to help her with.

You need help understanding what mercy is sir, You are not her saviour, You are tainted with some misconception that you can fix this without allowing her to feel the consequences for her actions. You will probably end up alone and if you keep taking the blame, People, including your children, will let you take it. They are allways looking for a scapegoat.

Do you really think you can bear all the sins of your wife? I will tell you that you cannot and you are not respecting her OR loving her if you try. You can only do your part and trust God to do his part.

Listen to JL, You both need to work on your own stuff Crusade. Its NEVER hopeless but you have to live in reality. You are hurting and confused. You need time to process your feelings. You absolutly need counselling for yourself and then when you are balanced, only then, will you be able to decide if WW is willing and ABLE to work on recovery.

Don't be the whipping boy, you have been duped into thinking that is love.

JL,

The honest truth is I don't want the M. I been trying to fight it so much to make myself believe that I should for the sake of everybody but in my heart I don't. I gave up long time ago trying to encourage be W into a mature , loving woman and what I got back was junk.
I didn't deserve any of the stuff that happened. Sortitout mentioned something that hit home. I have this Savior complex that I want to help everyone I meet and is in need not because I want anything back but I truely want to help them to get better.
I can't tell you how many people we have taken in our home since our & year marriage to help people out even when it may have been a inconveinence for us. I feel like a true act of love is to sacrifice how I feel and save my wife from the consequences she needs to face and in doing so hoping the action would bring out a true desire in me to R this M. I feel like such a failure in all of this becasue I am not able to fight through the A and fight for this M.

My two cents: you can't control her. She can't control you. But what you can do is express these feelings in a constructive way that gives a chance to your marriage.

Ultimately you're not feeling the love because the two of you aren't following the Four Rules for a Successful Marriage, and most likely she needs to step up her efforts for you to have a chance.

1. The rule of Care: Meet your spouse's most important emotional needs.
2. The rule of Protection: Avoid being the cause of your spouse's unhappiness.
3. The rule of Time: Spend your most enjoyable moments together (at least 15 hours per week; for a marriage nearing divorce, more like 20-35 hours per week is Dr. Harley's typical recommendation)
4. The rule of Honesty: Be radically honest about yourself with your spouse.

What's missing? What aren't you receiving from your spouse?

Barnboy,
I am still hurt, angry and very resentful. The A most likely would still have been going on under my own house if not by chance that I woke up to check on my wife.
Those on the board who have witnessed their WS A said they tried but M eventually failed.
Please please give me a example of someone who witnessed their WS's A with a friend, someone my kids called uncle, in their own home and gotten past the images and R their M.

The motivation for her change is becasue of fear and not of love. The motivation I stay is becasue of fear for the damage to the kids and not of love.