Well, met with lawyer. Paid retainer. It is a sad day. I can't believe this is happening. My poor little guys.

I want to do this as amicably (least expensive) as possible. They're going to draw up some documents that I can take my wife through. Hopefully within the next week or two all the paperwork will be agreed upon and we can file for D.

Or maybe this will be the wake up call that rattles my wife back into the real world... NAH!

Doubt I'll expose on FB to OM's friends. Maybe I should do it just to spite him, but as far as doing it to save my marriage, I just don't think I care enough anymore..

Half mule exposure works half mule.

Maybe part of me only wants it to work half mule. Half of me just wants out. Why should WW be the only one to experience new found love? It's exciting. It's fun.

Staying together just seems like so much work. I'm tired and depressed.

I'm still young. Maybe it would just be better to do this now than 10 years from now when I have less hair and more wrinkles.

Your decision is your own, but you should consider your kids as well. At least for me I want to make sure I did EVERYTHING within my power to keep the family together.

Thank being said, I cannot continue on with a wayward who refusese to end the A. I have a time limit, but I'm not quite there yet.

Divorce is an option, but it will still be there for you down the road. Looks like you started Plan A in JAN.

Plan A in Jan.

More 180 now. Can't afford to move out and Plan B.

Feel like WW is just one of those people who has to hit rock bottom before she wakes up and realizes the damage she's done.

You can lead a horse to water...

Trust me, I know the feeling. I am starting to move towards a 180 as well.

Even though I am moving forward with a lawyer, part of me is hoping this wakes my wife up. It's still possible to save this marriage. But she's going to have to do a lot to make up for this mess. And the very first thing is NC for life.

Understand and agree!

TE,
One thing I don't read about is you "trying" is meeting her ENs. I read your entire thread and never did anything come up about what her ENs are and which ones you were missing.

I am also FBH so please don't think that I am sending you in to the fight because I want you see you in more pain. But if you can summon any strength for this your family and children and yes your WW need you right now. As the very famous Bob Pure has said on here this stuff is a Hero's gig and mostly it is thankless. But there is no better righteousness than to say you gave her and your family everything you could. And, if your strength has runout and you cannot be that hero anymore, thats ok too. Take care of self first, children. Let consequences fall on WW as they will anyway.

You are the only lighthouse in this storm. She is lost at sea without a rudder. Only you can guide her home. Lighthouses must withstand terrible storms but there are sunny days coming. Keep lighting up.

Steve Harley likened plan A to throwing rocks in a stream. For a long time you see no results as the rocks sink to the bottom. Finally one day the pile below the surface (love bank deposits) gets big enough to pierce the surface.

I would call on you to love her despite all this, love her no matter the results, love her with no expectations. I'm not saying you have to be Mr. Doormat but treat her like the great person she was whenever you can and make deposits in her love bank as much as you can. In a sophisticated way you can Plan A your spouse and Plan B your wayward wife when she is acting out.

Keep bringing your own truth to the table. "Your continued contact with OM is destroying our family and it feels like a knife in my stomach. Our children will never be the same." This is you sharing with her without LBing.

Don't try to teach or educate or convince her. As a trained salesman I can 99% tell you that nobody ever bought anything because they were convinced too. But you can ASK her like, "Spouse, if there was a program out there that could help us not just recover our marriage but to make it GREAT would you look at it? If she seems open at all ask her to read SAA book by Dr. Harley. It really helped my WW see that her A was very typical and caused her to realize that "soulmates" was a myth.

Let her know that you don't want your old marriage back, you want a better marriage with the help of MBers and the goal of becoming ONE.

See if she will take anti depressants. This helped my wife see clearly for the first time in months.

Don't attack her movie project. That will backfire. But instead say "Spouse I want to help you fulfill your dreams but I cannot support anything that involves OM. What other ideas can we come up with for you?"

Send OM an email point blank that says "I will do anything under the sun to save my marriage and family. Leave her alone." Tell everyone else too.

Exposure serves more than one purpose. Keep exposing anytime you learn of contact. For me exposure helped marshall forces beyond my realm. People I hardly knew would call me with support. I exposed to one of my clients. From then on she was a great supporter which I desperately needed.

Share your pain, hurt, and anger stuff with her nicely. Don't discuss affair. You want to create conditions of love by depositing in her love bank while avoiding withdrawals.

Keep working YOUR plan. Be a man with a plan. Dr. Harleys plan. I know how disempowering this feels because she is the one choosing to leave so get a plan and do it.

You must believe in your cause with more than everything you have. The only way I could achieve that was with God's help and the great people here on MBers.

{{{{{{TE}}}}}}} Hugs to you and your little ones. I shed a tear for them. Ditto for my highschool friends girls too. His spouse just can't honor her vows to love and cherish til death...Another casulty. (sniff)

Its just so culturally abhorrent how we can raise generation after generation of selfishness. Dr. Dobson where are you?

I think the main EN I was missing was Admiration. I've read some of OM's emails. They are filled with twisted admiration about how strong she is being through all this and how wonderful of a person she is.

I'm finding it very hard to admire her for what she has done and what she continues to do. So yeah, meeting that EN is tough right now. I simply don't feel that her lying and cheating is either strong or wonderful. He is simply bullsh*tting her and she is eating it up. It makes me sick.

I'm just not sure I believe in this cause anymore.

Big Picture, thank you very much for your post.

After reading it, it became clear to me that Admiration was indeed the EN I was not meeting for WW. Somehow it just never clicked with me how important that is to her. But now I get it.

So I just mustered up some strength and went upstairs and told her that she was the most amazing woman I ever met. I told her I thought she realized how wonderful I thought she was, and that reminding her of this was something that I would work on.

I also told her that I loved her, even through all this. And that I love the boys so much and that I don't want to lose them.

She said, "I know. I was scared last night when you told me about the lawyer and divorce and maybe we should put the brakes on that."

As I left the room, she had tears in her eyes and I could tell what I said really resonated with her.

This crazy roller coaster has more twists and turns...

TE,

CONGRATULATIONS. You just made your first love bank deposit! Now keep recognizing how low her balance is and do it again! POUR on the "meeting of emotional needs". Don't only meet one need, study them all and keep pouring it into her. Daily, hourly, give her little gifts, reminders of your love and life together, little notes of admiration. Search internet for romatic gestures and ideas. Court her like you did years ago. Woo her. Have fun with her. Talk intimately with her about her dreams hopes desires needs. Suggest fun dates together but don't expect anything.

I used to post a note by the coffee machine everyday. My FWW said that she was 80% won-over back to our marriage just from my ACT OF SERVICE (or domestic support in Harley speak) to make her coffee everyday (I don't drink it) despite the daily pain I was in and her fogspeak.

Your self confidence and certainty are the best things you can have to become attractive to her again. Stand tall and think about how proud you are of yourself that you can weather this storm.

Dr. Harley has 10 EN's where as Gary Chapman labels just 5 in his book 5 Languages of Love. They are physical touch, quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, and gifts. Get it quick and read it tonight. Its simple its easy. When you become armed with the knowledge in Dr. Harley's His Needs Her Needs and Gary Chapmans 5 Languages of Love you will see that getting your ww to fall back in love with you is almost scientific. Meet her needs, don't love bust, don't expect anything back.

She is not happy about her choices either and she knows it deep down and you saw that in her tears yesterday. The fog is just a coping mechanism used to justify her actions within herself. The fog allows her to deny reality and the consequences of her actions. You keep bringing realilty back to the table by sharing your gut wrenching revelations. Like "Spouse, I know I have failed at ______. How would it make you feel if I instead had done x y and z for you?" You need to reach through the fog with your laser beam lighthouse to the real wife that is hiding in there by connecting with her feelings. In women, feelings are everything. She is sick and you need to love her back to health with loving detachment. How?

Remember the phrase if you love something set it free. That is where you must be. You love her, she is free to do whatever she wants, but you will continue to love her without reservation through thick and thin just like your vows described. Keep on loving. Please note that these actions do not in any way keep you from working your plan on your timetables. Play offense and defense at the same time.

Let her know you do NOT want your old marriage back either, the marriage where you failed to meet her needs and she failed to meet your and you both failed at POJA. Instead you want a NEW marriage based new goals and new expert relationship knowledge.

Don't give this up because things look dark. Your wife is available to you daily and at certain times will be recepetive to your efforts. Make sure you do it without any expectations. Love her like the child of God that was sent to you to be your wife forever. Care for her well being despite all the bullcrap she is dishing out. Thats why men were NOT given the emotional capacity that women have. So we can stand up in the face of turmoil and be the rock, the lighthouse. Get off her rollercoaster. Simply do not buy that ticket.

TE,
Whether we like it or not or realized it or not when we got married (99% of us don't), upon taking the marriage vows we signed up to make our lives FOR our spouses. Honoring your vows to love and cherish her through thick and thin IS your life's work. Nothing else matters as much, not money, not dreams that go unfulfilled, not your kids, not your career. HER and your marriage. That is your singular purpose- to love her and forgive her first and foremost.

You can do this, we can help.

Wow! Big Picture, you certainly have a lot of spunk. Thank you for your insight, advice and energy. I love the lighthouse analogy.

WW and I have been joking via email quite a bit today, something we haven't done in several weeks. Tomorrow we meet with our MC again who is very smart and very pro-marriage. Not to mention, very expensive.

I feel like I meet her EN for financial and domestic support. The biggest thing I lack is telling her how much I admire her. I guess I just always presumed she understood my feelings. But, that's definitely where I went wrong. I'm sure of it now.

Went to MC session this morning. WW is still lying a bit about contacting OM. She says she reached out but he never wrote back, which I know is a lie.

But I do believe OM has essentially washed his hands of the sitch and for the most part does not write WW anymore.

WW says that she spoke to a lawyer last week and was scared about the child custody situation. WW says she does not want the boys to miss out on being with a full-time dad.

Seems like we could make this work, only I am still very angry and hurt. I have no trust in WW anymore. And there's also a lot of other women out there and I know that is selfish, but...

TE,

When are you going to tell her that NC is a requirement and that you KNOW she is lying to you? If you don't you are simply going to die a death by a thousand cuts.

JL

JL,

I've told her NC is a requirement. Many times. Our MC has also told her that. In fact we both told her that just this morning.

She's starting to get the picture, especially now that OM isn't returning her emails. Earlier this week our marriage was in a very dark place. Now it looks like there is once again hope.

We just gave each other a very emotional hug before going off to our separate rooms.

TE,
Be prepared for her bad attitude and general lack of enthusiasm for anthing to do with you and marriage and family. She is coming down from a huge high in the A. And she is looking at her marriage's past failures (regardless of who's fault) as the only future she can see.

Again please remember to not LBust. Make deposits whenever and however she will let you and emphasize by ASKING "If there is a proven program out there that can help us have a GREAT marriage, would you look at it with me?" If she is even mildly interested then begin very simply (don't bombard her) with something from Dr Harley like the questionnaires or a book HNHN or SAA or share the concept of love banks or ? Anything that gets her on board. You want a plan to fall in love remember. If you have nagging questions about the A then reserve a place and time with a time limit for that discussion.

You need to make yourself and house & home a safe place for her to land. If she is willing, talk with her about her feelings and thoughts but if she shares disgusting stuff like how much she misses OM (boo hoo) try to be nonplussed, calm, cool, thank her for sharing. Her ability to be open and honest will directly affect your ability to converse with her which for most women is a major love bank deposit. Talking releases good brain chemicals in women. Thats why when women get into a group they do nothing but talk talk talk. My wifes group didn't even play Bunco last time. VS men when they get together they watch the game, not much talking.