She was incorrect in this particular case. This is very rare occurence but one that is not completely unheard of.

DJ. You lose. Go back and study your Marriage Builders basic concepts again, please sir:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3000_intro.html

Mr JK,

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make your wife THRILLED to have you as her husband.

Are you in?

Are you sure?

What's in it for you?

Happy wife = happy life

You have become a source of PAIN and frustration for your wife.

Read about love busters.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3400_lovebust.html

If some habit of yours makes her UNhappy, it is something you should avoid doing.
Forever.

Are you in?

And once you know what makes her UNhappy, you do not need it RE-explained, right?

Are you in ?

First and foremost I hurt JK severely. This has caused a great deal of anger in me towards myself. Not only do I not want cause JK pain, I don't want to be a person that is capable of actions that cause her pain, be it deliberately or inadvertantly.

Secondly, this is a boundary for JK that we've previously discussed and a bad habit that I'd thought had been successfully banished.

Finally, I failed to protect JK by failing to keep my own vulnerabilities secure.

MrJK:

Glad you here.

Means that you really DO want to make a change.

There are many parallels between your M sitch, and mine.

Here is my original thread about Dday: Curtains for LG

That discovery day was in Aug 2005. I have fixed much about my marriage. I am not done yet, but I have come a long way.

Maybe you don't like to reveal much about yourself. And its tough to reveal yourself on the web for everyone to see. And you have to type this crazy stuff out. Its ok. Try your best.

If someone told you that you had to write 47 pages of information about your life, or your child was going to die, I'm sure you could come up with 47 pages of useful information ASAP.

Your sitch is that desperate.

Seriously.

There are times I thought over the years that JK was going to have a successful M, but then would come another post about you being a lunkhead. Not a "droll" lunkhead. Just a lunkhead.

Would you rather be perfect all the time? I'm sure you would be, but that is tough to do, and even harder to manage to actually get THERE.

Life isn't about perfect, its about what is possible, and trying every day to get it right.

JK posted her most recent thread about you "leering" at another woman in the garden section.

You provided your side:

It sounds, from your description, extraordinarily innocent. This "woman" was doing her shopping, and you happened to look, then you moved the cart and looked again.... And she happened to be in the next aisle at checkout, so you looked again. Sounds like it happened to be something that was there, like the cans of peas at the end of the aisle.

Unfortunately, the can of peas was squeezed into a short skirt and occupied your attention from the garden section to check-out, till you left the store.

You may think that "what's wrong with that?" Everything. I like to look at pretty women TOO. I have a big picture window on my office, and it looks out on the town square, so I can get eye fulls if I want. I close the blinds.... Because I can gawk. And until I was exposed to MB, I didn't know what these types of behaviors were doing to my darling Flamingo.

Flamingo has self-esteem issues. Parents who never told her of her siblings that she was good enough, or beautiful, etc.
A weight problem. A husband who looks at other women constantly.

And then that H goes and has an affair. Much like you.

So, do you think I was building her up? Do you think I was supporting HER? Do you think her self-esteem went into the green, or the red, after that?

And then to continue doing it, ALL THE TIME, after you start into recovery? Who attracts your attention?

NOT your WIFE! Who you already have tried to replace with your neighbor...

But you tell your WIFE that it didn't mean anything, and that it over, and that your WIFE is the important one.

So, when you get the chance, and you think no one is looking, your gawk at other, attractive woman, to the extent that you wife could have put a stop watch on you.

And you wonder WHY she withholds affection.

SHE doesn't get that look from you.

And SHE knows it.

And no matter WHAT she does, she isn't going to get that LOOK. And your marriage is toast, until you can understand, and correct that.

Dr Harley DOES have the answer. He tells you HOW to do this. JK notes that you two have read the books, done the counselling, and even went to the weekend. Your the only couple on this DB that has gone to the MB weekend, and DOESN'T have a better, more thriving marriage. And there have been MANY over the years.

So, the only thing that it comes down to is your reluctance to actually CHANGE your behaviors and CREATE a marriage that can be something to be proud of.

And a big one is to understand that "looking" can be hurtful. Its an action that goes beyond just the look. Because then you start thinking about what is behind the dress, then what might happen if she looks over, and then maybe, you can get her to engage in a covo, and then maybe, just maybe.......

It has already happened. You deny that you will allow it to happen again, but the reality is that you really haven't.
Maybe in the past, the likelyhood of you having and A was 30%, and you had an A. Now, you believe since you have "precautions" and maybe you are protected to 75%, that you will NOT have another A. But that final 25% is very evident. And JK knows this, even though you don't. 75% there is a passing grade, but it fails your marriage. You have to get to 100%. And learning the behavior of not staring down the "PYT,s" is a good first step.

And it is tough to do. You have 40 years of looking. It is a behavior that will take concentrated effort on your part to change. But it is the first step.

The next step will be learning to look at JK to be THE ONE.

Flamingo is to me. Wasn't that way for the first 15 years of marriage. She knew it. Now, I can't wait to see her at lunch time, and at home, and any other time.

She worked on the weight problem, and continues doing so.
She redid her hair, and actually blow drys it every morning, just for ME.
She bought better looking clothing, and got rid of the "sweats" around the house.

Understand, Physical Attractivness is high on my EN scale. Flamingo responded to that once she learned about it. But I have been changing my behaviors to address my lack of meeting her Domestic Support and Family Committment needs. And she can't wait to see me either.

I kicked the last little bit of self-esteem out from underneath Flamingo when I had my A. Its a LONG road back. But I have worked hard to help her recover, and to build her self-esteem.

Everytime I "linger" in a look at another woman, I am rekindling in Flamingo the paths that allowed me to have an A. I am no longer the NEW LG, I am just the old WH.

And that terrifies her.

So, I changed my behaviors. I close the curtains. I look at Flamingo, and I look away intentionally. I stop drinking in the world with my eyes.

Behaviors.

I am not asking you to grow a third arm, I am asking you to change your behaviors. And you can do that. If your were a Marine, your learned some new things when you went to Basic Training. THIS is your new boot camp.

LG

Mr JK ~

Right now you are the source of your wife's greatest unhappiness. This is your biggest problem right now and you should be focusing on NOTHING ELSE other than eliminating this.

Unless you want to be divorced, which I don't think you do.

I really do think you need to figure out WHY you continue doing things that make her unhappy.

She has been through enough, don't you think?

Now, I'd like for you to look at this again. Pretend you are a fly on the wall and are watching this unfolding. Can you find three things that look wrong with this picture? Don't feed us pablum, MJK. Don't tell us what you think we want to hear. Tell us what was physically wrong with the actions of the man in the event described below:

Lousygolfer,

Thank you very much for your time and advice.

That was very well said, I agree wholeheartedly and plan to act accordingly.

I have to admit that I'm a little lost on this one. Can you be a little more explicit?

Thanks.

MrJK:

This line:


Should be:



Big Difference.

Planning is good. In this case, Just Do.

LG

Stick with LousyGopher, he won't steer you wrong.

:::Cue Caddyshack theme song:::

I gave you a link. Go click on it and read it. And then click all the links on that page and read them. Read the entire basic concepts section.

I said you've committed a DJ. If you don't know what that is, it's very easy to find out. Pepperband gave you a link to read all the acronyms. I find your request that we spell things out to you incredibly lazy. This will never work if you expect other people to do all the work and spoonfeed you, and if it doesn't change I am going to do my best to encourage your wife to get herself away from you, because a marriage to someone who puts forth so little effort that he won't even read when links are handed to him is sure to be incredibly damaging to her.

You've had four years. You ought to know this stuff by now. We can't catch you up. You are going to have to do so yourself.

Thanks, Pep!

But isn't the rule...Make sure they spell your name right?

LOL

LG

Sure.

Mostly this involves meeting JKs ENs. She loves cards, flowers, and other little tokens. I get her things like this a couple times a month now (previously it was more like never.) The other day I got her pez mints, two of her favorite things in one package.

Lately I've been focusing on trying to make her feel desired. I've recently had something of a revelation in this department and I'm trying to change how I go about doing some things. We'll see how that goes.

I've become pretty good at general conversation, one of JKs big ENs.

We both are big on affection and recreational companionship, those ENs have been easy for me to meet for her.

One of her biggest needs is the one that I find to be the most difficult, that's honesty and openness. As you may have read elsewhere, I've had some passive aggressive tendencies for a large part of my life and I continue to work on this. Openness, however, is the hardest one for me. While I think that I've made some progress here being able to express emotions continues to be a very difficult task for me. Again, I'm working on that stuff.

Then there's changing or breaking bad habits which is the reason I'm here right now. While I know that there's been progress made here clearly it's a work in progress.

Here is a simple idea that will never steer you wrong.

If you are looking at your wife when you are out, it's very difficult to look at others.

Look at her, appreciate her beauty or whatever you wish. There may be others who appear more beautiful, but that's simply an exercise in frustration.

I've yet to hear of a husband get in trouble for looking at his wife too long.

It's really sometimes just that simple.

After she left I finished reading the post and then replied to it.

I do remember the events, but in a broad way. JK remembers them in much finer detail because she was focused on them. For example, she could recount the womans entire outfit to me while I could barely remember anything about her. I'm not trying to use this as an excuse or justification, it just is.




That was a very poor reaction, agreed.



No. It was my fault and it is my job to make it right. I have no excuses.




It wasn't, that I saw it at all was kind of random.

I accept.

Yes.

Yes.

Quite a bit actually.

Agreed.

I know, that's why I'm here.

Will do.

My H is now my hero.

One of the new habits he developed after his A is the following:

H to Pep: " Is there anything I can do for you today?"

Music to my ears.
It is so effective that I decided to ask him the same question, every day.

Give it a try.
Best wishes.