And, the kicker is that Sapphire's husband SAVED HIS MARRIAGE by doing that very thing. Her husband "manned up" and "grew a pair."

The result? SAVED MARRIAGE!

So you can listen to folks who have saved their marriages or you can continue to take your own advice. As Dr Phil would say: "how's that working for ya, pardner?"

p.s. we are on your side; you are shooting at people who really want to rescue you.

While ever A is a little different the are all REMARKABLY the same. The treatment is almost identical for everyone.

Recovery is a very narrow path. If you stray in ths slightest usually there is a pitfall waiting for you.

Id check the Q&A columns for your answers. They will tell you the same thing that you see here though.

Make and appointment with the coaching center. They are professionals and WILL help your M. Its the same advice though most the time.

Please read BTinTroubles thread. He swore up and down for a month that it was JUST an EA. Then he found evidence on his VAR. He went CRAZY on her with the exposure and the A ended after that weekend. Its early but they at least have a chance at recovery.

For what its worth I dont think your similiar is too different from alot of peoples here.

FB is allowing her to connect with people. Now she is branching out into the single life with her friends on your dime.

Just be aware that what you have going is NOT working. You need to sit down and figure out what you want. This is your goal. Then devise a plan and follow it. We can help you do that but its a tough path. If things continue like they are where do you think you are going to be in 6 months?

Melody,

With all due respect...

I have made progress. Maybe I've been taking the long way, but on an average day I feel better about my life than I did on an average day one year ago.

The progress I've made is mostly internal. A year ago my focus was to SAVE MY MARRIAGE and I made most of the classic mistakes. I begged, I pleaded, tried logic and reason.

I've learned my lessons in regards to THOSE mistakes. I no longer come across as desparate and I can tell that has my wife spooked.

My goal is no longer to SAVE MY MARRIAGE, but to BE HAPPY. I hope that happiness includes a woman I fell in love with almost 20 years ago. I literally chased her all throughout High School. I played the Best Friend role like a champ for 4 years, knowing I'd one day get my shot - and I was right! Then somehow, after 14 good years of marriage, the bottom fell out. I was sucker punched and it took a long time to catch my breath.

I will gladly admit that I have a problem with being too "nice" - hell, its in my screen name. I'm not trying to hide it.

Lets say that my biggest problem is that I am in fact enabling the situation. That I find it difficult to be hard on someone who I love dearly and I know is terribly unhappy, in spite of her blessings. How do I fix ME?

Maybe I'm not on the right board. Maybe I'm not ready to be here yet. But Karma mentioned you being tired of common themes - which kind of tells me I'm not alone - that I'm not the ONLY one struggling with this.

So - if anyone has any advice other than JUST DO IT - I'd love to hear it. If anyone has any words of encouragement, love to hear it. Or, if you can suggest a different board for "beginners", let me know.

Thanks.

So ML must have said something that really hit a nerve. If you only knew how MUCH ML helps people around here you would be embarrassed at going off on her, of all people.

Anyway, nothing she said in her post is you is incorrect. You would see it if you weren't blinded by what we call around here, "the BS fog". Dr. H's methods are the BEST PROVEN method around but there are very NARROW steps to take and a SMALL window of opportunity to get this right.

In fact, your screenname says a bunch about you. That's not a criticism but an observation. Where has being a "Nice Guy" gotten you so far in this mess?

It would behoove you to listen and learn before you get your panties in a wad. K?

Actually, if 50 Marriage Builders members read your posts, 47 or 48 will agree on the consensus about what to do if you want to have the best possible chance, and only 1 or 2 will dissent.

MelodyLane is the best we have to offer; she knows this program inside and out. I don't understand why you are attacking her.

But if you don't like her, you could call Dr. Willard Harley directly and get his opinion on Marriage Builders radio. Email jharley@marriagebuilders.com for details. Dr. Harley has decades of experience helping marriages, specializing in infidelity.

It will be hard niceguy, it's not easy to see your WW unhappy, but guess what? The GOOD NEWS is, YOU DIDN'T make her unhappy, SHE DID! Nothing you did was your fault for her own misery, no, she did that on her own, so let HER PAY for her own unhappiness.

The only thing you can do to "FIX" you is to read self help books, and take it to your day to day duties, you can't control what your WW is doing, but you can control you!

Melody is working on giving you the answer to that question, if you'll listen.

Marriage Builders Plan A+B will:
* fix you
* save your marriage, if it is saveable
* get you out of your marriage, with your self-respect, if it is not, with absolute assurance that you did everything you could do

niceguy, can I convince you to get ahold of the book Surviving an Affair and read it?

So you don't want to hear the only words that might save your marriage? As I said in my post that infuriated you, I don't believe you really want to save your marriage. Your actions indicate that loud and clear.

You confirmed this when you said:
I accept that some people who come here really don't want help but rather want to strive to protect the status quo. That is their prerogative. I can't help those people so I will move onto someone who really does want help.

Take care...

There is a LOT more he could do according to the MB plans but he has to be willing to follow them.

Being compared to someone buying heroin and driving my wife to the bars touched a nerve, yes.

Being told that my instincts are the worst that have been seen in 9 years - seems a bit harsh.

Saying I don't seem willing to do ANYTHING (her caps, not mine) - after having dealt with this for a year - is hard to read.

Just like words like "we're just friends" and "you need to trust me" are red flags, so are words like "with all due respect."

I know that I am receiving constructive advice overall - I just don't see it in the post from Mel as quoted below.

Take what you need and leave the rest! Better yet, you can just put me on ignore. It won't hurt my feelings.

Mr. nice guy you will choose to ignore Melody at your own peril. As everyone has told you this is a narrow path. It works, heck look at my sig line and my FWH and I are well on our way to recovering. Do you think that was easy for me? Do you think any of us want to do the things we have to do? You are fighting a war for your marriage and giving your wife all the ammo. This program works but you have to do it. If you don't like what someone is saying it is often a big clue that you should pay attention to it. None of this is fun, none of us want anything but the best for you and your M. To ignore one of the most helpful, knowledgeable people on this forum would be a very big mistake. Weigh her words carefully and store them away because if you continue like you are your W is not going to come home, why would she? She has you on a string making it possible for her to have all the loving admiration a person could use from other men. You will end up right back in this place you are in now wondering why it did not work and Melody and everyone else will have to repeat it all over. Do it now and get it over with and you will be back to a better life soon.

Your wife is an alien now with a mind you can't understand. She is into something she can't get out of without help. Help her and you help yourself and then your M.

Melody � no intention to ignore you, but I�m still struggling to see where the post that riled me up was very constructive. You really did hit a nerve � a lot of nerves - and I apologize if my response was over the top.

I realize what I�m doing isn�t working. That�s why I�m here.

Yes � my screen name does give me away.

Books � recently finished Way of the Superior Man (a Man-up book). Halfway through Surviving the Affair. Hard to get past the 1st half as so much seems to apply � keep re-reading about the secret second life. Have started No More Mr. Nice Guy � read the intro last night, but probably need to get through �Surviving� first.

The only thing I believe about my wife right now is that she is terribly unhappy. EA? PA? Sexting? All totally possible.

Panties were in a wad when I got here.

I do feel I have improved myself after probably 9 months � maybe longer � of chasing my tail and being completely reactive. Fell into a lot of the typical traps � struggled initially with the EA concept (is it really cheating? Could they really be friends?).

Hello � my name is Niceguy and I�m an Enabler.

�Just do it� � I can wiggle my ears � most people can�t. When people ask how I do it, all I can really say is �I just can�� Try explaining how you move your arm to someone � same idea. No matter how many times I tell someone �I just do it�, I�ll likely never teach anyone the fine art of ear wiggling. �Just do it� is a great slogan, but not always real practical advice. Maybe I'm wrong...

I�m trying to be as open and honest as I can here and admit that I am struggling. I could easily pretend that I�m following all of your advice, but that really wouldn�t get me anywhere.

Also being totally honest when I say that I�m not sure I want to save my marriage, but I also don't want to look back later and feel like I didnt' try hard enough. Reading �Surviving� I feel like the guy whose account is on empty and I�m creeping into �dislike.� I think my wife has a very large hole in her heart that I can�t fill unless she commits to doing some work on herself as well. As I think I said before, its not just me that she�s pushing away. She�s no longer an involved parent, she�s pushed away her family and most of her old friends. If it was only me that she was �replacing�, I would be a bit more panicked.

Thanks all.

So whats your plan now? If you put down what you are going to do we can offer improvements to help you attempt to recover your Wife.

Tried to cover that above � but I�m sure its gotten lost.

Wife is in an apartment, claims she wants to come home, but I think she�s just unhappy no matter where she is.

Told her in therapy last Thursday that I need transparency � access to all account info and for her to come clean about EVERYTHING with no more suprises. I did not give this as an ultimatum.

She stayed at our house most of the weekend and left the laptop at her apartment. I�m guess she thinks if she just keeps it out of sight I will back down. I get a bit confused here with Plan A and how hard to push.

I need to start changing billing account info as my wife pays all of our bills. Then I can begin taking financial support away.

I feel like I need to give her an �official list� of what needs to happen before she moves home from the apartment � I�m still trying to figure it out myself.

But at a minimum:
1) Change �her� FB page to be �our� FB page (Niceguy & Nicegirls) � if she wants to keep FB;
2) Give me access to all email and other communication accounts
3) Commitment to Policy of Joint Agreement and Radical Honesty
4) Tell me EVERYTHING so there are no surprises � no new phone numbers or secret email accounts to discover;
5) She needs to move home full time to see if we can get along full time before we ditch the apartment
6) No going out unless its with me
7) Full access to laptop and iPhone.
8) Start taking personal accountability for her health, her family commitment and create some kind of plan for her future

Then Plan B by August 31st if no real changes.

Look, I was a WW in my first marriage- which we didn't recover. I have however spent alot of my time reading this site and others about how to make my marriage last time time.

Melody Lane has been here a long time- and she's helped tons of people. She's not going to blow smoke up your bum- she's here to help you see the truth. She wants to help you recover your marriage. If you stay here on MB very long you will see that everyone thinks their sitch is special but when it comes down to it every cheater says and does mostly the same things. Remember that this is not a HOBBY being here on MB- it's a calling. Most of us work outside the home and could frankly be doing something else but we come here to help people.

If your wife is in the same city as any of the guys she flirts with on line- then I definitely believe it's been a PA. Men don't hang around and chat for a long time usually unless they are sleeping with them. You need to go about getting details- PI or whatever.

And I agree you should cut her off financially as much as you can. She is not your dear wife- she is WW.

Maybe...just maybe you need to partake of the food elsewhere.

You have voluntarily come into an oyster bar (joined MB)...asked for the oysters (posted on the forum)...people are handing you oysters (posting to you)...and you are screaming that you want HAMBURGERS (up and uglying on Mel)!

That makes no sense whatsoever to me.

committed

I completely understand how you feel when it comes to the idea that people on this forum don�t know you or your wife. Life is certainly full of shades of gray, but I can tell you in full confidence that the techniques and advice given on this forum are spot on. They apply to all situations of infidelity. The reason they do is because the outcome is always in question, but the path to get to the outcome isn�t. Plan A gives the cheating spouse good memories of you before you go to Plan B. That could very well mean memories of you with pride and standing up for yourself. That is certainly a better memory than one of you being weepy and whiny (not that you have been).

Plan B cuts off the cheating spouse from all of your affection and breaks the cycle of destruction for the BS. You are given a chance to heal, catch your breath, look at things more objectively, and get a better idea of where you as the BS want to take things. Many newcomers think that Plan B is intended to punish the cheating spouse. It is really there for the betrayed spouse. It will set up a recovery of the marriage or help transition you to divorce.

There�s non-MB plans as well. Plan D is often referred to Plan FU. Plan FU is a BS who doesn�t have the shock that many BS�s suffer from. They have a little more control of their emotions and have reached the end of their rope. This is often followed by the WS getting kicked to the curb with lawyers thrown on them for good measure.

These plans apply to your situation.

Why do you remind me so much of me? Because I too had a wife on the internet who was flirting with men online. She�d say it was all innocent and for fun and that I was making too much of it. She would get furious at me for looking at the comments others would post to her and for the fact that I didn�t buy her claims that it was innocent.

So what did I find? I finally got fed up with the lies. I put a keylogger on the computer, got her password, and then read her messages. There was nothing innocent about what she was doing. She was flirting in ways that were suggestive and completely inappropriate for a married woman. She was telling men that she was divorcing when she wasn�t. She set up dates with guys and then met with them. One of the dates did get physical. I know because I got the guys number from her messages and I talked to him. He told me everything.

None of it was innocent despite her vehement claims otherwise. She tried to make me feel like a control freak and like the bad guy for insisting that I know the truth.

Odds are really high your wife is , at a minimum, flirting with men online.

Have you tried to guess at her passwords? Any idea what she might use? Pet names? Dates? Nicknames? Kid names?

Sometimes this is enough for someone.

Thx Lostdads. I'm right there with you - that the best case scenario is a lot of inappropriate and unacceptable flirting.

Called her last night to "follow up" on our therapy session. Made things a bit more clear - that she cannot move home until she agrees to being open and transparent. I need e-mail passwords and I would like to have a "shared" Facebook account.

She was really pissed. I'm going to give it a couple of days and see what kind of reaction I get.

I know that people here will tell me I'm moving too slow.

My next step is still to get financial control - make sure I have all account info and passwords. And if for some reason I run into any roadblocks there, I guess it will be attorney time.

BTW, I wanted to tell you that my ex did leave. She strung me along with the idea that we�d recover the marriage and that she only needed some time to �heal� before we could be married again.

It was a very good ruse. I gave her everything and kept little for myself. I let her have custody, money, everything. Afterall, if I made it amicable and easy, then we maximized our chances, right? It�s what she would tell me over and over. I bought it because I wanted to believe it.

I was emotionally drained since I had just come home from a deployment and had that adjustment to deal with on top of everything.

It was all a lie.

But the fact is that her leaving was one of the best things that ever happened to me. My ex is in a constant state of illness. I was basically her nursemaid, cook, and babysitter. I wasn�t much of a husband.

So I�m free of that now. I dreaded the idea, but I�m glad it happened. I had to fight a brutal legal battle to get rights to my kids, but once that was settled I became free emotionally.

I�m now marrying a wonderful woman. She�s a grown up and a true partner. She is an equal in our relationship.

Why do I tell you this? Because a BS who understands that there are tons of women out there, many of which are better matches than the woman they are with, will be a BS who tolerates little wayward behavior. Why? Because no one, man or woman, deserves to be treated the way a BS is treated.

The plans here are to help you get yourself back and get your spouse back. The wayward isn�t your spouse. There is a risk that they could stay this way forever. The plans suggested are intended to end the fence sitting.