Sorry, I don't know all the codes.

Wife said 6 months ago she fell "out of love" with me after 11 years of marrage. We started marrage therapy, I radically changed my behaviours that she identified was the source cause of the loss of connection. However, it was a one-way street.

For months, I suspected she was having an affair, which was strongly denied. I knew who the person was. She has lied and covered it up all along, until I finally provided her proof a few days ago that she could not deny.

After finally admitting the affair, we discussed where to go from here. I said that I wanted to work things out, and then, she told me that all of the sudden, she was "back in love" with me, because since that I did love leaver her, she realized how much I love her, and that made her fall back in love with me.

I want that to be true. But, after all the lies, am I fooling myself?

I suspect this is her reaction to discovery more than a true renewal of complete love. I want to save this marrage, so the help I am asking of the board is: Are her words real, or is this a typical [censored] reaction to discovery?

Maybe some of each (real and reaction).


I doubt all is good and fixed and etc. That would be most unusual.

That is okay though if you know that and are willing to work through stuff with a tried and true plan to move onward from whatever juncture you are at.

If you study marriage builder concepts of surviving infedelity, lovebusters and emotional needs you will have a better direction of where to go from here.

hard to say. Can you give more details to the affair and to your relationship etc? how did you find out? Did you expose? etc.

Welcome. She may be back in love with you, but I urge you to start snooping. She must never have contact again with the other man for any reason. Is she willing to do that?

She also needs to write a no contact letter telling him the affair was a mistake, she loves you and wants no contact with him ever again for any reason. Then you approve of and send the letter.

If the other man is married, you need to expose the affair to his wife.

what, sorry you are here. Did she end all contact with her affair partner? Is her OM married and if so, have you told his wife of the affair?

If your wife has ended all contact she may be sincere. If not, then she is just saying this to keep you quiet so you won't screw with her affair.

Does she work with her OM? Who is he?

thanks for all input so far. I'll provide more details here.

As far as snooping is concerned, I have been doing that on and off. I don't feel good about it, actually, but was required to expose the truth. That's how I obtained the proof that she could no longer deny.

She states that she had already ended all contact prior to my final confrontation. She states that she does not want anything to do with the OM. They don't have any reaason for any further contact, ie. they are not co-workers or anything like that.

The OM is recently divorced. About the same time frame of the start of the affair.

Im reading reading reading.

Ask her if she is willing to write a no contact letter.

Snooping is a virtue, What. There is nothing to feel bad about. You have a right to know absolutely everything your wife does behind your back. You would not know the truth if you had not done it. Do you think the police should feel bad if they uncover evidence of a crime? Of course not. That is how society is protected. It is the same with marriages. No married person has the right to the privacy to destroy her spouse behind his back.


Adulterers are liars. Her word means nothing.


This may be a lie too. How do you know he is divorced? Did you call his wife and find out? Was the divorce caused by this affair? I would call up the OM's wife and find out.

Hi all,

An update. Wife did send the no-contact letter to the OM. We seem to be on the path to recovery, but some part of me is holding back. We have both the Love Busters and Surviving an Affair books, but it seems I'm the only one that will read them cover-to-cover, while my wife skims them. She has read about 50% of Love Buster's and not picked up Surviving an Affair. We did the Emotional Needs questionaire and I did actually learn something from it - her #1 need was Admiration, which was both a suprise and not a suprise to me.

Does anyone have any good tips out there for me? I have found this forum educational and comforting. Thanks to everyone.

You have to treat the injury before YOU can recover. SHE may want back in the marriage but if YOU dont feel safe romantic love is NOT possible.

She needs to be transparent and do EPs. She needs to give you access to all the phones, emails and financials.

block his # and email. Change her email addy. You need to have access to her FB or just get rid of it.

You need to get all your questions answered about the A. Ask them now because once you are done its over. You cant constantly be throwing it in her face. Consider a lie detector test if you think she is not telling you the whole truth

Read up on Just compensation. Those are the things she has to do to make you feel safe and for you to protect yourself emotionally and financially.

Consider a post nup. Its also called a reconciliation agreement.

He she is truelly contrite and in love she will agree to all of this. If she is hiding something she will just talk about it.

STD tests for you both are warranted as well.

So to answer your questions believe ACTIONS not lip flapping


The A is like a wound on your arm. You cant work out(fix your M) until that wound is healed.

Hi what,

sorry you are here. I am in a similar boat, however when I confronted my WH, he had the exact opposite phrasing. That is when I got the "I love you, but am not in love with you" speech. Turns out that several hours before I discovered the A, my WH had actually broken things off with OW. So it is possible she had broken off contact, but like everyone else I would continue to snoop.

In my case, I told WH that I was snooping, just not exactly how. Some of it he has discovered (like I put filters on his email so that any email she sends goes to trash and I get a copy in my email), but in order to fix our marriage, he has left those in place. And then I have others that he is not sure about.

A few things to check on though. Check any social media sites that she may be using. If you want to pay, there is a site called spokeo that will search through a majority of those sites for your WS's email or info. That may be a good resource to check for any sites you may not know about. That is how I found my WS's secret myspace page and shut it down.

You may have missed this IMPORTANT question. You can't cherry pick parts of MB to use. It's critical that you follow ALL the steps following an affair.

Hi -

I have access to everything. There's nothing I can't access at this point.

Lie Detector test - she won't do it cause she claims they can be faulty. I call BS but don't want to push this. She claims the A never got beyond "kissing" but she's lied about the extent of the A and has only gradually let me know the facts, only after I found them for myself.

I basically assume that it was sexual, and have decided that I want my marrage for our sake and our children's sake. So it's on her to be honest about it. I told her the same.

What is an EB?

EP = extrodinary precautions.


BAD. I dont have a red flag but id fly one here. She is minimizing. She isnt being totally honest with you. Lie detector tests are way less faulty than the waywards "memory".

You already know the answer it sounds like though. If you know everything you need to know its no big deal. If you WANT to know the full truth then id push the issue. Its about you not her. If she isnt willing to do that for you then she probably isnt fully committed to recovery. She may just want you to forgive and forget. Thats a recipe for disaster.


Doesnt sound very committed to recovery here. She sounds like a renter

Buyer, renter and freeloader

Your marriage will NEVER recover as long as she's not being honest with you. I also doubt it will recover unless she buys in to MB fully. She is getting away with the absolute minimum she has to do to stay in this marriage and you are accepting crumbs. Your marriage will not get any better under this circumstance, and eventually, you will fall prey to OM#2. I bet the only reason she is still with you is because her relationship with OM#1 already fell apart. You don't want to be her fallback until she finds the next guy. She needs to buy in and buy in fully. Otherwise, you aren't doing yourself or your kids any favors by accepting her behavior. Now is the time to accept nothing less than your conditions for staying married, now that she doesn't have another man to run away with.

I agree with Jim. It does sound like you are accepting crumbs. My WH has agreed to everything I have asked so far. Will your wife allow you to put a tracker on her cell phone? Will she allow you to be in control of the cell phone plan? Will she allow you to put a keylogger/accountability software on her personal computer? Will she personally tell friends, family, and co-workers that she cheated? Will she agree to end "friendships" that you deem not appropriate? These are a few of the things my WH has done as EP's for me since I found out a few months ago.

I have never asked "please" for the EPs that are being put into place. I have been adamant that if he is not willing to do the work necessary to protect our marriage, that he knows where the door is. Crumbs will not rebuild your marriage, and contrary to your fear, your marriage can survive your wife's anger.

I am sorry but something does not seem right. The fact that she refused to even consider to take a polygraph is a huge red flag. Most cheating spouses who wish to recover will do anything to regain trust for the betrayed spouse. Your wife refuses to do this. This is all probability means she engaged in a sexual affair with this man. This means she has put your health at risk for STD's. The both of you need to be tested. This must be non negotiable.

It sounds like she may not wish to change her lifestyle and feels sorry that she was caught. The fact that when the affair came out she immediately fell back in love with you sounds ridiculous and very self serving on her part. You seems to be accepting crumbs. She also seems to know how to play you very well.

Your marriage is not based on a foundation of honesty and trust and you are accepting sweeping this huge betrayal under the rug. If the roles were reversed do you think your wife would have been so accepting as you have been? If you do not have honesty in your relationship then you really have nothing and I think you know this.

What2,

You asked if anyone had any good tips. I have a lot of them or to be more precies Harley does. First, you and your W need a plan for recovery. She needs to make one and you need to make one. then you negotiate (see policy of radical honesty and policy of joint agreement) a plan that works for both of you.

Her plan should include things on how to protect you, how to let you know what is going on in her life, and how to address the reasons she allowed her boundaries down. Your plan should include removing love busters and disrespectful judgements from your behavior whatever/wherever they may be.

The final plan should address Harley's four rules for a good marriage, the two policies previously mentioned and the results of finishing the needs and love buster questionaires.

Finally, I think you have not gotten the whole story yet, and I think she is lying to protect herself and perhaps you, if not any ongoing affair. This will need to be addressed but just demanding it probably won't work.

What might work is starting on developing the plans, discussing Harley's two policies, they are not easy to implement and the four rules for a good marriage. As you discuss those, I suspect it will become more apparent if she is lying and that for her lying will not help the marriage.

Lots to say, but that is enough for now.

God Bless,

JL

Certainly, I have a good tip for you. First, just because your wife is not immersing herself into the Harley books like you are is no indication that she is not behind making the marriage work. The Harley books are her looking glass and believe me; she likely does not like the reflection she sees. Further, the sorrier she is, the more regret she has for her deeds the uglier the reflection. Not only that, but you need to understand that she has already processed the affair and she feels that she is ready to move forward with you. For her, looking forward is where her peace lies. Yet you still have unfinished business.

That said, you have needs too and some of your most important needs will fall to her exclusively. It is up to her to keep you safe. Your safety is paramount towards feeling normal again. How does she keep you safe? One of the best ways she does it is through transparency. It is the key number one ingredient towards refueling a healthy giver and taker. It opens the vaults of both of your love banks. And it allows emotional needs to be met with enthusiasm and satisfaction.

Once she starts with transparency it will grow and spread into your lives and become second nature. Through transparency your lives become intertwined with healthy dependencies, i.e. dinner plans, kids, household chores, vacation planning, work schedules, buying decisions, hopes, dreams and all the rest, most especially the common humor that you will share with each other.

Transparency is her gift of love to you. And like all gifts of love, it is the actions that matter and mean the most and transparency is ALL action, a gift of love for both of you.

As powerful as I have portrayed this gift, know too that its absence is equally destructive. That is why it is important for her to learn of its power and the sway that it will hold over your continued relationship. The cell phone makes 80 percent of transparency possible. If properly used by each of you then you can reach the finish line in comfortable fashion. The cell phone insures that you are always at arm�s length and the comfort that provides is immeasurable.

Mr. G