Redeem Me,

Keep in mind that you've had MUCH more time than BH to process everything. He is JUST NOW starting to process. Be patient. Your BH deserves at least that from you. Rehashing the past isn't really MB, however, if your BH has questions about your affair, then you MUST be completely honest with him. It is up to HIM how much detail he wants and when.

It was good that you guys took a break for a week from the A-related stuff but at this point, your BH is driving the bus and gets to decide on whether he wants to recover your marriage. Your job is to support him and lift him up while he's healing. The wound has stopped bleeding but it's still very raw.

You guys should call the coaching center and get their help. Most MCs don't have a clue about recovering from infidelity.

RM,

Don't forget that there are three phases to recovery from any affair:

The first is individual healing for both you and your husband. As has already been pointed out, you are probably ahead of him in this regard for several reasons. You lived through the affair and because of that you know the details, the day to day things that revolved around the affair and the lies that were told to conceal it. He is just now coming to grips with all of those things and will have so many questions, some of which will be asked more than once, that it will seem like he is trying to force you to relive the events.

But he is also still processing the pain that came to him totally by surprise. It might seem like he should have known a lot of what was going on not only in your mind, but also in his. Since hindsight is always perfect, he is likely to examine events that happened in light of the affair until he can come to grips with what he really did know and what is only beginning to make sense now that he knows about the affair. Things that took place that had little or no significance at the time now loom large in his mind as he realizes that those things had to do with the affair. This will be especially true of any unaccounted for time that he might have questioned or arguments that seemed to him to come out of the blue with no real basis in his mind for having happened.

The second phase is when you guys begin to heal as a couple. This is when you will start to make a little progress in dealing with triggers, laying aside the processing of the affair and start looking at hopes and dreams for a future together.

It will be during this time that you will ride the roller coaster together which until now has been an individual experience for each of you. Your moods will effect each other more during this time and things that make one of you trigger are bound to cause the other to feel like things will never improve.

The third phase of recovery is when you begin to build a new marriage. This is when you will start to negotiate for things you each want to have from the other and for the relationship together. It is when things like POJA and PORH begin to show themselves in every day life. This is when you will have to solve problems that predate the affair and find ways to remove resentment from your lives so that it can never again be used by either of you as justification for an affair.

By the end of this third phase, you will once again begin to feel comfortable enough with each other to complain about what is bothering you and know that you are being heard and problems aren't just being avoided so that the peace can be maintained.

It will also be in this third phase that you will find new things that bring you both joy and if you are living the MB way, these things will be things that you enjoy together and not just stuff you do when you are away from each other.

While you can begin to examine the third step in the process right away and begin thinking about the things you each need from the marriage, the other two phases really need to be completed before you get to the details of what the new marriage will be. Each of you must be healed enough to work the process of building a new relationship and then you must learn to be a couple all over again before the real rebuilding can take place.

You can't skip any of the steps and you can't really accomplish much in step two until step one is completed and step three must ultimately wait for step two to be behind you. ENs will change for each of you like the weather during the first two phases and things that seem most important on Monday, will be replaced by more pressing needs by Friday, at least at first. For your husband, expect honesty to be his top EN for a while and only after he feels that he knows everything he needs to know will his real ENs begin to take precedence.

It's a LONG process and takes a lot longer than most people think it will and certainly a lot longer than most would want.

Mark

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This makes so much sense. I have been struggling mightily with the MB advice that dwelling on the mistakes of the past is a no no. It obviously is when stage three arrives, but not before. Being able to place DWGs and my own struggles correctly in this scheme will help alleviate some of the hopelessness that engulfs us during the dark days. We are somewhere teetering between stage one and two, even after a year and a half. I am sorry to insinuate into this thread, but this really helps me understand and react appropriately. Because of the sheer magnitude of what I did to my own marriage, I cannot expect stage three probably for a very long time. Knowing this helps me face this reality a little better.

GM,

The three phases come from Frank Gunzburg...

IC. Thanks.

Mark, thanks for sharing what you did. I do need reminders that I can't rush this recovery along.

I'm struggling with not being able to discuss my feelings with my H. And not discussing how I'm feeling makes me feel distant to him, since I need that to feel close to someone. I want to have an honest, open relationship with him, but I feel like I can't fully and that, in turn, makes me feel like we don't have a deeply satisfying relationship.

I know... patience...

The other issue I have is that my H is asking me to comfort him, with hugs and physical affection, and sometimes the pressure of such a request makes me lose interest in doing so. I want to do this for him, but I want it to be when I feel that I genuinely want to. Basically, I don't like to feel pressured into behaving in a certain way. That's one of the struggles I have with this MB program. I have long felt that the "fake it til you feel it" way of doing things is never good, and now I have to essentially do that to repair my marriage. This is a huge issue for me-- I don't believe in "faking" anything...

I realize I should add that it's not that I'm faking it when I given him a hug to comfort him. I genuinely care for him and want to comfort him. It's more that I feel I'm supposed to be doing it, making me feel like it's without emotion and therefore shallow. I want for my actions to come from a deeper place... if this makes sense...

RM,

One of the problems we often have to deal with when it comes to meeting the emotional needs of our spouse is that we don't share the same level of need as they have for any given need.

Financial Support is HUGE for my wife. It is difficult for me because of a combination of things the first of which is that I could easily live off the land in some wilderness location and not have to have a big house or a nice car or a big screen TV or any of the stuff we routinely work our tails off to buy.

But another reason it is difficult for me is that I once did a lot better at meeting that need for her but today am unwilling to pay the price of earning more by working away from home 200 nights per year, which happened in the past.

But the first of those issues is what makes it hard for us to even grasp something as being a need and not just something our spouse "wants" from us.

If your husband has as one of his top ENs Affection, then he is unhappy when he doesn't get it and is happy when he does. One of the reasons we get married is to get our needs met consistently by our spouse.

Now if you don't "require" as much affection to function fully, it can be hard to provide that affection for him because you always feel like you are "faking it" and don't really mean it. What you are really saying is that you don't "feel it" but that actually means you "don't feel like it." So you "feel" as if you are "faking it."

But what you are really doing is providing something that you yourself might not need. It isn't that it isn't a valid need or that it isn't important to your husband, just that you yourself don't feel the need nor the pleasure when the need is provided. It is of low priority for you.

Now you probably have some other top EN that he struggles to meet for you as a matter of course. You are happiest when that need is being provided for by your husband and in fact when he is doing a good job of meeting that need for you, you find yourself more inclined to "feel" like providing for his needs as well.

Assuming you have read all of the basic concepts, let me direct you to the Giver and Taker. Giver and Taker If you read the short explanation and the link that follows on the Three States of Mind in Marriage, you will see that our Taker really only has the job of making us happy. The problem is that our Taker is willing to make others, most relevant our spouse, unhappy in order for us to be happy.

Our Giver wants only to make others (specifically our spouse, happy but is willing for us to be unhappy for that to happen.

When we are in a state of Intimacy, our Giver is willing to give anything and everything to our spouse, since we are perceiving them as the source of our happiness. They have in fact become a directed stimulus so that their merre presence triggers happiness within us. We can't imagine life without them and we can't stand to be away from them because our grreatest sense of happiness seems to come from them. Under such conditions, you "feel" like providing for your husband whatever it is that he desires and seek only to make him happy.

But as our Love Bank balance diminishes, either through neglect or from some Love Buster repeated by our spouse, we fall from Intimacy into a state of Conflict. Now this state of Conflict is not necessarily marked by arguing, fighting and disrespect. It is however marked by our Taker stepping up to demand a balancing of the books so to speak. Our Taker points out all the things we have been "giving" and is able to enumerate and quantify those things we haven't been getting in return. It pretty much turns us from being a buyer into a renter.

Our Taker is not willing to give anything. WE don't "feel" like we are "in love" and don't "feel" like we should give any more until we "get" something in return from our spouse.

A sign that our Taker is dominating our thoughts and responses to our spouse is that the tools of the Taker all happen to be Love Busters that we are probably struggling to control. SDs, DJs, AOs are all instinctive things we try to do to get what we want. When they don't accomplish what we desire we tend to move on to IB to just find another way to get our own needs met without any regard at all for the feelings of our spouse.

Now when our spouse does something that is a Love Buster, our Taker steps in to protect us from being hurt and does so by punishing our spouse in some way and the first way it comes up with is to withhold what we know they need. This is an abusive way to get what we want and never leads to a compatible lifestyle. It only leads to reciprocal abuse and a further disintegration of the relationship.

Now if your top EN is Conversation, and your husband refuses to have intimate conversations with you, either by choice or by ignorance, then you will only be happy with him if he learns to meet that need for you. He might not understand how big of a need it really is or how unhappy you are when he isn't meeting it for you. In fact, he might be able to go for days without saying so much as a single word to anyone because he processes his feelings internally and really doesn't even like talking to people, even you about anything more thought provoking than what you happen to be fixing for dinner tomorrow night.

But that doesn't make your need less of a need and doesn't make it invalid. It also doesn't let him off the hook when it comes to trying to learn to meet that need for you. What he "feels" like is not really germane.

In fact, if your Taker begins to list all of the things that you have "given" over time and keeps score based on how little of your needs you have gotten in return, it leads to resentment. And resentment is what is used to justify allowing another person to meet our needs because our spouse isn't meeting them for us. It is in fact what leads to an affair so often since everyone is wired to get their needs met if they go unmet long enough.

So when your husband can identify an EN that he desires that you meet, he is giving you an opportunity to make Love Bank deposits and build the feeling of love between you. By claiming that it isn't what you "feel" like doing, it is telling him that you don't really care about him or his feelings, are not really willing to provide what he needs and are only interested in what you are getting from him. It tells him that you are only willing to show care for him as long as you are fully satisfied in your own needs.

Couple this with an affair and his already pretty depleted Love Bank can be shut down entirely.

I can also assure you that your most likely way to get him to be willing to negotiate to meet your ENs better is to have his own needs met by you and if you show him that you can only meet those needs when you feel fully satisfied with the marriage yourself, he is not likely to remain long enough to repair the destruction of the affair. I'm afraid you still haven't fully grasped the damage that has transpired nor the depth of his hurt. The fact that he is here posting is a sign that he is offering you a gift of unimaginable power and value. When you had an affair, you handed him a "get out of marriage free" card. The fact that he has not played that card should give you just about all the stimulus you need to show him how much care you are willing to provide.

Mark

mark hit the nail on the head IMO. I also want to add that untill you commit your happiness as coming from him alone, you probably will not be willing to negotiate clearly or with confidance that your needs will be reciprocated

You might not have done this in the past so it seems foriegn to you, and you have went outside the marrige to get needs met so it, well, "feels" like its not gonna work. Most of these habits happen when we want things to just magically materialize in our lives and we don't realize we have control of our feelings thru actions. But we control what we feel by action. Feelings respond to actions. Thats how we are supposed to live, not with our feeling running the show, we run it.

As you have learned your feelings can really mess up your life if you let them influence you to make poor decisions to fill the desire. This program teaches us to fill our spouses needs as they ask and they fill yours as you ask, and as we identify them to each other.

Isn't that why you got married to begin with? To take care of one another and grow together as you share life?

The giver and taker example is a good way to understand this most basic human priciple. I would read it and come back and tell us if you don't get it.

RM,

Isn't it funny that you want this from H.........



to which, your H is struggling with. YET....you want this...



from your H.

See how the giver and taker move???.....

The next part is all about ME. Move your thoughts and actions back to H......

{{{{{RedeemMe}}}}}}}

Not2fun

Ok, just read through everything that was posted... wow... this is all making more sense to me.

Today I will make an effort to meet his emotional need of affection.

Need to let go of resentment in order to show him this. Easier said than done, but I will try.

I will also read the referenced "Giver and Taker" article, too. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I'll write more later after I've had time to consider everything.

Thanks again for your help!

RM,

Since the article referenced is part of the Basic Concepts, if you haven't fully read them now is a good time to do that. A lot of what people tell you will only make sense if you understand the terms being used and grasp the basic premise of MB.

Mark

One thing that may help you. Most people assume that theu know how to have a marriage and untill something goes wrong the internal workings of it,(feelings,happiness,trust,intimacy), they don't look for any training or to be taught.

When things go wrong, we have a few choices, and ussually the last one is change ourselves or how we think and act. Thats normal human reaction especially to the threat that our feelings might be wrong as the guide of our actions. Truth is. they ussually are not fair, and if given an inch, will take a mile.

I can talk about the chemistry but you don't have to know how a Car works to drive one correctly so that we talk about actions instead of whys in the hope that you trust us enough to have faith. We are not a bunch of chimps here, and we really can help you faster by not beating around the bush.

But we do understand it takes a little time for you to process this stuff, so just like a good freind, coach, counsellor, or even a parent, we keep showing you the truth and the doors everybody must take with patience. As long as you listen and are teachable, most will help. But if you start going backward expect to get 2X4ed because we want to clarify, not because we like to be mean. Sometimes people might take something the wrong way so be clear in your posts and if mis-communication cause 2X4s it is on you.

The deeper truths do not change just because we screw up the communication process and get off track.

Which bring this back to my first statement about marraige. The deeper truth is you can with Gods grace have a good marriage. Even after an A when it is up to the BS whether to stay after He/She has been given the "get out of marriage free card".

All you can do is pray for God to work in your H to forgive and restore him as you do your part to help him heal, and get you "feelings" under control before they do you any more damage. Or him either. Whether he does or not is up to him but if I were you I would be trying to make it up to him.

Hang in there, read and listen, open your mind to the counsel here and start thinking of him and the pain he is going though right now.

Becareful about the temptation to justify you poor action by pointing to his in the past. Whatever he did or didn't do doesn't equal to an affair. You must be able to see that right? So buckle down for the long haul. Your not being fair about this if you think you should be worrying about how you feel at this point, right now your other half, part of you, is hurt. Put a tourniquet on that, you can worry about how you got there later.

ITA....Read all of them..

Awesome, we knew it would, it only makes sense.

Here's an opportunity to help him heal. Don't insist that you guys go to that wedding next week. TELL HIM that you understand it's a trigger for him and that if missing this wedding is a step towards helping him heal, you're all in.

POJA!

Yup, what Mark said!