My wife and I discovered Marriage Builders due to issues with communication and trust. I had been reading porn stories on the internet and at one point this escalated to me posting to other people about meeting up. I viewed the posts to meet up as a means of creating fantasies, with no intention to meet with anyone. My wife asked me to stop reading porn and I said that I would. Later she discovered that I continued to do so and embarrassed that she caught me in a lie, I lashed out and stated that it was harmless and that I kept it from her due to the nature of the stories (mostly gay themed). Over the next few months, our relationship was obviously different and my job at work changed. I eventually had to travel to other locations (foreign and domestic) and my travels were always with women co-workers. I traveled with one person for a few weeks in a row and we seemed to hit it off. We could talk and joke and we got a long well. Once back home, the two of us would talk after work (me on my cell phone as I was driving home) � for the most part until I arrived home. We had to take a second trip a few months later and on that trip, we kissed. Nothing else happened, but based off of the way we were getting along and conversations, I felt that maybe something more could happen. When I got home from the trip, later that day I got in my car and was going to drive to her house and see if the kiss could lead to something more. I thought about what I was doing at some point in the drive and said that this is not what I wanted. I felt that if sex occurred then my marriage would be over (I feel that sex is a commitment and didn�t want to lose what I had � not necessarily my wife but everything that we had). The relationship continued via cell phone calls and even after my wife asked me to stop, I would lie and say that I did (she would check and find that I lied). Eventually, the relationship soured as I found out more negative things about her (personality/past) and I wanted to end it. My wife and I took a vacation and I told her of the kiss and that phone conversations had continued even after she repeatedly asked that it stop. We started with Dr. Harley and read all of the material and even spoke with her for advice. I broke off the relationship � no conversation, no good bye or reason for not talking anymore. My wife and I agreed that there would be no more porn, no more correspondence with her (or any other women) and that I would be open and honest with my feelings (the main reason for the call to Dr. Harley). Over the two years since there were a couple of instances where I was not completely honest with my wife and she would find that I did something that went against our agreement. We�ve talked over this period of time and feel that I was being a protector liar (as well as selfish). I would not tell her what I did as I did not want to hurt her feelings, get into a big fight and have her feel that she is worthless. I would go months of being open and honest, but never really speaking my true feelings as to what happened between me and this other person. In the past few months, I have opened up to my wife and answered questions that she had about the past. I never told her the truth about thinking about driving to her house, when she asked me at different times as to why I put on so many miles after coming back from my trip, I lied and made up a story. This obviously didn�t make any sense to her and when I finally gave her the true story, although not happy, she was relieved as she had thought all along that I had, had sex with her. There were other things that she asked about previously where my responses never �added� up. Who wants to tell someone you�ve been with for 22 years (married) and 29 years total (dating since high school) that you had feelings for someone else or that you were thinking of sleeping with that person � especially when this person is your only true friend (no kids between us and we don�t socialize with anyone, not even brothers/sisters).
What I did since speaking with Dr. Harley was to make sure that I would clean the house or run errands or post compliments and write thoughts about her/us in a journal. I thought that by doing extra things that I would show her that I was sorry about the past and that I was better. When you lie to a person and cover it up, re-establishing trust is difficult to prove, so I figured that I could show her in my day to day actions that I was better.
That gets me to today. I am currently working out of state (fly out Mondays/home Fridays) and my wife calls me and tells me that she can�t trust me and do I want to tell her anything. I didn�t know what she was telling me about until she tells me that she knows that I looked at the facebook page of my former co-worker. In addition to that, I told her that I had recently looked at pornography on the computer. I looked at her facebook page, not because I want to reconnect, but I was bored one night and looked up her account. Don�t know if she knew or did not know that I had looked at pornography, but our agreement has been to let her know if I did make a mistake and talk about it rather than waiting for her to discover it or let her know that I wanted to look at pornography and we would look at it together. I do know that her discovering the fact that I looked at the facebook page not only caused her to think about a negative time in the past, but to start to think that something was happening currently.
I don�t know how I can get her to believe me when I say that I was curious and that nothing happened especially since I lied to her so many times in the past. I don�t know how I can get her to believe me when I say that I do want to be open and honest with her especially since this has happened before.
I guess that I look at just looking at her facebook page as no big deal. I have no feelings towards her anymore and that there was no attempt to communicate with her. In thinking about this today, I felt that what I did caused her to think about the past and brought back all of the lying and until I spoke with her tonight I didn�t realize that she could have thought that this never stopped or possibly did until recently.
In addition to trying to figure out a way to rebuild trust, I am hoping to figure out a way to stop my thinking that �it�s no big deal � it�s not like the past� and get to understand her feeling that a lie is a lie no matter the rationalization of degree/size, and that what matters most to her is being open and honest.

Read all the material on this site. It is a big deal. Stop being curious about old female interests. Stop spending nights away from your wife. Spend a minimum of 15 hours a week meeting the four critical emotional needs for affection, intimate conversation, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment.

AM

You can't "get her to believe you." You can only give her reason after reason to feel safe enough to believe you. You must tell her everything. If there is anything she does not know...she needs to know.

You must never have contact with this woman you kissed again. If you work with her...find another job. Period. In fact, you probably need to find another job anyway. Working away from home Monday through Friday is very bad for a marriage where trust has been broken (or any marriage for that matter).

As far as facebook goes, if it were me, I would ask you to close your facebook account altogether. Any contact with, observation of, or searching for this other woman is a betrayal, a break of no contact. It cannot happen. If you're that bored, play solitaire.

I have definite ideas about pornography, ideas I know not everyone here shares. I feel that sexual arousal/lust/desire, etc. should be reserved for your spouse, so even though that woman (or man) on the screen isn't real, it's NOT your spouse, so it's off limits.

Here is how you stop thinking it's not a big deal: remember that you hurt your wife deeply, so anything tied to that hurt is officially a big deal.

What you did when you were "bored" was break your pledge of no contact with the OW. You betrayed your wife all over again. And you seem to be blowing this off as nothing, which is all the more frightening. You don't get it. At all.

What you did was a one sided contact with the OW that certainly triggered your feelings for her. You apparently have changed nothing and don't seem to have any boundaries and no precautions in place to avoid triggers.


Wasn't your agreement to stop looking at porn without her? Being honest about violating an agreement does not erase the harm that you did with your independent behavior. Do you realise that?


This is the biggest problem in your marriage. Traveling jobs are an invitation to an affair. You cannot remain emotionally attached and in love with your wife if you travel.

It will be much easier to establish trust if you never spend the night apart.

Well, let's dig deeper into your motives:

You say you were "curious"? Why were you curious? What information gap or questions in your mind did you hope to fill or have answered by looking up this co-worker's Facebook page?

You say you were "bored"? Can you articulate in what way looking at this particular person's FB page would've alleviated your boredom? And can you explain why you chose to look up this person, out of the gazillions of people who have FB accounts?

The way you fully meet Openness/Honesty is by being fully open/honest. Start with answers to the above questions, OK?

He has no boundaries and does not police HIMSELF. He is not taking any accountability for affair proofing himself. He has to be policed like a punk kid.

The lovebuster is not only DISHONESTY, but INDEPENDENT BEHAVIOR. Huge lovebusters.

Your wife won't be safe with you until you man up and start taking responsibility for protecting your wife and your marriage. As it is now, you will only do what you are FORCED to do according to the limits of your wife's knowledge. That means you are not safe out of her sight.

What seems to be the biggest issue is that you don't share intimacy with your wife. That goes beyond just being honest about what you did wrong, and into why. Why would you look beyond your marriage for sex? What does sex mean to you? Or her?

Many of these issues might require counseling from someone objective to get to the core reasons why you seem,(I say that as a layman, not an expert), to need stimulation in relationships that should be reserved for your marriage.

Sex isn't a sport or should it be something used to fill your idle time because your bored. I wonder if you have talked to your wife about how you view sex or how close your communication with her is. You said you didn't want to lose everything you had. Isn't the relationship with her the most important thing you have?

It doesn't sound like you are in love with your wife or do the action of love towards her or with her. Taking out the trash or buying her a house is part of love but pales to intimacy, POJA,Radical honesty, and sharing each others inner desires.


Its simple, if you feel she is important to your happiness, safty, and future and respect her feelings, opinion, and help with your life you would tell her everything at every point you have an issue immediatly and trust that whatever happens you did it together. Why hide anything from yourself? Thats what she is supposed to be, part of you. Don't fool yourself, no matter how separate you try to act like you are what she does effects you and what you do effects her.


I hope you take this seriuos and get to work establishing intimacy and appreciation for each other. You have been together a long time and I wouldn't want to see either of you robbed anymore.


I say Steve H would be the best choice in counsel in this as he will see the areas you need to work on. Other vets here also might have more insight and yes, that could help.

Since I left my job almost 2 years ago, I had no contact with anyone from that job until I bumped into someone from that company at the airport. I guess hearing about people from the company, made me look up her facebook page. I don't have a facebook account, so all I could do is view the page. There was no other motive as to see what was up. I did look up a few other coworkers but of course this one has a relevance to my past/to my problems. I would say that the boredom aspect has to do with having time on my hands while I'm away.
I will say that there are many other things that I could do - if bored that would not have violated my policy of openness and honesty.
I do know that posting on this site will help me out and appreciate the comments to my original post.
I also know that in the future any extra time on my hands will lead me to this site often. I do want to get the trust of my wife back and the feedback given will help me do this.

The problem is not boredom, Cant, but one of boundaries and self policing. You have not taken accountibility for protecting your wife and your marriage or you would have never looked at the OW's website and triggered yourself.

This was not a violation of "openness and honesty" but a breach of contact with the OW. This was one-sided contact.

Traveling jobs are an invitation to affairs and you are wrecking your marriage by traveling without your wife. That makes it impossible to spend 15+ hours per week of Undivided attention. This program doesn't work without it.

Have to say that I agree with you. I'm not taking any responsibility, and do need to be policed - I react when discovered.
I have to get to the point, that the thought of "I just looked at the facebook page, no big deal, I didn't try to reach out" becomes a big deal to me - it is for my wife, so it should be for me.
I have to get to where I can give her confidence that I am policing my behavior, not her.
I hope to work on this and appreciate the slap upside the head.

it seems pretty simple to me to think "would this hurt my wife?" prior to doing anything; even if you think "this may not be a problem" then err on the side of caution and ask your wife prior to doing anything.

If you want to be "fully open and honest", the first person you gotta stop lying to is yourself.

This is the DEFINITION of POJA.

Cant - review the Policy of Joint Agreement.

Commit to live it - whether you understand your wife's feelings, like them or hate them - EVERYTHING you do affects her.

I do appreciate all of the feedback (as well as the slaps upside the head - deserved)and feel that coming to this site daily will help me to review the concepts/policies. Rebuilding trust is going to be difficult especially since it is tough to convince someone that you are no longer lying and/or not being fully open and honest.
How do I go about rebuilding trust? How can someone see or feel, that a person that has withheld their thoughts/or feelings because they wanted to "avoid a fight"/"avoid an arguement" or has always exhibited protector liar tendencies, is now being open and honest? Could use the advice.

You can't convince, you have to show. It took some time for trust to be broken. It will take time for it to be rebuilt. You just have to keep doing right and being honest consistently day after day. It is the pattern of doing the right thing that builds trust. And when lie, we may tell ourselves we our protecting someone else...but it's really ourselves we are trying to protect.

Yes what luri said, plus, you must realize that some issues, like EAs with porn girls on the net, and your close encounter of the nasty kind, are issues where trust is more important than others.

Ther is a lot for you to explore when building intimacy. Don't sell your marriage short of being more than what it seems to be to you now. Make an effort to change yourself and open your eyes and heart to the possibilitys. The same goes to your wife if she has stopped building it too.

Somewhere on this site are links to new and exciting activities you two could do. Sounds like you have been a victim of the complacency that comes from familiarity. Take charge here and look for exciting things you can do with your wife.

It will take intiatation form you and spending your free time with her also to get her to see that you care about her more than other women.

I am being kind and expecting you will take a word of advice without throwing 2X4s at you. In the end you can't say you were not told. I hope you have listened.

Cant,

There is a point in your head when you make the decision to betray your wife.

Consider this: when the time comes when you think about doing the wrong thing, and know you shouldn't, and you tell yourself that you should do the RIGHT thing instead - you have that image in your mind? Good. The very NEXT MOMENT is critical

it is the moment in which the betrayal occurs

You first betray yourself - because if you choose to do the wrong thing, you cave into that part of yourself that wants whatever it wants, and every moral thing about you bends to this want. You cave in - you betray yourself.

The next step, you tell yourself why it is OKAY to betray the moral judgement inside of you, and to go ahead and do the wrong thing - you make up so-called "reasons" why it is okay to do the wrong thing.

And the next thing you do

is blame YOUR WIFE

for YOUR decision to betray her.

Then, using your made-up reasons and blame-shifting, off you go...

To view your porn, to contact or look up the OW, to kiss the OW, to start down the road of whatever you are thinking about doing.


Because right now?

You have already begun that path.

Your "reasons" are already in place:

-you are bored
-you didn't see it as a "big deal"
-you are a "protective liar"
-and your wife is calling you and not trusting you when she really ought to..............so SHE is really having problems, not YOU




Do you see what is happening?


You need to understand that the INSTANCE you begin to attempt to justify BAD BEHAVIOR, this path begins.

STOP IT THERE.

Recognize this pattern. It is the path to self-betrayal, then to betraying others.


SB

I think that I am starting to get your point (and others) because as I am about to view the facebook page or view the porn site, I'm saying to myself it is not like the last time, I have it under control, it's just viewing a site, it's no big deal.
At the time, I am missing the connection to it's a lie, it's violating an agreement, it's hurting my wife. Also, I am blaming my wife by saying it's no big deal. Kind of shifting the responsibility of the act from me to her.

What I am thinking of doing to help myself get better is to come to this site every day and either post or read some posts. I guess I am thinking that this will remind me of what I have done bad in the past (and prevent me from doing it again) and that it will allow me to review the policies/principles of Marriage Builders every day. Kind of treating myself as an addict in recovery who needs a support group and use this as the support group.

I know that I have slipped up in the past and did so again recently and I know that I can't keep doing it as I have run out of chances. Got to make sure that I fully understand what I have done, why I do it and how to prevent it and hope this site helps with that.

The disconnect comes from your belief that you have to FEEL like doing something in order to do it. You do not have to have a FEELING in order to do something, you simply have to MAKE A DECISION TO DO IT.

It doesn't make a tinkers damn if you feel a connection or whatever. What matters is that you MAKE A DECISION TO KNOCK IT OFF AND THEN KNOCK IT OFF.

Will you make a DECISION to knock it off?

I will tell you right now why you do it: YOU HAVE NOT MADE A DECISION TO KNOCK IT OFF.

That is all you need to "understand. " Can you understand the simple concept of "KNOCK IT OFF?"