Its ok to make a respectful request. But that was not the case in outofkilters situation. He made selfish demands coupled with disrespectful judgments and angry outbursts. And just because a spouse makes a respectful request does not mean the other spouse wants to do it. And in this case, she most certainly does not want to bring acts she finds disgusting into the marriage.


He should percieve that she is not in love with him and commit to resolving that problem.


She doesn't love him, though. So his perception is accurate. The solution is to work together to CREATE romantic love. And making sacrifices on her part WILL NOT CREATE ROMANTIC LOVE. So, if he wants to be loved, he should avoid demanding that she make sacrifices for him.


But she doesn't love him. So how will she "PROVE" something that does not exist?

Again, who says the guy who wants the refused act is any different that your BH? If a guy wants a certain act, because he's experienced it before and enjoyed it a great deal, and his wife doesn't provide it, but provided it freely to the OM, then after the affair, he still knows he liked it and he now knows that the WW freely gave it to another man.

I think every BH wants to know that his wife is totally and 100% his and only his.

The differences are in how the man perceives that state.

The affair doesn't change his preferences. But the affair certainly puts his WW in a new light.

Please note, I've never said she has to perform the act. If she is really repulsed, then she shouldn't. However, the natual consequence of the prior behavior is it's going to be more difficult for her to prove this to her husband given the fact that she's freely offered this up to the OM.

So you have a BH who has not made selfish demands nor had angry outbursts being told NO to something he's respectfully requested, and he seriously doubts not only that his wife loves him, but that she's ever loved him at all.

Now folks can present all sorts of facts, such as affairs are addictions, and what not, and those of us familiar with Dr H's work will understand those facts at the level facts are understood.

But marriages also have a feelings component.

For years I've been told that I'm too logical, that I need to consider the feelings of others. I accept that. So now that I present the feelings aspect of the BH, I'm given all sorts of facts.

I just want to scream and pull that last bit of hair that's still on my head out

Folks can present facts all day long. I know from personal experience that feelings are largely impervious to facts and logic.

We see proof of that everyday on this board. Folks like lurioosi's BH was betrayed, yet he loved his wife enough to outweigh the fact that she betrayed him.

I probably had more to say, but my phone rang and I lost my train of thought. I reserve the right to revise and amend my remarks

I need to expand on the answer I gave to this question. He should percieve 2 things: a) she is not in love with him and b) since she WANTS to be in love with him she will not agree to do sex acts she finds disgusting

If she agrees to perform these acts she finds disgusting, she will develop an aversion. So that having sex with him will actually be a LOVEBUSTER for her. She will grow to associate bad feelings with having sex with him. It will drain any romantic feelings she has for him.

I would refer back to this Harley quote about sacrifice:

outofkilter's scenario? This is a thread started by someone named Frank57. What does outofkilter have to do with anything I've said here?

That is all we are saying. But the solution is not perform the same degrading acts in the marriage, but to come up with a solution that satisfies BOTH.

And it cannot be overemphasized that falling in love will bring an exciting new dynamic to the marriage. And in the marriage, this love is sustainable, whereas it was not in the sleazy affair.

]

He needs to face the fact that his wife HAS fallen out of love with him in many cases. The fact that she would say NO to a specific request that will cause lovebusters is a good thing, not a bad thing.

THAT BEING SAID, it is important that she offer up something as a response to his specific request that makes him just as happy. And it must be something that makes BOTH HAPPY, not just one.

Frank's scenario B is about the outofkilter thread.

lurioosi, I am so glad you mentioned this, because it has been my experience on this board that BS's are very leery of the WS bringing in adultery tainted sex acts to the marriage bed. That is very disturbing to most BS.

I understand the issue is about her being willing to do things with the OM she wouldn't do with the BH, but it seems to me the best solution would be for her to do things with the BH that she wouldn't do with the scumbucket.

Her married sex life should not be an emulation of 2 pigs rutting in the pig pen, it should be BETTER. It should be SPECIAL.

My wife will freely tell you that her Giver ruined our marriage by saying YES to things she was not happy about and accepting situations she was not happy about. Not just sexual issues, but almost everything in general.

So for me it's a complete Love Buster when I find out that my wife has been saying yes to something that makes her unhappy. I want her to say no and be honest about how things make her feel. I have always felt that way, but even moreso now.

Coming out of my self imposed exile to respond to this above quote.

Replace BH with BW. Replace OM with OW. That is ME ME ME. I was devastated to a level that apparently the men on this thread cannot fathom. SF is my top EN. It has been for a long, long time. I was traumatized to a point of having PTSD due to my H continuing his LTA with his 2nd OW long past multiple ddays. What traumatized me the most?

1. His refusal to have SF with me (I had no idea he was still in the A at the time and this continued even after the PA ended)
2. His lack of "being there" when we did have the rare SF.
3. Lack of affection
4. his confession later that he continued the PA long after he stopped caring about xOW because...HE ENJOYED IT!!!
5. Knowing that some wh*re had the son I was supposed to have and had prayed for

Yet, after all that I have the OC in my home on a near weekly basis. I am loving and caring with him. He is treated well in my home and it shows in his behavior toward me.

How is it that just because I am a woman, I cannot be "viscerated" by my FWH's enjoyment of his sexual experience with the xOW?

How is that just because I know the OC is not mine my hurt is any LESS than a man raising his FWW's OC?

Frank, you will often see us BW's on the pregnancy board encourage BH's dealing with an OC? Why? Because nearly 100 percent of us would happily raise our H's OC if there was no OW in the picture.

I agree, and I think in the present edition of Surviving an Affair, Dr. Harley uses the terminology the same way. (But I haven't read the whole thing, and he's revising it, anyway.)

I think some waywards have been helped by contrasting what they felt with their affair partners against genuine sustainable caring love, and I agree that the moral dimension is important for them to recognize.

But I've never heard that betrayeds need to be hammered by telling them that what the wayward felt was not love.

I am sorry Mel, but you are wrong. I am in perfect agreement with your quote fro Harley. It is your flawed perception of what I say that is in effect.

You wrote:

Again I am in perfect agreement whit what is said here. Again it is your DJ as to what I mean that is flawed

What I said is that the BS will interpret her decision to refuse these acts as a lack of love and rejection of him. I have all the time said she has the right to make this choice.Thus this choice will have consequences that are detrimental to recovery.

I think your recovery is wonderful. But, am I remembering correctly that SF is not a huge EN for your husband? To the point where it actually makes you frustrated quite regularly? I guess I'm suggesting that another reason you may find it difficult to relate to the opinions posted here is that your H has an unusual alignment of ENs as opposed to something fundamentally more sound about his character than some of the men posting here.

No, I did not misunderstand you at all. You said:
And I have addressed this. You don't understand what constitutes recovery so I have explained what it will take. And that means NEVER agreeing to perform sex acts that one finds disgusting.


He should interpret that she doesn't love him. She is probably not in love. So that would be an accurate interpretation.

BUT, doing acts that disgust her will not restore that love, it will only cause more erosion.

If the man is not logical enough to understand this, then he has more problems that can be resolved here.

The ultimate goal here is a happy, romantic sex life for BOTH. It should be enjoyable to her and most especially HIM, but the man has to be logical to understand to asking her to perform pig pen sex that disgusts her is not an act of love and will not restore the love in the marriage.


I agree that she has a right to make this choice. And if she agreed to something that repulses her that "choice" will have detrimental consequences to recovery. Unless he ENJOYS having sex with him, she should not do it otherwise it will cause an aversion. NOT SMART.

mel wrote:


Amen to all of that. But it will take two to achieve this. The WW will have to be on board.

It was built off of that, citing it as an example.

Yet even that fact doesn't change the emotional aspect of this. I agree,use the POJA, come to a mutual agreement.

Part of the deficit the WW has built in the love bank is that she freely gave to the OM and now is saying she cannot offer the same to her BH.

A barrier to the POJA is his perception she's not negotiating in good faith. Citing the POJA, while correct is too simple. The POJA is unlikely to work if he doesn't believe she is negotiating with the objective to build romantic love, as one who wants to protect the marriage and meet his emotional needs.

So how does she convince her husband that the POJA is the answer, that rebuilding romantic love is the answer when she continues to do things that tell him that she's still selfish and not looking out for the best interests of the marriage. Not to mention, her previous acts prove that she cannot be trusted to keep her word. The affair casts doubt on any agreements she makes via the POJA. After all, if she can discard her vows so easily, how does he trust her if she engages in the POJA?

The only tool at his disposal is to watch and see if she offers extra-ordinary protections for the marriage, if she is meeting his emotional needs, and finally if she is avoiding love busters.

I don't think a BH will even consider the POJA until he's assured she's a safe spouse.

So while I agree that the POJA and the MB program is the best answer, what has been described here is a barrier created by the actions of the WW to convince her BH that MB is a worthwhile program.

On one hand, you have the program talking about meeting needs, avoiding LB's and building romantic love. But on the other hand, you have a WW who to this point has done the exact opposite and is now telling her betrayed husband, that while he should engage in this process to rebuild romantic love which will result in him getting his needs met, she will not meet a need for him in the fashion he wants even though she did that with the OM.

Again, that's the hurdle she faces. How does she present a credible case with this scenario in play?

The fact that she did that for the OM makes her less credible in his eyes, making him even less likely to embrace MB.

Frank, you continually accuse me of making "DJs" but I would point out that I am not trying to fill your love bank. You are not my husband. Nor is it a "DJ" to disagree with you.

And this is why as a BH in the past, I would give a WW about a nanosecond to prove that she actually loves me should I ever be betrayed again.

If she is unwilling or unable to do this, I would simply cut her from the team.

Why?

No love.

If she didn't really love me before, or doesn't love me enough to avoid an affair and make respectful requests, that are delivered in a fashion that I understand completely, then she's not really worth additional effort on my part.

So she would have about a nanosecond to prove that she loves me should I discover she's in an affair.

She should not offer "the same," she should be offering BETTER. Why should she offer disgusting pig pen sex that reminds her of some scumbag OM?

However, she is not likely to offer him anything when he continually verbally abuses her and makes selfish demands. \

The worst thing she would do is have sex with him when they are in a state of CONFLICT. When that happens, she will begin to associate bad feelings with the sexual act.

Sexual Aversion

She should meet his needs, he should meet her needs, and they should both stop lovebusting.

How can she prove something that doesn't exist? Women typically love one man at a time. What usually happens in an affair scenario is the WW has fallen out of love with her H.

And that is what the MB recovery program addresses: the restoration of love to the marriage.

Mel,

Are you being obtuse on purpose? I clearly said the BH is not making selfish demands or engaging in angry outbursts. Yet you continue to cite these things.

If you are unwilling or unable to stop twisting what I've said, then I'll leave you to argue with yourself.

I clearly did not cite a scenario as you've described. If you want to argue with yourself, feel free. But don't write back to me with your scenarios as if what I've said bears any resemblance to your argument with yourself.

Take your straw man argument and knock it down on your own. You cannot knock down what I've said by writing something different, making it appear to be my words, then knocking it down.

Now, if you want to address the scenario I've presented. You know, the one where the BH is not making demands, nor is engaging in AO's, then I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

But I've clearly said, more than one, in English even, that I'm not talking about that.

Do you understand?