Hi! Markos,

Sorry it took me so long to answer your questions.
I did speak with S.Harley back then and once again 3 weeks ago. I've also been in touch with Sandy. I also send msg's from time to time to Melody and Mark, they try to keep me straight!

ElC move to the US on Aug and a week later I moved too with DD's. We are living together, and although we are not following MB principles, I'm still trying. ElC does not wants to get onboard just yet. We are like roommates right now. I've been avoiding lB's especially IB!!!

I have to work a lot harder to get him back, he's been very cold no matter what I do. He's heavily involve in JiuJitsu(I guess as an escape), watching videos with earplugs most of the time.

I will try to find a babysitter to go see him practicing Jiu Jitsu this week, I know he would like that. Although I do not like Jiu Jitsu or MMA, and I've been pretty clear about it. He says we have nothing in common anymore.

I'll start scheduling dates again, and hopefully at some point he'll decide if he wants to work on the M.

That's all for now....

rizos, thanks for checking in! What else have you been doing to attract him back? I am going to make an educated guess here and say that what pushed him away were your comments about not loving him and the ease with which you were ready to jump to divorce. He naturally wouldn't be interested in fighting for a marriage with a woman who doesn't love him. Has that changed?

I honestly think that he just fell out of love because of all the difficulty involved in losing his business and watching his friends get laid off. That had to have been a massive lovebuster.

What do you think? And how do you like your new town?

Where do I start? Let's see... Do I love him? I still have feelings for him. Unless we are BOTH meeting each other needs, neither of us is suppose to love the other. Does he loves me, of course NOT. After what I did, I'm not expecting him to. Trying to work on our M for the sake of our DD's, and hoping that we could finally have a great M(for the first time), should be the priority. What we had pre-affair and after the affair is not working for either of us. Loving or not loving your partner at the moment is not the right question, you love whoever meets your needs. What matters is, to make the choice to save the MARRIAGE even though you know that at the time the other person hates your guts (BS or WS). If we follow MB rules, LOVE will follow... Just to add a note ElC is worth fighting for.

Do I know if the affair was a big love buster? Yes I do, I think about the huge mistake, and the pain that I've inflicted to him and my relatives everyday. All I'm asking is when enough is enough? Nobody (WS or BS) should be on plan A forever. Maybe he just had enough, who knows. I still have not had enough, although sometimes I do lose hope. Usually I regroup during the night, and start all over the next day, with a happy face. I know that we can both change, and have a great M.

What I have been doing?, let's see. SHarley told me to start with the LB lessons by myself, and to let Sandy know. I have to ask ElC how I'm doing(treating him) from time to time. In the mornings I have his breakfast ready, and give him a ride to the train station. During the day, I send him msg's letting him know what I'm doing, and making sure he knows that I've been thinking about him. I take care of his stuff, like taking his car to the auto body, etc... I make food that I know he likes, or new recipes that I know he'll enjoy. I have sex with him, even if he's not asking for it. I've been asking him how he feels, and I have been pretty clear that I'm not giving up. I did ask him, how would he feel about being more affectionate with me, but he said that he would have to make a big effort. I was Ok with the answer even though it hurt, but it was an honest answer.

I told him I saw the movie Fireproof, and I took a lot of notes, some of them, I had already been doing. He wants to try to see it again, he started to see it (5 or 10 min), but it looked so low budget that he didn't finish it.

About the new town... I like it, I've been driving around a lot. I have not started to look for a job yet because our youngest D is only in school for half a day (PM session). Next year I'll definitely. Well, I'll try to keep you posted...

Wow. Rizos, you sound better. Your last few posts seem much more grounded, focused, and mature.

I hope that is accurate, and that you continue with the work you're putting in. And I hope that it pays off for you both.

Rizos, good to see you again. I'm glad to see the work you are putting in, and glad to hear you are still talking to Steve, Sandy, and MelodyLane and Mark! I'm hoping down the road both you and ElC are going to be really glad of that, too.

Thanks Mrs Vanilla and Markos.

Right now there's no intimate comunication between me and ElC. I was asking him how he was feeling, and he would told me that instead of me asking him questions, that I should ask myself those questions so that he could know how I was feeling. I keep telling him that he needs to ask me directly what he wants to know. He keeps sending mix signals. I don't know what he wants, I feel like he's expecting me to read his mind! The other day I was talking about a guy who wanted to go back with his Ex wife after 2 years of her being living with the OM, and I said that he was crazy ( something like that, can't translate exactly), and he said that I still don't get it! It really upset me, with all that I'm doing, and aparently I still don't get it...

He also still (even though she lives in PR) complaints about my sis. He still thinks that my relatives are more important than him. I don't know, I decided to do what he said, being roommates. Plus, I don't ask him how is him feeling anymore.... I still take care of him, get everything ready for him, make dinner, avoid love busters, etc. But I don't know how to be open with him, and that seems to be the only thing that he wants.

I feel like everything I do is wrong. If I open my mouth is wrong, and if I stay quiet I am not being open!!!! It's crazy...

At this point be the person you want to be, you probably feel like everything you do is to controlled and you really aren't being who you really want to be......
Just learn to be you and if you need to speak up, speak up.......maybe you could come up with a different way of communicating for now.....
Maybe some kind of journal/note thing.........once you are more comfortable with that it might come easier for you to be open.......
It's worth a try, not confrontations that way, but having your thoughts listened to by your husband and he with you.................

Rizos we are always so glad to hear from you.

The fact that ElC is still living with you and still sending you signals at all is a tremendous opportunity, even if those signals are mixed and you may not be able to figure all of them out yet.

It sounds like discussing any affair situation with ElC is a trigger. I would avoid it if at all possible. Not sure what the vets would say.

Do you know anything you could be doing that would give ElC the idea that your relatives are more important than him? Are ALL contacts you make with your relatives subject to the POJA? Do you ONLY call your family when he is enthusiastic about it?

(Disclosure: I don't see my parents any more because Prisca is not enthusiastic about it. I miss them, and I miss the opportunity for my children to connect with them, but my parents' criticism of my wife and interference with our marriage was too damaging. I'm hoping one day they'll straighten out and win our confidence again.)

Openness is pretty hard for most of us, and even harder when you have a habit of Love Busters. You might want to review the four areas of honesty Dr. Harley writes about and read closely again the wording of the Policy of Radical Honesty:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3900_honesty.html


Are you revealing to ElC as much information about yourself as you know?

Check closely the four areas of honesty:


I'm sure you've done tremendous work to achieve historical honesty. Look closely at the other three. You share your thoughts and plans with him? You tell him what is going on with you each day? Those two questions cover future and current honesty. Emotional honesty is a little more difficult (at least for me). It's hard to be emotionally honest in the first place, and even harder when the only way you know to "express yourself" is angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments, or selfish demands. Having listened to something like 200 hours of Marriage Builders radio now plus doing lots of reading here, I think the following "formulas" can be pretty useful for expressing your emotions:

"I like ..."

"I don't like ..."

"I'd like it if you'd ..."

"It bothers me when you ..."

Keep it simple. My advice is don't enter into a big discussion about "why" you feel the way you do, and don't quibble about exactly which positive or negative emotion you are feeling when you say you like or don't like something. Your feelings simply ARE, and your job is to simply share them, not to psychoanalyze yourself or your husband's reactions to them.

Oh, and be sure to keep in regular contact with Sandy. And Steve and MelodyLane and Mark if you can. You know these people can help you. Don't slip off their radar!

Thanks, Jessitaylor

That is a good idea. I have to start writing everytime a thought comes to my mind, that way, I don't forget what I want to say. I get so nervous when I speak with him, that I can't remember all that I wanted to say on the first place.... He is so negative right now, like nothing that I do seems to work, even though sometimes he admits that he like something, he goes back to his cold side!!! Like for example, I hanged family pictures 9him, me and the girls), because he is always complaining that we don't have pictures around the house. He was happy when he came home, and saw all the pictures hanging around, but then was cold again. It's the mixed signals that are killing me.

The future plan is or was to buy a house together, so I still keep looking around for houses in the area. Sometimes he would talk about it with me, and then others he would just cut me off, like I should stop dreaming. He says that I should get used to the idea of being roommates, and that I would feel better as soon as I accept that. But on the other hand, I think that he is testing my limits, to see when I will give up. I don't know......

We'll see, I will keep trying. He can't file for divorce for at least 4 more months. And then, we would have to live apart for another year before the D is final. So I guess I still have time to have another chance at winning his heart back!

Markos,

Thanks for posting! Even though I don't post frequently, I do come back to the MB site and read about others. I do learn a lot that way.

Definitely, anything related to affairland is a trigger for him. It is hard, because it seems that every fricking movie that we see together, there's a story of a woman having an affair . I stop talking about MB, and the last time we saw a movie that had an affair, I apologized.

For me it is very hard to be open, I don't know why. It has always been that way. Even with my family, I have always kept it to myself, and they learned to not ask questions. Now I know how terrible that was!!!!, they should have kept asking me how I was feeling, etc. I'm not even open with girlfriends, with nobody at all. I only started to speak up, after I had to revealed the affair to family and close friends. Even then, my family would tell me that they will not interfere, unless I wanted it. They would give me their opinion, Only, if I would ask for it.

They know that emotionally I'm very independent, and I kept everything to myself which is very hard. That needs to change, but it's hard and ELC is not making it any easier, because he doesn't tell me what he wants to know. It's like driving without directions. You know the end point, but don't have any idea of how to get there.

Definitely, I'm going to use your feedback, and I will write down, how I feel(current and future plans) and what I would like to hear from him. Although I don't want to push him either (I'm the wayward, I'm not allowed to make requests).

Also, I will ask him, how does he feels about me calling my family (sis), and see if he wants to talk about it. That's a difficult one...because I feel like he does it on purpose to make me pay for what I did to him. Problem is, it affects my family too, not only ME!

Rizos, I think the key is that he wants to know everything. He wants to know everything you know. He wants you to volunteer information to him, I think, and not to have to ask. Push the information to him, don't wait for him to pull it.


Rizos, my understanding is that both husband and wife are allowed to make thoughtful requests in marriage. A thoughtful request is one which takes your husband's feelings into account as much as yours, meaning you won't demand it if he doesn't feel good about it. So you make sure what you have is a thoughtful request and not a selfish demand. It turns out it has a whole lot less to do with your motivations ("Am I being thoughtful? Am I being selfish?") and a lot more to do with his feelings. Your actions immediately after the question will influence his feelings as to whether it was a request or a demand.

The key for you is this: "Am I willing to take 'no' for an answer?" If you are not willing to take no for an answer, then you are making a demand.


Good, Rizos! Remember to take no for an answer if that's the answer he wants to give!


It really doesn't matter why he feels that way. If he feels like he doesn't want you to make calls like that, then making those calls is thoughtless of his feelings and will hurt him (a love bank withdrawal).

Speculating about WHY he says no is a disrespectful judgment. Let him feel the way he feels, regardless of the reason for his feelings.

At this point I think getting out of the mindset of "paying for what I did" may be helpful. At this point, what you really want is a good marriage, right? You can't have it if you are disrespectful of his feelings.


If you had a million dollars, you might be able to answer twenty charity requests for poor children who need help to afford important operations. If you only had a hundred thousand dollars, you might only be able to help two children. The other eighteen still need your help just as much, but you cannot help them. If you had a million dollars and spent until you only had a hundred thousand left, you might now feel bad that you can't help those eighteen, but the fact is that you can't afford to help them. Of course this is temporary, you might earn a million dollars next year and be able to help them.

This is an analogy, of course. If things were going well, you would probably be able to show care for your husband AND your family. Things are not going well right now. You don't have the ability to give care to both, because you do not have that much care to give. So you are going to have to prioritize. I hope you pick your husband first, because that will give you a better marriage and is the best way to ensure that you will have a good enough life in the future that you will be able to care for more people, perhaps your family.

Markos,

Thanks again, you've been very helpful.

I will definitely have to start writing what I'm thinking about, and how I feel. I hope that it helps me to learn to be more open. When I'm sitting next to him, I don't even know how to start the intimate talking.

It's true, he doesn't want to ask, he wants me to tell in advance, so I'll learned how to do it.

Thanks, again...

Rizos,

I think you need to learn to just be happy go lucky Rizos, and just pretend he likes you, don't take notice of his rudeness, just keep being happy Rizos.
Hey touch him while you sit next to him, touch his arm when you are talking to him, if he has done something helpful, make sure you thank him......and praise him when you get a chance........
Just say things like you like when he does something and that you appreciate him not giving up on you that it means the world to you, tell him that you know his decision to do this isn't easy........tell him you know it takes a strong man to do this........
Little by little his response to you will change.....he will lose the anger and start looking forward to sitting together and sharing the simple things about life.....
You have to show him he is # 1 in your book, you can't do anything at this point that will put any doubt in his head about your commitment to him.....
Slow and steady wins the race......
The biggest gifts are the ones we actually work for........

Hi! Jessitaylor,

I definitely need to lighten up, I'm too tense, giving too much thought to every single detail! It's killing me. My head feels like it weights a lot of pounds.

I asked him yesterday night how does he feels about my relationship with my family. He said that other than lil sis, he doesn't have a problem. BUT, added that at this point anything that I do is purely academic, because he's done. Didn't say exactly done. I did ask him if he was done, but didn't acept it or deny it.

It's confusing, like he's playing mind games, and I really hate that. He said that he is ok (happy, relax) right now, that he doesn't want any drama on his life, etc....

So, like you said, I have to learn to be happy lucky Crazy Irish Chick!!!, and keep trying to do my best to keep him happy.

Thanks again....

Okay for now it's no drama, my hubbie used to say that to me as well, he just wanted peace, after we got to the peace we were able to move on from there, it's baby steps, don't worry about the games or anything he says, just worry about what you do and how you conduct yourself, everything else will fall into place over time.......baby steps, right now it's no drama.........got it..........
Irish chicks can do this.......let the fiesty go and be no drama for a while, look good, smell good, it's your only job........
hehe!!!!

I had to go N/C with my little sister. She caused much strife and also my best partner in crime. I didn't have an affair. However, she doesn't like my husband and tried to break up our marriage.

It took me a while to understand while FOO is important. My family now is my H and my DD. They are my true family, and that is where my loyalty lies.

Ok, no drama for now.... I will keep the Crazy Irish Chick at bay (btw, for those of you who doesn't know me, I'm Puertorrican, not Irish)..., but that's another story!

I should keep writing more frequently, it really helps...

It is just soooo hard!!!!! I know my lil sis is no Angel, and she had an affair. If he tells me that her affair triggers him, I can understand. I just want to be sure that he knows, that she had NO influence whatsoever on me having an affair. She actually liked him (ElC a lot), and defended him, when I started to complaint about him. I do understand that no matter the REASON, if he doesn't like her, I have to let go of her. I just can't be happy like that. It doesn't mean that I have to see her or even speak to her everyday, is just knowing that I can't contact her at all what kills me. Hopefully, as he starts to heal, I will be able to have more contact with her. A phone call that is, because we move out of Puerto Rico.

Thanks, it helps to hear that other are making sacrifices for their partners, it means that I should be able to do it TOO!!!! (without the drama!!! )

I'm just TOO feisty, that needs to change...

Rizo, your thinking is all wrong. Not talking to your wayward sister should not a be viewed as a sacrifice. The last thing EC wants to hear/read is you blaming him for something else that makes you unhappy. So far, I still see much drama in you and EC probably sees it up close even when you claim to be drama free.