The whole conversation began about two days ago. She's acknowledging that I should not have to carry the burden of restoring this marriage, that we need to regain the romantic love, and that she'll "read any book or whatever it takes" to get back there.

Yesterday on our way to counseling, she was kind of quiet so I pressed for what it was that she was mulling over. She prefaced it by saying that she knew it wasn't good for me to hear it, and she didn't like feeling it, but she still missed OM.

See, she's been dealing with depression for years and, with OM at work, he was an easy person to talk to about it. Just listened, didn't comment. Pretty much the opposite of me. The last week has been kind of down for her (the depression just comes and goes like that) and the trigger for OM was her wishing she had someone to talk to about it that didn't have a vested interest and wouldn't try to "fix" her--i.e., me, her parents/family, etc.

So I'm working to replace myself with him in that regard and she's open to talking to me about things that, in the past, were not spoken.

It'll take a while for us both to begin trusting each other, but we're making small steps in the right direction with fewer setbacks. Take what you can get, I guess.

Later that evening, I pretty much said what you said, Andy. That either one of us talking about his [censored] wasn't good, but we sort of agreed that we had to get all this crap out in the open, get it over with so it wasn't dwelling on either of us? Make sense? Kind of like ripping the bandaid off.

So, yes, I agree 1000000% that bringing up OM is bad since it puts his name in her head. Sometimes I guess you just cannot help it.

Oh, and then my stupid truck wouldn't start at lunch time. Great. Might as well add something else to the mix.

Any thoughts on showing my wife this forum? For the last month, she's been on a depression-support forum and was excited to see that she wasn't alone in dealing with that illness.

She's not 100% sold on MB concepts--at one point said there were several interesting points, at another time said it sounded like it was written by a man.

I don't know--too soon? Maybe see what she gets out of the LB book?

NW - I'd wait a little longer before showing her the site. You need to be a ways down the recovery path, IMHO. My WW asked again yesterday, during MC, who/what told me to send the letters. I didn't answer - instead I asked, why is it important? It's done and cannot be undone. It's driving her crazy, but I don't get it and guess I'm not supposed to get it either. It's also the reason that I asked to have a part of my thread removed. My WW isn't dumb and she'll find the site - we got our ENQs yesterday and the site is at the bottom of every page.

I see what you're saying about being there for her, it's a fine line you're trying to walk.

Work the books and go from there.

Well, that's two votes for patience, thanks for the input.

Will continue with the LB book, then do the workbook that I ordered with it.

It's been kind of a bum weekend. I think I did a lousy Plan A (no real exposure) for too long before getting my act together to bust up the affair.

I can see that my $LB has been in the red way too long, and it doesn't take much to delete any positives.

Wife had a migraine that started Friday morning and is just now starting to ebb. Normally, I would want to take care of her, want to handle the kids, the house, etc. while she slept through it. I get that she doesn't want to be sick.

And she's said, the past few days, that she actually feels guilty asking me to do anything for her--even something as simple as getting her a glass of water while I'm in the kitchen. She hesitates to ask because she thinks my first thought would be "well, what have you done for me lately?"

Well, she's right, though I make every effort to pretend that she isn't. My top two needs (SF and Affection) have gone unmet for so long that I just struggle not to be frustrated. Sure, she's working on the affection part, but it's a distant second-place compared to SF for me. It's been 9 months since that and my mood goes up and down all day long. I'm just lonely, there's a void there.

She's even said that she feels like I'm the one doing all the work to fix this marriage, that that is wrong and says she'll step up but the one area (SF) that would give the "biggest bang for the buck" is one that she's just not into. And I get the reasons why she isn't and would not want her to resent me by doing something that she just doesn't want to do.

Ugh. Why couldn't I have gotten Physical Attractiveness as my #1 EN? You know, something easier for her to meet without resenting me or making us both feel bad. Figures.

So I make valiant efforts to meet her needs, but I admit I have a motive in doing so--to get her to meet mine. When we commit to UA (which has been really lacking since the migraine) I feel a little better, but lately I've not even wanted to do that.

I think if she had come back to the table some six or seven months ago, I'd have had more of a reserve and been better able to weather this. As-is, the affair is about two months distant and it's only in the last week or two that's she's actually starting to work on this marriage.

I just have this "too little, too late" feeling right now. But I don't want that. I want this marriage to work. I want to rebuild the romantic love. I want my wife back better than ever. I want to be a better husband and father. I want all these things but am just worn out.

I'm just on empty, figure I've got about a nickel or two in the bank here down from maybe a dollar before the migraine. It's selfish, I know, but it's how my mind is working right now. I don't want to be like this.

Guess I'll get back on the horse for tomorrow, just wanted to vent. Just tired of having to bear the burden. Hell, we're planning a beach vacation with my family in July and W is getting into it. She wants to be here, doesn't want a divorce. What's wrong with me not to see the good here?

NW8900 - Hang in there. It sounds like you're in the doldrums right now. Try to fight those feelings, if she doesn't want a D, then there's definitely hope. I'm envious of your situation, because WW and I don't really talk about anything in the future at all. There is good in what she's saying, trying to latch onto that and let go of the bad/negative parts.

I would say you are mentally and emotionally exhausted, wondering if it has all been worth it. But you know it is, else you wouldn't have come this far. Keep your eye on the prize. You're closer now than you have ever been!

Thanks for the pep talk, I appreciate it.

I think most of us here would agree that this would be so much easier if we didn't feel like we were doing all the work. I forget who, but someone here said it was ironic that it is the betrayed that is on their knees while the wayward seemingly gets off easy.

W did comment last week that she felt she had gotten off easy. She said she almost wanted me to yell and scream at her. If I was a psychologist maybe that would make sense to me. Dunno.

NW8900 - I'm not a mental health professional, but I think it would give her some justification or validation. I think some people would also interpret a lack of yelling for indifference or not being passionate about the situation.

Like you, I am tired of doing all the work. At least our MC gave us both homework and I know she's done most of it. I'm sure she'll wing the last part - what would be her ideal life in 5 years, where would she be, what would she be doing, etc. She did the questionaires under protest, because she didn't like to choose the answers, etc. I'm not quite done with the questionaires; I'll probably finish them up tomorrow night since our appointment is on Wednesday.

Right now, I'd love to see a glimmer of hope or score some 'reality' points during the MC session.

A couple of things you've said have struck me, Northwood.


I was the same way, always wanting to "fix" things. So, instead of just listening and empathizing, my responses were always "You need to do so-and_so...", or "You should have done 'blank'..." This kind of conversation is getting very close to disrespectful judgements and is totally unsatisfying to your wife.

Listening is a practiced skill. Just listen to her, then try to repeat back what she is feeling. Do not make it about you, Do not try to fix the situation or give her advice.




Plan A is all about you doing toe heavy lifting. Constatnly repeat to yourself "no expectations".

That's pretty much why I haven't yelled and cussed at her--didn't want to give her validation for her feelings. But she knows how I feel about it. Her comment came up when I was raising hell about OM and, I guess, she wondered how come I hadn't used those types of words to describe her. What I think of OM is no secret

Hey, I'm kind of surprised your wife even did the questionaires, that's something at least. Yeah, I know, you have to take what you can get. At least you'll know what your counselor is probably going to talk about when you go back. Talking about EN's is better than a bisch session about stuff that happened ten years ago that no one can do anything about now.

Both excellent points, schtoop. Thanks for chiming in. It took me, what, 14 years to figure out the "not-trying-to-fix-things" and learning how to actually listen. Turns out, that was one of her main complaints about the marriage and, boy, is it hard to sometimes keep my mouth shut!

Yeah, it looks like "no expectations" is becomming my mantra. If I had only done the full-blown exposure last summer, I think we'd be much further along.

So true. There was a post someone linked from four years ago by Mark I think. It explains why the BH has to work so hard. WW left the marriage, and is now sort of half-way in / half-way out. That cannot last forever (6months they say is the max we can handle withour re-commitment) but that's the reality. We have to do a lot of heavy lifting for now. Its Plan A. It sucks. But you have friends here doing the same thing. Eyes on the prize.

We have all heard that.

"You should be more angry at me." It just seems like such a trap. Give her a reason to hate the angry outburst, crazy husband.

In Plan A don't be a doormat however. Stick up for yourself. Be clear about what hurts. Let her know what hurts and makes you angry. These are your feelings. They are honest. You don't have to blow up, yell and scream. You can be really angry with passion but without volume.

Probably Mark1952--he was on here when I posted briefly back in 2003. I don't guess he's here anymore, but he always made a lot of sense. Hope everything turned out well for him.

But I do see why Dr. H. recommends 6 months for Plan A. After about seven months into this, with no real exposure and no change in the affair, I was contemplating divorce on an hourly basis. I had nothing left in me, just flat out worn out. If I didn't have kids, I'm sure I would have bolted.

Fortunately, WW reacted "positively" to a really bad exposure and brow beating by her family at around eight months. It was my last ditch effort, a Pickett's Charge or Custer's Last Stand. It worked, but left me exhausted.

Now, if I had done this at D-Day, I would have still had the energy to move forward with this at a faster speed. I'm tired, but still plodding ahead with most of my EN's being met--save the most valuable one to me which hurts.

I've never done anything this freaking hard in my life. Getting that bozo away from my wife was easy compared to this. But somehow I keep getting a little more energy to keep going--likely because, like you said Stretch, there are others on here going through the same thing, if not worse.

Seriously, without you guys I wouldn't have made it this far. If I never meet y'all in this life, I'll buy you each a beer when we get to the other side.

Yep, you got that right. There's a fine line between a serious tone and a pissed off tone. Maybe it's a matter of complete confidence and control or internal conviction that you're done being walked over. It just hit me one day (how I wasn't going to let my wife do this to me and my kids without a fight). It was as clear as a bell and I'd never been so sure of anything in my life. My WW didn't know what to think when she saw it--she'd never seen that before, but then I'd never seen a lot of things before, either.

So many times I see posts by BS's who are like we all were at one point...lost and confused, wallowing in where their life has led them. But once you get to that point, where you're not going to take it anymore, that you put your foot down, then I think we can all regain control of their lives...one way or the other.

Thanks, stretch, for the support, it's always appreciated!

Last Thursday was MC. While there, I got into an argument with my wife and counselor about me raising my voice and having a tone when my wife said something that got me on the defense--not my finest moment, but it made me realize that my main LB is AO and seeing myself do that was not a good feeling at all. Seriously, I started arguing with the counselor when he told me to lower my voice and try to calm down. It was beyond embarrassing to get called out on the carpet, but completely deserved. That's what he's paid for. Go figure, never even saw that (AO) as a possibility but really do now.

I'm glad it came out, because it was the turning point for us and we had a long talk about things. We both know that we both contributed to the shape of things and the playing field is leveled somewhat. I don't know if that makes sense, but once I got out of the "victim" mindset and quit blaming my wife for everything it helped.

Yesterday she said I'd had a really rough time the past year (because of her affair) and it was now her job to make me feel safe in the marriage. We spoke of how this was different this time around and how we both look forward to the work ahead.

Last night she picked up LoveBusters and read two chapters--usually I was the one that read. She paused a lot and we had a lot of discussions about the topics presented.

For instance, when Dr. H mentioned "enthusiastic" agreement, she laughed and asked how do people have an "enthusiastic" agreement over, say, a touchy or sensitive subject that neither party wants to talk about but has to talk about?

We kind of agreed that it meant (in those cases) to minimize the sacrifices and resentment levels to the greatest extent possible given a crappy lose-lose situation. To be able to see the other's point of view and be able to empathize. To get it out, not drag it out, and minimize the $LB damage as much as possible. I guess that's right?

So from exposure and NC to now, about two months. Never freaking thought I'd get here, but I'm looking forward to what the future holds and my wife says she is, too.

Wish I'd done the exposure back in June 2010.

NW - sounds like a great breakthrough for you guys. That's awesome! Rooting for you all the way.

I appreciate it, Andy. It's still tough sometimes, and it's sad to think that we had to do all of this damage just to fix things.