I agree how does this help in the long run.......time for a sit down and explain what you told us how this makes you feel. Change is a good thing, Open Honest converstaions are a way to fix the things we need to.........tell her you want a marriage that is where the two of you are happy.......ask her why she doesn't want this......

Stretch,

You are doing great. Coming here to vent is a good thing. I think I know sort of what your wife is thinking. For many years I put all my needs on the back burner and sacrificed for my husband. When I did this awful thing, it is my nature to once again put all my needs on the back burner (I deserve it right?) It is hard for me to NOT sacrifice and I am actively trying to pay attention to what I am feeling. I am afraid that sometimes I overcompensate and state my stance too forcefully so that he is afraid to contradict me. I acknowledge this and try to encourage him to stand up for himself. It is a delicate balance. I wish he would come her to vent so someone else could tell him what to do. It sounds ridiculous for me to tell him how to stand up to me.

Whatever you do, don't wait till you get mad and blow up. Tell her how you are feeling now. I know that is hard because you don't want to bring it up when things are going well, and you don't want to bring it up when you are angry for fear you will LB so when the heck to you do it?

I've found e-mails and letters work well so that I can incorporate good things along with my concerns.

I really admire how hard you are working.

Stretch, what you're feeling is normal. Sooner or later, the pendulum was going to swing the other way, and you were going to stop and think "Wait a sec--I worked my tail off for THIS?!?! THIS is the marriage I fought tooth and nail for??!" and you might also be thinking of a couple juicy names to call WW.

Don't do the name calling. Trust me on that one. The AOs or DJs won't do any good.

But what you're feeling IS normal... I went through the same thing, and still do... it's hit a point where your WW has come back to you enough that your daily interactions don't have to focus SO MUCH on the A, but now you're seeing that all the pre-A issues are STILL THERE.

I'm pretty sure this is why Harley says the biggest threat to recovery is the BS.

Taking a step back is good, and breathing. Being a doormat won't help, though I definitely know it's tough to find the balance between making your W happy and being a doormat. You are in full MB mode, and she's not there yet. She isn't using POJA, and probably doesn't even like full O&H.

But being O&H about what you're feeling is really the only option. She might not want to hear it. She might not respond well. But if you stay calm and tell her how actions make you feel(without bring up the A!!!!!) you can stand up for yourself (which makes you more attractive, this is plan A-ing) without Love Busting, and make it clear you're not going to put up with being treated rudely or harshly.

Unfortunately, part of this process is also you realizing that the W in front of you, might not be a W you want to deal with for the rest of your life. If you live in fear and constantly try to please her, as others have said you WILL grow to resent her...more after the A than you ever would have prior to it. She's going to be nasty to you AND she had an EA??! Why should you have to put up with that??! But by being O&H, and not LBing, you can give her time to come out of the fog, and making it clear you deserve to be treated like the wonderful H you are, and simply can't stay in a loveless M where you're not treated that way.

The journey is just beginning, and I'm only a few weeks ahead of you on the trail...typing this stuff out helps me in my own journey, too, so thank you. Hang in there.

Good advice everyone. I will work on it.

I've got to stand up for myself and be honest about how I feel. With no LB's. I will say this in the next couple days and again in MC on Friday. Again, no LB. No DJ. Just stating how I feel in an O&H way.

I feel like a doormat. I feel like I am hopping to her demands. I am frustrated that I cannot sem to please her. I am specific moments when I really felt hurt in the last week. (difficult family funeral plus MIL in hospital and all...)

I am frustrated and I need some advice, some coaching.

She is opening the door again to try and do some work. She looked at my letter where I wrote down our conversation last week, we are going to MC today, she has read several chapters of LB book and said, "I am not looking at it as search and destroy my husband, I am reading it looking to honestly identify where I have committed LB's."

Okay, we are starting to work. But its starting really slow. She is still not invested in a specific plan. But okay, we are together and going to go places in our work.

So here is where I need help. I want to work on me:

How do I convey my feeling, be honest, not be plan doormat, and move forward and yet avoid DJ LB? How can we leave a tough conversation (about the A, about anger, about LB's etc) and feel good about sharing, feel like we want more? You see, that's the goal (and I told her my feeling on this) the goal, my feeling is that I want her to end a dialogue with me and feel: "I want more dialogue with him. Even the yucky stuff, I feel better, can't wait to talk to DH again." That's romantic love, right?

I have to get stuff off my chest, so please try to look at these and help me edit my words please:

"I feel you resisting, fighting coming back to the M" (common WW fog behavior)

"I try to deposit Love Units with specific acts: examples - FC - activities with kids I loved and enjoyed, DS - eagerly taking on dishes, laundry, cooking, CO - new conversation skills / listening.. AD - admiring words for you.... but I get no response. I feel ignored. I feel its not depositing units."

"You seem to want to use your friends and therapist as a place to 'vent'. With all the exagerration, all the mis-remembered words and projection of my thoughts or feelings that weren't true that are typical in venting moments. Do you stop to say, "Is my venting story accurate? Did I already share this with him before venting to someone else? If not, how can I expect him to fix this with me? Are they just validating my anger or helping me work on me?"

"We need to deal with the Affair at some point. When do we talk amends, share my pain, affair proof the marriage."

"I didn't feel good the other day when you XY or Z. I cannot just hold it and move on. It will come out passive aggressive later. May I have one minute to tell you the things you said or did within the past few days that hurt? I cannot just hold them in. I want to share those instances without DJ LB. I am sorry if it comes out that way."

I am not a vet so my 2 cents is probably worth about half that.
I will give it to you anyway and you can do what you want with it.

I understand you not wanting to be a doormat and I sure wouldn't want one.

Your first two quotes to me come across as a bit clingy. She probably is resisting coming back to the marriage. That will stop as she defogs. As to the things you are doing, I would advise NOT pointing them out to her. You should be doing those things because they are the right things to do with no expectations. If she feels you are doing them into manipulating her into some sort of reaction it won't go over well. That being said, when she does compliment you or affirm something, be sure to point out that that makes you feel good so she knows you are aware.

My BH has made a habit of sending me e-mails each day calling me beautiful. I replied back but never really thanked him for the compliment. One time I guess I did and he mentioned how he liked that they made me happy so now I do it more often.

I didn't have any problems with your other issues. Although be careful not to DJ about her "venting". If she does bring issues to you, thank her for being honest and THIS IS CRUCIAL...don't love bust no matter how idiotic she sounds. She needs to know she can talk to you or she won't.

You are doing great but you can't rush this. Try to show her the way to go rather than TELL her. Educating her would be a LB.

Stretch - You're doing fine. A little diversion for you; during our last MC session I said this about the OM, "I don't beat up on AARP members." He's 52 and that was probably a LB for my WW. Oh well, I couldn't help myself. I'm not perfect 100% of the time.

LOL, bet that got you a dirty look!

NW8900 - I think I saw her jaw drop. It was basically the same spiel, when you're a bigger guy you can't win. She asked me if I was going to beat OM up. That bit, in the last post, was my opening line, along with the fact that he was shorter and stockier. I told her I wouldn't do it, because it would ruin my chances of having primary custody of DS and it wouldn't solve anything. It was an interesting exchange from my perspective.

Hey Stretch, I guess I'll take a stab at it but it's kind of like the blind leading the blind. Hey, at least I'm honest


I don't know how you'd ever say that without it being a DJ or something. I've toyed with that as well with my wife. If you're kind of down and having one of those days, and if you think you will be safe sharing that with your wife, you might just say "I'm kind of down, just feel like we've been a little distant lately. Have you thought that as well?"

Then you've asked if she's feeling a certain way rather than made a statement that puts her on the defensive and forces her to either prove or disprove your thinking.

She may honestly not think that she's resisting or being slow. In my case, my wife says I over analyze things and assume that she's thinking things that she really isn't. I guess the innate suspicion and desire to get things moving faster just comes with being a BS.


Yeah, she's going to think you're trying to manipulate her even though I completely get where you're coming from. Try the comment about feeling distant or something. Describe it as something that you feel yourself, not something that you think she is feeling or thinking (DJ). In theory, she'd respond with how she is feeling and you could then see what the story is.

It is tough, though, but I think you (we?) have to portray that we're doing these things because we WANT to and not because we're trying to get brownie points.


I'd leave this question to a time when you are both with a counselor. It's too tricky to handle by yourselves, and you could use a referee. Again, just say what you're feeling, not what you think she is feeling. "Hey, I feel sometimes that I've been misrepresented to your friends..."

If it's just a matter of her talking to her friends about things instead of you, well, then start working on conversation and just listening without commenting. She may feel that you are trying to educate her or fix the problem when she only wants someone to listen to her. But when you're the subject of the complaint, it is hard to listen without commenting or immediately defending yourself.

A good counselor can help with that but, in the mean time, when she is telling you something difficult just sit quietly, hear what she says, tell her what you think she said and thank her for telling you that.


Do you feel safe telling her how she hurt you? A serious question, because I'm still not 100% able to trust my wife with my thoughts. This is probably another topic better suited for a safe environment like a counselor's office. You both probably have a lot of raw emotions just waiting under the surface, and it wouldn't take much to get into a real argument if you're not careful. The counselor can reign you guys in when you start to escalate the situation by trying to defend yourselves during hot topics such as those.


That last part, "I'm sorry if it comes out that way" is sort of like saying "I don't want to hurt you but am going to anyways and want to apologize in advance." Try not to presume how she is going to interpret something. Instead, ask how she received what you just said.

Keep it up, stretch! It sounds like your wife is slowly getting back on the path and I'll bet you'll start seeing changes soon.

I cannot even fathom why she'd have asked you that, but your response was priceless. I wish I could think on my toes like that...

NW8900 - My sense of humor goes to dry/sarcastic, that's why that one was like shooting fish in a barrel. She gave me the opening and I took it. I just couldn't help myself. I knew it was wrong as I was saying it, but I just couldn't stop. LOL. Still brings a smile to my face. The topic changed immediately thereafter.

Maybe that's why I laughed when I read that--I, too, tend to lean toward sarcasm and sometimes you just can't help but take a jab at someone that is doing such a damn good job at ticking you off. It may be wrong, but it sure feels right sometimes!

Normally, though, I hold my tongue in questionable situations. I kind of think that when you're in doubt about what to say you should stay quiet and, most of the time, will come out ahead. Too many people shoot their mouths off with the first thing that comes to mind and then get in trouble for it.

Sorry, stretch, for the threadjack.

Stretch,
How did your Friday MC session go? Hopefully you'll tell us you and she had a major breakthrough and spent the last 16 hours in UA and SF, so you were too busy to update us! But I do expect that you made some progress on her issues.

Are things moving forward?

You guys are so awesome. So much fantastic advice, I need time to process all of it.

Friday's MC was productive. Northwoods 8900, you should know that I emailed some of your advice to MC (the other day you evaluated my conversation with WW.) And MC said, "That was good advice. I am impressed."

Wow. Good for wife to hear that endorsement from MC. We both like him a lot and she thinks he is totally coming down on her side sometimes (I don't think she hears some of the harsh things he says to her.) But anyway, great for her to hear him say these positive things about my forum friends. W is coming around on the discussion forum. Her and her friends haven't seen it, so they imagine a bunch of lunatics. But there are tons of people here with better knowledge and advice than most run of the mill MC's or your friends and acquantences who (while they mean well and love you deeply) just don't have experience or haven't read anything to know how to help a couple during this traumatic life event.

Keys from Friday MC:
Our non-verbal communication is not working. So when she needed comforting after seeing her mom at the hospital, and I was there for a hug, she was thinking : (Oh boy, now he wants a hug to comfort him again.") While I was thinking : "Seeing your mom in the hospital was scary. Let me comfort you." So I just need to use specific words right now. Even when I use specific words, she might hear something different. So I need to use fewer words.

We talked about what a romantic intimate relationship can look like someday. One where we always want to share.

I did lay it out there.... plain and simple... I believe the M problems are very much at the feet of neglectful hubby. I really do. And I am in -- ALL IN and working hard now! I am working on me, getting help. Have been for months and months prior to D-Day.
BUT..... I just have this bad feeling that W is still focusing her work with her therapist and with her friends on me. For a long time, she got nothing from me, so it was understandable. She needed help to get through to me. Well, she is through to me now. We are working, reading, writing, we have a MC for us together. I am getting my own help.
So now.... is W working on herself? Or still focused on what she can do to change hubby? When she tells me what she is working on in therapy it seems to be things like:
"Defending my boundaries around you."
"Learning to speak up for myself and asking for and getting what I want."
"Taking care of myself."
"Understanding how exhausting it is to deal with hubby's personality disorders."

Oh well, there is a crack in her armour now too to be totally honest. She admits to making a real effort to focus on herself. She is reading LB book and thinking about herself.

We were affectionate this weekend. We had some UA. (I am a gentleman now so you won't hear about any SF. That's our private stuff.)

I have so much to read from all your advice. I need practice on losing DJ LB's. I did tell her about things XYZ last weekend that hurt. I got some defensive reaction. I was told how I was wrong. She negotiated and explained. But I just let them out there to be true to myself and listened to her response. Admitted that the responses hurt. And I will review your advice my friends and use better language next time.

I was also upset because there were a couple things that made her mad last weekend and rather then discuss with me, she vented with her counselor first. Well... IMO she can't complain if she never tried to deal with me directly first. I did say that.

but I have to be careful. She loves her therapist and her friends. I can't push it. I know that through this process she will work on herself and lose the negative filter (its hubby making me depressed) or (this new hubby is a smokecreen, manipulation I cannot believe.)

So back to myself. I have to practice, practice and become much more enjoyable to talk to, share with and be intimate with. I am overwhelmed by everyone's advice.

Glad to hear that the session was productive, stretch.

Your comment about the hospital and giving your wife a hug kind of made me laugh--my wife and I do the same kind of thing, each of us misinterpreting what the other is saying/doing/thinking. Uggghhhhh, it's like learning a new language or something!

But, for us, at least, it was the realization that our "old" ways of doing things just weren't going to work any longer. We're working on getting to where we will ask the other person for clarification if something upsets us.

In the past, if I got ticked/upset/sad/mad/whatever, I would silently stew over it and just resent the hell out of my wife for whatever offense I thought she had committed. She would do the same when the roles were reversed and neither one of us would know that the other was even mad or upset. The upset spouse just thought the other was feeling just fine and completely ignoring our feelings out of spite. We were that good at hiding our emotions. Completely nuts.

Typically, we'd find that whatever offense we perceived was actually not deliberately done and was really a miscommunication. Or, was really trivial in the scheme of things and, had we talked it over, was not worth the resulting discord. But, by the time we actually worked it out, (days, weeks, months or years later), the damage had been done.

It's such a change of habit for both of us, learning how to communicate complaints with each other but not quite feeling safe enough to do so without getting a raised or defensive voice in response. We both want to find safe harbor with the other, but are still kind of gun shy. But now that we know the pattern of behavior that we used to do, we find that we can sometimes laugh and say "Uh oh, here we go again, let's figure this out before we get on that cycle again". Sometimes just throwing that out there and flagging the elephant in the room, and hoping that your wife feels the same way, breaks the ice and leads to a good resolution.

So, once your wife sees you as a safe-harbor, a trusting person to talk to, I imagine she'll rely less and less on her friends for discussions about you and your marriage. If you're like me, that's going to be a struggle sometimes--learning how to take criticism that you believe to be wholly unfounded and patently false without immediately going all out trying to prove that you're right and that your wife is wrong.

Empathize, or think twice before you speak, I guess. Try not saying anything at all at first, try to see it from her viewpoint and if, from that perspective, you would have really blamed her for taking offense to whatever you did. Odds are, she misinterpreted something you said or did and, based on that interpretation, her reaction wasn't unfounded and you would have thought the same thing had the roles been reversed. Tell her what you think she said and that (if applicable) you would have thought the same thing if you were her. Apologize if you screwed up and then try to explain your point of view without DJ's.

Of course, learning Swahili may be a little easier, but we're pulling for you, stretch! It really sounds like you guys are getting on track.

You got that right. This forum has saved my butt and completely changed me for the better. And, before, I really wasn't the type to open my life up on the internet. Having the support of complete strangers is very humbling and knowing that you aren't the only one going through this means a whole lot.

In the past, when she brought a complaint to you, how did you react? Defensively? Anger? Dismissive? Patronizing? Maybe, over time, she became like Pavlov's dog, and just quit coming to you first because she thought it got her nowhere. Probably a hard habit for her to unlearn.

Why don't you ask her that? Be careful, though, you may not like what you hear. Use it as an opportunity to be someone she can talk to without getting an adverse reaction. If you're guilty-as-charged, just be humble and thank her for sharing.

With some honest introspection to see where you could have done things differently, I'm sure Stretch version 2.0 will turn this around.

NW - you seem to be a very wise husband.
Do you have a thread?
How did you make it from D-Day to Exposure day for seven months!!??
Are you also dealing only with an EA?
I wish I had your wisdom when I was 33 and we had two little children. Now I am 40 and we have 4 children. But my wife was unhappy for the past ten years easily. We kept busy with relocations and with new babies. Something for her to fall in love with. But when she turned 40 it all came crashing down on her ... HARD!

Hey stretch, thanks for the compliment--though I certainly don't feel that way most of the time!

I have a thread, kind of let it slide for a while but here it is in all its tedious glory:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2408627

My wife swears it was just an EA, and I haven't seen anything that would prove otherwise, but you know how those nagging doubts can creep in.

I haven't done well at all with letting so much time pass between D-Day and exposure. I didn't really follow a plan, just kind of hoped that my wife would do the right thing. All the while, she was "trying" to work on the marriage but continued to work with OM. She was so careful with covering her tracks, that I only found a couple of emails and one text between them.

I wish I had known now what I didn't know when we married at 23. So much wasted time, you know? My wife, too, says she's been unhappy for a long time--I would guess since 2008 but she sometimes acts like it goes back to 1996 when we started dating. Who knows how much of that is fog and revisionist history, though. After our first child in 2005 and a second in 2008, we just kind of moved from being husband/wife to co-habitating parents and forgot about taking care of the marriage.

You know how it goes. I'm looking forward to getting this back on track and just wish my wife would hurry the hell up sometimes! But, I've been doing this for, what, nine months now and she's only been on board for a few months now.