Thank-you all for the advice! What book off of mb would be a good gift for the newlyweds? I would really like to give them some great information so hopefully they would never end up in my shoes??? Possibly starting a strong foundation for their new marriage.

I would say His Needs Her Needs.

Strength, I would recommend the book Fall in Love, Stay in Love, which lays out Dr. Harley's entire program. There's also the book I Promise You, aimed at those who are engaged or thinking about becoming engaged.

We gave FiLSiL as a wedding gift to a young man from our church recently.

Definitely the weekend away.

Weddings can sometimes be a trigger at this stage in the game anyways and weekends away are so helpful.

Hi all.

Been a better week but still has its ups and downs. My question to the vets - is it normal for me to feel needy? I have never been a needy person in my life but for some reason lately no matter what my ww does trying to meet my EN's it just doesn't seem enough. I seem to read into everything she does and over analyze it! We are working with the Harley's and been following the steps. My WW has followed every step along the way and it has helped me heal quicker than I thought. (Scab over) We met with Steve this morning and advised me to concentrate on her needs and not focus on her meeting mine-I know the routine but after being hurt like this it is hard not to think about myself. For those that were the BH how did you cope? Advice???

Of course, you've been through a trauma that is often considered worse than a rape.

This is normal too.

I'm a BW but close enough.

You just keep doing what SH is telling you to do and remember ~ feelings follow actions, and that goes for both of you.

Keep meeting each other's ENs and the feelings WILL come back.

You are still really early on...try to pace yourself. Recovery from an A is a marathon, not a sprint. You have a loooong ways to go, but you are on the right path! I know you want to hurry things along but it just won't happen...try to breathe and remember this.

Thank-you MF. It is soooooo nice to have people out there like you that can keep me focused.

I recall reading some brain scan studies and they found that certain areas of the brain become hyperactive after betrayal (whether by a spouse or a girlfriend/boyfriend).

The section associated with romantic love was one area...which means that often a betrayed spouse will have overwhelming feelings of love for their spouse even if they, like me, had for some time been quite neglectful of the relationship and considering getting out. The switch goes off and you can't believe how badly you want your spouse back...your spouse is convinced you are just acting and trying to hold onto what you've lost but you are truly "in love" once again. Another reason hysterical bonding is so prevalent.

Another area of the brain stimulated is the logic/gamesmanship area. The area that lights up when we play logic games. That's why betrayed spouses end up consumed with playing games and trying to read everything and put all the pieces together. You end up consumed thinking about the next "relationship" conversation ...though the game is YOU don't bring it up so you need to trick her into doing it. Snooping and misinformation...we turn into the CIA in a very short time.

[One of the ideas behind the MB plans is to reign in this brain chemicals and physiological responses by getting the betrayed spouse to establish and adopt a SET PLAN instead of having them shooting from the hip all over the map. The MB plan leads them to calming down and gently brings the BS back to reality such that they can BEGIN to process things more rationally and effectively. Eventually, these NORMAL physiological responses just become too much to bear and MB tries to encourage Plan B so the BS can withdraw from the game and begin to recover from the shock and physiological pain they have endured.]

So...longwinded...what you are feeling is absolutely normal and biological.

Further...I'd encourage your wife to fully commit asap to your recovery plan as it's also completely normal and biological for the BS's system to go through an angry phase at about the 8-10 month mark after d-day. That's about the time the adrenaline runs out and the BS's taker gets sick of being suppressed and expresses itself. It's also the time we see a lot of revenge affairs occur so that's why it's important the MB extra-ordinary precautions are adopted by BOTH OF YOU.

Mr. Wondering

Just backing you up here;


http://www.livescience.com/6695-romantic-love-addiction-researchers.html

Wow--thanks Triple H and Mr. W-very interesting. What can I expect in the upcoming weeks and months from my emotions and how might they change. What did you guys go through and what helped you get through it? What kind of changes did you see in your ww that were really encouraging?

Yup...Helen Fisher.


Dr. Harley was at one time a professor.


I know I read somewhere that he taught some nueropsychology courses. I think it was some early brain scan research which I think lead him down a path of establishing several addiction treatment centers in Minnesota before using some of the same concepts/thoughts/ideas into his ultimate passion... marital counseling.

Mr. W

lol...wish it was THAT "formulatic" (i.e. - tomorrow you will be experiencing drowsiness followed by a prolonged sleep)


We can only give you generalities. I do encourage you to pay attention to your thoughts and to take care of yourself physically. Often BS's lose a ton of weight. Sudden weight loss/gain is very difficult on your body. It's unhealthy. Try to bring some of that hyperfocus on yourself. If your wife is on board...do it TOGETHER. Lift weights TOGETHER. Exercise TOGETHER. EAT RIGHT...together. You get the point.

Also...this is an incredibly emotional time in your life. Maybe the MOST emotional. I'm not encouraging you to be all touchy feely pansy'ish but it was an experience I won't forget. Take it all in with your eyes wide open. This is your life. The good AND the bad. How you handle this, no matter the outcome...you'll one day see as a huge fork in life. Some go down a dark path of bitterness and resentment. Others thrive and knowingly find happiness. Take the experience in and don't fight it. It's happening regardless. Be a thriver. Sometimes life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you handle it.

Good luck,

Mr. W

Mr. W.-
Funny that you say that because right now I could take a 2 day nap!!! I get what you are saying about taking the experience in because I really believe the process of achieving full recovery is how my wife and myself move forward through each hurdle and thrive from this experience instead of letting us get held up along the way.

Go see an emotional sad movie and you'll cry more than you've eer cried at a movie before (or since you saw Rudy 15 years ago)

It was truly amazing how much more emotional I had become practically overnight.

A couple my wife and I are friends with just adopted a young girl in China and reading the blog entries and seeing the pictures of their first 24 hours together just had tears rolling down my face AT WORK.

I wasn't like this before. I'm different....permanently. Better mostly.

Mr. W

Mr.W.
I have already seen that in myself as well. Ironic that you brought that up. I am a teacher/football coach and I don't always take my student/athletes emotions into perspective, I have seen a change in the way I deal with things now and I feel better about myself in doing so. Weird that it takes something so traumatic to bring change in somebody.

What did you guys go through?

1 - MUCH less anger control, triggered by actions having nothing to do with FWW's betrayal. DO NOT CUT ME OFF ON THE ROAD! I am fighting, and occasionally losing, this battle all the time. Also manifested in being more resistant to being "managed" by "authority".
2 - Sensitivity to intentional cruelty to one person by another. Example - just read Unbreakable, the story of an American POW's mistreatment at the hands of one primary Japanese character. Could NOT stop tearing up, then RAGE, then more tears. Jeez....
3 - (Don't laugh now, please.) Compulsion to read, post, advise, HERE, trying to offer some help to those following in the steps I walked.
4 - Heightened awareness of GOOD events, stimulii. Closer to my (adult) children than in the past.

You might have different manifestations, depending on your emtional starting-point. One thing I was advised early on was to identify one of these manifestations as A-related, and just not beat myself up over it. Let it roll over, pass, and go on.

He writes about teaching physiological psychology in one of the new articles.

For me, it's the actual psychology behind this all that gives me comfort that it will work.


Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway... I.S. - the first thing to remember is that you have experienced a real and actual loss, and that you will be grieving - it is a process. You cannot rush it, get around it, or "get over it."

You must go through it.

Been a while since my last post but had a set back last night and would like some feeback from all of you if all possible. My ww was attending the grand march at our local school prom and I was babysitting our kids when I started to to check her fb account, cell phone logs etc. I found that she had looked up the om on fb and had a couple texts from a guy she met in Arkansas back in Feb. I knew the guy in Arkansas hit on my wife hard core so I knew that that text info probably was regarding something relating to that. Now we are going into our 4th week of NC with the om and we just had a session with Steve on thurs morning which he just my ww about being more proactive about her protection plan. Just to say I know the steps I needed to confront her I didn't follow. I texted her immediately asking her if she would come home then I called her and got ahold of her. She came home and I tried to be calm but didn't do a good job of it. I asked her about the texts and she showed them to me, I read them and he asked her how we were doing and she wrote back that we were working on our marriage. What got me hot was that in her plan she specifically states that she would not text anyone of the opposite sex. Then I got to the facebook deal. She told me that she just did that see his picture so I asked her if it struck a cord and she said no.
She has not been in contact with him at all during these past four weeks as I have access to everything. The fb thing was that she looked up his page but did not add him to her friends. We had a pretty good arguement and she says I throw the A back in her face-I told her that if she would've been up front with me and that I wasn't the one who found this stuff I would've gotten hot! Upset but not hot. We talked this morning and she knows that she needs to follow her plan more strict and that I need to follow mine when it comes to confrontation and not throwing the A back in her face.
Is something like this normal in recovery? She has been very transperent throughout the process and didn't try to hide any of this information from me. I just wish she would've brought it to me instead of finding it. When I asked her about that she told me she knew I had total access and that she knew I would find it.
It totally feels like we took several steps back after a very good week. Man that sucks...
I did text the Arkansas guy back on my phone asking him if his wife knew that he was texting mine? To say the least I didn't get a response.

InnerStrength,

I did text the Arkansas guy back on my phone asking him if his wife knew that he was texting mine? To say the least I didn't get a response.

Do this guys Wife a big a favor and make sure she knows.

God Bless
Gamma

Looking up the OM on FB IS CONTACT.

Looking at his picture on FB IS CONTACT.

FB should be GONE.