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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1
Member
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Member
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1 |
HM, when you agree to stay with a cheater, they have to agree to all the steps required to recover the marriage or you don't have a marriage. Having no plan is a plan to fail. If he won't commit to a plan of recovery, you should plan to separate. I posted this to another poster and this is how the discussion should go: Set her down and explain to her that you want to have a romantic, loving, SAFE marriage and that you won�t stay in a loveless marriage. Tell her you are willing to give her an opportunity to earn your forgiveness. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. This is what it will take to keep you interested:
1. end all contact with the OM for life
2. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle
3. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc
4. no more opposite sex friendships
5. complete honesty about her affair<s> � passing a polygraph
6. commit to a program of recovery that restores the romantic love in your marriage
Tell her "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage." Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on her willingness and ability to make radical changes. Her lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. She is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. She must also meet your emotional needs in a way that until now she has failed. Unless she makes a 180 degree turn in her approach to what it means to be a wife, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if she won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1
Member
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Member
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985 Likes: 1 |
4. no more opposite sex friendships In your situation, it would have to include SAME sex friendships....
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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