Sorry, this may be long. I've read Dr. Harley's His Needs Her Needs book and I've been reading the articles on his website for about two weeks now. I apologize if this was covered elsewhere, but I haven't been able to find it yet. .. plus I'm kind of panicking.

This is what's going on. My husband and I have been together for 4 years, minus a four month breakup four months into our relationship. We married last October.

We've been having some issues with our marriage, most of which I see directly relating to not meeting each others fundamental needs.

I think a large part of my personal issues was my self loathing. See, when we first met we were both just getting out of serious relationships. His with a woman he was with for 7 years (not married) and mine with my fiance of 4 years.

We met and it was amazing. But, it obviously wasnt the most conducive time in our lives to embark on a relationship and about 3 months into it he began to back out. He ignored me, avoided me etc.. and when I did see him he was crying over this other woman. I tried very hard to be there for him during this time, but it proved to be too much for me.

I am very disappointed in what I did next. I had a sexual encounter with my ex boyfriend 2 days before I broke up with my now husband. After we broke up I was in a relationship with my ex boyfriend for 3 months.

I wanted to stop hurting, my mother was in ICU on a ventilator, and it comes down simply to me having poor coping skills. I don't want all this to seem like I'm trying to shirk blame, but we have tried to figure out what lead to the "incident" in the first place.

The relationship with my ex boyfriend self destructed and about a month later my now husband and I got back together. I moved with him the day we got back together and haven't been apart since.

My only indiscretion during this time was texting my ex back when he texted me about a month into getting back together with my now husband. He told me he was working in the area and the next day I asked if he could jump my car that had died. He never did and we never saw each other and he became obsessed with me again.

I cut it off then and there, told him in a text that I wasn't going to leave my family and to block my number. This was 3 years ago.

I feel/felt so guilty about not telling my husband when we got back together. I should have told him then and I should have told him before we got married. My mental health has deteriorated under the guilt since we got married. Finally, I told him. I told him everything.

For the first week he worked with me to save our marriage. We've read probably $200 dollars worth of "marriage saving books" between the two of us. I've gotten back with a psychiatrist and we're looking into getting him into therapy as well.

The past week he seems to have given up. He increasingly wants nothing to do with me. Doesn't sleep in bed with me, and he's downright cruel. We stayed up all night a week ago talking about how to fix us and how much we love one another.

But this week all he's been doing is calling me cruel names, insulting my family, my character, and my religion. He keeps me awake at night screaming at me horrible things. I've listened to the books on how to act after your affair is uncovered.

I've tried to empathize, and accept his feelings. Tried hard as anything to not get defensive, sometimes I have failed but most of the time I've just stayed quiet and told him "I'm sorry my actions have lead you to feel this way about me." I gave him all my work schedules, access to my emails, access to my phone and text messages and deleted my facebook.

I beg him to tell me what he needs when it seems that what I'm doing isn't working but he won't tell me. He says "i should know".

Now he's talking about divorce and wants to seperate. I don't know what to do. He doesn't want me talking to my friends because all of our friends are mutual and he doesn't want them to choose sides, so when I have turned to one member of my family she tells me he's being emotionally abusive.

I don't feel like I have anywhere to turn to fix my marriage. Please any thoughts would be appreciated.

J.B.

*Edited by moderator only to break up paragraphs.

Am I reading this right that you didn't have an affair but you got back with your X-boyfriend while you were DATING your current H? And that his issue is that you were not honest about it?

Welcome to MB. Quite a wild story and I'd just like to get this straight. You weren't married. This "affair" was really just the fact that after three months of dating you weren't sure about the relationship so you "cheated" on him by going back with your ex-boyfriend.

[did you cheat on your ex-boyfriend fiance when you initially hooked up with your husband????]


All of this may suck and demonstrate the consequences of premarital sex (if you weren't having sex and/or shacking up with either of these guys you wouldn't be having these problems and I'm not being judgmental as I did stupid stuff in my single days that had consequences as well). Anyway...cheating IS NOT the same as adultery. Sure he can be mad the first few days about you lying to him. Dishonesty isn't fun. I'd say if he was a virgin and thought you were too, then maybe the marriage was a sham and that by withholding the information of sex with an exboyfriend while dating him (albeit even at the beginning of a 3 year courtship) could be enough that SOME non-religious types may say is worthy of divorce. HOWEVER that wasn't the case here. It sounds as though you BOTH were sexually active and had histories. As such, I think the notion of separation and divorce is unjustifiable.

Dating is not marriage. You had no vows and after 3 months he didn't own you, no real commitments were made and I presume he knew you went and lived for 3 months with your ex-boyfriend OR he choose to not to ask where you were when you two go back together.

That's not to say divorce might not be your best option. Time will tell. You've only been married less than a year and this guy may want to throw in the towel because you "cheated" on him 4 years ago. You can't control him. Anyway, he was willing to read books and work on the marriage just a short time ago so you may have to wait him out a bit and keep working your plan A and attract him back into the marriage.

Give him some time. I presume you two are fairly young and hopefully he'll quit with the self-pity party and get about seeing if things can be fixed. As for you, I'd avoid labeling him emotional abusive just yet.

Mr. Wondering

Sorry, I know this is all very confusing. I'll use initials, maybe that will help. My husband and I were not married at the time. I slept with my ex boyfriend, B, 2 days before breaking up with my now husband, C. We were NOT married at the time and had only been dating 3 months. I never told him about going back to B until 2 weeks ago. I didn't cheat on B with C. Neither of us were virgins and he knew that. It's never been an issue before. Neither of us are very religious, him being a complete atheist.

I'm 24 and he's 30. Thanks so much for the replies. I just feel like I'm hitting my head on a brick wall.

Everything I've read has said not to qualify whether or not your spouse believes you had an affair. You should just accept how they feel and accept that it's your actions that made them feel that way. So I'm trying NOT to tell him it wasn't an affair. I don't want him to feel like I'm not accepting his feelings.

Quoting myself...


He may be mad at himself for NOT asking you about where you were or what you were doing during that time frame. Then again, what was HE doing during that 4 months???? crying over YOU or still carrying on over the 7 year girlfriend???

I'd also be concerned if his anger actually resulted in a divorce or separation that he may be using what you did as a rationalization and justification for having his own affair. In other words, he MAY be cheating on you right now (or just want out of the marriage because he has regrets not associated with your behavior 4 yeas ago) and he's going to make the breakup, separation and/or divorce all your fault.

Mr. Wondering

I agree with that strategy right now. But I would advise you NOT to agree with separation and/or divorce. If he brings it up you just use the plan a language of "I don't want to talk about sep/divorce...I do marriage". Don't leave. Don't make quitting easy for him. IF he files...commit to dragging it out and keep your eyes and ears open to the fact that HE may be doing something behind your back right now or soon.

Finally...be safe. Don't yell back obviously (control your love busters) and if you feel physically threatened or he actually hits you don't hesitate to call the cops or whatever you have to do. NOTHING justifies violence.

Have patience and keep reading the MB materials and implementing plan A.

Mr. W

Further...
So that means you were only 20 years old at the time you "cheated".

If he wanted and expected complete maturity he should have dated a woman his age (26 at that time) or even older.

I presume this hasn't been going on long....you just confessed about two weeks ago, right? Let's give him a month to settle down and become receptive to working a marriage plan. Until then, you work the plan, keep learning and have patience. His insecurities have been challenged and he MAY BE testing your love for him. Immature...sure, but he's not likely going to be receptive to learning at this point.

Mr. Wondering

That doesn't make any sense, though. He was not your spouse and the quotes you read applied to spouses. You made no vows to him. An affair is a very specific thing. While you might be accused of dishonesty, it was not an affair. You were a free agent at the time. His "feelings" do not have the power to change that reality.

I would tell him it was not an affair, but you were dishonest and apologize for that.

He says nothing happened between himself and his gf of seven years while we were broken up. He says he just went over there and hung out with her and cried a lot, over me and her. I find this hard to believe.

He's told me that he's going to cheat on me and put me through hell and destroy the good person I've become before he divorces me. So my eyes have been WIDE open to the possibility of him having an affair. I think you may have struck the nail on the head Mr. Wondering, he never wanted to get married before he met me. I don't entertain his talking about divorce, I simply tell him "I married him and that's for life. Period."

MelodyLane, I figured that's what those passages were referring to, but initially I agreed to calling it "an affair" because I still felt like my heart was "his" even through those months. He's grasped on SO HARD to those passages in the books it's like there's nothing I can do to change that. I think maybe sitting down with him and discussing what is an affair and what is not an affair would be a good idea. Also that what I did was OBVIOUSLY dishonest and we need to work on that.

Thank ya'll so much. This website has been a godsend! Both of my parents are deceased and the women in my family either aren't married or don't hold marriage in very high regard. I've always been taught to "always have enough money to leave" and to "keep everything in my name in case you have to make a quick gettaway". I don't want to be like that. I want to be married to this man for the rest of my life and I know their advise is toxic to that. So this has really helped.

Thanks again.

Sherlock Holmes (paraphrasing): "When you have eliminated all other possible solutions, the one remaining, regardless of its implausibility, is the actual solution."

Look, eight notes in, I'm certainly NOT proposing that anyone has "eliminated all other possible solutions", but let me raise something to keep in mind moving forward.

Given that his reaction seems.....disproportionate.....to the transgression you confessed to(three years later and not while married to him), and
Given that his reaction is more "angry" than "distraught" which would be the more expected emotion, and
Given that his actions fluctuate between rage and reconciliation,
Consider that he may be using your revelation as a excuse for rupturing your union for reasons of his own ("he's going to cheat on me and put me through hell and destroy the good person I've become").

The problem with this situation would be that there is now no way to calmly broach the subject with him. He will immediately counterpunch with the, "Let's not talk about my actions; you're the one who screwed around!" rejoinder.

Thank ya'll so much for your advice, it's really gotten me through the past couple of days. Through talking with my H it's clear to me why he believes I "cheated". We WERE in a committed relationship at the time. He did call me repeatedly while we were broken up begging for another chance and I turned him down flat, everytime. We went through a LOT of stuff that brought us together VERY closely, VERY quickly.

So now, I'm just working the plan. Making our home a GOOD place to come home to. I'm cooking again, doing my hair and makeup etc.. Trying to meet his needs and put mine "on the back burner". It is going better, he's much more open to working with me, or at least just LETTING me work instead of working against me.

The problem I'm running into now is that he wants details. I'm willing to tell him all of the truth. Unfortunately, he wants the gory details as well. I'm trying to give him as much of the truth as possible, but specific parts I simply DO NOT REMEMBER. I was drunk a lot of the time and have tried to block this all out for three years. I have a horrible memory to begin with. But due to the fact that I have lied, obviously, he doesn't believe me. I don't want to make up another lie just to satisfy his curiosity, but he wont' take "I honestly don't remember" for an answer. I do understand that, I just don't know what do ABOUT it.

Actually you weren't. Dating someone for 3 months is not a "committment." Dating is not a committment. Like I said earlier, I can understand why he would be hurt, but this was not an affair. You were a free agent at the time.


My suggestion would be to put this plan aside and try Marriage Builders. Your plan will not achieve a happy marriage. Do you have any of the MB materials? Which books do you have?

Should I move my thread? This whole forum is so helpful I don't want to break any rules.

I understand. I know putting my needs aside will not give us a good marriage. But, right now, he says he doesn't want to come home some nights. He can't remember why he wants to work on our marriage. I'm trying to keep my eyes and ears open to possibility of affair but also trying to meet his Domestic Support and Affection needs. We have His Needs Her Needs and we just got Love Busters.

I would strongly suggest you RE-READ Neverguessed's post because your H is gaslighting you. He is using this incident as a way to throw you off HIS PATH because he is up to something himself. That explains his bizarre reaction.

Gotcha. Thank you.

Ok, no sign of any affair yet.Still keeping my eyes and ears open.

Getting worse and worse at the homefront. Everytime we start to make progress I feel like we take two giant steps back. Ontop of that, I try to be intimate with him and enjoy it while it lasts but the next day he's screaming again and it makes me feel like he used me when we were intimate.

How do ya'll deal with these all consuming issues (affair.. divorce.. etc..) in your everyday lives? I can't concentrate at work, he keeps me up at night drilling me with questions and screaming. I'm a vet tech and it's downright dangerous for me to not be able to concentrate. This is my career. I love my job but the other day I made a minor medical mistake (no one was hurt)that I would have NEVER made before.

On top of that he texted me while I was monitoring surgery and told me he didn't know if he was coming home tonight. Started crying and had to take a smoke break and change out with another tech.

I've told my boss about what's going on and he's completely sympathetic (of course, this didn't help... he's now convinced my boss is going to try to "comfort" me)but I can't throw away my career.

Then I ran two red lights on the way home.

I can't blame it all on him, I need to deal with it and pay better attention. But, do ya'll happen to have any tips?

You need to get it together. Can you take time off your job? You are risking far more than just your marriage if you are making medical mistakes and especially running red lights.

Now, HE is not helping any, sounds like he is using tons of AO's and DJ's and SD's.

How far have you gotten on snooping on HIM. I agree with NG on his attitude. What are you doing exactly on this snooping? You need to get down and dirty with this, not sweet and light.

Is he or has he ever been physically violent? I know from what you are saying, the verbal abuse is there.

You need first to get it together so you don't ruin your life or someone elses (running red lights is just not good)

How much of the Marriage Builders site have you read? Basic concepts? Love busters? Plan A and Plan B info??? What else?