This is a reminder for posters to help with Dr Harley's concepts on threads seeking help.

can you tell me what that difference is? its probably the former and (hopefully) not the latter but its hard to tell because at times I feel she is a 'protective liar' (i.e. covering her a$$ ostensibly to protect my feelings) and at other times she's being a 'ashamed'/making herself look good liar. I also feel at some points she has been a pathological liar (the compulsive liars as I believe Dr Harley calls them). Its hard to tell since I didn't know this was the woman I married till less than a year ago (seems like she's been lying about/being ambiguous about 'little' things all along). I really had a completely different impression of her (and this extends to pre-M time as well).

I DO want to save the marriage, its so bad that at times I just wish I didn't know anything-just found MB on its own and started some form of R (without being aware of A's and this 'other' woman I never knew existed)

At times there is little motivation than the kids-but to be honest I do still have strong feelings of love and affection for her.

As for the motivation/addiction-I cant say for sure. I CAN say it was (and probably is still to some extent) justified by my past behaviour and our M problems (AO's, DJ's and SD's). The 'why' question was brought up by Steve during the first few sessions but I'd say I wasn't convinced that she was ever convinced by Steve's/the MB argument that its all down to poor boundaries and selfish behaviour rather than all the justifications (or whether she is even convinced that the A's themselves were the worst form of abuse)

Ans 1: It feels like she has NO VALUE for honesty at all-not even my being O&H to her-she just disses it-says its no big deal, it wasn;t a requirement. That its practically worthless. As for her own honesty-I can say she hates it/hated it that I had to know & wanted to know or even found out things on my own. Her first statement on DDay 1 was "you'd never know this stuff if I didnt tell you-so keep that in mind" (and then she went on to gaslight/commit lies of omission and covered it with outright lies as well)

Ans 2: Yes, it probably is. Since I expect it almost from a point of principal and that its a condition for R/this M staying together. The MB material only bolsters my point of view. She hates it because she didn't ever expect to be caught or ever expect to be required to be transparent and O&H with anyone in her life-let alone the monster of the husband she had...

Bxh, I went back and re-read this thread from the beginning, and the situation as I read it is that you (reportedly) are looking to fix a situation that your BW/WW does not recognize as a problem (or at least a problem that she cares to expend energy to fix.)

Lofty goodness-of-humanity outlooks aside, most people will refrain from behavior that produces negative (to them) results, and will engage in behavior that produces positive (to them) results.

So, what is your W's view of the situation? She knows you carried on multi-year afair(s) and eventually, she did the same. Your actions started the slide, and her interactions completed it, in convincing her that you were not the husband she wanted to love. (She DID have an AP to compare you to, after all.)

For her own reasons (financial? child raising? shame-avoidance?) her choice has not been to initiate dissolutiuon actions. Instead she will endure her current "roommate" status with you. She does not care to work toward building a loving marriage with you, because she sees no hope of succeeding in that effort. You have no leverage to get her off her position, unless you can somehow convince her that an unloving, emotionally-platonic relationship is a waste of HER life. She is NOT going to give a rat's rectum of care for what is good for you, or what you might want. And, as several of my colleagues have already pointed out, your presentation to us (blameful, entitled, self-excusing), if it is reflected in your presentation to her, has ZERO chance of selling her on your potential as an ideal mate.

Alternatively, threatening to sanction her current uninvolved status by initiating dissolution actions yourself will not "scare" her. She'll then get her own "Get out of loveless marriage card" without being the one who terminated the union.

If she won't come here and learn what marriage can be, then your options may be limited to creating opportunities to show her what is possible, either by being an ideal husband (100%, all day, every day) or exposing her to couples whose marriages are strong and loving.

(BTW: MC will be a waste of time. The thrust of such counselling is to get everyone "happy". She's already happy in her non-romantic co-habitation with you.)

Valueing openness and honesty is not the same as not believing your wife until she tells you the things YOU believe she did.
Pressuring her about things you think happened, but have no way of knowing if they really happened is not helping your marriage forward.

Transparancy is key here. Please give your wife all of your passwords and access to your phones and any other modes of communication and have her do the same to you. In this way you will know what is going on NOW and that is vitally important to your marriage.

The other important thing here is to fall back in love again.
You should be spending 15 (better 20) hours a week with your wife. Please scedule thit time with her and ask her which activities would be fun for the both of you. Do not speak about how you think she is not living up to your expectations. Just have fun and be nice to her. Keep in mind, that any woman with small children is somewhat energy drained. What about a foot massage or something like that?

Did you already fill out the questionaires on this website (the needs questionaire and the love busters questionaire)? This is very important, because you want to do the things for her that make her most happy and quit doing the things thas make her sad. Be brutally honest to yourself and look at the things YOU can do to make things better. She will see that you are setting a good example by becoming a better husband to her, and with time she will get better at meeting your needs too.
You can start today! Stop fretting and get going!

Good luck, Happyheart.

I'd agree, except that at times she has expended energy and resources at trying to fix 'certain' issues.


Disagree, not wanting to get into "who came first", her A(s) were first, the M at the time was suffering from a lot of issues and she sought escape through multiple (and multi year) online A's and (one confirmed) "in real life" A. The only difference is in the discovery of A's, she discovered mine first and initiated 2nd round of (as she terms) revenge-A's. It was through my discoveries that I found myself at MB and led her here, and yes-I WAS HEAVY IN THE FOG prior to this.
I'd take exception to "your actions started the slide", but I do not wish to get into a blame game/defensive posture here. I do take part blame, but I strongly believe its 50% blame in any relationship for any M problems, however, its a 100% blame on the WS (including my own actions later on in the M).


I accept your criticism, its not always been like this. We've had months that went very well post DDay. We've been closer than we ever felt before. Its also circular, this always ends here; trickletruth, sincerity (or lack thereof) and O&H, going down the path of Recovery needs PoRH (and emphasis on RADICAL).


She's been here for almost a year. We've been here together for months. We've read the books together, gone through (partially) the questionnaires. We've listened to the radio shows. She trickletruthed while knowing all of this.



Generally MC would be, I did think we might have a chance with the Harleys. The sessions with Steve didn't go too well. I agree that the status quo is probably "she is already happy in her non-romantic co-habitation with you"

Wish I could agree with you but its been my suspicions (based on knowing her (well, better than I did before)) and those gaps in logic which actually led to DDay 2,3,4... etc.. so unfortunately, the lack of trusting her DID lead me to find out more (whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I dont know, I DO know that Dr H strongly believes in complete disclosure)


This has been in effect since almost a year; for the both of us.


We were doing this well about 5 months ago or so. Unfortunately, we've both fallen back into not really looking forward to our time together, I did become a very reluctant/withdrawn spouse about 3 months ago which was primarily due to the O&H issues.


Yes, mostly (the questionnaires). We also discussed a lot of these things. Many LB's have already been eliminated. Emotionally though, its been a roller coaster. I guess I need to find a way to make her emotionally safe with me so that she can open up with her feelings-where a lot of lack of transparency and hurt is coming from (both directions). Unfortunately, I also dont trust her emotions/words because of months of gaslighting and what I felt was utter lack of sincerity.


I agree, I guess the past 4 months or so have been mostly me withdrawing and becoming more and more of the reluctant spouse-this has just got us both into a death spiral (I had hoped she would have the strength to pull us both out). I had been doing the "heavy lifting" for 6-8 months prior to that, and she testified to that - specially in the department of how to recover the M and heal from the A's. Its not something new-I assure you, we've been trying with varying degrees of failure since August last year.


Thank you so much.

Okay, "Who strayed first?" and "Who strayed most?" were manifestly not the point of my post, we can agree on that. The point WAS that she is not interested in working for the marriage. (And seriously, what does "gone through (partially) the questionnaires" tell you, and us?)

We've had months that went very well post DDay. We've been closer than we ever felt before. Its also circular, this always ends here; trickletruth, sincerity (or lack thereof) and O&H....She's been here for almost a year. We've been here together for months. We've read the books together...We've listened to the radio shows. She trickletruthed while knowing all of this.

She'll diddle you along, having you dance to her tune, because she is satisfied with the status quo, of being respectfully "married" publicly, while not "in a marriage" privately.

Your choices remain:

A - succeed in educating her on what a marriage can be in terms of benefits to HER
B - resign yourself to the relationship you have
C - threaten to dissolve the marriage unless she "buys in" (which will almost certainly end the marriage since she's unlikely to do so)

NG: to be quite honest, I'll say one thing. You think I act entitled when what I am asking for and have been asking for is O&H? To be quite honest, I felt rather unhappy reading your post, but I am willing to accept any and all criticism.

I can tell you this: I've been led to believe that WS was ready for R, that she was into the program, that she wanted to work on the MB principles, she attested to it and cried and promised sincerity while being foggy throughout; through trickle truthing, through gaslighting (through tears: "how dare you accuse me of doing x" - crying and ranting through it-when it was proved otherwise later). She held out on the truth, she also held out in being sincere while giving me the doe eyed, I am here for you line (lie?). Her words, after months of learning the hard way, became untrustworthy and insincere. She admitted at many times to deliberately misleading me and expecting (being entitled to?) recovery based on a selective reading of Dr Harleys concepts. I am all for taking it on the chin with all of my negative behaviours-I did and am working on all my LB's. AO's -which were initially pointed out as the worst offenders, have been entirely eliminated. I am called out for DJ's on telling her I dont believe her. I am called out on SD's in demanding the truth. Our unconditional agreement for working on recovery after DDay 4 was absolute O&H and she has already breached that and she knows it, I'm still here... I'm still willing to work it. I forgave that on the condition that truth is the only way forward.

Admittedly, I am not the best of husbands, but I cannot live a lie either. This M is a lie to me and this R is a lie to me if I do not know FOR SURE THIS TIME that we can safely put the A's behind us. No, I do not bring up the A's, no I do not keep mentioning the shortcomings/misdeeds she has divulged. i DO keep bringing up the truth and the ENTIRE truth as being the one condition on moving forward. And that has to be earned through her actions-I am NOT REQUIRED to be trusting; its her actions and behaviour that needs to establish that. If i've been entirely vulnerable to her (and she knows that), to want this process to work she has to reciprocate, even if it is a failed enterprise.

Bxh, I am having difficulty finding where I criticized you. (Trust me when say that my instances of "criticism" are not obfuscated.)

Take your two paragraphs: I can tell....a failed enterprise. You basically restated my posts to you: "This marriage sucks and she won't help repair it!" In the final analysis the route to your current pit is of little import.

Now you want to know what to do, and in response I'm laying out your options as they appear to this objective observer.

"Educating" her can take several forms - modelling ideal spousal behavior and attitudes; exposing her to successfully married couples; getting her to willingly come here for counselling (peer- or Harley-based).

"Enduring" the current situation, either indefinitely, or for a pre-set period.

"Sanctioning" her inaction/indifference.

NG thank you for your patience and objective view. I guess I rankled at the word 'entitled ' since all I feel entitled to is hell on earth for my part and that's exactly where I'm at.

Education is ongoing but I despair at its effectiveness and that may be due to it having started when she was still in thick fog?

Enduring is where its getting thin but may be, just maybe for the both of us.

And sanctioning is exactly what I'm not giving her which is making it so uncomfortable for the both of us right now.

But I do agree that a status quo would still serve her better IF she is truly not interested in a TRUE recovery ...

Thank you again for taking the time

If a trip somewhere to take a polygraph isnt possible will she agree to 'back up' her story some other way?

I.e. to give you a timeline and full descriptions of events, (where she went, what she did, hotels stayed in, gifts bought and approximate dates of all these things)

Then, after she has done that from memory, the two of you look over her bank statements, phone records, computer history plus emails and texts sent back and forth to make sure eveything tallies to her tale.

Would she go for that?

Plus if taking a trip somewhere isnt financially possible now, maybe say that as soon as you do have the funds you expect her to take a poly, so she may as well 'fess up now....

But I do agree that a status quo would still serve her better IF she is truly not interested in a TRUE recovery

And, from your words, to you a lifetime of the status quo is unacceptable. (About that we can most certainly agree!)

So, which way is your best way out? Model/demonstrate/teach (the carrott) to make the idea of effective counselling and a rewarding marriage more realistic/appealing? Or threaten dissolution (the stick) to drive her to the same mind-set?

If the former, go back to the EN questionnaire, and both complete it. Whether or not she even reads your results is immaterial today. You need to learn where her "hot buttons" are. (And you may be in for a series of surprises. I was.) Once you have those identified, work to devise ways to satisfy them.

And without making a big deal of it, start setting up and implementing some UA time. Before discovering MB, we participated in "sofa-time" - an hour spent, after work, sitting together with a glass of wine, talking about.....anything. And the less time talking about "the relationship" the better.

It has come to my attention that the poster bxhubby had an affair on his first wife with the poster Lightreflecting back in 2003. He divorced said first wife and married Lightreflecting that same year.

Thus...an affairage that he deliberately withheld telling us about while attempting to steal marital advice for his affairage from a room full of betrayed and former waywards.

Take a look at all the joy an affairage brings this happy couple. If you are a betrayed spouse here and your wayward spouse is leaving you intent on marrying their affair partner perhaps there is comfort in this couples story. When you build a relationship on lies, deceit and the tears of others the entire foundation of that relationship is unstable. THIS is what happens even if they stay married 8 long miserable years. Sad thing is 4 kids are suffering in this quagmire (interestingly enough he's not sure the infant is his).

Don't get me wrong...I'm not celebrating their misery....just taking note of it without a whole lot of sympathy as it's completely self-inflicted.

Mr. Wondering

How unusual.
A marriage born of adultery turns out to be miserable.
No matter where you go, there you are.

Shocking! Cheaters cheat!!

Lies by omission. He's not being honest yet wants his WW to be honest.

And I wouldn't have been hounded out at admitting to an Affairage? I've read the different views on here and the bottom line is that IF its 'your' wayward or if 'you' are the wayward then its somehow allowed to come back from 'the darkness' and seek redemption, yet if its a wayward who *might've* reached contrition, but only when it was too late, they are no longer 'redeemable'?

Accepted that there were lies by omission, and I apologise for letting down those of you who were most helpful and supportive, as for the rest, I couldn't care less-I'm already (and have been for some time now) off these threads so you won't have to worry too much about me 'stealing advice'.

As for those who like to trawl other forums only to pick and find those to poke derogatory jibes at, I can only say 'get a life', the only reason some might feel safer and more hopeful of posting on other forums is because of people like you.

When was redemption sought? You both cheated throughout the entire marriage. What is your definition of redeemable?

Divorce and get yourself healthy. How awful for your children to suffer this for this long.

I see. You were justified in concealing the truth, because you were entitled to get help here, and other people's opinions and morals might get in the way of that.

Anyway, Dr. Harley hands out help for free on the radio, and he does help people in affair marriages. This forum isn't too big on it, but help is out there.