NMP-

The signals youre sending a group of anonymous peers are MIXED at best.

I know the signals you are sending your wife are not helping you if your end game is to stay together.

Now that youre home alone with your thoughts, and Ive been there brother, use the time to figure out what you really want.

Let us know, we like to hear about happily married people pulling themselves out of the muck.

mike

MSS,

I'm not sure what mixed signals I'm sending you. I think I've made it pretty clear from the beginning of this that I want to save my marriage, but I'm emotionally checked out. My original question was how to change my feelings about my marriage.

The signals I'm sending my wife, I believe, are for the most part good. I will admit that my AO and not going with her on this trip are not good, but whats done is done.

What I want is the woman I married back. But right now, I only see her through the glasses of infidelity (immature, selfish, entitled, etc.), and that is not the woman I want to be married to. I know that I didn't always see her this way or I wouldn't have married her. I'm hoping this is just a result of a negative LB balance.

Letting her go 500 miles away indeed says to her 'we need a break'.

Not, 'I want us back together it the only thing I think about'.

Mixed signal to us and her.

Dont know if she drove those 500 miles, but that sounds like a good time be co-pilots in that car and start to work some UA magic. (Id pull the car over to do some old-fashioned making out too.)

But I digress.

I think, NMP, the more I re-read your pages you may not want this marriage anymore and are looking to us to say go out and date.

Without kids in the picture, as i said day 1 to you, your choices are many.

I screwed up. Ok, I get it. Can we move on now?
This is not even close to in the cards right now. We are barely touching, let alone making out (well, she is barely touching me).
The marriage I have now is not even close to the marriage I want.
Do I want to give up on my marriage? No.
Do I want to give up on my wife? No.
Do I want to let go of our 10 yrs together? No.
Do I want to go out and date? Not really.
Do I want a marriage with a woman I love? Yes, and if this can be with my wife, that is the way I want to go.

Lets move on.

Your disinterest in your marriage is clear.

Her disinterest in your marriage is clear.

You need to get the 2 of you interested in each other. How?

Being Open and Honest about your feelings.

My mentor in sales once told me "always show want" because if you dont, your prospect assumes you dont want their business.

If you want your wife, can I suggest you start by showing her you want her? Then you can give her all the things you need to happen to make that happen. This includes the NC stuff and it better darn well include her stepping up in the SF arena. And she can tell you what she wants. But, as the cheater, she has to do more to make you whole.

Otherwise, your distance and withdrawal are justified.

I will say here Im not sure how MB-friendly my advice is.

Why on earth not just say so? (If you play with your cards close to your chest, we'll never be able to tell you if you have a good hand or not) Dealing with infidelity is debilitating and if you were close to more AO's it was prob wise to take a break.

Job 1) avoid lovebusters
Job 2) meet needs.

However I think giving her THAT much space is dangerous. How do you feel now, up to swooping in and surprising her? That would give you a heck of an advantage.

If this is how you feel, you need to Plan A and Plan B too if necessary. You will need to know, whatever happens, that you did absolutely everything you could.

Can you go to WW and while there do the carrot and stick of Plan A?

Stick - exposure to her family
Carrot - tell her its because you love her and promise to meet her needs.

Turning up unexpectedly is also very Art of War as in Pep's words I have just quoted (the thread link is in my sig)

indiegirl - I fully understand (now) that my best course of action was to go with her, but I have made the decision not to. My decision, and I will face what ever consequences may come from it. It is done, so rather than tell me how wrong it is, lets please move on.
I don't know, I was probably lying to myself. It's easier to think, "I'm so busy," "I have so much going on," or "I need to do this," than it is "I need a break from my wife."
Yup, that's why I'm still here.


MikeStillSmiling - Thank you for giving me something other than "You should have gone with her."
In the past when I've tried this, she said I came off as being needy. Maybe this was true or maybe it was the fog, but either way I'm now gun shy about showing too much "want".

Gun shy - yeah we've all been there!

That is a totally normal reaction to alien horidness. However dont buy her BS. They all say 'you are trying too hard' 'you are making a fuss' 'you're being clingy' My WH said I was like a needy child - for offering him a lift somewhere!

They want you to back off, because they like the attention a bit more than they want to admit.

If you are nice to them, they feel guilty and they dont like guilt.
It also makes them think about how great you are - which is very confusing when they are trying to hate you.

If they can get you to back off, they can keep on fantasising about how wonderful AP is and how angry/distant/whatever you must be. This is more peaceful than the guilt.

Dont back off.

Youre not trying to get the alien to like you. You are trying to make the fantasy impossible.

But get yourself back to a level of strength first.

How long have you been plan A'ing btw? Wondering if youve been in it too long, no one can keep it up forever.

Do some nice things for yourself to keep your spirits up.

"But get yourself back to a level of strength first."

Focus on this...while doing this....

"Do some nice things for yourself to keep your spirits up."

You can't be strong if you fall apart. Indie and MSS can attest to this! You said it yourself...meeting needs does NOT mean being a doormat.

Carrot and stick, OK?

You say want to save your Marriage.....but you've "emotionally checked out"?

Sorry but that doesn't make any sense.

Indiegirl � Thank you for your reassurance. After reading your post last night I ramped up the �want� a little, and WW responded really well! Then I pushed for an O&H conversation. She initially resisted (she avoids anything unpleasant), but eventually opened up and said some really hard things (both for her to say and for me to hear). I was able to listen without LBing and it turned into a really good conversation.
It�s hard to say. I started to reduce LBers in December and started really trying to meet needs in February. I didn�t know about MB, so didn�t do a very good job until recently, but even now I am having issues with LBers. A lot of effort was/is wasted not meeting needs correctly and LBing.

Maybe �emotionally checked out� isn�t quite right. But the emotional state of withdrawal is a major MB principle, and this is what I was referring to.

Waywards are admiration hungry an very 'me me me'. Talk about her, her feelings and she'll eat out of your hand like a little kitty. Only for a while though the littlest noise spooks them and they run off!



It's really hard to stay James Bond cool, which is what is required in Plan A.

(I feel like a total hypocrite telling you too as well. I only did a passable woman's Plan A - feel so sorry for you men)

If it helps, Plan B is really peaceful and you get really strong. Then you wish you had done a better Plan A.

So you have an oasis up ahead. I hope that helps you plough on a bit.

Withdrawal is an effort to 'punish' the spouse so they will meet your needs - while Plan A is treating them like an alien who cant meet your needs and not getting angry when of course they dont.

It is VERY hard to remember they are alien-folk and not the person you love dearly. All you want is for them to turn to you and be who they used to be.

Ignore what the alien does. Imagine your real wife is trapped inside and she wont get any of your loving messages for a few months. Meet the needs, knowing eventually they will filter through to your w when she is at her lowest and remembering the way you treated her post affair.

Its like a time bomb to the affair. You arent needs meeting to get an instant reaction, its more like a timed effect later on.

Youre doing really well - much better than me!

I can understand that term!!......Sorry I misunderstood you.

My WW has only gotten more "Me! - Me! - Me!" since D-Day!!!!



Indiegirl......THANK YOU for your wisdom and insight!!
I am counting on JUST THAT!!!

If this is the case, I may never be able to successfully plan A.

I thought conflict was the effort to "punish" the spouse to meet needs, and withdrawal is the emotional "giving up" of trying to get needs met by them.

This is gold!

Thanks!

Just dont lovebust! The aliens love talking about their crazy angry BS.

Yeah right, WE are the crazy ones ET?

I may have this wrong. Im not a vet and unfortunately my MB experience has centred on an affair and not really on my marriage itself!

But imo, I think there is 'shallow' withdrawal, where you are out of ideas and want it to hurt your spouse so they will try to coax you out and there's 'deep' withdrawal where you have genuinely given up and dont care what they do or say to try to get you out. And something in between the two.

Well, WW got home late last night. She told me all about her trip and we had some good UA time, then the conversation switched to our relationship. She wanted concrete steps to move forward, and I suggested following one of the books, HNHN or SAA and asked that she take the lead. She got defensive, didn't want to take the lead, and said I hadn't read the books either. I pointed out that I have read LBers, and she said "well I don't have any of those." I then pointed out some IB over the past week, at which she had a huge AO saying she can do things without me. When I pointed out the AO, she threw some of my past AOs at me (especially 2 in the past 2 weeks, 1 pretty major one). Which I owned, apologized for, and said that I am working on that. I remained calm and did not AO (I think this made her even more angry), but redirected back to her IB and tried to explain the POJA. She basically insisted on having the ability to IB. I held firm but no resolution was reached (It was late, she was tired from the trip, and we both had to work this morning).

She seemed really distant this morning, but she has always done that when we have conflict.