My wife filed for Divorce two weeks ago, but I sense that all is not lost if I can do things right. I'm looking for a plan to rescue this marriage.

We've been married 7 years, together 13. She's 35, I'm 34, and kids are 3, 6, and 15. 15-year-old daughter is from my previous marriage.

So, I took an inventory of the reasons she wants out and started listing actions I can take to repair our love. I had a lot of independent behaviors, lack of respect, and not filling her emotional needs (specifcally, her need for financial security). A lot of this has to do with with my bipolar disorder.

I'm a loving husband and father and family is very important to me. I thought that would be enough for her, as long as I kept my bipolar in check. I was diagnosed 5 years ago after our son was born because I couldn't take the mental stress of a baby that didn't sleep. I got depressed, couldn't work, and we had to file for bankruptcy. It was a hard time, but she stuck with me. Barely. She threatened D if I didn't get counseling to figure myself out. Shortly after, I started treatment.

One year into treatment, I asked my psychiatrist if I was ready for a new child and could expect to take a permanent job and keep it without falling into depression. (I've spent most of the last 6 years as a freelancer. I don't always have work, but I still make 50-70k per year. Enough to live on. Wife also works. We split child care time evenly.) My wife really wanted me to have something more stable before we had a new baby.

Well the next baby didn't sleep either (terrible dairy and soy allergies and acid reflux), I hated my job, got depressed, and lost it.

So the real problem during this time is that I wasn't taking my treatment seriously. My bipolar was mostly managed, but it took me too long to realize that mostly wasn't really enough. I needed more drugs and more therapy and I wasn't willing to get either. (This is common with bipolar people. The drugs can make you stupid or dull, and it's easy to think the therapy is a waste of time. Denial is a factor.)

Sorry for the too much detail.

Getting to the point:
After 5 years of sloppy treatment, I realized that mostly managed bipolar had slipped to barely managed bipolar and that neither was really good enough. I should be able to work more than just 5 out of 6 weeks of the year. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to take any drug or treatment I could to keep my life on track.

At the same time, my wife had decided that I would never change, she couldn't take the anxiety over money any more, and she was afraid of what my behavior was doing to the kids (unrealistic expectations, short temper, maybe a few others). She wanted separation, perhaps 6 to 12 months, while she could see if I was able to work myself out.

I begged, pleaded, cried, bargained, and also completely fell apart. I wish I could go back there, as calm as I am now, and handle this all properly. Oops.

When I tried to explain to her that everything will be different now because I was no longer resisting treatment and had broken through my denial, that made things worse. She felt lied to that I didn't tell her that I was trying to treat myself rather than follow the full wishes of my doctor. I argue that she doesn't know what it's like to be taking drugs that make you unable to think straight when your job as a computer programmer pretty much requires clear thought.

Anyhow, now things were much worse because she was angry (so angry) with me for not being forthcoming with her about my treatment and the struggle I was having.

I spent about 6 weeks making everything worse by fighting her at every step, being an emotional wreck, and being unable to give her the space she wanted. And probably most importantly, not healing and not being able to take advantage of my new treatment because I was so messed up over the separation/divorce issue.

I spent 4 weeks sleeping outside the house on friends couches and occasionally my car when I just wanted to be alone before I came to the realization/decision that I wasn't going to be able to function normally at work until I had a stable place to stay. One week in therapy, my wife told me she really wanted to work things out and thought that now that I was giving her space that we could do that. I told her I can keep giving her space and stay away from her, but I needed to move back home and sleep in the attic to get myself mentally healthy again.

That crossed a line for her. She misinterpreted my intentions, (A common problem I have with her is that she will often jump to the worst possible conclusion about someone's behavior or feelings, blow things out of proportion, and have distorted thinking when she's angry or hurt.) and two days later decided to file for D, without talking to me about it. We could have agreed on another resolution.

I was devastated. I had about half an hour of extreme anger, and got back to calm and have stayed there except for a couple of short moments. I'm living at home now, trying to figure out how to get my wife back, and trying to do all the right things.


Unfortunately, it is not clear what all the right things are.

There is one other complication: She is having an emotional affair with a friend from high school. She says they are just friends and it's not an EA, but she's in denial about it. She says I wasn't there for her and she needs someone to talk to. They sends THOUSANDS of texts to each other, at all times of day, and my wife is extremely secretive about it, everything to do with her phone, and her computer activities.


I will work on breaking her denial, and make her realize how the EA has influenced her decisions. I can't easily kill the EA as we have a D in process, that is her goal, and she doesn't accept my right as her future ex-husband to ask her to stop the EA.

I know there is a faction here that is going to shout that there is nothing I can do until I kill the EA. That is not true.

I will kill the EA as soon as possible, but right now I feel that I can get my wife back by making it clear that I'm on a different and better path with my life. (I know she's having second thoughts, and that is only going to become a stronger force as she sees more change going on.) I'm going to continue to apply light but constant pressure on the EA until I can have her back out of the D and make it clear that it has to stop.

Now, I'm just looking for things to incorporate into my plan to help get this marriage back ASAP.

A week back, I was considering leaving the house for 30 days with no contact. I see now that was a terribly awfully bad idea. I'm home, seeing my wife often enough that she can observe me, giving her space, but she is needing less and less space every day.

I am somewhat concerned that there might be a negative effect if she can start to see me as "just a friend" or if we become roommates, so I'm making sure there is a small amount of affectionate touching happening along with the positive contact. I can also predict that if we are on a steady trajectory of less space/more affection, that she will probably recoil at some point when she realizes her emotions are pulling her back toward a relationship that she thinks is bad for her. I'm not exactly sure how to balance that.

Perhaps I should take it on myself to limit casual contact with her, but make sure our occasional contact is more intimate? I don't know.

I'm never quite sure exactly what to do, so I'm looking for advice. Right now, I've settled on that I need to be calm and patient, work my plan to change and demonstrate change to her, and work on making things progressively more affectionate in the house.

You can see my other post in the infidelity section:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2542910&page=1

But I think the thread died, and I think the process is dead. I'm mindful of the EA, but I don't see any strong measures I can take at this point. I need advice on what I can and should be doing right now.

It seems like one of her major emotional needs is financial support. You should focus all your effort on fulfilling that need, pronto. Whatever you have to do to bring in steady cash flow, do it (ok, don't sell drugs - you know what I mean). You should be treating your situation as a Plan A scenario. That is, you need to start meeting her most important emotional needs NOW. If you don't know what they are, ask her. See if she'll complete the emotional needs questionaire with you. If not, you'll have to act on what you know about her. With that info in hand, focus all your energy on fulfilling those needs. You need to bring her to an emotional place where she remembers why she fell in love with you in the first place. Do not, repeat, do not leave your house! That will cause all types of problems if this goes to court plus you won't be able to PLan A as well as if you're physically present in the house.

As you noted, a big problem in this scenario is the EA. If she is being this secretive and standoffish about it, I wouldn't be surprised if it had escalated to a PA. You need to start doing some hardcore snooping. Check out the operation investigate section of the forum for ways to go about that. Basically you need to know to what degree your wife has been unfaithful to you. Armed with that info, you need to expose far and wide - basically shaming her into stopping the affair. When she goes ballistic on you for telling the truth, just say, "I'm fighting for this marriage and for you. I love you and I don't want you hurting your character or our family through infidelity" and just leave it at that.

So, to recap: Plan A the crap out of her and squelch the affair through exposure. This will give you the best, quickest chance of salvaging your marriage.

WOW. I just registered and feel like I read my story. the depression,finances,highschool boyfriend,and mine slept with her phone. My wife moved out a year ago so I'm further along but I feel ya. I hope u can work it out. I found that the begging and falling apart made it worse. Also I began to do alot of snooping and found things I really did not want to know which made me angry and more confrontational.Trying to educate her on what the EA is doing may backfire as well. tried that too. Wish I could give u advise that works but maybe the things not to do helps. God Bless

Well, I think the conventional thing to do is to give up. I'm certainly not going to do that!

I agree with JtotheC - fulfill the financial needs first.

It may not just be Financial Support...it seems that she wants stability, dependability, someone who is contributing to the marriage both financially and emotionally. Seems like she has put up with 6 years of you not managing your Bipolarity. You keep having these realizations that THIS time I will do it and THIS time i will take the meds, but she is probably not seeing anything but you not working, being depressed and likely just being another person in the family she has to take care of.

You said: " I told her I can keep giving her space and stay away from her, but I needed to move back home and sleep in the attic to get myself mentally healthy again."

She may have interpreted that as "I am not mentally healthy and will once again live with you while not mentally healthy." She may think "He is out of the house, why would I want to let him back in when he is still not mentally healthy? Is he STILL not taking treatment seriously?"

I think the think you need to do is to get yourself together before you try to get her to change anything. If you need to get back in the house, then you say "I am going to be moving back into the house. If it would make you more comfortable, I will move my stuff into the attic. We can talk about any other ground rules later." That sounds like a confident person who is taking into her account her feelings, not a desperate person who is just going to be a burden on her. Continue your therapy and medications as prescribed. Get a job or get freelance jobs. Schedule parenting time with your kids. Divide up household chores.

You were not meeting her Emotional Needs. You can't tell her to give up the EA with someone who is meeting some of her needs without having something to offer.

Thank you, wanna. That is some of the best considered and reasonable advice I've heard.

I'm going to work on those things for a couple of months and just see what happens. I have work to do yet in backing away when I am feeling upset.

I've been letting her denial of the affair get to me, and yesterday I was feeling hopeless. I talked to a friend for about 20 minutes to make sure I wasn't going to go talk to my wife and say something stupid.

And then I went and talked to my wife and said something stupid about the EA. Stupid stupid stupid!

I asked her how she thought I would feel if she asked me to avoid talking to my best friend for a week, and how she would feel if she didn't talk to this other guy. She just got angry.

And my desperation for her to recognize the affair and how it hurt me showed through. Next time I know I'm not detached enough to talk to her, I'll try to remember to take a drive.

Thanks again for your thoughts, Wanna.

I've been making inroads with my wife. In the last week, she told me she loved me 3 times in two days. That was several days ago.

Around that time, she also offered me separation instead of divorce, if I am willing to get a legal separation, move out of the house, and limit contact with her for 6 to 12 months. I knew that was an in, so I've been hoping to get her to move away from the need to have me move out and lose time with the kids.

In the next few days, she made it clear that she does care about me and that some of the things I've said about her hurt her and that I've misunderstood her. We got involved in a kids' consignment sale and had to go though a bunch of our kids' old stuff, bringing back a lot of memories. I stayed up late making her a mix CD of songs that expressed my feelings and I knew would affect her. They did, she cried, and she came home saying she did not want divorce.

She still thinks she wants separation, though. We opened up and talked about things we had bottled up. We did not talk about the separation, I think because we both know we don't see eye to eye about it. But we spent a few nights watching tv on the couch instead of staying away from each other.

About two days ago, we seem to have lost momentum. She's kept herself much more private and distant.


It's clear her major roadblocks in our relationship are trust issues. She wrote me a few paragraphs explaining her feelings a few weeks ago to convince me that she wanted a divorce and shared them with me in the therapist's office to show that my plan to get her to see me in a different light and save the marriage was pointless.

Clearly, it wasn't. And isn't.


I'm just shaken by the retreat in the last few days. I want to know what I can do to keep the heat on and keep her opening up and sharing her feelings with me.

Maybe this is an opportunity for me to show that I can respect her boundaries and give her space even if we're in the same house, but I fear this is a time that I can lose what I've gained.

What do I do?

This was her justification, by the way. For the record, I'm not a terrible person, a lot of this is overblown or even untrue, but there is a kernel of truth to them and it is how she feels:


- Over the years, you have consistently and systematically lied to me about the severity of you bipolar disorder, and have not let me support you when you needed it. You say you have changed but I just don't want to be married to someone who would do this. I'm tired of living with the constant insecurity

- Over the years, you have lied and mislead me about your work -- when you were working, when you weren't, how much money you were bringing in, etc. You have kept me in the dark about you business financials. I just don't wan to be married to someone who would do this.

- Your boundary/personality issues have made it it exceedingly difficult to just be me. I have pushed aside my true feelings for years. I got to a point where I doubted myself and my instincts, and then eventually to a point where I just didn't care any more. As I started to separated from you, I realized just how far I'd gone. I'm concerned about this happening again. I can't live my life without feelings.

- You overspend and are generally unreliable. I have come to despise the word 'promise' because typically when you promise something, that's a pretty good indications that it will not actually happen. You lie to my face. I ask you for something and you know that you have no intention of doing it, but look at me and say 'ok.' And you justify this to yourself by thinking: well, I didn't tell her when I'd do it, I'll get to it eventually, or thinking: I'll do this other thing that will be Even Better.

- I do feel that us getting married was a mistake. That doesn't mean that there aren't great things that came of it, but it was a mistake and now I'm trying to correct that mistake.

ark,
I haven't read your other thread, but a couple of things are sticking out to me here.

One is that I don't believe your wife is in "denial" about her her EA/possible PA. I think she is simply lying to you.

The other is that I think you're doing a commendable job of recognizing your past issues and trying to eliminate behaviors that were destructive to you and your family. Good for you. The outcome will be a better situation for you. This is part of Plan A and you're doing well with that part.

Part A alone, however, will not save your marriage. Being a better person will not save your marriage. You must realize that.
Plan A is a good way to better yourself, but it is also a precursor to Plan B for those willing to do everything they can to save their marriage. And this is AFTER the affair is killed.

Oh, and the above "letter" from your WAYWARD wife is almost entirely fog-babble. Yes, it also happens to be true to some extent per your own admission. But it means nothing coming from a wayward. It is her justification for continuing to CHEAT on you. Cheaters must justify their actions to mitigate the guilt they feel.
A good response would be "yes, you are right about those things dear, and I am going to prove to you with actions that I can and will change those behaviors."

~optimism

ps:
"And then I went and talked to my wife and said something stupid about the EA. Stupid stupid stupid!
I asked her how she thought I would feel if she asked me to avoid talking to my best friend for a week, and how she would feel if she didn't talk to this other guy. She just got angry.
And my desperation for her to recognize the affair and how it hurt me showed through."
I don't understand this at all. It sounds like a bunch of fog-babble - on your part and hers. How is it a bad thing to let your WIFE know that her affair is hurting you? Isn't a husband supposed to share their feelings with their wife? How is her being angry a bad thing? You would rather she be happy and comfortable committing adultery? Making it easy for her essentially makes you an accomplice - are you comfortable having that on your conscience? Would you be able to explain that to your 6 year old? She's still your wife until she's not, my friend. I say treat her as your wife with honesty and openness - and protect your MARRIAGE for the sake of your children.

It's hard to "treat her as my wife" when it comes to demanding she stop spending all day texting with this other person when she has explicitly asked me to move out and has filed for divorce.

I feel like I'm working from a place of little leverage other than that I know she still has feelings and still wants to work things out.

Being able to walk out and say, "You're doing wrong. We're done until you fix it.", just isn't in me. If she were doing something more explicitly wrong with this guy, I'd think differently. All she is doing is filling the void in emotional support she should be getting from her husband with this other guy.

Ark77,

All you can do is work on yourself, and become the prize that is attractive to any woman. Focus on your strengths, and learn new things to help overcome your challenges. Be the person of purpose and stability you are meant to be.

If your wife sees these changes in you, independent of her own behavior, she may draw back to you. In that, you can meet her needs for conversation and affection.

If the EA is long-distance, it will inevitably end. Time apart drift apart, time together, draw together. She's seeking temporary need, its just a small battle to sacrifice in the war to save your marriage.

*EDITED*

Thanks, JPM32. The EA is long-distance, but they are in constant contact through texting all day long, then spend a few hours chatting online (or on the phone) at nights.

It drives me crazy that instead of sharing that story about the co-worker who did the smart/dumb/amazing/annoying thing, it all goes to him.

What I'm puzzling over frantically right now is whether it is a good idea to take her up on her offer to have a formal separation instead of a divorce if I'll move out. I think I'm starting to think I might be willing to do that on some terms if she'll cease contact with the other guy.

I feel so... confused. I have no idea what to do.

This is far removed from the Dr Harley's advice, and it is far removed from my own experience. JPM, what are your qualifications for making this suggestion?

Dr Harley insists that, for a marriage to recover from an affair, all contact with OP must end, immediately and completely. A marriage stands no chance of survival whilst there is an OP on the scene.

Plan A requires ark to show willingness to meet the ENs that his wife will let him meet, but it also requires him to expose and end the affair.

A long-distance EA will not "inevitably" die out. There is nothing inevitable about it. There is every chance that a WS will make the affair her main relationship. This WW could easily be making plans to move OM into her home, or to move out and live with him.

My H's PA was long distance. We live in London, and he travelled to Belgium about twice per month for work purposes. His OW was connected to his work. The affair began 8 years ago.

My H ended the physical side of the affair 5 years ago by changing jobs so that he no longer travelled, but the affair partners merely kept up the emotional side of the affair by means of phone calls and emails to his workplace, where I couldn't monitor him.

The EA continued for 5 years without their physically meeting each other, and was only busted this year when my H used the home PC, for the first time ever, to send her an email. I intercepted that email and informed her H, who intercepted another on her PC. These emails showed that they were planning to meet later this year, for the first time in five years, when her H retired back to his home country.

Long distance EAs do not "inevitably end". What a dangerous thing to tell someone. Have you read the appalling things that have resulted from many a long-distance EA, right here on this forum? What do you know about Marriage Builders?

I am in the exact same sich as you ark77
I am still in the position that there is still some but little hope.
Right now they are cake eaters, getting some needs from you and the needs you want to give from the OM/OW. My wife is adamant that she wants a D. We talked about the separation, But I will absolutely not leave my house(really i wont leave the children) It will be a lonely life for them when their friend for(not sure how long for you) damn near 20 years isnt there to meet all of her other needs. I am afraid that she is not going to realise until that part is gone. Do not mis understand me I want to reconcile with the woman that i know and love, but my current wife doesnt seem to be in there. hopefully she shows sometime.........until then how do i work on me and my fam

I agree.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, long-distance EAs are hard to end. The affair partners aren't exposed to the inevitable little annoying things that crop up in real life. Instead they get a sanitized, perfected version of the person who listens to all their problems and tells them how wonderful they are. These things can drag out for years, and they can lead to marriage.

Thank you SugarCane! I was in the process of writing the post below when I was interrupted by the am routine in my household. The other danger is that new readers will pick up some of the points and believe that they are effective (like separation - NOT a Harley endorsed plan of action).

Ark and JPM,
Do you realize almost none of your discussion contains MB related principles?
Have either of you read the basic concepts on this site?

The concept of this website, in my experience, is to share with each other what we've learned from Dr. Harley's books and ideas, and help each other implement them as they have been PROVEN to SAVE marriages.

Rejecting the principles and coming up with contrary ideas is bound to be met with resistance here. Many of us have applied actual MB principles (as difficult as that is to do) with great success; even if we did NOT end up saving our marriages. The converse is also true: many of us tried in vane to apply techniques you folks are describing - they typically lead you into statistic-land.

opt

Opt, I see that there was a website link removed from JPM's post. I suspect that he runs his own counselling or therapy service and really only made that post to get his site advertised. How cheap to try and use an expert's site, paid for by that expert, to drum up custom.

I pity those who go to JPM's site, if that's the case. If the advice they receive from him is that EAs "inevitably die", he must have a dismal record in saving marriages. That advice is downright dangerous. Thank goodness that I found Dr Harley's site and not that of some uninformed babble-speaker. But for Dr Harley's advice I would never have exposed the continuing EA to OWH, nor had a keylogger on my PC - the measures that ensured the end of the EA. The affair partners would be rutting in a London hotel as we speak, had the EA been allowed to "die out".

I saw that, too. Obviously JPM had an ulterior motive for his warm-fuzzy post that was full of destructive non-MB advice.

Can anyone show me the proof? I see posts from a lot of people who have exposed and have had months or years of loneliness and pain, with no reconciliation. And, OK, maybe at some point, I have to accept that my wife just isn't coming back.

Honestly, if I had a smoking gun, I'd be a lot more likely to expose.


For now, I want to tell her that I'll move out of the house if she'll stop contacting the other guy, as long as we're trying to work things out.

She may have a rare reasonably good reason for asking me to move out. She says I can't respect her boundaries, hover, spy, and smother her emotions. She wants space to be herself.

I would like to see a thread with a list of success stories using MB principles.

No, she doesn't have a 'rare reasonably good' reason for wanting you out of the house. Wives don't want their husbands out of the house unless they're up to something. If she wants 'space' to 'be herself' (whatever THAT means ) set up an nice little area in the basement for her.