I am the WH.

Found MB and started reading HNHN and LB. Also got FILSIL.
--hist--
I asked another W for sex. Denied (so glad!) - it was a one-way EA on my part, but I never loved her, it was just to meet my need for sex, which has never been met properly.

Real issue, though, is that we've never learned to meet each others emotional needs. Both our fault, but she is(understandably) in a lot of pain over the event and asked me to move out Apr 11. Event happened about Aug 10. kept it secret...big "D'Oh!"

I wish I'd found MB before...but might not have given it enough importance had this not happened.

Problem: S is now completely unwilling to try and repair. I believe she is in self-protection (no surprise), but now I have found this I know beyond all doubt we can fix it. I have never felt so much hope in the possibility of a happy M before this. AND my sex behaviour for the first time in years feels like it might actually be under control after I acknowledged the anger I feel and that my anger was much greater than I had estimated.

We started dating when she was 14 (1989) and got married 1995. I struggled with sex for a long time - exposed at work to a lot of trash by colleagues - and hard to escape. Now it would be categorised as sexual harrasment and even abuse, but not then.

What can I do to change how she feels and to get her to start re-considering/opening her mind to the possibility of fixing this again?

PLEASE HELP - I love her so much and I have treated her so poorly (she has also treated me poorly) but I want to take control and steer us back into love SO BADLY.

We have twin Bs born 4/4/8. Georgeous little chums.

I LOVE YOU MY LITTLE PRINCESS!!! I AM SO SORRY FOR NEVER LEARNING HOW TO LOVE YOU THE WAY YOU NEEDED ME TO!

S

This is too vague.
What exactly are you trying to tell us?

Welcome to Marriage Builders

So, you want some MB advice, some marriage tool so you can change how "she feels".
Really?
Are you certain about that?

Wouldn't it be nice to ask for advice & tools to change yourself because it is the right thing to do
Are you asking for advice how to manipulate your wife's feelings?

Real integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.

I am giving you a "head's up".
Coming to MB and asking questions about meeting your wife's needs would get you a lot of milage.

Have you read the EN questionnaire?

Welcome to MB, SH.

Could you tell us more about the sex behaviour you mention? From the sounds of it, you were some sort of sex pest to women at your workplace. What did you do? Do you still work at the same place? What makes you feel that your "sex behaviour for the first time in years feels like it might actually be under control"? What does "might" in that context mean? Have you stopped doing what you were doing, or not? And, "after I acknowledged the anger I feel and that my anger was much greater than I had estimated" is unclear to me. What did you feel anger about, and how did it relate to the EA?

Does the women you propositioned work with you?

What have you done to try and win your wife back?

How often do you see your wife? Your sons?

Has either of you filed for divorce?

If she were not in pain, or if she were considering this for someone else, I simply cannot believe that she would advise against resolving the conflict and that the best thing for all involved would be to stay separated, if she could see it were possible...

So I can only conclude she is in too much pain to think beyond now and she doesn't want to risk any more pain and disappointment.

I just wish there was a way to convince her it is worth investigating this.

SH, I am glad that you found MB and that you believe that it can help you have a great marriage. It really can.

What I want to know though is how are YOU gong to change? As Pepperband was trying to point out to you, YOU committed a horrendous act against your wife, and your marriage and you want HER to change?

She is right to be worried about you. She is right to not want to get back together with you, the way you are, right now, because you ARE dangerous to her well being and to your marriage.

Read all that you can on the site, listen to the vets, and change YOURSELF first.

Ok...clearly I have not explained myself properly.

Sorry. I will try again.

I was a young apprentice, having come from a sheltered, private Christian school. I was thrust into a trade and almost completely surrounded by offensive and vulgar literature and tradesman who lived and breathed porn. There were even times when my teacher would play porn videos in college to us trade student/apprentices! Once I got up and walked out of the room and sat in the hall. I was brought up with strong convictions in the baptist/charismatic church, so this was all an extreme shock to my system. The teacher later came and apologized to me in the hall - I don't think he had ever had any of his students take that position. This was not the only occassion.

Anyway, I was unfairly exposed to this rubbish (and even seriously harrassed) by tradesman and older colleagues for years in the trade. You can imagine what this does to a young christian males confidence, esteem and psyche over time, and the growing sense of shame. Especially since it seems my biological nature is predisposed to these feelings - some men are more 'red-blooded' than others.

I attempted suicide at 17 because I was so deeply depressed about my life at this time. This was also mainly due to the fact that my now wife (who was my girlfriend prior to this suicide attempt) had dumped me.I had mistreated her - now having been exposed and having started the long and terrible journey down the road towards sexual addiction.

Are you starting to get the picture now?

So here I am, a young Christian male with ranging hormones and very much a hetrosexual, but with very strong christian convictions. So I am very conflicted internally between my feelings/hormones and beliefs.

I ended up seeing some 10 prostitutes (over about 2-3 years) leading up to our wedding. I still remember vividly how I could not sleep and stayed awake through the entire night feeling utter dispair and like I had committed an unforgivable sin towards God and her and my whole family and faith, and the fact that I had broken my wish to be married a virgin. After that first time, I actually went and saw my then pastor, with my then girlfriend (current estranged wife) to confess, get prayer and forgiveness and help. Unfortunately, it didn't help.

Now, to my own amazement, I have NEVER SEEN ONE SINCE AND HAVE NEVER BEEN WITH ANOTHER WOMAN since our marriage in 1995. It has been very difficult to stay faithful to her in as far as not having a PA or real EA, especially since she has never satisfied me sexually to the extent I need it. I have remained (what my therapist recently called) 'remarkabley chast' - his words exactly. I do not say this because I am boasting - I say this because it is a fact and I have also suffered in this relationship for a long time with my own needs going unmet - more than just sex. I have always found it difficult to resist pron and self gratification, I have carried a great deal of anger (towards my father and mother) for decades and it is grown over the years. I love my parents, but I am not friends with them and do not trust them with my life details - they do not know how to protect someone else's privacy.

I do not want to 'manipulate' my wife's feelings, I just want her to be happy again, and I want to be the one to make her happy again. MB gave me hope that it is possible to find true, lasting love again, that of a kind where all sexual desires outside of marriage have no power because of the true love felt by both spouses. I want this. I want it for her and me.

Now, since I acknowledged my anger, and since I found MB and started reading HNHN/LB, and since I made a firm decision (having felt hope) that I wanted to do all I could to repair this, and since I have started taking communion again for myself, I can honestly say that something I have dreamed about for years has started to happen - almost over night, the sexual desires that I felt plagued by for years, the feeling of being addicted, have gone...to me, this is miraculous. But I don't see it as necessarily a divine miracle so much as what should normally happen when one finds true hope and a vision ("without vision the people perish").

So, I am telling you all of this to try and paint for you a picture.

Now she had an angry and physically violent father - never twoards her or her siblings, but to her mother. And it opccureeed to me just last night that after all this time, it is probably not me who has been deprived of affection as a child so mauch as it is her. I am the 5th of 6, and focus was nearly entirely on my eldest subling who passed away at 37 (I was 26ish). But it is no wonder that she feels hopeless for our marriage and has given up - I was so driven by my sexual desires and lack of understanding of the difference between sexual fulfillment and the affection she needed, and her becoming progressively repulsed by me - and I see now why, and I do not blame her.

Her voice is ringing in my ear: "I'm right here!" she cried in tears to me. I now know why. I have trampled hear under foot, because I was so selfishly consumed with my own pain , anger and needs. I wish I had been told these truths before we were married. I want to become a MB and I intend to do whatever I can to fix this - I do not believe that giving up in total sacrifice and letting her have her (current) way is actually what is best for her, our boys and I. Nor do I believe it is what God actually want for us. And the difficulty is it sounds so right to us christians that sacrificing this and letting go totally is the best thing to do because as "Christ loved the church" so we Hs should love our wives. It dawned on me last Sunday on the way to church, though, that dying was not the sole act of love that Christ perfomed for his bride - He also lived for her, healed her, cared for her, fed her, clothed her...you can see what I mean.

I am absolutely certain that that very best outcome FOR MY WIFE is for me to learn to love her, make her happy and for us to repair our marriage. I can conceive of no better testimony to God's power and goodness and love - the true love MB claims is possible and which itself is a creation of God, Who is Love -and to our capacity to love each other, than to resolve our confict, learn to love properly again (for the first time) and to be reunited for good, no longer with any threat to us or our marriage or family.


Are you hearing me now?

I am already doing things - I am here, I have bought the books and am working through them (although it is slow) and am every day pleading with God for change and reparations and healing and guidance to know what the best thing to do for her is.

I am trying to take on the responsibility of making the right changes so that she starts to feel loved again. I am trying to steer the ship away from the falls which I didn't believe were real.

I AM TRYING TO CHANGE. I am not trying to change her behaviour, I am trying to please her and make her feel special again (more so than the first time).

Do you see?

What I did was actually far less than what happens with most men.
And re:sex behaviour, I just mean the normal, average male behaviour - nothing criminal or anything like that. I am a normal guy. I trust you understand what that means.

Do you understand me better now?

We all heard you perfectly fine before. It doesnt matter about your childhood, or even hers. What DOES matter is that you were a sexual deviant for YEARS and you blamed YOUR WIFE for YOUR CHOICES. You still are. She could never live up to what you were seeing in porn, or what those prostitutes were doing for you.

YOU need to change, and until you do, I would suggest that your wife stay separated from you. YOU are NOT safe for her, not as you are today.

There is A LOT to learn from MB. Stick around, and READ READ READ.

`What I did was actually far less than what happens with most men.`

That quote is a HUGE for me.

Nothing like it. See above post. What 95% of all males do. never have, never will. She is my best friends ex-W. I have no attraction to her at all. I simply misinterpreted her behaviour towared me and saw an opportunity to meet my physical needs. I touched her knee and suggested we could go to her house. She now lives in Hong Kong or South Korea.I am still very close to her ex-H, one of my few best friends, who knows everything from her and me and I am going right now to spend the evening with him as firends. So already forgiveness and love there. Actually, yes. See above post. I say "might" because I know that true addicts have to take it 'one day at a time', and I am just trying to keep count of the days and not be too hasty to jump to my own conclusions.My anger drove my sexual behaviour. The sex behvr. is fruit. Our sex life and my advance towards the OW was fruit of the tree of anger that had grown within me. If you want to cut down a tree, forget about trying to do it by picking off the fruit. Get a chain saw and a backhoe!no. See below.this is why I am here - to try and find out, since she is no longer willing to discuss it.Most days - I am renting 50 yards away across the road. Most days I walk them to nursery. A privilege I cherish. No. I do not intend to and there are new laws in UK requiring family mediation first, and that is only after a year of separation. In the eyes of the law, I have done absolutely nothing that legally warrants divorce. She is just deeply hurt and feels I do not love her enough and she now wants to protect herself, quite rightly.

Actually, I call sex addiction because that is how I have felt about it, but my (very experienced) therapist claims I am just average and he felt I had no addiction at all, according to his definitions. I stopped seeing him a few months ago as I felt I had reached a plateau with him.

You guys are all too quick for me - I am not very good at BB quotes and posting...sorry. This is why you maybe jumped ahead on the conclusions a bit. I am typing fast and trying answer you but in the process an not being entirely clear.

All of my self grat. behaviour was extremely private and controlled and hidden almost in a clinical fashion by me simply due to the ongoing shame of it and my strong desire for it not to cause noticable interruptions to daily life. This is typical of how men conceal it. Do you understand what I mean?

All of the examples recounted in HNHN, LB and on the YouTube/NewDay videos are 'technically' worse than what we have gone through. This is why I see hope here. We are a 'Harley textbook case' of a couple who never learned how to care for and meet each others most important needs. That's it.

I hope you understand better now.

You need to work on YOURSELF though and use your ACTIONS to prove to your BW that you are safe for her. You aren`t safe ATM, but it doesn`t mean that you can never be.

You also need to take FULL responsibility for what you did.

What happened exactly? How were alone with your wife`s friend? What did you do? What would have happened if she had said YES?

Ok...So there is also a lot of judgement here too, I see.

Read the rest of my posts.

You do not need to lecture me on my own faults, of which I am well aware. I made that clear in my previous posts. It sounds to me like you are still suffering in pain.

Best not to presume you speak for others. When I feel like you have heard me properly, I will tell you. You have not heard perfactly fine.

Until you can offer me encouragement that it is possible to see change (in both of us) then I would prefer you not post.
I recognise there are two kinds of people here - those who have met God and know some level of forgiveness, and those who don't and are just looking for love. If you do not know God, then I don't have as much time for you. It also sounds like you are the BS and possibly a W. If I am right, you have less understanding of my position and can not offer me as much help as an ex-WH. Also, if you are not an ex-WH I would rather you leave the bitter replies alone and let someone who has more constructive help to fill the page. I am perfectly capable of harshly judging myself, which I have done for years and which ultimately does not benefit myself, my S or my boys.

And so I see that it seems I am right - from your signature.

Good luck to you. I hope your wife finds peace, but for now, you are too dangerous for her.

Ok. Can you please refrain from posting for a bit.

I am not finding your posts constructive.

Usually when someone gets this defensive it's because there is truth to what's been said and it strikes a raw nerve.

Attacking Scotty is cutting off your nose to spite your face. She is a VALUED member around here who has some GREAT advice. Her opinion is respected. I would be careful who you alienate.

BTW, yes there are two kinds of people here. Those who listen and do and those who don't listen and don't (recover that is).

We hear you.


Start there.

We still hear you.


See a pattern here?