MM,

I get it. I do. There is a whole world out there that you gave up for this woman, and she tossed aside your love and commitment like a dirty sock for a romp with some loser.

You certainly have the right to leave her sitting in the mess she created.

I would suggest, however, that you don't do it based on the attention you are getting from other women.

In fact - and maybe you missed this - but you shouldn't have allowed any women close enough to meet your Emotional Needs. Especially while your Love Bank is so critically low.


At one point I told my wife that I wanted to leave, to get out there myself. The insanity of her answer kind of illuminated the insanity of my request; she told me that if I wanted to date, go ahead. But, she wouldn't "allow" me to leave the home. If I wanted to date, I would have to do it living right here with her.



Man, I may have been hurt... I may have been angry... but I was never enough of either to do something so cruel.


Sit on it for a while. See what happens.

Wow, lots of responses. You people are ACES. The Road, I think you might have missed where my wife left her company and is currently working for my parents in their company. As far as leaving my home, it was my Grandma's. I will NEVER, EVER, give it up, trigger or no trigger. It is my HOME. To even leave it for a couple of years, is gut-wrenching. If I go abroad, I will take my teenage daughter with me, my older one will stay at university. As far as the other women are concerned, I have not done anything with any of them, except talk.....and rant. The idea that it will take 5 years to recover, leads me to consider if she is worth it or not, and if I will ever love her enough to commit to that amount of time, considering what she did.

Everybody, listen. None of you know how much I want it to be different. I have gone to my Granddad's grave and talked to him and cried about this awful mess. I WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING, to still be in love with my wife. I have prayed that I could somehow feel even a little bit, like I used to feel about her. When I hold her, and we have sex, it doesn't feel, SHE doesn't feel, the same. The woman I used to hold in my arms , was mine and mine alone. I don't feel that anymore. Those of you who have said that I have to give 100% are right, but I don't have 100% in me, to give. How can I feel what I don't feel? How can it be better than before, with the memory of what happened, that she gave what was special to me, to a lowlife mo888rf888er. I am NOT angry, I am sooooo sad, I wish with all of my heart, that I was a better, more understanding man.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your marriage but I think you did the right thing. I have read all your posts and seems to me that you were heading towards divorce until your wife went into the hospital. At that point the love that comes from being married as long as you both have kicked in and you took her back out of the fear that something bad would happen if you didn't. I can understand this almost the same thing happened to me but you're right to separate even if just for a little while something like this is not something you get over easy and for a lot of people it's something you just never get over. Your showing more love by being honest with your wife and leaving then you would be by staying and being Unhappy.

Sorry to hear this man.

I know the pain. We all know the pain.

I think, actually, I hope 4-6 months is NOT long enough to make the decision you're making.


As I write this I both envy and pity your decision. The problem is leaving won't end the pain and all the sex with tanned Spaniards may dull it, but won't end it.

I think dumping the cheating spouse represents the last great revenge you can get. Maybe doing a girl on the side may help but clearly leaving ones wife is can be construed as her come uppin's. I still fight this concept all the time.

With remorseful wives that died the day their cheating came out, we have an obligation to ride the ups and downs for at least 2 years to bring them back to life . If aft
er that you can't move forward than you did your best.

Just my opinion today. Tomorrow I might want to be on that flight with you to Barcelona.

Mike

MM,

Most of us have thought about taking the same steps you are suggesting. I would not have chosen Spain though (Those folks are upset even when the economy is good and worse when it is not). My thoughts were to go to Patagonia and ski.

Dr. Harley suggests that we are capable of falling in love with just about anyone who meets our emotional needs. So..... taking the emotion out of the equation, what are the LOGICAL reasons for separating and divorcing versus working to recover the marriage?

Your wife will always be the mother to your children. For most people it makes financial sense to stay married. There may be others for you and your wife.

What are the logical reasons to divorce? Obviously, there are other women who are interested in you, a still-married man. You would have no problem finding someone else. Are there other reasons? logical ones?

At this point, you have breached one of the MB guidelines about sharing personal and marital information with other women. That is how affairs start. They are admiring you, listening to you and offering to meet your needs. It does feel good.

MM, did you REALLY work the MB plan? And my second question is why would you place more value on a house than on a marriage?

AM

Has your WW ever joined and posted here?

You regain that feeling by working the program. And, when you are ou of gas, you LET HER LEAD.

Also, "venting" to women, or sharing your feelings, is intimate conversation. Its how affairs begin. These women are filling your ears because there is mutual need meeting going on.

THAT is creating an unrealistic contrast effect because these women have never betrayed you. They also never married you, or had your children, or picked your dirty socks up off the floor.

If you have to vent, vent to men, or here.

Honestly, Spain sounds great. However, it might be better to do this Spain plan WITH YOUR WIFE, and see how things work in a new environment with less triggers and/or distractions.

Its your life.

How do you want to live it?

Of course it feels different, you still are getting triggered and are still pissed off about what your wife has done, that's why I was so incredulous when you were waxing rhapsodically about how great everything was when you were on here last. What you are feeling is NORMAL for a BS. Again, instead of bouncing from pole to pole, why don't you try to stay towards being centered for a while? There is no reason for you to hurry into a decision that you may regret later. Now you have this epiphany that you may never be able to get back to the same marriage or wife that you had before - well, you're right, you won't have THAT marriage or wife anymore, you'll have a new and hopefully better one, but only if you can forgive and work this program with your wife. We will try to help you as much as we can. Would be interesting to see your wife post here.

Or not. In either case, recovery or divorce we will try to help you navigate the rocks and shoals.

I think every BH out there has thought what you thought, but have you ever stopped to consider that knowing what you know about affairs from being here - that you are DANGEROUS? That you could build an affair in all of twenty minutes because you understand the mechanics? That instead of falling into one like most guys that you could purpose build one?

That makes you different. You have a responsibility to not use what you know for the wrong reasons. Don't use these women, they don't deserve it.

I feel for you I really do. I have been through the same. But don't let it change who you are. Take a year, either stay married or don't. Your call and you have every right.

Just don't trash some woman who never saw it coming.

All the best.

Dear MM,

we all understand, that you have been oing through extremely disturbing times, the last couple of months.
After you have decided to try to recover, did you REALLY work the plan? Honestly?

1
Have you been doing fun things with your wife for 20 hours per week?
*
Just talking about emotional needs is not always a positive thing, especially in the time shortly after the affair, because it can make you think of the things that led to the affair and you will be triggered if you want it or not. 20 hours should be FUN and bring you closer together at this point I would think more along the lines of something that takes your mind of things, so go go-karting, skiing, something that gets the adrenalin going. Squash is nice, because you can stand together and talk at the same time. (I am not saying here, that you should not have had thorough conversations about EN etc. but that cannot be all the UA)

2
I assume you worked on the EN and LB?

3
Did you stop talking and thinking about the affair? Not only with your wife, but also with other people?
*
Apparently, you have not only been talking about these matters with other people, but with multiple other women as well. That is dangerous, because
a. it triggers you and you come to further associate your wife with bad feelings, which will prevent you falling in love with her (you do not easily fall in love with your painful dentist, do you?)
b. it prevents you from gradually forgetting the affair
c. it allows other women to make love bank deposits, while at the same time making withdrawals for your wife.

4
Did you remove your wife and yourself from the most important triggers? Which makes 3 even possible?
*
Do you realize you are talking nonsense if you say you will never leave your grandmother's house because it is your home, while at the same time seriously contemplating moving to Spain for some years?
Have you thought about other options, renting another place for some time, letting some other family member live in the house for the time being, rent out the house for a year?
Going to Spain with the wife?
Redecorating, or rebuild the inside of the house, make a washing room of the former living room, or something creative?

5
Have you taken extraordinary precautions to prevent affairs in the future?
*
You have apparently mad EP for your wife, but have NOT been making EP for yourself. Which means that one or more OW have been lovebanking with you. If you had had EP you would NEVER even have found yourself in the position of OW offering you any kind of cake, relationship whatsoever. You have clearly been overstepping boundaries. Well, this makes you a man now who could one day be doing what your wife did.

You did not feed her love bank, she got other offers.
Now your love bank is empty, you are contemplating other offers.

Just because she was the first to fall does not mean you have to knowingly sink to that level slowly (I know you did nothing, which is good, but... fastforward a few months and think about what you would have done without knowing what you know now)

Anyway, you have every right to hate what your wife did. You do.
You can divorce her, you could have divorced her rightaway.
BUT if you have not been implementing the entire plan, than you have no right to say you did everything in your power and it did not work. If you don't feel like doing the work, that's your decision, but do not forget you are still on the famous rollercoaster.

God bless you in the future.

Happyheart

Ditto

Again, ditto.

Mirrormirror,

There is another big logical reason for truly giving your marriage a solid opportunity to recover. It's probably early for you to think about it, but it's very likely you will one day have grandchildren.

Before the affair, we both relished the joy of being grandparents and used to think it was sad that so many people divorced and didn't get to enjoy this wonderful blessing together.

We would take our one little granddaughter at the time to the beach. One time, she konked out on my H's lap. He leaned over and kissed me deeply right over our little sweetie. Now that was romantic. Immediately after the A, he was ready to jump ship on all our little folks, but he's fully remorseful.

The thing is--you will find plenty of attractive women out there, sure, but the one you have right now is repentant and has agreed to Just Compensation and Extraordinary Precautions (that all of us need to have, not just the adulterer.)

There might even be women out there who embrace the MB principles and won't look at you like you're nuts when you explain the need for transparency in marriage. Your wife understands that now and embraces it.

You're still just a few months out from D-Day, too soon to really have built up the safe loving marriage relationship and to heal.

We had to move away from our home for four long years. I never thought I could do it. Leave my grandchildren and my business and my friends?! But here we are, very far from home, and it's turned out to be a really good move.

You're not obligated after adultery to stay in the marriage, but since you do have children, even though they're nearly grown, it really does make a difference in their lives to have parents who stay together. I would have bailed, too, if the conditions leading to the A had not changed, but they did. EPs and rebuilding the romantic relationship really helped.

MM,


Your statement about not seeing a way through is not uncommon, on my phone posting so copy and paste for quoting is tedious.

***EDIT***

I don't post much anymore but here's my two cents...

Many have gone through the turmoil of finding out their love has been betrayed.
Many have experienced the hurt and the anger or resentments or any other negative emotion as the result of infidelity.
Many have seen the person they married turn into someone unrecognizable.
Many have suffered through an unrepentant spouse simply tearing their heart out and never looking back.
Many have been willing to do the work necessary to put their marriage back together only to never see that chance come.

Few ever experience a remorseful spouse.
Few are offered the chance to rebuild a new marriage.
Few people have the strength to forgive (not forget) the mistakes of yesterday and embrace tomorrow with a FWS.

Many, myself included, would love to even see remorse. Many would just love the chance. It is an ultimate test of strength to be able to allow someone who hurt you so deep back in. With a plan, the past does not have to be repeated. I would love to be in your shoes but since I'm not, I can only say what I would do. Ultimate, it is your choice and yours alone but I believe the rewards far outweigh the risk.

I will end with a quote I read a long time ago...

Only those who attempt the absurd are capable of achieving the impossible...

...WOW!

All that wisdom, with no side of ego.

....go Happyheart!

Like a ton of bricks. Thanks.

Best thing I've read in a long time on here.

I'll be reading that for a long time.

Well said my friend...

Now off to dinner with the wife (of me!)

CV

First of all, Americajin....context...context. I NEVER said that everything was wonderful, I said things were going good, WITHIN THE CONTEXT, of having a cheating wife, beating her bf to jelly, and facing the aftermath. I NOWHERE said that it was a lot of fun and giggles. STop projecting.