Your wife owes you the truth and should be expected to practice radical honesty if she wants to remain married. If she has to be "forced" to be truthful then this is hopeless. If she has to be forced to be honest then she has no business being married.

This has to be a basic condition in the recovery of your marriage. However, the biggest issue is her lifestyle and I see nothing being done to change that. It is clear she doesn't care, but it is important that you DO care if this is going to change.

I will ask again about the repair man. Is he married? I would not only call his wife and tell her but you should be calling him up. Your wife's affairs should not be swept under the rug.

P.s. So far I have seen nothing from your wife that leads me to believe she is serious. She has no plan and has done nothing.

See the poly as a chance to learn more about your wife! She's going to fail...why? Because she is shallow and there's zero self reflection going on in her world. It's all about what feels good right now. She is not even aware of the lies she tells herself.

Check out shlag's thread to see a similar situation. He really thought he'd pass his poly but he's so out of out in terms of who he is and what he thinks motivates him, that he flunked and was shocked about it.

Your WW is a liar...to your, her friends and family and to HERSELF. She's going to fail and you know it.

Instead of using the poly as a deal breaker and a way to force her to be honest (which she simply isn't capable of) use it as a chance for both of you to crack through all this lying and fantasy and fog.

No wonder you're putting it off if you're using it as the ultimate threat to her. Instead see it as a step in the healing process. A step that gives both of you a chance to understand the deception built into your lives.

The poly was a turning point for Schlag in that he is starting to see his own BS with more clarity. Maybe your WW can wake up and take responsibility too?

Not sure I would make it a deal breaker. That would freeze me up too.

Selling anything that you do not want to part with for half it's value to only acquire something else sooner, is foolish, no matter how you spin it. I don't think like that and cannot comprimise my feelings on the matter. She is not a person who cares as much about material things, the few things she has, have more value to her than money. Yes, as punishment I could make her sell them, or she could offer to sell them, but for what? Only to acquire something else sooner, we still come up short in the end. That is making an emotional decision and does not make sense to me. Punishment is not a part of recovery, I have not seen DR Harley mention anything about punishment.

This is not going to be swept under the rug. We are in this neck deep and are trying to get to dry land. What I require I don't think she has to give, but I will settle for the next best thing, which is her making huge changes in her life to ensure that this doesn't happen again. I am not looking for justice as there is none. I want to see complete honesty and big changes in her, and that is all I can ask for. I fully intend to change as well, I will never allow myself to trust like I did again for starters.

Zibbles, I NEVER would have even put that thought into it. Much different perspective but I like it. Thank you. It may not change my mind on it but very well could.

Melody,
yes he is married. I am working on a plan for that.

Go ahead and keep defending your position. It takes a lot of energy to do that. You could be applying that energy to healing your marriage and your life!

You are obviously willing to bend a lot to make this work. That's why I'm suggesting the poly doesn't need to be a deal breaker but rather a chance for both of you to wake up to the reality you're in.

You need to see who you're dealing with. It's going to hurt like crazy but if you can't take this first step, you WILL be selling everything you own to pay for a divorce.

Good luck.

sorry i got a little heated there, senn. it's not really about the poly. wait if you must.

it IS about you waking up and seeing that this wife of yours is not who you think she is. that's going to hurt a lot. the poly can help you crack through the lies and get you to where you can make some real choices that serve you, your family and the life you're trying to build.

I will tell you what someone else told me, you ARE NOT objective when it comes to your WW.

She will look you in the eye, as my STBX did on dday 1,2 and 3, and tell you tearfully that she will do whatever it takes to make sure this NEVER happens again and you WILL WANT to believe her. The thought of D or separation is too terrifying...so you WILL WANT to believe her. Even when her actions aren't backing up her words.

The same person who told me that I was not objective when it came to WH also told me that's the BEAUTY in having your WS post here ~ the vets here have the best bull$hit detectors around and will be able to determine much better than you can how sincere she is in protecting your M and be able to tell you if her protection plan for your M is a good one.

Not only have we NOT heard what any of these lifestyle changes that she will be making are **red flag** but her posting lacks an indication that she understands how important precautions are. This is dangerous for someone who has had ONE affair, never mind six or seven.

But she is not ignorant of EPs or what affairproofing this marriage will take ~ she is just not serious about implementing changes and I think I know part of the reason why.

You didn't follow through on implementing ALL of MB the first time around and are already making excuses for not following through on some of the easier things (the poly is EASY compared to some of the other lifestyle changes that will have to be made).

She KNOWS you are terrified of D, she KNOWS that she will not really have to do the hard work necessary to turn this around. And I think she is right. And I am very sorry to say I see more affairs in your future.

I know you are terrified of the prospect of separation or D and what that would mean for your family because I was too but I think you need to read this:

Infidelity: The Lessons Children Learn

This indeed is settling (and unsettling).

You are married to a serial adultress. She is not going to change. She does not have to.

Grow a pair.

Zibbles, No need to apologize.

Suzie,
I am not making excuses for the poly. It will happen as I said it would. I am very concerned about our finances and do not feel it is wise to sell something or pay for it on borrowed money or money we may have in the future. It is that simple, no excuses, no BS, It will happen after the new year, and no it isn't to buy Christmas gifts as someone else suggested, we have advised our children there will not be much of a Christmas as they are sitting in the big gift's living room.

As for all the nay saying, I get a bit discouraged every time I get on here. You are correct it is easy to get caught up in wanting to believe a WW. I have fallen for it in the past, and believe me when I say I DO NOT BELIEVE A WORD SHE SAYS. I am going to take some good advise and go to the poly and see what the results are. Who knows, she may not be stonewalling, she may actually be telling the truth.
As for showing you all what EPs she is taking and how no one here is seeing her actively participate in making changes, I have to stick up for her a bit here. She is actively making changes, she isn't articulate in typing it on her post, but she is working very hard at making this work. She has put up with my crap for over two weeks, and my crap isn't going away soon. We cannot stop our lives or our work for this, it is taking every waking moment between work and kids activities to work through this. She is getting on here when she can, but doesn't work behind a computer like I do, and even I cannot do that but on occasion.

Where are her plans, then? It has been 10 days and she hasn't even bothered to read or post her extraordinary precautions. She hasn't even been honest about her wayward life. It is clear that your wife trolls for men and she has never even come clean about that. No honesty, no plan, no nothing. Rather, she came on here and gave us some lip service that didn't fool anyone. I am certainly hopeful she is serious, but talk is cheap when it comes to a wayward.

How about sending her here and having her post it? You have a vested interest in believing whatever she says, whereas, board members do not. The folks here are objective and can see how serious she really is. So far, I have seen no sign of seriousness on her part. I have seen alot of drama queen and lashing out but nothing to indicate any seriousness.


You should be very discouraged by your wife's lack of action. Posters here who understand what it takes to recover a marriage are VERY discouraged by the lack of effort on her part. She was able to fool posters like Orchid years ago [an easy feat] but she can't fool the seasoned posters on today's forum.

Melody,

I can't sleep and that is why I am here at this hour.

Not trying at all to make excuses here, but our lives are very hectic right now.

W works 3rd shift, and has been on mandatory OT for months. I work 8-10 hours a day with an hour drive each direction (10-12 hours total).

At the same time my daughter has cheerleader practice 2 nights a week plus events, dance 20 minutes away-2 nights a week (both of which take just enough time to completely soak up the evening as driving back home would result in nearly 1 1/2 hour total drive time with only 40 minutes at home). Son has wrestling, which he broke his hand and has created multiple trips to the doc in the past two weeks, only so he can wrestle this week. He has continued to go to every practice 5 nights a week, and we end up being a full time taxi service.

W is in the midst of having major dental work, and has been to the dentist several times in the past 3 weeks (which takes away her sleep time). Our finances are stable but very low account levels. My marriage is managing only by us talking during the few moments we have together in the evenings ( thank God for cell phones).

She does post in the AM when she gets home (between doc and dentist visits) and has time (there is still laundry and house chores). Between us it is very difficult to find the damned time to post.

As I said, we have been discussing and coming up with a plan together based off of your list of EP and the extended version (which is a little overboard on some items IMO).
Not whining, just trying to get you to understand our normal every day life we are trying to uphold/maintain while trying to save our marriage.

Please do not pick through these things and tell me they aren't important right now. I don't want to get in that argument, Another item I will not budge on, those kids are the reason I get up in the morning - and I will not make them sacrifice because of our issues. We will keep doing for them even if we don't save our marriage.

Yet she found plenty of time to conduct numerous affairs. I agree that laundry and menial household chores and everything else should come before your marriage. Can you think of anything else that should come on the priority list before your marriage? What about cleaning out the lint in the dryer and sending out Christmas cards? If she can find the time between laundry loads perhaps she could start working on her plan to save your marriage?


But you would sacrifice their parent's marriage, the most important thing in their lives. It seems to me if you get up in the morning for your kids that you would protect the one thing in life that is most important to their security and well being: YOUR MARRIAGE.

Doesn't that come before all this less important stuff? Your marriage has crashed on the rocks but you place doing laundry and household chores on the priority list well before your marriage. Laundry can wait, but your marriage cannot.


Do you know that Dr Harley would not even work with you if you told him this? When in active practice, he refused to work with anyone who would not commit at least 15 hours per week to their marriage. He told them to go find another counselor because his program would not work.

But that is ok, Sem. It is your marriage, not mine. My personal rule is to not take your marriage more seriously than you do.

I wish you the best.

I see that Pepperband signed off earlier today and I am taking her lead. If you decide to work on your marriage and get serious, give me a shout, SEM.

Senn,

I am not going to tell you what to cut or not. That is something you will have to decide. I will just warn you of this one thing. You cannot burn the candle on both ends and expect to really recover your marriage. Something will eventually give, and like an old piece of timber, it will break where it is weakest. I admire your desire to provide stability for the kids, but please seriously consider taking some time to creatively find ways to make the time.

I follow your thread, but i don't really post a lot here because there are so many things you don't "budge" on. It's hard to MB it when you lay your own guidelines.

Sen

When I wrote this I was not looking for reasons you could not come up with the money or for you to defend your WW.

Besides the original suggestion made was for your WW to pay for the poly with an asset that was hers. There are many other creative ways for her to pay for it. (PT job/skipping lunches out-brown bag it/ no $3 cup of coffee until money is paid back)

The point was that it would be a concrete gesture BY HER to some type of committment to try and restore the M.

I was simply asking you to think about what part of this MB's plan are you receiving?

Do you feel safe with the Extrodinary Precautions that are put in place?

Was the NO Contact letter to your satisfaction before you mailed it?

I missed the post with your list of requirements for her to remain in this M with you.

How is that working for you at work with the OM?


From Can't we just forgive and forget?



Did you read this whole article yet?


I haven't seen in posts to you where anyone has even remotely suggested you to punish your WW or find justice in your situation. I have never seen anything written or advocated here by Dr H or anyone that would even support that line of thinking. Are you confusing just compensation that Dr. H talks about with justice?

We are all here to try and help you and your WW. We need acurate information since we can only reflect back to you what you give us.

So how is the MB's plan going? All this talk means nothing unless the walk is with it.

Where are you guys at?

My suggestion would be to get on the phone to the coaching center. It is right at the top in the center of the red banner. You need more than us to help sort out all you have going on.

You think you have financial trouble now try mixing a D in with it. I am not here to tell you to stay in the M or D. THAT DECISION YOU NEED TO MAKE.

The coaching center could be the best spent money in your lives and be the fastest way back to a M.

Sitting in limbo waiting for bonus money that may or may not come in the future is not a plan.

If you decide to stay in the M or D what on earth is more important than your M?

nESRE

Celtic, point taken, I am a little hard headed and do hold a little firm on some things. I wish I could change that, but that is what I like about me, I have standards I hold myself. (someone pick that apart please)
I feel a bit like it is easy for some people to sit on the other end of a computer and try to encourage me to 1. end my marriage, 2. sell my W's stuff, 3. get an unwanted DNA test so it could possibly change the way I look at my children to no fault of their own, oh and to end my marriage as it isn't worth working on it.

As I said at the beginning of this thread, you all have changed, I don't see it as better or worse but change describes it best.

I never thought I would see the day that a broken heart and broken soul of a BS would come her asking for help and understanding only to get beat up with the hardliners and pointed advise and not make it a day before giving up and bowing out. A woman who's WS was involved in an A that led to a suicide came here for help and got the "I don't think your marriage is worth saving" advise and bugged out, I didn't see hardly any empathy or sympathy for that poor woman, just hard core pointed advise. You folks could have really helped her, if you could learn to put the kid gloves on for at least a day or two until a person feels like your there to help. Makes me wander how many people you all have pushed out of here when they are experiencing the worst time in their lives.

Melody,
I can see you are frustrated with me/us, I am sorry for that. I don't know what to say except, we are trying to figure this out. I read and understand what you are saying about the spending time together, we do. We taxi everywhere together. We spend every weekend together, currently weekends are our time exclusively. We shop together, we hunt together, fish together and sit on weekends and play cards together. Weeknights are hectic, we do get time together sitting in the car waiting for a practice to end. We cook together. We get the drive to pick up the boy or the girl as our alone time. Dr Harley does mention this as part of your time together for people who have hectic lives. Ours is no different than any other parent raising a couple of teens who are interested in sports. We have obligations and will not stop them to get on a this sight.

I just read the post by Susie, about the affects of affairs on children. Good piece, I noted something in there that I do take to heart. WE as parents have a lot of influence on our children. WE cannot show them that when the chips are down you give up or give in. You have to work through the problem and continue your life. If your spouse died, you can't just quit your job and stop doing what needs to be done, you have to continue living. We have to maintain our family and make time for this, I know. We can't just put raising our children on hold, that has to continue if we are married or if we end in the big D.

As for the shot at doing house chores, common, the house has gone down hill quite a bit in the past two weeks I must admit, but we have to do some laundry and dishes on occasion.
Weekends are the best time for our MB time as we don't have a lot of computer time available through the week. W had 2 hours of sleep today and I would not expect her to come home and start posting.

I think you are correct, we probably are a lost cause. I have way too many issues and am unwilling to budge on too many things. I think it would be best that you all help those who have a chance at saving their marriage.
Thanks for your time and advice.