so I have this weird obsessive crush, which would be fun except that the object of my crush is, predictably, not my husband.

Trying not to think about it just makes me think about it more. Allowing myself to think about it freely makes me want to smash tables.

As my track-record of marital fidelity is already (ahem) not spotless, I really want to do something to improve my marriage so I can drown out the crush.

My husband and I have four kids six and under, which probably kind of contributes to the love-ya-but-not-in-love-with-you feeling I have going on about him right now. I know Dr H suggests fifteen hours a week of totally uninterrupted time, which seems, well, impossible now.

I think what I like about this Other Schmuck is that he looks into my eyes and really talks to me, instead of just complaining to me. (which, isn't that what married people DO, complain? I don't know anyone who's been married-with-kids more than ten years and looks like they still like each other. They look like they are ENDURING each other. My husband's parents, case in point. If that's what forty-five years of marriage looks like I want nothing to do with it!)

I feel like my husband and I have nothing really to talk about except discipline issues and chores and how broke we are and how much his job sucks. I try to talk to him about other things, but haven't found anything he and I are both interested in. This is distressing. We used to be able to talk, and debate, and joke, effortlessly!

So I'm pretty much sold on the idea that we both have to do a better job of meeting each other's emotional needs. I had a mini-breakdown last night about it all. Part of my deal is that I'm a stay-at-home-mom and the isolation is killer. Husband suggested that we take turns going out, which is a terrible idea in light of my recent crush. I was on the brink of telling him about it, but he looked stricken enough when I said I didn't feel "in love" with him anymore. Bringing up Schmuck at such a time just seemed cruel. eeee.

We could afford more babysitting, but it would involve either getting rid of TV and internet and cellphones, or reducing our savings rate significantly, or some combination of both.

Right now there's not a lot of play in the budget so we both have to get on board with the idea that paid childcare is a MUST. (and please, please, nobody chirpily suggest a babysitting swap-- they don't work for big families! Nobody wants this many kids!)

Tell your husband about your crush.

Why do you allow this man to speak to you?


Have you read the basic concepts, here?

What do you mean by "already not spotless"?"
Does your husband know?

You have very poor boundaries. There is no point at all in you trying to meet Emotional Needs (EN) if you are not going to protect your marriage with Extraordinary Precautions (EP).

Be radically honest with your husband and get some boundaries in place. Until then, you do not have any place to be worrying about unmet EN.

I mean that my husband and I got together because I cheated on my first husband with him. This was years ago, we've been together ever since. So yes, he knows.

I allow Schmuck to speak to me because it seems pretty peculiar not to. I don't see him often, never outside a group setting, and have no good reason to think that the feelings are reciprocated.

You are in an affairage. Your best bet is to call Dr. Harley on his radio show.

There should be major alarm bells going off in your head over this. You speak to a man outside of your marriage that you have a crush on because it seems peculiar NOT to?

Are you willing to do ANYTHING IT TAKES to save your marriage?

Shmoopy, because your marriage started in such circumstances, you've put yourself in the class of people who have a LOT going against you. Only a very small number of affairs turn into marriages. Of those, almost none are happy, successful marriages. And even those that are, the participants usually still wish they had not had the affair.

We can try to help you, but the odds are really, REALLY against you. And I mean REALLY against you.

The thing is, you need to change a lot of things about your life in order to have a good marriage. You already know you guys need to change the amount of time you spend together, and you've made some promising comments thinking about how you can do that. But there's going to have to be more to that. The beliefs and practices in your life that led to the original affair with your current husband are the very beliefs and practices that make a good marriage impossible. Those beliefs and practices have to change if you want to have a good marriage now.

Dr. Harley has never been able to help make a marriage work that started as an affair. He has tried. If people can follow his plan, they can have a good marriage. But typically people who have done this choose not to follow the plan, they choose to make compromises and leave out bits and pieces, and claim they can't move around other things in their life to make following the plan possible, so it just doesn't work.

Some of us can try to help you learn what changes you need to make and try to encourage you to make them. If you guys can follow this program, anybody can have a good marriage. But if you want to argue and debate each point and claim you don't see the need, or claim it is impossible in your situation, then your efforts will just fizzle, I am sorry to say.

One of the things that has got to change is your habits around men. You cannot continue to maintain a friendship with someone you've developed a crush on, nor can you keep the crush a secret from your husband. One of the policies in this program is Radical Honesty. You can't make it work, and we can't help you, if you aren't willing to tell your husband the truth, and never see or talk to the former lover again.

If you want to argue and debate each point and claim you don't see the need, or claim it is impossible in your situation, then your efforts will just fizzle, I am sorry to say.

Have you never had a crush? They quite sneak up on you. You go from casual, nearly indifferent conversation to looking forward to seeing someone to obsessive crush with seemingly very little warning. I haven't spoken to this guy in two months, yet the crush lingers.

My rational mind knows there is nothing all that special about this guy, (and lots of bad qualities!) but if logic and rationality were really all it took to shake it, I wouldn't be talking to y'all now.

I am indeed willing to do whatever it takes to save my affairage; for the sake of our children if for nothing else.

One last point: Prisca (my wife) brought this up: you should talk to Dr. Harley personally. You can give him a call for free on his radio show; he and his wife will even give you a free helpful book just for calling in.

Email Dr. Harley's wife, Joyce Harley, to schedule time to be on the show:

mbradio@marriagebuilders.com

Dr. Harley is professional help. He has been doing this for forty years. Because of the circumstances in which your marriage started, the odds are massively, MASSIVELY against you. You need more help than this forum can possibly offer; you need professional help. If anybody can help you, it is Dr. Harley.

Shmoopy, when you signed up here, you clicked a box indicating you had read Dr. Harley's ten basic concepts. That's a requirement for participating here. The Basic Concepts explain how crushes work, and what married people have to do in order to have a crush for their entire lives.

Yes, we have all had a crush, and as readers of Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts, we all know more about crushes than you do. We know how to create them, and how to destroy them.

Don't try to educate and explain things to us; it won't help your marriage. The best thing you can do is listen closely and nondefensively.


For the sake of those children, please send an email to Dr. Harley and give him a call.

Then be radically honest with your husband and tell him about your crush.

Cut off ALL contact with your crush -- no talking to him, no looking at pictures, no checking up on facebook, no nothing.

Then start the marriage builders program -- and don't cherry pick at it. Follow it to the letter.

Oh, and another "last" point. Prisca and I have six children in the same age ranges as yours. There are marriages represented here with even more children than that. The plans here can still be followed, but you can't pick and choose just the parts you like, or it WILL NOT WORK.

I'm all right with telling him about it, since it was kind of a rude wakeup call for me that things were not necessarily as placidly good between us as I'd imagined. Or maybe too placid, I don't know.

Hard to come up with a good opening to talk about it; I've not seen or spoken to the guy in weeks, and he's not a regular topic of conversation in the household. But yes, I am totally guilty of checking out his pictures on facebook. Even tho I know it's creepily compulsive!

Once a cheater always a cheater huh! I get that.

You don't need a "good opening." You simply need a "Honey, there's something I need to talk to you about ..."

Block facebook.


That's up to you

This makes me wonder .......

What is all that special about you?

No, you don't "get it".
Not yet.

Cheaters cheat because they fail to protect themselves from developing emotional attachments to someone who is not their spouse.

Repeat cheaters fail to learn that lesson about protecting themselves the first go-round.

You are not paying attention!
You are not learning impaired.
You could learn about "extraordinary precautions" if you really want to protect this family you claim to love so much.

1. When are you going to tell your husband?
2. When are you going to call Dr. Harley?

Nada! Really, there is nothing special about most human beings, is there? We are born, we die, we leave behind descendants, to whom we are nothing but some dusty old pictures... and that's if we're lucky, I guess!

Quite the glib response.

Again, what is so special about you?