So do you believe he is punishing your continually for your affair 3 years ago? (comments like telling you he wouldn't have moved home if his stepmother still had a place for him make me believe he is punishing you)

Or do you believe he is just content much the way he was pre-affair?

I feel bad for you, but I also hope for your children's sake you keep hanging on for a while longer..

I would think he feels trapped and confused. He can't go back and fix it, but he still loves you.

H, however has a FB page. Avoiding FB is one of my EPs. I found this out by accident in conversation with one of his family, who was mortified they'd let that little tidbit slip b/c they thought it would make H angry at them that they'd told me. I had a friend who has FB try to bring up his page but he's got his privacy settings pretty high. I can't see who his friends are, and his relationship status appears to be nonexistent. Maybe he's maintaining it to continue to try and keep tabs on the POSOM and/or to see if I go back on FB. I don't know how frequently he goes on there, but I know FB was a trigger for him since that's how my A started, and he told me he couldn't stand seeing the little FB icon on everything. He's still got a text from January of 2010 from the POSOM saved on his cell phone, and has OM saved in his contact list. These things bother me, trigger me, yet I feel like I don't have a leg to stand on in telling him this, since I was the WS. I also know that's not being O&H, but I don't know how to approach these things without angering him, making him feel like I don't trust him when I am the untrustworthy one, etc.

I'm hopeful Dr. H will weigh in soon.

While my advice last time was to stay with plan A, my advice now would be to go to plan B. My reason is not to somehow motivate your husband to get on board, but rather to save your health. If this situation goes on much longer, I�m afraid that you may suffer serious autoimmune problems that will last for years. When I advised you to stay with plan A, I assumed that you were in great health, and that you could survive the emotional turmoil. Now I�m not so sure. Besides, all of your plan A efforts have had little effect. I wouldn�t give up on your marriage, but I would suggest a break. That means no contact at all � no conversation and no sex. Have someone else mediate any visitation with the children.

One of the advantages to plan A is to help lose enough love units so that you can leave without regrets. That may have already happened. An advantage to plan B is that whatever love units still remain will be there for him if he decides to become a partner in your marriage. The sooner you leave him, the more likely you will be willing to take him back when he is truly on board.

Best wishes,
Dr. Harley

...., yet I feel like I don't have a leg to stand on in telling him this, since I was the WS.

....... when I am the untrustworthy one, etc.

Anyway, I came back online b/c I received a response to Dr. H and I wanted to post it so the folks interested could read:


I've still got to think and digest this.

You asked for his advice, and now you should take it, wpg. What is there to digest?

You need to work out the practicalities of things like who will live where, but you really must take the advice.

Hi Joyce - thank you for your response! I have actually been on the show with you & Dr. Harley twice in the past, a little over a year ago. I am �Renee,� who had an affair and wanted to try and rebuild our marriage, and my husband eventually moved out.

The basic backstory is that I had an affair that from March to August of 2009. I immediately ended the affair when my husband confronted me, but lied to him for 4 months about the extent of the affair, telling him it was emotional only when in fact it was physical. During this time, we had not yet found MB, but he met my needs like a champ. He was the husband I�d always wanted. He learned the whole truth in January 2010. We struggled over the next year, finding MB in about June and I ended up having 2 sessions with Jennifer in the fall of 2010. Her advice was Plan A, as was Dr. Harley�s advice when I appeared on the show in Dec. 2010 and again in Jan. 2011 (which was after my husband decided he wanted to separate). Dr. Harley even weighed in on my thread in the forum when other posters were suggesting Plan B, and said that a Plan B in my case would most likely just lead to divorce.

To update you on our situation, much has happened in the last year. I maintained as best a Plan A as I could from a distance, meeting my husband�s needs if he allowed me to do so. The only intimate EN I was allowed to meet consistently was sexual fulfillment. I worked on not being needy and trying to show him an independent woman who didn�t want him for money or childcare obligations, but that I wanted him for him. At the end of August 2011, my father was killed in an accident. My husband came around more and more to help with the children so that I could be with my mother and brother. I took on most of my father�s responsibilities and have been overwhelmed with what can only be described as a mess with his financial affairs. I have been trying to straighten out his estate, handle affairs for my grandmother (Dad was an only child, and my grandmother has dementia and is in a nursing home), and manage my mother�s finances as well as my own.

Then at the end of September, my husband lost his job. The stepmother (who he had been living with) was losing her home because she could not pay the mortgage. He eventually moved back home. When I asked him at the beginning of this year if he would have moved home if she was not losing the house, he told me �Probably not.� He has not found a job, although he says he is looking. He helps with the children and cooking. He does his own laundry. We sleep in the same bed and still have sexual relations, mostly at his initiating.

He went to a doctor about a month or so ago and came home with a prescription for antidepressants, although I learned this only by looking through his things. We are living a very independent lifestyle now even though we are back under the same roof, and most of my attempts to reach out are rebuffed. He rejects any attempts at affection unless we are having sexual relations (for example, if I move too close to him or move like I am going to touch him he'll move out of my reach). When we do have sex, to me it seems more aggressive than affectionate, although he doesn't hurt me physically. We talk, but in no way is it "intimate" conversation, it is mostly businesslike - finances, kids. When dealing with those types of issues, he is generally polite, and if I ask him to do something, he is helpful. On other matters, though, often I will ask a question or attempt to start a conversation and I am met by silence. He shows no interest in my day-to-day life and feelings. To be quite honest, it is very similar to the way our marriage was pre-affair. He is not interested in spending any UA time with me alone (other than sex), but sometimes I can interest him in doing things as a family.

I am depressed and anxious much of the time. I feel very lonely and overwhelmed. I'm also beginning to feel very resentful towards him and don�t know what to do to stop that. I know I am not being open & honest about things that bother me, but I am afraid of how he�ll react to me.

I have posted for a long time on the message boards and it seems at this point there are three schools of thought as relates to my situation. One is that I should do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to "win" my husband back. The second is that I should accept it and live with it in order to minimize additional consequences to my husband & children, accepting that this is a cost of my infidelity. The third is that after 2+ years, I need to accept that this marriage is unsalvageable and move on.

I don�t know if he has too much resentment, or if I was simply unable to offer him enough just compensation. I don�t want anyone else, but I wonder sometimes if I�d rather just be alone. Thank you for reading, and I�m sorry this was so long.

It's ok to take some time to think it over, and construct a plan. But do give yourself a relatively short deadline to make a decision.