Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. Okay, I'm very upset. Thank you for being nice to me, and explaining what I need to hear. Oh, man...gosh, just thanks...

That sweet, loving person in still in there. It has just been lost. If she is as sweet as you say, her pain is just as severe as yours, just a different kind. She knows the pain she has caused.

It is up to you to bring that sweet person back out in her! She isn't happy now either. You can do it. I know you can.

If I were to do my situation all over again, I would have held her to a higher standard than I did. I assumed her depression was because of everything that had happened. And, it was do a degree. What I realize now is that it takes time for those feelings for the OM to DIE and for new ones to be built for you.

You wouldn't want it any other way would you? If she was able to turn her emotions on and off with a push of a button, what would that mean for your future? Not good.

Patience and belief in MB's is critical Jason. It does work

Have you read SAA? DId you read the summary stories from Jon and Sue? Did you read how Sue never thought her love for Jon would ever come back? If you haven't read this, I encourage you to do so. It might encourage you right now.

My WW told me she would have never thought her love for me would come back, but it did. She is now a firm believer in what Dr. Harley writes. He is the MAN. His plan for recover only works if you DO what he says to DO without deviation.

Keep your chin up brother. I know too well how you feel. The storm will pass one way or another.

I know for myself, by only focusing on MY actions and choices, at the end of the day if the marriage didn't work, I would have no regrets. It would be totally on her. Didn't want to look back 5 years later and wonder 'what if I would have done this, what if I would have done that.' You can't control her. You can only control yourself.

20yearhistory,

I have ordered SAA and am waiting for it. She is hurting bad too, and you're right-- she is unhappy, I can see it. She tells me she loves me with all her heart everyday, more than once a day. Could she still have feelings for the OM even though she's had NC for 10 months? (he's in prison)
She says when he pops into her mind she gets repulsed and/or angry, and tries to push it out. I'm guess the answer to my question "how do I hold her to a higher standard?" is in the books you and melody and everyone else told me to order (I have).
I agree, I'm too focused on controlling her and not controlling my own actions. I realize we're (I'm) broken, and I'm fighting like hell to find answers to fix myself.

How's that scheduling UA time coming?

I haven't scheduled it yet (today I will) but yesterday I made the girls bedtime an hour earlier (it needed to be anyway), and my wife and I spent more than 3 hours together yesterday.

An off-topic question..what does the D in front of son or daughter stand for?

Darling!

Or Dear?

First off. Relax. Take a deep breath and relax. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Absolutely she could have feelings for OM even though it has been 10 months.�But don�t worry about that now. Not important. Main thing is, he is out of the picture. Many posters on this forum discuss the dangers of ever having contact with a former lover because those feelings can come to the surface quickly.

Dr. Harley discusses focusing on today and the future, not the past. This was SO hard for me.

It is your job to spend 15-20hrs/wk UA to rebuild her love for you. Do you know her most important EN�s? Have you learned how to be an expert at meeting them? --KEY KEY KEY.

You hold her to a higher standard by creating Extraordinary Precautions and not allowing 1% deviation. These are your conditions to feel safe and continue with recovery. Let her know these are in place to create a long-term, happy marriage and to affair-proof your marriage. They aren�t a penalty for bad behavior. They are there because you love her.

Truthfully I think you are trying to find answers and �fix� this too quickly. Like most guys, we want to put a wrench to it and back it out of the garage in 2 hours roaring down the highway. Remember marathon, not a sprint.

Patience, Patience, Patience, Patience. Hard right? Absolutely. Look how far you have come, no time now to throw in the towel.

If you focus on �fixing� her, you are going to continue to be broken. In SAA Dr. Harley deals with the emotions you are going through and provide excellent advice. The piece on resentment and anger was a HUGE help for me. I think this book is going to be very insightful for you. Do you think she would be willing to sit with you each night and take turns reading each chapter out loud with each other? We did. I was very bonding for us.

The absolute key for me was to FOCUS ON MYSELF. Follow the 4 rules of recovery; Rule of Protection, Rule of Time, Rule of Honesty and the Rule of Care.

Your action to focus on yourself is what is going to make you better. If you wait for her to help you deal with your pain right now, it is going to be a long wait. In time, once you rebuild her love for you, she WILL be in a position to help you. Right now, she probably doesn�t know how to help herself.

I'll admit to being....confused.

I went back and re-read all of your postings, looking for what EXACTLY you wanted from us...and you've never told us.

From the very beginning, it seemed that ML decided (as I would have) that you were requesting help in reconnecting with your wife romantically. No, that wasn't it, and you indicated you were not interested in her suggestion to start developing a plan.

Next up, I divined that you were being chewed up by "mind-movies" and images of what you believed WW had done to your marriage, so I gave you pointers on the only viable ways to distill doubts to knowledge. Nope, that wasn't it either.

Others have joined in suggesting that her betrayals were not of a form to be "wished away" by blaming them on her upbringing, which may (or may not?) have included sexual abuse. You have responded that that advice is not acceptable, either.

Since this is going nowhere, please bear with me as I provide some parting observations:

1 - YOU home, playing house-hubby, and HER working, is a recipe for disaster. Beyond the distortions caused by the reversal of genetically-ingrained roles, 75% of affairs are work-place related. Yeah, keep her out there as a target for the next "master manipulator" - co-worker, superior, relative of a patient. Good plan.....

2 - Saying you "trust someone who you know betrayed you so much you need not insist on a polygraph" is really saying "I don't trust what I've been told, and really do not want the full truth". Another good plan.....

3 - If you're so sure that her affairs were driven by some childhood trauma, then give up now. That history cannot be erased, so she's got (according to your belief) a built-in excuse and justification for going the same route again.

4 - "Skank" is not the horrid pejorative you suppose. It actually means someone - male or female - who engages in immoral behaviour. I would propose that definition does fit your WW during the period she was giving it up to other men.

To DO List:

UA time check

Getting books check

STD tests check

No polygraph test scheduled

No DNA test scheduled

Lets finish this list.

Recovery is not a pick and choose menu.

Great post. Very kind and very helpful.

JJ77, you seem frantic.

I agree you need to just calm down and keep moving forward. It probably isn't helping that you are a SAHD right now and she is in the work force....do you have a plan to reverse that soon?

Childhood abuse is horrible. It is good you have deep compassion for her. That is a separate issue from allowing her to use it as an excuse. And she doesn't need an excuse....she did something horrible and you both need a plan to get past it.

Work on meeting each other's ENs and work on spending lots of UA time together.

Is she doing anything specific that is causing you concern?

I keep saying "I'm all over the place...an emotional wreck, acting irrationally" I know I am. I know I'm not reacting the best, but I'm here trying. I don't see why you have to call my wife a skank, do you feel that's appropriate and helpful to me?
Justify it all you want. Okay, everything you say is right and I'm totally wrong. Calling my wife a skank and stating criminals are "parking their johnsons in her" is not going to wake me up. Its only going to hurt a deeply hurting man. Its going to make me not listen to you even though you know so much better than I. I'm reeling and hurting and your hurtful words are inappropriate no matter how you slice it. I'll say again...I didn't come in here being the perfect forum member. I've never done this. I'm sure people are going to say things I don't want to hear, that I deny, and later when I realize it, I'll say, "Damn they were right I was an [censored]...I'm going to do that." But I won't listen to someone who's trying to help me and my "skank" wife by saying hurtful things. 20years was nice, I started listening. PS.I'm glad your comments were "parting".

smiling woman,

yes, I'm going back to work as soon as I can. yes, she acts very much in love with me but not very motivated (no initiative) to do her part in "fixing" us. She seems to think she's doing a lot. I'm starting to realize because of posts to me in here, it's because I'm not doing the right things to inspire her to be in love with me, and I'm trying to control her instead of controlling myself.

I am frantic, and I don't like insults, I deserve (and my wife deserves) respect.

What was the timeframe for this affair, by the way?

I get that it ended some 9-10 months ago. When did it start?

Im not being argumentative, but I need advice on this. I want your point of view, I'm not disagreeing. I feel weird about the poly and the DNA test. I need your reasons why I'm wrong. But here's my thinking: The OM has been in prison since May 2011, she hasn't been out of my sight (complete transparency since affair), and the baby was conceived in Sept 2011 4 mo later. Wouldn't the request for DNA be moot and harmful to our recovery?
As for the poly I can't find any reason not to...I just feel weird about it.

April 2011 , she was pretty much gone for a month and a half,

it ended when he went to jail, which coincidentally is when i found the texts on her phone...same as d-day

It's up to you, of course, but I think there's a vibe that there is more to the story than you have been told.

Often, the wayward confesses all at just the thought of having to do a poly.

As for the DNA test, you could always do it yourself without her knowing. I saw the kits at Walgreens the other day for $15. A sign of the times?

OK, for some reason I keep feeling that vibe too. I keep asking her are you sure you've told me everything, and she adamantly says yes yes yes, when she started disclosing...I got every gorey detail imaginable. She didn't tell me about the 2 guy right away because she thought I'd leave her at the beginning, she was right, I would have.

Why do you feel it would be harmful to your recovery? Because it means you are telling her that you believe there is a possibility that she is still lying? Can you truly say that you have been with her at every waking moment around the month of conception? Nobody has worked, nobody has gone to the store, etc. without the other right by their side?

I'm afraid you are taking the ostrich in the sand stance here because you've been hurt badly and what you don't know can't hurt you further.

You say she professes her love but then doesn't make much strides to actually fix things. You are conducting yourself on her words and not her actions. Do keep in mind that if you fail to find out the absolute truth that the ramifications with be far far worse in the future if your intuition is incorrect. I'm afraid that you continue to conduct yourself by trusting her and your intuition - both of which are extremely faulty compasses as evidenced by this entire situation.