I am really struggling right now. Back in November, my wife started telling me she did not always feel she was in love with me. I had been complaining about her lack of affection for a few years, and she finally said she decided to level with me.

I then caught her in a lie about spending time with another man. She pretended to still be on a business trip so she could go out to drinks with him rather than have dinner with me and some friends as we had planned. She said she was sorry she lied, they were just friends and it would never happen again.

As Christmas rolled around, things got more tense. She was less and less affectionate toward me, and I became increasingly despondent and agitated. I asked her if she was still seeing her friend and she promised she wasn't. Not trusting her, I checked her credit card account, and found out she had spent $600 on him for Christmas gifts. At this point, she admitted to an affair, said she was sorry, was not in love with this man, and that she would never lie to me again. She also told me she was not in love with me anymore but was willing to try and save our marriage. I said I would try to put her deceit behind me, and work on our marriage. We have two young children.

She said I have been verbally abusive to her at times over the years, disciplining our children too harshly and frequently made disrespectful judgements toward her and her family. Over time this eroded her respect and love for me I admitted to being guilty of this and promised to change.

The change in my behavior toward her and our children has been dramatic. Even she admits I have really made an effort. Still, after New Years, she told me she did not want to save our marriage, and wanted me to leave. I convinced her we needed to give saving our 18 year marriage a shot, at the very least for the sake of our children, but also because I still loved her, and because I value my family and our marriage over anything else in this world. She reluctantly agreed.

We talked to her parents, my parents and clergy. I had to seek psychiatric care for deep depression and constant thoughts of suicide. I am on anti depressants and sleeping pills just to function normally. We did not tell anyone about her affair, as she promised it was over and she would not lie to me again.

We started marriage counseling. We told her about the affair, but that is was over. Not trusting my wife, however, I put a gps device in her car. She faked an overnight business trip so she could spend the night with this man. She only admitted it when confronted with the evidence. She still maintains she is not in love with this man, but just enjoys his company and sex with him, but that she would never see him again. She said she told him we were already separated, and that now that he knows she was cheating on me, he does not want to be involved. I am accepting this, because she doesn't want to be married to me anyway, and I am trying to get her to stay, but I said I would sue her for divorce, reveal her affair to our families and take her to court over custody of the children if I caught her lying to me again.

We continued with marriage counseling. I have found this to be ineffective. I sit there while my wife drags up every ugly thing I ever said to her, and the counselor tells me I need to shut up about her affairs and get over it. I feel like a punching bag.

Not happy with this latent approach, I found this website and read many of the articles. The emotional needs and love busters seems to fit our situation perfectly. I have not satisfied her needs for domestic support & family commitment, while she has never satisfied my need for affection. Meanwhile, I have been bombarding her throughout our marriage with the love busters of angry outbursts, etc.

I had already changed my behavior toward her, but now I had a reason and a plan. I thought things would get better. They have not. No matter how hard I have tried, and how much I have done, which my wife openly acknowledges, she flatly refuses to work on her weaknesses or show me any affection. She made a half hearted attempt, but recently to.d me: she doesn't feel like it. Doesn't want to, and still doesn't love me, often she doesn't like me, she doesn't want me to kiss her, touch her or have sex with her. She doesn't want to hug me or hold my hand. She will comfort me somewhat if I am completely distraught. Her suggestion is that we live as platonic friends for a time until her feelings for me come back spontaneously. I do not believe this will work, and living with and lying next to a woman who I love and adore but who doesn't want anything to do with me is killing me. Most of the time I wish I was dead.

So, my question is: how do I apply the principles of this website if my wife won't participate? I love her and want to save our marriage, but if it were not for the children, I would never let anyone treat me this way. I feel abused. I have never been depressed clinically before. I never thought I would be under the care of a psychiatrist. I am an ex infantryman, and not a crier by nature. Now I weep almost constantly. I cant sleep. I have lost 25lb's. I can hardly concentrate on my job, and nothing in life gives me any pleasure. I just want back the love of my wife. I have worked hard to earn it, and pay for my mistakes, and I have forgiven much she has done to me in turn.

I am sorry for the lengthy sob story, but I need help and I am not ashamed to admit it. If I thought it would work, I'd stand on my head and stack greased bb's. I want to start Dr. Harley's program, but I can't do it alone. What do I do now? Please help.

Click notify at the bottom of your post and ask to be moved to surviving an affair. Sorry you are here, but you are in the right place. She is still in the affair, I suspect, and those folks can help you bust it up and hopefully remove the alien from your wife's body.

Hi Iago, welcome to Marriage Builders. You are in the right place. If you can get her on board with this program, you could turn your marriage around. But right now she has no motivation to work on your marriage because she is not in love. And it is also possible she is still in touch with the OM. Let me ask you this: do have really snooping in place? Additionally, has she stopped spending the night apart from you? If you don't have real good spy weapons in place, I would get that in place. And I would absolutely not agree to spend the night apart again. That is one of the conditions she used to cheat so that has to go. You should be spying like a blood hound.

So back to the problem of her motivation. I would try counseling with Steve Harley. Most couples that show up here have one reluctant spouse and if you can get her on the phone with him, he could sell her on the benefits of having a romantic marriage with you. He can show her a plan to achieve that. It is in her benefit to have that with YOU but she does not believe it is possible because she has been wasting valuable time sitting in a counselors office lovebusting you. A sure fire way to kill ANY remaining love. The Harleys DON'T counsel people together for this very reason. IT IS A DISASTER as you have learned the hard way.

That is where I would begin. If you can get a few sessions with Steve and sell her on this program, we can walk you both through the program here OR you could pay and go through the online program. My H and I went through the online program and it made an amazing difference, but you can do it yourself if you are very comprehensive and very disciplined.

You don't have to convince her to go to counseling. You just get a session with Steve for yourself and tell him your situation. He will tell you what to say to her to persuade her to get on the phone with him the next time. The sessions cost about $200 and they go for an hour or two - he doesnt just cut you off at an hour, he goes until he is DONE giving you instructions. He won't waste a minute of your time with psychobabble. He assesses your situation and then gives you a PLAN. He is very, very good.

THAT is what I would do if I were you. If you can just get her motivated that is 90% of the battle right there. We can help you with the rest. And keep in mind that MB is completely different from other programs in that its goal is to affair proof your marriage AND restore the romantic love in your marriage. Its main focus is not "conflict resolution" and "communication" but to help you fall in love again.

In the meantime, get the book Surviving an Affair, Lovebusters and the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love and we can help you start on the program.

I would have this thread moved to Surviving an Affair if I were you. You will get more specialized help there.

Also, I would stop threatening to expose the affair and just expose it to everyone. Expose it to your kids, too.

Is the OM married? If so does his wife know?

Exposure is the BEST THING you can do to save your marriage. The BEST WEAPON you have.

Dear Melodylane,

Thank you so much for the warm welcome. Yes, I do have spy gear in place she does not know about. There were a few phone calls which she told me about without being confronted so has gained some measure of trust back. There have been none since No, he is not married and has never been married. He's a 50 year old successful bachelor who generally dates 30 year olds for fun. I don't think my 45 year old wife is his soul mate, and I don't think he wants or needs the drama and aggravation of an illicit affair. He has apologized to me for causing a problem between us.

After more reading on here, I can see I have still been making some mistakes. While its true I have changed the habits that initially drove my wife away, I have still been demanding of her affection, and hurt and angry when she doesn't respond. I think I need to be the best husband I can be for a while and expect nothing in return. At least not make demands and beg for affection she doesnt feel. Is this right?

I talked to her about the MB website and the program, and she asked for the link and said she would give it some thought.

What its going to take is a very comprehensive approach to the program. It can't be piecemealed or hoped for. I would focus on getting her on board 100% and doing this program in its entirety. If you don't do that, you are facing years of resentment. Because unless you replace that gaping wound with something better than what you had before, the resentment will grow.

And yes, demands should stop, however, you should not have to demand affection. She should be willing to meet your needs. And she would do that if she was in love with you. People who are in love don't have a problem meeting their spouses needs. That is what the program can do. But you have to do the program.


What is troubling with this is that there was continued contact AT ALL. Telling you about it does not erase the damage done. Has the ability to make those calls or recieve those calls been entirely removed?

Thanks for getting back to me CWMI. I really don't think she is still in the affair. I have some pretty good spy gear in place, and would likely know if they were communicating. I would certainly know if she went to his house, and keep pretty close tabs on her during the day when we are apart.

I also don't think her lack of feeling for me stems from the affair. Her failure to show affection has been a long running problem in our marriage, and her telling me she doesn't love me just confirmed what I long knew I'm my heart. Of course the affair hurt so much it has been hard for me to be cheerful and undemanding. Dr Harleys article on the subject helped a lot. Before I read that I was berating her constantly.

So while it's true I still need to overcome some resentment about what she did, I really want to focus on stopping my own bad behavior, which I'm doing, and bringing her to a place where she will follow this course with me. It may sound crazy, but I still love her like anything.

Not good. Iago, your wife is having an affair. You don't want her here right now. We have tools on this site to kill an affair. You don't want her to see those - she'll know how to work around you. Especially any snooping tools you need to use.

Don't talk to her about this site anymore. Blow it off to her for now. Read here and we'll help you kill this affair. She can come here later, when the affair has been killed.

Thanks Mel. I am hopeful she will get on board with the program 100%. I agree I shouldn't have to demand affection, and in a loving marriage I wouldn't need to. But obviously we are in crisis mode, and our main problem is she has fallen out of love with me. I guess my question is, should I try to put aside my hurt feelings, and do everything on my side to follow the MB principles in hopes this will inspire her to reciprocate?

Crying, and being sad all the time sure isn't working. That's how I really feel, and it's hard to hide that, but I don't think it's helping me. She's not totally without feeling. She doesn't like to see me hurt, she worries about me, and she tries to comfort me when I am openly distraught, but it hasn't changed her underlying lack of love. When I am not demanding or acting hurt and resentful, she is generally pleasant to me, talks to me about daily things, says good morning, good night, asks about my day and usually gives me a brief kiss. So, tepid and not what I want, but not mean or cold. She only gets that cold defensive look if impress her for more.

On the calls, the first one was to explain to him she had been lying to me about seeing him, and that they couldn't see each other any more. The second was him calling her to see how she was doing. She told him they also could not speak on the phone. We we going through this before I got on MB, so I didn't know the right way to handle breaking things off. Since she voluntarily told me about both calls, which unbeknownst to her I knew about, I think I have to give her some credit, although I am of course still suspicious and snooping closely to make sure they don't get back together.

Thanks Maritalbliss. I appreciate your advice. Two things: One,I don't think she will delve deeply in to the site, she is not a big reader, and it's not her style. I think I'll be lucky if she reads the basic concepts and the description of the program I want us to do. But I'll take your advice and print those things out for her, which will probably keep her from getting on here much. Two, I really think the affair is over. I don't think she was in love with this guy. I'm almost certain he wasn't in love with her. Also, it's been a couple of months since she has had contact with him. You can be sure I am monitoring closely.

Yes you need to clean up your side of the street.

If there is still contact with this OM, you could be the Dr. Harley of husbands and your wife would still be in withdrawal. Why? Because she is foggy.

You should be in Plan A and make sure the affair is dead.

What snooping techniques do you have in place? Being sure and being "pretty sure" there is no contact can be the fine line of an active affair.

Read up on this Pep's Carrot and Stick of plan A

Also you should move this to the SAA board. Click notify and ask the mods to move this.

Uh-huh. So you think the affair is over. How have you determined this? What are you monitoring tools?

Iago, I am going to notify the mods to have your thread moved to our Surviving an Affair forum. You need to be over there.

Marital & Brain,

I appreciate the advice about the affair and making sure it is over, but I can only do so much. I don't want to spell out my monitoring techniques, as there could be legal implications, but I am covering most of her avenues of correspondence, and I know where her car is 24/7. So, I will always be suspicious, but until she trips one of my wires my assumption is they are not in communication.

So, while I will remain viligent, my question remains should I continue satisfying my wife's emotional needs, controlling my bad habits and getting nothing in return? If so, for how long?

She says she is trying to change the way she feels about me, and praying about it. She is attending the terrible marriage counseling with me, but even she agrees it is not helpful. When it comes to meeting my emotional needs, she says she doesn't want to fake being warm and affectionate if it is not how she really feels. Our lousy marriage counselor supports her in this school of thought.

I haven't been through the MB program. Is meeting the needs of your spouse, even if you don't feel like it, part of the process? I mean, if we both always felt like meeting each others needs, we probably wouldn't be in this mess. We've actually already done the needs and LB questionairs, so we know where we need work. Is my wife right in that she shouldn't address her weak areas if she doesn't really feel it in her heart, or does the MB program suggest you work on those things anyway?

If you were in love, you would both feel like meeting each others needs. The way you fall in love is to schedule 20+ hours per week of undivided attention time meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. This is be done without children or friends. It is a good idea to schedule 4 dates per week in 4 hour blocks.

THAT is how your wife will come to feel like it. That is what it takes to create romantic love in a marriage. That is because FEELINGS FOLLOW ACTIONS. Not the other way around.

After doing this for a couple of weeks, she WILL not only "feel" like it, but she will look forward to it!

Let me put this another way, it takes 15 hours of undivided attention time per week to MAINTAIN the romantic love in a marriage and 20+ hours to CREATE. If you aren't doing that, then it will be impossible to fall in love.

Check this out: The Policy of Undivided Attention