I'm going to share an e-mail I sent to a good friend of mine this morning. I thought it would be the best way to share with all of you how much you've helped me see what I was doing wrong. Thanks you so much!!!

"I wanted to let you know that I had a pretty amazing revelation yesterday, After I wrote you that e-mail yesterday morning, I just started feeling so awful, like I just needed to figure all of this out immediately because it's been driving me so crazy. I called a potential new therapist on Thursday, I think, and we've been playing phone tag. And I think I mentioned that she probably isn't taking new patients for a few months. Anyway, I was feeling desperate. I ended up posting my "dilemma" on an online discussion board. I got an extremely hostile response [sorry guys, that�s how it felt at the time] from pretty much everyone. They were telling me that I was in an emotional affair and how I need to cut ties immediately and never speak to him again, blah, blah, blah. At first, I thought they were all crazy. I thought an emotional affair was when you confide in someone all your emotional crap, particularly the stuff about how horrible your marriage is, and you spend tons of time together, and then you develop this emotional bond with someone other than your spouse. I haven't done that with [X]. I've never mentioned anything about my marriage to him, I've never really confided anything emotional, and we hardly ever see each other or talk to one another. BUT then I started reading about emotional affairs and saw that really it can be just what I was doing - having a male friend I'm attracted to, making sure to always look extra nice around him, looking forward to seeing him/talking to him/getting e-mails and texts from him, making sure to seek him out in a group, considering our relationship to be "special", fantasizing about a life with him. And it's not like I've been thinking that this was all normal and okay, but I kind of just thought of it as flirting and normal feelings that have developed over time. I was taking all my feelings about [X] as evidence that my marriage was unsalvageable. But something clicked yesterday. I finally was able to pull my head up out of the haze and see things clearly. I was about to throw a perfectly good marriage out in the garbage just because I had developed essentially a high school crush on someone totally inappropriate for me! I just can't get over how differently I feel now. I guess I just needed someone to point out what I was doing and actually label it an affair. Because when I started reading all the stuff on emotional affairs, it was just ridiculous how much it all applied to me. I have been thinking so selfishly about all of this. And on some level I've known that having this kind of (fantasized) relationship was keeping me from being able to connect with [my husband], but since I thought the feelings were real I couldn't see it clearly enough. It's like I've been viewing [my husband] as a barrier to my happiness, when really it's all of this crap I've allowed to develop in my head about someone else! It seems so ridiculously simple and straight forward today - it's hard for me to believe how long I've been so confused and miserable about all of this! Last night [my husband] and I went out to dinner and then out to play pool. We actually had fun together. I don't know the last time I felt like it was possible to have fun with him. And then when I woke up this morning all I wanted to do was just hug him and kiss and tell him how sorry I am for putting him through all of this. He's leaving later this afternoon to go stay overnight with family, and I'm staying behind with the dogs. I'm actually already starting to miss him! It's been years since I've felt like I missed him. I think that while I've been off screwing around with all of this [X] stuff, [my husband] has actually been making changes to improve our relationship. Now that my head is clear, I can actually appreciate him and our relationship. Today is the best day I've had in I don't know how many years. I just feel hopeful and happy and so relieved."

Again, I can't thank you all enough for helping to talk me down from my former craziness. Something miraculous happened yesterday! You all told me like it was, and somehow I was able to hear it. I thought I would share this so that anyone else out there who might be going through something similar might benefit. I have been absolutely convinced that my marriage could never be good again. And I was so close to ending it. I wasn't necessarily planning to go running to this other guy immediately, but of course I had it in the back of my mind that we might eventually end up together (you know, because we have such a special connection and are so meant to be and all). My husband is a good man, and he has been working his butt off to try to make things better, and I haven't been able to see it. I just thought that the spark was gone and could never come back. Anyway, there's still a lot of things that need to be done for us to get back on track, but I'm feeling sane again and prepared to do whatever it takes. Thank you!!!

I'm glad to hear you're "seeing the light." Build the marriage you want with your husband. Good marriages are made, not stumbled into. They don't just happen. Even great matches require maintenance.

I hope the good friend you sent that to
was a female.

That is great news!

I am hoping that you really do understand that this realization is only the first step, it is not the last. This realization will not restore the love in your marriage. That will take a very specific PLAN or you will find yourself right back in the same place. Having no plan is a plan to fail.

The first thing that has to happen is that you must tell your husband about this and end all contact with the OM. You cannot create an intimate, romantic relationship when there are secrets between you. Telling him will achieve 2 objectives: it will alert him to a threat to your marriage and enable him to hold you accountable and it will help him understand that there is a problem in his marriage. This is vital information about his life too.

The second step is to create a bonded, romantic relationship with your husband. That will not happen by accident, it ONLY happens by design. A romantic relationship is created by spending 20-25 hours of undivided attention per week meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, sexual fulfillment and recreational comanionship. This is the KEY to creating romantic love. It take 20+ hours to create romantic love and 15 hours to maintain. It really does work.

But the first step is honesty. Harley says in Requirements for Recovery [and this principle applies to all marriages, whether there was an affair or not]
If you want to transform your marriage, I would get the book Fall in Love, Stay in Love and the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love and follow the program outlined in those books.

Congratulations on your awakening!

Ha ha. Yes, it was a female friend.

Thanks for the advice. I know that this is just the first step, and it makes me feel hopeful about taking the next steps. We're in therapy, and we're going to work through all of this. I know good marriages take hard work. In fact, I've always known that. BUT even though I've known that as a fact, I guess I haven't truly believed that it applied to my marriage. Like I said, something has definitely shifted in my brain, and I'm "getting" some things that I've always known intellectually but just wasn't "getting," if that makes sense.

I understand completely. And the ironic thing it that is really harder to live in a bad marriage than it is a good marriage! It is not hard to have a great marriage because engaging in such a marriage when you are in love comes with ease. One just has to develop good habits that support a great marriage. The hard work to fall in love is short term. After that it is easy.

A watch out about therapy. Most marriage counselors are destructive to marriages and don't have the slightest idea how to save a marriage. They have an 84% failure rate and have a higher personal divorce rate than the general population. They cause more problems than they solve by focusing on distracting things like "communication" or childhood issues. Another horrible practice is counseling couples together. That practice further erodes the love in a marriage because couples in conflict tend to bash the other while in counseling. Couples leave more angry than when they arrived.

I would be real, real careful about trusting your marriage to a therapist because it can be a disaster. Very few have any idea how to save a marriage and are harmful to marriages.

this is SO true. it should be posted at the top of the MB site!

SoConfused,

What a wonderful turn-around. Prayers that you both execute the marriage builders plan. There are many betrayed spouses here who dream that their wayward spouses would have the same MB-induced epiphany that you've had.

Stay focused and read his needs/her needs and lovebusters with your husband. Fill out the forms and spend that 20 hours/week together.

Best of luck!

YOU LISTENED, YOU LISTENED, YOU LISTENED! Yeah!!! Now stay on board with MB and get you H on board as well. The reason you could not give him all of your love is because you were reserving it for someone else...it seems you have figured this out already.

Just remember those goo goo ga ga feelings at the beginning go away and no matter who you are with you both have to work to keep the love alive.

I am so happy that you figured this out before you made a mistake. Now you need to make sure that you completely cut all contact with OM. This is very important because you already started a spark with him that could easily be ignited if you see or contact him again.

Hi, SoConfused, glad to hear you sound a little less confused today.

My wife and I are on vacation checking in briefly from our hotel room; about to take our family out to dinner. We'll try to check in later and have more to say, but for now, keep reading around here and finding out what it will take to restore things with your husband. Also: bring him here!

Did you ever get to listen to those radio shows I posted?

Finally had the chance to read your post, SoConfused. I'm glad to hear of this change in direction.

Let me echo what MelodyLane said about therapists and counselors. Most of them are terrible. First off, many of them simply don't even believe in permanent, sustainable romantic love in marriage. And second, many of them aren't action oriented and aren't able to give you a plan and help motivate or coach you through it to achieve romantic love as a goal. They'd rather help you "work on" childhood issues, etc.

After doing Marriage Builders for several months I did anger management therapy. At the time I'd claimed I was "working on" my anger and had been for all those months. You know, it turns out that "working on" is code for "doing nothing." And unfortunately that's where a lot of contemporary therapy goes.

You might want to check out Dr. Harley's article on good marriage counseling: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi7100_counselor.html

Second, and this is related to marriage counselors: normal marriages are terrible. 60% end in divorce, 20% end in permanent separation! 20% of marriages are happy. I noticed your comment about how you previously thought feelings for the OM were "normal feelings." Well, they were normal feelings. Normal marriages have affairs, have a husband and wife who are not in love with each other and are extremely likely to fall in and out of love with other people, and are extremely likely to end in divorce, permanent separation, or outright misery. You don't want a normal marriage!

Finally, please introduce your husband to the Marriage Builders plan here. One of the crucial determining factors for successfully getting through MB is the husband being on board. Interestingly enough it is easier for a husband to get his wife on board than vice versa. So if you can do like in that radio show I linked for you (have you found a way to listen to those yet?) and sell him on this plan, you guys have probably got it made. The Basic Concepts or the video section are a great introduction for him.

Hi, SoConfused: any updates for us?