Do YOU feel like Steve has given you a good plan? Do you see yourself following it

There is no 'plan'. My wife talks tomorrow with S. Harley. I did take your general advice and seek additional guidance. Thank you !

I'm sure he'll be giving you a plan after talking to her.

You emailed the show?

" I'm just saying, if you come across sounding high horse to me, you may come across sounding that way to her too, which will make your M hard to put back together (call it martyrdom if you will, to me very similar)."

That is not me saying a martyr, that was S Harley.

"You have been toying with infidelity yourself, how does that make you any better than her?"

Others have said that, but that is not the case. I cannot nor will I compromise my fidelity with someone else. Other dialogue here has called these women vultures. These females know NOTHING of my marital issues, and do know my wife from my conversation, and my kids.

" If so, then move on to what you can do to make it better instead of focusing so much on how wronged you are. You have wronged her too!"

I many many instances I have wronged her, but none have ever been addressed in any response or comment here.

"And stop meeting w/other women and letting them fulfill your needs!"

I still don't fully understand this concept. They fulfill nothing internally whatsoever, only superficially. Is that really that hard to understand.

"Yes she let you down, and in your eyes that was no small thing, I get that."

NO YOU DON'T... succinctly stated ! You know absolutely nothing about me !

"In order to move forward with her, you need to forgive her...can you do that?"

It really is not a forgiveness matter, I forgave her to the extent it was my function to do so. It is a realization now. Can she or I have much more fulfillment otherwise? I don't know that for me, but maybe she does for her. I've never been to the other side of the pasture and back, so I am ignorant. How would someone fill that void?

"It means letting go of it."

All me, I know that. If you drag them back in though, now what? I've let it go, I've let it go before, and now it was purposefully brought back in: stupidly, innocently, or otherwise.

I have read what you have said, and understand it. Thank you.

You emailed the show? [/quote]

No.

This part just screamed out to me. What you are not understanding is that this is exactly why your wife is where she is now. Adultery SELDOM starts out as need filling enough to do the unthinkable from the get go, but over time (and usually a not so long period of time) it mounts and mounts and then gets blown into a full fledged affair. You are traipsing down the same path that your WW wife walked and will end up in the same spot if you don't stop it now.

Is this really that difficult to understand?

Um, just so you know - it's considered good manners to at least respond to the posts, so all the readers of your thread know that you have read the posts. It makes it easier to advise you.

If you read the articles on the ten most important emotional needs and how an affair starts, that will explain the concepts to you.

For example, someone with a high emotional need for admiration (like you) would respond to someones admiring comments and keep going back for more. This develops into having feelings for that person. This then develops into a PA.

Its the same with any if the needs; affection, interesting converstion etc People don't fall in love purely because of the sexual need, or people would need to have very promiscuous lives in order to feel anything!

I still think the main aim of your presence here is to justify the continuance of your flirting while blaming your wife.

But this is a MARRIAGEBUILDERS site and people are not going to support that here. It would go against Dr Hs advice.

If you want to follow the concepts, we can help you follow them.

If you don't, people here are volunteers, short on time and there are other posters in great need who are enthusiastic about marriagebuilders concepts who could use our help too.

"I still think the main aim of your presence here is to justify the continuance of your flirting while blaming your wife."

No, you are wrong.

Tell me what you think of thiis discussion on flirting.
What is the definition of an EA by MB standards?

[/quote]

So you intend to stop the activities and long talks with other women?

I must have missed the bit where you said that.



This is said in the present tense. Fulfill, not fulfilled.

Its pretty obvious you intend to continue.

Ill read on in the hope you decide to make your marriage the priority by ending the flirting.

But you became very guarded and 'you don't understand me' as soon as advice came that the flirting must stop.

Stop being guarded and become more open.

Yes or no?

Will the flirting stop?

Like I said, peoples time is too valuable to waste so we need to know if you plan to stop the flirting and concentrate on your marriage.

If not, we can leave you to it and help others more interested in benefitting their marriage.

None of my comments, discussions or conversations do this: "I've gotten the impression that the person making them is testing my boundaries and have almost felt like they were predators." I have never pushed myself in any degree on any woman in any conversations. Simply being courteous and cordial should not rise to the level of flirting. I do acknowledge though that doing RA with a person of the opposite sex can fulfill certain needs that they shouldn't be fulfilling.

So what EPs and boundaries do you have in place to avoid a RA?

My wife is coming instead, and started/agreed to do more of those activities. It is much more fun doing them with someone. We've started doing other things more often too. We have been addressing these issues between us for the last year that is why things have been so wonderful except for my issues that keep cropping up in my head that has things stalled at times with a 3 steps forward 2 backward kind of thing. It will be interesting to hear her views about her session this morning with S. Harley.

That's amazing and will help A LOT. As well as getting your wife to meet needs, however - you also have to block others from meeting needs. I am sure Steve will work with the two of you on this.



It is hard to know something has been kept from you and hidden, I do understand how this makes you feel unsafe going forward. If you both follow a plan to implement Radical Honesty, and to never do anything without the enthusiastic agreement of your partner (POJA) this will sort that out for you.

Good luck! I'm excited for you.

Thank you.

Ditto.

By the way for clarification, I screwed this up, it wasn't RA, but I was rather referring to Recreational Activities wrong acronym my bad

You're right, I go by what you relay to us here, of course I can't know what you haven't divulged. If you don't want me to comment, I'm not sure why you're on the forum, I'm just stating my opinion based on what you've relayed.