We need a nodding head icon thing. This is VERY true. Been there!!!

Mrs Ren. mentioned this upthread as well.

I do! It is an assertive and non abusive way of refusing to take abuse.

When I first read this article, my WH was bringing up everything I had ever done wrong and flinging it in my face. Typical wayward style. I fell in love with the 'hey buster' approach and have used it ever since.

It does not matter whether you are the WS or BS. Abuse is abuse. And taunting someone about a past they cannot change is ABUSE!!!

A BS has every right to respectfully request needs
Every right to ask for EPs
Every right to ask for MB recovery conditions
Every right to decide the enthusiasm of the WS is sub par..
Every right to leave if that is so.

But NO one has ANY right to use someones unchangeable past to beat them about the head.

No right to DEMAND needs, particulaly the gift of SF with abuse.

My husband abused me with his affair. He could not have been crueller.

Does that means I get to abuse him with an RA?

Take him back so I can get my way every time with AOs and demands?

No, no, no, no, no.

That is not MB. That is the temptation of power,of being 'right' which first deceives, then hardens, then destroys the soul.

I don't want to be a vengeful spouse. I would rather be alone forever.

If the recovery is not respectful, you leave. You do not go power mad with vengeance and demands.

We have had great success with POJA. Radical Honesty is where I struggle that is why I mentioned it twice in terms of sharing with her what is going on with me.

Last night we were talking. I had been triggered by something while I took my son to his sporting event. It was actually Pepperbands thread on Lurkers Gift. Things in the thread took me back to our very dark time.

When I got home, I was feeling overwhelmed with the entire situation. Now, they typically pass within an hour or two vs. a day or two.

I realize now that I must never say anything at all about the betrayal or the A. But, how can I be Radically Honest with her if I don�t share with her exactly what is on my mind?

IG, great post. I especially was struck by the above! What an incredibly intelligent and insightful statement.

Its a quote Pep has posted elsewhere. I stole it!!!

Your pain is a CURRENT condition you must be honest about. Its OK to ask for help with it and describe what you need. That's RH.

Just be respectful.

I understand exactly what you are going through. I'm going to point you to the discussion that was on my thread as it discusses ALL of that and more, for several pages. Starts on page 26 or 27: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2538986&page=27

The jist of it is, your wife knows when you are down. She doesn't need to be told that her past actions are the cause, more than likely. There's nothing she can do to change that; she can only be there for you now - in whatever way you ask her to be.

Dealing with triggers effectively can be tricky business, for sure. You just have to trust that discussing them with your spouse is not the best option - it does not make your marriage better.

NICE!!!!!

I might have to steal it too! I mean - hey - even if it wasn't yours originally, you had the good sense to remember it.



Edited to add....THANKS, PEP!!!

SunnyD, what should I do when kiss wants me to talk about what is bothering me (when a trigger happens, etc) and I don't want to? I would rather just say "having a bad moment, I'll be OK" and move on but lately he wants me to talk about it. I don't get why?

I feel like my wife and I go through this same thing a lot. Often times, especially last week, I just hold it in thinking I can just 'get over it' myself, but it really just festers within me. When I was able to 'unload' the other night to her, it seriously just allows me to move forward. But I think the timing and delivery are the critical components. Like my wife said to me, I can't understand how you're feeling unless you reveal it to me. In some ways it brings us closer together. Now re-hashing all the A and what not has gotten pointless, but if the focus is on how I was feeling then(repeatedly rejected) we may disagree on things, but at least we understand each other and it moves us closer together in that realm. You can agree to disagree on certain issues, but it's imperative that you care for and understand one another too and then a lot of time the differences either, don't matter in the grand scheme of things, or one or the other may decide their stance isn't the best, or better yet, a win-win is approved upon by both parties.

I am curious as to why you would pull out SF in this statement?

Personally, this is MB advice I have not always adhered to. Because it is fuzzy to me too, at which point I use my best judgement.

Like I said, in my sitch, I brought up the A a LOT before my H actually made the transformation of realizing just how much damage he had caused. Not in the middle of a fight. But in ways to remind him that his actions were the cause of my pain. Right, wrong or indifferent, in my case this DID bring him to his knees and make him understand just how devastating to me and to our M his behavior had been.

Now, going forward, I never bring up the A in the same way. I don't want to grind him into the ground. Now that he 'gets it' and is committed to recovery, it is time to build him up to be the amazing man I know is there.

But that being said, I DO still discuss things regarding both of our infidelities. If they are on his mind, or mine, in a civil and O&H way, not blaming him or holding it over his head, but if it is a roadblock to us in some way then I do whatever I need to to remove that roadblock and sometimes, that brings about a discussion about our lengthy history. It was a decade of our life and marriage, and we have come a long way, but I am not going to pretend that the decade didn't happen. It is what shaped us into who we are.

So I guess when I have a bad day, or he does, we do talk about it. We don't fight about it, use it against each other, or in any other way 'rehash' anything. We just discuss it, almost matter of factly in the way we discuss a bad day at work.

I might add, as true recovery takes place, I don't have a NEED to discuss it, because the bad days get less and less.

Because sex is, or should be, a mutual and enthusiastic expression of love.

It is a horrendous abuse to demand it. Next door to forced sex. Sex should never involve anyone who appears remotely unwilling or unenthusiastic.

While unenthusiastically agreeing to go eat Chinese when you're not a fan is an abuse of POJA. Chinese food is not an expression of love. Chinese food is not sacred..Sex is.

Sex should never be degraded in that way. We should not allow it to be. We should not ask for it to be.

It may sound ironic for a WS to say so.

But any BS with half an ounce of sense should know it anyway.

I have heard sex recommended as a healing tool when both are still hurting, which may not count as exactly enthusiastic....

....But it is not angrily demanded which is much more greatly offensive.

Exactly.

It is not abusive to tell someone WHAT THEY CAN DO to help.

It IS abusive to beat a refrain of 'you cheated, you cheated, you cheated' to cause pain without any option for the WS to do anything to stop it.

The WS can not hop into a time machine. But they can pay JC and do the work to complete healing.

Any WS who needs persistant, escalated demands for healing is not serious anyway. Plan B exists to prevent AOs at someone who is not serious.

SF is my #1 EN, and I can say that when I don't get it it has a dramatic affect on my ability to engage with my spouse.

Everyone has a most important EN, I am not suggesting SF is more important than any other EN's, but it is 'different' in the fact that it can ONLY be given by your spouse, nobody else.

I see many situations where SF is NOT given. Because, as you say, it is an intimate need and needs to be enthusiastically given, and understandably it becomes even more difficult to be enthusiastically given during an A situation. So it becomes OK to not provide that need, unless you are mentally enthusiastic about it?

In my thread I talk about domestic support as a high need for my H. And how much I hate doing it. I'm not lazy I would just much rather be in the barn pitching manure than vacuuming. But I have succumbed to (attempting) to clean for 4 hrs/day to keep a house that is in line with filling my H's most important EN. I am not 'enthusiastic' about it in any sense, I simply do it because I have to in order to fill his needs.

Yet I should only get SF when he is 'enthusiastic' about it?

I am not arguing your general point here. I just feel a little like your comment is discounting the need of SF and suggesting that it should ONLY be filled when your partner is as into it as you are. That could be a recipe for disaster for many folks.

I agree with you that it cannot be 'angrily demanded' but I believe it should not be any less 'expected' as an asset of recovery than any other need, if not more, given the fact that it is again a need that ONLY your spouse can meet.

In my case, it was not to cause pain, but to get him to understand the pain and devastation. I think it is a process for a WS to understand exactly what they did. I think every WS's thread on here is a testament to that process. Not even HerPapaBear came on here with his first thread indicating that he totally got it, I'm sure.

Just as the MBers who are 'helping' a WS to see the damage they have caused, this was my intent with my WH.

And he had options to fix it, he just did not choose to take them for a long long time.

For the record, Plan B would have worked SO MUCH BETTER for me, but alas, I did not know of such a thing back then. Fortunately for me it worked out anyway.

I hear you, as its a need that's in my top three and was very low for my H. I have demanded SF from my H in the past. He even 'succumbed' to keep me happy.

Do you think that helped meet my need in a way that made me feel sexy and desirable? Nope.

There's a difference between saying. "This is what I need. What do you need in order to BECOME enthusiastic? What can we do about this?"

Not demanding with the threat of tears, sulks or unpleasantness.

In no way am I suggesting that people put up and shut up.

And I do think the reluctant-to-meet the need spouse should be willing to talk, try and discuss.

A big bugbear for me was his refusal to see a Dr about his sex drive. That is something he could easily have done to demonstrate a willingness to ACHIEVE enthusiasm.

The stick of Plan A is the one circumstance where Dr H allows and encourages one spouse to make life very hard on the other.

But the difference with a foggy wayward is the discomfort/pain is self created. Exposure disgust is earned. The BSs sobs of pain are mere honesty. Saying you can't stay married unless thay are safe is an inescapable consequence.

But there is a time limit to Plan A demands they get on board. If they do not, a BS should not choose demands as a way of life.



I wish I had known about it years ago!

�Sex should never involve anyone who appears remotely unwilling or unenthusiastic.�

This seems suspiciously off the MB reservation. Carefully study these letters:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5013_qa.html

Note that a wife's need, or desire, for SF can be low, or as the above quote puts it �remote�, but she must still meet her H�s EN for SF anyway - whether she wants to enthusiastically or not (see letter # 2 in particular). SF is treated in DR H�s advice the same as all other ENs - just do them. Women are advised the same as men � just do it, enthusiastically, even when you don�t really feel like it.

Now, before anyone goes ballistic, it�s DR H saying this, not me. I think we can all agree if one is sick, wounded or otherwise not all there the occasional postponed meeting of any EN, including SF, can legitimately be POJA�d.


This takes us back to the original starting post of this thread. The subject BH is not getting his EN for SF met in the way he wants it met. He probably, I would bet Homer Simpson a donut on it, often believes this is because his WW still wants, fantasizes about or otherwise remembers OM. Yes, even ten years later.

I see no hope for that BH. No fix. Not when his WW is still as foggy ten years later as her own letter indicates. The BH needs to D her and move on. And take the children with him.

In that case the WW got away with it. And she is still blaming her BH to boot!

Yes I have read those.

The difference is that Dr H counsels that she WILL become enthusiastic when the relationship is better.

He advises that she become enthusiastic FIRST. It is also a situation where a wife is seeking a way to fill her Hs lovebank and is enthusiastic about SF to do that once she becomes enthusiastic in MB.

It is q different to a demand being issued.

When Dr H POJAd with Joyce his decision to do a PHD, neither were enthusiastic about the hard work and long hours.

But they were enthusiastic about the results of the work they would see. They both agreed they would enthusiastically welcome those results. And agreed with the method to get them.

The same is done in MB, enthusiasm can be achieved.

You can't row the boat alone. All the demands in the world won't get someone on board if they don't want to be.