FWW, WW, and others is there a good and effective way a BS can help a WW see and understand her fog, addiction, and/or anger/blameshifting?


Thank you all for all the help you have given me in my original thread.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2649018#Post2649018

Generally speaking, when a man posts on Marriage Builders about how to straighten his wife out, he's barking up the wrong tree.

Many men shoot themselves in the foot during recovery trying to make their wives feel or express remorse (a demand, and often an attempt to punish).

In recovery, the goal is to build a happy life in the present: meet your wife's emotional needs and protect her from your love busters until she is so in love with you that she makes you happy as well; communicate with her about what you need her to change (in the present!) in order for you to be happy. STOP bringing up the affair.

During an affair, the goal for a husband is twofold:
1) disrupt the affair, combatting it directly through means such as exposure, making the affair difficult or unpleasant to pursue, letting natural consequences occur, etc.
2) win your wife back by meeting her emotional needs (or expressing the willingness to do so) and protecting her from your love busters

In all cases, trying to educate your wife is a disrespectful judgment, a love buster, so it is off the table, sir, if you want to be a good husband, and if you want a successful recovery. Besides, you can't educate a wayward. You just can't.

For the record, remorse comes later, if ever. But remorse comes NEVER if the husband wastes his time trying to cause it to happen instead of following the plan. This plan does not include a step where you wait for your wife to feel or express remorse.

If you are in recovery and your wife is bringing up the affair, don't demand remorse. Instead, ask her to stop talking about it, tell her you find it disrespectful or that it makes you uncomfortable. If you are not in recovery, get busy with Plan A.

Quit studying and obsessing over wayward wives and start studying successful husbands. I was not wayward but found I had a LOT to learn from wayward husbands.

One of the most important things I learned here is that Plan A is all you. It does not depend on anything from your wife.

Your question is: is there a good and effective way to do something that is not in Dr. Harley's plan.

My question is: are you following Dr. Harley's plan, or Man_learning's plan?

Please be sure you plug into Dr. Harley's resources and read through and listen to and understand his plans. Not every poster here is good at explaining Marriage Builders, so it is best to go straight to the source and educate yourself, and use the forum here only in the light of what Dr. H actually says to help you stick to the plan and help you clarify questions about it.

The best way to bust through the fog is to EXPOSE the affair and kill it. Exposure is your absolute best weapon against the fog. Nothing is as effective.

Wayward fog is impervious to regular logic.
Waywards cannot "see and understand" while foggy, they only go by their "feelings". Waywards are feelings-driven while in the fog.

Waywards must be allowed to FEEL the negative consequences of their adultery choices.

Exposure allows the wayward to FEEL the consequences of adultery.

"Wayward understanding" does not exist. The fog prevents understanding.
Waywards understand AFTER the fog has dissipated.

Click on the carrot/stick Plan A link in my sig line & read from page one, the top down.

MelodyLane is exactly right. This is the answer to the question.

You can allow the addict or wayward or whoever is making the wrong decisions to face the natural consequences of their actions by refusing to enable them.

Man_L

Make sure you don't allow the tail to wag the dog.

Yes, there is.

THE answer to your question is simply:

EXPOSURE.

THAT is the answer!

I'm going to argue that Man_Learning's question is both rational and (likely) necessary for his healing process.

Additionally, he did not suggest that he was trying to make his WW feel remorse.

I can't speak for anyone else, but as a BS I can say with clarity that I was nearly as shocked by the discovery of my FWW's very real, seemingly instantaneous, short-term mental illness (AKA "Fog") as I was by the discovery of the A itself.

It may well be that Exposure is the single most effective way to loosen the Fog's stranglehold on a WS. But again, that's not what he was asking. He asked How can a BS help a WS to see they are in the clutches of a very real mental illness? It's a reasonable question.

If your spouse was an alcoholic and didn't realize it, would you argue you shouldn't tell them because doing so would be a DJ?

Would you be inclined to buy the argument that concentrating on becoming a better husband will magically cause your wife's alcoholism to fade and disappear? Hard sell.

If your spouse began suffering psychosis and delusions of grandeur would you not feel compelled to help her realize what was happening to her?

Again, I'm not arguing there is anything a BS can do beyond exposure to help bring about a BS's self awareness of their Fog.

Man_Learning, I'm relatively new to MB myself and am not in a position to offer advice, but I will share that for me, in my case, gaining a clear understanding of why the woman I had known and loved for 18 years had suddenly, radically changed was enormously important for me. The understanding that "the fog" is temporary and will in fact come to an end eventually, gave me hope.

An understanding of the underlying cause of my FWW's (at the time) behavior was also critically important in my decision to even begin the process of saving my marriage. If I had ultimately concluded that my FWW had only been pretending for 18 years to be the kind of person who wouldn't throw her husband and children under a train, I would have executed plan D and blown up the bridge. Similarly, if I had concluded that my FWW's radical behavior changes were permanent, I would not have embarked upon what has proven to be the most difficult and challenging task of my entire life -- rebuilding our marriage from the ground up.

Keep that in mind when reading Driven's post, ManLearning.

Well, driven, there is your experience, there is my experience, and then there is Dr. Harley's experience. You've experienced one marriage, I've experienced one, and Dr. Harley has saved thousands.

Personally my experience lines up with what Dr. Harley says, that a betrayed husband can maximize his chances of recovery if he will keep his head and focus on the plan to restore love instead of obsessing about straightening his wife out. It's good advice, and I think we need to be careful to keep this board oriented as a site to help motivate people to follow Dr. Harley's advice, rather than a site full of chat threads where we exchange personal opinions.

The cool thing about this site is that anyone can use it as a school to learn Dr. Harley's expert advice and pass it on. For example, you can read the articles here, you can read the books, you can even sit in "class" under the doctor's expert tutelage for an hour every day on the radio show.

As much trouble as I've had getting it right in my marriage, I'm thankful that there was so much opportunity afforded me on this site to try to become an expert, as well as to practice learning Dr. Harley's advice by teaching, and by receiving correction when necessary.

Driven, I think what is important to understand and accept is that one can't reason with a person who employs no reason; who is high on an addiction. Addicts such as wayward spouses, and falling down drunks do not use any reason so it is a waste of time to attempt to reason with them. A characteristic of the fog is the inability to use reason and to see oneself in a clear light.

There are things that help alcoholics and waywards see through the fog, though. One tactic is exposure. As Harley says in his newsletter:

here

Exposure is the most effective way of piercing the fog with a wayward, trying to talk sense to the WW is not effective in my experience. It is about as effective as trying to talk sense to a falling down drunk. It just doesn't work.

I am a recovering alcoholic with 27 years of sobriety and no one could ever tell me I was an alcoholic and get through to me. That just does not work with alcoholics. What did work was a major shock akin to exposure. ["get out or get sober"]

I feel it is important to help well meaning BS's understand their limitations when it comes to dealing with waywards so they are not spinning their wheels. Spinning wheels results in a worn down BS at a time when he needs his strength. The truth is that it is futile to try to reason with an addict. It only causes more conflict in an already dismal situation....for no benefit whatsoever.