What's your story, Rety?

Retycon,

A lot of WS do not return to the marriage out of love, and yet, using the MB programme, love can be rekindled over time. (Many BSs, too do not attempt recovery because "love" is the uppermost emotion after D Day. For them, too, there is despair at the thought of hurting the kids and throwing away a whole life that was shared with the WS to start again.)

It is a reality that some WSs take into account the futility of hoping for a future with an unsuitable person (their affair partner). They also do not want to hurt their kids and lose the respect of most people who know them. They might also take into account that they would lose a lot financially by walking away.

Those are actually some of the factors that make a marriage what it is. They are factors that make the BS have an advantage over an affair partner if they can intervene and expose the affair early on, forcing the WS or OP to make a choice. An affair partner is not the father or mother of the WS's children, and the WS often does not want to leave the children and a whole way of life behind in pursuit of a relationship with someone they hardly know, but they know to be capable of adultery.

Being dumped by OP is not a reason in itself why recovery will fail. Recovery has a high chance of success if both spouses follow Dr Harley's plan.

You don't appear to know much about Dr Harley and Marriage Builders. You'd do better to read a lot more here and only then offer MB-based advice, not your own opinions.

The fact that Rety won't answer this is very telling.

Quoting from one of the announcement posts here:


http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2534888#Post2534888

A reminder to posters that the purpose of our forum is to discuss and learn Marriage Builders concepts. This is not a platform for personal opinions. Please familiarize yourself with MB concepts before posting to those in need. If you cannot stick to MB concepts we ask that you refrain from posting. Thank you.

Your posts are beginning to amuse me, because it's becoming very clear from reading your posts that you have an agenda that is counter-productive to the OWNER of this site.

The moderators on this site are very good at what they do and they are very protective of the posters here. So...it's been nice (not) knowing you!

Can I write my story when I am comfortable or am I not allowed to post till I do that?

You don't have to post your story at all. Nobody dragged you to come here and spill.

But I'll tell you what is not allowed:

You are not allowed to post opinions that are uninformed by Marriage Builders concepts on the threads of people seeking Marriage Builders advice.

Why do you expect the rest of us to be comfortable around you when you wont even do us the courtesy of introducing yourself?

As long as you continue to disrupt the threads of people seeking help with questions for your own morbid curiosity, people will rightly challenge you. You can do a lot of damage, solely seeking the pleasure of gratifying your morbid curiosity. Some of us are really invested in helping these people.

So we rightly ask you to tell your story, so people can evaluate you and decide if you are helpful or not.

The purpose of the board is to discuss and learn Marriage Builders concepts. The approach of going around scattershot asking people questions about their marriages is usually not helpful for a marriage in trouble, as opposed to actually posting about your situation and taking a look at how the principles here can help. Other people are posting about their situations to receive help implementing the Marriage Builders concepts in their marriages, not to share their situation for the enjoyment of others.

SugarCane is right. This is TOS.

**EDIT**

[quote=Retycon][/quote]

Okay, what are you here for, then? The rest of us are here to discuss and learn the concepts that you think are BS. Nobody asked you to chime in and straighten us all out.

Do not disrupt this thread anymore! If you can help this poster with MB concepts please feel free to post. If not, then refrain from posting.

Let me provide a couple of adjustments. I've struck through the non-MarriageBuilders concepts.


Just Compensation occurs when you and your spouse have the joyful, loving marriage you deserve. You're obviously not quite there yet, but it sure looks like it's lurking just below the surface!


For most recovering unfaithful wives, falling back in love with their husbands precedes remorse. It is when they fall back in love with you that they begin to empathize with you deeply enough to be horrified at the depth of the pain they have caused you.


Forthright is synonymous with "open and honest". So that's fair.

But the third sentence in item number 10 has the same response as the previous paragraph: taking "responsibility" for her actions must be something she chooses to do, in her own way and her own time. And in most cases, it has the same kind of prerequisite: until she is in love with you, she won't have the depth of empathy for you that is required to realize the injury she caused. When she's in Conflict with you, she has only a little empathy (much as she'd have for anybody else on the planet), and in Withdrawal she will have ZERO empathy for you. She will just want you to stay away from her. You have to go through Conflict to get to Intimacy: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3600_state.html


Once again, separate issues conflated into one. Openness & honesty is a huge prerequisite to the Policy of Joint Agreement. Crushed, apologetic, desperate? Those do not sound like terms in the emotional vocabulary of most strong and self-assured women I know.

Hope that helps a little!

Did I mention that our moderators are very protective of our posters? You, sir, have been served.

Somehow, I suspect that you don't HAVE a story.

So, I am not convinced my ww is open and honest with me. I think she is better than she was, but I am not convinced she can be open and honest about everything. How do you move foward with those doubts?

The recovery process has been a battle from day one.

Now that the adrenaline has left my body I question how could my wife act like she did? She admitted to having relationships with men/boys since high school to feel wanted. There wasn't allot of emotional sharing in her house.

Instead of looking forward to exploring every inch of her body, I look at her naked body and wonder how could she have taken off her clothes, layed down and spread her legs for someone else.

Sure we had our issues. I flew around the world for my job and when I was home it was hard to be in the current time zone. I wasn't a jerk, but we were not connected like we should have been.

How do you know if you have feelings left for your spouse or if you are just in a funk that you need to allow time to pass?

THG, Marriage Builders doesn't really advocate the "just let time pass" approach. The real thing to focus on is current issues.

Do you feel she is being open and honest and transparent right now, about current events? i.e., if she says she's going to the store, and you check up on her, does it turn out that she is telling the truth? Dr. Harley says to check up on your spouse for honesty often, until they have proved themselves so well that you literally find the process boring.

As far as the past, it doesn't sound like you are looking for any information that would help you and your wife avoid a previous affair. She has disclosed the identity of the affair partner and most of the details. She may not remember everything in perfect detail!! Most people don't remember every detail of their lives perfectly. If your memory is better than average, it may be hard to empathize with this.

The big problem to me, the elephant in the room, is that you guys still live close to OMs business and you live in an environment full of triggers. This is the elephant in the room that you are ignoring. There is NO GOOD, from a Marriage Builders point of view, to try to get a photographic memory account of the details of the affair, when you are not going to act on those details to get out of the environment that is triggering you. If it is not possible to avoid triggers on your daily drive, then I do not think you can heal if you are not willing to move.

Dr Harley says that when the PRESENT is happy, one does not tend to have resentment about the past. It doesn't sound like you and your wife have taken the steps to make the present happy.


Once you life is turned upside down what is happiness? Is it that you make it through a day without an anxiety attack? Is it that you don't have to worry if your wife is being open and hones with you? Is it that you make it a day without thinking how your wife was ready to leave you for some tool? What is happiness after 21 months of hell?

the elephant in the room...

Last week I was thinking about my grandparents. It was common knowledge that Grandpa had an affair and then they moved 2.5 hours north to the community we still call home.

Maybe that is the problem. My hometown has felt so small (population 350K) since I discovered the affair. But, do you go through the process of finding a new job in another city, renting / selling the house and moving away from our family and run the risk once you get there that you still feel indiferent about your spouse?