I heard that show. The EPs are incredibly important. They have to be dynamic. New risks emerge all the time. I will never lower my guard again. I see this as a life long necessity for my marriage.
Well, time to leave for UA.

Have fun.

Well done, Mr. and Mrs. E, well done!

Thanks, we did.
The toughest part of recovery for me is following the rule "never talk about the affair". To be honest, I feel like the best I do is an approximation. I think my MB addiction has developed over my need to obsess over the affair in a way that minimizes my actually bringing it up with my wife. I don't disagree with the rule at all; I just find it difficult. When you find yourself standing in a post-affair nuclear wasteland, totally by surprise as most BSs do, and you are driven to try to understand what happened .... There I go again - time to drop the subject.

Once you get the infomabout the affair you need and in my opinion there will always be unknowns, time to move on. And, having a remorseful wife meeting all your needs and maintaining a transparent life with you is really about as good as you can can it at this stage in your game.

You can read about plenty of people who have to work very hard to chase down spouses to break thru fog.

I am not sure exactly what is meant by "moving on". There are EPs that we have to deal with, and these are put in place to mitigate the conditions that made the affair possible. The EPs need to be updated as life conditions change. Well, how do you review and revise the EPs without even thinking about the affair? It is not possible. Can you deal with the EPs without talking about the affair? - well you can try and we do. It really comes down to what constitutes "talking about the affair". What I think needs to be totally avoiding is any sort of thing that could be considered lovebusting.

I did "move on" from my wife's prior affair 30 years ago, but we knew nothing of MB and no EPs were put in place. Now, you can argue that it took 30 years, so if nothing will happen for another 30 years, well...

I just want to do this right.

mrE,

From what I can see you are doing it right.

I heard a radio broadcast this morning from 2010 (October 21 I think) explaining to a lady how to address problems of the present without dwelling on her husband's past affair. The problems of the present in her case included: "We barely know each other, we aren't integrated; for all I know you could be having THREE affairs!"

So for extraordinary precautions, etc., you address them that way, because now you know that all couples in good marriages live this way, e.g., Dr. Harley and Joyce, who live by the same extraordinary precautions they recommend even though they have never had an affair. So, for example, if your wife were having lunches alone with a male coworker, you would address the problem of the present: "I'm not okay with you eating out with your male coworkers," as opposed to bringing up the past: "When you do this, it reminds me of your affair!"

As far as a Marriage Builders addiction, I think that's a pretty healthy thing for most husbands, as we typically need a lot of repetition to get this stuff down.

Make that October 22, 2010:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=2305

I think the past/present/future classification is a really good way to look at this. Dr. H has said that depression is the result of fixating on the past. If you stay in the present and plan for the future, I think that defines a "recovery". I like your way of emphasizing the present in considering EPs. That is helpful.

I have a friend of mine at work who has been through multiple marriages (presently on his fourth, and this one is technically an affairiage because it resulted from a revenge affair he had after his third wife cheated on him). His advice to me early on was to make no decision that could make me more vulnerable if things didn't work out. That was horrible advice, and I ignored it. It denies the future. It also keeps you from a 100% effort at the marriage. I think you know your are in recovery when you have a plan for your future, and have taken real actions to realize that plan.

As far as a Marriage Builders addiction, I think that's a pretty healthy thing for most husbands, as we typically need a lot of repetition to get this stuff down.

DUDE! There are some times when that kind of insight can be shared with other men:

1) While gutting a 12-point buck, shot after three days of tracking
2) While enjoying smoked jerky made from said buck, having burned the first two batches
3) After hauling the pick-up out of the bog it sank into while going to retrieve said carcass and jerky

On an open thread, with females avidly reading, nodding sagely, and secretly IM'ing ("See I told you they were basically barely trained bears with furniture!") IS NOT ONE OF THEM!

HaHaHa

At least we are barely trained bears who exhibit Radical Honesty.

Just wanted to give you both a big woop woop for an amazing recovery story! I like your attitudes very much

And I am SUPER excited to hear there is a Blackberry app. I haven't been able to listen to MB since my laptop was stolen in a break in, but perhaps now I can...

What a nice thing to do.

Tried it and I love that app!

The moment I realized you were going to get it, I started thinking "oh, please have BlackBerry 6.0 or above; oh, please have BlackBerry 6.0 or above" ... You see, there are design decisions one has to make when <interrupt>

void noteToSelf() {
//This is not the time or place for this stuff
}

Sorry

Hahaha!

I can only tell you what I did with my uber remorseful wife who endured 10, maybe 15 days of me needling her for more information about the affair after dday. With the advice of those here, I extracted as much of the details (dirty and otherwise) of what went on. (Its somewhat important to know hers was a VLTA so I had a lot to know to make me satisfied.) She cried, cringed, was belittled, and mortified to have to tell me about bjs, hotel sex, and all the rest.

Then, also at the advice here, it was time to move on to EPs and how we start to rebuild what she effed-up.

Have I reopened the A case to get another tidbit of info here and there? Cant say no. But, she'll remind me of the agreement I made not to talk about it at the same time she'll answer my question. Its a no win situation for both of us. I get more heartache while I do nothing but upset her. I can say this happens so rarely nowadays.

She's be a great wife who's made virtually no missteps since dday and the need to grill her is non-existent.

Ive learned now 15 months later to just 'move on'.

I agree with you. I'm just complaining that it is not easy, and I am not as good at it as I'd like to be. I don't want this to ever happen again, and I have identified the MB program as the best method to reach that goal.

Eureka, are these questions you have thought of and haven't asked before? Do you still have questions about the affair that have not been answered? You have a right to have those questions answered. Dr. H. says to stop bringing up the affair after all of your questions have been answered.

It isn't so much that I have questions to be answered. It is more like I need to talk to process things. Isn't this characteristic apparent in my posts? (You aren't imagining it.) I have been told repeatedly by different professionals that I will never figure this out. Indeed, I actually *believe* I will never figure it out. The further we get from DDay and the fog, the less my FWW can make any sense out of it either. Dr. H is one of the only people I have found who has been able to help me understand .

Another aspect of our recovery that I want to pass on:

My health is less than perfect. About 10 years after we were married, I became insulin-dependent. I was a late-onset type 1. My diabetes has always been something that I tended to by myself. I failed to appreciate the effect this had on my wife. I failed to understand how my "not bothering her with it" was perceived as independent behavior. All of this changed in our new life.

I have current technology to help me manage myself. I have an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor that warns me when I'm getting out of spec, often before I notice it myself. I have let my wife into my world of diabetes management. I showed her how to use the pump remote control, how to calculate the correction dosages on it, and how to react to the highs and lows which used to just leave her feeling helpless. Nowdays, when the CGM alarm goes off at night, I often don't even wake up. She checks the reading, takes the remote control, and deals with the situation, and I get to keep sleeping. I guess what I am trying to say is our recovery has led me to a different idea of what intimacy really is - the good, the bad, and the ugly. While letting your spouse stick metal objects into you might not be for everyone, it has worked for us.