ok, some background....my husband and I have been married for 16 years. He spent 6 of those years in the Navy. Upon getting out of the Navy, we decided to love back to his hometown, because the Navy moved him back for free. Almost immediately after moving to his hometown and moving in with his parents (3-4 months), we got pregnant. So we immediately started looking for a house. Prior to moving back to his hometown, we did not really have any arguments/disagreements. Once we became pregnant I went into full "mommy mode". I was all about taking care of the baby and I "expressed" my need to stay home and no longer work so that I could stay at home with our child. I had a rough pregnancy due to toxemia (high blood pressure), and ended up in the hospital at 27 weeks for 2 weeks and then eventually delivered via emergency c-section. Everything was going ok until he expressed his desire to enjoy his hobby, working on cars. Well I was really hesitant and expressed my disapproval through a lot of series of a very outbursts. He eventually ended up getting his way, after a huge argument and a huge love withdrawal. This continued for the next 6 years. Every time he would express his desire to spend time working on his car or hanging out with people that had the same hobby, my taker would kick and scream and make huge love withdrawals. Then we ended up pregnant again. We were extremely scared due to my previous pregnancy not going so well, and our concerns were confirmed right after we purchased a new house. I started bleeding due to a placental abruption at 20 weeks gestation and gave birth to a baby boy that passed away 2 1/2 hours after birth. We decided that we wouldn't have any more babies after that. But the angry outbursts just got worse. Because my "mother gene" was kicked into over drive after we lost out second baby. Then almost exactly one year later, I ended up pregnant again. We were both really concerned and scared, but pressed on the best we could. At 27 weeks, I started bleeding again and I was life lighted to the nearest hospital that could support the needs of our child. He was doing well at first and then developed an infection in his intestines (NEC). He ended up staying in the hospital for 7 months and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy right after being discharged from the hospital. During this time the angry outbursts and the "motherhood gene" had taken over. It got worse a few weeks ago. I recently found out that the business owner of the business that the my husband has been consulting for is a female and she is in constant need of my husband's "attention" they text and talk all the time, due to her unhappy marriage. And recently she lost the business and she can no longer pay my husband, also we had just bought a new car, and now my husband is stating that he made a stupid decision about the car, because without that income, we can't really afford the car he decided on buying. A few weeks ago, my taker and angry outbursts blew completely wide open and we had a huge fight and my husband said that enough was enough. He couldn't do this anymore. We did agree to try to work on our marriage though. Around this time, I found marriage builders via a google search. So I started plan a. I was attentive to anything that could make love deposits. I kicked my taker to the curb. And haven't had an angry outburst since. I started wanting to help him with his car hobby. And in doing so, I made him even more uncomfortable! I asked him a week ago to be honest with me and he told me that he loved me but he was no longer in love with me. I told him about marriage builders, but he refuses to seek any professional help (I assume due to pride), but we still agreed to try to make it work. So I was even more by his side, which made him feel worse that he "couldn't" love me back. And then this past Sunday, it got extreme!! He asked me to take the boys to go visit my mom for two months, whom lives 2,200 miles away from us. I told him that I didn't want to leave out of state, because I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to work things out. When I asked him why he wanted me to leave, he said that I stress him out too much and he can't even enjoy coming home because of the stress that I cause him. And with me wanted to be with him all the time, just made it all worse cause he felt smothered by it. I went to my sister's house who only lives a few minutes away and we've been here since Sunday. He has only told one member of his family about this and all of my family knows. We saw each other for the first time yesterday at our son's baseball game. But since I was unsure whether or not to talk to him, I didn't say anything. Well today he found out from a mutual friend that I haven't been able to eat since this has happened and I've dropped 3 pounds in 3 days. I am also hypoglycemic and shouldn't go more than 4 hours without eating. So he called our oldest's son's cell phone and since my son didn't hear his phone, so my husband called my phone. And when I talked to him he told me that what I did to him yesterday is exactly why he doesn't want me at home. I told him that I was confused and that I wasn't sure how to act. And he said I should've been polite and cordial. And if I wasn't sure how to act, I should've asked him. He asked if I am capable of taking care of his kids and wanted to know if I was taking care of myself. I told him that I am trying, but its not easy. He admitted that its not easy for him either. He told me that he didn't want to talk about anything, that he was just calling me to make sure his/our kids were safe, I assured him that I wouldn't put them in harms way intentionally. And he said ok.

How can I win him back?? He is unwilling to talk or text me. He talks to our son. He doesn't want to separate anything except me and the boys outta the house. He still wants me to take care of everything, finances and all. And he said that I am still the most attractive woman that he's ever met. But he has almost a resentment/hatred toward me right now. So my question is, how can I get him to open his love bank back up to me. I am totally in love with him and do not want to go on without him, how can I show him that I am no longer the person that I have been for the past 10 years??

PLEASE HELP!!
Thank you,
CnAmry

Hi CnAmry,

I am so sorry for the circumstances that have brought you here. Hang in there.

You have certainly come to the right place.
If you will listen to the veterans who post regularly, really listen and answer them honestly they will give you so much wonderful help. You will have the best possible chance of coming through this time well.

I would think you should hit notify on this thread/post and ask the mods to move it to MB101 where you will get more attention.

I guess the vets will suggest you get on some anti-depressant meds to help you through this time so that you will be able to hold it together while you do what needs to be done in order to work best with this situation.

Hugs to you.

Many of the vets here have been through similar or even more difficult situations. You are not alone !


I have quoted your post here so we have a permanent record.

Hi CnArmy

If you are on the boards now we can chat. I do not usually post but read a lot and listen to all of Dr Harleys shows. If I can help I will and we can at least get you through until the Real MB posters come on board.

Hi CnAmry

I see the mods have moved this thread to surviving an affair.

I guess that this reflects that it certainly looks as though your husband is in an affair

The statement:

I asked him a week ago to be honest with me and he told me that he loved me but he was no longer in love with me.

is a clear indicator.

Even if an affair is the case, I still want to work this out with him. He hasn't mentioned anything about filing separation papers or divorce papers, and he says that he wants to make this work, but he doesn't know how to fall in love with me again. And I explained to him that we need time together away, just us. But when I was trying to spend more time with him during recreational activities, it was more of love bank withdrawals to him, not deposits. He felt like I was smothering him and it made him fall even more out of love with me. I'm just so confused, I knew we had our share of problems, but I thought things were improving and instead, I somehow made it worse for him.

If it is possible to save your marriage this forum will give you the answers you need to get you there.

Please do nothing until you have received, listened to, questioned, clarified advice from the wonderful wise veterans. They will help you to formulate a plan that has the ultimate best outcome for you and your little ones.

Of course he felt smothered by you when you try to deposit love bank units. He has closed his bank and will not let you deposit because of his infidelity. It is sometimes possible to get a spouse who has closed their lovebank to reopen it.

Keep posting so we can give you the best possible help. This site is all about reality, hope and REAL solutions going forward.

Just because he has said you made it all worse does not mean that is true. This is a time when you have got to stop listening to what he says. Instead watch (or recall) his actions and words. Record them here for the veterans to read and they will help you to understand what is really going on.

You need to eat something, you need to sleep. You must get calm and in control. You are about to become wise and strong and ready to deal with this.

Hope that Pepperbrand or Melody Lane or some of the other real legends of this site will be on in a few hours time. Be ready to hear them and whatever they say. Get yourself in the zone because everything is up for change and they have the wisdom to give you a fantastic game plan.

What upsets me the most is that he won't get help. He says that the stress of everything is weighing him down enough to where he even thought about suicide, how can he not see that he needs to get some professional help, instead he pushed his family away. How can I help him without talking/texting him. I make sure that our 10 year old tells his dad how he feels. This is way too much for our ten year old to bear. He is so afraid of us becoming a broken family, now he is having problems doing his schoolwork and my 3 yr old can feel the stress of it all because he tantrums have gotten worse. I am a stay at home mom whom homeschools our 10 yr old. I have no where to go. I'm so afraid that he's gonna hurt himself, because he won't talk to someone, but I have no way of helping him. He is so closed off to me, I don't know how to reach him. I really want to live the rest of my life with him and of course my friends and family are telling me that I should just leave, that he's not worth this pain. But he really is a good man and I don't want to leave him. I feel that once he works through his problems, we could be happy again, but I also feel that he needs to go see someone, but his pride won't let him.

You still love him. I can hear that clearly.

The friends and family are not married to him, you are.
You are fighting for your marriage and for your health, mental and physical, for his health and for that of your children as well.

Have you started to take care of yourself yet. Have you eaten something light and nourishing ? DO this so that you are ready to hear and act on the great advice you will receive.

You being mentally and emotionally in a good place will set the stage for the other things to be dealt with well.

I've tried eating and I end up just throwing it back up. I've dropped 10 pounds in the three weeks that this all has occurred. I'm so worried for him. I am gonna go to church today and talk to the priest and pray for him. He needs to seek help from someone, anyone. I would prefer that he talks to a priest too, but to be honest neither one of us has been to church in a very long time. Maybe getting back to the church is just what we both need. So I am gonna pray that he can find his way and hopefully get the help that he needs. I am not sure how much longer I can stay with my sister though. Our parenting styles are too different and she is a little too hostile toward her daughter and my sons. But I do not have anywhere else that I can go.

CnAmry, Welcome to MB, and I am sorry that you are here.

Firstly, this is just some minor housekeeping, but it is very hard to read posts that are not in paragraphs. Could you please try your best to write in paragraphs.

Now, down to the business at hand.

There will be no saving your marriage until the affair(which your first post was SCREAMING) is dead and buried.

There is a link for newly betrayed spouses in my signature. You should read through it and follow the links. You should snoop right away, as that is definitely part of Plan A.

Also, get back into your home. He only wants you to move out to allow him to continue his affair. Your marriage can be saved, if you take the right steps. Let's get this affair killed, and then you can work on making your marriage spectacular.

You will get there with the eating.

It will be far better to work with the advice from Marriage Builders rather than to take some from all different sources. Dr Harley has developed an extremely effective marriage (re)building program which will work if you both work it. Of course to start out with it will b just you on board but give it time.

Yay, Scotland, my long time hero. Thank you for giving the advice I was too timid (and inexperienced to give.

CN< Scotland knows exactly what she is talking about. Please listen to her as she will definitely steer you in the right direction. Others will also help out once hey see your thread.

CnAmry,

I'm sorry for what you are going through. I know it is challenging to want to know answers to questions that you have and not getting anywhere. Based on what you said about your H talking and texting this other woman, I would have to agree that he may be in an affair. It's a hard pill to swallow because nobody wants to go through the heartache of dealing with such a traumatic event. You're going to get advice that will go against your better judgement, but make sure you listen to the vets here and not what your brain is telling you because you are pretty emotional right now. Going back to church is a good thing and will help you find peace through faith. If you do start going, make sure you keep going no matter what happens.

Now, what you need to do is move back home. Then you need to start snooping without your H knowing. Put a keylogger on your computer, get a hold of his phone and install an app that will email you what he does on it, get a VAR and GPS for his car, hire a PI; do what you have to do to find the truth. Waywards will lie without blinking twice. The man you once knew is gone right now. It's going to take a lot of work to bring the old him back. He's going to say a lot of things to cover his tracks and make you believe that you're the crazy one. Stay calm, be matter of fact, treat your self to a new outfit, get your nails done, get your hair done and try to focus on your self. If he sees you down in the dumps, he's not going to come running back. If he sees you looking your best, he will wonder what you are up to.

Don't beg, don't plead, don't argue. Make your self the most inviting person to him. Plan A for 3 weeks and then go into Plan B. You are going to need it. I can't speak on Plan B too well because Dr Harley told me to stay in Plan A for as long as I could handle it. The combination of Plan A and Plan B should not exceed two years. Come back here as often as you need to and ask questions. Everyone here will do their best to help you, but you must listen to what they tell you. We've all been in your shoes. Good luck!

WElcome to MB! I agree with the others .. Step 1. MOVE HOME! You can not "work on things" when you are apart. Thats like saying ignoring each other is = to courtship. It isn't.

Once you get home you will need to get to work on gathering some intel on your hubby. Find out who this OW is. INstall a Keylogger on the PC( www.desktopshark.com ). Put a VAR in his car (velcrow it to the underside of the dashboard or under the car seat) and if possible get some spyware on his phone! You will need to kill his affair all the while you meet his needs and make yourself as pleasant as possible.

ONCE you get some hard evidence you come back here. DO NOT tell your hubby about this place. This will be your safe haven during the time you are killing his affair.

YOur mention your hubby said "ILYBNILWY" (i love you but not in love with you) that is one of THE BIGGEST red flags of an affair. Physical or emotional. Both are JUST as destructive and one almost always leads to another.

You mention that your hubby talked frequently to this lady about her bad marriage. That is him meeting her needs for intimate conversation which should be reserved for YOU ONLY. All conversations with the opposite sex should be about non emotional/Personal things and should be kept to topics such as work and the weather and in the case of EXTREMELY poor boundires with opposite sex memebers. NO conversation at all. This is called an Extraordinary Precaution. It protects your love for your spouse. There is MANY extraordinary precautions.

But as I said .. you have to go home .. and kill this affair and stand up for your family. YOu can do it and we can help if you take our advice and follow it to a T. Feelings follow actions so much of what we tell you will FEEL counter intuiative. Dont listen to that feeling .. its lieing to you. Just do as we suggest.

He has NO right to tell you not to come home .. its a marital home. Just move right in .. tell your hubby you have spent enough time away and you know how to fix your marriage now and take it from there. IF he asks you to leave, you tell him that HE needs to leave and that your not leaving the marital home anymore and the kids stay with you.

Keep us posted

MNG

CnAmry, welcome to Marriage Builders. I would encourage you to rewrite your post and leave out all the superfluous, unrelated information about your pregnancies, etc.

Please summarize it into 3 concise paragraphs. Your post is extremely hard to read. I tried reading it this morning and just gave up. If you can make your post easier to read, I promise you will get more responses.

Cn, your childbirth difficulties don't play into this. (Although I sympathize with your difficulties, as I'm sure do all the other posters.)

The fact of the matter is that your H is more than likely having an affair, and it's more than likely that that affair is with the DirtBag who was unloading her marital troubles on him. (Assume that he was reciprocating, which forged a bond between them.)

Your first move is to get back into yours, and your childrens' home.

Your WH will likely be furious. Your re-appearance will thwart his swingin' single attitude. So much the better. You don't want to make it easy for him to be wayward! Your job is to make it difficult and an unattractive alternative to being married to you. You do this by immediately starting Plan A, which is to make yourself as attractive to him as possible. Have you read about Plan A here?

What do you know about the woman he's been sharing his marital issues with? Do you know her name? Does she have children?

I know her name, *EDIT* and that she is *EDIT* years old she is married to someone almost twice her age, and that they do not have any kids. I know that she lives in *EDIT*
and used to own her own business. She first had contact with my husband because he has a masters in business and a mutual aquaintence of theirs introduced them because he thought that my H could help save her business. But alas it failed anyway and she couldn't even tell him that she didn't need him for business reasons anymore. She sent someone else in her place to tell him.

And that's when this whole situation blew way outta proportion. He was stressed but that pushed him over the edge. He was counting on the money that she was paying him in order to pay for his car hobby. I'm not exactly sure what drove him to make this decision. But I know that he puts so much pressure on himself to provide the "perfect" life for his family.

Hi Cn,

Such fantastic advice already.

Are you moving home yet? This should be done immediately as everyone has said.

Remember you now have this huge fantastic secret weapon of great MBers on your side.

Keep your secret weapon secret. Be strong and empowered but don't tell him about your secret weapon.

Home again, home again, licketty split.

way to go, HH, you did an excellent job helping this poster along until Mel & co could show up! you need to post more often!

CnA, you have gotten excellent advice. where are you in the plan? i hope your quietness means you are busy moving yourself and your children back into your marital home.

((((CnA))))