Is there a set of questions to answer that will help me decide to end my marriage or try to recover it?

Welcome to MB, JB6.

No; there isn't such a set of questions. The decision to end the marriage or recover is in your domain, but what the MB programme can do is help you make that decision, by showing you Dr Harley's view of recovered, romantic, mutually fulfilling marriages. His written work, linked here for free reading, will show you this, as will his broadcasts on the radio show, to which you can listen from a link on this site. Have you read the articles linked here? Have you listened to the radio show?

You can educate yourself in order to make the decision if you read the threads in this forum of people attempting to recover a marriage after an affair, and those in the Recovery forum of people who are beyond the affair and are working through recovery.

Since you have posted in the forum Surviving an Affair, does that mean your marriage has suffered an affair? Who had the affair? How long did it last? What were the circumstances under which it started and was carried out? Has the affair ended? Was the other person married, and was their spouse informed? Do you have children? How long have you been married?

Most people would take into account their previous happiness in the marriage, the length of the marriage and most importantly the presence of children in order to make the decision for themselves.

Thanks.
I've read the articles, and they make sense. Appreciated how to the point they are.
I had the affair--one time event--after 9 years of struggling in marriage. Husband has stubbornly rebuffed almost every attempt to improve marriage. He has always been distant, uses anger and silence to get his way. Went to counseling, read books, did everything I could to improve the relationship but he is emotionally unavailable. I am sure I do things wrong too that irritate him, but I really think this marriage is simply convenient for his life. We both travel a lot for work. I own my own business and have to travel. No kids. I've been married/divorced before; this is his first marriage (after many years of bachelorhood). He has always refused to touch except for sex, since we've been married. Treats me disrespectfully and accuses me of same disrespect. Conversation about it always ends in circular blame.
Had the affair when I guess I really should have just left him. Figured I had nothing left to lose in marriage. I hate the thought of another divorce.
He started snooping about affair because he said I changed--he noticed I wasn't as unhappy or stressed as I usually am. I admitted.
No touching, no talking, no interacting for years makes travel easier, but I'm never lonelier than I am at home with him.
Now he says he wants to save the marriage, but he's never made any changes in the past, why should he now?

Did something change after you married him? We don't usually marry somebody who treats us like you describe. Before marriage, he must have filled some of your emotional needs, yet you say "he has always been distant, uses anger and silence to get his way"...

How did this marriage come to be?

JB6,

I had the affair--one time event

I guess you are saying that it was one physical encounter, but how long was the emotional part of the affair, and do you still see the OM?

You have to remove yourself from contact before you can even begin to make decisions about your marriage.

God Bless
Gamma

You had a one night stand? What happened?

When we married 9+ years ago, there was a lot of turmoil and trouble in my life, which my then-fiance was very good at helping me survive. Pretty soon after we married, he introduced the no-touching (except for sex) and no-talking (for at least an hour after rising) rules. I discovered what a truly cranky man he is, for not reason he can name. We argued and fought a lot; the whole first year was hell.We went to counseling, but that didn't result in resolution more than that I learned to back off and not try to get him to talk.
I have felt unloved by him most of our marriage. I've been divorced before and don't want to divorce again. I have tried everything I can think of and nothing works to improve our relationship.
We both travel a lot. First, he always called me at night, then he introduced the rule that he only called me if he was traveling, not vice versa. Then he modified his rule that he only needs to call when he needs to talk to me from the road. Finally, he quit calling me from the road altogether. That was about 2 years ago. I called him daily no matter if I traveled or was home, then I gave up calling him when I travel except for every 2 or 3 days.
He has tons of close friends that he keeps close communication with, daily even. He's a gregarious man with everyone but me.
He has little or no time for me and when I remarked, he held out that I was needy, demanding, never satisfied.
Little or no affection. Sex 10 times a year. Few words of kindness. Lots of complaints when I tried to talk things over. Uses his temper to make me stop talking with him. Lots of long-lasting silent treatment, over the years.
I made friends with a man I work with, who treated me very differently than my husband does. We became good colleagues, then friends. I slept with him on a business trip 5 weeks ago. It was such a relief and comfort to me.
I work with this man on a regular basis as part of a contract with my business. I cannot cut out all contact with him without abandoning my contract. I think I could compartmentalize and turn over a lot of work with him to another employee, if I knew I could recover my relationship with my husband. I've confessed. I know I was wrong.
Maybe there is no love left to stitch back together. Maybe all the love-bank withdrawals have been made a long time ago and I just can't accept it and move on.
I will listen to insights and advice.

Ok, but that is not a "one time thing" that is a full boat affair. Is this man married?


REcovery is impossible as long as you work with the man. It is hopeless. The first step has to be complete no contact for life. EVen if you decide not recover your marriage, you should cut off contact with this man. He used you like a piece of used toilet paper. He is a creep... Any man who does a married woman has, in effect, just spit in her face.

Your husband KNOWS you work with this guy and is ok with it? And is your husband willing to work on recovery?

You can have a romantic, passionate relationship with your husband if you BOTH go through this husband.. You can NEVER have that with the OM. Your relationship with him is doomed because all the traits that made it possible, deceit, thoughtlessness, disrespect will doom the relationship. He has no respect for marriage and no respect for you. This is why 95% of affairs crumble inside of 2 years. They never make it.

This program will teach you how to fall in love again. Love is CREATED, it doesn't happen by accident.

Well, which do you value more? Your marriage or the business contract?

Speaking to you as a man who had an affair 4 years ago, I can tell you that you cannot save your marriage if you remain in contact with the affair partner. The mere uncertainty in your husband's mind arising from that ongoing contact will prevent your husband from ever feeling or becoming emotionally invested in you the way you both need to be invested in each other in order to build a better marriage than what you had previously. You probably won't even be able to make a clean break from the affair.

Your own business travel seems non-negotiable for you. If that's been the case since early-on, then it could well be a reason that your husband withdrew awhile ago. But most of your story is about his failings in communication. I don't really hear you owning your side of it quite the way you need to if you're at all serious about saving this marriage.

Fact is, you're not all-in. You can save this marriage, but you need to be all-in. Right now, at best, you're hedging your bets. If that's as far as you're willing to go, then you aren't really serious about wanting to save your marriage. I'm not going to suggest what you should do, but you might want to start by being honest with yourself & your husband about this stuff.

Ok, Part II: My part of the failing marriage
What did I contribute to the demise of of my marriage? Over the years, I haven't always listened well to my husband or his perspective. Sometimes I have been stubborn and assumed I knew better than he did. I showed my exasperation with his frequent forgetfulness, which I'm sure made him feel aggravated. I didn't always put myself in his shoes. I pulled away too. I definitely overreacted too much to our disagreements.
In my defense, I will say that I tried countless times to make our home life sweet and give him comfort, but after he ignored efforts, I tried less. I will say too that I have tolerated the past 3 years or so of his drinking too much. I tried to understand him better, but I have just failed. I have tried to cope by just getting quiet and pulling into myself and away from the marriage.
Can every marriage be saved?

You both travel? When do you see each other?
How many days apart are you both?

Is your adultery partner married?

My husband travels 3-5 days per week. I travel 4 days per week 3 weeks out of the month, sometimes more. Our jobs will always require this much travel.
We see each other on weekends. On the weekends mostly he drinks and sleeps. In the past few years, Friday and Saturday nights he usually drinks so much that he passes out between 8:30 and 9:00, then sleeps the next day until 11:00 or noon. That afternoon, he'll sleep another 2-3 hours, then repeat the cycle.
We usually eat dinner in a bar, because he doesn't like sitting at a table with me, says it's not as interesting. He prefers bar food to me cooking, and I love to cook.
We don't have many friends in this town, though we've lived here for 20 years. My husband keeps constant contact with his friends in Detroit and elsewhere. His friends and family joke about his constant crankiness. I travel so much now that many of my friendships here have withered over time. I have very little family and none live close by.
We do very little recreationally together. He refused so much that I quit asking.
When we dated, we did more together, then when we married, it slowed down to this.
I own my own business, and I work long hours in the home office. As a half partner, my husband does zero work on the business. Many nights and weekends that I am home, I am working in the office doing paperwork while he watches TV in the family room. He says that since he already works full-time that he is not going to work nights or weekends on the business we co-own.
My life has gotten smaller over time being married to him. I work longer and harder than ever before. He has been completely content with this arrangement.
I can see from writing this that I really need to take better care of myself. My husband is selfish, self-serving, stubborn, and high-handed, but it looks like maybe I've let him grow more that way by how I've lived too.
The man I've had the affair with is married and his wife just told him she is leaving him so that she can "do her own thing". She doesn't know about his relationship with me, because I live 1000 miles away.
So, back to my original question for this thread, it seems that there are two clear guidelines for deciding to stay or divorce:
1.) Never decide to divorce if there is another person in the wings. Make this decision only if you have exhausted all recourse and are taking care of yourself.
2.) Never decide to divorce or stay married until you have taken a full inventory of what you have done wrong in your marriage. Honestly look at what you have done wrong and right in the marriage so you can use that either to move on with your own life alone or to try to rebuild with your spouse.
What I conclude is that I have indeed been hedging my bets so far, not willing to give up the affair but not willing to give up the marriage. I see by the process of my writing that I cannot move forward at all until I make the decision to stay or go. The history of my marriage these 9 years makes me doubt that we can work things out. But I think that if I give it my all this time (giving up the affair), and it doesn't work out still, at least I can leave the marriage then with my head up and with no other person in the wings to muddy my decision.
What do you think? Am I missing something in the process of my thinking?

A better alternative is to fix the existing problems in your current marriage rather than get married again and make the same mistakes there. I don't think you even understand what you are doing wrong even though it is patently obvious to those of us here in great marriages.


This is the problem in your marriage. You don't see each other enough to even sustain a marriage. You have wrecked your marriage with your careers. In order to maintain the romantic love in your marriage, you must meet each others intimate emotional needs on a DAILY BASIS. It takes 15 hours of undivided attention to maintain romantic love and 20+ hours to create romantic love.

You don't even come close. So if you ever got remarried, you would be in the same predicament again. And again, and again.

Thats if you don't marry your adultery partner. That relationship will crumble even faster, because relationships that are based on thoughtlessness and deceit go down fast.

This exercise doesn't make a lick of sense if you don't even know HOW a good marriage is created. How would you take inventory if you don't know the traits that constitute a good marriage in the first place?

And you believe this? Why not ask her yourself? I suggest you will get a very different answer. He is lying to his own wife, why will he be truthful to you? And I hope you don't think you are the first one either.

JB6,

Your thread is quite self-serving. There is very little admission of your own faults and how horrible your husband is. Yet, for all his horrible characteristics, you are still "hedging your bets". Are you aware of what re-writing history is? That when you compare your long-term marriage with all it's ups & downs, to a fantasy relationship with some guy who you have zero responsibilities with, that perhaps you aren't thinking clearly?

This much is true:
Your marriage cannot recover with you both traveling. So, if you and your husband are unwilling to start putting your marriage above money and career, then there is nothing to save. The job or having a healthy marriage. Pick one. And even if you divorce, that fact remains.

Which is likely a lie. Not that it matters because adultery is adultery. You are helping destroy this man's marriage. Does he have children?

Can your husband come here so we can speak to him?

I seriously doubt you have even told your husband about your affair. You haven't told him, have you? I find it odd that you are on here pontificating about your "options" when you have just delivered news to your husband that is more traumatic than being raped or the death of a child.

Brother: Whatever gave you the idea I have not thought these thoughts? Of course I have thought of these. What attention are your trying to get of mine by casting stones? Are you trying to make me feel worse than I already do? How is that supposed to help me? Do you not think the topic has my attention--why else would I have started asking for help in this blog?