Wife told me today about her meeting. Apparently she was directly diagnosed with ADD (which we both suspected) and was given Strattera which is used for both ADD and off-label for depression and anxiety (including social anxiety - which I believe she suffers - and I suspect her psychiatrist believes she suffers as well). The symptoms line up with someone who can't focus and is always concerned with how others see them - really the root of our problems as this impacts someone's desire for SF.

We'll see how this goes. I'm not a huge fan of drugs, but some work quite well for certain issues. If this works for her, it could eliminate the anxiety she has been dealing with. It also tends to lift general thought process fog, so this might get her to snap out of her destructive thought...or might not. In any case, we'll see how things go over the next month.

Well I hope it helps

I don't know how long she has been using the medication, but the anger/resentment that has been present seems to have faded noticeably the last two days.

I will be getting the call for the MB show tomorrow to discuss the current situation. I've already updated Joyce on what has happened the last 2 days. Should be interesting to hear what they say.

Great, keep us updated.

That was some excellent advice from the two of them. So the self-esteem may be an issue, but more of her own personal thing to deal with and not something for me to focus on, as she can clearly overcome it when needed. I kind of figured that to an extent, as I know I can't fix her. I will need to check on whether or not the psychiatrist is male or female (I believe female based on a note she had with her paperwork).

I'm glad to here that I am otherwise doing things I need to do and that they reaffirmed that it will be a while before she comes out of the depression. I didn't get to make a correction that she is only seeing the psychiatrist, not another separate counselor.

Apparently I need to keep my chin up, keep giving her attention, try to be as available as possible, and heap on some admiration, which I haven't been really doing much of yet. I will also stay away from making any critical judgements and just stay positive.

I would love to see her write in to the show, or be willing to work with Steve, but she doesn't seem interested in that at all. Anyone here have any advice on getting her to change her opinion on that? Especially from anyone who actually had success getting their spouse to change their minds and contact either the Harley's or Steve H.

I listened to the show.
Basically he said you are Doing good and to stop spending time in the computer.

I need to keep my chin up, keep giving her attention, try to be as available as possible, and heap on some admiration,

all of which goes by the code-name of....



The correct response is "What is Plan A? Plan A!"

FR, how would she feel about coaching with Dr Chalmers, Dr Harley's daughter?

I am glad Dr Harley explained to you the dangers of individual counseling so you can understand where we are coming from. We have seen too many people decide to go for "trial separations" or divorces because of an IC. It is very frustrating when that happens because when an IC recommends this, it is almost impossible to change the spouse's mind.

Not sure how she would respond. I didn't know Dr. Chalmers was available. I do know that she has stated that she has no intention of seeing a marriage counselor/coach, but that was about a month ago. She seems to be more open to doing things with me as each week goes by, but it usually has to involve the kids. She doesn't seem to fight me doing things for her anymore, which is definitely progress.

Right now, she's on a plane to the west coast for a conference that she has to attend (her employer is hosts this conference). So she's going to be away from me until Thursday, but I plan to send her emails to remind her of what I think of her (i.e. Start giving her admiration). I'm sending one today just telling her to be safe, stay rested, that she'll do the good job she always done, and it also tells her, briefly, that I think she is worth fighting for and that she's the most beautiful woman to enter my life. Nothing long. Hopefully, nothing smothering, and keeping my needs and wants out of it; i.e. Focusing on her and how I view her. If she responds well to this, and others, during the week, maybe I'll bring it up. I don't want to push to far to fast since we are sitting at 2 months since exposure as of today.

Any thoughts and guidance would be most appreciated. I always listen.

Thanks.

Well hopefully she won't have a one night stand while out of town.

Does she respond favorably to these messages you send her ?

Thankfully, she's shown no desire so far to go out and just have an ONS. I have some concern for it, but not a ton. Part of the reason I wanted to send stuff while she was traveling there, and while she is there, is to keep her focused on the fact I am still here, and that she still has a family back here. Any potential disincentive I can provide to reduce the likelihood of her doing something like that, the better.

Her responses to the few I have sent to date has been more anger based, saying she doesn't feel that way anymore, and that she's not sure she could ever feel that way again. So even in her responses there is that hesitation, leaving her an opening to change her mind. Since her responses were like that, I backed off the past two weeks and exclusively focused on the quality conversation and doing things for her. I think she will be more receptive to this email now, but expect I could still get an unfavorable response back.

But one thing I noticed when I sent her the last text I talked about here, I also sent a YouTube video of a song that we used as "our" song at the wedding. It's "Get Me To You" from the Hope Floats soundtrack, which she owns. Her response to what I sent was via that email, and she told me she couldn't listen to that song anymore. A couple of days later, I noticed the CD was in her vehicle, having been listened to. So she is clearly telling me one thing, but her thinking is clearly still confused. This is just one of many confusing signals she sends me that tells me she still has some feelings for me, but they have been generally overwritten by her anger over the exposure, and her lingering feelings for the OM.

I really feel for you.
I remember telling my brother in law how strange it felt helping my wife get over a breakup with her boyfriend.

Make sure you take care of yourself during all of this.

Well, I toned the email down even more and added more stuff about the kids and keeping her updated on what's going on at home, then sent it. Hopefully, she'll respond positively, or just let the email sink in and not necessarily respond to it. Even if she responds negatively, I need to do what I did the last time and just brush off the negativity and wait for her to come back next week to keep working on the UA time as best I can.

Like Dr. Harley said, it's going to be a while before she gets fully over the OM and I'm prepared for that. I have been eating normal, and I'm not really having the pains I had when this went down. Overall, my outlook is much better, and I think a lot of the credit goes to God for helping find ways, and people, to lift my spirits. I will keep praying every day and hope she keeps progressing.

She got my email, and then texted me about 10 minutes later saying she arrived, and we had a nice, but brief text conversation about how she was feeling. She didn't say anything about the email, but I also wasn't expecting her to text me and let me know that she got there. Positive sign...maybe? If she doesn't berate me over it...than that's progress. I'll see if she later says anything or just sits on it, which I'm fine with. Hope she's just thinking about how nice I've been to her.

Yes, it sounds like it.


Try to find that balance where you're "working" on the marriage but not saying "we're working on the marriage" all of the time. Doing nice things without adding reasons is good. "Why'd you do [nice thing]?" she might say. "Just because" is a good answer compared to "Because we need to meet each other's EN's" if that makes any sense.

Eventually, with enough rinse and repeat, it won't feel so awkward and conversations won't be strained.

Remember how y'all acted at the very beginning before marriage, mortgages and bills? Try to think back to that for ideas on things to do now.

I will pray for your marriage and your family

So far she hasn't sent anything negative too me. The last couple of times she responded within a couple of hours. We'll see if anything negative comes from her tomorrow after she's had time to acclimate to her hotel. I am curious as to whether or not the medication is helping her depression or not, or if I'm just slowly breaking through the fog and defenses she's put up.

I feel like I'm waiting for a pot of water to boil from the heat of a match. Gotta keep telling myself "it takes time," which, quite frankly, is the hardest part; i.e. Being patient.

Every time I think I should quit, God seems to find a way to pick me up and get me moving again. Thank you for your prayers.

This morning I had a great sense of dread. I started thinking of my wife doing "things" while at her conference and I started crying. I woke up looked at my email, and my wife had responded to me saying she doesn't understand me, and that it irks her that I seem to care about her being gone now, when she thinks I didn't used to (I always did care, but tried to be strong). She says it's not normal for couples to have communication issues like us.

I've typed up a long response telling her that these issues are normal, and lead to the 50% divorce rate. I've written how much this response hurts and how I woke up with dread before seeing this email. I've written about how we got here, and how the MB plan does work if one is willing. Put a lot of stuff around these concepts in there. Not sure if I should send it or not.

I'm feeling utterly depressed this morning, even though I know full well that this was expected. It just hurts so much. She seems very focused on us not communicating to each other in the past, especially with respects to our feelings. Should I send the response, since it does in fact deal directly with my feelings? I know it's Sunday advice right now will be tough to get, but if anyone is out there reading, let me know what you think as I pull myself off the floor and get my chin back up.