Why is she pissed you ordered the books?

Does she know about MB? Will she come here?

Can you afford MB coaching center?

Yes I am doing it for me and our kids. I just hope she is there at the end.

You need to keep working on yourself and cleaning up your side of the street.

Everything I do right now pisses her off. She said she didn't need a book to love me. I tried to explain to her that's not the mb worked but she didn't want to hear it. And no. I can't afford it. I wish

What a DJ and SD combined!

Good grief. What a huge lovebuster to serve your wife who really can't stand any more.

You shouldn't lecture or try to educate your spouse. And I say that as a huge MB fan.

Plus you've got the MB stance wrong.

Having weathered multiple betrayals, abuses and neglect she has done EXACTLY what Dr H would have advised and she's removed herself from the situation before she hardens. You said yourself she still has some vestiges of love for you. But if she had just stayed in Plan Doormat, you would still be lazy and she would hate you by now.

She has no reason to work on recovery with you and excellent reasons for divorce. Dr H supports divorce in abusive cases. Her position should be affectionately understood by you. She should not be lectured to try harder to clean up your mess.

You can however ENCOURAGE her, or rather ENTICE, while acknowledging her freedom to choose and that you'd be the luckiest SOB alive if she would choose you. Your earlier phrasing using the word 'gift' was more like it.

You ask for a gift. You don't demand or lecture on your right to have it.

And the MB principles don't have to come in book form. You can offer her ENs, EPs, the rules of protection and UA time without her ever having to touch a book. (Oh and you need SAA, the other books are not really for your sitch)

You're in a better position than you know to win her heart and you will have great coaches here.

First thing first - she's been left in a vulnerable position and there are always vultures sniffing around a betrayed wife. I don't mean this as a DJ to your wife, but is she keeping high boundaries around men? I speak as one who knows.

Oh and I of course don't mean for you to lecture her on this danger, merely observe and report back.

Thank you indiegirl .. I know I have to respect her space. It's just hard to do. As far as other men she has gone out with her gf a couple times who has already went through a divorce. That's what scares me. I do want to change for her. I always thought I was strong enough to do it alone

And I didn't try to push the books on her she was just mad that I ordered them

I know I have a long way to go to change myself. In just a short time I've already grown closer to my kids. And I have moments of clarity then moments of desperation. I do love her with everything in me. I just hope she still sees a glimmer of hope in me

She needs to see your actions.

So tell me what you've done to eliminate your angry outbursts.

Like I said, I'm going to counseling for it and using Dr Harley books. I know I still have a long way to go with it, there is no quick fix.

No I mean what tools have you learned? What steps do you take to control your anger?

Walk me through it.

I'm open for suggestions

My counselor thinks it all stems from control issues. That's what starts the ao . I just take it too far

Have you read Dr. Harley's chapter on angry outbursts?

Also have you heard what Dr. H says about a galvanic skin response meter? A biofeedback device that essentially measures the electrical resistance of the skin and converts it into a high or low audio tone to let you know if you are excited/agitated or not. It can help you know when you need to control yourself before it gets out of control.

She said the first thing I need to do is recognize a situation I want to control and then stop to ask why do i have to control it. If I go past that i'm supposed to do a breathing exercise which she wnts me to practice. Count to 4 on the inhale count to 4 on the exhale 3 times before I make a reply. I read about the gsr meter but have no idea where to obtain one.

im open to as much advise as i can get

Hi, bnmt,

You and I sound really similar in a lot of ways. I've also struggled with controlling my wife, and wrestling with fear in situations where my wife was not sure she could continue to put up with me.

Here is my advice for you: in addition to your affair, you have serious abuse and control issues. As long as those are issues, there is no rational reason to expect that your wife will want to give you a chance. If you can get a grip on these issues and demonstrate permanent change, over time, your wife may eventually give you a chance.

Now, my opinion is, odds are you will spend yourself into the poorhouse on counseling before you are able to correct these issues, because they are hard to correct! So, do not just rely on counseling. Take advantage of the very numerous free resources here.

Dr. Harley himself struggled with angry outbursts earlier in life. He happens to be a person who has overcome them! And he talks about angry outbursts very, very frequently on his weekday radio show. Because you and I both struggle with angry outbursts, and abuse and control, I recommend that people like us become daily listeners of this free show.

The radio show link to listen is here:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4200_radio.html
There are phone apps to listen as well.

If you can afford it, I would strongly encourage you to buy a subscription to the radio archives, download every past show they have, and start listening. It will take you years. This is a plan of constant, continuous improvement, for life:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/

Now, you also need the books Love Busters and Surviving an Affair. Throw His Needs, Her Needs away, or at least box it up for now. You need Surviving an Affair, not His Needs Her Needs. And also you need to focus on the first five chapters of love busters, the chapters up through and including Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts. You must ELIMINATE these. Not just reduce them, eliminate them. Read and reread these chapters until you get this right.

Since you are prone to Angry Outbursts, be sure you are reading the absolute latest edition of Love Busters. Make sure the copyright/printing dates are 2008 are later. Older editions may be available cheap and used, but they do not contain all of the information about AOs that the latest edition has.

In addition to the Love Busters book, supplement what you are doing with the free Q&A columns on this site. You need to read every single Q&A column in this section: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5505_qa.html There are 23 of them. Look at the list on the left hand side, follow down all the links, read them all. Read and reread them until you have ELIMINATED the problems of Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts.

There is also a thread here on anger management information. It is full of comments from Dr. Harley and links to past radio shows by Dr. Harley, and you can listen to them for free. Listen to them all. Listen and re-listen and read and re-read.

Now, as BrainHurts has described, you should also get a biofeedback device and practice relaxation. Dr. Harley talks about biofeedback devices here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8122_neg.html Buy one off of Amazon and use it frequently. Get very good at it.

You can also look into anger management therapy. The very best forms of anger management therapy use a biofeedback device, but they can also teach you to relax and clear your system of adrenaline without one. Rule out any anger management that does not agree that being angry is your fault, because the first step in controlling anger is agreeing that only YOU cause your angry outbursts; noone else can make you angry. Also, rule out any anger management that encourages "venting." Venting has been disproved; it only reinforces the habit of anger.

If you can get absolutely consumed with eliminating Disrespectful Judgments, Selfish Demands, and Angry Outbursts, if you make it your passion and put a lot of daily time and effort into this, your wife may be willing to give you a chance.

This sounds controlling. Do you want your wife back or do you just want control over what she is doing? What she is doing is not what you need to focus on right now, what YOU are doing is what you need to focus on right now.

What did you do for the last week where you were trying to fix this on your own?

Does your wife believe this? Or does she have doubts that this is all that happened?

If she has reason to believe you are trickle truthing this situation and have not been radically honest with her about this A, I would suggest you arrange to have a polygraph. Recovery is impossible if there is still deception in between you, even if she just believes there is.