can i just offer - the OP said that she would bring up her affair during UA time. please don't do that, OP. your UA time should be mutually *enjoyable.* by all means, do schedule time to make sure all his Qs have been fully answered, so you can stop talking about it for good. but do it at a different time from UA, a time specially scheduled for a-related talk.

"Restore" seems to be a recurring theme with Dr. Harley. What if you've never been sexually attracted to your spouse?

Have you seen this?

Meeting the Emotional Need for Physical Attractiveness #1

This is hands down the hardest thing for us to do. We don't do anything except take care of the kids so we don't have anything to talk about except the kids. We do go out on fri and sat nites but sit there with nothing to talk about. [/quote]

You know, FC, I was concerned about that at one point when I was attempting to win my wife back from the fog of infidelity. So, when we started our date nights, I established ground rules of no "relationship talk" and no talking about the kids.


And yet, we still ended up talking about the kids...


Though, my original concern was based off of her foggy complaints - "We are only together for the kids/All we have in common is the kids."


So, I foolishly tried to remove that comparison from the table.



But, then... Then I realized something.


There was a reason we talked about our children. Because we are parents with young children at home. Because our children are a major part of our lives.

She talked with her friends and coworkers about our kids. I talk about my friends and coworkers about our kids.


So why would I explicitly exclude them from conversations with my wife? I was removing from the table a subject of Intimate Conversation. And attempting to exclude an important part of my life from the person I am supposed to share my life with was insane.

If we were to divorce, our children would be part of the conversation with new partners, wouldn't they?


In fact, until her relationship with OM crossed the line, our children were part of their conversations. They stopped being a subject of conversation when it was a reminder that their relationship was a betrayal.


Now, about the second part of that rule; that was held to.

I would not talk about your affair during UA time, as that time is supposed to be pleasant and enjoyable for you both. If you wish to give your husband an opportunity to make sure he knows everything he feels he needs to know, set a date and time and do it then. It should not be a constant thread of converasation. In fact, per Dr. Harley; once the betrayed spouse has all the information they need about the affair, it should NEVER BE SPOKEN OF AGAIN.

I haven't brought it up with my wife for nearly 2 years, and have no plans to bring it up.

Again, if you need time to "talk about the relationship," that time should be scheduled and set apart from your UA time. For now, a good idea would be to do each Sunday; schedule your UA time for each week (20+ for now, not just 15), and possibly do a fresh ENQ and LBQ until the answers become stable.

feuillecouleur,

There is a passage in the Hindu Gita which reads something like, "you have the right to your labor, but not to the fruits of your labor".

When I first found marriage builders I decided that I was going to improve my marriage without any expectation that my W would respond to my changes approvingly or that my efforts would "bear fruit".

There was no downside to improving yourself even if you end up divorced. It will take time and alot of work to clear the landslide which has buried your marriage, keep at it even if only for yourself.

Reestablishing your integrity and honesty needs to be done no matter what both for you and your children.

God Bless
Gamma

PA is part of it, but for women - at least for me - PA isn't the whole picture.

PA isn't the only reason I was sexually attracted to my H. Yes, he is physically appealing to me, but the other part of wanting to be intimate with someone...well, Dr. H hits it head-on. Your physical desire for your spouse will increase the more/better he meets your needs. When H was working to meet my needs of IC, AF, and AD, I couldn't get enough of him.

Think back to why you married FTF. At some point, you were sexually attracted to him because he WAS meeting your needs. You CAN get back to that point again. Saying that you were never physically attracted to him, IMHO, is a way of rewriting history and justifying your adultery.

It is the same logic behind the science of adultery. I committed adultery not because of physical attractiveness, and I am betting it was the same for you...although PA is an EN. Rarely is adultery simply meeting an attractive stranger in the grocery store and jumping into bed with them. For WW's, it tends to be a progressive acceptance of need-meeting from someone other than our spouse...by first allowing deposits to our LB$ with things like IC, AD, AF.

That is why the UA time necessary to meet those EN's is critical to the program. His meeting your EN's and avoiding LB's will work to cause you to fall back in love with FTF (and vice versa), and therefore you will find him more sexually attractive to you.

Wow, I never thought that saying I wasn't physically attracted to my husband was a way of justifying my affair. It is just something that I feel. He seems to be doing everything right. We have intimate conversations almost every night. We go out every Friday and Saturday night. It's almost like it's hard for me to open my LB$ to him so that he can deposit some LUs. Does that make any sense??

Yes. It makes perfect sense if u are keeping the affair alive in your mind.... or worse yet if you are somehow in contact with OM.

You married your now-betrayed husband. WHY?

I don't care if he looked like the north end of a south-bound donkey, he was the one you promised all those important things to.

Now you want an excuse to (leave? trade up? justify your current wayward behavior?) so we here have to spend hours and hours counseling you to the simple fact as follows:

YOU MARRIED HIM! NOW, MAKE THE MOST OF IT, OR MAKE HIM AND YOURSELF MISERABLE !

Wanna complain/alibi/justify some more? I'll check back in a month to see how you're doing!

Yup, your using one of the WW's favorite weapons to justify your affair. I'm on board with NG you married him so you must've thought he was attractive. You closed your LB to him so he is a troll. Open it up to only him and he will be very appealing. Simple explanation tough to put in action.

First, your LB$ is going to seem "closed" to your husband because it has been open to another man. And that man created a balance that exceeded your husband's.

To allow your husband to make deposits, you have to close the other man's account to any further deposits. This begins with the essential rule of No Contact. Going further, you should eliminate anything that might trigger memories of your affair; don't go places that bring up memories, get rid of clothes that you wore when with your affair partner, get rid of any gifts, cards, letters, Text Messages, E-mails, or anything related to the OM.


This WILL NOT diminish the OM's account in your LB$, it simply stops any possible residual deposits.


FC, it could take several months for you to complete withdrawal from the OM. This is to be expected, OK?

In the meantime, this program, and the posters here - by proxy - will help guide you and your husband to better meet each other's needs. This will help you fall in love with your husband again, and will help him heal from the pain of betrayal.


All that needs be done is for you both to be open to the possibility of a Romantic, fulfilling marriage.


Your call of not "ever" being attracted to him, at this time, is little more than a distraction to the goal.

We can help him meet your need for Physical Attraction, but it most likely isn't as bad as you are seeing it right now. And that comes from Dr. Harley's decades of experience, and hundreds of cases with a similar complaint that this program resolved.


So, can you be open to the possibility of a fulfilling, romantic marriage?

I'm very pessimistic about it

***EDIT***

FC, your attitude is so...perverse...that it would lead one to understand that your purpose in being here is the proverbial "tee and flee" tactic - signing up for a marathon, arriving, getting the tee-shirt, and leaving.

- You profess to have no interests in common with BH.
- You dismiss his abilities to properly listen to you.
- You testify you have no interest in him sexually.
- You maintain your lack of confidence in the program's tenets.
- You are NOT comprehensive in answering questions from folks here.

Here's what experience leads me to believe:

- You have not mentally changed POSOM's status from "soulmate" to "predator".
- You believe (hope?) the next OM might be the more permanent model.
- You are NOT invested in reconciling with your husband, but are not comfortable with ending the marriage on the current terms, namely that the union terminated because of your affair.
- You want to "audit" the MB program, just long enough and (barely) faithfully enough to change the perceived cause of the eventual dissolution from "her adultery" to "their incompatibility".

In short, friend, the failure that is inexorably imminent is not the Program's toward FC, but FC's toward the Program.

***EDIT***

A reminder to posters that the purpose of this forum is to help posters understand and implement MB principles. This is not a personal opinion venue. If you can't do that, please refrain from posting.

Thanks Ariel

NG, you're just not being helpful. If you have any helpful advise, it would be much appreciated.

JK, I don't even know what that means

Welcome back.


Ok, so - does the Love Bank model make sense to you?


Quick summary; Romantic Love is created when someone (usually of the opposite sex) meets our emotional needs in the way we like them to be met, creating a large amount of positive memory associations to that person = Romantic Love.

Hell, I'll take a stab at it!

When your husband divorces you, and you are relegated to seeing your kids only 50% of the time, will you be upset?

When he remarries and the kids call some other woman "mommy", will you be upset?

When they cry out in the night asking "where's mommy?" will you be upset?

Assuming that the answer is "Yes, I'd be upset" then it would seem reasonable to assume that you'd do everything that you could to make sure that such a dissolution DID NOT occur.

At times those we think are being "unhelpful" are actually being the most help.

Stick around. Those you consider "unhelpful" now, might just end up being your hero.