You wrote:

A car crash is exciting.
A house fire is exciting.
A trip to the emergency department is exciting.
Adultery is exciting.

Couleur, what are you most grateful for when you unveil the pessimism from your mind, and take a clear look at the heart of the man who loves you? Your husband.

After my H's adultery, I had to open myself up in order to become attracted to him again. It was very difficult.
This is where you are stuck. Are you afraid to love him?

Edit to add:
Your thread title says "unwilling". I read your posts as "afraid".

When that excitement comes you will wish you were with your husband in a nice safe boring life. Now if you follow the advice and policies of MB your passion will return to your marriage. However, waffling and keeping this affair alive in your mind isn't going to help. Does your husband post here? Do you both have EPs in place to prevent another affair?
You are dangerous and feel you are looking for help to clear your conscience so you can exclaim to your husband I tried and then hop into another affair. I agree with Pep, your afraid that you will have to deal with the fallout of your affair with your husband. Or are you confused in why your BH would want you back after a massive betrayal and that scares you? Either way I don't feel like your being forthcoming with your situation. Encourage him to post here and do not read each others threads.

He posted on page 1 of this thread.

He posts here all the time. And he reads my thread every day. He actually confronted me about it this morning. It was actually his idea that I post here

What questions have I not answered here? Just curious...

Yes, I am very afraid to open my LB$ to him. I told him this just the other day.

What are you afraid of? What frightens you about allowing your husband to love you?

Be honest.

Here:

[quote] What about affection? Maybe it was the WAY that your AP listened to you that deposited units into your love bank. Would he sit close, hug you while you talked, hold your hand, leave you notes etc?

No, it wasn't affection that attracted me to him. It was the fact that we shared our problems with each other and learned from each other. He wrote me emails.

If you think your BH is meeting your needs, then is it that you have closed your LB to him?

Yes, I have closed my LB to him bc I am afraid of getting hurt.

Do you still have anything the OM gave you during the affair? Do you think of the OM often? Are you fantasizing about OM? Do you have any other male friends with whom you also share IC?

He never gave me anything. I don't think about him but I do think about the way he made me feel. I have other mutual male friends but we do not share IC.


What extraordinary precautions do you have in place?

I quit my job and I don't go anywhere or do anything without my husband. I do not have any male friends that he doesn't know. I have given him all of my log in info. We have a shared bank acct

Do you and your H spend a minimum of 15 hours a week giving each other undivided attention?

We are working on getting up to 15 hrs but usually only make it to 11

If you are committed to recovery, do you know FTFs top ENs, are you trying to meet them?

Yes, they are SF, Affection and RC. That's why I started this thread was bc I was unwilling to meet them but I'm not sure why.

You need to spend 20 hours of time together weekly

I statements from a WS are frightening. Why do you feel he would hurt you? Maybe because you hurt him with your affair. To sum up your reason for not committing to recovery in one word. EXCUSE. You need to focus on your BH and him on you. When you start making I statements you clearly have your own selfish interest in mind. Also, there is a rubber band trick you can use to stop thinking about the POSOM. Put a rubber band on your wrist and every time you think of him pull it back and let it go. You need to understand that an affair is just a selfish act and you need to be selfless right now.

Ya know, if the BH in this matter had written these responses, it would have been appropriate to tell him "She CAN'T be that selfish and clueless!"

Yes, I have closed my LB to him bc I am afraid of getting hurt...I do think about the way (OM) made me feel... I was unwilling to meet (BH's ENs) but I'm not sure why.

Yearning for OM's effects on you (Can you really do that without think of OM? Not likely!) is EXACTLY the reason you have closed your LB to BH, and cannot feel it imperative to respond to him appropriately.

When you have stopped your trashy-novel beliefs in the "rightness" of getting boned by a predatory player, you might have a shot at redemption here. How BH manages to hang on, hopeful and forgiving, is waaaaay beyond my understanding!

I'm not sure what you mean by "I" statements. Someone asked me a question about myself. What else would I use??

My LB$ had been closed to him for years before the affair even started. Apparently all those years he had been draining my LB$ and I knew I wasn't happy but didn't know why. That in no way excuses the affair, I realize. Yes, the affair was a selfish act. I am not searching for excuses. I'm searching for clarity.

Would you like to have a loving romantic marriage where both of your needs are met?

FC, have you seen this Marital Needs Questionnaire? It might help you pinpoint the points where your love bank is being drained. Marital Needs Questionaire

You do enjoy this verbal fencing, FC, do you not?

TD wrote you last night. I wrote you with EXPLANATIONS to address your "What is wrong with me?" plaint at about 7:00am.

You TWICE addressed the most niggling of issues with TD's note around noon today, and quite frankly, tried to finesse yourself out of answering his key question, "Why do you feel he would hurt you? ", by laughably, offering that your LB was closed to BH for years. Translation: "I was afraid of BH because I abused his love for me!" Additionally, it is a certainty that your brain is rewriting your marital history to provide causative cover to mask the fact, even to your own subconscious, that your affair with OM was a selfish, immoral act. BTW: WWs such as yourself do this a lot: "I could NOT have been such an easy piece; I must have been driven by irresistible justifications!"

Of course, since my 7:00 offering was unassailable logically and content-wise, though not in alignment with your mental construct, you have no interest in saying, "Thanx, NG, I didn't know that! How fortunate I am to have such splendid advice at hand!"

FC, I am in the thick of an affair battle with my WW. I read your thread and your BHs. Its all the same different faces and different names. I will ask you this one thing and please don't take it the wrong way. As humans, we all want/need the same things. We use morals, values and other tatics to obtain those wants/needs. However, the only difference amongs us is perspective. Throughout history women and men had affairs, its an immoral act that was put in the scripture in a very specific way.

I don't know your spiritual beliefs and/or customs but I am pretty sure each religon with its own holy book denounces adultery. Why is that? I feel scientifically we were meant to reproduce and spread our DNA. Its a survival instinct, God gave us something he didn't give other creatures that walk this earth and thats free will. You see no matter how you slice it, justify it, forget it, ignore it you chose to hurt your BH. Wasn't a spark, wasn't some magical feeling wasn't fate. It was you and in order to protect yourself (selfishly) from the pain of this betrayal you put all the blame on your BH.

He's not sexually attractive, he doesn't help me, blah blah. Look in the mirror and use a positive I statement. "How can I repay with just compensation to my BH and restore my marriage. In order to earn my BH forgiveness for this incredibly selfish and painful act." Once you get in that mind frame the MB program will do the rest. I really hope you take this advice to heart. God bless.

I guess what I am asking is how to get in that mind frame. Aren't there any WWs on here to share their perspectives? No offense to anyone

fc, you need to use the link that was sent to you. This may well turn out to be the missing piece of the puzzle.

You seem to me to be in a mental state of complete withdrawal from your H. You were probably in that state leading up to your affair, making the attention from soneone else very attractive. Your H is trying all he can to re-engage you in the marriage by meeting your ENs and spending UA time (not enough, and not of the right quality) with you. You appear to have ended all contact with OM and to be living transparently, but your feelings are not improving at all.

I know from my participation on the online course that where withdrawal is as serious and unshifting as yours, Dr Harley recommends using the Marital Needs questionnaire. You must identify everything that is a problem in your marriage. You must together tackle the things that are identified as critical. If you do not deal with the critical problems urgently, your marriage will stay stuck in its rut.

You must both complete the questionnaire, but it seems to me that your H has more work to do than you, because you are completely withdrawn and he is more engaged. He must bring you out of withdrawal and slowly towards intimacy, or your marriage will collapse.

Try not to see this as an exercise where you get to blame your H for your affair. Remember that he has suffered a grievous blow and now is being told to clean up his act. Have compassion for him when you identify the critical areas and present your list to him.

Please do the questionnaire urgently.